Latest Russian fighter demo

[GScholz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0rZI

here 10min version for u.... If you dont want to get informed there is notthing i can do for you....

Informed? Lol, if you consider that "informed" then the word has lost all meaning. Don't listen to the media talking heads. Listen to the pilots who fly the F-35. Listen to those involved in the project.

Don't believe anything that man or his partner in BS Winslow Wheeler says.

I read Sprey’s essay on the F-22, and after that I'm never reading anything that man writes, ever. It fails to offer any proof and in fact, offers the same standard lies about the F-22 that I’ve already heard numerous times. Moreover, the essay reveals that Sprey is either completely ignorant about defense issues or, more likely, so biased against modern weapons that he’s blatantly lying to malign them while praising the F-16 fighter to the highest.

Why the F-16? Because Sprey, as a member of the Fighter Mafia, was one of the men behind that program and, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he advocated its development and production. Sprey is, in short, the godfather of the F-16 as much as Harry Hillaker and John Boyd were. His love for his brainchild, the F-16, is obviously blinding him, leading him to malign better, more capable aircraft, including the F-22 and F-35.

[eagl]

"Experts" you say... Care to name one?

Some consider my background to qualify as "expertise", and I'm convinced that the F-35 is a lemon, and badly overpriced at that.  I like the F-22, and both the maintenance problems and high price of the F-22 can be blamed on the small production numbers.  The F-35, if only 200-300 were built, would cost 2-3 times what an F-22 costs, and it is only front-quarter stealthy.

I've spoken to folks who have flown in and against the F-22 and every one of them say it is "for real", a true air dominance fighter.  I don't know anyone who says the F-35 will be the best at anything.  My 2 main gripes about the F-35 are the fact that its a stealthy F-16 at 4x the cost, and the fact that many very very good and cost effective and combat-proven programs have been cancelled outright in order to funnel more money into the F-35 program, on completely baseless promises that the F-35 will be an effective replacement for a half dozen outstanding aircraft, none of whose roles can actually be filled by the F-35.

Anyone going against the F-35 in the future is gonna run them out of gas, run them out of missiles, then shoot them in their non-stealthy a$z when they run away at, what.. mach 1.4 (maybe on a good day) until they flame out from lack of fuel?  Eagle drivers learn rather quickly how to win "most of the time" against vipers.  Out stick them, out-defend them, run them out of amraams and fuel.  At half the cost we could have new build F-15s with the most advanced AESA radars and integrated systems carrying 10 missiles and 18,000 lbs of weapons, against the F-35's 4 missiles and 4000 lbs of bombs.

Yes, the defense industry needs to have *something* to design/build or it will wither and die.  This is a national defense issue over the long term.  But joint fighter programs ALWAYS suck.  Rand corporation actually just published a major study on joint procurement programs, proving this.

[mthrockmor]

The J-10 is a purchased Israeli design known as the Lavi, which was an intended improvement on the F-16. Came in heavy and not worth the cost, so the Israelis negotiated an improved F-16, problem solved. The Chinese built it and are running into engine problems.

I join the club of the F-22 and F-35 being a bad investment, if for no other reason the total cost. The Navy was wise to cut the A-12 Avenger II when it went ballistic. Sadly, the Air Force forged ahead with these two birds. The American taxpayer could have purchased more of the F-15SE (Silent Eagle, not Strike Eagle) and upgraded the F-16 and save 2/3 the money. Our greatest threat is not the former Soviet Union or even the military of China. Our greatest threat is economic peril caused by debt and spending. We can't afford these massively expensive birds.

On the flying, great turns though combat isn't waged with tailslides. That only happens on a regular basis in AH.

boo

[Arbiter]

Some consider my background to qualify as "expertise", and I'm convinced that the F-35 is a lemon, and badly overpriced at that.  I like the F-22, and both the maintenance problems and high price of the F-22 can be blamed on the small production numbers.  The F-35, if only 200-300 were built, would cost 2-3 times what an F-22 costs, and it is only front-quarter stealthy.

