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F-22 / F-35 5th Generation jets | News & Discussions.

@gambit What's your reaction to this article? The article is about interviewing Hostage on what will happen in the 2020s.
I find this part really weird.

“The F-35 doesn’t have the altitude, doesn’t have the speed [of the F-22], but it can beat the F-22 in stealth.”

Gen. Mike Hostage On The F-35; No Growlers Needed When War Starts « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary

I think he means the F35 can receive sensor information from other craft thus allowing it to fly blind.
 
F-22-dogfight-close-up.jpg


F-22 vs F-15 dogfight.


@gambit What's your reaction to this article? The article is about interviewing Hostage on what will happen in the 2020s.
I find this part really weird.

“The F-35 doesn’t have the altitude, doesn’t have the speed [of the F-22], but it can beat the F-22 in stealth.”

Gen. Mike Hostage On The F-35; No Growlers Needed When War Starts « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary
Other reports claim that the F-35 is said to have an smaller RCS headon than the F-22, but from all other angles the F-35 RCS is greater.

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II
 
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Basically...What Colonel Pietrucha said is that US airpower, specifically the USAF, should focus more on current generation technology (not platforms) and less on low radar observable, aka 'stealth', platforms, which should be reserved to achieve air supremacy in order for 'non-stealth' platforms to support ground objectives -- IF finance is the main driver for force array.

Coming from a sensor specialist perspective, I have heard this argument before and I do have a high degree of agreement with it.

We cannot deny the reality that our current force array is indeed that while time and combat tested in terms of airpower philosophy, the same force array is also time and combat wearied in terms of platforms. What the colonel, and others that I have read and discussed about with my fellow Crows many years ago, is that we, meaning US airpower, should have more modern versions of the F-15 and F-16. Not incremental upgrade models of them, like blocks 60, 70, 80, etc...etc..., but newer and better designed fighters in the line of they were originally designed for. Then gradually retire the current crop to the National Guards and Reserve forces and for new pilots training purposes.

The key is this -- Absolutely uncontested air supremacy must be achieved by the 'stealth' platforms.

I said this before on this forum:

- Air dominance: The ability of an air force to compel other air forces, friends and foes, to rearray themselves into inferior postures in any contested airspace, be it territorial or anywhere else.

- Air superiority: The ability of an air force to achieve control of any contested airspace, repeatedly if necessary, and if there are any losses, those losses would pose statistically insignificant challenges to that goal of control.

- Air supremacy: He flies, he dies.

Right now, if US airpower challenges anyone's territorial airspace, even those of Russia and China, those air forces will rearray themselves into inferior, meaning defensive, postures, and they know it. Challenged, not yet entered. In Desert Storm, we went to dominance to supremacy literally overnight over Iraq's territorial airspace. It would not be as quick for more advanced foes like Russia or China and we will have to work hard to achieve air superiority over strategically important portions of their airspaces, but we can do it with the current F-15/F-16 mix.

Can we do it 50 yrs or even as soon as 20 yrs from now ? What Colonel Pietrucha and many others have been saying is: Not likely.

If you can afford it, you do not build a military based upon the lowest or even the middling of potential adversaries out there. You build based upon the most advanced potential foes, no matter how remote the probabilities of conflict against them. IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT.

So instead of the F-35, US airpower could, and in the opinion of Colonel Pietrucha and others should, have build a larger F-22 fleet to assure the goal of air supremacy in any conflict, and gradually replace the current F-15 and F-16 fleet with 4.5 or 4.75 gen fighters that incorporate only mild 'stealth' capabilities. If the US Marines want V/STOL, give them a Harrier replacement, not the V/STOL version of the F-35. If the US Navy want a common platform to achieve multiple missions for worldwide deployment, give the Navy an F-18 replacement, not merely upgrade models, but a complete replacement.

People on this forum, and elsewhere, poohed poohed 'stealth' out of their own ignorance and nationalistic biases, not out of genuine technical knowledge and military experience. As a sensor specialist who personally seen on a radar scope what 'stealth' can do, I am all for the concept and its real world application. Even in limited scope with a dedicated platform like the F-22. Despite what Russian and Chinese propaganda may spew about their radars, US 'stealth' platforms WILL dominate, philosophically and physically, air combat doctrines and airspaces for at least another 50 yrs, the estimated useful life span of most fighters.

