Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flaser on January 29, 2010, 06:36:08 am
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(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/1103/sukhoit50pakfa01.jpg) (http://img502.imageshack.us/i/sukhoit50pakfa01.jpg/)(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/PAK-FA_diagram.jpg)
After several years of development, Russia's (...and India's) answer to the F-22 is finally unveiled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPHzCqSJ5xY
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Wow.
It looks a bit like the SR-71 meets the F-22. Anywhere we can get specs on this baby?
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It does look awesome.
I still wish they'd developed the Berkut into a production model (because it looks that much more Badass), but this one's cool too. Reminds me a lot of the YF-23.
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i think it looks a little better than the f-22 (though that might be because i am bored of looking at the same "cutting edge" fighter for the last 10 years or so
Wikipedia has some estimated dimensions here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAK-FA#Design)
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This is damn awesome :D
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I still wish they'd developed the Berkut into a production model (because it looks that much more Badass)
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The Berkut was a more original design.
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If this has a decent Air to Air arsenal available to it, without compromising stealth, the JSF could be in some serious trouble.
Or rather, the JSF would be in even more serious trouble. If there's a major conflict between developed nations in the next five to twenty years, most of the West's Air Power is going to be largely non-stealth at this rate.
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If this has a decent Air to Air arsenal available to it, without compromising stealth, the JSF could be in some serious trouble.
Or rather, the JSF would be in even more serious trouble. If there's a major conflict between developed nations in the next five to twenty years, most of the West's Air Power is going to be largely non-stealth at this rate.
You're thinking too small. The PAK FA is meant to challenge the Raptor, not just the JSF.
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wikipedia says it may have 2 30mm guns
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If this has a decent Air to Air arsenal available to it, without compromising stealth, the JSF could be in some serious trouble.
Or rather, the JSF would be in even more serious trouble. If there's a major conflict between developed nations in the next five to twenty years, most of the West's Air Power is going to be largely non-stealth at this rate.
You're thinking too small. The PAK FA is meant to challenge the Raptor, not just the JSF.
And you're forgetting there's less than 200 of them. :P
The JSF, to my knowledge, is meant to be the real working end, a bit like the Hurricane to the Spitfire during the BoB. I mean, it's replacing basically everything.
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If this has a decent Air to Air arsenal available to it, without compromising stealth, the JSF could be in some serious trouble.
Or rather, the JSF would be in even more serious trouble. If there's a major conflict between developed nations in the next five to twenty years, most of the West's Air Power is going to be largely non-stealth at this rate.
You're thinking too small. The PAK FA is meant to challenge the Raptor, not just the JSF.
And you're forgetting there's less than 200 of them. :P
The JSF, to my knowledge, is meant to be the real working end, a bit like the Hurricane to the Spitfire during the BoB. I mean, it's replacing basically everything.
And you're forgetting that there are only 13 of F-35s built, 15 ordered. Unless my source, the mighty Wiki, is wrong.
Besides, unless I'm wrong, the F-35 was basically meant to be sold to other nations, while the Americans kept the F-22.
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The JSF program was designed to replace the U.S. military's F-16, A-10, F/A-18 (excluding newer E/F "Super Hornet" variants) and AV-8B tactical fighter aircraft.
As far as I know, this is still applying to the US as well.
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The Berkut was a more original design.
The Berkut was pretty much looks like the X-29:
(http://www.air-attack.com/MIL/_EXP/switchblade/x29.jpg)
only less experimental, and more military, and being a 2 engine plane- much larger.
If this has a decent Air to Air arsenal available to it, without compromising stealth, the JSF could be in some serious trouble.
Or rather, the JSF would be in even more serious trouble. If there's a major conflict between developed nations in the next five to twenty years, most of the West's Air Power is going to be largely non-stealth at this rate.
You're thinking too small. The PAK FA is meant to challenge the Raptor, not just the JSF.
And you're forgetting there's less than 200 of them. :P
The JSF, to my knowledge, is meant to be the real working end, a bit like the Hurricane to the Spitfire during the BoB. I mean, it's replacing basically everything.
And you're forgetting that there are only 13 of F-35s built, 15 ordered. Unless my source, the mighty Wiki, is wrong.
Besides, unless I'm wrong, the F-35 was basically meant to be sold to other nations, while the Americans kept the F-22.
The Russians plan to have some 150-200 T-50's, India plans on 200 more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22fN4fVoFdY
The US have 145 F-22's, with a total of 187 planned.
The F-35 is right now in Low rate initial production, and there are tons planned:
U.S. Air Force: 1,763 aircraft
U.S. Marine Corps: 480 aircraft
U.K. Royal Navy: 60 aircraft
U.S. Navy: 480 aircraft
My source is more mighty than wiki: http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/uswpns/air/fighter/f35.html
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The US have 145 F-22's, with a total of 187 planned.
I thought the program was canned last year?
The Berkut was pretty much looks like the X-29:
Because they still use the same concepts, so of course they are going to be similair. But there aren't any operation FSW aircraft, which would make the Berkut unique if it went into production.
Besides, unless I'm wrong, the F-35 was basically meant to be sold to other nations, while the Americans kept the F-22.
The F-22 was so insanely expensive no one could really afford them them anyway. It was part of a new program called the "budget buster". :p
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I think Obama capped F-22 production at 187, since they'd already paid for them, I think.
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The F-22 was so insanely expensive no one could really afford them them anyway. It was part of a new program called the "budget buster". :p
Well it is a fact that the Raptor costs 40% more than the Su T-50... (about $140 M for an F-22 vs about $100 M for a Sukhoi).
