It Turns Out the F-35 Can Dogfight (defensenews.com) 170
An anonymous reader writes: Writing for Defense News, Lara Seligman reports, "For the first time since a controversial report detailing how the F-35 performs in a dogfight emerged last summer, an F-35 pilot gave an in-depth analysis of his experience flying the jet in a close-range battle scenario. Norwegian Air Force Maj. Morten 'Dolby' Hanche, the first Norwegian to fly the F-35, analyzed the jet's performance in a dogfight in a March 1 blog post published on Norway's Ministry of Defense website. Although Hanche never mentions the 2015 report, 'F-35A High Angle of Attack Operational Maneuvers' revealed last summer by blogger David Axe on WarisBoring.com, he counters many of the anonymous author's claims."
Against an aircraft that first flew in 1974... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the article he mentions being capable of being marginally more offensive than he could be in an F-16. While this isn't to be dismissed as meaning 'nothing.' F-35 defenders should be careful to trumpeting the fact that a pilot finds the F-35 is not, in fact, worse than a 40+ year old airframe design.
The problem with the F-35's dogfighting is that it's performance is not remotely comparable to aircraft being sold abroad by the Russian aviation community. Yes, it has capabilities that many aircraft do not, and some capabilities that have not even been fully enabled as well; however, ALL of these abilities are unrelated to the basic physical performance of the aircraft and the basic performance of the aircraft is the area of primary concern as a platform for enabling these technologies.
Are people under the impression that the Su-37 can't get a 'look-thru' helmet cueing system? That, unlike fundamental airframe design, software capabilities cannot rapidly advance post construction of the aircraft?
I don't think the F-35 is useless, but it sure is an INCREDIBLY expensively mediocre aircraft intended to carry excellent (someday) software and sensors.
Re:Against an aircraft that first flew in 1974... (Score:5, Funny)
I can be more offensive than almost anything, and I don't even need an airplane.
Re:Against an aircraft that first flew in 1974... (Score:5, Funny)
Look out for Norwegian pilots wanting to fly you ;).
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So it's this century's F-111?
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The F-111 got a bad reputation early on because it didn't work out for the Navy mission, but it turned out to be a heck of a medium bomber for the Air Force, both USAF and the Royal Australian Air Force. It was fast, carried a big bomb load, and long ranged; in service with the USAF until 1998 and the RAAF until 2010. Designed as a tactical bomber, the Strategic Air Command had some built for the strategic bomber role to fill the gap in capability from the B-52 until the B-1 and B-2 came on line. The USAF
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The F-111 was supposed to be THE main tactical aircraft, satisfying every need from carrier-based interceptor to bomber, and was a miserable failure at it. It was a darn good land-based bomber, but it sure didn't deserve to be the F-111. Calling it the B-111 would have been much more appropriate.
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Su-37 is a prototype. They have built _one_ of them. All they can afford.
Su-35 is 'production'. They have built 48 of them, have another 50 on contract with the Ruskys and signed a contract with India to build an updated version. At least a few have crashed/burned.
The Su-27M is the export version. If you had 40 million burning a hole in your pocket and good relations with Putin, you could buy one.
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The point in mentioning the S-37 is because it is the test-bed for the Su-35 and emerging Russian technologies for integration into their existing front line and export aircraft.
The Su-27M is the export version.
The "Su-27M" is the Su-35. The 'K' version of an Su-27/35 Russian aircraft denotes an export version. Maybe you were referring to the Su-35S (the more recent upgrade, which is also available for export - China and Algeria have already bought them.)
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The Falcon's design is actually even older than four decades - it was selected in 1972!
Re:Against an aircraft that first flew in 1974... (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that the F-35 is a boondoggle. They tried to make a single airframe do too many different things. But if its dogfighting capability compares favorably to an F-16, I'd have to take back some of my past criticisms. This report contradicts earlier tests last year [dailymail.co.uk] which showed the F-35 losing badly to the F-16. Is the pilot just BSing, or have they really improved its performance that much in less than a year?
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I don't think the F-35 is useless, but it sure is an INCREDIBLY expensively mediocre aircraft intended to carry excellent (someday) software and sensors.
SAAB's Gripen Switzerland proposal: $3.5B for 22 planes, it is $159M per plane. For an more-or-less an outdated plane. Does F-35 still looks that expensive comparing to this? I don't think so.
