F35 debate thread- enter at your own risk.

[djcross]

The graphite epoxy and steel materials used to make propellers is not RF transparent. Only thin fiberglass laminates, such as those used for radomes, are RF transparent. Fiberglass does not have the structural strength to be used in a propeller.

[swerve]

Lol... no aircraft is invisible to the human eye nor have noise cancellation....

The F-117 only flew over Serbia at night, & IIRC high enough that it wouldn't be exactly deafening people on the ground. It wouldn't have been tracked by eye or noise. Detected, maybe - but that's not the same thing.

[moon_light]

The F-117 only flew over Serbia at night, & IIRC high enough that it wouldn't be exactly deafening people on the ground. It wouldn't have been tracked by eye or noise. Detected, maybe - but that's not the same thing.

f-117 actually often fly at altitude just over 500 meters and do like 3000-4000 routes so people know there is something fly over their place , as they didnot detect it on radar , they know that a stealth aircraft and prepare for ambush

[Mildave]

Lol... no aircraft is invisible to the human eye nor have noise cancellation.... Its sooo ridiculous how everybody on this forum seems to try their best no matter how silly it sounds to discredit the idea of stealth and its benefits. It is a game changer and the F117 was extremely successful in what it was able to accomplish....

I don't think anybody is seriously saying LO is something to be dismissed, at least no countries building aircraft today are saying so, and a simple look at US, Russian, Chinese and European projets is enough to convince anyone.

Same, nobody is arguing that the jet engine wasn't a revolution, but the first jet aircraft were still getting shot by propeller aircraft, and weren't able to change WWII due to be too complex, too expansive and very limited in operational use.

The problem with stealth is that it may have been a revolution when first introduced with the F117 which was a complete surprise over Bagdad which explain its success, but because of the speed at which counter measures are being developped and the speed at which electronics evolve, stealth is no longer today a guarantee of repeating Bagdad anywhere over a modern air defence network.

Serbia showed that a enemy which isn't very high tech can ambush a stealth aircraft if he's looking for it, and so I'm sure a country with the money and technical capabilities can do much better.

So since we're no longer talking about the invulnerability of LO aircraft, the question is given their cost, are they effective platform to risk in a conflict if you know that you enemy can kill you using much cheaper platform?
How close can you get from your enemy before being detected and how effective can you be against it?

Now given the F-22 record, and trend, and given the fact the F-35 is showing little improvement, can you rely in 2025 on a fleet of aircraft that must be grounded every two or three months due to unexplained troubles?

Can you rely on a aircraft that you must keep lowering the standard for it to be accepted into service?

War is about reliability and so far the F-117, B-2, F-22 and F-35 family have showed a lot of things but that is not one of them.
LM hasn't proved to this day that they have found a successful way of reducing maintenance cost, troubles etc. on LO aircraft. Yes they've done a lot of progress, but is it enough to allow a air force to rely completely on stealth aircraft?

Well the answer of the USAF to that answer is to upgrade its fleet of 4th gen aircraft to last well beyond 2030, and my guess is that so called 5th gen still have a way to go especially with the fact that most sensors can be successfuly used by 4th gen platform with great effect and lower cost.

It has already happened in the naval sector, it'll probably happen with the aviation at some point. Gouvernments and the US first will sooner or later realize they can't afford the constantly increasing costs to acquire expansive material when you can do the same job with cheaper platform. I beleive the F-22/F-35 fiascos will lead most gouvernments to consider less advanced aircraft that are good for the job rather than develop new aircraft which are simply too complex and too advanced to be used in war.

[djcross]

Capability brings complexity.

For example, the politician will not care that your Gen 4 jets got mission killed by Iranian Pantsyrs before they could stop the Shahab missiles raining down on his cities. He wants the Shahabs stopped. Now.

This is not an easy scenario because you have to stop the Shahabs quickly. You do not have time to roll back the Iranian air defenses, then locate the Shahab TELs. The Iranians would have launched all their missiles and your cities would be ruins before the roll back was complete. And it takes a sophisticated sensor suite backed with high end processing to find Shahab TELs using CCD techniques.

Of course, you could pull a Chamberlain and declare "Peace is at hand" and ignore the scenario.

[Speedy]

Is it possible that the F-117 that was shot down had an increased RCS from an undercarriage door misalignment, perhaps from a bird strike at take-off?

[SpudmanWP]

The F-117 was shot down at 13km... Nobody has ever claimed that ANY VLO asset can survive at that close of a range to the SAM unit.

http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/20...shootdown.html

Over and above a VLO airframe, the key to survival is Situational Awareness, the ability to share that info freely with the rest of your assets, and the ability to take advantage of new info as it arrives.

