Quite so, they could have made one larger one for greater range and better stealth, not to mention better loadout. Then another that is more of a wild weasel / recon that just goes fast. And finally one dedicated agricultural machine for plowing the enemy lines, the last one too having stealth and all but being built more for rugged high payload. And not surprisingly those are all different air frames, different dimensions and so on. Which is what it looks like the F-35 became but while being harnessed by the need to try to stay within a specific joint frame without actually providing the desired logistics cost savings. Such it is. Then again it isn't much better for the other countries. Gripen is a success story in cost savings but what else? It has a single engine, zero stealth and it has to fly against Russian fighters that are newer than the F-35. Which brings me to Russia, they have all the cost issues of running modern aircraft research - it's only through force of determination that they are able to mount up the vast budgets needed to continue to develop advanced aircraft but they too have to cut some corners like only offer limited stealth and limited features and even then they can't order the thousands of fighters they envisioned in the 2010 but only field two or three squadrons of any latest fighters over a long delivery time of only a handful of any latest fighter being delivered per year. While their research division is still a shadow of the Soviet one the manufacturing has begun to resemble Jim & Bob's Garage, rolling out maybe 5-10 fighters of the latest type per year with the legacy production lines also producing some of the current service models totaling maybe 100 planes a year. China, India and others don't bathe in cash either but China is not complaining about the costs and are pushing hard. India faces some very real military threats and it has a prestige-issue that it needs to deal with, it wants to assert itself as a credible powerful country on it's own right. So, fighters will keep on advancing and becoming better and better - and more expensive. And not all designs are the optimum best that could have been. And some designs are just hopelessly outdated. Just look at how folks were still buying and flyying biplanes right up until WW2 started.
I'm curious how Taiwan does it. I know they have made some insanely good stuff. Just it's so expensive it's not feasible for anyone to actually build them in any numbers. I can't find any of the articles. These articles are at least 10 years old too so probably not super advanced anymore.
The AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-Kuo was introduced in 1994, I don't know much about it but I would think it is similar to Gripen but with two engines and so and that they could design it similarly to how Swedes could do theirs. You know, Republic of Finland could also be in the business of designing fighters but all such talk has been rejected - because we know that while we could try to rival Gripen we can't actually rival anything that the US, Russia or the big continental European joint efforts can come up with. As former FAF commander Lindberg said, there's a difference between running a flight club and having a modern competent air force built for war. Often these indigenous designs are a matter of domestic politics; if money is being spent let it be spent on domestic corporations and if arms can be exported at profit - all the better. And during peace time this provides the country with some basic planes to fly with. However when you're thinking about the lives of your citizen soldiers and the citizens themselves, when you're building a military for war - you want the best equipment, not ones that are politically convenient according to lobbyists. Edit: Ah, Taiwan actually wanted the F-16 or F-20 but the US would not sell them so they had to build their own fighters. Even they wanted a tried and tested fighter.
They are getting new F-16s. I think they made something far more advanced (closer to an F-22 but not stealth) and only built 1 because it was so expensive. But was basically better then anything else that existed in the world. I think they also made a really good tank (I may be thinking of a tank the south koreans made). I think they are making a 6th generation aircraft because they aren't getting the support from the U.S. mandated in some agreement so they aren't getting as many aircraft as they need and probably not getting any f-35s (partly also due to a possible espionage thing from China).
Yea, given that China doesn't allow Taiwan to be called Republic of China or even an independent country and with afaik a political party in Taiwan being in favor of scooping up closer to China and all, don't know anything about the espionage situation but most likely Taiwan is China's top priority when it comes to espionage and infiltration.
Three F-18C's are now stationed at our city's no longer active airfield which serves as an ideal temporary base location for a patrol. It's such a beautiful and iconic fighter, it's a real shame that it's aging and needs replacement. Then again I trust fully that whatever will replace it will be an even better fighter for our purposes.
Again, still just a game but 2 v 2 with human pilots on both sides, two Su-33 wankers are threatening and escorting a passenger plane ordering it to alter course and flying close to it and two F-22's are sent to deal with the situation. While the game does not match real life 1:1 they certainly try to have a good simulation and this is a simple scenario without external assets being involved for the benefit of either side, just the passenger liner that the F-22's need to treat as a friendly.
Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) made a report to Congress about possibly selling fighters to Republic of Finland. Super Hornet: - At most 50 single seater F-18E fighters - At most 8 two seater F-18F fighters - At most 14 EA-18G Growlers - At most 166 engines in addition to fighters - Hundreds of missiles of various types - EW systems - Comms systems - Maintenance and training systems - Spare parts Cost: 14.7bn $ or 12.4bn € The Finnish political decision set the ceiling at 10bn € and preferred 64 fighters. With Super Hornet the amount of 58 fighters would have to be reduced even further to comply with the price ceiling. F-35A Lightning II: - At most 64 stealth fighters - Large array of air to air and air to ground missiles - Similarly training and spare parts Cost: 12.5bn $ or 10.6bn €. Thus the F-35A offer would enable almost all of the desired 64 fighters to be acquired. This does not equal to Finnish signing of purchase deal but certainly the DoD is preparing for the eventuality of being able to sign the deal and export fighters to Finland. And by these estimates it seems like the Super Hornet was priced right out of being a valid candidate. FAF staff tend to favor the F-35A significantly whereas the left wing politicians would prefer the Gripen. The decision is in the hands of top level aerial warfare and defense policy experts. Also, Sweden does not currently have a military to speak of. The United States has the world's mightiest military force with unrivaled reach. Finland and the US trace their cooperation back a long way, all the way to plans such as the US proposed plan to evacuate Finnish populace to Alaska to save them from annihilation in the Soviet hands to unofficial and at times clandestine intelligence cooperation with the US and the US supporting democratic struggle in Finland against the Soviet influence via CIA and others and with Finland often asking for the US's position on various cooperative efforts with Soviets and later Russia. Militarily the F-35A is a mighty stealth aircraft. Politically the US can extend quite a bit of political and diplomatic support for it's partners against hostile threats and influence. While we'll probably never join NATO we're always getting involved with NATO operations and helping the Americans out with our meagre ability to do so and training together with Americans annually. With such substantial thing such as having our air force consist of the latest US stealth fighters there would also be other ties and advantages in terms of defensive politics and diplomacy that frankly no other country can provide. We'll see.
https://rusi.org/publication/rusi-defence-systems/key-armenia-tank-losses-sensors-not-shooters Nice little article about the impact of drones and UAV's and their impact on the battlefield. Certainly in no way are tanks obsolete nor is the ordinary air power. Instead technology and material resources continue to build increasing advantages against opponents without comparable levels of both.
I mean, there is no 'ultimate answer' the second you gain an advantage the enemy will work on a way to eliminate or turn that advantage against you. Drones have a huge amount of potential but they also have some pretty huge drawbacks. The only way tanks become obsolete is if common weaponry is capable of penetrating their armor. The -design- of tanks may change, but they'll still be tanks. Ordinary air power will always be necessary if only to mitigate the damage of an electronic takeover of your other airborne assets. They're also more versatile when it comes to airborne defense. A remotely operated drone does not see things the same way a human eye does, the operator might miss something a pilot might catch and vice versa, but a pilot is more capable of making immediate decisions. Programmed drones are even less reactive to changes in scenario, requiring changes in programming to deal with anything that wasn't anticipated ahead of time.
Yup, the only way drones are ever reliable are if they're autonomous or better yet near to a human operator. Autonomous proposes a big can of worms in the form of people who are hell bent against their deployment. And there's a good reason, to make the autonomous drone more versatily it has to have algorithms that become so complex that the machine learning and neural networking systems it encompasses become unctrollably complex for the programming team to understand or directly influence, so they have written in articles about self learning neural networked systems; at some point you just lose track of the emerging complexity which has not been appropriately named or designed to be interpreted - to allow for the structure to be analyzed with any ease. And this in combination with potential self mutating viral code that is able to enter the system in one form, analyze what it has entered into and then change itself and assume control of the system - has drastic implications for wielding large scale powerful autonomous systems. Hence why so many are so strongly opposed to them. Above all imho, drones make missile and mine type weapons a little more versatile but above all they enhance the recon and intelligence abilities of everyone involved. Not quite playing without fog of war but suddenly everyone's line of sight and detection abilities are increased significantly. Yet all the same rules still apply generally, you can still remain undetected by most drones, all movement will be easy to detect but now even further away and so. Just now even in defensive positions you really have to be still and difficult to spot. Then again already IR and other systems started to mean this same thing. Mobility and firepower will be big.
Probably why drones may be a part what makes a 6th gen fighter 6th generation. As part of what generally what makes 6th generation a 6th generation The Tempest (joint 6th generation program between U.K., Italy and Sweden) I'm assuming unmanned aircraft will be in a wingman position with a manned one.
