F35 giggle

[janneman36]

1 hour ago, Meatbox8 said:

 

I think Boeing's one looks like a Hasegawa Egg Plane.  I wonder what an Egg Plane kit of it would look like!

I think it could be a good character in a new disney cartoon and we call him, brother of trump Lord Loudmouth...

[Head in the clouds.]

If I remember right there was similar  moans about the Harrier...it was too small to carry a meaningful load, vulnerable and short range. It matured into one of our best warplanes but don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of the F35B in particular, the extra lift engine seems a retrograde step from the wonderful Pegasus arrangement but I can see why they did it.

My long term forcast is warm with long spells of F35 sunshine.

[Seahawk]

1 minute ago, Head in the clouds. said:

If I remember right there was similar  moans about the Harrier...

 

 

And the F-18: half the weapon load of the Phantom, etc, etc.  And yet now, 20-odd years later, it's being touted in its latest incarnation as the thinking man's alternative to the F-35.

[colin]

And there's the problem, it's a 20yr old design.The American's aren't thinking lets keep it, their moving on

[Truro Model Builder]

Most modern combat aircraft these days have a design life of at least twenty years; the F-35 itself has a design that goes back almost as far. Remember that it first flew in 2006, and the X-35 in 2000. It's not the age that's important, but the capability built into it and how it is used, which is why the F-16 continues to win orders and remains in production after forty-odd years. And if you want an extreme case, the B-52H entered service in the early 1960s and on current plans will not be retired until the 2040s.

 

[Tony C]

Don't know enough about it capabilities to make any meaningful statement other than its far better looking than the Eurofighter!

 

Mind you, all 3rd, 4th and 5th generation jets a bit like Japanese cars, do everything extremely well but there's...well, just no sole and are subsequently boring!

 

There, I've said it!

[mhaselden]

14 hours ago, T7 Models said:

 

If you take offence there's not much I can do about that. Personally, looking back through your own comments on the subject I'm quite offended by your remark that you take a balanced view of the F-35, as you must think we're all idiots. You have anything but a balanced view on this subject, my friend, so don't be too quick on the moral outrage when someone disagrees with you. We are allowed to think otherwise.

 

I don't think people are idiots and my only outrage (no moral judgment going on here, I'm afraid) is the continued pedaling of inaccurate negative reporting (eg it can't manoeuvre, it lacks payload, it's too slow, it can't win an air-to-air fight etc etc).  I've said MANY times that I believe the F-35B is an unnecessary complication to the programme and I sincerely wish the UK wasn't buying that variant.  I think it's too much of a compromise that reduces operational payload while adding to the base weight of the platform and increasing the logistics train.  The F-35A and C variants are better all-round platforms and, IMHO, would be a better option for the UK...and if we can only have one variant, then make it the C so we can force project from sea. 

 

I would ask the same consideration that you are seeking yourself.  Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean that my assessment lacks balance.  Your original post stated "those who are for the F-35 will slurp up any LM press release as if it is gospel".  I certainly don't do that, as my comments above should illustrate.  The overall programme was very poorly managed but, since the schedule was rebaselined, it has improved dramatically and is now delivering pretty much according to the revised plan.  Critics need to evaluate the state of the programme as it is today not as it was 5 years ago. 

 

I note you failed to answer my question about the reporting from Red Flag.  Do you see that as purely LM propaganda or is it a viable source of information?  If it's the latter, does it point more towards a positive assessment of the aircraft or a negative one?  I would like to understand your thinking on that relative to your comments about LM press releases.

 

Many thanks,
Mark

Edited March 24, 2017 by mhaselden

[TheLurker]

23 hours ago, mhaselden said:

 

Thanks for the additional info.  The parallel-tracking of testing and deployment has certainly caused some considerable issues for the programme.  That said, it's not like we haven't seen this kind of thing before - 'Blue Circle' radar on the Tonka F2 or the F-15 entering service with a radar that performed worse than the aircraft it was supposed to replace.  That's not an excuse, simply a reflection of the complexity of combat aircraft systems and the extreme rigour required just for airworthiness...and that's before we consider combat readiness. 

 

I will say that the response to emergent issues seems to have been pretty solid.  The bug where the radar shut down every 4 hours was one example of a big problem that was satisfactorily (and pretty rapidly) resolved.  There are surely plenty of other issues still outstanding but we need to be a little cautious with "the sky is falling" rhetoric given that software is never "done"; it requires bug fixes and updates throughout its life (ie until the software is retired).

