Nied

Tom Cooper has a website! the Air Combat Information Group All sorts of interesting articles and there's a forum.

The AL-31s in an Su-27 are roughly the same size as the TF-30 and GE110, physically they would fit. Though as Knight26 pointed out a while back the Russian engines use completely different mount points than American ones and thus still would take some work to be made compatible (I could see the Chinese being convinced to license a custom version of the WS-10 for installation into the ALi-Cats).

That was the rumor going around for a while, however Tom Cooper (author of Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Action) swears that no such modifications have been made. Honestly Were I Iran I would take Hugo Chavez up on his offer to give me Venezuela's old F-16As. Not to use them, but to get a hold of their F100 engines to either reverse engineer or install directly into my Tomcats.

Yeah gun, no gun or gun that's there but can't be fired, the UK wins. IIRC they're the only ones getting Tranche 3.

I doubt that South Korea is going to declare war on Japan. They're more worried about Japan declaring war on them. Most of the countries in the Pacific rim are quite afraid that Japan will some day give up the self defense clause in their constitution and go on the rampage again, and they buy military equipment to allay those fears.

All right. Yesterday I promised some of my favorite aviation related links. I hope everyone else will join in (I want to know where some of you get your info). F-16.net Everything you wanted to know about the Viper and then some, their forum is a great wealth of info even if they do get downright paranoid about public information falling into the hands of "the enemy." MATS Like F-16.net but without the forum and focused entirely on the F-14 Tomcat. Probably the #1 resource on all things F-14. It's probably one of the #1 sources of all the Anti Super Hornet BS you see all over the internet. Tomcat Alley The # 2 Tomcat source. Less technical detail but more pictures. Globalsecurity.org The most comprehensive resource on all things military, from WMDs to chaff and flare launchers. With such a vast array of subjects not everything has the most up to date info though. Watch out for those pop-up adds! Aerospaceweb.org A pretty neat site. Their Aircraft museum isn't as comprehensive as Globalsecurity, but their "ask a rocket scientist" section is a wealth of hard to find information (including a good article on the F-35's armaments). OK those are my best links, I'm sure I'm forgetting some. Antone else want to contribute? (David, Skull Leader I'm looking in your direction. )

Most likely yeah. The Brits are eyeing either the Rafale or Sea Typhoon as a Harrier replacement (good options). I've also heard them say they'd rather have the F-35C (also a good option). If the Australians get a labour government, I'd say it's likely they would drop out of the JSF in favour of the F-22 (yay!). The Dutch were just bought off by a work share agreement to build the F-35's flaperons in the Netherlands, but I'm not sure how long that will last. Oddly enough I'd keep an eye on what fighter Japan goes for. What they do it could set up a chain of events that could kill or at the very least drastically scale back the JSF (or if they buy it ensure it's status as the most ubiquitous fighter of the 21st century).

Have you seen the budget cuts? Do you really think the Air Force is going to commit its precious stealth aircraft to killing a few SAMs. 399928[/snapback] They were built from the start to do expressly that: kill or avoid the newest generation of SAMs. It would be ridiculous if we didn't use them for it.

An SA-6 would be a sitting duck against an F-35, F-22 or B-2, and AAA wouldn't be able to hit an aircraft loitering at 10,000 ft (that's the point). The Marines are doing the exact same thing the Air Force and Navy are: Sitting up high and dropping PGMs on the coordinates given to them by troops on the ground. It's just as accurate (if not more so) than dropping dumb weapons from low altitude, it has the same dangers for troops on the ground if the enemy gets too close (why would dropping a 500 lb dumb bomb from a A-10 at 100 ft be safer than dropping a 500 lb JDAM or paveway from 10,000 ft if they're going to land in the same place?) but it's significantly safer for the aircraft doing the dropping. Even with the A-10s ability to withstand damage it's still going to have to withdraw if hit, and it will be unable to fight for a significant amount of time while it's being repaired, which means it's not helping our guys on the ground.