I've spoken to folks who have flown in and against the F-22 and every one of them say it is "for real", a true air dominance fighter.  I don't know anyone who says the F-35 will be the best at anything.  My 2 main gripes about the F-35 are the fact that its a stealthy F-16 at 4x the cost, and the fact that many very very good and cost effective and combat-proven programs have been cancelled outright in order to funnel more money into the F-35 program, on completely baseless promises that the F-35 will be an effective replacement for a half dozen outstanding aircraft, none of whose roles can actually be filled by the F-35.

Anyone going against the F-35 in the future is gonna run them out of gas, run them out of missiles, then shoot them in their non-stealthy a$z when they run away at, what.. mach 1.4 (maybe on a good day) until they flame out from lack of fuel?

Pretty much the same concerns I have witht he F-35.  I am not an expert but what I have read seems troublesome.

I have to add that the SU-35 is a amazing plane and cuts a very handsome profile.  Up to tackling a F-22 it is not but it is still very impressive.

[GScholz]

Eagl, have you actually talked to anyone in the F-35 program? Anyone who has flown the F-35?

You know... We have one here on the BBS... Beau32 works on F-35s and back in February 2013 this is what he had to say:

Here is what I see, from a Maintainer point of view (Crew Chief of AF-03)

Alot of what I read on here is crazy. Some of the things people come up with. The F-35 is following along with every other plane that has been developed. They all have been over priced and over budget. Its going to happen. Deal with it. We are constantly working to make these planes better and better. Right now we are down for a 3rd stage cracked blade out of AF-02. Who knows how it happened. Could be a bad blade or could be just one of those freak things that happen. Cracked blades in jet engines occur a little more than what people think (talking about all jet powered aircraft in general). Its a safty precaution to ground the fleet till this gets sorted out and the problem fixed. Better to get it taken care of then to possibly lose a jet and/or a life of a pilot. So just because you hear that the fleet is grounded, dont take it as a bad thing.  

Most people tend to hate on things they dont really understand cause they read a few negative things online or in a paper or magazine. Dont believe everything you read. Our program is making great strides, and out of the 50,000 or so test points we have over 20,000 accomplished. We still have a long way to go, but we are making it happen.

I cant really go into much detail, but have the things in here are not true that people say. Just call it a little insider info........

Also I've personally talked to two RNoAF pilots who are involved and their opinions reflect the same enthusiasm for the F-35 as the British test pilot in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kshe7-BYfWc

[eagl]

I join the club of the F-22 and F-35 being a bad investment, if for no other reason the total cost. The Navy was wise to cut the A-12 Avenger II when it went ballistic. Sadly, the Air Force forged ahead with these two birds.

Hey, don't blame the Air Force for the F-35.  The AF is the lead in that program due to having the highest production numbers of all the variants, but the whole program was badly compromised from the beginning by being a "joint" program.  The whole design is fouled up, from determining the size to requirements defining the flying qualities, because of the multi-service requirements.  Imagine the cost of a car that had to drive 200 mph, climb rocks like a highly modified jeep, and carry a family of 8.  That's the kind of BS compromises you end up dealing with when you design a "joint" fighter, and the f-35 was fouled up from the beginning because of it.  Add on nonsense about "the USAF will never buy another stealth aircraft" (used to justify killing F-15 production that was planned to replace ancient F-15s that are literally falling apart), and you get all your crappy joint eggs in one irreplaceable basket.

Heck, even the Brits wasted about 100 mil thrashing the design of their next carrier based on uncertainty as to if they'd buy the F-35B or F-35C.  If the naval variant was its own program, it would have cost LESS per aircraft and been a much better multi-role naval fighter.  As it is, that version is suffering so much risk that the Navy dared open up the possibility (for less than a week it turns out) of buying more F-18s due to F-35 delays and design compromises. 