I'd forgotten all about Blue Circle radar!  Yeah I know software is never done.  Today was spent working through the bug backlog on one of our current projects and our stuff is trivial by comparison with flight control systems.

 

 

21 hours ago, -Neu- said:

 

 

I'm thinking this might be a misconstrued understanding of the capabilities re-ordering, or the prioritization of some bits of programming to get the IOC for the B and A models. 

{snipped}

That being said, its been interesting to watch how the test schedule has been developed in order to compress the time and create savings. So where you had flights to test a single point... they've had flights looking at multiple test points. They've been using synthetic environments to test other areas (in some cases its the only way they can do it). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahh, wouldn't be surprised.  Journalists have been known to hmmm... over-simplify for the sake of a good story.  I'd still be worried about the reliability of testing in a synthetic (simulated) environment.  We use simulations to test some aspects of our very, very much less demanding software and we still get occasional unpleasant (albeit not life threatening) surprises when we try it out in real life.  Mind you that could say more about the quality of our simulators than the use of simulated environments for testing.  

[mhaselden]

Hi Lurker,

 

Oooh...working through the backlog!  Happy days.  Agile is the answer to everything, right?

 

My last job was leading 2 software teams (approx. 70 staff in total) across 2 major groups of projects.  No matter how long or how comprehensively we thought we'd tested the software, our customers always managed to find bugs...and, like you, we didn't have any of the safety critical requirements that are levied on flight control, weapons and airborne sensor software.  One of my former bosses used to wind up the developers by suggesting that they'd make everybody's life a LOT easier if they'd just stop putting bugs in the code.  As you can imagine, that went down well with the troops!

 

Regarding synthetic environments, you're right that it's all down to the fidelity of the simulation...and the balance of risk/cost in performing live testing to achieve the same objective.  As others have noted, DOT&E aren't known for their flexibility or pragmatism which suggests that any synthetic test environments will have been thoroughly reviewed to ensure they're viable and appropriate.  LM's natural desire to cut costs will be counterbalanced by DOT&E's desire for comprehensive testing in accordance with the jointly-agreed plan and schedule.   

 

Cheers,
Mark 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2017 by mhaselden

[Truro Model Builder]

16 hours ago, mhaselden said:

 

 

I note you failed to answer my question about the reporting from Red Flag.  Do you see that as purely LM propaganda or is it a viable source of information?  If it's the latter, does it point more towards a positive assessment of the aircraft or a negative one?  I would like to understand your thinking on that relative to your comments about LM press releases.

 

Many thanks,
Mark

 

Hi Mark

 

I hadn't ignored it; I just hadn't had an opportunity to bring myself up to date on it. It is difficult to tell, however, as -let's be honest- the information coming out is still only what the USAF want the media to know. Certainly the F-35 performed well in its objectives while facing a sophisticated air defence ground environment and, according to the article in this month's AFM, they enjoyed a 15:1 kill ratio over the aggressors, with the caveat that the F-35 could only carry limited AAM numbers and was not, to quote the F-35 detachment commander "an air-to-air player". The writer of the article notes that "a more telling statistic [for an air-to-ground aircraft] would have been how many aircraft were lost to SAMs", but the USAF did not disclose this. With regard to air-to-air combat I do look forward to seeing how the F-35 copes against a fourth generation opponent, as F-22 pilots have found them to be rather more difficult to fight than they thought they would be (remember the Luftwaffe Typhoons with F-22 kill markings after a previous Red Flag).

 

As for my views on the F-35 in general, I am not as anti as you might think. My default position on most things is healthy cynicism, which comes from working for years on the front line of the NHS. It will mature into a fine aircraft, of that I have no doubt, but LM, the DoD and our MoD desperately need it to work as it is the only game in town, and this is why the respective PR departments have been so gushing, at times to the point of trivial inconsequentiality. The la-la-la-not-listening approach that the same people engage with regard to its issues and problems does nothing to help it, however. Neither does the price tag, but that is another issue entirely.

 

It will not be the panacea everyone thinks it will be; the logic of weapons development suggests that someone will eventually find a way to counter the F-35 but in its defence that's been going on ever since Thag first decided to club his neighbour with a mammoth bone. The U-2 and the F-117 were both considered to be immune to the enemy until events over the USSR and Serbia respectively showed that their adversaries had learned how to negate them.

