No, they would just leave it in a shed to gather rust, instead of using the unequalled capabilities of its new radar and forthcoming ability to carry long-range hypersonic strike weapons.
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning and F-22 'Raptor' : News & Discussion
- Thread starter Nick
- Start date
Depends on the level of adversary, the tactics being employed, options, options, options, strategy. Jeez, is this strategic front or stupid front?
I don't think that's the point EPAWWS is a newer tech. It uses GaN and is far more powerful. The EX will be objectively superior in jamming than the f-35. But both of them are so capable that their capabilities can only be truly tested against a peer air force which really doesn't exist.
Well yeah, with it being newer tech, it probably does the same things better and more powerfully, as per the new radar, but the core EW capabilities are the same just with slightly more up-to-date tech. What randomradio was suggesting is that the F-35 doesn't do certain things, like jamming, except via its radar, which is wrong.
Scale wise the SABR is small-ish than APG-79 but they managed to fit over 1000 T/R modules on the SABR so yeah the APG-83 is very likely smaller. Problem is only 70-ish USAF F-16's have it compared to the 500+ F-18E/G/F's.
RB2 maybe newer but it is not as capable lacking offensive EW and GMTT/GMTI.
Not really. It's always been admitted/known that stealth has range limits, and the range limits depend on the radar tech/power of the adversary. Whatever the tech/power, a Rafale will be seen from several times as far away. It's also been known for some time that active emissions can be geolocated. There's nothing ground-breaking here, except the level of stupidity been offered.
That's the point of EW. If you don't have stealth or your stealth sucks so bad that it's useless, then you need EA.
The idea is to hit the adversary from beyond their detection/tracking range. Stealth reduces that distance significantly. But if you fail to employ your weapons before you are detected/tracked, that means your stealth is useless since the enemy gets first shot.
If the F-35 is planned to have extensive EA capability, which it actually does not, then it's basically admitting the F-35's stealth capabilties are limited and may even fail against near-peer or peer adversaries. Which means it's nothing more special than a 4th gen jet, but with significant aerodynamics shortfalls.
If you are forced to employ EA, then you are no longer a stealth jet.
Well all companies in the world are working around quantum radars. Even canada has launched a great quantum radar program
( canada : Le gouvernement du Canada annonce l’attribution d’un contrat à l’Université de Waterloo pour la recherche et le développement à l’appui de la surveillance de l’Arctique - Canada.ca )
Those questions about stealth and radars will change not so far from now.
( canada : Le gouvernement du Canada annonce l’attribution d’un contrat à l’Université de Waterloo pour la recherche et le développement à l’appui de la surveillance de l’Arctique - Canada.ca )
Those questions about stealth and radars will change not so far from now.
Stuff like that is at least more than a decade away though.
People forget that AESA which is now become standard was conceptualised and experimented on 60s as a ground based installation and was developed as a ship-based radar in 88 and finally an airborne radar in 1995.
Quantum radar are not going to show up till 2035 or so.
But that's when the F-35 can use EW. However, an F-15EX could jam the system from beyond threat range, while the F-35 strikes it with a relatively cheap weapon like a JDAM while remaining electronically passive.
More the case that EA is a million times more effective when deployed by a stealth jet. It's a belt and braces approach.
It's impossible for an F-15EX to be beyond any sort of threat range. Its massive 15m2 RCS will make it easily detectable from hundreds of Kms away. Even if RCS is reduced to 1m2, it will still not make any tactical difference. The only way an F-15 will support an F-35 is if they have decided the F-35 needs external assitance, which would imply the basic design parameter of the F-35 has failed.
On further research, I have discovered that the F-35 Adir will be getting a slightly modified wing and airframe that will allow the integration of Israeli ECM internally within the aircraft, apart from carrying an external pod. They have obviously deemed American EA capability to be inferior or insufficient compared to their own. I have always found ground realities discovered by air forces to be much more reliable than rosy brochures, the same story played between the Rafale and F-35 until the Swiss proved the Rafale crowd wrong. The Israelis aren't adding ECM onto the F-35 for fun.
