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Not so much a `What If', more like a `Yeah Right'- RAF F-35.


tonyot

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Hiya Folks,

I saw this on line and it really made me chuckle so I thought that I`d turn it over to you all;

f-35redarrow_zps562f446b.jpg

Cracking artwork but really,........

Cheers

Tony O

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If the RAF had their way I'm sure they'd like at least 9 of the '48' to be painted red. They appear to have good skills in persuading the politicians to see their way round things - to the detriment of anyone else

The scheme does fit quite well though.

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Love it, someone either has a vivid imagination or too strong a prescription! probably more likely we'll end up with 9 red bicycles (actually does anyone remember the "Red Barrows").

As for what we'll end up buying once we've finished spunking money on JSF, I suspect F-16MLU's or a stack of previously enjoyed A/F-18E/F's as some sort of bargaining deal....prefer the Gripen though, we should have had them as an interim for the Jaguar, and kept Harrier too.....

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Love it, someone either has a vivid imagination or too strong a prescription! probably more likely we'll end up with 9 red bicycles (actually does anyone remember the "Red Barrows").

As for what we'll end up buying once we've finished spunking money on JSF, I suspect F-16MLU's or a stack of previously enjoyed A/F-18E/F's as some sort of bargaining deal....prefer the Gripen though, we should have had them as an interim for the Jaguar, and kept Harrier too.....

Hear hear re Harrier & Grippen, but i do like the scheme, can't ever see the reds getting there hands on any though, more likely to be given Tucano's if they are lucky

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Give it time.......

Seriously, the Hawk isn`t getting any younger (I`m gonna get flame-roasted for saying THAT!), so although an expensive option, more likely than me walking on Mars!!

If I'm honest, I suspect that when the Hawk T1 goes out of service the Reds will be disbanded. They certainly don't have enough T2s to replace them with those, and at an estimated £120m a throw I doubt you'll see them fly the F-35 either. Best case is that whatever aircraft the RAF choose to replace the Tucano will be used, but it will depend on £££.

Of course, if they're considering getting rid of their Tranche 1 Typhoons then they could always keep a few of those back to use ;)

Edited by Bobski
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Put the Reds scheme on new build Spitfires!!!

How's that for a (relatively) low cost recruiting tool?

BTW, Current location - 7 miles North of Scampton.

You read it here first!

Pete

Edited by Pete in Riyadh
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Shock, horror, Stop Press. The Red Arrows are to fly Reapers Drones controlled from someone's garden shed. In a new round of Defence cuts it was announced this morning that along with their regular duties of distracting Tree Huggers and Hippies and irritating peasant goat herders in far off lands 13 Sqn, currently operating the highly advanced and multi functional Reaper Killer Drones are also to be tasked with putting on crowd pleasing aerobatic displays for the long suffering UK tax payers this season.

"In a move thought to be the first of its kind the RAF has once again shown that it is able to extract maximum efficiency from every penny of Tax money wasted on it with little regard to operational requirements" stated Wing Commander D Bloggs, an MOD spokes person and member of the F35 evaluation team, who wishes to remain annonomous. Going on to state, "Who put sugar in my coffee, I didn't order that?" and "It cost how much? You must think me a fool if you expect me to pay that much for that usless rubbish, oh alright then!".

What any of this has to do with the Red Arrows is anyone's guess but he was able to later confirm that the F35 will never fly in Red Arrows colours (or quite probably any other operational colour) anytime soon. He also pointed out that currently the Red Arrows have "more than 3 aircraft" and are capable of staying aloft for "a little while" so the F35 might be better suited to being on the static display line, just beside the Mr Whippy van, which incidently the MOD are seriously interested in buying to fulfil the Maritime Reconnaisance role vacated by the recently decommisioned park bench and binoculars in Newquay.

Honest Guv!

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Hay, we in the U.S. are getting both the F-22 and 35. When what we need is a modern version of the F-16 as it was designed, a cheap small fast fighter.

