F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

omaebakabaka

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poor F35. Its sole asset near vanishing....
I share this worry too....good plane but if stealth is beaten then its characteristics are worse than 4.5 gen planes on the market.
 

Dessert Storm

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I share this worry too....good plane but if stealth is beaten then its characteristics are worse than 4.5 gen planes on the market.
Keep training for those dogfights and WVR tactics. Always have that AMRAAM and that under-rated gun whenever you go hunting.
 

BON PLAN

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I share this worry too....good plane but if stealth is beaten then its characteristics are worse than 4.5 gen planes on the market.
Every one is working on anti stealth tech.
A F35 without stealth is : less agile than a F16, less evolving than any fighter, The indoor bays are nearly useless, costly to maintain.... Just remain the capacity to be a communication node. Costly for a mission able to a drone.
 

omaebakabaka

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Keep training for those dogfights and WVR tactics. Always have that AMRAAM and that under-rated gun whenever you go hunting.
Its not just the dog fights, its the range, the pay load and future upgrades....this platform is just needlessly complex trying to do too many things. Read recently somewhere, it can't fly in thunder storms?
 

Immanuel

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I share this worry too....good plane but if stealth is beaten then its characteristics are worse than 4.5 gen planes on the market.
Seriously, stop being silly and posting this kind of garbage, if any one thinks this stealthy aircraft flies through international airspace without it's Luneburg lenses is being delusional. It's wartime signatures are unknown, ask the Israeli's who have been flying over the entire middle east frequently undetected.
 

omaebakabaka

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Seriously, stop being silly and posting this kind of garbage, if any one thinks this stealthy aircraft flies through international airspace without it's Luneburg lenses is being delusional. It's wartime signatures are unknown, ask the Israeli's who have been flying over the entire middle east frequently undetected.
Sure, if you believe in magic. I am waiting for Isreal and US to take over everything that they are fighting for with this plane and call it a day because everyone is scared and can't do shit about f-35/f-22
 

Immanuel

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Its not just the dog fights, its the range, the pay load and future upgrades....this platform is just needlessly complex trying to do too many things. Read recently somewhere, it can't fly in thunder storms?
Combat radius for the F-35A in stealth mode with full internal load (4, eventually 6 AAM + 2 tons of bombs) + internal fuel is 1000km+ what do you expect from an aircraft? Can the EF or Rafale do that or achieve the same range on internal fuel?


JPO has advised local F-35A squadron commanders to avoid flying "within 25 miles of lightning or thunderstorms," according to the statement. Lightning strikes on aircraft are statistically rare, occurring about once per year according to the Federal Aviation Administration.


Atleast the F-35 has a full color weather radar mode, Rafale doesn't have the mode till India requested it as part of ISE and won't arrive till the 36th aircraft arrives in India.
 

Immanuel

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Sure, if you believe in magic. I am waiting for Isreal and US to take over everything that they are fighting for with this plane and call it a day because everyone is scared and can't do shit about f-35/f-22
The F-35 much like the F-22 has very low wartime signatures and thus can exploit gaps in the air defences to fly around. You should know by now by their record the Israelis for one do not take their security for granted and have always been a aggressive force able to use innovative, daring tactics and raids to achieve their goals. You're free to believe what you want but if you think Israel by now hasn't already mastered various tactics on breaking through Iran's or other regional air defences you'd be naive.

If the Israeli's love it, the aircraft is perfectly fine. Moreso, thanks to some lobbying and back scratching, they're modifying theirs to have exactly what they want (mostly local weapons, comms, IFFs etc). When it comes operational kills, there is not a better airforce on the planet.
 

omaebakabaka

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Combat radius for the F-35A in stealth mode with full internal load (4, eventually 6 AAM + 2 tons of bombs) + internal fuel is 1000km+ what do you expect from an aircraft? Can the EF or Rafale do that or achieve the same range on internal fuel?


JPO has advised local F-35A squadron commanders to avoid flying "within 25 miles of lightning or thunderstorms," according to the statement. Lightning strikes on aircraft are statistically rare, occurring about once per year according to the Federal Aviation Administration.


Atleast the F-35 has a full color weather radar mode, Rafale doesn't have the mode till India requested it as part of ISE and won't arrive till the 36th aircraft arrives in India.
Once stealth is gone/detected, all those specs are bit underwhelming in its class when compared against 4.5 gen. I am not dissing the plane but future upgrades for it are also not going to take it that far either....I do not beleive in Isreali claims, they are not against a rated power and there are counter claims.
 

omaebakabaka

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The F-35 much like the F-22 has very low wartime signatures and thus can exploit gaps in the air defences to fly around. You should know by now by their record the Israelis for one do not take their security for granted and have always been a aggressive force able to use innovative, daring tactics and raids to achieve their goals. You're free to believe what you want but if you think Israel by now hasn't already mastered various tactics on breaking through Iran's or other regional air defences you'd be naive.