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The greatest "advantage" the pilot in the article points out is that the F35 can slow down better than the F16, and has some kind of yaw advantage at low speeds. He doesn't counter the claim the the F16 has and widens an energy advantage in combat maneuvering. Admittedly I've only spent time in game simulations, not real combat aircraft (so, yes, I could be very wrong), but it seems to me that of these two characteristics, the energy advantage is going to be the decisive advantage far more often. That is
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"Are people under the impression that the Su-37 can't get a 'look-thru' helmet cueing system? That, unlike fundamental airframe design, software capabilities cannot rapidly advance post construction of the aircraft?"
I don't think that's really the point of the F-35, it's not really it's job, it's a strike fighter, not an air superiority fighter. Comparisons to the Su-37 are the F-22 (which it would lose against, hard), and the Eurofighter, Gripen, and Rafale which could all also easily stand up to it.
The po
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I'm a gun-toting, red-blooded, patriot that loves things that go boom and vroom. I love this country and I'll lie, cheat, and steal to do what I can to ensure the rest of the planet knows it.
That said, err... You don't know much about Russian aircraft, do you? They've got great pilots and make "reliable enough" aircraft - historically. Today, they're not just reliable, they're well designed. The Russian aerospace industry is actually really good. For example, check out the Su-27 (a bit old now) doing someth
Morten 'Dolby' Hanche?? (Score:2)
What on earth does one have to do get the nickname 'Dolby'? Reduce noise? Perhaps he only got 5.1 out of 10 in his last assessment...
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Maybe he was just blinded by science.
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I dunno, but I can tell you that it doesn't take much.
- Harold "Froot Loops" Wolowitz
And Windows 10 can run Windows programs (Score:1)
The question was never if the F-35 can dogfight. The question was: can it dogfight better than other, cheaper options? And the answer to that remains a resounding "no!"
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It never was.
A Basset Hound Can Dogfight (Score:4, Funny)
In related news, recent findings show that a Basset Hound can dogfight. Not very effectively, and the dog seldom wins the fight. But evidence has been uncovered of basset hounds fighting other dogs.
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Indeed, but that's just one opinion; we know that others who have flown the plane have a different opinion. So who should we believe?
Probably both of them, depending on the situation and who you're asking. The problem is that this isn't how the F35 was sold. The F35 was sold as being clearly superior to anything else in the world at everything, except for air superiority where the F22 would edge it out. To do that it should perform so well that no competent pilot would imagine it to be anything less tha
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How am I dismissing the Norwegian's evidence? He said that the F35 has a better angle of attack, and that he can point the nose faster than an in F-16. That's good news, but it's not a head-to-head empirical evaluation against a modern fighter, which no advocate for the program would be anxious to do.
And we would do well to be extra-skeptical of good news from this program. It was deliberately structured so that programmatic failure would be catastrophic both to national defense plans, and to careers acro
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Under what conditions would they consider the program a failure?...
You assume that a fighter is an end-product. That updates don't happen and that circumstances don't change. So, why it *that* the question?
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I understand it's a process, but the process is a decade behind schedule.
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Hmm... Now, it has been a while (about 30 years) and I am not a pilot - but I did serve in the Marines. I don't recall seeing any A-10s in use by the Marines. Perhaps you mean Harrier? As near as I know, the USAF flies the A-10. It might even be past tense, I seem to recall reading that they were going to drop it.
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Looks like the program was saved. A lot of public pressure on congress, especially from grunts.
--
"You're welcome."
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I couldn't imagine that they'd go through with canceling it without a replacement at hand but I never saw any follow-up articles about the outcome. As I recall, there was a hearing and then an investigation, and then was supposed to be another hearing - that one never made the rounds at my various online news haunts. Between the A-10 and the Spooky, well... We've got some aircraft that can loiter and lay down some serious firepower as needed.
One of the things about the A-10 is that it is pretty much just a
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The major criticism of the A10 and the AC130 variants is that "they are vulnerable without air superiority". To me that's sort of a "well, duh" comment, as our ground troops are also vulnerable without air superiority.