Not a small wannabe F-15.

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Yeh right! I think every air force office should have a desk top offering, it's probably the closest they will ever get!

By the time it finally if ever gets into service, it might be cheaper to apply any scheme in gold leaf!

Colin

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The Gripen is simply too small for a F-35 replacement. It's only got 2/3rds the payload of a legacy Hornet or late F-16, and that's the proposed NG version.

I have no clue why that one link says the NG has similar specs to the Typhoon. It doesn't. Typhoon can carry a payload comparable to the other 4-5th gen western middleweight fighters and significantly larger than Gripen.

I'm no fan of the F-35, at least for the RCAF (it's the wrong fighter for most of our missions), but Gripen alone can't replace it. What the RCAF actually needs is a small force of long-legged fighters for Air Defence (the old CF-101 role), say Silent Eagles or some other CFT-equipped F-15 variant, and a competent & cheap strikefighter for foreign deployments. The latter role would fit F-35, but IMHO the CF-18 is marginal in the first, only really capable because of its excellent short-field performance offsetting its poor range. We could use Gripen as the strikefighter, but just about every other option is more capable in that role because of Gripen's small payload. Gripen is cheap because Gripen is small. But small has its own set of drawbacks and Gripen is no cheaper than a similarly configured Block 52+ F-16 and less capable in the strike role.

Frankly, Gripen is the fighter a smaller country with no real overseas deployment commitments requires. But it doesn't fit the needs of most of the F-35 buyers (RAF, RAAF and RCAF need better strike capabilities, JASFD needs Stealth due to being next to China). Some of the smaller EU buyers may be better served by Gripen though.

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I'm no fan of the F-35, at least for the RCAF (it's the wrong fighter for most of our missions), but Gripen alone can't replace it. What the RCAF actually needs is a small force of long-legged fighters for Air Defence (the old CF-101 role), say Silent Eagles or some other CFT-equipped F-15 variant, and a competent & cheap strikefighter for foreign deployments. The latter role would fit F-35, but IMHO the CF-18 is marginal in the first, only really capable because of its excellent short-field performance offsetting its poor range. We could use Gripen as the strikefighter, but just about every other option is more capable in that role because of Gripen's small payload. Gripen is cheap because Gripen is small. But small has its own set of drawbacks and Gripen is no cheaper than a similarly configured Block 52+ F-16 and less capable in the strike role.

Really range only matters up to a certain point. When DND evaluated the F-35 and other candidates between 2005 to 2010, they set out a series of range requirements developed from their operational needs in the north. This was based on the most common scenarios fighters in the north would be called upon to undertake. One of the longest is a weather divert between one base, a FOL and a third base. As you note, the CF-18 is limited in some of these missions due to its short range. Beyond meeting these scenarios, additional range doesn't really add anything... so the RCAF only cared if the aircraft being evaluated reached a certain range. The RCAF found that the F-35 had the ability to undertake even the most demanding scenarios they wanted a CF-18 successor to meet. Certainly the F-15E variants are among the longest ranged aircraft in the market, but they are also significantly more costly than the F-35 to purchase and operate in service. You'd also be looking at a two fleet model that would be significantly more costly to operate due to smaller fleet sizes.
You also have to remember that the range of the F-35 as currently published in the Selected acquisition reports is low because the United States' Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) are based around an air to ground mission. Removing two 2000lbs JDAMs and allowing aircraft to fly at optimum altitudes significantly improve its combat radius to an extent that it exceeds the hornet family, and should be around that of the Eurofighter.
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Really range only matters up to a certain point. When DND evaluated the F-35 and other candidates between 2005 to 2010, they set out a series of range requirements developed from their operational needs in the north. This was based on the most common scenarios fighters in the north would be called upon to undertake. One of the longest is a weather divert between one base, a FOL and a third base. As you note, the CF-18 is limited in some of these missions due to its short range. Beyond meeting these scenarios, additional range doesn't really add anything... so the RCAF only cared if the aircraft being evaluated reached a certain range. The RCAF found that the F-35 had the ability to undertake even the most demanding scenarios they wanted a CF-18 successor to meet. Certainly the F-15E variants are among the longest ranged aircraft in the market, but they are also significantly more costly than the F-35 to purchase and operate in service. You'd also be looking at a two fleet model that would be significantly more costly to operate due to smaller fleet sizes.