If the Israeli's love it, the aircraft is perfectly fine. Moreso, thanks to some lobbying and back scratching, they're modifying theirs to have exactly what they want (mostly local weapons, comms, IFFs etc). When it comes operational kills, there is not a better airforce on the planet.
All planes are American and most israeli tech is american in origin. I agree about Isreali tactics and capabilities vs arabs and their neighbors but not much proof when it comes to rated powers. Their daring is because Uncle Sam got their back to a larger extent in case things escalate.
 

Manticore

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So....when you strip away the stealth, what you have left is a plane with the same service ceiling as the Rafale.
All planes are American and most israeli tech is american in origin. I agree about Isreali tactics and capabilities vs arabs and their neighbors but not much proof when it comes to rated powers. Their daring is because Uncle Sam got their back to a larger extent in case things escalate.
Why is every other info about other planes with less sources taken as truth but not with this plane? You're concerned because the F-35 was used by Israel against low peer opponents but the Rafale against Libya was a near peer one? If everyone is concerned about the f-35 losing its stealth advantage, why are they building their own? You've got all the new sensors and engines that can easily be plugged in with only the software to be written and this plane is less evolved than any other jet. Again, no one has anything to say about the other nations stealth fighter, especially when then don't make their issues public. They fly theirs a few times at military parades and everyone says they're finished. Or they put the f-35 against planes on the drawing board where every thing said in passing is taken as fact.
 

omaebakabaka

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So....when you strip away the stealth, what you have left is a plane with the same service ceiling as the Rafale.

Why is every other info about other planes with less sources taken as truth but not with this plane? You're concerned because the F-35 was used by Israel against low peer opponents but the Rafale against Libya was a near peer one? If everyone is concerned about the f-35 losing its stealth advantage, why are they building their own? You've got all the new sensors and engines that can easily be plugged in with only the software to be written and this plane is less evolved than any other jet. Again, no one has anything to say about the other nations stealth fighter, especially when then don't make their issues public. They fly theirs a few times at military parades and everyone says they're finished. Or they put the f-35 against planes on the drawing board where every thing said in passing is taken as fact.
Rafale is a balanced time tested configuration where stealth is one attribute but not the defining one, so there are not many surprizes or claims to challenge or doubt. F-35's ace is stealth as it is inferior in pretty much most aspects to 4.5 gen planes in other characteristics and needlessly complex. If everything about F-35 is secret then it is hard to accept claims unless they are against rated power about its stealth abilities. Russia claims OTH radars detect from 3000 km and there is no such thing as stealth for them, it is just one of the plus points in minimizing certain risks but trade off as heavy as F-35 is not very attractive now (probably better when F-22 arrived) but chances are they are detected now.
 

StealthFlanker

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Once stealth is gone/detected, all those specs are bit underwhelming in its class when compared against 4.5 gen. I am not dissing the plane but future upgrades for it are also not going to take it that far either....I do not beleive in Isreali claims, they are not against a rated power and there are counter claims.
You don't seem to understand, stealth is not an on/off quality that you can just strip away from an aircraft.
Stealth basically just means an aircraft have very low RCS value, several orders of magnitude smaller than a normal aircraft and therefore the distance that a radar can detect it is shorter than a normal aircraft. The point of stealth is not completely invisible but rather the ability to reduce enemy detection range so that you can detect and attack them before they can do the same to you. About your argument, let me put it this way: imagine some inventor created an electromagnetic rifle called AK-XX, this rifle can shot bullet that is as destructive as a full size tank round, but it is 1 kg heavier than a normal AK-47. Your argument is basically the same as saying well: " if the enemy can make an armor that can block AK-XX bullet then it will be more useless than a normal AK-47 because it is heavier". Well, the thing you forget is that whatever armor that can block AK-XX's bullet will also block AK-47's bullet and with even greater effectiveness.
In short, if tomorrow, the enemy can make a radar that can detect F-35 from 150 km then that very same radar will detect Rafale from 400-500 km and even more. Furthermore, the thing that people almost always forget when discussing the benefit of stealth is how it synergized with jamming power required and burn through distance of jamming.
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 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.

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

Because a stealth aircraft have lower RCS value, that means the amount of power that it must transmit to maintain the required J/S ratio is lower. Take for example, F-35 has RCS of 0.001 m2 and Rafale has RCS of 0.1 m2 and Su-35 has RCS of 10 m2. That would mean, if F-35 need 10 kW of power to jam a radar then Rafale will need 1 MW to do the same thing and Su-35 will need 100 MW.
On the other hand,if they use similar type of jamming then the burn through range against F-35will be 10 times shorter than the burn-through range against Rafale, so if a radar can neutralize F-35's jamming ability from 100 km then that very same radar will neutralize Rafale jamming from 1000 km.



