The F35 will be cancelled before 500 planes are made (prediction by Pierre Sprey)

[BoQ77]

 

[BoQ77]

First Japanese-built F-35 Begins Assembly
the beat goes on.

Welcome to the third episode of F-35: Busting Myths

In this episode, we will be differing in format from the previous two videos and instead be discussing what it means to be a 5th generation fighter, how the F-35 is designed to operate, what it’s capabilities are, and how it fits into the strategic picture for the United States and partner nations.

This year, a number of articles and comments have arisen, questioning the F-35’s fighting capabilities. One article in particular which entered the spotlight, and is repeatedly cited on the internet, focuses on a leaked Lockheed Martin test pilot report, in which an F-35A was supposedly defeated by a 1970s era F-16. In the report and as many have selectively quoted, the F-35 was reported as having “remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement”, even while the F-16 carried external fuel tanks. Despite these condemning words, these articles only tell a fraction of the full story; detailed within the actual report.

Put in layman’s terms: “It was not supposed to be ‘let’s see who wins’; it was a test designed to test the command laws on our airplane, so…”

To be specific, the report states that “the test was designed to stress the high angle of attack control laws, during operationally representative manoeuvres, utilising elevated angles of attack and aggressive stick / pedal inputs.” What the pilot found however, was that the software that has been designed to prevent the aircraft from departing flight (which can be devastating at low altitudes) and automatically get the pilot out of those situations, was seen as overpowered; having significantly more control authority than the pilot and requiring it’s parameters to be tuned down.

To provide an example quote from the test pilot:

“A full rudder input had no result initially, but after a few seconds the jet began to manoeuvre simultaneously to the command being abandoned and replaced with stick input. Once the delayed resulted appeared from the initial rudder input, the rudder was promptly re-input to encourage the aircraft to continue. A fantastic yaw rate followed, only to be spoiled by the anti-spin logic. The anti-spin logic was surprisingly pronounced. As has been experienced on other high AOA missions, there is ample control authority for arresting yaw rate. Whereas rudder inputs often feel sluggish, gradual or delayed, the anti-spin logic is immediate, abrupt and forceful.”

As is evident, the flight control laws needed improvements and tuning to reach the ideal mix of safety and control authority. While the current status of this progress is not public, these tests occurred in January 2015, suggesting that more recent trials would give improved results. As for the energy deficiency mentioned previously; this ultimately comes down to two things:

The first, is simply that the F-35 is not designed to be a super manoeuvrable aircraft, whereas the F-16 was designed from the start to be a very lightweight dogfighting aircraft. Specifically, the original Joint Strike Fighter requirements called for kinematic “capabilities comparable to current multirole fighters such as F-16 and F-18”. As the F-35 has been previously stated as having similar or greater energy manoeuvrability than the F/A-18 Hornet, it still fits its original requirement.

The second reason comes down to some basic principles of flight, and how the software limiters mentioned previously interact with these regions of flight. As stated before, the F-35’s flight controls were artificially limited to provide additional safety to the pilot. The way that this manifests itself is through software limiters, which prevent the pilot from turning at more than a certain rate. When any aircraft goes into high alpha, the pilot gains an opportunity to turn in a tighter radius and essentially shoot across the enemy’s turning circle, which if used properly, can be used to kill a lighter opponent with more powerful engines. However, when an aircraft does this, it loses energy rapidly, regardless of whether it’s an F-35, F-16, Su-35 or F-22. The more time that is spend getting into, staying in, and getting out of a high alpha state, the more energy an aircraft loses. With artificially limited pitch rates, the F-35 was becoming energy deficient, because it was wasting time getting in, and out of high angles of attack.

It’s also worth mentioning that the reason that the F-16D carried external fuel tanks was not to try and give the F-35 an advantage, but rather, it was fitted with them, simply so that the F-16 could stay in the air long enough to conduct the test. Without them, an F-16 will burn through half of its fuel tank after just a couple of minutes of using its afterburner in aerial combat. When an F-16 is loaded with enough fuel to fly as far as an F-35, or is carrying as many weapons as the F-35 can carry internally, it becomes inferior to the F-35. But if the F-35 isn’t going to be a better dogfighter than an F-16, let alone a thrust-vectoring Su-35 or other fighter, how is it meant to become the primary fighter of the United States and many other nations? When you ask a typical person what air combat looks like, they often envision something like, or this, or this. While classic short range dogfights can always potentially happen in warfare, they’re statistically quite rare. Specifically, data gathered by the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments shows a steady climb in missile kills throughout the years.