 

Like you, I am against the procurement of the F-35B for the RAF and FAA. It has too much compromise and expense built into it at the detriment to its performance for an ability that we will mostly not need -and would never have needed if we'd funded the carriers properly in the first place- and I hope fervently that we only buy enough to equip the carriers and switch quickly to the F-35A as the Tornado replacement.

 

Martin

 

[mhaselden]

4 hours ago, T7 Models said:

 

Hi Mark

 

I hadn't ignored it; I just hadn't had an opportunity to bring myself up to date on it. It is difficult to tell, however, as -let's be honest- the information coming out is still only what the USAF want the media to know. Certainly the F-35 performed well in its objectives while facing a sophisticated air defence ground environment and, according to the article in this month's AFM, they enjoyed a 15:1 kill ratio over the aggressors, with the caveat that the F-35 could only carry limited AAM numbers and was not, to quote the F-35 detachment commander "an air-to-air player". The writer of the article notes that "a more telling statistic [for an air-to-ground aircraft] would have been how many aircraft were lost to SAMs", but the USAF did not disclose this. With regard to air-to-air combat I do look forward to seeing how the F-35 copes against a fourth generation opponent, as F-22 pilots have found them to be rather more difficult to fight than they thought they would be (remember the Luftwaffe Typhoons with F-22 kill markings after a previous Red Flag).

 

As for my views on the F-35 in general, I am not as anti as you might think. My default position on most things is healthy cynicism, which comes from working for years on the front line of the NHS. It will mature into a fine aircraft, of that I have no doubt, but LM, the DoD and our MoD desperately need it to work as it is the only game in town, and this is why the respective PR departments have been so gushing, at times to the point of trivial inconsequentiality. The la-la-la-not-listening approach that the same people engage with regard to its issues and problems does nothing to help it, however. Neither does the price tag, but that is another issue entirely.

 

It will not be the panacea everyone thinks it will be; the logic of weapons development suggests that someone will eventually find a way to counter the F-35 but in its defence that's been going on ever since Thag first decided to club his neighbour with a mammoth bone. The U-2 and the F-117 were both considered to be immune to the enemy until events over the USSR and Serbia respectively showed that their adversaries had learned how to negate them.

 

Like you, I am against the procurement of the F-35B for the RAF and FAA. It has too much compromise and expense built into it at the detriment to its performance for an ability that we will mostly not need -and would never have needed if we'd funded the carriers properly in the first place- and I hope fervently that we only buy enough to equip the carriers and switch quickly to the F-35A as the Tornado replacement.

 

Martin

 

 

Hi Martin,

 

The reason I asked about Red Flag is because it isn't a USAF-only event.  The Brits and Aussies were heavily involved.  While t's easy for LM and the USAF to skew the message when they're the only ones who witness the exercise, such deceptions become much harder when there are allies playing along.  The more players there are in an exercise, the harder it becomes for any one element to choreograph activities and tilt rules of engagement (ROE) to ensure a particular outcome.  It would take a conspiracy involving all exercise staff and players to maintain a pretense of operational proficiency when there are major capability shortfalls. 

 

The UK may be so invested in the F-35 that the RAF wouldn't dare contradict USAF messaging but I don't think the Australian political and military environment is as unified or compliant.  Much akin to Canada, many Aussies want their next combat aircraft to have 2 engines for range and redundancy purposes.  Also, the UK took Typhoon to the Red Flag party and there's clearly a desire on the part of BAE and the UK to continue selling that airframe.  Given the involvement of people that clearly have vested interests in other directions, I find it largely implausible that LM and the USAF could so shape a major training activity, like Red Flag, without someone leaking info to the aviation press if the scenario was invalid or if ROE unduly favoured the F-35.  One only has to look at the brouhaha caused by the F-16 pilot involved in the F-35 angle-of-attack (AOA) trial who claimed that the F-35 couldn't manoeuvre with the F-16 to know that any contrary views on the F-35's capabilities will leak out...if they exist. 