Another thing related to the topic:
Are these planes the last manned fighters? Will they be replaced by UCAV's, or will human pilots still be required when these airplanes end their service?
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The F-22 was so insanely expensive no one could really afford them them anyway. It was part of a new program called the "budget buster". :p
Well it is a fact that the Raptor costs 40% more than the Su T-50... (about $140 M for an F-22 vs about $100 M for a Sukhoi).
Another thing related to the topic:
Are these planes the last manned fighters? Will they be replaced by UCAV's, or will human pilots still be required when these airplanes end their service?
how do we stand on transmission lag with remote operated vehicles?
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Maybe what we should really be asking is if the Russian military budget allows for building more than a handful of these. :p
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Maybe what we should really be asking is if the Russian military budget allows for building more than a handful of these. :p
That or whether it can actually compete with a Raptor or JSF for that matter. Just because it looks prettier doesn't mean she's as good or better in the sack.
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Maybe what we should really be asking is if the Russian military budget allows for building more than a handful of these. :p
That or whether it can actually compete with a Raptor or JSF for that matter. Just because it looks prettier doesn't mean she's as good or better in the sack.
Already it's estimated that it's cheaper and can fly farther than the Raptor or JSF. And it was designed specifically to counter the Raptor, or so they claim, so I'd expect that it can compete.
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The MIG-29 was designed to counter the F-14 Tomcat, and the Su-27 was designed to counter the F-15 Eagle. Did they do a good job those times? Well, not too bad. So they might as well do it another time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8486812.stm
But analysts have denied the jet is a leap forward.
"It's just a prototype lacking new engines and a new radar," military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer told the Associated Press news agency.
Originally scheduled for 2007, the T-50's maiden flight was repeatedly postponed because of technical problems.
Observers of Russia's recent military modernisation drive say it has been plagued by delays and quality problems.
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I can't believe people keep bringing up the F-35. Forget it. Regardless what the PR crap says it's stealth strike craft. It doesn't have all aspect stealth, it has a suboptimal wing loading (too high) for dogfights and it's radar is too small and the craft's already cramped so future growth (as a fighter) is limited.
On the other hand the F-22 has space for two sideways looking radars, space for a bigger phased array radar and the ability to carry external ordnance. Once stealth ordnance (missiles with their own stealth cover, or bundled into a stealth pod) is developed it will be able to carry a comparable amount of missiles to 4++ gen Russian fighters without compromising it's stealth.
Am I the only one who noticed how wide and big the PAK-FA's fuselage is? The Russians always put a lot more missiles onto their planes, and it seems the PAK-FA may have a big weapon bay to fit the doctrine.
Another thing that's rarely said though is that in the next generation of A2A missiles the Russians are ahead. They have a wide variety of seekers - IR, SAHR, AHR, EM - for their missiles and in an age of stealth using a variety of means to maximize your pkill will be necessary. (NATO missiles don't have this abundance of seeker variety). They're also ahead in the missile engine development, they're said to field a ramjet powered R-77. It will have a greater range, better maneuverability and a wider selection of seekers than the AMRAAM. (Because it was missile to have an active seeker, it was derogatorly dubbed the "Amramskiij". As Vader said, it seems "I'm the master now, and you're the apprentice).
However unlike Russia, the USA doesn't plan to sell its best weapons so I'd bet my ass that a big brother to the AMRAAM is already in the R&D cycle it just wasn't publicized yet.
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The MIG-29 was designed to counter the F-14 Tomcat, and the Su-27 was designed to counter the F-15 Eagle. Did they do a good job those times? Well, not too bad. So they might as well do it another time.
Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? The MiG-29 had a very short range, and it was optimized for close up combat. MiG-29 + Archer missiles = Death to anything that got close to it.
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I thought the Mig-29 was built to go up against F-16s and operate in the close range Air Support role, while the Su-27 was more of a general Airspace superiority design comparable to the F-15.
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E gets the cookie. ;)
Flaser's got the idea with his post - I can tell this thing is going to have a rather large internal weapons bay. The fighter will probably also be better able to sustain a missile strike with the widely spaced engines at the price of having a good deal of power offset in the advent of losing an engine.
I also agree with comments I've seen on this thing about looking a great deal like the ATF - the technology isn't necessarily bad, though it does look rather uninspired. From appearances, I can determine that the wing loading is lower than the Raptor's (better maneuverability), the all moving canted tails are WIN, and the aircraft, unlike the '22, looks to have excellent development potential. I'd be much more impressed if they produced the all-delta concept I've seen rather than the conventional fighter layout they opted for instead...
The characteristics of this fighter again demonstrate the DOD made a terrible politically motivated blunder when they selected the YF-22 for further development rather than the YF-23. The Raptor is a "fixed" design - that fuselage is packed to the gills with stuff FOR THE FAIL. $10 USD that the last version of the Raptor to see service is the first production variant produced.
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I can't believe people keep bringing up the F-35. Forget it. Regardless what the PR crap says it's stealth strike craft. It doesn't have all aspect stealth, it has a suboptimal wing loading (too high) for dogfights and it's radar is too small and the craft's already cramped so future growth (as a fighter) is limited.
Well, the JSF is expected to dominate the West's Future Air Force, so it makes sense to bring up what might be the most common adversary to this aircraft.
