via Flight Global...
Lockheed Martin is claiming that all three versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will have kinematic performance better than or equal to any combat-configured fourth-generation fighter. The comparison includes transonic acceleration performance versus an air-to-air configured Eurofighter Typhoon and high angle-of-attack flight performance vis-à-vis the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.Wow.
I have never doubted that the F-35 would be a superior dog fighter. Where the F-22 relies on performance, the F-35 will use superior electronics to win the WVR fight.
But if this claim is true then the F-35 will be dusting everything thrown at it.
I still think the Marine Corps needs to get its armor house in order ..... I still think we need to take a break from updating the wing to get a new Amphibious Combat Vehicle and Marine Personnel Carrier...
But this is some holy shit news...if its true. Read the entire article here.
«During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the huge swirling jet battles of Arab MiGs, Israeli F-4 Phantoms and Mirage, after starting at supersonic speeds, quickly became very low altitude turning fights at near stall speeds.»From the Boresight blog
ReplyDeleteThere is a current line of thought thay says 'Boyd E-M combat maneuvering theory' isnt that biblical and that fighters with good control at hight AoA will dominate the dog fight...its good news to see that the JSF will perform well eaven if it comes to a old school duel...
P.S-If this new line of thought is correct ,them the Super Hornet is not the turkey everyone is claiming it to be...it might very well be and outstanding dog fighter...
well you had a whole industry spring up that touted the F-22's best attributes...high speed and high altitude.
Deletethe advocates for that airplane pushed those factors ahead of everything else because it let the F-22 shine and all others failed.
JSF is a hostage to VSTOL that made its fuselage huge with high drag.A bomb truck not a dogfighter.
DeleteMr Spey might be an old fart but has proven expertise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPqbN7OooRg
This analysis by Pierre M. Spey, a key member of the F-16 and A-10 design teams, cast sharp doubt on the F-35′s capabilities:
“Even without new problems, the F-35 is a ‘dog.’ If one accepts every performance promise the DoD currently makes for the aircraft, the F-35 will be: “Overweight and underpowered: at 49,500 lb (22,450kg) air-to-air take-off weight with an engine rated at 42,000 lb of thrust, it will be a significant step backward in thrust-to-weight ratio for a new fighter… [F-35A and F-35B variants] will have a ‘wing-loading’ of 108 lb per square foot… less manoeuvrable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105 ‘Lead Sled’ that got wiped out over North Vietnam… payload of only two 2,000 lb bombs in its bomb bay… With more bombs carried under its wings, the F-35 instantly becomes ‘non-stealthy’ and the DoD does not plan to seriously test it in this configuration for years. As a ‘close air support’… too fast to see the tactical targets it is shooting at; too delicate and flammable to withstand ground fire; and it lacks the payload and especially the endurance to loiter usefully over US forces for sustained periods… What the USAF will not tell you is that ‘stealthy’ aircraft are quite detectable by radar; it is simply a question of the type of radar and its angle relative to the aircraft… As for the highly complex electronics to attack targets in the air, the F-35, like the F-22 before it, has mortgaged its success on a hypothetical vision of ultra-long range, radar-based air-to-air combat that has fallen on its face many times in real air war.”
Personally,i allways like the F-22 because it was the zenith of aircraft industry and the best fighter in the world...but now reality struck: its very expensive,it as design and hardware flaws and it lacks the standart capabilities of enemie fighters:Datalink(it can only link to other Raptors),low range,lacks an HMS,little air to ground capabilitie,no IRST and a very bad sortie rate...it really looks like the F-35 is a winner,even in air-to-air scenarios against our future foes...
ReplyDeleteMaybe cancelling the F-22 wasnt such a bad thing,if the F-35 delivers as it promisses.
Except F-35 won't deliver on its promises, it already got its performance specifications reduced.
DeleteJSF kinematic envelope is not even close to Typhoons. Huge fuselage cross section makes it unlikely that it could match any legarcy fighter much less an Eurocanard. 4.6-5g sustained more like century fighters ,5.59G F4 and 7G F5E.
ReplyDelete> "The program announced an intention to change performance specifications for the F-35C, reducing turn performance from 5.1 to 5.0 sustained g's and increasing the time for acceleration from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach by at least 43 seconds,"
"These changes were due to the results of air vehicle performance and flying qualities evaluations."
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> The US Air Force F-35A's time has slipped by eight seconds while the US Marine Corps short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B's time has slipped by 16 seconds. However, turn rates for both the A and B models have been impacted more severely than the USN variant. Sustained turning performance for the F-35B is being reduced from 5G to 4.5G while the F-35A sinks from 5.3G to 4.6G according to the report.
> The F-35's sustained turn rate requirements have been slashed as have its transonic acceleration requirements. Most impacted is the Navy's F-35C, which has had more than 43 seconds added to its Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.2 acceleration times. But this wasn't exactly unexpected, as almost exactly one year ago Lockheed's Tom Burbage told me this when I was still at Defense News:
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> "Based on the original spec, all three of the airplanes are challenged by that spec," said Tom Burbage, Lockheed's program manager for the F-35. "The cross-sectional area of the airplane with the internal weapons bays is quite a bit bigger than the airplanes we're replacing."
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> The sharp rise in wave drag at speeds between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.2 is one of the most challenging areas for engineers to conquer. And the F-35's relatively large cross-sectional area means, that as a simple matter of physics, the jet can't quite match its predecessors.
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> "We're dealing with the laws of physics. You have an airplane that's a certain size, you have a wing that's a certain size, you have an engine that's a certain size, and that basically determines your acceleration characteristics," Burbage said. "I think the biggest question is: are the acceleration characteristics of the airplane operationally suitable?"