The F-35 is a piece of garbage!

[MongGrel]

Mongrel what do you think about the F-15K by the way?

It's made to kill Chinese planes of course, but the Silent eagles are the upgrade.

I take it you're pulling my leg a bit.

 

[norseamd]

I take it you're pulling my leg a bit.

No. Not at all.

This whole F-35 debacle got me thinking about how to upgrade the current USAF inventory. So I am naturally wondering how good the F-15K is compared to other airplanes like the F-15E?

Also am very interested in learning more about the F-15J Kai.

 

[MongGrel]

The K is basically a long range stand off flying high speed weapons platform for things like SLAM ER's.

It made to be high speed and use a large payload of long range missiles against ground and air targets.

Probably more an air superiority fighter is than the SE, the K is designed to lug around a crap load of ordinance, and deliver it.

The J I know nothing about really.

It does seem Japan loves them, after looking at things a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsH7rpUVk4c

 

[MongGrel]

This whole F-35 debacle got me thinking about how to upgrade the current USAF inventory. So I am naturally wondering how good the F-15K is compared to other airplanes like the F-15E?

Probably could have better unmanned fighter Drones by now farther into production that would eat a F-35 these days, to be honest.

 

[John Connor]

What does a B2 have to do with anything in here to begin with.

Because the dude above me talked about infra red?

...and the B-52 wouldn't be able to take out anti-air systems. The track record since Kosovo proves the B-2A is a very capable platform.

 

[MongGrel]

Because the dude above me talked about infra red?

...and the B-52 wouldn't be able to take out anti-air systems. The track record since Kosovo proves the B-2A is a very capable platform.

I'm not even bothering.

 

[cabri]

Link

First the Marine version has problems that they did not want to admit.

Now, comes the Air Force

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is supposed to replace almost 90 percent of America’s tactical aviation fleet. Too bad it ‘wasn’t optimized for dogfighting,’ according to the Air Force.
The U.S. Air Force has finally admitted that its new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter isn’t maneuverable enough to beat older jets in a dogfight. But despite its earlier promises that the pricey, radar-evading warplane would excel in close combat, now the flying branch insists that the stealthy F-35 doesn’t even need to dogfight.

At a conference in Maryland on Sept. 15, Gen. Herbert Carlisle, head of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command, described the F-35 as not maneuverable as some of its predecessors.

“That’s not what the airplane was designed to do,” Carlisle added, according to National Defense magazine. “It’s a multi-role airplane that has an incredibly comprehensive, powerful, integrated avionics and sensor suite.”

Col. Edward Sholtis, an Air Combat Command spokesman, said the F-35 would be able to compensate for its relative sluggishness. “The F-35 wasn’t optimized for dogfighting maneuvers, but that isn’t remotely close to saying it doesn’t bring its own advantages to the air superiority mission.”

so as long as the enemy plays according to the rules of the F35 game, the F35 can win.

HELLO!!!
Opposing forces will not play that game when they have commanders that can think.

Swarm from close in and you are dead meat - technology can not help if you can not fly as effeciently

They want the F35 to work in tandem with the F22/F15/f16/F18 but it is also intended to replace those aircraft.

It has become not a fighter but a multi-purpose tool that is not excellent at anything and not as good as a replacement for anything that is being phased out.
The government is backpedaling on what the vision is now that the facts/truth is being revealed. Lockheed sold a false promise and the government bought into it.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Link

First the Marine version has problems that they did not want to admit.

Now, comes the Air Force


so as long as the enemy plays according to the rules of the F35 game, the F35 can win.

HELLO!!!
Opposing forces will not play that game when they have commanders that can think.

Swarm from close in and you are dead meat - technology can not help if you can not fly as effeciently

They want the F35 to work in tandem with the F22/F15/f16/F18 but it is also intended to replace those aircraft.

It has become not a fighter but a multi-purpose tool that is not excellent at anything and not as good as a replacement for anything that is being phased out.
The government is backpedaling on what the vision is now that the facts/truth is being revealed. Lockheed sold a false promise and the government bought into it.

the F35 was always a multi-role strike fighter. anyone who thinks it was an air superiority platform is sorely mistaken - that is the F22.

in air combat today, if you can visually see your opponent, you're already dead. the need for dogfighting capability is highly limited.

"so long as anybody plays to the rules of the F15, the F15 can win" is just as true. but the F15's avionics are not going to be nearly as good as the F35's, and thus, is likely to lose an actual air to air engagement (along with being more visible)

the RCS of an F35 is 0.005 versus 25 for the F15.

 

[Brainonska511]

in air combat today, if you can visually see your opponent, you're already dead. the need for dogfighting capability is highly limited.

Yep.

The arguments in this thread for dogfighting sound like rehashed arguments for keeping the mighty battleship. The nature of modern war is very different from what it was in the past.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Yep.

The arguments in this thread for dogfighting sound like rehashed arguments for keeping the mighty battleship. The nature of modern war is very different from what it was in the past.