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I really think they should drop the F-35A. The F-35C without naval equipment would make for an airframe: just a little heavier with the advantage of greater internal volume (more fuel, etc.), lower wing loading (carry more ordnance and have better maneuverability in comparison to the F-35A), and a conformal gunpod... Normally I'd be all for the internal gun, but the F-35A will have fewer rounds at its disposal than the -B or -C. Also, the given customer of the aircraft would have greater options for choosing which gun they wanted the fighter to carry - all you need to do is make a new gunpod.
In general, I'd hate to be in a position where I'd be buying fighters from the US. I'm not meaning to be unpatriotic or some blah like so, but there's so much garbage tied up in arms deals with the US that it's just... eugh. If at all possible, making your own arms is the best rout. For this matter, I give Taiwan mad props ( :yes: :yes: :yes:).
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The F-22 was so insanely expensive no one could really afford them them anyway. It was part of a new program called the "budget buster". :p
We should have killed the V-22 Osprey and spent the money to buy more Raptors. The Raptor is expensive, but it doesn't have a habit of crashing into the ocean and killing platoons of Marines.
As for other countries and Raptors, Japan is developing its own F-22-like fighter as the US refuses to sell anyone Raptors. They could probably make brisk business selling stealth fighters to Europe if they have the capacity to manufacture enough of them.
E gets the cookie. ;)
Flaser's got the idea with his post - I can tell this thing is going to have a rather large internal weapons bay. The fighter will probably also be better able to sustain a missile strike with the widely spaced engines at the price of having a good deal of power offset in the advent of losing an engine.
I also agree with comments I've seen on this thing about looking a great deal like the ATF - the technology isn't necessarily bad, though it does look rather uninspired. From appearances, I can determine that the wing loading is lower than the Raptor's (better maneuverability), the all moving canted tails are WIN, and the aircraft, unlike the '22, looks to have excellent development potential. I'd be much more impressed if they produced the all-delta concept I've seen rather than the conventional fighter layout they opted for instead...
The characteristics of this fighter again demonstrate the DOD made a terrible politically motivated blunder when they selected the YF-22 for further development rather than the YF-23. The Raptor is a "fixed" design - that fuselage is packed to the gills with stuff FOR THE FAIL. $10 USD that the last version of the Raptor to see service is the first production variant produced.
The YF-23 is not a supermaneuverable design and lacks thrust vectoring. If a hypothetical F-23A suffered compromise of its stealth or were otherwise forced into a head-to-head battle with Russian aircraft, it would be at an agility disadvantage against even an Su-33.
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The F-22 was so insanely expensive no one could really afford them them anyway. It was part of a new program called the "budget buster". :p
We should have killed the V-22 Osprey and spent the money to buy more Raptors. The Raptor is expensive, but it doesn't have a habit of crashing into the ocean and killing platoons of Marines.
As for other countries and Raptors, Japan is developing its own F-22-like fighter as the US refuses to sell anyone Raptors. They could probably make brisk business selling stealth fighters to Europe if they have the capacity to manufacture enough of them.
E gets the cookie. ;)
Flaser's got the idea with his post - I can tell this thing is going to have a rather large internal weapons bay. The fighter will probably also be better able to sustain a missile strike with the widely spaced engines at the price of having a good deal of power offset in the advent of losing an engine.
I also agree with comments I've seen on this thing about looking a great deal like the ATF - the technology isn't necessarily bad, though it does look rather uninspired. From appearances, I can determine that the wing loading is lower than the Raptor's (better maneuverability), the all moving canted tails are WIN, and the aircraft, unlike the '22, looks to have excellent development potential. I'd be much more impressed if they produced the all-delta concept I've seen rather than the conventional fighter layout they opted for instead...
The characteristics of this fighter again demonstrate the DOD made a terrible politically motivated blunder when they selected the YF-22 for further development rather than the YF-23. The Raptor is a "fixed" design - that fuselage is packed to the gills with stuff FOR THE FAIL. $10 USD that the last version of the Raptor to see service is the first production variant produced.
The YF-23 is not a supermaneuverable design and lacks thrust vectoring. If a hypothetical F-23A suffered compromise of its stealth or were otherwise forced into a head-to-head battle with Russian aircraft, it would be at an agility disadvantage against even an Su-33.
I wrote that unlike the JSF (which is a STRIKE CRAFT. It carries bombs and anti radiation missiles to clear the ground and later do CAS it was needed, but it's (at best) a mediocre fighter) the F-22 DOES have space for growth.
I'm sorry but that idea with the Osprey is bull****. Gary Brecher already wrote everything there is to write, so I'm just going to quote him:
The War Nerd: Hardware For Dummies: V-22 Osprey Takes The Pepsi Challenge Against F-18 Hornet
By Gary Brecher
This article first appeared in The eXile on February 21, 2008.
FRESNO, CA — OK, let’s talk hardware for once. I love the hardware, always have; the reason I don’t talk much about it is that what we’ve got is mostly useless, and what we really do need is always getting slammed. I’ll give you two examples: the F/A-18 and the V-22.
(http://www.exile.ru/transient/283/osprey.jpg)
If you’re a typical half-baked Tom Clancy fan, you know what to think of both these planes: F/A-18 good, V-22 bad. Wrong on both counts. In fact, that’s why it’s hard to talk hardware, because you have to de-program so much crap from the standard view.
Start with the V-22 Osprey. You probably know the basics: it’s a transport aircraft with engines out on the end of the wings that can rotate forward to fly like a conventional plane and tilt up to vertical (that’s what the V is for) so it can land like a helicopter.
(http://www.exile.ru/transient/283/wn2.jpg)
And everybody knows, or thinks they know, that it’s a lemon. It’s ten years behind schedule; it keeps crashing; it’s already killed more than 50 Marines. And Dick Cheney hates it. Back when he was Secretary of Defense, Cheney said the V-22 was “…one weapons system I don’t need.”