Not particularly. There's a point beyond which stealth won't help, especially since we are considering the adversary has a radar capable of defeating said stealth and forced the employment of EA to defeat it. The fact is the F-35 would employ EA only and only when stealth has failed.
Given the F-35's stealthy design, it makes the most sense that the EW suite only uses the towed decoy to perform EA, which will perform no differently than an internal EA antenna while also focusing the threat radar onto the decoy and away from the aircraft. Even HOJ missiles will end up focusing on the decoy. So there's no fear of having to disengage the EA to escape.
An example of how the defects of the F-35 are hidden.
Excerpts from NASA's report on the F-35's hypoxia problems:
Page 112
In summary, rather than the breathing system responding to a pilot’s physiological needs, the pilot is forced to adapt to an unpredictable supply system with potentially adverse consequences. One may ask why such events are allowed to continue. Why do the pilots put up with it? In 2012, the NESC conducted an assessment of the F-22 pilot breathing problems. It was observed that:
Page 96
Five F-35 pilot interviews were conducted by a team of three NESC PBA researchers: a flight surgeon, an F-35 SME, and a human factors SME. Each interviewee was provided a NASA Privacy Act Notice which indicated the protected status of the interview and all materials associated with the interview. All interviewees provided explicit consent to video/audio NESC Document #: NESC-RP-18-01320, Vol. 2, V.1.2 Page 96 of 260 recording, interview transcription, and inclusion in this report. All data are reported in aggregate to maintain privacy.
Each interview began with the pilot account of events related to the flight that induced a reported or unreported PE with specific information about the in-flight event, post-flight procedures, and recovery. This was followed by a period of question and answers for clarification and expansion. Finally, pilots were asked to provide perceptions of overall concepts across all airframes such as breathing experience, previous symptoms, common symptomology, and current processes.
As supported by data in Section 5 of this report, the asynchronous breathing and pressures observed in the F-35 breathing system are a significant safety hazard to the pilot. This hazard exhibits as causal to acute and chronic health conditions that impact mission performance and impair the pilot.
Pilots report that interactions with the F-35 breathing system generate symptoms ranging from mild discomfort, cough, and fatigue, to confusion, distraction, extreme discomfort, and near incapacitation. Some symptoms resolved in a range of minutes, hours, or days; others are potentially permanent. Multiple pilot statements indicate an adversarial relationship with the JPO and include statements that reflect
a) a significant chilling towards pilot reporting,
b) an organizational bias to indicate non-aircraft related causes, and
c) an organizational bias to attribute causation to the pilot such as psychogenic/psychosomatic origins, poor motivation, insufficient training, or inappropriate biological preparation habits.
Pilot statements indicating concerns regarding the safety and adequacy of the system were provided to the JPO in verbal and written form, as well as in the formal PE reporting process.
Page 104
2.2.3 Pilot Interview Conclusions
The excerpts from F-35 pilot interviews, above, suggest that there a number of problems with the F-35. A more comprehensive record of the pilot interviews is included in Appendix 7.1. The breathing experience in the aircraft is unlike anything these pilots had experienced before.
The F35’s breathing system noticeably discourages the normal breathing function via high-pressure, pressure surges, and hyperoxia. However, the pilots’ desire to fly this new fighter, despite the abnormal breathing experience, has led them to try and adapt as best they can both autonomically and cognitively. A mismatch between pilot expectation of the performance of a system and that system’s actual performance can provide warning of a potential problem.
However, if the observed system performance continues to deviate from expected without formal assessment or protocol correction, expectations will recalibrate to consider the deviated performance as normal. This modifies the importance assigned to the system deviation and reduces the effectiveness of the warning system.
This normalization of deviance can undermine the safety of mission, a pilot, and an entire program. Even flying the F-35 on routine sorties has led to symptoms that include dizziness, cognitive confusion, and severe fatigue. Some pilots who report the onset of hypoxia indicate that is markedly different than hypoxia awareness training.
