TAXES FOR STEALTH CORRUPTION? THE F-22, F-35 SCANDALS.
The F22 Raptor is the USA air superiority plane. It cost too much and proved too fragile. In USA style stealth, sharp angles are used because only reflections in discrete directions come back. So the USA style stealth plane acts as a diamond: a bright radar flash is followed by nothing, as the plane has moved slightly in the next sweep, and the sharp reflection went far away.
In 2009, in the United Arab Emirates, F22s Raptors met French Rafales in mock combat. The French weekly Air & Cosmos released an instructive picture. Here is a F22, in the gun sight of a Rafale:
USA F22 Raptor In Crosshairs Of French Rafale. The Outmaneuvered F22 is Fully Vectoring.
[All the targeting data was removed.]
The word “blasphemy” comes to mind. To put things in their proper context, the Rafale is a superlative bomber and ground attack plane. Contrarily to the F22 Raptor, it was not built just for air supremacy.
In the above picture, the Raptor is obviously maneuvering hard in the vertical plane: its nose is up, and one can see the bright flares of its two engines in post combustion, as they vector as hard as they can (see the supersonic shockwaves in the white jet exhausts). The F22 is trying to escape an inverted Rafale pulling with a lot of acceleration (“gs”) toward the ground. The F-22 is clearly not in a position for a gun or an infrared missile shoot (“fox2“). The thrust vectoring the F22 is engaging into is killing its speed. if the Rafale does not shoot it right away, it’s going to be the biggest slow moving turkey the sky has ever seen, within a few seconds.
Also remember that the Rafale carries its missiles externally, and normally the F22 does not (because, if it did, it would lose stealth). So the Rafale is capable of an instantaneous InfraRed missile shot on the F22, should the latter somehow escape the Rafale’s 30 mm gun…
Radars use intermittency to detect a moving object, so, if a reflection is followed by no reflection as the target has moved slightly, the electronic connected to the radar sees nothing.
One of the many disadvantages of USA style stealth is that sharp angles are not very aerodynamic, resulting in all sorts of problems, including fatigue of the exposed parts of the plane. Thus some of the plastic of the F-22 wore off, and had to be replaced by titanium (which is highly reflective).
The F22 Raptor plane is made of toxic polymers and epoxy glue, and technicians have to wear mask and gloves when approaching it. Cough and actually asphyxia have been reported in or around the plane. Making it the only neurotoxic plane in the world.
The F22 also cost 400 million dollar apiece. (And the F-22 lacks more recent features such as High Off Bore Sight and Helmet Mounted Display, let alone a very long range missile such as the Meteor.)
The F-22 was thus replaced by the smaller, cheaper, much slower F-35. With just one single engine. Four hundred (400) billion dollars has been spent on the F-35, and still, more than ten years later, it has not dropped a bomb, fired one missile, or a single canon shell…
The F35 program is actually the most expensive defense program, ever. By a very long shot.
By comparison, the Manhattan project cost 20 billion dollars, by the time it had dropped two nuclear fisson bombs on Japan and forced its surrender (and the hurried suicides of a few of the military plutocrats who terrorized Japan).
The F35 cannot cruise at supersonic speeds (the Rafale can cruise supersonically, and stealthily, with ten tons of weapons hanging outside). One may wonder if the F-35 could have caught up with the 9/11 terrorists… (After all, F15s, which fly much faster, could not, but at the time nobody expected that the USA would be attacked the way France had been in 1996, by suicidal highjackers!)
Now for a somewhat peaceful sight:
Rafale (on the left) and Typhoon Eurofighter (built respectively by French Dassault and part-French EADS, the company that owns Airbus). Both planes were successfully engaged in Libya, although:
1) The Eurofighter needed assistance from Tornado bombers to… bomb. (The Tornadoes detected and painted targets for the Eurofighters’ laser guided bombs. Eurofighters can’t bomb on their own!)
2) The Rafales were fully autonomous, and proved capable, using their active stealth, to search and destroy enemy missile batteries and radars of a fully functional air defense system.