So either US airpower build a larger F-22 fleet to drive all contenders from any contested airspace, or commit to the F-35 so that when an F-35 pilot have to enter a contested airspace, he will at least have some EM protection to achieve his mission.


So you agree F-35 is rubbish then?

Welcome to the club:enjoy:
 
So you agree F-35 is rubbish then?

Welcome to the club:enjoy:

No, the F-35 will dominate in a network centric environment. Its combination of VLO stealth, highly advanced avionics and sensors, 360 degree situational awareness, and ability to share information across the spectrum will prove to be game changing. The anti F-35 crowd will be proven wrong again, just as the anti F-15,16 crowd has been over the last 20 years.
 
@gambit What's your reaction to this article? The article is about interviewing Hostage on what will happen in the 2020s.
I find this part really weird.

“The F-35 doesn’t have the altitude, doesn’t have the speed [of the F-22], but it can beat the F-22 in stealth.”

Gen. Mike Hostage On The F-35; No Growlers Needed When War Starts « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary
There persists on this forum, despite my best efforts, a perception that being low radar observable, aka 'stealth', somehow is a license for being careless against the radar threat.

NOT TRUE...!!! Everyone...

The phrase 'low radar observable' is the precise descriptor for the technical aspects of these particular aircrafts. The word 'stealth' is the more general descriptor for the operational aspects of all aircrafts.

Believe it or not, the F-111 was a 'stealth' fighter. Stay out of the radar beam, and voila: You are 'stealth'.

In a US-led air campaign, not the NATO version over Yugoslavia, our 'stealth' pilots will still need SIGINT so they can plan their ingress routes to avoid radar nets. An F-35 will not fly straight into a radar beam if he can fly around its periphery. Being low radar observable is about when such avoidance is not possible and that once inside the radar beam, the 'stealth' attacker will have far less odds of being detected so that he can plan his move to get out of that situation. Being low radar observable is not a 'Get out of jail' card.

Hence, General Hostage's comment...

”We have one F-117 shot down in 78 days of flying over that country, thousands of sorties. They shot down one airplane,” Hostage says. “And they shot down one airplane because we flew across the same spot on the ground for weeks at a time. It took them multiple weeks to figure out how to shoot the thing. Then they had to get four or five systems to do it. It took them weeks to take it out. I can accept that kind of attrition rate. I obviously don’t want to lose anyone, but good Lord, one airplane over the course of 78 days, that’s pretty impressive.”

If we take strictly the low radar observable aspect, Snoopy's Sopwith Camel would probably be lower than the F-22, despite the spinning props.

What General Hostage is saying is that given the F-35's high networking capability, plus its own low radar observable aspects, a flight of F-35 attackers can evade just about all current radar nets, whether in complete avoidance or in extremely short duration inside thereof.
 
A US Air Force F-35 Joint Strike Fighter caught fire when attempting to take off from a Florida Air Force base Monday morning, Pentagon officials said.

The plane, which is assigned to the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, the unit that trains F-35 pilots for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and international militaries, experienced a fire in the aft end of the aircraft, according to an Air Force statement.

The pilot successfully shut down the plane and escaped unharmed, an F-35 program spokeswoman said. The fire was extinguished with foam by a ground crew.

F-35 Catches Fire on Takeoff at Eglin AFB | Defense News | defensenews.com

It's time for an anti-f35 shitstorm by Bill Sweet man and David Axe.
 
A US Air Force F-35 Joint Strike Fighter caught fire when attempting to take off from a Florida Air Force base Monday morning, Pentagon officials said.

The plane, which is assigned to the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, the unit that trains F-35 pilots for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and international militaries, experienced a fire in the aft end of the aircraft, according to an Air Force statement.

The pilot successfully shut down the plane and escaped unharmed, an F-35 program spokeswoman said. The fire was extinguished with foam by a ground crew.

F-35 Catches Fire on Takeoff at Eglin AFB | Defense News | defensenews.com

It's time for an anti-f35 shitstorm by Bill Sweet man and David Axe.
Thank God no casualties. This could have turned ugly!
 
Happy to hear no one was injured. Fact of the matter is that accidents do happen. 15,000 flight test hours and over 100 F-35s in and this seems to be the first major accident, so I'm not really concerned. Of course, the F-35 trolls will label the aircraft a total failure while they give the Pak-Fa a pass.
 