As difficult as the F-35 breathing system is, it can vary significantly between aircraft as described later in this report. Finally, despite highlighting these issues and requesting that the design of the F-35 breathing system be investigated, a number of the pilots interviewed believe that there is undue pressure to ascribe breathing problems to pilots and suppress information about these problems.
Excerpts from NASA's report on the F-35's hypoxia problems:
Page 112
- "It's the new normal. Breathing in this jet is different than sitting here talking to you and breathing. It shouldn’t be, in my opinion, but it is."
- “Sometimes the F-35 just provides a whole bunch of pressure into the mask for unknown reasons, I don’t know why but it does, it makes exhalation difficult”
- “And then sometimes [the expiratory pressure] will change in the same expiration, like you’ll be expiring, against a certain expiratory pressure and then it’ll kick back at you sometimes or sometimes it’ll go away and it can be somewhat variable, even within the same respiratory cycle. 35 things.”
- “When you’re breathing off the mask in the F-35 you feel like you have to work a little bit harder so you’re a more forceful inhalation, sometimes, you have to more forcefully exhale”
- “The positive pressure isn’t really, in my thinking, isn’t so positive. It can be annoying.”
- “Sometimes even in a single exhalation there could be a change in the pressure. So there’s like a kick back and it can actually bite off a radio call.”
In summary, rather than the breathing system responding to a pilot’s physiological needs, the pilot is forced to adapt to an unpredictable supply system with potentially adverse consequences. One may ask why such events are allowed to continue. Why do the pilots put up with it? In 2012, the NESC conducted an assessment of the F-22 pilot breathing problems. It was observed that:
This normalization of deviance is part of the F-35 culture as well. Pilots interviewed for this report indicate the F-35 community will endure much adversity to be one of the elite that fly the nation’s newest fighter. Pilot interviews also highlighted an organizational concern to protect the F-35 program, specifying undue pressure to suppress information and ascribe breathing problems to pilots rather than the aircraft. Previously we have emphasized that PEs happen to pilots, not to planes. The end goal is a breathing system which supports pilot breathing requirements, not aircraft-centric provisions. Hence, measuring pilot breathing metrics is the foundational part of understanding this complex problem.
Page 96
Five F-35 pilot interviews were conducted by a team of three NESC PBA researchers: a flight surgeon, an F-35 SME, and a human factors SME. Each interviewee was provided a NASA Privacy Act Notice which indicated the protected status of the interview and all materials associated with the interview. All interviewees provided explicit consent to video/audio NESC Document #: NESC-RP-18-01320, Vol. 2, V.1.2 Page 96 of 260 recording, interview transcription, and inclusion in this report. All data are reported in aggregate to maintain privacy.
Each interview began with the pilot account of events related to the flight that induced a reported or unreported PE with specific information about the in-flight event, post-flight procedures, and recovery. This was followed by a period of question and answers for clarification and expansion. Finally, pilots were asked to provide perceptions of overall concepts across all airframes such as breathing experience, previous symptoms, common symptomology, and current processes.
As supported by data in Section 5 of this report, the asynchronous breathing and pressures observed in the F-35 breathing system are a significant safety hazard to the pilot. This hazard exhibits as causal to acute and chronic health conditions that impact mission performance and impair the pilot.
Pilots report that interactions with the F-35 breathing system generate symptoms ranging from mild discomfort, cough, and fatigue, to confusion, distraction, extreme discomfort, and near incapacitation. Some symptoms resolved in a range of minutes, hours, or days; others are potentially permanent. Multiple pilot statements indicate an adversarial relationship with the JPO and include statements that reflect
a) a significant chilling towards pilot reporting,
b) an organizational bias to indicate non-aircraft related causes, and
c) an organizational bias to attribute causation to the pilot such as psychogenic/psychosomatic origins, poor motivation, insufficient training, or inappropriate biological preparation habits.
Pilot statements indicating concerns regarding the safety and adequacy of the system were provided to the JPO in verbal and written form, as well as in the formal PE reporting process.