 

I would also observe that the whole purpose of Red Flag and similar exercises is to test tactical proficiency.  Indeed, one of the benefits of Flag is the ability to try out new tactics to see if they work.  It seems the F-35s were doing exactly that during the most recent event.  There was a famous Cope Thunder a few years ago where a 4-ship of Tonka F3s achieved a 4-0 kill ratio against a 4-ship of F-15s simply by using smart tactics.  Of course the F-15 drivers claimed that the Tonkas weren't "playing fair" but surely that's the point, isn't it?  If you're fighting fairly, you're doing it wrong.  The whole purpose of combat is to schwack the other guy before he (or she) gets you.  With so many allied players, it would be a major departure for a Flag exercise to be skewed just to make the F-35 look good, particularly if the platform isn't any good. 

 

I will agree that some LM press releases have gone overboard but we also must carefully sift wheat from chaff on this programme.  Although 2 variants have achieved IOC, the capability is still very much in the testing phase and we should expect there to be issues.  That's why we test - to find the bugs so they can be fixed.  Again, I'm not "head in the sand" regarding issues but we're still in the phase of flight testing where issues will be found...and that will continue as more capability gets added to the airframe (new software, new weapons, new sensors).  It's what systems integration is all about, and it's bluddy hard.  Again, not excusing the earlier mismanagement of the programme but I do genuinely believe it's in a much better place now. 

 

All the best,

Mark

 

 

[Aeronut]

Quote

And if you want an extreme case, the B-52H entered service in the early 1960s and on current plans will not be retired until the 2040s.

The Hercules first flew in 1953 and they are still building them.

 

Quote

The more players there are in an exercise, the harder it becomes for any one element to choreograph activities and tilt rules of engagement (ROE) to ensure a particular outcome.

Its not unknown for the Americans to change the rules of their war games to ensure a better result for their own side the next time.

[mhaselden]

23 minutes ago, Aeronut said:

Its not unknown for the Americans to change the rules of their war games to ensure a better result for their own side the next time.

 

There's a difference between war games and more free-play exercises.  As noted in my prior post, it's a lot harder to change the rules when there are other players without someone commenting on it.   

 

I'd still like to know which war games you're mentioning, though, since it's not an area I've looked at in any real detail.  Certainly the Sigma war games from the 1960s seem to have been run with rigour to reflect the changing strategic situation in Vietnam and many of the results were, according to one historian, "eerily prophetic".

Edited March 24, 2017 by mhaselden

[Truro Model Builder]

Hi Mark

 

Shall have to look up the Sigma games; something I was not aware of.

 

You are right about the RAF not contradicting the USAF; the RAF commander at Red Flag was suitably praiseworthy of the F-35 in the AFM article, though no mention was made of the RAAF. I do get the impression, reading between the lines, that the post exercise media brief was well controlled by the USAF with a carefully selected group of personnel put up to speak to the press. Perhaps that is typical for Red Flag; I don't know, but as you say, unofficial comment may yet emerge. It is noteworthy that very little has emerged about the Luftwaffe Typhoon v. USAF F-22 engagements I referred to in my previous post, and that was a couple of years ago now.

 

And I do agree with you about fighting fairly or otherwise. The Americans, bless them, tend to have this idea that everybody will play fair and predictably. If you have access to a copy of Buccaneer Boys there is a wonderful account of what happened when the USS Coral Sea was rudely introduced to the Banana Bomber during an exercise in the Med. The bottom line is that your adversaries will do their best to evolve a counter to what you have, whether that be with tactics or hardware.

 

Martin

Edited March 25, 2017 by T7 Models

[Alan P]

A minor correction: DAS is Distributed Aperture System, and it's not a defensive system per se.

 

Good to see the startling lack of awareness about 5th Gen tactics and advantages is alive and well! Once again, the point of 5th Gen has literally flown over many people's heads, which is fine if you are determined to hold an opinion regardless of recent facts and realities. That's your choice!

[Slater]

Ultimately, combat is the best judge of any design.

[Truro Model Builder]

But design is only one element, and combat is also a matter of tactics and training.

 

Take the Falklands war. In terms of design the Mirage III as used by Argentina had true supersonic capability and the means to take out its opponents from longer range. On paper the Sea Harrier, with its subsonic capability and short range armament only was totally outclassed. The Royal Navy was able to undertake dissimilar training with French Mirages on the journey south, at least one SHAR pilot had undertaken an exchange tour on Mirages and many others had encountered it during NATO exercises. These factors -and the carriage of the AIM-9L variant of the Sidewinder- allowed the SHAR squadrons to come up with effective tactics to counter the Mirage, and combined with the lack of any similar training opportunities for the Argentine pilots, resulted in a kill ratio of 10:0 in Sea Harrier v. Mirage/Dagger encounters for RN and RAF pilots.