3) Somehow American business men and their friends in Washington were able to persuade some of the nations which (helped) built (and purchase) the Typhoon Eurofighter to pitch into the F-35 Lightning II program. That’s very remarkable.
The United Kingdom, which is in a depression (its GDP numbers are worse than in the 1930s) and bankrupt Italy are now funding a useless, immensely expensive plane… made in the USA. As if money grew on trees, or, at least, so it does in Washington. How much money has been passing under that table?
Rafales recently visited Great Britain. Instructions were issued to British pilots, with their “Typhoon” Eurofighters, to NOT engage in war games with French Rafales.
Is it all bad with the Typhoon Eurofighters? Well, not at all, as long as they stay away from Rafales, and go shoot F22s!
Lockheed Martin haughtily claims: “the F-22 is the only aircraft that blends supercruise speed, super-agility, stealth and sensor fusion into a single air dominance platform.”
In mid-June 2012, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircrafts from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland.
Eight times during the two-week war game, single German Typhoons flew against single F-22s , simulating close-range dogfights.
Conclusion? In a close-range tangle — which pilots call a “merge” — the bigger and heavier F-22 is at a disadvantage. German Typhoon pilots said that, when flying without their external fuel tanks, in the WVR (Within Visual Range) arena, the Eurofighter proved to be better than the F22 Raptor.
The F-22 tends to lose too much energy when using thrust vectoring (TV): TV can be useful to enable a rapid direction change without losing sight of the adversary but, unless the Raptor can manage to immediately get a kill, the energy it loses makes the then slow moving plane quite vulnerable!
(Also the F-22 burns fuel like crazy during TV, and it has a short range to start with, due to its poor aerodynamics, and enormous engines to push its brutal shape.)
The Raptor fights well from beyond visual range with its high speed and altitude, sophisticated radar and long-range AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. Yet the AMRAAM maximum range is around 100 kms, less than the Meteor missile used by the Typhoon (and the Rafale!).
At this point, the partisans of the F22 will start their usual USA superiority sing-song. They will say, the Raptor is so stealthy, outside of visual range, it will sneak onto non stealthy Typhoons. And yet, this is another lie.
At a distance of about 50 km, the Typhoon IRST (Infra-Red Search and Track) system can find even a stealthy plane “especially if it is large and hot, like the F-22″ a Eurofighter pilot said. (Another reason for compact beauty, as in the Rafale!)
In any case, the Typhoons killed several Raptors during the Red Flag Alaska. On one day a German pilot quipped: “yesterday, we have had a Raptor salad for lunch.”
Other problems with the Raptor: it chokes its pilots, and its long range missiles do not work when it’s… cold (like it tends to get, up there in the sky). Both problems have been with the plane in the last two years, and it’s supposed to stay close to a base all the time!
Ah, and what of the Rafale already?
Well in an exercise, Rafales and Typhoons met, 9 Typhoons got “killed” while a single Rafale was disqualified… for flying too low. “Super agility“, anyone?
So, taxpayers, to your purses! The stealthy Military-Industrial Complex wants more from you. Much more. Some will say: wait a minute, why all these useless planes? Well, because after charging two billion dollars apiece for the completely useless subsonic B2 bomber, the plane makers of the USA realized they had found a story taxpayers bought with relish: the STEALTH plane. It was a nationalistic story: only the USA had stealth planes. The American public loves nationalistic, only-in-the-USA stories.
One difference between the USA and France is that one needs more nationalistic fervor to keep the USA together (the same applies to other countries, and the less they hold together naturally, the more strident the nationalistic fervor!). The French are more blasé: they are stuck together, anyway (although they feel it would be more elevated not to be).
OK, most publics are nationalistic, but can the most advanced civilization be the most nationalistic? Well, no. Nationalism is a form of hubris, and there is no stealthier poison. Athens tasted of that delicious poison, the poison of hubris, the poison so many in Germany, helas, even while torturting Hellas, tasted with relish.
All and any argument resting on nationalism is logically suspect, it’s a contaminant.