In the late 1960s, dogfighting and gun combat reigned supreme. Into the 1970s however, gun combat began to fade, with early rear-aspect missiles becoming the primary means. These missiles were only effective at engaging enemies from behind, as their infrared seeker could only reliably lock onto a hot jet exhaust. In the 1980s, technology continued to advance and infrared seekers became more capable at locking onto aircraft from any angle, meaning that missile kills could be achieved prior to aircraft merging and entering a classic dogfight. At the same time, radar-guided missiles became cheaper and more capable, resulting in approximately 30% of all air-to-air kills. Into the 1990s and early 2000s, as command, and control, and communications have improved, radar-guided beyond visual range missiles have moved to now take up nearly half of all air-to-air kills, infrared guided missiles have taken up more than a third and gun combat has resulted in fewer kills than miscellaneous other methods.

Another key factor that has been observed in the past few decades is that many pilots that get shot down are actually unaware of the attack until they’re struck. In the 1970s, when gun combat and rear-aspect missiles still reigned supreme, the US Air Force identified that out of 112 air-to-air engagements sampled, 80% of aircrew were unaware of the impending attack. While the CSBA’s report is quite recent, this data is not new and has been a driving factor behind the design of the F-22 and F-35.

Overall, the biggest change that this data has driven is a turn from the still relevant, but old adage, of, “speed is life, more is better”, to, “information is life, more is better”. What this means, is that whereas previous fighter generations aimed primarily to improve the kinematic performance of aircraft, fighters like the F-22 and F-35 have had much of their development focused on developing new and better ways to collect information; using sensors, either built into the aircraft, or via networked sensors in the air, sea or space, and then sorting, filtering and collaborating that information to figure out exactly where their enemies are, what those enemies are doing and what are they capable of. This is all aimed at taking that 80% figure mentioned previously, and reducing it to as close as possible to zero, as being able to turn on a dime doesn’t mean much if you’re not aware of your enemy in the first place. In the words of Lieutenant Colonel David ‘Chip’ Berke, former Hornet and F-22 pilot, and now an F-35 pilot:

"The F-22 is the fastest, the most powerful fighter ever built. The least impressive thing about the Raptor is how fast it is, and it is really fast. The least impressive thing about the Raptor is its speed and maneuverability."

To elaborate, when F-22s go to events such as Exercise Red Flag, and accrue kill to loss ratios of 241 to 2, or go to Exercise Northern Edge and rack up 144 kills for no losses, they do so often without their opponent ever knowing they were being targeted.

To quote the former Australian Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Geoff Brown, who has previously flown F-15 aggressors against F-22s in Red Flag:

"We were never in a situation where we saw them at any time on radar or infrared, We never knew where they were or where we were killed from, so we had no situational awareness. Then to go back and look at the situational awareness the F-22 had, it was quite a dramatic difference. It the same sort of technology we’re getting but a little bit more advanced in some respects with the F-35."

What Air Marshal Brown was referring to, is the fact that the F-35 is fitted with the most comprehensive suite of sensors, communications equipment and pilot interface systems ever put onto a fighter.

Not only does it feature the most advanced fighter radar developed by the United States; derived and improved upon from the F-22’s radar,
but it also is fitted with 7 infrared cameras; 6 of which stare in all directions to detect incoming missiles, as well as detect and track air, land and sea targets.

The 7th, which is designed to telescopically zoom in on targets, allows the F-35 to identify targets at long range, without emitting anything, and even obtain a visual ID, at beyond visual range distances.

The F-35 is also fitted with a set of antennas, embedded within the wings and surfaces of the jet, which allows it to detect and also locate the source of enemy radar emissions and communications signals, again while remaining passive.

Combining all of those sensors is then a layer of computers, which constantly watch all of these streams of information, and then automatically scan for objects which may be of interest.

By merging or, fusing, the data gathered by these sensors, the F-35 is then able to build a list of over 600 parameters which describe the object it’s looking at. By comparison, an F-22 is capable of gathering over 200 parameters, and a legacy 4th generation fighter can only gather less than a dozen.

By comparing these hundreds of parameters against a threat library, built from decades of intelligence gathering, the F-35 can then positively identify friends from foes, and send this data, as well as data on any unknown contacts, via the F-35’s new multifunction advanced data link, which has a longer range than conventional data links, is multiple orders of magnitude faster, and is also highly directional, meaning that it’s very difficult to detect or intercept the data if you’re not the intended recipient.

This data, produced by your sensors or someone else’s can then either be displayed upon the F-35’s panoramic multifunction display, which allows for the pilot to rapidly change their displays to suit the situation; or it can be displayed on the pilot’s helmet mounted display system, which projects a 40 by 30 degree display; the rough equivalent of a 32-inch television at 1 meter’s distance.