Perhaps, but it would still be nice to know that if you do get into a fur-ball that you still have a chance. I'm not sure I'd want to be an F-35 pilot with an SU-35 on my tail.

Now if the F-22 is going to be required to sweep the sky of enemy aircraft like the SU-35 then we'd better have a bunch more of them.

OTH, as the F-22 is now more than 20 years old one has to wonder if perhaps we should look into a 5th+ air supremacy fighter with even greater capabilities than the F-22.

Sadly, the idea behind the F-35 was a single system capable of replacing just about everything else and that does NOT appear to be the case. So, if a one-plane-fits-all concept isn't valid than what array of aircraft should we be looking at?

For me, the attack role should largely be UAV as they perform the most vulnerable missions and usually have ground assets to designate targets or the targets are chosen ahead of time and delivered by GPS coordinates. If you largely offload the ground attack and close air jobs to UAV's then that leaves mostly manned air superiority aircraft, unmanned reconnaissance, refueling, cargo and AWAC's. I'm not sure where an F-35 fits into that mix other than to provide the USAF, Navy and USMC with fancy new manned toys.


Brian

 

[gorobei]

the vtol feature is the straw that broke the camel's back. they might have been able to make a stealth attack fighter that met most of the navy and airforce's requirements, but requiring vtol through a lift fan just ended up compromising any ability to do any of the roles well.

the marines only wanted vtol so they can operate off of amphibious assault carriers and not be dependent on the navy's large carriers.

unfortunately the lift fan behind the cockpit makes the fuselage too wide to be fast or maneuverable, and blocks general visibility. all of which compromises the fighter aspect. the fan also takes up a bunch of space on the centerline which reduces any payload compartment space, requiring any significant bombload to be carried on wing pylons, nullifying the stealth and diminishing the attack aspect.

concurrency just makes this bad idea even more expensive than it would be normally.

the reason why you see glowing reports coming from the marines is that the b version and its lift fan issues would be the first and easiest cut to make if congress actually had enough principle or integrity to cancel/reduce the program. cant cut it if everything is "hunky dory".

 

[John Connor]

unfortunately the lift fan behind the cockpit makes the fuselage too wide to be fast or maneuverable, and blocks general visibility.

The F-35 helmet cost around $240,000 and uses cameras on the aircraft for situational awareness. Kinda like the Oculus Rift.

https://www.f35.com/about/capabilities/helmet

 

[lupi]

They must have been doing some flight testing this morning. Noticed one doing a couple high speed circles and then it did a full vertical ascent. Was a pretty cool sight, almost like watching an action clip in a movie. It went straight up for a bit and then just stopped and hung in air at the position, then it was nosed over and did a high speed dive towards the ground. Was out of my view before I could see anything else.

 

[norseamd]

They must have been doing some flight testing this morning. Noticed one doing a couple high speed circles and then it did a full vertical ascent. Was a pretty cool sight, almost like watching an action clip in a movie. It went straight up for a bit and then just stopped and hung in air at the position, then it was nosed over and did a high speed dive towards the ground. Was out of my view before I could see anything else.

Where at?

 

[pauldun170]

They must have been doing some flight testing this morning. Noticed one doing a couple high speed circles and then it did a full vertical ascent. Was a pretty cool sight, almost like watching an action clip in a movie. It went straight up for a bit and then just stopped and hung in air at the position, then it was nosed over and did a high speed dive towards the ground. Was out of my view before I could see anything else.

I believe the general consensus is that it combines handling qualities of the F-16 with the high alpha performance of the FA\18 and that's with the FCS still going through optimization.

 

[lupi]

Where at?

Probably one of the Cs operating out of pax river as they recently had been doing some carrier board work.

 

[John Connor]

Where at?

Location: duh, winning!

Florida?

 

[TheSlamma]

No. Not at all.

This whole F-35 debacle got me thinking about how to upgrade the current USAF inventory. So I am naturally wondering how good the F-15K is compared to other airplanes like the F-15E?

Also am very interested in learning more about the F-15J Kai.

F-15SE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn6nx_GGERQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UldoGIMRsSY

 

[Blitzvogel]

No. Not at all.

This whole F-35 debacle got me thinking about how to upgrade the current USAF inventory. So I am naturally wondering how good the F-15K is compared to other airplanes like the F-15E?

Also am very interested in learning more about the F-15J Kai.

Honestly we could've had F-15K/SE like planes years ago. All F-15Cs are plumbed for Conformal Fuel Tanks that F-15Es carry standard. The difference is of course the replacement of some of the fuel capacity with internal weapons storage with the Silent Eagle style CFT/FAST packs, but it's a much better aerodynamic improvement over external tanks and even external weapons when only carrying a basic Anti-air/CAP package.