It was a fatally flawed program from the beginning, due to the joint nature.  Don't blame the USAF on it, we're just the ones stuck buying the biggest bag of lemons.

[eagl]

GScholtz,

Frankly, a maintainer's opinion on the value of a fighter *as a fighter* isn't worth much to me.  Nothing against beau32, but he brings a maintainer's perspective to the argument.  Can he really say that the F-35 as a joint program is better than 3 independently competed programs?  If he's being honest, I doubt he would.  The lift fan size and geometry constraints on fuselage mold lines, and difference in wing sizes between A and C, and the lack of rearward visibility in the A model are only the most obvious outward signs of the massive compromises made with this aircraft.  The teeny tiny weapons bays on a fighter that is supposed to replace the A-10 are even more telling.  None of the 3 planes is going to be awesome at meeting its service requirements.

I have also been careful to not criticize the development pace.  I know all fighter programs have teething problems.  That's not my gripe with the F-35.  My gripe with the F-35 has nothing to do with engine maturity or fatigue cracking or whatever, and everything to do with it not being a very good fighter.

I did work with someone who was intimately involved in the helmet display and "3D" visual awareness human factors testing.  He was involved in the design of that from nearly day one, and he commented that the 3D visual capability may be a step too far with respect to human resistance to spatial disorientation.  The cost in that one feature alone is enormous.  We can only hope that the technology required to present a jitter and lag free full color high resolution multi-spectral helmet-integrated display will trickle down to the gaming industry, but even the best we've been able to come up with is nearly guaranteed to cause severe spatial disorientation in many real-world situations.  Having lost a good friend last year to an NVG spatial disorientation mishap, and having taught new pilots for 9 years how to fight spatial disorientation even in "traditional" cockpits, this is not a topic that can be dismissed very easily as a simple matter of pilots complaining about how hard their job is.

3 programs for the 3 services with fast jet requirements would have produced better aircraft at a better price.  The RAND study proves this is the case, even for lower production number requirements like the F-35B (STOVL) or F-35C (large US-centric carrier design).

[DaveBB]

I've watched Pierre Sprey's interviews, and what he says seems pretty logical.  Aircraft need to be specialized, not generalized.  Dedicated ground attack aircraft, dedicated air superiority aircraft.  Sure sure, everyone cites the Gulf War mission where a couple F-18s shot down a Mig-29 then went on to bomb their target.  But that is a pretty isolated incident.  

Sprey's main criticism of the F-35 is its poor maneuverability (which he accredits to extremely high wing-loading), its low speed, and its reliance on stealth.  He claims stealth does not work due to long wavelength radar being able to defeat it.  He also claims that IFF (electronic identification Friend or Foe) is still a horrible system (reference 2 F-15s shooting down two UH-60s in the late 90s).

When has a multi-service fighter ever worked?  F-111- Nope.  F-4 Phantom- Poorly.  F-35- We'll see after it's shoved down the throats of all the services involved.

[hotcoffe]

Informed? Lol, if you consider that "informed" then the word has lost all meaning. Don't listen to the media talking heads. Listen to the pilots who fly the F-35. Listen to those involved in the project.

Don't believe anything that man or his partner in BS Winslow Wheeler says.

I read Sprey’s essay on the F-22, and after that I'm never reading anything that man writes, ever. It fails to offer any proof and in fact, offers the same standard lies about the F-22 that I’ve already heard numerous times. Moreover, the essay reveals that Sprey is either completely ignorant about defense issues or, more likely, so biased against modern weapons that he’s blatantly lying to malign them while praising the F-16 fighter to the highest.

Why the F-16? Because Sprey, as a member of the Fighter Mafia, was one of the men behind that program and, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he advocated its development and production. Sprey is, in short, the godfather of the F-16 as much as Harry Hillaker and John Boyd were. His love for his brainchild, the F-16, is obviously blinding him, leading him to malign better, more capable aircraft, including the F-22 and F-35.