"Spooky", that takes me back. The original C47. I knew that the AC130 had a different name and couldn't recall it: Spectre. Then, I saw Spooky is still used, and Ghostrider. A new one is coming out with a nice lead-spitter on it.
Fun fax from the wiki...
Development
The five-barrel 'Equalizer' cannon was developed in the late 1970s, based on the mechanism of the GAU-8/A Avenger cannon, but firing a new NATO series of 25 mm ammunition. The GAU-12/U cannon is operated by a 15 hp (11 kW) electric motor, in external mounts supplied by a bleed air driven pneumatic system. Its rate of fire is normally 3,600 rounds per minute, with a maximum of 4,200 rounds per minute. For use in the AC-130 gunship, the fire rate is limited to 1,800 rounds per minute in order to conserve ammunition and reduce barrel wear.
Uses
An AV-8 Harrier II; the two pods on the belly of the aircraft hold the cannon (port side, visible hole) and ammunition (starboard side).
The current principal application for the Equalizer is the AV-8 Harrier IIs of the United States Marine Corps, Italian Navy and Spanish Navy. The Harrier II carries the Equalizer system in a pair of pods mounted on the fuselage sides, with the cannon in the port pod and 300 rounds of ammunition in the starboard pod, fed through a bridge at the aft ends of the pods that also contains the drive system for the gun.
And this circles around to something that
Improving the Cockpit View in F35 (Score:1)
The part about the cockpit view being better in the F-16 was interesting. There are probably good reasons for the current cockpit configuration in the F-35, but it seems like some sort of panoramic rear view camera should be possible, perhaps hooked into that fancy "third generation" helmet that he mentions? Having to lean forward a bit to look around the seat when looking back at the aircraft's six sounds like a disadvantage. What if high g-forces make that difficult in some situations?
Fighter pilot translation (Score:5, Interesting)
The original article did not really say the F-35 can't dogfight, it stated that it suffered from energy deficit compared to the F-16. This article points out that it also benefits from less restricted angle of attack than the F-16. These are not inconsistent observations. I've fought the F-16 many times, and flew it once. The F-16 has significant AOA limits (limited by the FBW system). What does that mean? It means that the F-16 can carve a great turn and has a sweet 9G initial pull, but if you can live past the first couple turns the Viper is going to be AOA limited and you can pretty much have your way with it. I flew Navy jets (F-14/18) which have no AOA limit. Even with an energy deficit, the ability to "point the nose" has significant advantages, particularly today with high off-boresight weapons like AIM-9X. That being said, in 2016 I would expect to have a jet that has both AOA and thrust/weight advantages over a jet from the mid 70's. This sets up a classic rate vs radius fight. The F-16 has a rate advantage, the F-35 has a radius advantage.
For a (somewhat inaccurate) automotive analogy, the F-16 has more HP and torque, but suffers from understeer. If you enter a turn at the right speed you are fine, but enter too fast and no matter how much you turn the wheel you don't get any more turn out of the car. The F-35 allows oversteer. You can turn harder and the rear will start to swing around. You may loose 30MPH in the turn, but you will turn.
Re: Fighter pilot translation (Score:2)
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My guess is it depends on the F35. If you happen to be trying to dog fight an F35B then you will as the Argentinians found out in the Falklands War trying to dog fight Harriers that er you can't dog fight an F35B because they will just go into hover. Aka I have someone on my tail, just let me slow right down curtsey of not having a stall speed because I can hove if required and you will fly right passed me at which point your screwed.
Air Force getting the short end of the stick (Score:5, Informative)
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The tragedy of the multi role aircraft: expansive jack of all trades, master of none
USAF, marines, navy wants a single platform for 3 uses:
- air superiority;
- infantry support;
- projection.
it requires an aircraft that can do every missions for a cheap price.
Else if the enemy can counter your weapons with 10 times cheapest option it means you lose one of your advantages.
Think of how russians/chinese provided cheap missiles coupled with radar station to the viet cong in 1970 that countered the expensive jets
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What you need to evaluate combat effectiveness is some idea of what sort of war you're going to be fighting. Great Power militaries have been designed to fight high-intensity wars against other Great Power militaries as long as we've had Great Powers. Major wars have gotten a lot less likely for several reasons, but there's still very good reasons for NATO to want to be able to fight Russia if necessary.
