"Is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter the New F-4?" Topic

"The jet fighter can't maneuver, the critics say. It's based on a wrongheaded concept. It relies on unproved technologies. It's a one-size-fits-all jet for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, and yet it doesn't really meet any of their needs.

Is this Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter I'm describing? No, it's actually the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, the ubiquitous fighter-bomber, reconnaissance and radar-hunting aircraft that formed the backbone of U.S., NATO and Israeli air power in the 1960s and 1970s. More than 50 years later, the Phantom still flies, as evident when Syrian gunners downed a Turkish RF-4 recon plane last year.

While the Phantom still has many fans, it also had quite a few detractors. And many of those complaints are eerily similar to the criticisms now aimed at the Joint Strike Fighter. Is the F-4 a guide to what we can expect from the F-35?…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

No.

An interesting article for those of us who like to wargame future "What if's". Thanks, Tango. (And unless you are in the market to buy a 1:1 scale modern aircraft and get some research on what to buy, nothing could be construed as "advertising".)

For me, these are the articles that make Tango useful.

Hem can I comment without the pettyposers making side swipes! (If your not interested do go to the show folks) the F35 was a wounderkind released on all of us as the next microwave oven of the skys- I remember the F4 as an actual plane that could deliver when I was a kid and it has done a fair bit of combat, the F35 has yet to be shown as advertised but I really doubt it will be unless the politicians can push for a "hot" war somewhere. IMO The F35 will never get the resale of the F4. And boy the cost per unit, wow.

Good article Tango, and it may have a good point!

Unfortunately the article implies that the F-4 was designed to be a multi service/ role fighter . It wasn't. It was desisned to be a fleet defense fighter. It was used for many other roles and proved to be good at them. It is one the few aircraft that was designed for one service and then another used it. Lets hope the F-35 turns out to be as successful.

Most of these "war is boring" articles are garbage.

F-35 is more equivalent to F-111 in terms of design brief..

Its the F-111 all right, in terms of the fact we Aussies are daft enough to buy the damn things, before they've been proven capable of performing the tasks they're being bought to do.

Here we go again.

You can't call it yet guys. The bird isn't in service yet. Only time will tell if it's hawk or a do-do.

Glad someone enjoy the article guys!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

If all the tests and bad flying ability reports are true, why is the thing still going to be built in numbers at all?

A better comparison would be to the ill-fated Cutlass.

Also a lot of folks said that the Bradley was junk too. You just don't know until the time comes.

You can't call it yet guys. The bird isn't in service yet. Only time will tell if it's hawk or a do-do

This is very true.

Personally I think the F-35 is overkill for the wars the US will fight – low level counter insurgency or fights against extreme low tech/low capability opponents.

At the same time I think it's missing things for the "wars that will never be fought but we need to keep a deterrent."

For example it's lacking in range compared to the bigger Russian and Chinese jets and is too reliant on completely non-stealthy tankers.

And the Asia-Pacific region is large and does require longer range.

Personally I think they should've went with developments of the F-22.

If all the tests and bad flying ability reports are true, why is the thing still going to be built in numbers at all?

Because the DoD chose to spiral development out, what are currently flying are arguably YF-35s, different from what the final production models will be.

Eventually, the aircraft currently in service will be brought up to final production status.

That and there are only 187 F22As flying, so we gotta buy SOMETHING. Harriers are no longer an option, they've flown all the hours their airframe was rated for. Frack, the US had to buy up all the RAF Harrier IIs just to get wings with fewer hours on them to serve as spares!

F16s aren't bad, but they're a 1970s design for a cheap, lightweight daytime fighter that has been heavily modified into a day/night/all-weather fighter-bomber (which ain't cheap anymore).

F15s aren't really an option either, they'd need a massive upgrade to reduce their RCS to something survivable on the modern battlefield. Not to mention that their engines are a weak point.

The engines on the F22 or F35 are nearly twice the power of the original F15/F16 engines.

The USAF has other options for fighters:

F-15 Silent Eagle

F-16E/F Block 60 – developed for UAEAF and most advanced version.

F/A-18E/F Super Hornet (as if they'd ever buy a Navy fighter).