Page 104
2.2.3 Pilot Interview Conclusions
The excerpts from F-35 pilot interviews, above, suggest that there a number of problems with the F-35. A more comprehensive record of the pilot interviews is included in Appendix 7.1. The breathing experience in the aircraft is unlike anything these pilots had experienced before.
The F35’s breathing system noticeably discourages the normal breathing function via high-pressure, pressure surges, and hyperoxia. However, the pilots’ desire to fly this new fighter, despite the abnormal breathing experience, has led them to try and adapt as best they can both autonomically and cognitively. A mismatch between pilot expectation of the performance of a system and that system’s actual performance can provide warning of a potential problem.
However, if the observed system performance continues to deviate from expected without formal assessment or protocol correction, expectations will recalibrate to consider the deviated performance as normal. This modifies the importance assigned to the system deviation and reduces the effectiveness of the warning system.
This normalization of deviance can undermine the safety of mission, a pilot, and an entire program. Even flying the F-35 on routine sorties has led to symptoms that include dizziness, cognitive confusion, and severe fatigue. Some pilots who report the onset of hypoxia indicate that is markedly different than hypoxia awareness training.
As difficult as the F-35 breathing system is, it can vary significantly between aircraft as described later in this report. Finally, despite highlighting these issues and requesting that the design of the F-35 breathing system be investigated, a number of the pilots interviewed believe that there is undue pressure to ascribe breathing problems to pilots and suppress information about these problems.
Something interesting here.
The United States recently conducted theoretical war-game scenarios, which they lost, prompting a US General telling Defense One magazine the Joint Strike Fighters were “useless” and unable to perform.
Mr Gottliebsen remarked this was “because the Joint Strike Fighter can’t fly high enough".
“The Chinese and the Russian planes can fly much higher, and it’s very easy to shoot it down," he told Sky News host Peta Credlin.
The United States recently conducted theoretical war-game scenarios, which they lost, prompting a US General telling Defense One magazine the Joint Strike Fighters were “useless” and unable to perform.
Mr Gottliebsen remarked this was “because the Joint Strike Fighter can’t fly high enough".
“The Chinese and the Russian planes can fly much higher, and it’s very easy to shoot it down," he told Sky News host Peta Credlin.
Really? Funny that an unnamed General told Defense1 Mag about a "theoretical war-game scenario which they lost," that isn't even on Defense1 Mag, that the F-35 is useless. US always looses "theoretical war game scenarios" so that's no surprised but this unnamed General for some reason his quote isn't on defense 1.
May not be on their website yet, but it was picked up by The Australian.
It's behind a paywall.
NoCookies | The Australian
Riiight.May not be on their website yet, but it was picked up by The Australian.
It's behind a paywall.
NoCookies | The Australian
www.theaustralian.com.au
This quote from whatever site it was makes me laugh.
“The Chinese and the Russian planes can fly much higher, and it’s very easy to shoot it down," he told Sky News host Peta Credlin.
F-35 combat ceiling is 50k feet yet all of the F-15's, F-16's and F-18C/E kills have been 30k and under. Exactly how is the F-35 "very easy to shoot it down" when you can't shoot what you can't see especially when the F-35 will always have the first shot? Wasn't the Rafail able to jam an SU-35's radar? And we all know Rafails EW is inferior compared to F-35's. You see where I'm going with this? And do you understand how dumb this article looks?
It's massive radar can jam threat radars from even further away than it can be detected. It's also to be equipped with hypersonic strike weapons very shortly.
The Israelis like to develop their own stuff anyway.
I don't think you understand stealth properly. It doesn't just make the aircraft harder to detect, it makes EA a million times more effective. Much easier to hide a needle in a haystack than a cow/Rafale. Stealth also has range limits, you can't hover an F-35B directly in front of a huge radar and expect to remain undetected just because it's a stealth aircraft. A similar scenario could occur with a pop-up radar, although it's likely the F-35 would see it first, even if it was passive, unless it emerged from deep cover or underground.