If we tailor our forces to fight Russia, and we wind up in a low-tech Middle East war, we're fightin
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But if you suck in that area, the enemy will force you to be a fighter.
Pinch of salt (Score:5, Interesting)
If it can't dogfight, would they say so?
If it can dogfight, would they say so?
I'm rather surprised that anyone - especially ones who should know better - is saying anything.
BRB, door.
Re: Pinch of salt (Score:3)
Boondoggle (Score:1)
Dogfighting died decades ago (Score:2)
Air to air is useless. A missile can out maneuver any plane. The fact is 99 % of all air attacks today already have complete air superiority.
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You must be new to this planet.
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You must be new to this century. Nobody in the armed forces wants fighters or piloted planes in general. They serve no purpose in modern warfare.
Australia and the JSF (Score:4, Informative)
There was just (March 6) a good documentary on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Background Briefing radio show about where the JSF was right plane for Australia. http://www.abc.net.au/radionat... [abc.net.au]
Quite the interesting show and it seems like there are lots of problems still with the plane. Like how it still doesn't like the heat so that the weapons bay doors have to be opened every ten minutes when it's hot out. On the ground or in flight! The problem with the weight of the helmet still hasn't been taken care of so pilots can still be killed. The training simulators that pilots have been using haven't actually been verified to be accurate.
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"There was just (March 6) a good documentary on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Background Briefing "
Thanks, I'll have to check that out. Fwiw, bugs like this will be worked out. If the basic engineering is sound (or, I guess, even if not :), bugs will be fixed and components will be upgraded. I don't think anyone expected today's old airplanes to be still flying today. Upgrades have allowed this for the old planes. Time will tell if the F35 platform will be as durable.
Umm, no. (Score:2)
From the original article:
"The 2015 report criticized the F-35’s lack of power and maneuverability compared to the F-16 during high angle of attack exercises. The F-35 “was at a distinct energy disadvantage in a turning fight,” the author wrote, also noting that “pitch rates were too slow to prosecute or deny weapons.”
In contrast, Hanche wrote the F-35 is capable of a significantly higher angle of attack than the F-16, providing the pilot greater authority to point the nose of
Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Insightful)
The first report didn't say 'it can't dogfight'. They identified deficiencies in the flight control system which was set up for a higher margin of safety during flight testing. They also identified a not-so-surprising energy deficiency against an F-16.
The Norwegian pilot flew with the combat tuned FCS, and they effectively pointed out the advantages of high AoA control.
Both reports taken together are important. The F-35 can dogfight, but like any fighter, it has strengths and weaknesses.
Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole debate seems to me to be missing the point. The main driving design principles of the F-35 were to have it to detect and destroy from longer distances while reducing the distance in which it can be detected and destroyed. No, you can't just discount dogfighting and everything else, but the whole point is to avoid dogfights in the first place by taking down the opponent from long before they'd have a chance to do the same to you. It's particularly designed to be effective at taking out antiaircraft systems.
Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is a stand away from battle and launch missiles makes a poor CAS plane and makes a poor cheap air to air combat vehicle
The f-22 is supposed to breach an enemy's defenses that is when bvr attacks are most likely to occur. The f-22 take out SAMs and initial air craft. The f-35 is cheap and in large numbers to follow behind and clean up while slower planes provide air cover for ground forces.
Saying the f-35 is for bvr takes away the purpose of the f-22
Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Funny)
The f-35 is cheap and in large numbers to follow...
At 100 million per aircraft I would hate to see your definition of expensive!
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The f-35 is cheap and in large numbers to follow...
At 100 million per aircraft I would hate to see your definition of expensive!
The F-35 program is clearly messed up and to expensive. However it's not meant to be "cheap" overall. The point is "cheap marginal cost". In other words, the next F-35 you order extra, on top of the ones you already ordered, should be much cheaper than ordering an extra F-22. They invested lots in making expensive production techniques to reduce the cost of mass producing the planes. The current estimate for "cost per hour" is $32000, which is much cheaper than the $44000 estimate for the F-22. That's
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How does destroying targets while being safe make you a poor combat vehicle? The primary goal of a combatant is "destroy enemy targets and not be destroyed yourself".