Italy Seeks Bigger JSF Workshare
Jun. 27, 2014 -By TOM KINGTON

ROME— Italy’s defense minister, during a Friday meeting with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, will ask the US to boost the Italian workshare on the Joint Strike Fighter program at its final assembly line, even as Italy reduces spending on the aircraft.

During a speech to the defense commissions of the Italian parliament on Tuesday, Roberta Pinotti said she would make the request during a Friday visit to Washington.

“My intention is to strongly request the help of US authorities, in the context of a wider strategic partnership which has historically united our two countries, to increase in the coming years the workload at the Cameri facility to compensate the reduction in work linked to Italy’s requirements,” Pinotti said.

Italy has built a final assembly line for its JSFs at its Cameri air base in northern Italy, which is facing a shortfall in production after Italy cut its order from 131 to 90 aircraft.

A deal has meanwhile been struck to assemble Dutch jets at the plant, and Pinotti said talks are also underway with Norway.

Norway’s first JSF is in the early stages of assembly at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility and Norway does not plan to switch facilities, said Endre Lunde, an adviser to the Norweigan MoD.

Italy has also frozen the signing of new JSF contracts following a vote last year in parliament over budget concerns. Pinotti said that only six aircraft have been contracted from the program’s low rate initial production (LRIP) 6 and 7.

Italy has also authorized procurement of long-lead items for two LRIP 8 conventional JSFs and two LRIP 9 aircraft — a conventional version and a short-takeoff vertical-landing (STOVL) aircraft.

No further orders will be made until a new white paper on Italy’s defense requirements is completed in December, Pinotti said.

The freeze on orders has affected payments for long-lead items for four LRIP 10 aircraft, two conventional and two STOVL, which were due in February to maintain delivery schedules.

By not paying for the items, Italy has ensured a gap in production at Cameri, said an industrial source.

“This needed to happen at the start of the year,” the source said. “If it now happens at the end of the year, that opens up a gap of up to a year in production.”

Moreover, the acquisition contracts for the LRIP 8 aircraft were due to be finalized this year, the source added.

Pinotti warned that if production at Cameri is interrupted after work on LRIP 6 and 7 aircraft, a “learning curve” would be affected, harming the site’s competitiveness and prompting other nations to reconsider before using it to assemble their fighters.

As the freeze went into effect, Italy said this year it would trim €153 million (US $208.4 million) from the JSF program in 2014, part of a €400 million cut to procurement spending announced in April to help finance tax breaks in Italy.

The cut delayed the planned release in April of the Defense Ministry’s breakdown on procurement spending for 2014. The overall defense budget for 2014 had been released in December, but under new procedures launched last year, the breakdown was due for release in April.

On June 24, Pinotti unveiled the delayed document, which was accompanied by an Addendum note explaining where the €400 million cut, plus another €91.4 million taken by other cuts, would fall.

That left €2.73 billion for procurement this year, down from the €3.22 billion originally planned. Apart from the €153 million trimmed from the €509 million earmarked for JSF spending, a handful of other programs suffered minor reductions, including €30 million taken from the Vulcano guided munition program.

The cut left overall Defense Ministry spending at €13.59 billion for 2014.

As per the new format for budgets launched last year, the document is a three-year plan, giving figures for 2015 and 2016. It predicts procurement spending of €2.87 billion in 2015 and €2.86 billion in 2016.

Apart from Defense Ministry funding for procurement, the document lists €2.03 billion in funding as a top-up from Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development.

In a sign of greater transparency within the Italian government, this is the second year the document has revealed the cash injection to the Defense Ministry coffers after years in which the figure was kept secret.

Chief beneficiary of the top-up is Italy’s Eurofighter program, which receives €770 million, with €40 million also going to kickstart the Navy’s new, €5.8 billion shipbuilding plan.

In her speech to parliament, Pinotti said the ships being built included six multipurpose ships with four options, one logistics vessel, one amphibious ship, and two high-speed vessels for special forces.

Pinotti said Italy would seek to have the program managed by the Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d'Armement, the Europe-based NATO procurement agency, and added she had suggested to her French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, that France team on some of the programs. Italy and France have previously teamed on building Horizon and FREMM class frigates. “The interest is great,” she said.