 

As an alternative, the shootdown of an F-117 in 1999 over Yugoslavia was achieved because the operators modified their radar which allowed them to pick up the F-117 in certain circumstances and because they redeployed their defences after eavesdropping on NATO communications. Add that to the complacency shown in the regularity of F-117 routes and arguably the most technologically advanced aircraft in the sky may just as well have been flying around with 'shoot me' painted on it.

 

To rely on the superiority of your aircraft alone can come back to bite you. Your enemy will do its best to overcome your advantage, otherwise we would all still be flying Bleriot monoplanes and shooting at each other with service revolvers.

 

[PLC1966]

On 24/03/2017 at 3:44 PM, Aeronut said:

 

 

Its not unknown for the Americans to change the rules of their war games to ensure a better result for their own side the next time.

 

You should read up on how the Indian Air Force bend the rules when other nations come to play !!

[Alan P]

2 hours ago, T7 Models said:

Blah blah blah the AIM-9L variant of the Sidewinder blah blah blah

 

A hint - if you can identify your enemy, lock him up and shoot first, you're probably going to win the engagement.

That's basic 5th Gen philosophy and the platform around which the F-35 and future updated F-22 are built on. Anything else is just fluff.

The beautiful thing about the F-35 is that it doesn't just do that on aircraft but also ground vehicles, HVAs, satellites, missiles and sensor platforms. And if it can't do the job itself, it can task other assets, whether aerial, ground or naval, to do it with real-time imagery, location and targeting data.

It's an incredibly capable platform which will silently kill you while you're still reading the articles telling you why it can't possibly out-turn an F-16.

[TheLurker]

3 hours ago, Alan P said:

{Snip}

It's an incredibly capable platform which will silently kill you while you're still reading the articles telling you why it can't possibly out-turn an F-16.

 

Or maybe not.

 

Outgoing Director of Test and Evaluation for the US has just published his final report here : DoD Report

 

If true (and I'm in no position to say) it paints a very damning picture of the current state of the programme. One quote that appears in both summaries, below, of the report,  'All three variants “display objectionable or unacceptable flying qualities at transonic speeds, where aerodynamic forces on the aircraft are rapidly changing." would worry me were I a pilot.

 

Straus Project Summary of Report

 

Seagull summary courtesy of the Register 

 

By the way the Register's house style is a little abrasive and don't read the comments unless you have a robust sense of humour.

[bentwaters81tfw]

3 hours ago, Alan P said:

A hint - IF you can identify your enemy, lock him up and shoot first, you're probably going to win the engagement.

That DoD report would indicate that at present, it's still a very big 'IF'.

[XV107]

2 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

That DoD report would indicate that at present, it's still a very big 'IF'.

 

3rd Party Off Board Targeting would be the rejoinder to that; the problem being that you could - quite legitimately - say 'well, OK. Show me the details'.

 

The problem then becomes that the over-used line 'Er... it's classified' (or 'I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you') kicks in, a line which is, of course seen - not unfairly - as being nothing more than sitting somewhere between the Mandy Rice-Davies defence and using security to attempt to hide legitimate concerns.

 

In some cases, though, it isn't. The F-35 - and I don't have the Uber Jolly Secret clearance [not the real level of clearance because you need to have a certain level of clearance to know that it exists...] needed to comment, merely the privilege of having a brew with people who once did - may, may be an instance of a programme where transparency, such as it is, permits the flaws in the programme to be highlighted (no harm if the enemy knows about the problems which are probably too big to hide), but not the good stuff. This is exemplified, I think in this:

 

3 hours ago, TheLurker said:

 

Or maybe not.

 

Outgoing Director of Test and Evaluation for the US has just published his final report here : DoD Report

 

If true (and I'm in no position to say) it paints a very damning picture of the current state of the programme. One quote that appears in both summaries, below, of the report,  'All three variants “display objectionable or unacceptable flying qualities at transonic speeds, where aerodynamic forces on the aircraft are rapidly changing." would worry me were I a pilot.

 

Straus Project Summary of Report

 

Seagull summary courtesy of the Register 

 

By the way the Register's house style is a little abrasive and don't read the comments unless you have a robust sense of humour.

 

Now that's an informative post. But...

 

The DoD report is, of course, a fairly germane document. 

