Some good news on the F-35

Zack- Quite often early in an aircraft's and engine's life, restrictions will be placed on throttle settings or maximum velocity until operational testing has been completed. In the F-35's case, the aircraft is being built concurrently with operational testing, so some compromises are necessary. The USAF F-35As still do not have their fully capable operational flight program (software), again being developed concurrently.

An example of this is the F-111F and its TF-30 P9 engines, which operated with a 95% throttle restriction for much of their early life (restricted at the engine, not aircrew throttles). Once issues were resolved, we went back to 100%. Same thing will happen with the F-35 when testing is complete and the engines are fully operational.

 

Zack

After hearing a few F-35 take off at Nellis over the past year. I can honestly say I am glad that I sold my house in El Mirage that was 3 miles away from Luke and directly under the flight path. The F-16's were not all that bad but the 35 is downright loud on take off.

 

I think the big question is exactly how long does this concurrent/development, and thus less than 100% capability, last. Especially given the amount of time the plane has already been under development and production.

 

I never left Taz, I was on the program starting in the factory on ship 14 and a year later went to the flightline for the rest of the program until Paul Moga and his boss picked up the last two and flew them to Alaska. None of the challenge coins we got from different squadrons and even the -1 checklist sitting on my desk say anything about an A. I degress, it must be some designation on paper I guess because you sure never hear anyone around here refer to it verbally that way. Just never heard it or saw it before is all, not trying to be contrary.

The way the program was ran made things a PITA but once you got past or around those roadblocks it was a rewarding experience overall and you never get tired of launching them out for a test flight with a block 25 F-16 on his tail. That is until the Raptor decides to nudge the throttle and just walk off and leave him. Fun times.

 

If...somehow...while flying in tactical formation, some other Gen 3 fighter managed to wind up in my six without any warning, of course I would unload my bombs and then go after him and kill him. Then I'd kill my own f'n wingman for letting him get there in the first place.

Your and many others' visions of air warfare are based on misconceptions that the engagement with enemy fighters begin in visual range. They can, and sometimes do, but in the vast majority of cases, they begin at ranges of tens and sometimes even hundreds of miles. A lot has to happen before the "yanking and banking" from the imagination of Top Gun fans. Much of what we do at range can be done with iron hanging. Yes. If I have to engage a fighter in air combat maneuvering that can't be accomplished by my "skinny wingman" (-9X or 120) of course I won't handcuff myself. Remember, our radar warning, main radar and missiles all work just fine with bombs hanging. Besides, there isn't one of us who wouldn't sport wood at the chance to turn circles with any bad guy anywhere.

 

Will- In a real combat situation, you get a little help from AWACS, too.

Tim- I do not doubt that. No way the pubs could keep up with the name changes. Plus, when was the last time you heard an F-16 driver call his aircraft a Fighting Falcon or an A-10 driver his a Thunderbolt II? They should go back to letting the manufacturers name their aircraft instead of making naming a popularity contest.

 

Thandks for the explanation that is is how i thought it works, based on some prior posts.

The implication is that missles today are whole lot more reliable than the last time the theory was that a gun was no longer needed on a plane.
It would also imply that the burn and turn deficit the F35 reportedly has over a F16 is more than made up by better weapons and stealth. Of course the missile theory has fallen apart in prior conflicts most notably vietnaam, although that was a long time ago.

If stealth and mssiles are now so good, then a stealth bomber with the right missiles could obviate the need for fighters at all.

 

USAF is already talking about an arsenal aircraft carrying a wide variety of stand-off weapons. If you can stand-off far enough, you do not even need stealth, except maybe for the weapons. In a high threat environment, that is already what the B-1B and B-52H do.

 

Just load the silos with conventional multiple warheads. No need to leave home. Pick 5 things that need destroying and push the button. Reduces all manner of logistic hassles and everyone is home for Christmas. The guys on the boomers get to play too.

 

Brian- Busts START and impossible to tell from a nuke launch. Have been working those issues for years. Plus the throw weight is too small for much in the way of conventional munitions or warheads.

 

START, SCHMART. Just tell Putin its just a load of HE and not to get excited.

Hell, he and his guys will be happy for a chance to see if our junk actually works or if we have been putting him on all these years.

 

Exactly...that's how the engagements can begin at sometimes over a couple hundred miles...

Not even the mighty Eagle radar can see that far. Maybe the Raptor, but I really doubt it...and I have no idea!

The Viper's radar is optimized for close BVR work and for causing cancer after sitting under your nuts for 20 years.

 

We seem to have come full circle here and now are talking about standoff systems for SEAD... again...... Remember "Tacit Rainbow" ER Maverick, and MSOW??? Those were supposed to perform the SEAD mission as a standoff weapon because the current aircraft (F15's and F-16's and A-10's) couldn't do that mission without excessive losses.. The ability to attack an AD position from 60 miles away was considered imperative at the time..

Problem was they didn't mention to those of us working on those programs (all of which were eventually cancelled) was that they already had a way to perform that mission (the F-117) but they couldn't talk about it at the time since the F-117 was touted as a "stealth fighter" to disguise its real mission.. The scarf and goggles guys got the money and the unmanned standoff systems all disappeared. Funny thing is that now they're retiring the F-117 and now they want a standoff system to do that job... If they'd have finished the development of standoff systems like MSOW they'd be in a much better place now rather than starting all over... again....

