F-45?

[PJ_Godzilla]

Did somebody say F-20? It was a better fighter than F-16 in a pure A2A role, at least according to the accounts I read of the head to head matchup. I well recall talking to a GD recruiter at the time. I was finishing up grad school out there at SU and was looking for a job. The GD guy said, and this is a little reminiscent of Goering's read on the Spitfire (it's pretty but...),"F-16 is an integrated weapons SYSTEM. It offers a lot more than F-20". I hate to agree with Karnak, but I think his above comment applied to Tigershark - not enough "sourcing footprint", if you take my meaning.

As for you, G. Scholz, yes, thank you, it DID work. I was looking for your eval and I got it - and actually appreciated it.

I'd like to put you and John Boyd/Pierre Sprey in a room and watch the ensuing argument. It'd be entertaining.

As for your points... I accept the point about the radar, after a little cursory research. As for Stealth, and you yourself state as much, yes, it is now and probably from now going to play a critical role... but what about when the aircraft are (inevitably) in proximity? And what about the inevitable competitor in the race: alternate detection measures? 99.99% kill rates from advanced missiles? What are they achieving right now?


You're sticking by your story: advanced technology will trump the stick and rudder. I'm more agnostic. F-16s used to regularly out-dogfight F-15s, but the 15's always had to leave the radar-guided missiles at home.

As for the author, yes, yes, he's not a product development guy. We can't all be engineers, though, I'll admit to making it look good.

[PJ_Godzilla]

So, Scholz, with regard to my last question in post above, wired claims that only 9 Amraams have been fired in combat and that the kill rate is unknown, since we don't know if the Amraams or the subsequent merge killed the opponent.

What we do know: after the merge, F-22 is at a disadvantage.

I'd suggest a stealth and acm-capable design brief. The question to you: we know, for example, the typical weight penalty for variable geometry. What IS the stealth tradeoff? It looks to use, as a rule, an advantageous strength-to-weight material, at least if the designer is capable of taking advantage of the properties of carbon fiber ( e.g., orthtropicity in pre-preg laminates -you can effectively tailor directional strength and weight optimize)... but the geometry... somehow never looks "optimal" to me -and you know what that guy from Supermarine once said.

I'm asking: why is there an implied tradeoff?

The other question, if the answer to above is, "there isn't one", is, which weight present on F-22 do you leave behind?


I'll cite the wired article, but there's not a lot of there there: https://www.wired.com/2012/07/f-22-germans/ 

[Zimme83]

The downing of the 117 over Serbia shows that its possible to defeat stealth technology. The SAM was a Sa-3, a missile from the 60s and not exactly state-of-the-art but they still found a way to to it. (And have in mind that only one other fighter where lost during the campaign). They knew how to modify the system, where to locate them and how to track and fire without being  detected by anti- air defense fighters.

The enemy will also learn and adapt.

All that is needed is for example that the Chinese or the Russians develops a low frequency radar with enough accuracy to allow the S-400 to lock on to stealth fighters and all of a sudden they can engage the F-22 and F-35 well before they are within range to shoot back...

There is nothing wrong with stealth but its foolish to believe that it cannot be countered.
 

[PJ_Godzilla]

And Scholz, recall my earlier post about stealth aircraft detection. My gosh, wouldn't that be a serious problem? Indeed, it would mean that we'd foolishly put all of our eggs in one VERY expensive basket -and produced a small contingent of Vultee Vengeances and Brewies.

Careful, John Boyd might be laughing in his grave... about networked low freq radars and their burgeoning ability to produce a tracking-grade signal.


https://news.usni.org/2014/07/29/chinese-russian-radars-track-see-u-s-stealth   


So, now, in the new world, if some airplanes are high freq radar detectable and some are detectable by low-freq radars, and all else being equal ( including the expenditure) who wins?

[PJ_Godzilla]

The downing of the 117 over Serbia shows that its possible to defeat stealth technology. The SAM was a Sa-3, a missile from the 60s and not exactly state-of-the-art but they still found a way to to it. (And have in mind that only one other fighter where lost during the campaign). They knew how to modify the system, where to locate them and how to track and fire without being  detected by anti- air defense fighters.

The enemy will also learn and adapt.

All that is needed is for example that the Chinese or the Russians develops a low frequency radar with enough accuracy to allow the S-400 to lock on to stealth fighters and all of a sudden they can engage the F-22 and F-35 well before they are within range to shoot back...

There is nothing wrong with stealth but its foolish to believe that it cannot be countered.

Zimme, you must have known where I was going. Never troll if you don't have a ready riposte -which I deliver courtesy of the reputable USNI. Scholz is advocating the F-111 of its day; the f-35. It's viability is built on a house of cards and an assumption of stasis. His argument against the dedicated CAS design is, Imj, on much firmer ground. Just my read based on a quick survey... like I say, I'm not part of that world any more, being all about the Big Blue Oval most days.

[Zimme83]

That was pure coincident.

[Zimme83]

But I see no reason to beat the dead horse even more, we have had enough threads about the F-35. But it can be fun to discuss the concept of the "F-45" vs a high tech Stealth fighter and stealth vs its counter measures. 

[GScholz]

... but what about when the aircraft are (inevitably) in proximity? And what about the inevitable competitor in the race: alternate detection measures? 99.99% kill rates from advanced missiles? What are they achieving right now?