By the way, studying more into it all, maximum airspeed is just one thing - as soon as you 'notch' and start going defensive against hostile missiles your thrust to weight ratio becomes very important - you're bleeding speed quickly as you're making evasive maneuvers to defeat incoming missiles and you'll need to replace that lost energy with strong thrust. The more thrust you have to more you can maneuver. Even then thrust alone won't win you the fight as a lower thrust fighter can still emerge victorious. All that said, here's a list of fighters with "TWR or T/W ratio = (Max Thrust of Engine / (Empty Weight + (3.505 Tonnes of Fuel & Weapons, or only Internal Fuel)))" Spoiler: List 1.30 - Su-35S 1.29 - F-15K 1.26 - Su-27S 1.25 - Eurofighter 1.24 - Mig-35 (T/W = 1.45 during Emergency Thrust*) 1.23 - Su-27SK & J-11A 1.19 - Mig-29M/M2 (T/W = 1.39 during Emergency Thrust*) 1.19 - F-15C 1.18 - F-22A (T/W = 1.37 with Round nozzles?) 1.16 - Su-30MKK 1.16 - Rafale C 1.16 - F-35A 1.15 - Mig-29B (9-12) 1.14 - Su-30MKI (T/W = 1.21 during Emergency Thrust@) 1.13 - Mig-29 (9-13), S, SD, SE & SM 1.11 - F/A-18E (F/A-18F: 1.09) 1.10 - Rafale M 1.10 - Mig-29 BM & SMT (T/W = 1.15 during Emergency Thrust*) 1.09 - F-16E Block 60 1.09 - Mig-29K (T/W = 1.28 during Emergency Thrust*) 1.09 - F-18C 1.09 - J-8III(or J-8C) 1.08 - F-35B 1.08 - F-14 B & D 1.06 - F-16C Block 52 (Block 50: T/W = 1.055) 1.05 - J-8IIm 1.04 - AV-8B+ Harrier II 1.03 - F-2A (F-2B: 1.02) 1.03 - JH-7 1.02 - F-16A Block 10 1.01 - F-35C 1.01 - J-8II & J-8IIb & J-8IId 1.00 - J-10A 1.00 - Harrier GR7A 0.99 - Su-34 & Su-32FN & Su-27IB 0.99 - Sea Harrier FA2 & FRS51 0.99 - F-16A Block 20 0.97 - Su-15T 0.95 - MiG-23 P, ML, MLA & MLD 0.94 - Gripen NG 0.94 - F-4E 0.94 - J-8 0.93 - Mirage 2000-5 0.93 - Su-15TM 0.93 - F-101B 0.92 - Harrier GR7 0.92 - E E Lightning F6 0.91 - F-16C Block 25 0.91 - Yak-28 I & P 0.91 - F-111F 0.91 - Su-24 0.90 - Su-15 0.88 - Mirage-2000 C & H 0.87 - F-14A 0.87 - Mig-23 MF & MS 0.87 - Su-24 M, MK & M2 0.86 - F-CK-1 0.86 - LCA (T/W = 0.91 during Emergency Thrust****) 0.86 - Su-9 0.84 - Su-11 0.84 - Su-17M 0.83 - Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant 0.83 - Tornado GR1 0.83 - Su-20 0.82 - JF-17 (T/W = 0.86 during Emergency Thrust*) 0.82 - Su-22 0.81 - Gripen A 0.81 - Su-7B 0.81 - F-20 0.80 - Gripen C 0.80 - Mig-27K 0.80 - Su-7BM 0.79 - Mig-21 Bis (T/W = 1.11 in Emergency Thrust mode**) 0.79 - JA-37 Viggen 0.79 - Mig-27 0.79 - Su-17M2 0.78 - Mig-23BN 0.78 - Su-7 BKL & BMK 0.78 - Javelin FAW MK9 0.77 - Mig-23S 0.77 - J-7IIIa 0.76 - Mig-27 D & ML 0.76 - Mig-23M(E) 0.76 - F-106A 0.76 - F-7MG & F-7BG & F-7PG & J-7E & J-7G (WP-7N: T/W = 0.69) 0.76 - Q-5D 0.75 - Kfir C.7 0.75 - Kfir C.2 0.75 - AJ-37 Viggen 0.75 - J-7III 0.74 - Mig-21SM 0.73 - Su-17 0.73 - Mig-21MF 0.73 - Su-17M3 0.73 - Mig-19S*** (MTOW T/W = 0.86) 0.72 - Yak-27K 0.72 - Su-17M4 0.72 - F-104G 0.71 - Mig-19P*** (MTOW T/W = 0.84) 0.71 - Mig-21PF 0.71 - Supermarine Scimitar F.1 0.71 - Cheetah C 0.70 - Mig-21M 0.70 - Su-25SM 0.69 - Jaguar GR1 0.69 - J-35F Draken 0.69 - Mig-21F 0.69 - Mig-21 F-13 0.69 - J-7II 0.69 - Su-25 or Su-25T 0.68 - F-105F/G 0.68 - Mirage 50 0.68 - F-7M(or F-7MP or F-7MB) & F-7P 0.67 - F-1 0.67 - F4D-1/F-6 Skyray 0.66 - Mirage F-1 0.66 - F-8P 0.64 - F-102A 0.63 - Sea Vixen FAW.2 0.63 - Su-25TM or Su-39 0.62 - Yak-27 0.61 - Yak-38M (TWR during STOVL/VTOL takeoff: 1.20) 0.61 - Mirage-5A 0.61 - J-32B Lansen 0.60 - A-4S1 0.59 - Mirage-III E & D 0.58 - Yak-38 (T/W during STOVL/VTOL takeoff: 1.16) 0.58 - IAI Nesher 0.58 - F-5E Tiger-II 0.56 - F-100D 0.56 - A-6E 0.55 - A-7E 0.51 - Super Étendard 0.50 - F3H-2 Demon 0.49 - A-10A 0.49 - F-11A 0.49 - AMX 0.47 - Étendard-IV M 0.46 - F-89D 0.46 - Super Mystère B.2 0.46 - Hunter F 6 0.45 - Marut Mk.1 0.43 - Yak-25 0.43 - F-94C/F-97A 0.43 - F9F-8/F-9J Cougar 0.41 - A-37B 0.37 - Mystère IVA 0.37 - FJ-4 Fury 0.36 - F7U-3M 0.34 - F-84F 0.33 - J-29F Tunnan 0.33 - P-80C 0.32 - Supermarine Attacker F.1 0.31 - F2H-3 Banshee 0.30 - Ouragan M.D.450B 0.30 - F3D-2 Sky Night 0.29 - Venom FB.1 0.29 - F-84G Pure Interceptors 1.30 - Mig-31M 1.30 - Mig-31BM 1.28 - Mig-31B 1.27 - Mig-31FE 1.27 - Mig-31E 1.22 - Mig-31 1.21 - Mig-25M 1.00 - Mig-25 P & PD 0.93 - Mig-25BM 0.74 - Tu-128