The F-35 has all of that in spades.

[Peregrinefalcon]

.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/20...shootdown.html

Not the most representative article. . .there were no modifications on radars. They operated on standard S-125M Neva with their wavelengths remaining unchanged.

[MSphere]

Is it possible that the F-117 that was shot down had an increased RCS from an undercarriage door misalignment, perhaps from a bird strike at take-off?

A question like that makes no sense. Even if there was some door misalignment during the mission, there is no way anyone, not even the pilot of the aircraft, would know about it, let alone be able to prove it.

[SpudmanWP]

Not the most representative article. . .there were no modifications on radars. They operated on standard S-125M Neva with their wavelengths remaining unchanged.

My point was the engagement range, not the systems involved. 13km is insanely close.

[TooCool_12f]

f-117 actually often fly at altitude just over 500 meters and do like 3000-4000 routes so people know there is something fly over their place , as they didnot detect it on radar , they know that a stealth aircraft and prepare for ambush

er... 500m?

should they try to go from italy to serbia at such low level and back, they'd probably run out of fuel long before returning home (not to speak about the mountains it would crash into on its way in or out)

besides, what would be the point in f-117 shaping if it flew at such low level?

talking about baghdad, I remember a report for the US congress stating that jamming over baghdad was so intense from the very begginning that a 747 could probably have overflown it without being seen... probably somewhat caricatural, but it illustrated the point that stealth doesn't mean invisible...

[moon_light]

er... 500m?

should they try to go from italy to serbia at such low level and back, they'd probably run out of fuel long before returning home (not to speak about the mountains it would crash into on its way in or out)

besides, what would be the point in f-117 shaping if it flew at such low level?

talking about baghdad, I remember a report for the US congress stating that jamming over baghdad was so intense from the very begginning that a 747 could probably have overflown it without being seen... probably somewhat caricatural, but it illustrated the point that stealth doesn't mean invisible...

no in Yugoslavia war the weather was so bad that most aircraft have to fly low in order to see target by FLIR , especially F-117
the jamming can be high intense at one point but you couldn't keep it at the same level for the whole war period , and no one say stealth is invisible but it help aircraft to detect and attack enemy target before enemy can do the same to it

[swerve]

f-117 actually often fly at altitude just over 500 meters and do like 3000-4000 routes so people know there is something fly over their place , as they didnot detect it on radar , they know that a stealth aircraft and prepare for ambush

3000-4000? Where did you pluck that number from? There are too many zeroes in it. The total number of NATO strike sorties flown was 10484. You're saying that 30-40% of them were F-117 flights along one route. That's silly.

As has already been said, there wouldn't have been any point in putting all that effort into designing F-117 if it was meant to fly low all the way. Stealth is supposed to get aircraft out of the trashfire zone.

There's no reason to disbelieve the essential elements of the official stories in this case. The Serbian & US versions differ, but IMO the discrepancies aren't significant. The USAF used predictable routes & didn't very the times. The Serbians could therefore lay ambushes. One worked. Good work by the Serbians, made possible by USAF complacency. Lesson: never underestimate the opposition.

[TooCool_12f]

no in Yugoslavia war the weather was so bad that most aircraft have to fly low in order to see target by FLIR , especially F-117
the jamming can be high intense at one point but you couldn't keep it at the same level for the whole war period , and no one say stealth is invisible but it help aircraft to detect and attack enemy target before enemy can do the same to it

you obviously have no clue what it means flying at 1500ft in a war zone... the F-117 had no radar to avoid ground, flew at night (meaning, couldn't see much ahead of it) so it would most certainly end hitting some mountain and dropping ordnance from 1500ft is pretty much the best way to get shot to pieces regardless of what aircraft you fly... at night and so low, even the crudest IR-guided manpad would be able to track it and hit it

[Peregrinefalcon]

My point was the engagement range, not the systems involved. 13km is insanely close.

There is nothing insane about that range. The plane was tracked from much greater distance and because they had to turn on/off the acquisition radar for only 25 sec there is not much opportunity for the crew to take the shot. You have to work like crazy to do that. And they managed to do that on few occasions and they also managed to avoid being hit for more than 20 times through the course of war.
The point is, plane was shot down trying to penetrate the enemy air space. It doesn`t matter if he was shot from 13km with S-125 Neva or from 4km with 9K38 Igla. Downed F-16 was hit at similar range like F-117, but does that prove that F-16 is VLO plane?. No, we had more than 30 year old tech and that is the best you can do with that under overwhelming circumstances.