When aircraft get close then the first to detect the adversary will kill the adversary. If they both detect each other at the same time in all likelihood they'll both die; both getting their missiles off the rails.

As for other sensor systems the thing about radar is that it operates in a wavelength range of the EM spectrum that is very advantageous. RF energy can penetrate the atmosphere to a far greater extent than any other EM wavelength like for instance visible light or IR. And other sensors are for the most part unable to penetrate clouds and weather. An aircraft flying above clouds or in rain is all but invisible to any sensor other than radar. However since radar has been defeated by stealth technology other sensors may become more important in the future, at least on clear days.

When fired within the proper launch parameters current missiles like the AIM-120D and AIM-9X have a PK in the high 90s. Mind you I was talking about where we are going, not where we are now. Right now we are in a transitional period between the old and new paradigm. The F-22 and F-35 are probably the last manned fighters to be built in the west. The future of air combat belongs to the autonomous flying killing-machine.

What we do know: after the merge, F-22 is at a disadvantage.

The F-22 is a supremely capable dogfighter, so I don't see how it would be at a disadvantage against any opponent. However the chance that both aircraft make it to the merge alive is minimal considering the lethality of today's dogfight missiles like the AIM-9X. In fact it is becoming more and more likely that neither aircraft will survive such an encounter today. I'll just remind you all that the Gulf War was 25 years ago.

I'd suggest a stealth and acm-capable design brief. The question to you: we know, for example, the typical weight penalty for variable geometry. What IS the stealth tradeoff? It looks to use, as a rule, an advantageous strength-to-weight material, at least if the designer is capable of taking advantage of the properties of carbon fiber ( e.g., orthtropicity in pre-preg laminates -you can effectively tailor directional strength and weight optimize)... but the geometry... somehow never looks "optimal" to me -and you know what that guy from Supermarine once said.

I'm asking: why is there an implied tradeoff?

The other question, if the answer to above is, "there isn't one", is, which weight present on F-22 do you leave behind?

The main trade off with stealth is that you have to carry everything inside the structure to remain stealthy. That means an internal weapons bay and massive fuel tanks. That why the F-35 is so fat that it cannot outrun a clean F-18 despite having much more power. The F-22 gets away with it because it is so much bigger that it can better aerodynamically accommodate the weapons bay and fuel.

The downing of the 117 over Serbia shows that its possible to defeat stealth technology.

No. I've read an interview with the Serbian SAM battery commander explaining how they managed to shoot the F-117 down. Either because of sloppiness or operational restrictions the F-117 flew the same flight plan to the target area several days in a row. This allowed the Serbian battery commander to place his missiles directly in the F-117's flight path. The SA-3 is a command guided missile and it has a backup optical tracking system where the crew literally aims and tracks the target manually. The SAM crew got lucky and managed to track the F-117 optically for long enough and manually detonate the missile close enough to fatally damage the F-117. It was a Hail Mary shot.


PJ Godzilla, the rest of your posts I'll just ignore, since they're nothing but flamebait.

[Gman]

Gscholz, you're back!  Glad you returned after that ridiculous moderating.

Mace specifically has said that IRST are a complete crap shoot as the "magic" solution to stealth detection - like looking through a short range toilet paper tube IIRC is what he alluded modern airborne a2a IRST sensors being like, and they give no range value either, so weapon intercepts even if a hostile is detected are a complete and total roll of the dice, usually resulting in wasted missiles.

The F35 had and has its problems, but unless every pilot at Red Flag is lying and following the "party line", it's running rampant on exercises where the former F16/F15E/Hornets/ETC were losing large numbers to red air and red SAM/AAA.   Pretty high availability too.  I hope it's working as well as they're saying, certainly sounds much better than the doom and gloom of the past 5 years or so.

[icepac]

In desert storm...............

722 missions
3000 hours
Fired 152 HARM missiles at radars.
Dropped 1033 tons of bombs.
Delivered 20% of all rockeye cluster munitions.
Mark 82, 83, and 84 bombs.
AGM "walleye" tv bombs
Most loadouts included 2x sidewinders.....just in case.
99.7% mission completion rate
No losses while performing missions deeper into iraq than F18s.

[Karnak]

Honestly, it is time to start working on getting the meat out of the plane.  Having a pilot is a significant cost driver and performance penalty.  And that completely ignores the moral aspect of pilots being killed that don't have to even be in the front lines.

[PJ_Godzilla]

GScholz, let the record show that you have my sincere apology. I have no intention of baiting you and, as stated, value your input, more of which I'd like to get on a couple of specific issues, if you'd be so kind.

To be honest, we disagree on a single matter, but your arguments are plausible and well-constructed and I understand why you take the position you do. I'd argue, in an evolving countermeasure environment, diversification is a wise move. In any case, I play the ball, not the man, and wasn't trying to slag you personally.

[Randall172]

I read that article.  I was not convinced that its author had aircraft design expertise even close to what I read in our AH forums.

"The new plane will be wonderful, and cheap, and fast and maneuverable, and we can build zillions of them!  And it's named the Mustang!"

- oldman

.

[Serenity]

Honestly, it is time to start working on getting the meat out of the plane.  Having a pilot is a significant cost driver and performance penalty.  And that completely ignores the moral aspect of pilots being killed that don't have to even be in the front lines.

Nope. No thanks. Thanks for playing.

[PJ_Godzilla]

Less fun, but he's right. It's inevitable. Machines have higher g limits and don't bleed.