F-22 is and will remain a great long-range air superiority fighter. It can carry more anti-aircraft missiles and get into battle faster. But F-35 can carry larger ground-attack weaponry without ruining its (superb) radar cross section and can be operated from a smaller basing footprint. There's a role for both of them.
Basically people got sucked in by John Boyd (Score:3, Insightful)
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If you want to destroy the other guy from a position of safety, you were done decades ago: nuke him. Preferably from Orbit, of course, to complete the popular phrase, but in any event we didn't lack for distance weapons of great accuracy.
The point of having a close-up battle capability is that sometimes you can't do that. You must have personal presence at the battlefield, to gather information, not hit friendlies, perhaps captive, or because your enemy has in fact surprised you and carried the fight to y
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Hence the other key aspect of the F-35, the sensor suite.
On the other hand, the F-35 is designed to reduce ongoing costs - both maintenance (though that remains to be proven), and basing / supply line costs.
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The problem with the F-35 is that drone fighters and bombers will likely be in use not long after it drags its sorry arse into service.
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"Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge." Would too! I saw one in Willow.
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Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Informative)
The main driving design principles of the F-35 were to have it to detect and destroy from longer distances while reducing the distance in which it can be detected and destroyed.
Yes, that has been the driving design since the sixties. It has never come to pass. Problem has always been, and will probably continue to be, identification of far away targets (BWR). IFF "doesn't work", i.e. there are too many situations where your own forces won't have IFF, or it will be switched off. There are also all the third parties that don't have IFF (civilian aircraft). This has always lead to an ROE where you'll first have to acquire visually to confirm your target. In almost all instances where fast jets have operated.
And with stealth aircraft that has only gotten worse, not better, as you now cannot turn on your own radar, for fear of being the first to give up your position. Which means that your own stealth leaves you relatively speaking more blind than before. Before you could light up your enemy, since they were already lighting you up. Now, not so much. And without radar, no BWR shot. (Advanced IR has gotten much more important, but isn't generally good enough to shoot with.)
So, sensors and technology do get better, whether they'll finally be good enough to actually be safe to use, that's still very much up for debate. My money is on "no, not really", dogfighting is still going to be the order of the day, as it always has been.
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And with stealth aircraft that has only gotten worse, not better, as you now cannot turn on your own radar, for fear of being the first to give up your position. Which means that your own stealth leaves you relatively speaking more blind than before. Before you could light up your enemy, since they were already lighting you up. Now, not so much.
Is this as much a problem nowadays? I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which our combat aircraft are going to be without AWACS support in any sort of conflict in the foreseeable future. Any modern allied aircraft should be able to see whatever the allied sensor grid can see. Granted, there are many "lukewarm" conflicts in which you'll need to visually identify first, but why would we send piloted aircraft to do this these days? That's precisely what we should be using disposable drones for.
I'm not
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And with stealth aircraft that has only gotten worse, not better, as you now cannot turn on your own radar, for fear of being the first to give up your position. Which means that your own stealth leaves you relatively speaking more blind than before. Before you could light up your enemy, since they were already lighting you up. Now, not so much.
Is this as much a problem nowadays? I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which our combat aircraft are going to be without AWACS support in any sort of conflict in the foreseeable future. Any modern allied aircraft should be able to see whatever the allied sensor grid can see. Granted, there are many "lukewarm" conflicts in which you'll need to visually identify first, but why would we send piloted aircraft to do this these days? That's precisely what we should be using disposable drones for.
I'm not saying dogfighting and close-range combat aren't important, but you'd certainly want to look at recent history and determine probable engagement distances. I have no idea what it actually is (a quick Google search didn't turn up anything - that information may be classified). But I have to imagine - or at least I'd hope - that such data would drive future development. Although... given this boondoggle, maybe I'm giving them too much credit.
That's exactly what the DoD thought when designing the F-4. They simply couldn't think of a scenario where dog fighting would be important anymore becuase radar and radios would identify hostiles and missiles would destroy them before they got into range. Therefore the first models of the F-4 Phantom had no guns.
