Awesome low flight

[eagl]

That's exactly what I was wondering about, thanks.

I assume those restrictions are removed in combat?

The restrictions will be modified based on the threat environment.  In desert storm there was some reluctance to reduce the min altitude during the pre-war months, resulting in at least one mishap from aircrews not being permitted to carry out a low altitude step-down training program that would enable them to safely fly lower than 500'.  Some crews trained over the desert at 500', some tried to go lower in violation of the rules, and one crew ended up about 5 ft too low and died.  To my knowledge, after the mishap the commanders set up a step-down program to get their crews ready for low altitude flying so when the war kicked off, guys were as low as 100'-200' at night using terrain following radar, and at least one MIG augered in the middle of the strike package trying to dig the strike eagles up out of the mud.

Low altitude is not a good place to be, in general.  We only fly there when the threat absolutely forces us to go low.  Above 20,000 ft is much nicer, threat permitting.

[Gman]

Are the threats you refer to mainly land based radar and SAM systems, or airborne systems too.  I've always wondered about the USA's potential enemies like Iran and China that have AEW/AWACS aircaft, and if flying at 500 or 100-200 feet makes any difference in trying to defeat an overhead radar that looks out and down, as opposed to up and out like a land based system.  I understand if you can't talk much about this.

[eagl]

Are the threats you refer to mainly land based radar and SAM systems, or airborne systems too.  I've always wondered about the USA's potential enemies like Iran and China that have AEW/AWACS aircaft, and if flying at 500 or 100-200 feet makes any difference in trying to defeat an overhead radar that looks out and down, as opposed to up and out like a land based system.  I understand if you can't talk much about this.

Every threat is considered.  Most modern radars have good look-down capability though, so we would generally want to meet a high threat by also going high, so we can take advantage of our missiles and tactics while avoiding low altitude SAMs and AAA.  Then again, there is no such thing as "always", and it is entirely possible that part of a strike package might go in low to attempt an unobserved ingress while someone else attracts attention up high.  For example, the F-22 might reasonably have a better chance against both SAMs and fighters, so they might go in with some F-15Cs up high, while strike eagles or other attack aircraft go in low.  Any air threats go after the strikers, the F-22s schwack them, but the SAMs might have a lower engagement range depending on terrain and other factors.

The bottom line is that it totally depends on the scenario, plus two different mission commanders might come up with two completely different approaches to the tactical problem.  In the end, the bottom line is that strike aircraft need to train both high and low because either approach might be required on any particular mission.  The beauty of the F-15E is that because of the WSO, we can deliver true PGMs at night and/or in bad weather from either a high or low attack profile.  Single seat aircraft have to go high to deliver many PGMs because the single pilot simply can't glue his face to the cockpit displays and simultaneously avoid hitting the ground.  You need a WSO to do that no matter how smart the plane is.  That is yet another reason why the F-35 is not a true strike aircraft and is not an F-15E replacement.  Trying to to the F-15E's toughest missions in a single seat aircraft is a dumb way to die.

Still, I find it interesting that the Chinese aircraft appears to be single seat.  I wonder if a second seat will make it into the production model to enhance it's strike capabilities.

[Gman]

After reading that, I"ve got to wonder what the F35 is even needed for, notwithstanding that many people have said that it won't work right anyway.  Why not buy F15 Silent Eagles, for 2/3 or even 1/2 the price, far cheaper to maintain, a system the USAF is already super familiar with for the most part, and buy say another 200 F22's.  Even this would be half the cost of the F35 program, or less.  I read recently that the 3 F35 variants only have 30% comminality in parts and systems.  THIRTY PERCENT!  It's 3 different damned planes, wth is the point of the JOINT in JSF!

Another thing I've wondered about is the co-operation between the USAF and the USN.  With the Ohio SSGN's around now, and the Tomahawk being somewhat stealthy in some versions, plus having a pretty small RCS due to its size and flight profile, how well would the following work.  Say a country like Iran is going to get its' nuclear program taken out the loud way, instead of by a computer virus.  The main SAM and Radar threats aren't all that mobile from what I've read, so I'm sure 150+ Tomahawks launched by an SSGN would go a long way to taking them out, even systems like the S300 and better couldn't hope to take out all 15 or 20 Tomahawks launched at them.  This would be precluded by timely recon intel from stealthy UAV's so that most of the SAM/Radar systems would still be in the same place for the Tomahawk strike.  Then a strike package of F15E's or F15SE's in the future rolling in at low altitude, and the F15C/F16/F22's going high to deal with potential air threats that make it through the counter-air part of the SSGN Tomahawk strikes.  

What you wrote about the value of the WSO Eagl was probably the best case I've read FOR having the extra seat in a short paragraph, I hope you don't mind if I repeat that in something I'm writing at the moment.  Is this why a fairly high portion of the Super Hornets the Navy and Corps employ have the extra seat?  Do they do a lot of low altitude ingress to target profiles?  Also, how much better/worse was having the variable geometry wings on the F111 compared to the F15E at low altitude, and did it make a significant difference?

