F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

scatterStorm

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Very well, thank you for understanding my skepticism.

IAF officers who participated in Red Flag 16-1 would have no way of evaluating anything about the F-35

Because the first time F-35 participated in Red Flag was 16-3,the variant participating in the exercise was the F-35B because it's the only variant that has reached initial operational capability.

The F-35A is in the final stages of achieving IOC.
What do you think, should we go with F35? Or we are good with some few upgrades here and there, some new purchases down the line an the LCA and our 5th gen program, I mean just enough to complete the 42 squadron quota of IAF?
 

Scarface

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What do you think, should we go with F35? Or we are good with some few upgrades here and there, some new purchases down the line an the LCA and our 5th gen program, I mean just enough to complete the 42 squadron quota of IAF?
A year ago,I would have said it doesn't really matter that much and 4++ generation aircraft could have satisfied our strategic needs.But since early 2016 , China has begun serial production of their own stealth fighter J-20,that gives them a huge advantage if a conflict breaks out before AMCA and PAK FA.

F-35 is expected to go into full rate production in 2018,it has been in Low Rate Initital Production since 2010-2011.

PAK FA is expected to begin low rate initial production in 2017,I think you get where I'm going for this.

I personally felt considering the downsized Rafale order , we should get 90 F-35As for the Air Force but now I feel it's pointless to even talk about it since the defence minister has already said India will pick from one F-18SH,F-16 Super Viper(Block 70) , the Gripen-E or the Eurofighter Typhoon,he didn't mention the Rafale but follow up orders are a serious possibility by the end of the current financial year

As far as IAF squadron strength is concerned,IAF has always maintained they need 45 squadrons,for a two front war,39.5 and later 42 squadrons was a compromise by the government who claimed they couldn't operate that many fighters economically.

Now that our economic situation has improved maybe we can,so there still is room for aircraft in the IAF,it is all upto the government

We should go with the F-35,we need the F-35 is what I think,but MoD doesn't
 

StealthFlanker

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Nice info there much appreciated. I wanted to ask that radars or jammers have a finite amount of time for sustained functioning after which they have to go on a cool-off period, unless you have some sort of cooling mechanism but that would also mean certain amount of time being not in operation, that being said, can we detect a stealth jet during those period?
There is a non operating period for pulse radar but that is not related to cooling but rather due to the fact that a radar calculating range to a target by measuring the elapsed time between pulse transmittal and target return reception. For unambiguous range measurements, no more than one pulse should be received from the target for each pulse transmitted by the radar. So, the maximum required range of the radar determines the maximum repetition frequency of the radar , this repetition will then affect the pulse recurrence time

On the other hand ,for system that doesnt need to care about range like a CW radar or an ECM system, their duty cycle can be as high as 100%


And another question, with the recent advancement in long range image and pattern recognition( F35 jets sorts of uses it with there DAS and EO DAS, some claim T50s also ) to identify any "fuzzy" ground or airborne target using SA radars, does it mean that SA and arguably Low band radars also can although detect "fuzzy" targets which are little of no significance?
1) DAS and EODAS is the same thing , i think you are referring to EOTS ?
2) I never heard about SA radar before ? do you mean SAR ?
3) Your question is very unclear , do you mean "can low frequency radar detect target with getting the reflection " or do you mean" can low frequency radar determine target shape" ? , please be more specific.

I mean, you can detect a golf ball in air, but how sure we are that golf ball is a stealth jet?
Generally doppler effect should be enough, sometimes they can use ISAR ( inversed SAR ) if the target moving in a predictable manner, others sensor like RWR , IR and sensor fusion could be useful for NCTR too.
 

scatterStorm

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Let's assume for a moment that our MoD decides to buy these jet's, but should we data link with there software on board, Personally I don't like that idea, I've read articles that Israel AF has there own on board systems on F35", that being said, they have a definite reason for this, otherwise why would they do it. Let's just say I am a bit insecure about these "American planes" even F18's or F16's ones. Are we aiming for ToT of engine technology and we have to buy few of those birds as a down payment before they will give us ToT?
 

scatterStorm

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1. Yup my bad, EOTS.
2. Yes, SA (Synthetic Aperture), I wrote that way.
3. I meant, SAR and LFR both can detect stealth, although with varying distances, but if F35 is using a tech like this can target an airborne jet at BVR and that means stealth jet too, then this would definitely be some sort Pattern and Image Recognition going on board otherwise it cannot be done.