That’s as good a place as any to start your deprogramming: whatever Dick Cheney says, think the opposite. If Dick Cheney tells you it’s a sunny day, get your umbrella. It’s no surprise to me that Cheney hates this weapons system, because Cheney is, and I’m kind of half serious here, an Iranian agent who hates America and wants to destroy us. He’s all for spending trillions of our tax dollars on absolutely worthless weapons like aircraft carriers, but he fought hard against the Osprey because it’s the one contemporary weapons system that could have made a difference in Operation Desert One/Eagle Claw, the Iran hostage-rescue attempt back in the days of Reverend Jimmy Carter.
That’s a good handy test to ask yourself about any weapons system: would it have helped in Desert One? That’s the kind of mission we need to think about : special ops, fast and quiet.
So, would the Osprey have helped? Hell yes. If we’d had something like it in service, the rescue mission might not have ended so disgustingly. You probably remember the whole miserable story back in 1980: we had to use CH-53 heavy-lift choppers on that raid, even though they’ve always had a bad rep, and they’re not designed for transport anyway, let alone high-value, high-risk special operations transport. By the time they reached their first rendezvous with the USAF’s C-130. Only five of the eight choppers were still working, and the mission was scrubbed. During takeoff after the scrub, one of the CH-53s, underpowered and overweight, was blown into a C-130. Kaboom! Giant fireball, eight men dead, and the next day some greasy mullah had himself photographed holding up a charred American pilot’s arm. If you’re a glutton for pain, you can read the more detailed article (http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7847&IBLOCK_ID=35) I did on it.
Replay that raid with the Osprey as basic transport and you get a very different result. The Osprey carries 32 troops at a cruising speed of 250 mph; there’d be no need to land in the middle of the desert, because it can be refueled air-to-air. The flight would have landed directly at the staging area near Tehran, without any need to touch down in the desert during a sandstorm. A fleet of Ospreys instead of CH-53s would probably have ferried Beckwith’s guys safely to their staging base outside Tehran.
To be honest, I don’t think the mission, at least from that point on, ever had a chance; it was James Bond crap that required this big American force to infiltrate Tehran in trucks and rescue the hostages, then fight its way back to the planes. It was like some mid- 80s screenplay that would’ve starred Patrick Swayze.
Nobody would have made it home alive, but at least they would have died killing Revolutionary Guards at a nice, satisfying 20:1 ratio, with our air cover turning Tehran into a toasty lesson on why you should be nice to American diplomats. There’s failure and there’s failure, and with better transport this could’ve been a glorious failure instead of a painful (really painful, I remember!) joke.
Suppose the Osprey really isn’t a very safe aircraft. That’s the knock on it, after all. Well, the hard answer here is, so what? It’s a revolutionary advance in exactly the kind of war we actually need to learn how to fight. If that costs a few lives along the way, so be it. The question nobody bothers asking is whether the lives lost on a particular aircraft are worth it or not. So if you have, say, an unsafe carrier-based fighter, then to me that clunker’s not worth one American life, because it’s useless. Its whole existence is a waste of lives and money. But if you have a VTOL special ops transport that gets your guys in and out twice as fast, with no clumsy refueling stops, then it’s worth the lives spent to learn how to make it mechanically reliable. God knows we’ve lost a lot more guys in less worthwhile ways.
Try thinking like the enemy. Would Al Qaeda hesitate if it had a flight of Ospreys that could land near Capitol Hill, even if their head maintenance guys told them that, say, one-third of the planes were going to crash before they got to the target? Nope. If the mission is that important, and the Osprey is designed for exactly the most important missions we’ve got, then you can live with losses.
Besides, I’m not convinced the Osprey’s really that unreliable. There have only been four major crashes, and for such a revolutionary design that’s not bad. Compare that to the really scary record of the F-18 variants we sold to the Aussies: four of the 71 they bought have crashed already, but nobody’s panicking about that.
So why does the Osprey get so much bad-mouthing?
(http://www.exile.ru/transient/283/wn3.jpg)
Before you let me answer for you, let’s give you a lesson in thinking hard about hardware. You tell me, why would the Air Force, the Navy and the Army hate a weapons system like this one? Remember, we’re talking about jealous branches of the Armed Services, we’re talking about billions of dollars, we’re talking about a world where an Air Force general takes off his uniform and gets a lobbying job without even blinking. And keep in mind that each one of the Armed Services will do anything to keep from losing money to the others.
I bet you got it by now. The Osprey is a Marine Corps project. This should be the last clue you need: what makes the Corps different from all the other services? Answer: because it has its own air wing, and this USMC air wing is the only American force that’s allowed to operate fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, or mutants like the V-22; all the other services have to stick to one or the other kind of aircraft. The Army is limited by law to helicopters and the Air Force has a monopoly of fixed (or swept-) wing craft. So a plane like the Osprey, that can turn from one to the other in a few seconds, is about as welcome as a sneezing duck on a trans-Pacific flight from Hong Kong.
Defense appropriations are an annual turf war between the services, and the Osprey doesn’t even have any identifiable turf. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a procurement officer’s worst nightmare! It threatens the whole paranoid truce between the three big services about who owns what.
The fact that the V-22 might actually help us fight irregular wars like the ones we actually need to plan for doesn’t figure at all. They’d laugh at you if you brought that up. It’d just prove that “you don’t get it.” To them, this is like an advertising campaign. They want to sell programs to Congress so they can buy another condo in Costa Rica.
