How F-35 is destroying USAF (and other air forces)

F-35 is the latest technological wonder-weapon of United States Air Force. It is advertised as a "do-it-all" LO fighter, which is supposed to carry out a list of diverse missions, such as interception of enemy aircraft, fleet defense, tactical bombing of static targets, close air support, ground interdiction, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, acting as a forward air controller, carrying out SEAD and low-altitude penetration. It is a replacement for Harrier II, F/A-18, AV-8B, Sea Harrier and A-6. It is also pushed as a replacement for F-16 and A-10, despite vastly different roles and requirements.

As with so many "omnipotent" weapons, instead of doing everything equally good, it ended up doing everything equally bad. To explain: every of listed missions has its own set of specific, and often contradictory, requirements.

While Lockheed Martin and USAF are spewing bullshit, F-35's designation as a "Joint Strike Fighter" says it all; it was intended as a bomber and low-altitude penetration and strike aircraft, not as an air superiority fighter. Proof of that can be easily acquired by simply taking a look at F-35 itself: small wing and high wing loading are ideal for low-level penetration, by making aircraft less susceptible to air fluctuations common near the ground. However, fighter aircraft rely on a lift from the wing to turn, using excess thrust to overcome the drag and keep the energy during the turn; thus, good fighter aircraft has to have low wing loading and high thrust-to-weight ratio; exact opposite of what F-35 has.

Close Air Support aircraft has to be heavily armored, slow and armed with cannon in 27-30 mm range, in order to be able to fly close to the ground, identify targets on its own and pull off a precise Close Air Support. While "smart" bombs and missiles are assumed to be perfectly precise, reality is often different - guidance systems are easily jammed, and all complex weapons malfunction often. Thus CAS aircraft has to be able to go low and slow and attack targets with minimum of sensors and communications required. It also has to be able to loiter for a long time, providing continuous support to troops on the ground; with F-35s high fuel consumption, any notion of F-35 doing such thing is a wishful thinking. F-35 also cannot identify targets on its own.

Tactical bomber has to be able to carry relatively large amount of ammunition and strike as many (static) targets as possible. With F-35 being able to carry only four bombs at most, plus two AA missiles, it means that far more F-35s will be required as opposed to F-16s.

Air controller has to have two crew members; F-35 only has one.

Moreover, any aircraft has to be affordable enough to be procured in quantities large enough to carry out missions, at an affordable cost. At procurement costs that might be as high as 352,8 million USD per aircraft (from 2011 cost of 305 million USD per aircraft), and per-aircraft weapons system flyaway cost ranging from 197 to 238 million USD (for comparasion, Eurofighter Typhoon costs 120 million USD w.s. flyaway, and 200 million USD unit procurement), F-35 is anything but affordable. F-35's maintenance cost can be estimated at 48 800 USD per flying hour, going from F-22s maintenance cost of 61 000 USD per flying hour. In short, F-35 costs up to 4 times as much to buy, and over 10 times as much to maintain as F-16.

All of that means that small F-35 force will be completely unable to maintain sufficient presence in the air in face of cheaper, simpler 4th generation aircraft.

F-35 has to rely on unproven dream of BVR combat to shoot down the enemy. BVR missiles did have a Pk of 50 % against "soft" (non-maneuvering, not using ECM) targets in a war where BVR force outnumbered the enemy. However, even in such circumstances, majority of BVR missiles were themselves fired from within visual range. Moreover, emerging technologies, such as air-to-air anti-radiation missile, will make radiating in war even more impractical than it is today; and any aircraft that uses active sensors to find targets is very easy to spot far before it can spot the enemy. Meanwhile, HF and VHF radars - which have already been used to detect aircraft in war (UK's Home Chain in World War II) can as easily detect stealth aircraft, as can increasingly common IRST. Unique radar signal can also be used to solve IFF problem, so important in BVR combat - and enemy using air-to-air anti-radiation missiles can easily force everyone to shut down radars.

In both BVR and WVR, only chance F-35 has is to "launch and run". However, it's maximum speed of Mach 1,6 means that enemy fighters can simply eject BVR missiles, catch up with it and shoot - or gun - it down.

F-35 has also been compromised by different service requirements - for example, Marine's VTOL requirement meant that fighter had to be short and fat, increasing drag. In the end, despite all compromises and accomodating performance penalties, three F-35 variants share only 30% of all parts. And much like F-111, F-35 can only serve as a bombing truck, being too underperforming and too vulnerable in any other role. Both aircraft are extremely flammable and have heavy lack of maneuverability, making them vulnerable to anti-aircraft artillery and SAMs. As a result, both can only fly bombing missions in low-threat areas.