[Peregrinefalcon]

no in Yugoslavia war the weather was so bad that most aircraft have to fly low in order to see target by FLIR , especially F-117
the jamming can be high intense at one point but you couldn't keep it at the same level for the whole war period , and no one say stealth is invisible but it help aircraft to detect and attack enemy target before enemy can do the same to it

I remember, the days and nights were so bright for the most of the time that I could clearly see the type of the plane flying above my head, or you could see exhaust plume at night. I think that they also had no problems seeing things on the ground, if they could locate them. We had, for example, bunch of 2K12 Kub`s standing alongside the public road near the trees for few days without any camouflage and F-16 flying above us regularly, yet they were unable to detect SAM`s. And it was nice and sunny

[snafu352]

.

Well said.

[TooCool_12f]

I remember, the days and nights were so bright for the most of the time that I could clearly see the type of the plane flying above my head, or you could see exhaust plume at night. I think that they also had no problems seeing things on the ground, if they could locate them. We had, for example, bunch of 2K12 Kub`s standing alongside the public road near the trees for few days without any camouflage and F-16 flying above us regularly, yet they were unable to detect SAM`s. And it was nice and sunny

they probably saw them:

- hey, SAMs @ 2 o'clock!

- naah, too visible, they are obviously decoys, forget about them...

[Mercurius]

We had, for example, bunch of 2K12 Kub`s standing alongside the public road near the trees for few days without any camouflage and F-16 flying above us regularly, yet they were unable to detect SAM`s. And it was nice and sunny

Locating a SAM unit is not as easy as the layman would think. Some time in the 1970s, what was then BAC used to show an aerial recce photograph of a white-painted Rapier fire unit parked in the middle of a field as evidence of how hard it was for aircrew to spot a Rapier system. Tasked with finding the Rapier unit and knowing its approximate location, the pilot had flown into the system’s coverage several times without spotting it.

[SpudmanWP]

There is nothing insane about that range. The plane was tracked from much greater distance and because they had to turn on/off the acquisition radar for only 25 sec there is not much opportunity for the crew to take the shot.

To reinforce my point, 13km is close because many have said have pointed to the downing of the F-117 as a reason not to buy the F-35. I was trying to show that flying directly over the head of a SAM unit can be lethal for any plane, be it F-16, F-15, B-2, F-117, F-22, or F-35. Even with such close distances involved, the first SAM failed to detonate and only the second one hit.

More to the point that I have made here and elsewhere, situational awareness is the most important survival tool for a penetrating fighter. The article talks about scanning for up to 25 seconds on several occasions trying to get a lock on the F-117. If the F-117 had the appropriate RWR he would have changed his route and avoided the SAM unit. He did not, could not, and therefore he paid the price.

The F-35 (and most modern fighters) do not have this limitation. The tactics that downed the F-117 will not work on the F-35. Not only will an F-35 detect and geo-locate an emitter, it will share this info with everyone else.

Before you say "If SA is so important and other fighters have it, why buy the F-35", it's VLO airframe makes the detection and engagement bubbles of SAM units much smaller than vs non-VLO airframes.

[snafu352]

In addition to the sustainment costs question it now appears that the defence budget is about to take a substantal hit.

How many "price reducing" thousands of F35's are you willing to bet on now?

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.as...3-d366d652d467

[obligatory]

There has been a leader deficit in US ever since Clinton left,
none has the guts to balance budget.
Hope Walker takes over next time

[LowObservable]

Spud - Not only will an F-35 detect and geo-locate an emitter, it will share this info with everyone else.

Really? How? MADL talks only to other F-35s and MADL for B-2/F-22 has been kicked into the far future. There is no other LPI/LPD transmit link on board. Objective Gateway was supposed to do this job but is nowhere in sight.

[SpudmanWP]

There are several ways that an F-35 can get data to the rest of the non F-35 network.

1. MADL to an F-35 outside the danger zone and that F-35 relays it via Link-16 (can do now)
2. RCDL (Radar Common Data Link) for the APG-81 (later upgrade)
2. SATCOM (Block 4 upgrade)
3. Gateways (either airborne, ground based, or ship based - can do now if resource available)

[hopsalot]

In addition to the sustainment costs question it now appears that the defence budget is about to take a substantal hit.

How many "price reducing" thousands of F35's are you willing to bet on now?

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.as...3-d366d652d467

No good news for F-35 haters here... the F-35 is already funded.

(Nov 29 2012) The $500 billion in cuts to the defense budget stipulated by sequestration played a major role in motivating Pentagon and Lockheed Martin leaders to reach a deal for lots five and six before the end of 2012. Congress has until Jan. 2 to reach a deficit reduction deal or the sequestration cuts found in the Budget Control Act will be enacted. Those cuts include an across-the-board 10 percent cut to planned defense spending over the next decade.