Here's an excerpt from "The Aviationist" :

The APG radars are built to do high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mapping, ground moving target indication and track (GMTI/GMTT), automatic cueing and "recognition", "combat identification", etc

If so then stealth is ultimately detectable?
 

Scarface

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Let's assume for a moment that our MoD decides to buy these jet's, but should we data link with there software on board, Personally I don't like that idea, I've read articles that Israel AF has there own on board systems on F35", that being said, they have a definite reason for this, otherwise why would they do it. Let's just say I am a bit insecure about these "American planes" even F18's or F16's ones. Are we aiming for ToT of engine technology and we have to buy few of those birds as a down payment before they will give us ToT?

Not data linking the software on board would be a grave mistake for anyone who buys F-35,one of the things which makes it arguably the best fighter in the world (in terms of overall utility,not just air superiority) is the sensor fusion and the capability to relay this data to friendly assets which can use it to their advantage.

In a recent US simulation or exercise,I'm not sure,the F-35 detected an incoming threat,send information regarding it to a USN destroyer and the destroyer successfully eliminated the threat with onboard SAMs

There are many reasons this can be useful,
One being if the F-35 is in contested air space and firing onboard AAMs would result in detection
Or the F-35 is on a strike role and doesn't want to spend it's limited AAMs on the target

We can pay extra for our own/Israeli data link to be integrated by Lockheed into F-35,but that might limit the F-35s capability to do the aforementioned tasks.
 

StealthFlanker

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1. Yup my bad, EOTS.
2. Yes, SA (Synthetic Aperture), I wrote that way.
3. I meant, SAR and LFR both can detect stealth, although with varying distances, but if F35 is using a tech like this can target an airborne jet at BVR and that means stealth jet too, then this would definitely be some sort Pattern and Image Recognition going on board otherwise it cannot be done.

Here's an excerpt from "The Aviationist" :

The APG radars are built to do high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mapping, ground moving target indication and track (GMTI/GMTT), automatic cueing and "recognition", "combat identification", etc

If so then stealth is ultimately detectable?
I think you misunderstood a few thing here:
1) LRF stand for laser finder range , it is a device used to measure range and velocity of target , often used in conjunction with IR system because IR system themselves lack those capabilities. However LRF is not used for detection.
2) SAR or Synthetic aperture radar is a method to improve radar resolution by taking advantage of aircraft forward movement. As we know radar resolution depending alot on the beam width ( aka radar gain ) ,

But, one factor that limit beam width is radar aperture in relative to operating frequency (related to wavelength ), which is decided by the following equation :

From the equation we can see that radar resolution , aperture size and wavelength have very strong correlation. A radar that works at X-band ( common frequency for fighter radar ) that have beam width narrow enough to allow it to see the detail of ground targets would have to be too big that it would be impractical to for fighters to carry. On the other hand, a radar working at very high frequency can have very good resolution that will allow fighters to see ground targets very clear, but with such high frequency the radar beam will be attenuated too much by moisture and oxygen that they will not be able to see very far, hence not suitable for fighters. As a result ,synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technique was created. The SAR works similar of a phased array, but contrary of a large number of the parallel antenna elements of a phased array, SAR uses one antenna in time-multiplex.