So does that mean the F-35 failed in it's main goal (not the specific airframes but the reducing costs and logistics) when all 3 version are fairly far apart? Basically the program is a failure but the plane isn't. I'm not surprised the C variant is less than the A variant but I didn't think it would be that much. I'm more surprised by the difference between the A and B variants.
Don't know really about that. The folks who needed a fighter to take out enemy fighters and air defenses got one that should have a huge advantage to it. I mean you can have a couple of them with all the pylons loaded full as bait while the real hunters move unseen using relayed targeting data from the baits, AWACS and satellites. Can't do that unseen part to that level with anything but the F-22 and the F-22 just can't be built anymore and has even more cost issues than the F-35 should have once fully matured. Meanwhile the other services get their features such as increased bomb loads and so but with the option of running the plane in either full stealth or full load configuration while it seems pretty great in both roles. Costs? Are the US military aviation going to be limited to just being able to deal with a few countries that can't source good stuff from anyone or will the military aviation be designed around being able to press home and prosecute a debilitating assault on another major power while suffering acceptable losses? How much does it cost to lose a whole squadron of A-10's? How much does it cost when the losses start mounting and you don't just have to replace hundreds of fighters but the rate of replacement isn't fast enough and there will be gaps in your coverage? One should be wary bean counter syndrome. I worked in a project where we needed several high quality cameras. The guy paying the bill refused the first premium camera set that cost a lot. Then he refused a second decent for the price camera set that was like a fifth of the premium set's cost. Finally he settled for some pissy set of cameras with fish eye distortion and shitty resolution and framerate. And guess what? All that saving amounted to not just a multiple of the premium set's cost in trying to fix the problems introduced by shitty gear but those extra costs ultimately ended killing the whole project. Sometimes you're better off in the long run by choosing a more expensive option. The key is to know when. And for current military aviation I do not know enough about the fighters to be able to even have a good guess about where they lie. Many of the key pieces of information are classified as vital to national security. In this sense the real experts are always fighting a losing battle against the foreign intelligence agencies' misinformation campaigns - the real experts can't reveal what they know about the enemy's performances and they can't reveal what the enemy doesn't know about their performances. Whereas the misinformation campaigns can claim anything, such that Su-27 can see F-35 from nearly as far as the F-35 can see it and so on, that the F-35 is ridiculously expensive when it's actually more like 20-30% extra for all aspect stealth which is a big deal - if you're already a significantly smaller reflection surface and the reflected radiation is not the squared distance but you need to square it twice since it's first squared as you're emitting it and then whatever is reflected gets squared by distance on it's way back and if the reflection itself is a fraction of the emission hitting it relative to regular fighter - you can see where that is heading. Now add ECM to it and the radar detection distance is reduced even further. I looked up Gulf War by the way and turns out that the F-117's flew a shit ton of missions, was it like 40% of the bombing sorties were flown by the F-117 despite there being such a ridiculously tiny number of them. They literally pushed those planes to their limits flying them pretty much without any intervals. Stealth means quite a bit. The F-117's back then flew over Baghdad while the radars were still all active, those massive high powered ground radars and all.