You also have to remember that the range of the F-35 as currently published in the Selected acquisition reports is low because the United States' Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) are based around an air to ground mission. Removing two 2000lbs JDAMs and allowing aircraft to fly at optimum altitudes significantly improve its combat radius to an extent that it exceeds the hornet family, and should be around that of the Eurofighter.

Umm, F-15E has almost identical acquisition costs to F-35. Operation costs are somewhat higher of course, which is one reason why I'd suggest a smaller fleet combined with a proper strikefighter.

Note a combination F-15E/F-16 fleet significantly reduces the operations cost of running the two-aircraft setup (by commonality in the powerplant) and all the cost projections for F-35 are currently pie-in-the-sky. We have hard numbers on what the competition costs to operate (except Gripen NG) but only projected costs for F-35 as right now it simply isn't operational and its savings are all projected on low maintenance costs which are not supported by previous stealth designs, although F-35 has been designed to significantly reduce those costs. Only experience will show how successful L-M has been at that.

And remember the politics here. The RCAF evaluated the competition long after the F-35 had been originally chosen (and it was chosen initially by the Liberal gov't, not the Forces). The competition looks to have clearly been stacked in its favour (yes, the range requirement was set for certain minimums. Those minimums don't allow reaching all of Canadian airspace without tanker support and were based off exceeding the CF-18's capabilities rather than the ideal capabilities, or even where the CF-101 could reach). Yes, it does outrange the Hornets when configured for the A2A role (not hard, the legacy Hornet has always been short legged and SH has so many issues with its pylon setup that it takes a real hit to its performance the moment you hang anything more than 1 gasbag, 2 AMRAAMs and 2 Sidewinders off of it).

The fundamental problem with F-35 for the RCAF is it is simply not an Air Defence Fighter, it can do the role, but it's not designed for it, much like the CF-104 and the strike role. It's a strikefighter, and it looks like a capable one in that role but quite frankly Canada needs an ADF which can do strike rather than a Strikefighter which can do Air Defence.

To let my biases out, I prefer Rafale if we get a single fighter, F-15/F-16 for a dual acquisition, but understand that the chances of Canada buying a French fighter are somewhere between slim & none.

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You also have to remember that the range of the F-35 as currently published in the Selected acquisition reports is low because the United States' Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) are based around an air to ground mission. Removing two 2000lbs JDAMs and allowing aircraft to fly at optimum altitudes significantly improve its combat radius to an extent that it exceeds the hornet family, and should be around that of the Eurofighter.

The published performance of the F-35 is significantly lower than pretty much everything else out there, and the US Government has had to reduce the performance requirements to ensure that the aircraft can actually meet them, bringing it on a par performance-wise with the F-4. http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/reduced-f-35-performance-specifications-may-have-significant-operational-impact-381683/. Slower acceleration and significantly reduced sustained G limits do not an effective modern fighter make. Hell, this hundred million dollar plus fighter can be out-turned by a Hawk!

Also, if you remove the 2000lb JDAMs you're left with just 2 AMRAAMs. Increased performance due to reduced weight, but its a very expensive jet to but just to haul a pair of AMRAAMs around, especially when you consider the superior performance of its likely opponents.

Edited by Bobski
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To let my biases out, I prefer Rafale if we get a single fighter, F-15/F-16 for a dual acquisition, but understand that the chances of Canada buying a French fighter are somewhere between slim & none.

Why not,.....remember the Aussies bought the Mirage? There are more French speakers in Canada than in Oz!

Strange how this thread has changed from a Red Arrows F-35 into the RCAF`s future needs!

Cheers

Tony O

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