The different geometric positions of the antenna elements are result of the moving platform . The SAR-processor stores all the radar returned signals, as amplitudes and phases, for the time period T from position start to finish. Now it is possible to reconstruct the signal which would have been obtained by an antenna of length v · T, where v is the platform speed , T is time . As the line of sight direction changes along the radar platform trajectory, a synthetic aperture is produced by signal processing that has the effect of lengthening the antenna. Making T large makes the"synthetic aperture” large and hence a higher resolution can be achieved.
However, while SAR method improve resolution significantly , it really doesn't improve reflection strength ,so if a radar cannot detect stealth target in velocity search mode , then it wont be able to detect such aircraft using SAR mode. Moreover, SAR really only work again stationary targets , for moving target you need something like ISAR , and the target has to move in a predictable manner. One interesting characteristic of focused ray SAR though , is that it's resolution in uniform regardless of distance


3) saying that stealth is detectable is irrelevance , it never the question of whether you can detect them or not ( because even the R-77 radar seeker can detect F-35 if it get close enough ) but rather the question of whether you can detect and attack stealth platform before they do the same thing to you
 
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scatterStorm

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Some great info there, it's been a while to have such healthy dose of good info in my appetite. Ok I need to clarify few things and need to share my own interesting queues, they are as follows:

  1. "LFR as in Low Frequency Radar" or L band radar, thank you.
  2. Quite right on detecting them first or they detect you!

Now some interesting queues I got from the gain equation,
  • Frequency is inversely proportional to wavelength which is well know, lowering it will increase the wavelength.
  • But the catch is, Gain is highly correlated with wavelength and Aperture Size, so this would mean gain sig.fig drops while in low frequency mode.
  • This would intern require to have large antenna size which is not feasible on a jet!
  • But since the Gain is lessen we have to use some sort of amplification which would require more energy onboard, which to me is becoming interesting to know that how the hell T50 is going to use it against detecting F22 or F35 given the antenna size is quite small!
  • One interesting bit I found is that, L band radar can only track in straight area but lacks height as one variable to increase accuracy, unless they are working on pulse Doppler mode, which I think Russians aren't stupid, they must be.
  • L band if activated would light you up like a Christmas tree to aggressor jets, sure they well get reveled too, but if they detect you and maintain a lock on the only way to break a lock is to maintain a tangent to enemy radar which IMO is quite hard in combat situations.
  • One interesting bit is that, ok if they aren't supposed to work like that does it mean that the Russians are thinking of transforming a few T50 with L band radar on there leading edge to a mini Awacs? granted they are increasing the antenna size kind off!

But again Ruskies ain't stupid, there's gotta be some sort of wizardry going on, otherwise why would you fit such a irrelevant piece of crap on a jet to detect stealth jets!
 

StealthFlanker

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Some great info there, it's been a while to have such healthy dose of good info in my appetite. Ok I need to clarify few things and need to share my own interesting queues, they are as follows:

  1. "LFR as in Low Frequency Radar" or L band radar, thank you.
  2. Quite right on detecting them first or they detect you!

Now some interesting queues I got from the gain equation,
  • Frequency is inversely proportional to wavelength which is well know, lowering it will increase the wavelength.
  • But the catch is, Gain is highly correlated with wavelength and Aperture Size, so this would mean gain sig.fig drops while in low frequency mode.
  • This would intern require to have large antenna size which is not feasible on a jet!
  • But since the Gain is lessen we have to use some sort of amplification which would require more energy onboard, which to me is becoming interesting to know that how the hell T50 is going to use it against detecting F22 or F35 given the antenna size is quite small!
  • One interesting bit I found is that, L band radar can only track in straight area but lacks height as one variable to increase accuracy, unless they are working on pulse Doppler mode, which I think Russians aren't stupid, they must be.
  • L band if activated would light you up like a Christmas tree to aggressor jets, sure they well get reveled too, but if they detect you and maintain a lock on the only way to break a lock is to maintain a tangent to enemy radar which IMO is quite hard in combat situations.
  • One interesting bit is that, ok if they aren't supposed to work like that does it mean that the Russians are thinking of transforming a few T50 with L band radar on there leading edge to a mini Awacs? granted they are increasing the antenna size kind off!