Low and behold, during it's first major combat operation, the F-4 pilots still couldn't identify targets and had to close to visual range. Without guns, they were at a disadvantage to North Vietn
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Yep, I'm well aware of that history. There's a reason all modern fighter craft still carry guns, although apparently the F-35 will be able to only carry a fairly minimal amount of ammo, which some have taken issue with. But that's why I suggested that it's important to look at the actual data rather than making assumptions about what sort of engagements pilots are likely to encounter. To be honest, I have no idea what that data is, so I'm not trying to say one way or another. But it seems logical that y
Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:4, Interesting)
and technology hasn't progressed in the ensuing 50 years?
hint:
IFF didn't exist back then.
neither did AWACS.
both are a result of that lesson.
and the biggest reason the F4s came to a dogfight was they ran out of missiles. the number of enemy aircraft likely to be faced was simply underestimated, leaving them vulnerable once their load was depleted. and no they were not at a disadvantage: missile lock can be done far far longer away than a gun shot can. the idea of taking them out at range with missiles worked.
the problem was once the missiles were gone., and their were still bad guys left.
its just that our doctrine wasn't exactly secret, so the obvious counter of sending up more aircraft than we were loaded for easily presented itself, which forced us to spend more effort in establishing air superiority than we had planned for. but we did establish almost unrestricted air superiority.
let me be clear: there was no disadvantage from the F4 to the MiGs until the missiles were gone, and even then only if the remaining MiGs closed the distance, which didn't happen very often. the most frequent scenario where an empty F4 encountered another hostile was when they were already on the way home.
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and, ok, yes: the F4 wasn't designed for nimbleness. It was designed for range, speed, and robustness, being a an all weather interceptor design for carrier battle groups that the air force later adopted for both bomb trucking and air-air roles. Not quite the workhorse the Thud was when it came to ground attack, but still fairly adaptable.
In comparison The MiG 17s and 19's were more maneuverable...but slower.
Mig21s, the other major type seen, were about on par in maneuverability, being likewise designed for
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: The problem in Vietnam, from what I've read, wasn't a lack of missiles. It was a lack of a reliable long-range way of identifying aircraft, which meant that the rules of engagement called for visual identification. (It might also have been a lack of a reliable way of figuring out where friendlies were to be expected, possibly because both Air Force and Navy aircraft operated in the same airspace.) Those RoE meant that the Sparrow long-range missiles were useless, and that, without a gun, the only air-t
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Is this as much a problem nowadays? I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which our combat aircraft are going to be without AWACS support in any sort of conflict in the foreseeable future.
That depends. With the sort of conflict you've been in the last couple of times, you didn't even need AWACS as the enemy couldn't shoot back. Hence drones...
Against an enemy that can shoot back AWACS is more useful, but not a panacea. While AWACS can warn you of far away aircraft, it isn't that much better at identifying them, and they don't help you shoot them. You have to use your own radar for that. And when you do, you've given up your own stealth. Opening yourself up for a return shot.
Against a stealth
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Which is why you have AWACS, E-2C, ground radars, and ship radars. Fighters are just one piece of an air combat system.
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^ armchair expert with little knowledge of actual combat doctrine and capabilities.
these design capabilities and doctrines are not meant for lukewarm battles, where things such as airliners might be overflying the Ukraine, etc.
they are meant for shooting wars, where the question of who a target belongs to is a binary answer: us or them.
and even an armchair expert should be well aware that the F22 and F35 both are intended to be part of a data grid, where their accompanying AWACS craft, well back from front
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Sure, call me an "armchair expert" if you will. (That's not strictly true, but my time in the business is long ago, and I was only ever on the outskirts).
But, that doesn't unfortunately save you from underestimating the complexities of even the "simple" battlefield scenario you're drawing up.
Even in an all out shooting war, with nothing civilian in the air---the only remotely modern situation I can think of is the Falklands---you still cannot escape the IFF problem. You don't know if "those aircraft over th
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Nope, I wouldn't call it "dangerous". Rather "realistic". What Stillion is saying are the same things that were said in the sixties... They weren't true then, and they probably aren't now either. So there's nothing new there. Development is surprisingly slow. And that you can kill an unaware and (essentially) non-manoeuvring target with a BWR missile is actually an improvement. The earliest missiles couldn't even do that. (Pk with any sort of radar guided missile is surprisingly low in actual combat). Again
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Or the friends and family of the passengers of Iranian Air 655...
Now granted, and to their credit, the crew of the USS Vincennes did try to make the ID, but failed, with horrible results. If that had been an F-14 instead, the pilot+RIO would have had even worse tools at their disposal to make the ID...
