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Bash the F-35 thred.


Belesarius

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9 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

Carrying munitions on its wings would increase its RCS but it would still be dramatically lower. 

 

True, but couldn't the overall lower maniability be a problem at this point?

 

I mean the whole concept of the F-35 revolve around being able to shoot before it get detected, both through stealth and advanced data-link.

If you increase the RCS you could pass above a certain threshold and be shoot at before the contrary happen, and the F-35 will most likely do worse on low altitude terrain following than planes designed for it, so it won't have a good way to get in range undetected.

Edited by Alzoc
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6 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

True, but couldn't the overall lower maniability be a problem at this point?

 

I mean the whole concept of the F-35 revolve around being able to shoot before it get detected, both through stealth and advanced data-link.

If you increase the RCS you could pass below a certain threshold and be shoot at before the contrary happen, and the F-35 will most likely do worse on low altitude terrain following than planes designed for it, so it won't have a good way to get in range undetected.

 

The deep strike scenario you are depicting is one where the F-35 (or lead F-35) is fully buttoned up, and where the Tornado would never make it to the target.

 

 

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20 minutes ago, Willy Brandt said:

The FCAS (the Eurofighter/Rafale replacment) was talked around 2035 maybe later so it would have made sense to get F-35 in 2025 because the Tornado needs a replacement till then.

And the FCAS wants to be a Gen 6 or 5++ jet. So it wouldnt be in competition with the F-35.

 

I doubt that this program will go through anyway.

I mean I'm all for European procurement but both the calendars and the needs are way too different.

One of the reason we backed out the EF program and went on with the Rafale was that we needed a carrier capable aircraft which would have only increased the production cost for the country which didn't needed the capability.

This hasn't changed.

 

14 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

The deep strike scenario you are depicting is one where the F-35 (or lead F-35) is fully buttoned up, and where the Tornado would never make it to the target.

 

The Tornado certainly not. It start to show it's age but a 5+ gen aircraft with a proper ground mapping radar maybe.

But you could simply send more F-35  with bombs in the closed bay to do the job anyway.

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5 minutes ago, Willy Brandt said:

Maybe in 2040 France doesnt even have a carrier?

 

Well that would mean that Europe wouldn't have a blue water navy anymore.

Possible, I just hope this won't be the case.

 

5 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

What kind of target are you trying to take out that requires more than two large JDAMs? (Technically more because you don’t send single fighters on missions)

 

Good point.

 

Air force isn't really my thing, the best answer I could come up with would be opportunity targets (but UAVs are here for that).

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I wonder what the price difference is between a new build typhoon and what's planned for F-35A? That's normally the reason for a government preferring one option (or avoiding the embarrassment of admitting they should have been part of it earlier)

 

3 hours ago, Ramlaen said:

What kind of target are you trying to take out that requires more than two large PGM? (Technically more because you don’t send single fighters on missions)

 

3 S-400 installations?

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On 12/11/2017 at 11:05 AM, Alzoc said:

 

Problem is the Eurofighter is a poor bomber (good interceptor though) and they want it to replace the bomb truck the Tornado is?

On the other hand the F-35 would most likely have to ditch stealth anyway to carry as much bombs as the tornado.

 

Hom many change of mind from the German mod does it make now?

 

-At some point it was supposed to be a Franco-German project led by Airbus which would have replaced the Eurofighter, the Rafale, the Tornado and the M2000 (but only by 2025)

-Then the F-35 (possibly the F-18)

-Now the Eurofighter

 

What next?

 

I know that the early tranches of Eurofighters were basically pure air to air machines, but because a lot of the strike-role avionics weren't ready yet.  What's wrong with the current tranches in the A2G role?

 

On 12/11/2017 at 11:17 AM, Alzoc said:

 

True, but couldn't the overall lower maniability be a problem at this point?

 

I mean the whole concept of the F-35 revolve around being able to shoot before it get detected, both through stealth and advanced data-link.

If you increase the RCS you could pass above a certain threshold and be shoot at before the contrary happen, and the F-35 will most likely do worse on low altitude terrain following than planes designed for it, so it won't have a good way to get in range undetected.

 

The Tornado is well-designed for low altitude, high speed flight because it has very high wing loading.  One of the major concerns when flying at low altitude are unpredictable gusts of wind that shake the aircraft and crew.  By simply having less wing area relative to its mass, the Tornado was made a lot harder to shake.  You can see a similar approach in a lot of other low-altitude strike aircraft, like the F-104G, F-105 and TSR.2.

But these days there are supposed to be computer-controlled active gust suppression systems built into the flight control software.  I'm not sure how well this works relative to having high wing loading.  That said, there is no reason to think that the F-35 would be any worse at low altitude flight than any of the eurocanards, since those all have extremely low wing loading.  All of these aircraft would be relying on computer compensation for gusts.

 

That said, I think that with the proliferation of look down shoot down radars, low altitude penetration is a lot less useful than it was in the 1970s.

 

On 12/11/2017 at 3:22 PM, Xlucine said:

I wonder what the price difference is between a new build typhoon and what's planned for F-35A? That's normally the reason for a government preferring one option (or avoiding the embarrassment of admitting they should have been part of it earlier)

 

 

3 S-400 installations?

 

 

Target flyaway cost for the F-35A is $85 million as of a year ago.  This article claims a 70 million pound price per 'phoon ten years ago.

 

So, flyaway costs are within the margin of uncertainty to each other.  Long-term costs (which end up being the far larger concern) are another matter entirely, and I have no insight into that.  F-35 is supposed to have lots of tricks to keep operating costs down, but how well these work is uncertain now.

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For comparison, Wiki shows that an F/A-18 Super Hornet has a current flyaway unit cost of $70.5M, and that in 2009 the F-22 was $150M.  Their numbers for the F-15(E) were from 1998, so they don't mean much.  This site though (no good citation) shows an F-15 in 2006 as $108M, but it also lists the F-22 as having a final cost at the end of its production run in 2012 as $425M.  

 

Here is a graph from that same site that gives a broader comparison of fighter costs in 2013. Link for exact numbers.

img0.jpg

 

I didn't look into operating costs at all.

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7 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

I know that the early tranches of Eurofighters were basically pure air to air machines, but because a lot of the strike-role avionics weren't ready yet.  What's wrong with the current tranches in the A2G role?

 

Nothing wrong with the tranche 2 planes, just that the retrofit was afaik expensive and that a lot of involved country cut down their orders because of that (which mean higher unit costs, etc, etc).

More a problem of poor management by both Airbus and the involved country.

 

Anyway there is no doubt that low detectability is the way to go for future aircrafts/systems and saying otherwise is stupid, just as thinking that those aircrafts are basically invisible is.

"Everything that is excessive is insignificant" to quote Talleyrand

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27 minutes ago, Donward said:

 

God I'm glad the F-35 is actually being able to mature so taxpayers can realize the savings on this project before some idiot "budget hawk" in Congress was able to shut it down.

 

Me too. I am not sure it's the perfect idea - not really for me to judge that - but I am definitely glad it was able to live and pave the way for all the important technologies bundled up in it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/16/2017 at 6:54 AM, Bronezhilet said:

Too bad the people behind the CAB show are complete retards.

 

 

Really?  I quite like a lot of the work they've done.  They seem like interested amateurs who are trying to learn and communicate what they've learned.  I'm curious what your objections are.

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