JAS-39 Gripen – ideal for continental air defence role currently undertaken by ANG. Primary responsibility is intercepting errant civilian aviation – you don't need an F-35 here.

But as if USAF would buy a foreign fighter.

USMC are kinda stuffed – they could buy F/A-18E/F as replacement for existing F/A-18A-D, especially those assigned to carrier duties.

But they really need F-35B for LHA/LHDs unless they want to relinquish fixed wing combat capability for their Gators.

The USN doesn't really want the F-35C- orders have been slashed from 480 to 360 aircraft and they're doing everything to reduce/delay buy whilst pushing the F/A-18E/F (and probably also supporting F/A-XX NGAS and UCLASS).

That's an insult to the F-4.

The Silent Eagle still needs new intakes to get better stealth from head-on.

F16E/F isn't necessarily a bad choice, except that it's gross weight has nearly doubled compared to the YF16, without a doubling of installed engine power. And it would need some massive redesign work to reduce the RCS.

Super Hornets aren't on the USAF's radar, not least because the USAF doesn't want the performance penalty caused by the super-beefy carrier landing requirements. The F35B forced a number of redesigns to the -A and -C variants, and the F35A really benefited from the weight reductions. But the biggest reason Super Hornets aren't on the USAF's radar is that they're less capable than an F15.

The Gripen is too small. After all, it runs on one F18C/D engine. Good for keeping costs down, bad for range and performance.

The US is a LOT bigger than continental Europe, which means planes with long legs just to cover the territory.

It would be nice to have "next generation" combat aircraft that didn't take generations to get into production or cost more than whole nation's military procurement budgets. Too many people making their whole career on a single weapon's development and not getting it done and done right.

The Silent Eagle still needs new intakes to get better stealth from head-on.

F16E/F isn't necessarily a bad choice, except that it's gross weight has nearly doubled compared to the YF16, without a doubling of installed engine power. And it would need some massive redesign work to reduce the RCS.

Agreed here BUT:

Bear in mind the USN guys are saying stealth isn't the be all and end all and don't agree with focus on stealth at expense of all other parameters.

No-one knows what a true high tech air defence system does as the US hasn't encountered one and certainly not in the last 20 years.

I read somewhere that F-35 is based on outcomes of Package Q which was a somewhat disastrous strike mission on Baghdad.

However the IADS over Baghdad in 1991 certainly wasn't modern even by the standards of the day:

-It lacked effective high altitude and medium altitude missile systems. Missiles were mainly obsolete SA-2/SA-3 and SA-6. SA-2 was obsolete by late 1960s and SA-3 and SA-6 had been neutralised by 1982 (remember Israeli attacks in Bekaa Valley).

These missiles aren't regarded as effective but can still be effective if poor tactics are used (e.g. F-117 shotdown in 1999) or if ambushes are used coupled with restrictive RoE and limited EW support (e.g. several aircraft lost over Bosnia).

-Core system was compromised due to it being of French origin (Kari)

- Lack of effective modern fighters, AWACS or fighter control systems. The MiG-23 and MiG-29s were generally extensively downgraded "monkey" versions.

Iraqi intercepts relied on a compromised IADS network and GCI which is nowhere near as effective as AWACS controlled intercepts.

- Last time a US/NATO combat jet was shot down was an A-10 over Iraq in 2003 to a French Roland. That was the only combat loss of a jet to enemy fire in that war.

Since 1991 the US has not encountered advanced high tech air defence networks in any war.

And most countries and especially likely opponents have either completely lost air defence capability or have not invested in it.

Hence the emphasis on a 100% stealth fleet seems like a superfluous luxury (and remember the USN doesn't want a 100% stealh fleet).

Only opponents with advanced multilayered air defences are Russia and China and both are not realistic areas of operations for short range tactical fighters.

Super Hornets aren't on the USAF's radar, not least because the USAF doesn't want the performance penalty caused by the super-beefy carrier landing requirements. The F35B forced a number of redesigns to the -A and -C variants, and the F35A really benefited from the weight reductions. But the biggest reason Super Hornets aren't on the USAF's radar is that they're less capable than an F15.

F-35 doesn't match F-15 either in a few parameters (speed, maneouvrability, payload, range). Indeed F-15E is not slated for replacement by F-35 and originally neither were most of the F-15C/Ds (cutbacks are changing that).