F-35, like F-22, is limited to highly-visible, very vulnerable concrete air fields. Due to extremely hot and strong engine exhaust, STOVL/VTOL variant may never be able to fly from amphibious landing ships without destroying deck in the process.

It seems that realities outlined are being realized: UK may halve its F-35 buy, and other countries, such as Australia, Canada and Norway, are also looking for alternatives, despite all the PR, spin-doctoring, diplomatic threats and bribes Lockheed Martin has used to secure foreign sales. US Navy is also thinking about backing from the program.

My view of Saab Gripen G

How Typhoon sees F22

Air Force Forum

Just a forum I started:

http://airforce.forumhr.com/

It is a forum for discussion about any military aviation topics.

Articles about Typhoon's engagements against F22

Typhoon has whacked F22 in numerous exercises; here is collection of relevant articles about it:

internatinal AIR POWER REVIEW" - year 2006, issue 20, page 45. - ISNB: 1-880588-91-9 (casebound) or ISBN: 1473-9917


More recently, there have been repeated reports that two RAF Typhoons deployed to the USA for OEU trails work have been flying against the F-22 at NAS China Lake, and have peformed better than was expected. There was little suprise that Typhoon, with its world-class agility and high off-boresight missile capability was able to dominate "Within Visual Range" flight, but the aircraft did cause a suprise by getting a radar lock on the F22 at a suprisingly long range. The F-22s cried off, claiming that they were "unstealthed" anyway, although the next day´s scheduled two vs. two BWR engagement was canceled, and "the USAF decided they didn´t want to play any more .

- When this incident was reported on a website frequented by front-line RAF aircrew a senior RAF officer urged an end to the converstaion on security grounds

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1818077.stm


The US Air Force has already begun to take delivery of another superjet, the F-22 Raptor. This is very stealthy but costs twice the price of the Eurofighter, and reports suggest that RAF's Eurofighters have flown highly successful missions against the F-22 during recent exercises in the US.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/09/12/2932307.htm

The RAF's 17 Sqn OEU has routinely deployed two aircraft and around 30 personnel to the USA to operate alongside US fighters including the Lockheed MartinF-22A Raptor. "The vast majority of this work is about making sure that the integration of the two platforms is working," says Walker. Asked how the fighters compare, he says: "If you want to say that stealth is a determining factor then Typhoon stands second to the F-22. But I think that as we do more work, the Typhoon will more than hold its own. It's the balance of how you use it, rather than what it is."BAE Typhoon project test pilot Mark Bowman sees even less of a capability gap. "The F-22 is three times the cost, but you would struggle to see any advantage in the cockpit design - the cost is there to maintain stealth," he says. "Typhoon is most likely equivalent, if not better.

http://news.yahoo.com/f-22-fighter-loses-79-billion-advantage-dogfights-201119575--abc-news-topstories.html

However, a new report from Combat Aircraft Monthly revealed that in a handful of missions designed to test the F-22 in a very specific situation - close-range, one-on-one combat - the jet appeared to lose its pricey advantages over a friendly rival, the Eurofighter Typhoon, flown in this case by German airmen.

"We expected to perform less with the Eurofighter but we didn't," German air officer Marc Grune said, according to Combat Aircraft Monthly. "We were evenly matched. They didn't expect us to turn so aggressively."

(...)

"But as soon as you get to the merge…" Pfeiffer said, referring to the point at which fighters engage in close-up dog fighting, "in that area, at least, the Typhoon doesn't necessarily have to fear the F-22 in all aspects… In the dogfight the Eurofighter is at least as capable as the F-22, with advantages in some aspects."

http://theaviationist.com/2012/07/13/fia12-typhoon-raptor/

Indeed, Typhoon pilots at Farnborough said that, when flying without their external fuel tanks, in the WVR (Within Visual Range) arena, the Eurofighter not only held its own, but proved to be better than the Raptor.

Indeed, it looks like the F-22 tends to lose too much energy when using thrust vectoring (TV): TV can be useful to enable a rapid direction change without losing sight of the adversary but, unless the Raptor can manage to immediately get in the proper position to score a kill, the energy it loses makes the then slow moving stealth combat plane quite vulnerable.

(...)

However, not all the modern and future scenarios envisage BVR (Beyond Visual Range) engagements and the risk of coming to close range 1 vs 1 (or 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 etc) is still high, especially considered that the F-22 currently uses AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, whose maximum range is around 100 km (below the Meteor missile used by the Typhoon).