But again Ruskies ain't stupid, there's gotta be some sort of wizardry going on, otherwise why would you fit such a irrelevant piece of crap on a jet to detect stealth jets!
1) Tikhomirov NIIP L-band on PAK-FA and Su-35 are not mean to be used as radar ( L band radar of that size would have a massive resolution cell that is even bigger than what an early warning radar can achieve, and small cell is better ) . They are IFF and jamming system , intended to jam data link such as Link-16 that also work in L-band ( kinda similar concept with Mig-31 , the Zaslon-m also have a part of its as L band transponder) .
2) Normal L band are not limited to horizontal scanning only , but the L band on PAK-FA consist of only a single row of T/R modules ,and because electronic scanner array need wave interference to steer their beam a single row of T/R modules will mean they cannot scan in vertical , and as a result , cannot determine height , pulse doppler is irrelevance here, the purpose of pulse doppler radar is so that you can determine distance and velocity, has nothing to do with their resolution really , unless we talking range resolution then a shorter pulse will bring better range resolution.

3) you can always break lock with jamming , the question is distance
 
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asianobserve

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Distributed Lethality at Work: Combining the F-35 and Aegis Missile Defense



The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps successfully tested the integration of two of their most advanced weapon platforms—the F-35B Lightning II and the Aegis Combat System—during a live fire missile exercise held at the White Sand Missile Range in New Mexico on September 13, according to a U.S. Navy press release.
The exercise involved a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B, acting as an elevated sensor, and transmitting data about incoming aerial threats to a ground station designed to simulate a ship at sea. The F-35B eventually detected an over-the-horizon threat and sent the data to the ground station connected to the Aegis Combat System. The incoming threat was successfully engaged and destroyed by a Standard Missile 6 long-range surface-to-air missile.


The live fire drill was designed to test the U.S. Navy‘s new air warfare concept, known as Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA), and is focused on improving situational awareness and extended-range cooperative targeting. NIFC-CA is part of the U.S. Navy’s new distributed lethality naval surface warfighting concept. The September 13 test confirmed the compatibility of the two weapon systems, with the F-35B acting as a broad area sensor and thereby increasing the Aegis Combat System’s capability to detect, track, and destroy targets.
http://thediplomat.com/2016/09/dist...combining-the-f-35-and-aegis-missile-defense/
 

StealthFlanker

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Can you shed some more light on point 3, how distance affect jamming or lock on?
It pretty simple really ,let talk about how a radar work first: How can a radar detect a target ?
Radar send out pulses and analyze reflection to detect and track targets. The reflection signal power is competing with some interfering signal in order to be detected or recognized. Interfering signal sources may be ground or sea returns, meteorological clutter returns, atmospheric reflections, or more likely, random noise generated within the receiving circuitry. The latter source is always present to some degrees, while the other sources are variable and can be zero.The maximum detection range performance is determined by a very small signal to noise ratio when the signal begins to fade and become indistinguishable from the noise. As you can easily imagine , the further target stays from the radar , the less reflection you will receive , while background noise really doesnt change that much


Now on to jamming.There are 2 class of jamming in general :
The first one is noise jamming : Noise jamming is the form of electronic countermeasure where jammer transmit an interference signal ( white noise) in enemy’s radar direction so that the aircraft reflection is completely submerged by interference.This type of jamming is also called ‘denial jamming’ or ‘obscuration jamming’. The primary advantage of noise jamming is that only minimal details about the enemy equipment need be known. This class of jamming is rather simple and can be used not only as self protection but also support ( cover )jamming , disadvantages is that it often require much higher jamming power than deceptive jamming

The second class of jamming is deceptive jamming : Deception jammers carry receiving devices on board in order to analyze the radar’ transmission and then send back false target-like signals in order to confuse the radar.This is in contrast to noise type of jamming,whose objective is to obscure the real signal by injecting a suitable level of noise-like interference into the victim system.Techniques like “noise jamming” are useful for taking a radar installation out of commission, but more sophisticated deception jamming can make the enemy think their radar is still working when it is actually reporting incorrect target range and velocity information With deception jamming, an exact knowledge of not only the enemy radar’s frequency, but all other transmission parameters is required. Deceptive jamming, in a way , is spot or point jamming of a more intelligent nature, HoJ mode of missiles are often less effective again deception jamming because missiles often do not know they are being jammed ( It important to note that , if jamming is detected then HoJ can still be used ).