Doesnt the missile lose track of the stealth craft once the doors close though? So how did the Serbs track the Nighthawk long enough for the missile to reach the target? I don't suppose the pilot kept the bay doors open that long? 399807[/snapback] Funny that you mention that RTHTT, because why is the F-117's missle bays been configured to be opened manually just to launch the missles it has stored in it's bays? Since I play flight sims alot, I just honestly assumed that the missle bays of stealth aircraft immediatley close once a missle or bomb is released. I don't understand why Lockheed would cconfigure stealth aircraft to have a manual missle bay door release when they could have an automatic door closing system or something. For that matter, when firing bombs or missles from stealth aircraft, do the pilots have to remember to close the missle bays manually? If you ask me, I think that epitomizes why that F-117 got blasted out of the sky over Kosovo sevn years ago as Nied stated that the pilot must have forgotten to close his missle bay as it was left open and as a result of that, those troops on the ground that had manned those SAM launchers manage to lock on the Nighthawk and blow it out the sky. Unless there was slight malfunction with the missle bay door? Also, RTHTT, when you say that the Serbs managed to obtain a missle lock on the F-117, since the missle won't be a to track the stealth fighter once it's doors are closed, I think the pilot closed them at the last minute and as a result of that, it was struck. In addition to that, the Serbs may have been using nightvision to spot the F-117 in the air and that may have also played a key role in the downing of the F-117. So in the end, I think that stealth is effective at preventing missles from homing into stealth aircraft only if the missle is still far away from the aircraft and if the missle bays are still closed. I also think it's on par with ECM jamming pods in which they're only effective at preventing missles as long as they're far awy from you. So stealth is a passive ECM missle defense system and using actual ECM pods are active missle defense systems. 399817[/snapback] The Nighthawk's doors are computer controlled, the pilot doesn't have much say in it. In fact the pilot doesn't even decide when to drop a bomb, he just presses a "commit" button on his control column, and the aircraft's on board computer decides on the ideal time to drop the weapon out of the bay. What happened to the aircraft over Kosovo was a combination of things. As Apollo Leader and I mentioned it was partly bad mission planning (the Serbs knew where we'd be). Then they caught the F-117 with it's weapons doors open long enough to get a lock on the aircraft. Even after it's doors are closed the F-117 isn't invisible and if you paint it with radar energy you will get a return, the problem is that to get enough of a return you need to get a pretty focused radar beam, and you can only do that if you know where the plane is already. That's not the end of it though, my understanding is that the pilot was able to evade the missile, but in the process he dove under the cloud layer that night and because of his black paint job became quite visible to the Serbian AAA crews.

That IMHO would be ideal. Cut the A and B models, sell the C model to everyone (maybe put the gun back in if possible), and use it as sort of a super A-7 with decent air-to-air capabilities.

You could hang drop tanks under the wings of an F-35 get plenty of loiter time and still have a devastating warload. You'd lose stealth, but if you're performing CAS you've already achieved air superiority, stealth is superfluous. Doctrine has changed significantly since then. During OIF A-10s stayed up high and dropped PGMS just like the fast jets, only they couldn't get to troops in need as fast as other platforms and weren't as accurate once they were there (that last part will be fixed once the A-10C enters service though). The A-10 will just get there slower and drop the same PGMs. Over budget I'll give you. Overweight is being fixed. Under armed hardly. As I've said before it carries internally the same armament that F-16s and F/A18s take into war externally (two big PGMs three drop tanks and two AMRAAMs, the JSF loses the sidewinders but gains comprehensive sensor stealth, not to mention the 8 SDBs it could carry instead of the PGMs). When stealthy it carries more than enough weaponry to beat down SAMs and put big holes in runways. Once it's done doing that (and once our B-2s and F-22s have cleared out the big SAMs and any air threat still able to operate) you can dirty it up and carry A-10 like loads in support of ground operations, because stealth isn't necessary anymore. It doesn't need to get low to be accurate, some private with a laptop can say "I want an explosion here" and a few seconds later a JDAM or SDB will make that happen.

Current US doctrine has land assaults (and the CAS missions they require) preformed only after air superiority is achieved, which means that large and medium SAMs are dead. That leaves small arms AAA, and Manpads which can be avoided by staying over 10,000 ft. From that altitude any aircraft can orbit the area and rain PGMs down with impunity, the only real difference in airframes is payload and how fast they can get to the troops in need. In that area the F-35B beats the A-10, it can launch from the same marginally prepared airfields as the Hog, get to the troops in need faster, rain down the same JDAMs or SDBs that the A-10 would, and then RTB faster than the A-10 so it can turn around and do it again that much sooner. Except for the Avenger (which is surprisingly effective at 10,000 ft) there's not much the A-10 brings to the table that doesn't come better from a fast jet or even a B-52!