This helmet mounted display allows the pilot to see what the F-35 sees, via augmented reality, through both conventional symbology, as well as real-time video and other imagery. So whereas a legacy 4th generation aircraft requires a pilot to look through their small heads up display, or temporarily look down at small displays to view their sensor feeds, the F-35’s pilot can look out of his cockpit, or through it, and see information represented in the real world.

Once the F-35 pilot has seen this sensor-fused information, they’re given a significantly longer time to complete their decision process, partly by having a more complete picture and partly because their stealth gives the adversary less of an understanding of what the 5th generation fighters are up to, if they’re even aware of their presence at all.

This advantage not only allows F-35 forces to use new tactics, like bypass defenses, sneak up on enemies, set up aerial ambushes, etc.; but it also allows the F-35 to act not just as a tactical fighter like previous fighters, but to purposefully and positively impact the theatre at an operational and strategic level. Now, one fighter can near-instantaneously inform dozens or hundreds of allied fighters about incoming enemies, or alert all those aircraft to a pop-up surface to air missile threat, or provide targeting solutions to 4th generation fighters who can’t afford to get closer to an advanced threat. It also extends to land and sea as well, as an F-35 can communicate directly to ground forces, naval vessels and satellites linking back to command centers in the theatre, or on the other side of the world.

Ground forces can be given real time information about who’s on the other side of a hill, or the F-35 can track down the location of enemy mortar fire, or it can be the connecting node in a damaged communications network.

Naval forces can benefit from the F-35 providing terminal targeting information to cruise missiles, launched from destroyers, as well as providing battle damage assessment, and also ISR on unknown contacts, even tracking enemy missiles to assist in their interception.

This ability to enhance the capabilities of other platforms is also a two-way street, meaning that if an F-35 gets itself into a position where it is being engaged, but has run out of weapons, it can call for missiles to be launched from other platforms, whether they be F-35s, 4th generation fighters or naval vessels. Cooperating F-35s can also enhance their electronic capabilities, in both jamming enemies and in being able to achieve stealthy, more accurate targeting of enemies.

Lastly, looking into the future, the F-35 has a key strength of having high plasticity. What this means is that as new technologies emerge, the F-35 will be well equipped to either counter or integrate with them. This is due to the manner in which the F-35 is built; already being fit with multi-spectral sensors, software defined radios, a digital cockpit and other systems, which for example, means that as technologies such as unmanned combat aircraft take to the skies, the F-35 will be readily suited to take on the role of an unmanned combat air vehicle flight commander, providing a local and difficult to jam form of command and control.

The sheer scale of the F-35 fleet also presents a significant market share for companies to try and have their new products integrated with. Even before the US Marine Core announced IOC earlier this year, Northrop Grumman had been offering stealthy directed IR laser countermeasure turrets, while an unnamed company is currently working on a stealthy cyber warfare pod, and Lockheed Martin has recently offered an upgrade to the EOTS sensor. General Electric, and Pratt and Whitney are competing for an engine in the 2020s, and there are even new missiles being developed specifically to maximize the F-35’s internal carriage.

What upgrades are implemented will depend on the priorities set out in the coming years, and the budgeting provided, but regardless, these developments mean that the F-35 has a strong future ahead of it, and will have a powerful capability to counter new threats into the future.

 

[mil-avia]

F-35 : "affordability is no longer embraced as a core pillar"

 

[Penguin]

F-35 : "affordability is no longer embraced as a core pillar"

Poor link: No destination

 

[mil-avia]

Affordability Still A Major Issue for the F-35 Program

 

[mil-avia]

More Bad News For Lockheed Martin: The U.S. Air Force Just Isn't Into The F-35

 

[anon45]

More Bad News For Lockheed Martin: The U.S. Air Force Just Isn't Into The F-35

Debunked. USAF denies seeking more F-16 or F-15 combat jets

Also dont know if this is a bot or not but it (you?) should post actual links instead of pastebin crap.

 

[mil-avia]

F-35 and military spending

 

[mil-avia]

The F-35 Can’t Use Its Bombs, Either

 

[mil-avia]

Air Force's Budget Shortfall to Confront Next U.S. President

 

[mil-avia]

CRS on Air Force aviation modernization programs

 

[mil-avia]

Federal Researchers Say Air Force May Have to Cut Back On F-35s

 

[mil-avia]

Air Force May Be Forced To ‘Defer Or Delay’ F-35, KC-Y; New Fund For LRSB?

 

[Penguin]

Final FY 2016 Spending Bill Released; Funds Super Hornets, Growlers, Additional F-35s

 

[mil-avia]

Of Tail Fins and Fighter Jets: Artificial Obsolescence and Economic Bankruptcy (Updated)