In recent years capability of radar deceptive jamming has been enhanced significantly with the development of Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) techniques .Jammers with DRFM technology are widely reported in literature , for example ALQ-187(v)2 , ALQ-131 EA PUP , Falcon edge , ALQ-211(V)9 , ALQ-214(V)3 , Spectra , ASQ-239.DRFM is a technology in which a high-speed sampling digital memory is used for storage and recreation of radio frequency signals.The most significant aspect of DRFM is that as a digital “duplicate” of the received signal, it is coherent with the source of the received signal. As opposed to analog ‘memory loops’, there is no signal degradation caused by continuously cycling the energy through a front-end amplifier which allows for greater range errors for reactive jamming and allows for predictive jamming.
.Deceptive jamming require much less transmitting power and often less vulnerable to HoJ , however ,unlike noise jamming , radar can counter deceptive jamming by various method such as frequency hopping , PRF jittering , pulse compression or leading edge tracking ..etc ( more sophisticated jamming method will require more sophisticated ECCM method ).

But the most important factor that enthusiasts always overlooked when talking about jamming is the jamming-signal ratio , that can be seen as the deciding factor whether jamming will work or not.
As a matter of fact when Jamming is factored into the radar equation,the quantities of greatest interest are Jamming to signal ratio (J/S) and Burn-Through Range.”J-to-S” is the ratio of the signal strength of the jamming signal (J) to the signal strength of the target return signal (S) [ it kinda similar to signal-noise ratio , the only different thing here is that background noise consist of jamming signal too ]. It is expressed as “J/S” and often measured in dB.Apart from their unique requirements of each specific jamming technique, for jamming to be effective J must exceed S by some amount , therefore , the desired result of a J/S calculation in dB is a positive number .It is a common mistaken that J/S ratio required to jam any radar is a fixed value.But in reality the required J/S varied significantly depending on jamming techniques and radar type.For example :

Burn-through range is the radar to target distance where the target return signal can first be detected through the ECM and is usually slightly farther than crossover range where J=S. It is usually the range where the J/S just equals the minimum J/S requirement.


ERPs = Effective radiated power of radar
ERPj =Effective radiated power of jammer
G = Antenna gain
RCS = Target radar cross section
As can be seen from the equation above , for jammer a longer distance and smaller RCS is desirable. Why lower RCS is more desirable has been explained before , so i will not say it again ,but the effect is very dramatic to say the least

About distance : because jamming signal only has to travel one way, as the range get further , the jammer has more advantage than the radar because jamming power decrease at slower rate ,so the further you are from a radar , the easier it would be for you to jam it
 

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US planes Cost Per Flight Hour(CPFH) as per released data
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Largest F-35 Deployment to Date: Exercise Northern Lightning 2016


The 33rd Fighter Wing wrapped up the largest F-35 deployment to date at this year’s Exercise Northern Lightning Aug. 31 at Volk Field, Wis.
The 33rd FW deployed over 150 personnel and 14 F-35As for two weeks to train to a realistic threat level and develop how to deploy and sustain a squadron of F-35s.
The F-35A pilots practiced joint operations with F-16 Fighting Falcons, F/A-18 Super Hornets, E/A-18 Growlers and E-3 Sentries to create a more lethal and survivable strike package. The experience gained from deploying as a total force will shape how the units work together in future combat operations.
http://www.aetc.af.mil/News/Article...35a-completes-largest-deployment-to-date.aspx
 

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Lockheed Martin Wins $743 Million For Lot 9 F-35 Fighters

Lockheed Martin is being awarded a $743 million to the previously awarded low-rate initial production Lot 9 F-35 Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter advance acquisition contract.
This modification provides additional funding and will establish not-to-exceed (NTE) prices for diminishing manufacturing and material shortages redesign and development, estimated post-production concurrency changes and country unique requirements, US department of defense said in a statement Monday.
In addition, this modification will establish NTE prices for one F-35A aircraft and one F-35B aircraft for a non-U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) participant in the F-35 program.
Work is expected to be completed in December 2019.
This modification combines purchases for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, non-U.S. DoD participants and Foreign Military Sales. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2016/10/lockheed-martin-wins-743-million-for.html
 

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