However, the sequester cuts can’t touch previously obligated funds. If Lockheed and the Pentagon can agree to contracts for lots five and six, they could insulate funding for the 64 new Joint Strike Fighters in those production lots.

“I think it’s in all of our interests, the company’s as well as the government’s, to get that next tranche of funding for lot six in place before the end of the calendar year. And as I said here today I’m pretty confident that’s going to occur,” said Bruce Tanner, Lockheed Martin’s chief financial officer, who spoke with Hewson and Stevens at the Credit Suisse conference.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/11/29/se...-negotiations/

Then a few weeks later:

Lockheed Martin Awarded $4.8 Billion for F-35 Work: Lockheed Martin last week received $4.8 billion in undefinitized modifications to the previously awarded advance acquisition contract supporting the F-35 strike fighter's sixth low-rate initial production lot for 31 aircraft. The first agreement provides $3.678 billion for the procurement of 18 Air Force F-35A airplanes, six Marine Corps F-35Bs, and seven Navy F-35Cs, along with associated ancillary mission equipment, according to the Defense Department's list of major contracts for Dec. 28.

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/DRA...rF-35Work.aspx

LRIP-4 aircraft are currently coming off the line. LRIP-5 will start coming off soon... LRIP-6 is for next year.

[hopsalot]

There are several ways that an F-35 can get data to the rest of the non F-35 network.

1. MADL to an F-35 outside the danger zone and that F-35 relays it via Link-16 (can do now)
2. RCDL (Radar Common Data Link) for the APG-81 (later upgrade)
2. SATCOM (Block 4 upgrade)
3. Gateways (either airborne, ground based, or ship based - can do now if resource available)

Point Spudman


Lets also not forget that legacy aircraft are restricted to Link-16, which the F-35 fully supports.

Anywhere a 4th generation jet can go an F-35 can go. Anywhere a 4th generation jet can datalink, an F-35 can datalink. (With link-16)

The F-35 can of course also go places the 4th generation jets can't. It can also use its improved, jam resistant, LPI, datalink from places they can't go...

There really isn't any way to play this as a negative for the F-35. :diablo:

[Mildave]

No good news for F-35 haters here... the F-35 is already funded.

From the articles you quoted yourself, only 64 F-35 have been funded so far?! I don't really see how you can translate that into the entire F-35 program being funded especially when nobody knows yet how much it'll really cost...

Latest F-35 Unit Costs Now Exceed $223 million

[djcross]

Lets also not forget that legacy aircraft are restricted to Link-16, which the F-35 fully supports.

Anywhere a 4th generation jet can go an F-35 can go. Anywhere a 4th generation jet can datalink, an F-35 can datalink. (With link-16)

The F-35 can of course also go places the 4th generation jets can't. It can also use its improved, jam resistant, LPI, datalink from places they can't go...

There really isn't any way to play this as a negative for the F-35.

Except that Link-16 is an omnidirectional L-band signal which anybody with direction-finding capability can detect and exploit. Use it enough within range of a SAM and you become a target.

[hopsalot]

From the articles you quoted yourself, only 64 F-35 have been funded so far?! I don't really see how you can translate that into the entire F-35 program being funded especially when nobody knows yet how much it'll really cost...

Latest F-35 Unit Costs Now Exceed $223 million

The sequestration cuts are a product of budget negotiations in the US.

Republicans, who are generally more defense friendly, are seeking budget cuts. (government wide)

The Democrats are seeking to expand deficit spending.

Sequestration was a compromise. In return for an increased debt ceiling, allowing more money to be borrowed, the Democrats agreed to future budget cuts. If those cuts were not made in a sensible manner automatic budget cuts, the so-called sequestration, would come into effect.

Rather than make planned cuts as agreed, or even planning around the automatic cuts coming into force, the Democrats are seeking to create a crisis they can blame on the Republicans. (furloughing government workers, etc.)

The bottom line is that this will likely result in an ugly few months ahead, but it is not a permanent condition. The F-35 is funded through next year, which should be more than long enough to get things sorted out.

By that time F-35 testing will be nearing completion and costs will have continued to fall, etc etc, predictable pattern.

[hopsalot]

Except that Link-16 is an omnidirectional L-band signal which anybody with direction-finding capability can detect and exploit. Use it enough within range of a SAM and you become a target.

Of course, naturally that applies to the Rafale, Eurofighter, F-15, F-16, F-18, and so forth.

The F-35 has the far more advanced MADL, but retains the legacy Link-16. It can use either or both as appropriate.

In time as other assets adopt MADL, link-16 will be abandoned.