After building and operating for more than a trillion dollar of these useless planes, the F-22, the F-35, more money will be needed… For weapons that really work. Thus a double subsidy for the Military-Industrial Complex. One for useless weapons, and then one, absolutely necessary, for weapons that actually work!
***
Patrice Ayme
Tags: Corruption, Eurofighter, F-22, F-35, Military-Industrial Complex, Rafale, Typhoon, Washington
August 12, 2012 at 1:10 pm |
In an emerging epoch of ecological scarcity – at the end of era of increasing inequality – expenditure on our respective military forces is unquestionably obscene.
However, there can no greater obscenity than the UK insisting that it needs to replace its MAD (mutually assured destruction) Trident (i.e. its independent nuclear deterrent) system.
August 12, 2012 at 5:22 pm |
Well, Martin, decades ago, there was a Soviet attack plan on Europe. It anticipated, rather naively, that Soviet armor would stop at the French border. The Soviets’ secret plan was to leave Britain and France alone, because the Soviets were afraid of their nuclear deterrents.
Of course it would not have worked this way: France intended to use her tactical nukes on Soviet tank concentrations, as soon as they stepped into West Germany.
Suppose that the West had no military deterrent whatsoever. How long do you think it would take for global war in Asia? Not long at all. It would literally explode, and many of the detonations would be nuclear. It would be the war of all against all. Screaming that’s obscene would not make it any less so.
If, instead of giving a green light to Hitler in 1935, and making a sort of peace treaty with him, Britain had proclaimed it sided with France, and was going to re-arm, the German generals would probably have got rid of Hitler (as I have said many times, they begged the Brits, 4 years later, to do so!).
Peace is a nice dream, but one has to work hard for it. The Romans said it best: Si vis pacem, para bellum. For democracy to be, plutocracy has to be crushed, an unending task.
I am all for getting rid of the city destroying missiles, as long as the democracies are armed in a way superior to anything plutocrats have. I am readying an essay on Chinese plutocracy, by the way…
PA
August 12, 2012 at 6:04 pm |
Chamberlain was a fool; and I am not a pacifist. I just think that, today, there are much better things the UK could spend its money on…
August 12, 2012 at 6:49 pm |
Dear Martin: As I documented in the past, Churchill was an even bigger fool. OK, Churchill spoke French bilingually, but he was blind about Germany until 1938.
Moreover, if Chamberlain had followed Churchill’s strong advice about FIGHTER PLANES, Britain would have been successfully invaded by Hitler. Chamberlain’s big mistake was not to join the French at Munich and declare to the hysterical Hitler Britain would join the Czeck and the French, and go to war.
But that mistake was not made by him alone. Much of British plutocracy was with Hitler and German plutocracy. See king Edward, thrown out for blaring Nazism.
Oh, by the way, Ramsay Macdonald, a conservative, was PM from 1931 to 1935. Another conservative, Alexander Baldwin, succeeded him, in a coalition government, and was PM from June 1935 to May 1937. The conservative Chamberlain was next.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom#Prime_Ministers_appointed_under_George_V_.281910.E2.80.931936.29
PA
August 12, 2012 at 2:34 pm |
Wau, impressive analysis. I don’t know too much about war planes, but i do know about what happens, if the treasury budget department doesn’t have control on expenses of an other department, like the army due to “National security” reasons.
But as to the National security policy, to mine opinion, if to be practical about military built up, you have to do it on very cost-effective way. (If you want to prevent, what happened in Europe before 1914, when Germany and England started military build up, tryingd to create supremacy in the oceans, even if their official policy was friendship. The two kings were cousins after all. At the end the investment in war ships and military equipment had to be justified, and this became one of the reasons the German military was so pro-war). So lets check why exactly US wants military build up.