I understand  that you dont trust main stream media, Most of the I dont either. But I also dont trust anybody who has private companies name in his/her title.

[Arbiter]

I'm not in the aircraft industry but I have a saying I toss around quite a bit at work:  "Generalists, in general, suck at everything".  The saying applies to people and skillsets but I see no reason why it would not for fighter planes as well.  Generalists have to make compromises in order to have a broad array of skills.  In other words you cannot have a deep knowledge set of everything.  In the same vein, I have a hard time seeing how a single plane can be designed to do so many jobs and do each of them well.  Corners have to be cut and compromises made.

[eagl]

DaveBB,

I'd have to quibble about characterizing the F-111 and F-4 as failures or marginal successes...  The F-111 was rightfully rejected by the Navy but it was one hell of a final "century series" cold war fighter-bomber.  Not much of a fighter and thankfully not much money was poured into trying to make it one, but it was one hell of a deep strike fighter.  Fast as anything else out there with tons of fuel and bombs and, for the time, a superb navigation and targeting system.  Even the modern day combat proven F-15E isn't quite the penetration bomber that the F-111 was, due to lack of speed and high-speed endurance.

The F-4... well, the widespread popularity of the model around the world and proven combat results say a lot.  And if I recall correctly, the F-4 was originally primarily intended for the Navy and had to be modified for USAF use. 

Other aircraft that turned out well only because they were NOT joint programs are the F-16 and F-18.  People forget that the prototypes of both the F-16 and F-18 were competing for the same lightweight fighter program.  USAF chose the F-16 and the navy realized that the F-18 would, with appropriate design work, make a fine naval fighter. 

Now imagine if the F-35 was "usaf only", and the Navy had to run its own fighter program separate from, but loosely based on the technology behind, the F-35?  They could have widened/stretched it and given it 2 engines, if the basic model didn't also have to do STOVL for the marines and fit on the little amphib carriers.  That could have been a hell of an F-18 successor, a 15% or 20% bigger acft based on F-35 era technology, but with 2 motors and no compromises for USAF or USMC joint requirements.  Maybe they could have even made a 2-seat version for precision strike/attack and EW.  How do you control your nifty new stealth navy attack drone fleet without a WSO/RIO in the back seat?   Not very well, I bet...

[mthrockmor]

 Sure sure, everyone cites the Gulf War mission where a couple F-18s shot down a Mig-29 then went on to bomb their target.  But that is a pretty isolated incident.  

If I remember correctly the F-18 shootdown had a big caveat on it. They used AIM-7E Sparrows and by one pilots admission had they not killed the birds with the Sparrow shots they would have need to jettison their ord to turn with Sidewinders.

[Masherbrum]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0rZI

here 10min version for u.... If you dont want to get informed there is notthing i can do for you....

Youtube is your "information source"?   The Internets, raising the bar of mediocrity since 1992.   Apparently there is nothing we can do for you as well.  

[hotcoffe]

Youtube is your "information source"?   The Internets, raising the bar of mediocrity since 1992.   Apparently there is nothing we can do for you as well.  

lol... 
when you watching TV , do you consider the TV as your information source or the channel you are watching as your information source ?!

[GScholz]

There's a lot of "maybe" and "could have" comments here which I find worthless. I find it sad but slightly funny that the F-35's rearward visibility is a negative issue with the first plane that the pilot can literally see through any part of the fuselage with optic sensors. The only real need for a transparent canopy is in case the sensors malfunction. I find it equally comical that the F-35's payload is being criticized since in that area it outperforms both the F-16 and F-18 using external hardpoints. It can sacrifice external ord to become a stealthy light bomber with two AMRAAMs and two 2000lbs bombs or two anti-ship missiles. Or it can carry four AMMRAMs (six in a future upgrade) if it needs to back up the F-22s in a stealthy pure A2A role. The version we're buying will also carry the IRIS-T dogfight missile we've been developing with the Germans.