The F-35 was always meant to be an F-16/A-10 replacement.

The Gripen is too small. After all, it runs on one F18C/D engine. Good for keeping costs down, bad for range and performance.

The US is a LOT bigger than continental Europe, which means planes with long legs just to cover the territory.

Main plane used for US continental airdefence is F-16C/D which is not long legged. There are some F-15C/Ds in service with ANG air defence units as well.

As for performance – suggested role here is an air defence interceptor for air policing (main role of ANG fighter units assigned here).

A stripped down jet Gripen fuel tanks and 2 AMRAAMS + 2 AIM-9X is what is required (and hell given you need visual ID you can probably leave the AIM-120s at home).

Only area where more advanced capability is required is Alaska and Hawaii and both those areas are guarded by F-22s!

I think if JAS-39 is adopted for ANG air defence squadrons, something else heavier is still required for tactical units.

IMO that should've been an uprated true multi role F-22C Raptor (with proposed FB-22 replacing F-15E). But all of that is fantasy now.

Another reason to NOT want the Gripen is that it would require a whole separate school and supply pipeline. And the USAF is citing that as one of the reasons to retire the A10.

… something else heavier is still required for tactical units.

IMO that should've been an uprated true multi role F-22C Raptor (with proposed FB-22 replacing F-15E). But all of that is fantasy now.

I agree with both of those statements. A full-on multirole F/A-22 (or whatever the heck you want to call it) would have been the ideal F15C/D replacement.

We are rapidly approaching the point where the F15s will be seeing the Grandsons of their first pilots flying them.

I'd be interested in seeing what would happen to an F15 or F16 if you stuffed the engines from an F22 or F35 into it. I know that if you put the engines from an F15 into an F4, you end up with near-Blackbird performance(!).

I did have one oddball idea for a fighter-bomber. Take the YF23 airframe and completely rebuild the forward fuselage to be able to fit the rotary launcher used by the B52/B1/B2 for 25,000lbs internal bombload. It would end up looking something like the Su34 Strike Flanker, with a big "guppy" forward fuselage. It would also probably need bigger engines (say, the 43klb F135s from the F35), but that would be a pretty dang epic super-F111.

Also a lot of folks said that the Bradley was junk too

It's a rubbish fighter/fighter-bomber

Makes a pretty good target for fighter bombers, though!

Lion In The Stars,

I agree the F-23 would make a very good fighter bomber.

I also think it looks far better than the completely dull F-22.

F-35 is truly hideous.

Bizarrely Russia's new fighter (T-50) looks far better than the F-35 or F-22 – what's the world coming to?!?

Honestly, I thought the MiG29 and Su27 were prettier than the F14, F15, and F18.

I know that if you put the engines from an F15 into an F4, you end up with near-Blackbird performance(!).

There was a test with PW1120s back in the 70s or 80s. McDonnell hushed it up because the thing was a serious threat to the F/A-18.

(And DAMN, would I go for a souped-up new-build Double Ugly over a Legacy Hornet…)

Honestly, I thought the MiG29 and Su27 were prettier than the F14, F15, and F18.

Agree on Su-27 but never liked the MiG-29s canopy.

Always wondered how a full spec MiG-29 with AWACS would go.

The MiG-29 gets a bad wrap – it's only even been fielded in battle by incompetent air forces flying downgraded, obsolete or defective models (Iraq, Eritrea and Serbia).

In recent Polish exercises, Polish MiG-29s managed to effectively tangle with Polish F-16s.

Indeed it was reasonable parity until the F-16s teamed up with a NATO E-3 AWACS and then just blasted the MiGs at long range.

That's how critical AWACS is – and the US is proposing cutbacks to current E-3 fleet!

Even F-35 and F-22 radar systems don't match an E-3 or provide a command and control function!

Although I believe the last fighter pilot has already been born, it's not the size of the dog in the fight that makes the difference, but rather the size of the fight in the dog.

Apparently now they can be spotted by Russian and Chinese radars. So if they are no better than an F-15 at penetrating high tech defence and vastly more expensive what's the benefit.
link

But that's just the Daily Mail so they may have it wrong! :-)

Odd these posts not showing!