(http://www.exile.ru/transient/283/wn4.jpg)
I’ve actually read proud stories of big sales by lobbyists. They actually brag about robbing us. They sold the F-22 Raptor by dazzling Congress with all this Knightrider dashboard crap. The reason they had to switch sales pitches is because they were having a problem using their old approach: the Soviet threat.
Somebody asked the annoying question, “Uh…what Soviets? Didn’t they kinda go outta business?” So the lobbyists actually ran a campaign called “Save the Raptor”—like it was some Sierra Club bird watcher’s PBS documentary call-in show. And, wouldn’t you know it, they saved the Raptor! Nobody knows what the Raptor’s good for, unless all our F-15 squadrons suddenly come under the control of the Hypno-toad and have to be knocked out of the sky by an “even more advanced!” fighter.
They won, the sales pitch worked. Maybe they can even come up with a civilian version of the Raptor, sell one to Ah-nold at a discount, make a killing with the street-racer crowd. It’d probably be pretty good at that. But it sure isn’t any use in a war like Iraq or any other war we’re going to be fighting on this planet.
But don’t expect Cheney or any of his pals to say so. The only weapons systems they hate are the ones like the Osprey, hardware that actually might help us fight and win irregular wars.
In case this sounds harsh, let’s talk about another weapons system, one that Tom Clancy just loves, the f ucking moron: the F/A-18 Hornet. I happen to know everything there is to know about how this clunker came into service, because my baptism of fire as a hardware war nerd was the Lightweight Fighter Program, the big showdown between two contenders for a smaller, cheaper fighter to complement the F-15. I was still in grade school, and a lot of the technical stuff was over my head, but by reading everything the library had, every issue of Armed Forces Journal and Aviation Week, I got the main line of the story.
The idea behind the Lightweight Fighter was that, in an all-out air war against the Warsaw Pact, we’d lose a lot of planes, so we needed a HiLo mix of expensive high-altitude air-superiority fighters like the F-15 and F-14 and cheaper, lighter planes that could match the dogfighting agility of the MiG-21. We were overrating the MiG-21, as it turned out, but at the time everybody took it real seriously. Why not? There was no money in admitting the MiG-21 was a flying Yugo. Totally inferior to the earlier MiG designs. It was supposed to be a lean, mean killer and we needed something to match.
Of course the F-4 Phantom was part of the problem. It was lousy in dogfights over North Vietnam, because it handled like a SCUD, an interceptor pushed into duty as a dogfighter. The USAF had been pushed into accepting the F-4, a Navy carrier-based design, and hated it. One outcome was the Top Gun schools to re-train pilots to stick and move; the other was the Lightweight Fighter Program, which was supposed to give them a fighter that could play bumper-cars instead of just drag racing.
There were five entries, but it soon came down to two contenders: the General Dynamics YF-16 and the Northrop YF-17. Both services, the USAF and the Navy, had agreed to buy the winning design. And it was pretty clear, even to a naive kid like me, that General Dynamics was the winning team this time. I knew how to read between the lines from being a big Oakland Raiders fan: I knew what the writers were saying in that careful language they used. And they were saying Northrop’s design was a dog, but GD’s was amazing.
Nobody much liked GD back then, because the F-111 fighter-bomber had a bad rep, but their F-16 prototype outflew the Northrop contender every time. It was more mobile at high speed, and it even cost less: $4.6 million per copy, vs. $5 million for the Northrop. In 1975 it was officially announced as the winner. And that’s when things got weird. At the time I just didn’t understand what happened. Too young and dumb, too trusting–like most war nerds are even today.
First big shock was that the Navy went back on the deal, announced it wouldn’t buy the F-16 and was going to adopt a modified version of the F-17. The official reason was that the F-16 had only one engine, and the Navy had always had double-engine fighters. The Northrop design, the YF-17, was a twin-engine.
But that two-engine story was actually a lie that the Navy figured was simple enough for Congress to understand. I remember hearing the same story from my uncle, who dived for abalone on weekends in this crappy old boat with double inboards. My dad would just nod while my uncle went on about how you had to have two engines, one just wasn’t safe…and then when we were back in the car heading home, my dad would explain that was a lot of nonsense that dated from the days when marine engines were so hopeless you had to have a spare if you wanted to stay off the rocks. Any decent modern diesel would do you fine.
And when you consider that the F-16’s engine was none other than the Pratt & Whitney F-100, the same beautiful machine that powered the F-15, the double-engine story sounds pretty feeble. The F/A-18’s GE F-404 never had, and never will have, the same legendary rep as the P&W F-100. In fact, they had to do endless modifications just to get the thing to work.
The real reason the Navy didn’t want the F-16 was that the USAF was going to be using it. Even though they’d stuck the USAF with the F-4, they weren’t going to take their promised turn making the big adjustment. The Navy didn’t really think much of the Northrop YF-17, but they liked the fact that it would be all theirs.
And to show that they were calling the shots, the Navy went and did the ultimate betrayal: they bought the Northrop design, and then froze Northrop itself out of the development process, the whole long, profitable business of converting the YF-17 into a carrier-based airplane that eventually became the F/A-18. They handed over the whole program to a contractor they liked better, McDonnell Douglas.
The reason the Navy wouldn’t let Northrop handle the program goes all the way back to the 1940s, when these companies were still run by the guys they’re named after. Northrop was the property of John Knudsen Northrop, who had earned the total, eternal hate of the Navy by daring to tell Congress that we didn’t need aircraft carriers any more. That’s the one thing you don’t ever tell the Navy, even though everybody knows it’s true. Northrop was just trying to sell his weird “flying wing” designs when he made that crack about the carriers, but the damage was done. Thirty years later, the Navy brass got its revenge by taking Northrop’s F-17 away and making it the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18.