 

One thing that doesn't/hasn't changed is the requirement to have eyes on the target. All the prior development, IIRC, utilized long range surveillance techniques which are less than optimal. What has changed now is the proliferation of un-manned aircraft to act as those eyes and provide targeting assistance. However, I won't be surprised when we come full circle again in the future, such as we have done with guns vs missiles and close-in dogfighting vs BVR engagement. The MIC needs to spread the wealth around and continually changes the thinking to further that goal.

 

Affirmative, we had to fight the Russians on Tacit Rainbow because they claimed it was busting the air launched ballistic missile ban, pure rubbish. Then it died anyway. Now the theory is the F-35s and F-22As will do the SEAD and OCA missions first so the 4th generation fighters can go in without getting creamed. Stand-off SEAD would make much more sense, especially with a multi-mode seeker head that did not get way less accurate when the radar shuts down or goes into an unknown LPI/LPD mode.

 

The ER Maverick had SAR that could detect which vehicle had the rotating dish on it. Even if they stopped emitting it would hit the trailer that had the antenna on it and it could discern if the antenna was rotating, all with no man in the loop.... It had pretty extensive recognition software, I saw SAR footage where looked into hangars and figured out which ones were empty and which ones had aircraft in them and with no man in the loop decided which ones to fly into.. All of that was about 25 years ago, better and easier now. The old "shut down the emitter and the missile can't hit you" was known and could be dealt with pretty easily now.

With today's technology you could figure out where the emitter was when it stopped emitting and when you got into the general area you could look around and find the unit.. Maverick was big enough to do a good bit of damage since it had a good sized warhead, a near miss was fine with that sucker. Tacit Rainbow not so since the warhead was only like 40 lbs IIRC (and I could be wrong on the poundage, it's only been 30 some years ago), but with that system you had to nail it and that made it harder. There wasn't going to be a man in the loop in any of those systems back then, and we've gotten a lot better at target recognition over the last 20 years or so that I would think that you wouldn't need a man in the loop to do that mission...

 

I launched AGM-65Ds during OT&E in the 80s and the warhead and 1500 fps impact velocity did a job on anything, including the armor we were targeting during testing. Hit a moving tank, too. The later larger warheads were even more effective against non-armor targets and seeker head technology has come a long way in 30 years. TAC decided there was no way F-111Fs would ever be called upon to kill armor, so the Maverick was never fitted operationally to the F-111F. 1300 pieces of armor later in Desert Storm, maybe not the correct decision, but $10K GBU-12s were a lot cheaper, even if we could only carry four at a time. We could have carried at least 6 Mavericks and killed 2-3 pieces of armor per pass.

 

You'd think that folks would learn to never say never, but that doesn't seem to happen....

And yes, adding 1500 fps to a warhead the size of a Maverick adds up to a pretty devastating weapon...

If there's no ADS around you can have a field day with any modern system. I sure as heck wouldn't want to be on any modern battlefield without some kind of ADS around. You'd be dead as soon and they figured out where you were... Way back in WWI when they first started using machine guns against human wave attacks it got silly. Then they realized that you couldn't do that anymore, and the battlefield evolved around armor.. Now with modern air based systems, if you're in armor and don't have air cover your chances of survival are nil.. It just keeps evolving, but now the one constant is that you have to have control of the air or you're toast.

 

The F-35 should be called Planey McPlaneface

RE noises: Walking back to the office after lunch today I heard a very sporty sounding jet, coming fast and much lower than the airliners seen high up on their way down to George Bush Int.
Spotted it when almost directly overhead at <1000', then saw him rock the wings left then right.
Colors were white and red underbelly with a little blue, it may have been this F-5: 1967 Northrop F-5A for Sale in Texas-$520,000

Awesome toy!

 

Could have been a NASA T-38, too, the great killer of astronauts.

 

I'm starting to doubt that it was F-5 or T-38. Went over so fast, and I was so stunned, plus I'm not used to seeing military jets from the ground... 90% sure it wasn't an L-39.

What else might it have been? All I'm sure about was mostly white and red underside. In every pic of NASA T-38s I can find online those are white, with blue stripes on the side.

Longish nose, straightish wings (seemed a little longer than the F-5/T-38s), may have had wingtip tanks but not big ones.

Bugging me now that I can't definitively ID it...

 

Starfighter?

 

heh, no way I couldn't ID one of those!!

Looking at more pics, thinking it well could have been an L-39...
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Beautiful plane....nice entry price, but I think maintenance would really, really kill the fun, not to mention 1100+ gallons of gas for about 1.75 hours of flying time. Also, if you need to train to fly it safely, count on about 40 hours in someone else's two-holer with an IP.

 

Thank you for your input. I appreciate it immensely. I know my knowledge is dated. I just can't help but think of quotes from Ben Rich such as "Do you know why they are called 'missiles?' Because they miss more often than they hit anything" and "2/3HBS = BS". (HBS is Harvard Business School)