I strongly believe, that if the twenty century wars were mostly on Ideological basis (WWII and the cold war), the twenty first century war will be about cultural differences. The main cultural difference are between the consuming based, open societies, and the closed, faith based rigid, ascetic society, denying the right of free choice from its citizens on every aspect of life, including, their believes, their behavior in the public and in their privacy, and how they educate their children. Not to speak about denial of any political rights, rights of minorities, rights of women etc. Who are applying for this definition? Not Europe, not India or the Buddhist Asia. Some would say by mistake China, but China may be a strong competitor of US economic achievements, and Olympic medals, and may have different political system, but since the death of Mao Zedong its aim is to bring China as close to the US standard and way of life as possible. They don’t want to annihilate the US culture, they want to adopt it and enjoy its achievements. So if US wants to build military strength to protect its economic interest, better if it calculates the cost effectiveness of investment and change its policy accordingly. For example it can agree on long term economic cooperation in form of some kind of Pacific Union, (like European Union) and share its wealth with China. It will be less costly than the military built up. If not measured just by GDP, US is more than five times richer than China in absolute terms and per capita 25 times. viz;
http://www.economist.com/node/21557732
All is left from the potential enemies of US are the Muslim fanatics. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, out of it about 250 million Arabs, who happened to have or are having democratic revolution that brought pro Islam government in them. Pro Islam doesn’t mean military Islam, but it may become one. Let as assume that the most instable Muslim countries, that will include all the Arab states, Iran, some African Muslim states, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (we are speaking about more than half billion people), will become military Muslim countries, whose aim is not only to impose the Sharia law on their citizens, but to try to impose Islam and its undemocratic values on the whole world. This is a real strategic challenge, that rightly US has to prepare itself for. But are the new military planes for any use against this kind of threat? I am doubtful. Even if the Muslim fanatics take over the political leadership in all the mentioned countries, (a very improbable scenario), they will have no capacity to develop any new weaponry, but in the worst case they will be able to develop existing weapons of mass destruction, that were developed long time ago and ceased to be a military secret. And this what happens in Iran and Pakistan who are developing atomic capacity and all the other countries developing biological and chemical weapons.
I am not a military expert to advice how to cope with this kind of treat, but i do understand that the extra expensive planes have nothing to do with this threats.
August 12, 2012 at 6:34 pm |
Dear Eugen: before I answer you at length, and find time to do so, let me come back to the four Prussian generals who plotted WWI, with the Kaiser (who was dropped by the plotters in the final phase, July 1914). The two admirals involved, one of them was Tirpitz, were not keen to go to war. They signed on, very reluctantly. They knew the Kriegsmarine could not win over the Royal Navy. They were not keen to see their huge investment in capital ships go to the bottom of the sea.
Of course the four Prussian idiots thought that Britain would not come to the rescue of Belgium and France. First mistake, due to their crass ignorance. (Disclosure: the head idiot is a very distant relative, no genes in common whatsoever; that means that, by my zeroes, I had heard a very different story from the normal one.)
So why did they attack? Because so is the inertia of the plutocratic mind that has gone way too far. They knew that democracy was winning economically, in France and Russia. France was investing heavily in Russia. They knew that, inside Germany, the SPD, was pushing ever more for democracy, and would win, in the end, except if war stopped it.
The plutocrats who held Germany were all for war. When you are ruled by Pluto, and rule in the name of Pluto, you want everybody to join hell as servants. A successful completion of the Schlieffen plan of attack against the rump of France Bismarck had left was the only chance for plutocracy to perdure in Germany. As far as the plutocrats were concerned, it was not much of a choice.
PA
August 12, 2012 at 11:54 pm |
Yes they were frightened by Russia. Its economic growth threatened the German economic dominant position. The conspiracy oriented communists would never admit that Russia has done quite a good economic progress after 1905.
As to the German and French generals, there were all idiots, if they did not understand the fire power of the newly introduced machine guns in all the armies, sending against them unshielded infantry, causing death of million soldiers with in a week or so. Such a sacrifice made cease fire, or God forbid peace treaty unacceptable for both sides without political earthquake. But it took four more years and 9 million more deaths until the political earthquake came.
I wonder sometime, aren’t we governed by same kind of idiots?
August 13, 2012 at 12:45 am |
Dear Eugen: The four who plotted the attack, and those who obeyed them were at fault. The Prussian General Staff, more exactly great general Staff, Großer Generalstab, was at fault.