It wasn’t a very good design then, and it isn’t now. The F-16 has had a totally brilliant career, proved itself in air superiority and ground attack versions. The F/A-18 clunks along thanks to great pilots and a lot of cash, but it’s just not that great an airframe.
The only reason the F/A-18 exists is to be put on aircraft carriers. Which brings us back to what Jack Northrop said more than fifty years ago: why do we need aircraft carriers?
If you look hard at the Navy’s weird little dance after the Lightweight Fighter Program, what you see is a mediocre plane that never should have been funded, sitting on the decks of the most expensive, useless and vulnerable warships ever built.
When we scrambled F/A-18s to intercept old Soviet Tu-95s that were photographing the USS Nimitz in the Pacific last week (Feb. 11), the whole farce got me down. Here’s a couple of rusty, slow, hopelessly obsolete 55-year-old Soviet bombers pretending to threaten a US aircraft carrier that’s just as obsolete as they are. Every ham actor in that little drama should have retired long ago; it was like watching a fight between a couple of old heavyweights who should be enjoying their golden years in a wheelchair but keep getting trotted out because Don King knows how gullible we all are.
The Russians can get better pictures from their satellites than the poor old Tu-95s got; the Nimitz is a worthless target anyway, designed to fight WW II; and the F-18 that intercepted it only exists because the Navy turned down a superior plane, the F-16, for reasons that would have embarrassed a fourth grader.
And yet it’s the V-22 Osprey that gets all the bad press. Jeez. It’s not the hardware I mind, it’s the rusty Cold War software in the heads of the guys who like to talk about it.
This article first appeared in The eXile on February 21, 2008.
Gary Brecher is the author of the War Nerd (http://www.amazon.com/War-Nerd-Gary-Brecher/dp/0979663687). Send your comments to [email protected].
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The MIG-29 was designed to counter the F-14 Tomcat, and the Su-27 was designed to counter the F-15 Eagle. Did they do a good job those times? Well, not too bad. So they might as well do it another time.
Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? The MiG-29 had a very short range, and it was optimized for close up combat. MiG-29 + Archer missiles = Death to anything that got close to it.
I just read that somewhere :nervous: "Countering", though, doesn't necessarily mean "imitating".
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Back on topic, finally a higher res photo:
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/1103/sukhoit50pakfa01.jpg) (http://img502.imageshack.us/i/sukhoit50pakfa01.jpg/)
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too long to be quoted...
Just a few comments:
The article states that the F-4 sucked in the handling department. I found a source (here (http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=a49ead17e4a162d33895f0219170d587&topic=6678.msg58797#msg58797)) which writes that the Phantom could make up to 8.5 G's under certain conditions. That's not bad compared to modern planes. There are a few other points the author makes which are pretty much wrong, but that would take me hours to write about them, maybe next time.
Back on topic: The Raptorsky looks nice.
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Let's keep the flaming about whose internet source is less wrong to another thread, OK?
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The MIG-29 was designed to counter the F-14 Tomcat, and the Su-27 was designed to counter the F-15 Eagle. Did they do a good job those times? Well, not too bad. So they might as well do it another time.
Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? The MiG-29 had a very short range, and it was optimized for close up combat. MiG-29 + Archer missiles = Death to anything that got close to it.
I just read that somewhere :nervous: "Countering", though, doesn't necessarily mean "imitating".
Actually in this case it would, the F-14 was designed to engage multiple targets at long range, the MiG-29's would be blown out of the sky before they had a chance to get a shot off.
About the exile article:
Very interesting, it is kind of this idiocy that holds back the US armed forces (thank goodness for good training). Our biggest enemies are ourselves.
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But you are missing the point where the Mig 29 was not intended to take on F-14s.
The F-14 is a fleet interceptor, the Soviets would need to be pretty desperate to send out Mig-29s against a carrier group. The 29 was intended to be used covering the advance of tank armies into western Europe, covered in turn by specialized Interceptors (like the Su-27).
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(a.) There's quite a bit of crap in that article, Flaser. There are a few decent points, but the shortfallings in the document really serve to put it out the window for me...
(b.) In most flight regimes the YF-23 was just as dangerous a dogfighter as the '22. The only difference was in low speed handling, where the full 2D-thrust vectoring of the Lockheed/Boeing fighter gave it an edge. The YF-23 did have thrust vectoring, except it was only partial 2D...
You should note that the prototype YF-22 and F-22A fighters look quite a bit different. In a similar way, a production F/A-23A (?) would probably have a single-piece canopy, (hopefully) a HUGE internal weapons bay (much unlike the F-22...), and a potentially redesigned exhaust assembly allowing for great maneuverability at low speeds. Even still, a fight between an F-22 and an Su-30 would be one heck of a fight, and it truly would be anyone's game in the guns arena with the Su-30 having a good chance of taking the prize. Think about it...
Why am I so insistant the '22 doesn't have much of a future in terms of development? It's the structure of the fighter itself as well as the way the USAF handles its fighter force. The only aircraft really used in the multi-role arena is the F-16: the F-15A/C family have great potential for strike duties, but are not used in this facility. For this purpose, the F-15E is employed - a new variant to do what the other single-seat types could do. The saving grace of the Strike Eagle is that (a.) the airframes are newer and (b.) the superb avionics package allow the fighter to focus on its mission very easily. An avionics package could do similar things for the 'C, but the pilot workload would perhaps be unwelcome. Overall, the 'E is not the best replacement fot the good 'ole F-111 in many regards, but it makes for a multirole type. Of course, it's not really used like that...