Moreover, at a distance of about 50 km the Typhoon IRST (Infra-Red Search and Track) system is capable to find even a stealthy plane “especially if it is large and hot, like the F-22″ a Eurofighter pilot said.

Anyway, the Typhoons scored several Raptor kills during the Red Flag Alaska. On one day a German pilot, recounting a succesfull mission ironically commented: “yesterday, we have had a Raptor salad for lunch.”

Air Forces Monthly - January 2007

The MoD said it would not be putting Typhoons up against the Indian Airforce Su-30s as a one on one fight. However, it did happen and there is HUD video to prove it. Apparently two inexperienced Typhoon pilots returned with big grins on their faces, the Su-30s were toasted, all the Su-30's air display antics amounted to nothing, the Typhoons proved too nimble and too powerful for the Russian aircraft. The Typhoons were also not clean configured.

During the Typhoon's visit to the US in 2005 it was pitted againt the F-22, this was not officially confirmed. The Typhoon could not see the F-22 but could detect that it was being painted by the F-22 and took "appropriate" measures with defensive aids. In one on one combat the Typhoon did the same job as on the Su-30, the F-22 could not handle the Typhoons close in and were shocked. It did not go all the Typhoon's way but the Americans had a sobering encounter, with the F-22 sacrificing much for stealth

Thrust Vectoring explanation and animation

Many people tout thrust vectoring as automatic "I win in a dogfight" button for any aircraft equipped with it. But reality about it is far more complex than that.

In reality, thrust vectoring is only useful for supersonic and low-speed subsonic maneuvers, but for similar reason - ineffectiveness of control surfaces.

SUPERSONIC FLIGHT AND MANEUVERING

In supersonic flight, aircraft becomes stable; moreover, classic tail control surfaces loose effectiveness in that area due to interaction with wing. There are solutions, however - delta wing, canards and thrust vectoring.

With delta wing, control surfaces are at wing itself, meaning that air will reach at least part of control surfaces. 

Close-coupled canards help energize the wing, allowing for better lift at high AoA; moreover, flow remains connected to wing for longer, allowing it to reach control surfaces at end of the wing (similar but weaker effect can be achieved via LERX).

Long-arm canards are positioned in front and above of the wing; thus, there is no interaction with wing, allowing them to remain effective at any speed.

Thrust vectoring helps alleviate problem of tail ineffectiveness for tailed fighter aircraft, thus improving maneuverability. Another benefit, which applies to all configurations, is allowance for better positioning of aircraft relative to airflow during normal flight, thus lowering fuel consumption.

LOW SPEED MANEUVERS

At low speeds, below 150 knots, control surfaces are not very effective due to air flow over them being insufficinetly fast. Moreover, aircraft does not have large inertia, allowing for fast changes of direction.

In high subsonic flight, however, we get following situation:

At these speeds, TVC-equipped aircraft (lower one in animation) actually turns at same rate as non-TVC aircraft; however, TVC increases angle between aircraft and air flow around it (Angle of Attack, abbreviated AoA), resulting in increase in drag for no decrease in diameter of turn (that is, maneuverability), resulting in increased energy loss during maneuvers, leaving aircraft more and more vulnerable to missiles and gunfire as fight drags on. In short, aircraft does not fly in direction its nose is pointing at.

That is problematic because most combat happens at high subsonic / transonic speeds; even if combat starts at supersonic speeds, energy loss will cause aircraft to slow down to subsinic speed after not much time. At the other end of spectrum - low subsonic speeds - aircraft does not have energy required to evade missiles, leaving it vulnerable.

Another danger happens at turn onset - when TVC engages, aircraft using it rotates in air, rear end of aircraft drops, and aircraft itself sinks in air, resulting in huge energy loss, which can be exploited by skillfull pilot. Post-stall maneuvers - one of main "benefits" of thrust vectoring - are useless for exactly that reason.

Saab Gripen NG

I have recently contacted SAAB about Gripen NG and changes it will have when compared to earlier versions of Gripen (A, B, C, D - Gripen NG encompasses versions E and F).

I got following answers:

1) Gripen NG will be equipped with imaging IRST (imaging IRST works similar to IR camera and can create video image from IR radiation it receives). It will be forward-looking only (FLIR).

2) Airframe will be increased in size, and wingspan will also increase. Wing area will increase, so wing loading, while slightly higher than for C/D models, will still be low.

3) Cockpit will not be changed; rearward visibility will be facilitated by mirrors.