 

omaebakabaka

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You don't seem to understand, stealth is not an on/off quality that you can just strip away from an aircraft.
Stealth basically just means an aircraft have very low RCS value, several orders of magnitude smaller than a normal aircraft and therefore the distance that a radar can detect it is shorter than a normal aircraft. The point of stealth is not completely invisible but rather the ability to reduce enemy detection range so that you can detect and attack them before they can do the same to you. About your argument, let me put it this way: imagine some inventor created an electromagnetic rifle called AK-XX, this rifle can shot bullet that is as destructive as a full size tank round, but it is 1 kg heavier than a normal AK-47. Your argument is basically the same as saying well: " if the enemy can make an armor that can block AK-XX bullet then it will be more useless than a normal AK-47 because it is heavier". Well, the thing you forget is that whatever armor that can block AK-XX's bullet will also block AK-47's bullet and with even greater effectiveness.
In short, if tomorrow, the enemy can make a radar that can detect F-35 from 150 km then that very same radar will detect Rafale from 400-500 km and even more. Furthermore, the thing that people almost always forget when discussing the benefit of stealth is how it synergized with jamming power required and burn through distance of jamming.
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 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.

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

Because a stealth aircraft have lower RCS value, that means the amount of power that it must transmit to maintain the required J/S ratio is lower. Take for example, F-35 has RCS of 0.001 m2 and Rafale has RCS of 0.1 m2 and Su-35 has RCS of 10 m2. That would mean, if F-35 need 10 kW of power to jam a radar then Rafale will need 1 MW to do the same thing and Su-35 will need 100 MW.
On the other hand,if they use similar type of jamming then the burn through range against F-35will be 10 times shorter than the burn-through range against Rafale, so if a radar can neutralize F-35's jamming ability from 100 km then that very same radar will neutralize Rafale jamming from 1000 km.



I am not challenging the theory, with tremendous computing power now available the signatures can be identified and magnified to detect and counter....much smaller level particles are being identified and sniffed out, are you telling me this is not possible?.....F-35 is a poor design needlessly complex hedging on too much stealth factoring and compromising other things. This is a dead end design already proving to be difficult to keep up thanks to software complexity and obsolescence will be a given. It does not take much to see USAF is not happy with this plane.....this is no wonder plane, it is a decent plane but its unrivaled advantage was gone 5 to 7 years ago. They are still using F-16's and 15's in Syria, if its such a wonder plane, they would use it with some guts, not keep it for some dooms day that may or may not arrive. This is supposed to be front line aircraft....not buying the magic till it establishes some record. F-22 and F-35 both need some evidence in combat zones
 

StealthFlanker

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I share this worry too....good plane but if stealth is beaten then its characteristics are worse than 4.5 gen planes on the market.
Rafale is a balanced time tested configuration where stealth is one attribute but not the defining one, so there are not many surprizes or claims to challenge or doubt. F-35's ace is stealth as it is inferior in pretty much most aspects to 4.5 gen planes in other characteristics and needlessly complex.
Is it really though?
for example: due to aperture area advantage, F-35' APG-81 has roughly twice as many T/R modules as Rafale's RBE-2AA, which means it will have a much greater radar detection range due to higher transmitting power and better gain. This is just physics, even if they somehow have the same RCS, F-35 still have detection range advantage


Furthermore, F-35 electricity generation capacity is several times higher than Rafale, which means it has much more power available for both radar and jammer compared to Rafale




Russia claims OTH radars detect from 3000 km and there is no such thing as stealth for them, it is just one of the plus points in minimizing certain risks but trade off as heavy as F-35 is not very attractive now (probably better when F-22 arrived) but chances are they are detected now.
Yes, there is no such thing as stealth for OTH radar, but if you know even a little bit about them, you will realize that they can't be used for fire control purpose and they have a blind zone (skip zone) where they can't detect anything within a 2000-3000 km radius around them. There are very good reason why they are early warning only



Oh and btw, OTH are huge stationary target that can't even be camouflage, so in any conflict, they will be the first to be attacked. Even VHF and UHF early warning radar look like little small toys when put next to OTH radar
 

Manticore

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Rafale is a balanced time tested configuration where stealth is one attribute but not the defining one, so there are not many surprizes or claims to challenge or doubt. F-35's ace is stealth as it is inferior in pretty much most aspects to 4.5 gen planes in other characteristics and needlessly complex. If everything about F-35 is secret then it is hard to accept claims unless they are against rated power about its stealth abilities. Russia claims OTH radars detect from 3000 km and there is no such thing as stealth for them, it is just one of the plus points in minimizing certain risks but trade off as heavy as F-35 is not very attractive now (probably better when F-22 arrived) but chances are they are detected now.
Russian and chinese claims are accepted as gospel? I see.....
What characteristics are needlessly complex?
Even if stealth is over, as you claim, is it easier to slap better ecm on the f-35 to make up for that or slap stealth characteristics on the Rafale since it is now a bigger target with these better radars?
 

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