AFAIK F-15Cs based in Iceland were the only ones to standardize the practice of carrying CFTs, likely due to the need for extreme patrol range over the Arctic. The one problem with CFTs is they cannot be jettisoned like regular external fuel tanks, so you have to take that extra weight into a dogfight which means possibly reduced performance. However, an F-15 with either F119 or F110 engines would be able to perform much better than an F-15C.

 

[pauldun170]

No. Not at all.

This whole F-35 debacle got me thinking about how to upgrade the current USAF inventory. So I am naturally wondering how good the F-15K is compared to other airplanes like the F-15E?

Also am very interested in learning more about the F-15J Kai.

F-15E is an excellent strike aircraft cursed by an antiquated cockpit.
F-15K is what happens when you spend 120million+ dollars on a 4 decade old platform.
F-15SE is what happens when you spend 120million+ dollars on a 4 decade old platform and try and reduce the radar signature on a non stealthy design.

For a strike aircraft into territory with older systems where you have support aircraft and systems out there clearing a path for you, F-15E\F-15K\F-15SE is great. They make decent bomb trucks as well. On the SE with new engines and fly by wire, they would probably be very competitive with current fighters. However, you are talking flyaway costs that will probably approach 150 million per for any new build and a huge chunk of change for a rebuild on any existing frames.

For a strike aircraft into territory with modern systems, F-35 is the way to go.

 

[GreenGhost]

1. Just call it a smart light bomber.
2. In video games, it will still beat anything else.
3. Hollywood will have no problem making it look cool in physically impossible maneuvers, provided Sylvester Stallone is the pilot.
4. The likelihood of a dogfight is pretty small, but the N. Korea president is feeling empowered already...
5. Buyers are not likely to return it. Therefore, no open-box or preowned at cowboom.com.

 

[OverVolt]

Why not just redesign all our current aircraft. It seems we already have all the aircraft roles proven from previous wars. Why try and make a jack-of-all-trades platform because its an unproven concept.

Update the F-15, F-16, F-18, etc.

 

[norseamd]

Update the F-15, F-16, F-18, etc.

There are quite a few proposals for that actually.

From what I have learned over the past few months it seems the F-35 is actually not that bad, but Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney have just made the whole procurement program a giant fucking mess.

Some of the F-15s and F-16s are getting AESA radar, and some of the F/A-18s are probably also.

The F-15SE is a proposal for major upgrades to the F-15, which turn it into an advanced 4.5++ fighter jet with some limited stealth capabilities. Certainly a capable aircraft although what the cost to performance ratio is will probably detirmine how good of a deal it is.

There are also some stealth Ultra-Hornet upgrades being proposed by Boeing since Lockheed gets all of the F-35 contract to themselves.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Why not just redesign all our current aircraft. It seems we already have all the aircraft roles proven from previous wars. Why try and make a jack-of-all-trades platform because its an unproven concept.

Update the F-15, F-16, F-18, etc.

The real cost is avionics upgrades. Any plane can be coated in RAM, but really reducing the RCS means making some structural and aerodynamic changes in addition to the RAM coating. Also, paneling on the aircraft will need to be saw toothed or reduced substantially. The current planes are eating up maintenance costs though and the airframes are getting very old. A highly redesigned plane could reduce those costs however the military sees the F-35 as a benchmark in capability, regardless of it's dogfight performance, and they are not going to give up funds when the F-35 fits most roles just fine. The real issue was the shoe-horning of capabilities into one common design but point of no return was cross years ago, and the entire order of planes isn't going to be cut by a wide margin any time soon. It would be cool to see the F-15SE in some kind of form but it doesn't fit the future predicted vision of air combat. Had the USAF had any real idea that the F-16 would be used as a strike fighter, it would've been much smarter to go with the F-16XL as a production aircraft in place of the F-16C.

It's also important to remember that procurement numbers for new planes are much less than what they were during the Cold War. Reducing orders for the F-22 ironically increased it's price per plane as well as gumming up the overall usefulness and cost efficiency of ground equipment necessary to keep it flying.

I think one of the best things the US could do given the current situation is to use the new T-X as a low intensity combat and patrol aircraft for theatres like Afghanistan where real eyes in the sky (two pairs no less!), jet response times, and no need for stealth is akin to mission requirements. The new T-X should be completely smart weapon capable for weapons training new pilots moving to the F-35 and F-22 so that means laser guided and GPU munitions, AGM missiles, Small diameter bombs, etc.

The KAI/Lockheed T-50 Golden Eagle fits this niche very nicely, with lightweight fighter and strike capabilities on top of it's supersonic training role. My biggest change to the platform would be the GE F414 engine over the current F404. Even with that change, it should be a much cheaper plane to operate where stealth isn't necessary.

 

[norseamd]

So if one was to use affordable designs, for example what you might use on a jet trainer, how cheap would you be able to build a jet aircraft, probably multi-role, that used a basic AESA, fly-by-wire, and power-by-wire? And what about if you were to add IRST and IFCS?