...OK, that's USAF organization for you. Because of this, it's going to be some time before we see the F-22A loading up with MERs full of Mk 82s or 83s. The limited quatities of this fighter will help solidify this aspect as well. But the damning factor here is really that it won't be used much at all as the internal capacity is so limited and can't be expanded. Tiny 250lb bombs or a pair of 1000-pounders don't make make for a stealth strike fighter - it makes for a fighter like the F-15 in USAF service: it can fight the ground war, but not much. And doctrine will help solidify that it won't. The structure of the '22 is such that any attempts to increase the capabilities of the type by airframe modification will be very long in the tooth and prohibatively expensive. That's nothing new: the fighter was like that the day it left the drawing board.
What we needed in the age of defense cuts was ONE new type capable of doing many things without USAF operational deployment methods getting in the way. This type would have been an evolved F/A-23 OR A-12 Avenger II... the lack of selection of either was probably due to the only conspiracy theory in Flaser's article that can be argued indefinately: that Dick Cheney is EVIL. :lol: However, the politics got in the way (not atypical) and we're left with a product which isn't bad, but lacks full spectrum capabilities. This is the type of garbage which is destroying American technical innovation: playing favorites/politics put McDonnell Douglas six-feet-under (both the A-12 and the joint F-23 program with Northrop Grumman), hurt Northrop Grumman pretty badly, and didn't do too much for us in the end. DoD for the win... :doubt:
(c.) And now for something totally different!: The MiG-29 is indeed the contemporary of the F-16. The fighter rates as a modern-day lightweight (in its original role), covering the battlefield and making for a high-agility threat to anything that enters the region. I'd classify it as an "area superiority fighter." The Cold-War era F-16 was exactly the same in its purpose. Obviously, both types have evolved into multirole fighters capable of most any task.
The Su-27 was the opposing force for the F-15: like the F-15, it's a heavy air superiority fighter. The difference is that the standard Su-27 has evolved beyond just a superiority craft into a multirole type where the F-15 has stagnated, though specialized strike platforms of both types exist. Our sexy friend, the F-14, is mostly the same in the above regards with an opt towards intercept. Again, E gets the cookie. ;)
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But you are missing the point where the Mig 29 was not intended to take on F-14s.
The F-14 is a fleet interceptor, the Soviets would need to be pretty desperate to send out Mig-29s against a carrier group. The 29 was intended to be used covering the advance of tank armies into western Europe, covered in turn by specialized Interceptors (like the Su-27).
The Su-27 is not an interceptor. You must be thinking of the MiG-31, which is like the MiG-25 only it doesn't blow up, and has a higher practical top speed (Mach 2.8 vs. Mach 2.5--the "Mach 3" capability of the MiG-25 is a joke and any attempt to exceed Mach 2.5 will destroy the aircraft's engines).
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Sorry, got my terms mixed up. You are right, the Flanker is not an interceptor, it is an Airspace Superiority machine.
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Sorry, got my terms mixed up. You are right, the Flanker is not an interceptor, it is an Airspace Superiority machine.
And proven (at least in theory) to be quite the success for Sukhoi. The basic airframe seems to have been really superb as they were able to develop it into more advanced superiority fighters as well as a strike aircraft (Su-32/34) and a carrier aircraft (Su-33).
If they can recreate that success with this new aircraft then it will be quite a presence. Especially if it is exported which Russia seems to have no trouble doing. I wonder if it's stealth capabilities will make them hesitate or not. The Americans are paranoid about the F-22 technology being copied to the point where potential export success to Australia and Japan were turned down.
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We should have killed the V-22 Osprey and spent the money to buy more Raptors. The Raptor is expensive, but it doesn't have a habit of crashing into the ocean and killing platoons of Marines.
We should have built the SV-22 version to replace the Sea Kings rather than used the SH-60F or better yet replaced all the SH-60 models with Osprey SVs, built the AV-22 version to replace the Cobra Zulu. The Marines love the Osprey. They have for, by now, the last half-decade. They want to replace all their Sea Knights with Ospreys the instant they can come up with funding. It's long since been debugged. It offers all the utility of a helicopter and greater lift capacity than pretty much any helo in service save the CH-53. It has greater range and greater speed. It's a marvelous design and a truly wonderful aircraft these days.
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I don't have a problem with the Osprey, but I will tell you that along with helos, it's a nightmare as far as maintainance and mechanical complexity goes. I can't think of a single rotaty-wing aircraft that's not affected by that aspect...
I'd like to see some better rotary wing aircraft concepts in the works - the ABC (Advancing Blade Concept) for helos has been around since the 80s... I've only recently seen more development on helos like that in the US. Heavy-lift gyrocopters (think Rotodyne) would also be useful in the extreme and hopefully also easier to maintain.
...Speaking of the stealth fighter concepts I've seen of the JASDF, I'm not too impressed. Given the latest aircraft they've rolled out, this isn't too surprising, but it's a step forward I guess. I really do expect better, though:
(http://aviationweek.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/05/rcsmodel.jpg)
http://inventorspot.com/articles/new_jasdf_stealth_fighter_jet_be_6254
I can say the rearward visibility would be unsightly in the least. Where did all the creativity go?
This also brings to mind that when I was studying for aerospace engineering why I went for astro - I'm simply too violent in the atmosphere... :p
...Note that this sketch was from high school:
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Nice looking planes...