This means that, in a democracy, army generals should be imposed by the constitution to respect the latter, and that constitution should enshrine the principle of “no war of aggression“. Especially no war of aggression without any good reason, or against a democracy, without fabulously good reason, etc…
But the Reich’s constitution had it that the Großer Generalstab was pretty much independent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_General_Staff Because of its success, starting against Napoleon, it was viewed as the creator of the Great German Reich. so far so good, until they went off the deep end in the hatred of fascism against democracy, they joined forces with standard plutocracy.
Now as far as generals being idiots, well… Joffre nearly annihilated the German army in September 1914, after 5 weeks of an harrowing retreat. True, there were lots of extremely costly offensives… But they could have worked! in the end, the Second battle of the Marne was a crushing French victory (“Your Majesty, we have lost the war” said Luddendorff to the Kaiser. Why? What? That battle was completely anticipated by the French high command. And they let the Prussians strike hard, in a vacuum. After that they rolled them back in a pincher, with enormous artillery (the French were making French 75mm guns in the USA by then, so they had really plenty). The counter offensive was horrendous. At some points two American divisions joined a Senegalese (!) division, and all suffered something like 100% casualties in 34 hours. (The French had 45 divisions counter attacking.) The Senegalese and the Germans did not make each other prisonners. (It was not much better with the Americans, inspired by the senegalese example!)
In the end, what one wants to study, is the impossibility to have professional military that is not a guardian of the Republican Constitution. But, of course, the Great German reich was not a Republic… BTW the 100 year, or 475 years war between France and England was started as a dynastic Franco-French quarrel. It would not have happened if both had been republics.
And what of Wiemar in all this? Well, ha ha ha, little detail, it was not truly a republic… The German Reich was still formally ongoing, as Hitler noticed all too much… That’s why the engineered inflation of the 1920s, and the service of Wall Street inside Germany, to create the proto-Nazi state, none of this, is very surprising. And the German generals failed again. At least this time, they did not cause the war, they just fail to stop the Nazis (OK, some of them, such as Rommel, were Nazis… For a while at least…)
PA
August 13, 2012 at 5:52 am |
Dear Eugen: OK, let me ask a question: what is the difference between “ideology” and “cultural differences”?
On a different subject, Western planes mostly from 1) France, 2) Britain, and 3) whatever smashed completely Qaddafi’s war machines. French planes had nearly killed Qaddafi in Chad two decades prior, BTW. The dictator was on an airfield the French Air Force bombed in a very low altitude raid, using bombs with parachutes; at the time Qaddafi’s pilots were from the DDR. Of course, later, the DDR went kaput. To have your pilots shot out of the sky is not a confidence builder.
At this point, war planes, when they establish dominance, are still the ultimate weapon. Short of nukes. By the way all Rafales double as nuclear bombers, they can be equipped with a standard supersonic cruise missile with a nuclear warhead. This has not escaped India’s attention (nor Pakistan, besides itself with rage). All the more interesting as the Rafale needs only 400 meters for take-off…
PA
August 13, 2012 at 8:06 am |
As to the military war planes, as an army veteran i prefer to know as little as possible about it.
The difference between Ideology and Culture is substantial. Haven’t you read Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of civilization?
From world wide perspective what exactly were the cultural differences between French and German, or even better English and and German. Even the Russians are close to the other Europeans compared to the post Soviet Muslim population. The best indication of cultural differences is the birth rate differences between this nations. Ideology as compared to it is a verbal structure of half truths, sometime logically connected, sometime even not, that is translated into political action. Usually ideology in its essence has some substantial esoteric or extraterrestrial half truth (or lie to be exact). But whom am i teaching about all this?
August 13, 2012 at 3:28 pm |
Dear Eugen: Well, about war planes, if the French republic had had all her war planes in France in May 1940, instead of only half if her warplanes, the Nazi armored mechanical snake striking West (full of Nazi generals such as Rommel or Guderian, both I like in some ways, but they were Nazis, especially in 1940-1941…) would have been destroyed.