How many fast Jets do you hear about taking damage in the first place? In this day and age when a guy on the ground can point a laser or upload the coordinates of what he wants killed? No. With those technologies the pilot never needs to see the target. All he has to do is be told when to drop the bomb and the JDAM or SDB will do the rest.

Just like with the F-16, people make the mistake of judging the F-35 on what it's predecessor can do rather than what it does do. The A-10 can go down low and absorb lots of damage while blasting tanks with it's 30mm Avenger cannon and 1,000s of pounds of ordinance hanging from the wings, what it does do at this point is hang up above the battlefield at 10,000 feet (modern MANPADS can dish out more damage than even the A-10 can take) with a targeting pod, a jamming pod, a pair of sidewinders and 2-4 PGMs under the wings. It's main advantage at this point is that it can take off from relatively unprepared airfields, that would give faster airframes allot of trouble. An F-35B can do the things the A-10 is doing but get there as fast as an F-16 or F/A-18, can climb higher if need be, and doesn't need all those ECM and targeting pods. Seems like a good call to me.

Actually the A-10C is just a stopgap to give the old Hog better capabilities while the F-35 comes online, and to supplement the JSF once it does. Curent planning has the A-10 being replaced by STOVL F-35Bs

I thought I might ask some of the regulars here what aviation related sites they visit regularly. We are getting a few new posters here who might like to know where we get this stuff from, but also people bring in plenty of info I haven't seen anywhere and I'd love to know where some of it is coming from. Any one have some good links that they'd like to share? (PS Once I get home from work I'll post some of my own favorite sites)

Sort of. The heat from the missile launch wouldn't be detected on Radar since InfraRed radiation is on a completely different spectrum than radar waves (though anyone with a good IRST might be able to see the missile itself. What would be detectable is the inside of the Raptor's weapons bay as the doors open for the shot, those doors stay open just long enough to launch a weapon (which depending on the weapon could be as long as two seconds). Incidentally that's how that F-117 got shot down over Kosovo, the Serbs got wise to the route our Nighthawks were taking into the area (lazy mission planning on our part) set up a SAM site along the the route, and when the F-117 opened it's bay doors to drop a bomb they were able to lock it up and fire off a missile.

Actually Phalanx I don't think anyone here is an actual pilot (I've got a few hours of instruction in Cesnas though). The Raptor does indeed have chaff and flare launchers, Graham will have to wait until I get home from work so I can pour over my reference books to find out where they're located. As for re-building jump-jet F-16s, alot of that has been covered by other members here, but I'll just add that the Air Force will mostly be buying the CTOL F-35A (with maybe a few squadrons of B models for flexibility). There are "super" F-16 variants out there that could be adapted for use should the JSF be cancelled (US built F-2s with the F-16E's APG-80 radar and conformal fuel tanks would IMHO be ideal), but nothing that would have anything close to the range of capabilities the JSF brings to the table.

Phalanx beat me to it but I'm a taker too. I'm still an advocate of axing all but the F-35C and selling that to everyone, the RN is keen on the idea, and I've read reports that the RAF would love to use it as a Jaguar replacement. The C model seems the perfect replacement for the A-7 which is what the vast majority of our F-16s and F/A-18s are doing anyway. Other than STOVL there's nothing we really need the F-35A or B for that couldn't be accomplished by a combo of the F-35C and new build legacy designs.

I imagine it would be quite cheap. But considering that we only have a little over 400 Eagles at this point (not including Stirke Eagles) that would be overkill.

AFAIK the F-22 cost 110 to 120 million when we were buying 240 to 360 planes, after the cut to 183 the price has gone up to 130 to 140 million.

Actually the fly away cost of the F-22 isn't much more than the cost of new or upgraded F-15s. Most of the complaints heard about the F-22's cost include the development costs which were indeed quite high, but are also already spent. At this point cutting the F-22's numbers doesn't save much money, as most of the money has already been spent and can't be gotten back. My vote would be to continue buying a handful of Raptors every year over the next few decades until they've replaced all our F-15s.

Actually the 27th TFS is going to be disbursed to Oceana while Langley's Runway is re-built.

Andrews will probably never have Raptors stationed there. The only combat aircraft to fly out of there are from the DC ANG and they fly F-16s. Most likely they will get JSFs that filter down to them from active duty squadrons (last I knew they flew old Block 30 F-16Cs). If the Raptor production numbers go up and if something happens to kill F-35 production I could see a slim chance of them getting early A model Raptors in 15 years or so but I don't think that's likely.