 

The Straus link, though, is problematic - it repeats some of the superficial claims about the F-35 vs F-16D fight and jazzes them up a little.

 

Let's just look at that a moment.

So, the narrative is that the F-35 is sent up against and F-16. The latter is  fitted with tanks and is a 2-seater, this being a deliberate step to make life easier for the F-35. Now, this is what is commonly referred to by a portmanteau word involving male bovines and excrement. Or involving commentary about the use of tin foil as fashionable headgear. Why in the name of Satan's Trousers would you fix the fight knowing that it was quite probable that information suggesting a fix, or worse,  that the supposedly degraded aircraft (flying in what is generally known as 'a fairly common fit for this sort of thing', by the way) still soundly kicked the posterior of your new wunderallesingenalletanzenflugzeug (with apologies to anyone who speaks proper German) six ways to Sunday via a leap year and three bank holidays, thus makes your new toy look, well, frankly a bit rubbish?

As is all explained pretty well by someone who has a decent idea of what he's on about - 1000 hrs in ANG F-16s and 4 years as a Hornet pilot in the USNR - here. Yet, scroll down to the comments and you end up with an array of comments from people who, in the main, (NB that caveat) have never read a document with a classification level above 'Unclassified' and whose only experience of sitting in an aeroplane has involved the production of a passport and ROE which include 'do not walk about the aisle when the seat belt light is on'... 

 

As happens with the comments under this lot of observations from one of the Norwegian pilots, who was spared the usual 'Oh, it's hopeless/Oh, it's the best aeroplane ever and I want to have its babies' extremes by not having comments under this (scroll down for the translation)

Now, Mr Lemoine doesn't have as many hours under his belt as others, but he has, at least, flown the aircraft involved. There are also a couple of snippets in there to ponder. He jokes about the pilot of the F-35 being an F-15E pilot. Yet... remember when the Typhoon was recently in RAF service and handed a couple of F-15Es their tail feathers? The usual 'Typhoon is rubbish' crew - including some now from the 'F-35 is rubbish' crew - were out there saying that well, of course, the Typhoons won, since the opposing pilots were mud movers who dabbled in the sport of kings and thus not likely to show just how good the F-15E is (and how hopeless the Typhoon was...). But that consideration isn't, apparently, relevant now. And what were the parameters of the test? Was the F-35 attacking, or was it defending? What weapons was it allowed to simulate using? Could it simulate using weapons to full capability? And so on, and so on.

 

Also, bear in mind that the test wasn't a 'which is better?' test, but part of the overall test programme. Part of this involved conducting air fighting as part of the examination of the flight control envelope. The report, when examined, demonstrates that rather than 'Oh, dear, we have a problem', the tone was more of 'OK, we need to alter some of the flight control software to allow the aircraft to manoeuvre more aggressively'.  The writers of the FCS laws had been fairly conservative, and one of the reasons for this sort of testing is demonstrate that the laws can be a little less strigent - indeed need to be - to allow the aircraft to reach its potential in manoeuvring. The F-35 didn't have a full weapons/sensor suite on board either, so was further hamstrung. 

 

We need to move away from the notion that F-35s will be required, on a routine basis, to do WVR 'dog fighting'by itself.

 

The dog fight isn't dead, but look at the stats - how many aircraft has the USAF/USN brought down since 1991? How many of these were destroyed using BVR weapons (AIM-7 or AIM-120) rather than AIM-9? The answer is that BVR weapons - even if the engagement got to WVR  - predominate in this.

 

Then, we have to ask when the F-35 is likely to find itself completely unalone - the answer is 'rarely' for the Americans and 'rarely' for the UK since a whole slew of supporting capabilities will be involved - EW, SEAD, F-22s, Typhoons.... Yes, F-35 has 'first night of the war' capability, but look at what 'first night of the war' looks like in a coalition operation, particularly if the US is playing a small part...

 

Your enemy IADS isn't going to be dealing just with F-35s cheekily sneaking in with a couple of internal weapons on board - it's going to have been visited by a mixture of B-2s, TLAMs, F-22s, Storm Shadow, AGM-158 and that's before various aviation writers start wetting themselves when they realise that there's an operational version of RATTLRS which has been quietly minding its own business under 'black' funding before arriving at a SOC/airfield at about Mach 4. Yes, some enemy fighters will get airborne - but in amidst a significant amount of chaos. The F-35 won't have it easy, but the notion that it'll fight its way in, or spend a significant amount of time attempting (and failing) to deal with Su-27 derivatives (or J-10s, J-11s, J-20s and possibly J-31s) on nights one and two of the war is to look at the situation through a straw and to miss the bigger picture. The US does not do faffing about on night one, it does 'apply large hammer' (see Libyan AD system in Op Odyssey Dawn for further details - and that was a half-hearted commitment...).