And that would have changed lots of things (for the better: as the Naziest (so to speak) and most disobedient part of the Wehrmacht would have been chopped off, the rest, more sedate and civilized part of the Wehrmacht (Beck, etc.) could have got rid of Hitler and company: no USSR campaign, at least on a wrong moral footing, no Auschwitz, etc.).
Also the warplane situation, as it is show aspects of the global plutocracy (there again, the real force behind Hitler). Democracy is first about force. The force to resist plutocracy. That’s why true pacifists cannot despise the military, or all and any military matters.
…And Gandhi, Hitler’s self declared “friend”, is no counter example, quite the opposite…
I read Huntington. He is so ill informed, he is not even worth contradicting. You see, I was raised and educated outside of Euramerica, in Africa, mostly among local Muslims. What you seem to be saying is that “ideology”, the logic of ideas, is all about ideas, just ideas, whereas culture is more general, it involves feelings.
And that is the mistake many do. In the case of Muslims, for example, people systematically identify Wahabbism with Islam. But, whereas I subscribe to some forms of Sufi Islam (like I do, say, correct Catholicism), as a social accompaniement, I reject, condemn and despise Wahabbism, as a social imposition.
A basic mistake of Huntington is to identify culture and religion. Huntington’s stupidity would have made Nietzsche laugh one moment, and being furious, thereafter. And Nietzsche would have been right: how come people in Harvard never read Nietzsche? They don’t like it? Or they can’t understand it? In either case, they are in good company with the Nazis…
As it is now, the world has pretty much just civilization, and we have to keep on imposing it… By all sorts of ways, in all sorts of places… Syria is a case in point: the West has to support secularists there.
PA
August 14, 2012 at 5:35 am |
You say;
“ideology”, the logic of ideas, is all about ideas, just ideas, whereas culture is more general, it involves feelings.
The differentiation between culture and ideology is a wide subject to be smashed out of the table of discussion by one sentence.
August 14, 2012 at 6:18 am |
You mean: The differentiation between culture and ideology is too wide a subject to be smashed out? I am not afraid of one sentence assertions. After all, that is what equations are.
Really I think that’s a pretty good differentiation. It’s naive, too, because behind any idea, there is a feeling. Or a set of feelings. Yes even in mathematics. That’s why CERN uses five sigmas: at that point the bell curve depicting the feeling is really very strong and distinct…
PA
August 12, 2012 at 3:42 pm |
There is no stopping the MIC. A better strategy might be to change the nature of the products they make.
For example, NASA was a spin-off of the weapons makers for the exploration of space.
Nobody got bombed.
What if the MIC were to do a manhattan project on solar energy?
August 12, 2012 at 5:02 pm |
Agreed about NASA. Or space. Nowadays, the French military is completely integrated with space. Every single French bombing, or whatever mission is space directed (although the planes, Mirages, Super Etendards and Rafales, can operate independently). the French military operates a galaxy of satellites. And track 3,000 ‘washing machines’ sized objects in orbit. A significant activity is to find out where and what are the undeclared satellites.
Solar energy works. There is no need for a Manhattan style project. The best photovoltaics, in the lab, already a while back, had an efficiency of 44%. The problem is storage of the electricity (even dams, the most efficient storage, tend to crack; there are cracked dams in France or the USA, next to cities; they are now mostly empty, as quasi-impossible problems tied to democracy, ecology and capital have arisen to do something about them).
Germany or Spain have run mostly on Solar PV this year, 2012,for days. But what happens if there is two weeks of dramatic cloud cover? The only solution is… the God of the North, Thor. OK, fuel cells could work, if they proved cheap and SAFE. Fuel cell cars would be twice more efficient than the best internal combustion-Carnot cycle cars… If one could solve several problem.
The Manhattan project should be on Thorium reactors. They will allow the conquest of Mars and the Moon, fast and effective, among other things. Thorium tugs could go fetch ice, and dump it on Mars…
Notice that for Curiosity, NASA went back to the incomparable Plutonium (notoriously used to force Japanese capitulation by dropping some on a rare Japanese… cathedral…)
PA
Air batteries offer a prospect of much better energy storage. So should the Manhattan project ought to be directed towards batteries? well, sort of, but there is no need for panic. It would be enough to rise the price of fossil fuel according to their true cost, and the post fossil fuel economy would appear right away. It already does.