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If you're going to complain about maintenance issue nightmares in relation to the Osprey vs. Raptor, well, methinks the Raptor still probably manages to come off worse.
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on the bright side, if stealth keeps getting better and detection isnt keeping up, they will have to dogfight again! :-D
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There will always be dogfights, no matter how much the US DoD thinks otherwise.
Just as there will always be some kind of manned craft in the air.
(Knock out the Ground Control Station and your UAV's useless.)
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For once the fact that the Russians have fewer companies and a lot less money seems to be paying off in a really weird way. They have come from "cheap" and "just works" to have a whole range of products with different prices that go from "just works" to "cutting edge".
Also stealth is not all powerful. It's reduced detectability and usually only works well against X-band radars that fighters have built in.
(http://www.ausairpower.net/RCS-Regions-1.png)
It doesn't work well against low frequency radars (the aircraft are physically too small to sufficiently scatter those). Right now low-freq radars are only good enough for detection but that's already a huge advantage strategically to those who field them. In the future with advances in signal processing there's a good chance low-freq radars will have sufficient resolution for weapon's targeting. Fighter won't be able to mount them though (they're too damn big).
Another approach is to use bistatic radar systerms which comprises of transmitters and receivers separated by a distance that is comparable to the expected target distance. Currently stealth won't be viable against these as these systems see their target by the "blind spot" made in the transmitters beam.
Those are the radar approaches. A stealth fighter can still be shot down using IR - it's harder to do it than a non-stealth fighter but maintaining IR stealth while the fighter is maneuvering is really hard, so tactics will be developed that force the enemy to do that.
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Everybody is comparing fighters on a 1v1 scale, but thats not how warfare operates. Battlefield awareness and intelligence is very very important. Like E-3 Sentrys, satellites, and the like. What good is an airfield of stealth fighters that has no tower control standing or was bombed overnight with stealth bombers ahead of time.
And calling carriers useless? The ability to move an airfield over 75% of the earth's surface and strike virtually anywhere on the planet is far from useless. Vulnerable? Extremely. So put them in the center of a fleet.
What I think is useless is building anymore piloted fighters or bombers. All new designs should be UCAVs now, with eventual designs to be fully autonomous. Cheaper, higher G combat, lighter, no cockpit or life support system needed, and nobody dies or is down behind enemy lines.
The combat these stealth fighters see, which will probably be in the 2016-2020 range for first engagements, will no be between the US and Russia.. they will most likely be shooting down other russian designs or US planes sold to other nations first. That being said, the F-22 will probably never encounter this figher.
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UCAV's aren't ready yet... we don't have the AI or the ability to minimize control lag yet. It's fine for what UCAVs do right now (surveillance and the odd firing of a Hellfire missile) but not for air combat. Next generation beyond these may be fighter and bomber UCAVs. Still need the people ... for now :)
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Manned fighters are going to be with us for at least the next hundred years. UCAVs simply aren't able to handle air-to-air. They've already proved proficent at air-to-ground, however.
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I think the idea of an automaton UCAV (i.e. no controller) will be political suicide even if the AI are advanced enough to do it. Even if the risks aren't that great, no one wants to be seen as giving guns to
Cylons robots and letting them loose.
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And besides, you have a whole host of risks with employing Unmanned Vehicles anyway. The connection from the craft to its ground station, the craft itself (especially more vulnerable, you do NOT have situational awareness operating one of those 'plastic-fantastics', A2A will be the death of it), and the Ground Control Station itself.
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Well, this debate about UCAVs vs piloted planes reminds me of airplanes vs battleships:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/USSArizona1941-NavyProgram.jpg)
"A bow on view of the U. S. S. Arizona as she plows into a huge swell. It is significant that despite the claims of air enthusiasts no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs."
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I think the idea of an automaton UCAV (i.e. no controller) will be political suicide even if the AI are advanced enough to do it. Even if the risks aren't that great, no one wants to be seen as giving guns to Cylons robots and letting them loose.
IIRC there are programs ongoing to do exactly that. I dont think it would be political suicide because it means fewer young men and women (on our side) in body bags. Big selling point.
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I CAN see UCAV's potentially being supplemental to manned aircraft. A F-22 with a pair of UCAV's of similar performance that take orders/coordinate using sophisticated AI with the mothership could work well. I just can't see them by themselves... not yet.
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I think the idea of an automaton UCAV (i.e. no controller) will be political suicide even if the AI are advanced enough to do it. Even if the risks aren't that great, no one wants to be seen as giving guns to Cylons robots and letting them loose.
IIRC there are programs ongoing to do exactly that. I dont think it would be political suicide because it means fewer young men and women (on our side) in body bags. Big selling point.
Except you could have the same UCAVs slaved to operating stations. Nobody likes the idea of a robot pulling the trigger by itself, especially not after decades of cultural conditioning telling voters that armed AIs are inherently evil.
Not to mention the technical aspects of AI. We can't even make an AI that can drive a car down residential streets yet, never mind pilot a much more complex and demanding vehicle in a chaotic war zone.
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We can't even make an AI that can drive a car down residential streets yet,
They are a lot closer than you think, with the ubiquity of onboard GPS systems and neural network architectures, it really wont be much longer before it becomes a reality. According to wikipedia in 1995 a Carnagie Mellon Navlab project called "hands free across america" had a car with a computer controlled steering wheel (the gas pedal and the brakes were still human controlled but still) and it drove all the way across the country steering itself. And that was 15 years ago.