Absent from this year’s procurement list is a €390 million multifunctional naval vessel, complete with a mini-submarine, for submarine logistics, special operations and research missions, funding for which was launched last year.

In her remarks to parliament, Pinotti said the 10-year target for military personnel reduction is 40,000, which would shrink the armed forces from 190,000 to 150,000.

Italy Seeks Bigger JSF Workshare | Defense News | defensenews.com
 
Turkey Could Double Its Arms Budget
Jun. 28, 2014 - By BURAK EGE BEKDIL

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Ambitions: Turkey plans on spending $16 billion for 100 F-35 joint strike fighters. (Senior Airman Christopher Callaway/ / US Air Force)

ANKARA
— Turkey, which has been spending around US $4 billion a year on weapons and upgrades, may double that to meet procurement goals for 2023.

For about a decade, the country’s overall defense budgets have remained around $10 billion a year, or 1.25 percent of its $800 billion gross domestic product, said a top aide to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“This is less than the NATO requirements, and much less than what a country like Turkey actually needs,” the aide said. “Turkey, in its geostrategic position, faces multiple conventional and asymmetrical threats, and it would be more convenient if it spent 2 to 2.5 percent on defense.”

NATO leaders have encouraged members to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, but even the few that do sometimes struggle to meet the mark. By comparison, Russia spends 4.5 percent of its GDP on defense.

“Economic crisis has shrunk defense spending. Only five or six member nations have reached the 2 percent benchmark,” said Timo Koster, who directs defense policy and planning at NATO headquarters.

But Turkey’s economy, now the world’s 17th-largest, has been growing quickly. Annual growth rates in the past decade have sometimes exceeded 5 percent. In 2013, the growth rate stood at 4 percent, a rate expected to hold steady for the next five years.

That would raise Turkey’s national income to $936 billion by the end of 2018. If Turkey by then spent 2 percent of its income on defense, this would mean an annual defense budget of $18.7 billion; if it spent 2.5 percent on defense, this would translate to a $23.4 billion defense budget.

Turkey spends about 40 percent of its defense budget on new equipment and upgrades, so its procurement budget by the end of 2018 would reach nearly $7.5 billion, assuming an annual 4 percent growth rate and that the government decides to reach the NATO benchmark; and nearly $9.5 billion if it decides to go beyond the benchmark to attain 2.5 percent.

“It would be truly realistic if Turkey, even today, spends $20 billion on defense [and $8 billion on procurement],” the government official said. “The government may rethink the present spending level in the near future.”

Defense analysts say a jump in the procurement budget would be no surprise.

“The economy is performing very well. Equally importantly, Prime Minister Erdogan has a big portfolio of ambitious programs to finance. Some of these mostly indigenous programs are his signature projects, and he loves to use them to catch votes,” said one Ankara-based analyst.

Ankara has ambitions to celebrate the republic’s centennial in 2023 with dozens of high-profile armament programs they hope will have been successfully concluded by then.

A list of ongoing and announced programs highlight nearly $70 billion worth of spending until 2023, excluding relatively small programs and others the government may launch from now on.

Among the largest:

■ $16 billion for 100 F-35 joint strike fighters.

■ $10 billion to develop its indigenous fighter, TF-X, with another $20 billion to produce the aircraft.

■ $4.5 billion to upgrade its F-16s.

■ $4 billion for new submarines.

■ $3.5 billion for utility helicopters.

■ $3.5 billion for the long-range air and anti-missile defense system.

■ $3 billion for attack helicopters.

■ $2.5 billion for the indigenous tank Altay.

■ $2.5 billion for corvettes under the MILGEM program.

■ $2.4 billion for the aerial warning and control aircraft.

■ $1.5 billion for the local development of helicopters.

■ $1.5 billion for the A400M heavy-lift aircraft.

■ $1 billion for the landing dock platform ship.

■ $1 billion for indigenous satellites.

■ $1 billion for a satellite-launch center.

■ $1 billion for locally developed frigates.

■ $1 billion for new armored vehicles.

■ $1 billion for electronic warfare systems.

■ $1 billion for drones and electro-optical systems.

■ $750 million for the locally developed Hurkus basic trainer.

■ Unknown billions for a locally developed infantry rifle. ■

Turkey Could Double Its Arms Budget | Defense News | defensenews.com
 
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