Also, how good is the F16, particularly the Wild Weasel squadrons at low altitude flying?  Larry Bond in his book Red Pheonix/1989 wrote that the Juvet squadrons etc did a lot of real low flying in their missions.  Can they carry both the HTS for HARM missle targeting and the new sniper pod for PGM?  It's too bad they don't make a 2 seater F16 just for Wild Weasel type missions for low level penetration of the enemy radar/sam barriers.

[rogwar]

I'm sure 150+ Tomahawks launched by an SSGN would go a long way to taking them out

I thought you were blowing smoke until I looked it up. They have converted some SSGNs to cary ~150+ Tomahawks. Wow!

That would ruin somebody's day.

[eagl]

After reading that, I"ve got to wonder what the F35 is even needed for, notwithstanding that many people have said that it won't work right anyway.  Why not buy F15 Silent Eagles, for 2/3 or even 1/2 the price, far cheaper to maintain, a system the USAF is already super familiar with for the most part, and buy say another 200 F22's.  Even this would be half the cost of the F35 program, or less.  I read recently that the 3 F35 variants only have 30% comminality in parts and systems.  THIRTY PERCENT!  It's 3 different damned planes, wth is the point of the JOINT in JSF!

[snip]

What you wrote about the value of the WSO Eagl was probably the best case I've read FOR having the extra seat in a short paragraph, I hope you don't mind if I repeat that in something I'm writing at the moment.  Is this why a fairly high portion of the Super Hornets the Navy and Corps employ have the extra seat?  Do they do a lot of low altitude ingress to target profiles?  Also, how much better/worse was having the variable geometry wings on the F111 compared to the F15E at low altitude, and did it make a significant difference?

Also, how good is the F16, particularly the Wild Weasel squadrons at low altitude flying?  Larry Bond in his book Red Pheonix/1989 wrote that the Juvet squadrons etc did a lot of real low flying in their missions.  Can they carry both the HTS for HARM missle targeting and the new sniper pod for PGM?  It's too bad they don't make a 2 seater F16 just for Wild Weasel type missions for low level penetration of the enemy radar/sam barriers.

Lots of stuff there...  Regarding the "value" of the JSF, its proponents are counting on improvements in system integration and information processing to make up for the inescapable fact that the F-35 is essentially a front-aspect stealthy F-16, at least until external stores are loaded up.  Then it's just a new F-16 with better avionics and projected cost savings from maintenance and reliability gains.  We'll see.

Feel free to use my comments on the value of the WSO in high threat environments.  I don't really know exactly why the Navy bought a lot of 2-seat hornets, other than it's probably a good idea to have a backseater for a variety of tough missions.  But I don't *know*.

The variable geometry wing on the F-111 had 2 advantages for low altitude flying.  First, it made the F-111 extremely fast at low altitudes.  Second, it smoothed out the ride which reduced crew fatigue.  The drawbacks were somewhat decreased overall maneuverability as a "fighter", but that really wasn't too important as a penetrating strike fighter/bomber.  The large wing on the F-15E makes for a rather bumpy ride at low altitude, but it's nowhere near as bad as various earlier aircraft so such things are very subjective considerations.  Big engines and lots of fuel make up for a lot, but the F-15E simply isn't anywhere near as fast as the F-111 was.

Wild Weasel missions aren't really done at low altitude anymore, for a variety of reasons.  I will say that F-16s fly just fine at low altitude with the caveat that they're going to be severely range and endurance limited at low altitudes due to high fuel burn at low altitude.  That said, sometimes you gotta sneek in behind a ridgeline and take a shot as you pop over the top before the target can shoot back.  DEAD missions (as opposed to SEAD) mean that you need a hard kill on the air defense system, not just a soft kill, and certainly not just forcing the operator to turn off his radar for a bit.  A very large number of HARMs have been shot in combat, with almost zero confirmed "kills".  That doesn't mean the shots were ineffective since at the very least the operators turned off the radar to avoid getting shot, but the systems had to be destroyed by other weapons.  Those other weapons are often AGM-65 and GBU-10/12 class weapons (or JDAM/SDB nowadays), since those weapons don't guide on radar emissions.

I will note that the latest HARM missiles are a hell of a lot smarter than they used to be, and the latest HTS pods and aircraft system integration are also much better.  Future employment of the HARM systems ought to have better (or at least more decisive) results than they did in the past.  I am not sure if the HTS pod can be carried together with the sniper pod but I suspect not.  But you'll have to ask an F-16 driver to get a real answer for that question.  As for 2-seat weasel aircraft, the HTS system is largely automated, built for single-seat use.  There may be some SEAD capability built into the F-18E/F/G that could benefit from a WSO, but I don't know anything about current development in that area that you can't find in aviation week.