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/a... [thedailybeast.com]
That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone on slashdot, really. "Stealth" technology has nothing in common with Star Trek like cloakin
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The "destroy from long distance" strategy, or shooting BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missiles, simply does not work against a capable fighter jet with a well-trained pilot... due to laws of physics: a = v^2 / r.
If a fighter at 0.6 mach pulls a 9g turn, a missile at 3 mach would have to pull 225g to follow the same turn radius. No missile on the planet is able to do that. The long-range AIM-120D AMRAAM can pull about 30g, and the latest top-of-the-line missiles still under development top out at 60g.
BVR missiles
Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Insightful)
The F-35 can dogfight, but like any fighter, it has strengths and weaknesses.
Whether or not it can dogfight against other manned fighters is irrelevant, since that scenario is unlikely. A more important questions is if it can dogfight against drones with half the turning radius, when outnumbered 5 to 1.
The era of piloted aircraft is rapidly closing. I fear that we are preparing for a gunfight by spending a trillion dollars on a really nice knife.
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almost as ignorant as your "reagan governed like a liberal" comment.
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I'm not sure how relevant that is, since those drones will probably also be in the US arsenal, rather than in the enemy's, at least for the foreseeable future.
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Sure there are drones that can do all that: they're called air to air missiles, in particular the Russian K-77M missile.
Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Insightful)
You're overestimating drone capability as well as mis-stating and mis-understanding the purpose of drones.
We should be designing aircraft to meet future threats, not current threats.
no one's working on any type of dedicated air to air drone.
No one in America is working on it, because it would be a threat to the MIC [wikipedia.org]. The USAF is run by pilots, and for pilots, and nearly all drone innovation has come from outside their ranks. Defense contractors dread the far lower costs of drones. They prefer lucrative boondoggles like the F-35. Politicians don't want to stand up to the MIC, because they will be subjected to withering attack ads claiming they are "weak on defence".
It is more likely that China and Russia are working on air-to-air capability, since they have more to gain from challenging American hegemony, and, although they are corrupt, their corruption doesn't involve the same military-political-lobbyist links that America has, and they don't have super-PACs supporting the status quo.
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Missiles ARE a type of drone.
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Re:One says it can, One says it can't (Score:5, Interesting)
Making a small drone kamakazi is a far better idea than making a device which deploys weapons. Once the weapon leaves the deployment device (the jet fighter for example) it is extremely limited in its abilities to aim and eventually runs out of fuel etc... Creating one based on an airplane design which can be piloted either autonomously or remotely to chase a plane, smash into it and eliminate it is far more optimal. The cost itself is extremely low as well compared to multiple missiles and bullets deployed by a jet. It's more efficient as well.
So, this leads us to the follow up.
1) We believe no one is working on this tech. We don't actually know.
2) Why are we spending a trillion dollars on planes which require pilots and life support systems and all kinds of things like this when we should be focused on a making a factory which can autonomously produce large numbers of drones on demand extremely rapidly. Then instead of pissing away huge amounts of resources cluelessly, we can simply "print on demand" what we need and exploit the disposable nature of new tech.
3) Where is the value in piloted planes in 2016? Can you honestly say that a jet fighter can be superior to smaller, faster, more agile devices without the needs of transporting or risking humans?
The only answer I have is that most economies in the world depend on government sponsored jobs. Wasting tax payers money on worthless crap like this feeds larges amounts of money into the economy to produce jobs everywhere from useless sales people at DoE contractors down to the girl at the drive through window asking "Would you like fries with that?" three towns over where the floor cleaner lives. It's basically social welfare and/or something leaning towards basic income without saying socialism.
Governments of western nations generally are not allowed to build their own companies to compete with the free market. As such the only way to make government created jobs is to build stuff we don't really need. Sometimes, the only option is to just give money wastefully to some asshole sales guy who will jump off immediately with a golden parachute to avoid job losses.
I would like to see us be a little less stupid with the money than wasting it on putting pilots onto jet fighters and then having to publish articles about "Yeh... in the end, the F-35 is a good plane... the F-16 is a good plane too... I think I could get used to it... it seems like it was really really worth spending a trillion dollars to make another plane which isn't really clearly superior or really needed."