 

And let's assume that, somehow, the F-35 does find itself getting to the merge with an enemy F-16/J-10 - basing analysis of the ACM potential of an aircraft upon a test airframe which isn't fully developed is, frankly, a bit silly and makes the use of that by authors rushing to damn the F-35 look as though they're repeating stories without bothering to really analyse them as information emerges. 

 

Now, none of this involves drinking F-35 Kool Aid or similar. What it involves is accepting that many of the sources which are available swing too far to the opposite side of arc from LM's press releases. All of them are based upon material which is incomplete because of the classified material. It may be - I have no idea - that there's some absolute bombshell being kept under wraps (aircraft can't fly if the temperature is below -5; or the aircraft becomes sentient in certain attitudes because of a slight glitch in the FCS programming and has had to be prevented from using the MADL to order a skinny latte from Tim Horton's; or has a weapons system which has somehow developed teleological ethical reasoning and refuses to release weapons unless the Attorney General personally assures the system that it's OK.) Equally, it may be to the advantage of the partner nations to keep some information under wraps, particularly if its of the sort which renders information gained from the Chinese hacking of the programme system obsolete...

The point is that we can argue about this until the F-35 enters service - our information pool is limited and is driven by agendas. Is the F-35 costly? Hell, yes. Does it have developmental problems? Hell, yes. But does this mean that it's a complete disaster, or is it a case of 'game changing capability costs a shedload of cash and has many problems to overcome'? We don't know.... There are people who do, but as they don't really want to be done for breaches of various acts protecting secrecy, they're not going to say, at least not in any depth to rival the comments of the nay-sayers.

 

Beware of bloggers, commentators (David Axe-to-Grind, Pierre 'Didn't Actually Design the F-16' Sprey) and the LM PR department is, I think, my point...

 

As I've fallen into my usual habit and was asked for the acronyms last time I did so...
FCS = Flight Control Sofware

WVR = Within visual range

BVR = Beyond Visual Range

EW = Electronic Warfare

SEAD = Suppression of Enemy Air Defences
IADS = Integrated Air Defence System

RATTLRS = Revolutionary Approach To Time Critical Long Range Strike (BGM-178 and possibly AGM-178)

SOC = Sector Operations Centre (in an air defence network)

TLAM = Tomahawk Land Attack Missile

ACM - Air Combat Manoeuvring
 

 

[hovis]

Let the Brits play with it for a while and we'll get it working one way or another!

[Truro Model Builder]

17 hours ago, Alan P said:

A hint - if you can identify your enemy, lock him up and shoot first, you're probably going to win the engagement.

That's basic 5th Gen philosophy and the platform around which the F-35 and future updated F-22 are built on. Anything else is just fluff.

The beautiful thing about the F-35 is that it doesn't just do that on aircraft but also ground vehicles, HVAs, satellites, missiles and sensor platforms. And if it can't do the job itself, it can task other assets, whether aerial, ground or naval, to do it with real-time imagery, location and targeting data.

It's an incredibly capable platform which will silently kill you while you're still reading the articles telling you why it can't possibly out-turn an F-16.

 

Until your enemy finds a countermeasure, which was the whole point of my post. Nothing stays still for long, least of all warfare.

 

[Alan P]

13 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

That DoD report would indicate that at present, it's still a very big 'IF'.

 

10 minutes ago, T7 Models said:

 

Until your enemy finds a countermeasure, which was the whole point of my post. Nothing stays still for long, least of all warfare.

 

 

One of many Red Flag post-op reports. Feel free to look up your own, they'll tell you the same story. This RF exercise introduced the full spectrum of electronic, jamming and other detection/threats.

 

20+:1 A2A kill ratio for a strike aircraft is unprecedented. The C3 ability is a massive force multiplier, allowing legacy assets to target threats they can't detect with their own onboard sensors.

 

This isn't armchair supposition anymore. These jets are killing it, even with Block 3F software. Block 4 is coming soon.No wonder the Russian disinformation machine is desperately recycling old news!