I just mean the plane itself is fine (even if the U.S. air force and navy are not 100% happy with their versions. They wanted more). Just stating the entire thing failed at all of it's stated goals. Something like only 20% of the 3 versions is shared between the 3 airframes. And most of that is in the cockpit. The goal was I think 70%. And Money runs everything in the U.S. military. From the Congressional research service report on the JSF (May 2020) The main goal of the program is It has completely failed at that. Mostly because the 3 airframes are so different that is is 3 different assembly lines. Basically it failed the goal the of what the program was supposed to achieve. Even if the fighter itself is pretty good. And pretty much the only reason anyone is getting is because it is all there is. As soon as there is a viable alternative it will probably be dropped. And it probably wouldn't take that long to make an alternative because it is using essentially 10-15 year old technology already. whole report here (it is 46 pages. nothing classified here). https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30563.pdf I'd say for any country that is going to only have 1 version it's a great plane. for anyone who wants 2 (or all 3 versions though I don't know of anyone who wants the C version. Maybe France since they are the only other country with a CATOBAR carrier?) It's a terrible plane. Also noted in Finlands offer (or maybe the U.S. side of it) was the upgraded software to replace the onboard logistics software that is apparently terrible. I'm betting the hope is that costs will come down a few million once the upgraded replacement software is out.
Yea it seems like asking too much from a single fighter ruined all of the cost saving. In general just focusing each branch on a single fighter that is as versatile as possible for their branch would have already resulted in savings to be had if the service in question was able to focus on just that fighter and not have logistics for 10 different types including some really old ones. As for quickly getting a new plane up? Not really, if you'd stop production now and put your money one a new plane it would leave you with ~15 years of not having a state of the art fighter until the next one starts rolling out. Also not all of the tech is 15 years old in F-35, just like in other planes some of the tech has just been upgraded. But looking at F-35, there were the B-2 and F-117, how old are they now? Then there was the F-22, how old is it now? All those lessons incorporated to the airframe of F-35. How many stealth fighters did the other countries have again? That's not just 10 year gap in tech. It's a lot more than that. Also, money runs everything everywhere and it can go either way. Usually when money is involved things rarely go as well as the wishful thinking would have it. In accountancy there's even the whole discipline wide concept of 'cautiousness' - it's the opposite to the marketing department's "oh it's gonna be awesome", accountants assume that what's in the cash is in the cash. What's not sold yet is not yet money in the bank. Etc. Meaning, sure, the US didn't get the cost savings from this plane and it costs a bit more than some other planes but those other planes are based on 80's tech with upgraded radars and computers and some new missiles. Some of those planes are even designed around as being the economy versions of 80's tech, prioritizing cost savings over performance. The kicker is that some of those countries can't afford too many of even the cheap planes whereas the US has no issue in making the F-35 variants into it's rank and file fighter that will at some point be joined by the heavy fighter, once again forming a light fighter and heavy fighter force not unlike F-15 and F-16 back when they were new.
Suprisingly F-117s were retired back in 2008 (I think in a flight ready mothball state) but not actually in service. The U.S. Air Force retired the F-117 in April 2008, primarily due to the fielding of the F-22 Raptor. Despite the type's retirement, a portion of the fleet has been kept in airworthy condition, and Nighthawks have been observed flying in 2020. And the replacement for the B-2 is currently under development. Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider I don't think there is an actual airframe yet. Well at first it is supposed to complement the existing B-1s, B-2s and B-52s and eventually replace them. 40 years from first flight for the F-1117 and 31 for the B-2 from first flight. F-117 entered service in 1983 B-2 in 1997.
Nice. It's also interesting that stealth actually works better for these larger aircraft. Earliest operational capability 10 years from now? Seems about right. It takes a long time to develop an aircraft.