Can anyone actually make a clear statement like "The existence of the F-35 was worth it and the militaries which have it are now clearly better off than they were because of...."
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2) You will never be able to manufacture while moving at the same efficiency as you can in a large factory with established infrastructure lines. In fact if you are trying to manufacture while moving you would have been better off dedicating the spare and weight capacity to just carrying the finished product. You are infinitely better off with a huge stock pile and an efficient damage resistant logistics system
3) A piloted plane does not have the communication system point of failure that a remote control
Re: One says it can, One says it can't (Score:2)
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The Russians had this back in the 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The American's and the British had it in WWII on the bombers. Before that, I'm sure someone can find an example of a planes from the 20's, and maybe even from WWI that had an omni-directional gun turret.
A big issue in the early fighters was that they couldn't figure out how to fire forward. The ammunition was unreliable, and if you tried to fire through the propeller blades, it would shoot off the propellers. In the early years, this was solved by adding "wedges" to the props such that if the ammo hit t
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The solution to firing forwards was the interruptor gear, initially, then later sticking the guns out on the wings. Also some aircraft then were in the pusher configuration. Some such as the DH2 did have a gun with a mount which allowed pointing the gun, but the pilots found that fixing the gun forwards was better.
I didn't know about the crazy deflector wedges until today!
The turret concept was referred to as a turret fighter. They had a brief period of polularity pre and early WWII with fighters such as th
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The deflectors were done by some witty Brit and then he crashed - and lived, by the way. I think he was shot down. The Germans found out it when they examined his downed craft and realized it was brilliant but they wanted better. Enter Focker (spelling) who was a Dutchman and working for the Germans at the time. He figured out the interrupter gear and that lead to "Bloody April" as I recall.
I'm lazy and just got back a little while ago so, to the others suggesting they fire missiles backwards, that's do-abl
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There were WWI two-seater aircraft with defensive machine guns that could sweep a large area of sky. Actual turrets were going to be much too heavy for the aircraft of the time, but I believe there were at least some with ring mounts that were pretty close to omni-directional.
Going into WWII, the British had the Boulton Paul Defiant, a fighter whose armament was four machine guns in a turret. Having a manned turret made the thing overly heavy with worse performance than its contemporaries, it had half
like driving backward, with extra dimensions (Score:3)
> always trying to get behind the enemy aircraft
Sort of, but not exactly. Imagine a giant sphere with the opponent in the circle . If you're anywhere in the rear half of the sphere, you have positional advantage . If you're in the front half of the sphere, the other guy does. (Ignoring gravity and energy, for sake of simplicity) . Of course it's not just one sphere 3,000 feet in diameter, but an infinite number of spheres of various sizes. So basically half the battle space is "behind" and half the
ps, yes I oversimplified to focus on one thing (Score:2)
Ps- if there are any fighter pilots in here, or people good at fighter sim games, yes I know that I greatly oversimplified and left out 90% of the relevant factors. I did so in order to focus on one or two relevant factors without distractions.
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Let's make this simple. The world has a lot of people. There are a lot of religions, races and nationalities... and if I understand an article I read a few years back, there are actually
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Honestly, is "the the" right news groups for a screed on the topic which you have just presented?
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Marine corps wanted a plane for infantry support. A new A-10.
So, the A-35 can be a "fighter" as they say, but can it really do the work A-10 is doing?
In the "balloon goes up" exercises/scenarios that we use to train our forces in the Pacific, the Air Tasking Orders almost never feature A-10s in support of the Marine MAGTF. Our fixed-wing close air support is almost always AV-8Bs or F/A-18C/Ds, with the occasional Navy Super Hornet. We process dozens of immediate Joint Tactical Air Requests daily during the major phases of ground combat (not to mention any pre-planned targets), and we do it without ever having access to sections of A-10s. Part of the reas
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> Why do so many people on the Internet associate CAS with slow-turning gun runs?
Because every article on the A-10 puts considerable attention on the gun. Because it's cool, and big, and heavy and BIG IS BETTER!
Which is a bit sad, because it's not a terribly effective weapon on today's battlefield. Against T-54/55's it's certainly credible on the sides and turret roof, but that's about it. It can pen under 60mm from 1000m range, but a T-64 has 45mm in the turret roof and considerably more than than every