August 13, 2012 at 5:28 am |
Thanks for sharing that, I enjoyed it! Still love fighter planes.
August 13, 2012 at 5:32 am |
dear Amna: Yes, well, fighter planes bring lots of the mental flowers of humanity together in an astounding bouquet of blossoms: courage, ambition, daring, intelligence, infinitesimal calculus, dynamics, thermodynamics, flying, electronics, protection, interception, chasing, avoidance, fleeing, triumph of the human spirit, etc. They are not just war machines.
PA
August 14, 2012 at 7:20 pm |
Patrice, to briefly return to your original email, there have been wars where the victors used the most power, not the smartest power.
As for our military procurement schemes, they have become too much of our fabric to question. Eisenhower made us aware of this, but would not do much himself to sort it out. You see, the great American leader is bold on words, but actually sits on the fence.
P.S. Thanks for your visits. I hope my being able to post is a reality now.
August 15, 2012 at 8:26 pm |
Dear Multumnonmulta: Glad to see you re-emerge! War is about winning. Winning by fair means insure the best wins, long term.
The military procurment schemes will have to be adressed. The F35 has probably to be stopped, be it only for military reason. To call the F35 a flying Maginot Line, would be to insult the Maginot Line.
PA
August 15, 2012 at 7:00 am |
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August 18, 2012 at 3:37 am |
Very interesting analysis, Patrice.
The references to WW II that you exchanged on with EugenR may be the key to why the U.S. MIC is so powerful that it can push for such half-baked products as the F-35. Ever since, the Americans,
although having entered the conflict by Japanese persuasion only,
are living a vase clos dream of omnipotency. Anything that goes along this way is correct; anything against it is wrong.
Of course, America is impressive in its accomplishments but the very fact of its power shields it from auto-reflection and the usual subsequent corrective measures. It simply has the mindset of a teenager as a national entity. ( America as Ancient Greece thinks of others as barbarians. ) This shows up clearly to anyone keeping a watch to the U.S. political field for instance. Some right wing calls for direct election of Congress members have been heard recently, negating the 17th Amendment without so much
as an eyelid nervous bat but for sarcasm professionals. Calls of
socialism as an utter insult to the President are also on record.
No wonder the general public can’t see how their money is being squandered on uber-tech toys of dubious usefulness.
Although I would defend the WVR lackings of the F-22 since it is almost designed NOt to enter it by supposed virtue of its BVR extreme prowess, the simple fact that Increment 3.2 is at least two years away yet from enabling Link 16 on it serves your views.
And thus, the F-35 served as an argument to end production by then Secretary of Defense Gates seems almost ludicrous… http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1369
since chances are the Lighting II won’t be ready by 2014 ( sic ).
Then again, the real usefulness of the said F-35 may still hold,
namely infeodation of partners/buyers nation by reduction of their
national fighter industries.
It is more than somewhat flabbergasting that this outlandish stunt
could work but if it does as it still very well may, all else will be forgotten, “jeté aux oubliettes”, thrashed into oblivion and your warnings along with it, I’m afraid.
Which brings to mind Casimir Delavigne’s best verses ever :
“How many small spirits, jealous of famous names.
will against the light take the side of darkness.
Their outrageous numbers make their authority;
Fools, since Adam, are the majority.”
Taygibay.
August 18, 2012 at 5:14 am |
Taygibay, welcome to this site!
!
Here is more water for the mill:
RAPTOR: SO HOT IT’S EASY TO COOK:
The BVR, Beyond Visual Range, of the F22 does NOT exist when figthing the Typhoon Eurofighter. The scenario is this:
Say a F22 flying at Mach 2 is approaching a Eurofighter or Rafale flying also at Mach 2. If the F22 is NOT in stealth mode, because it carries its supplementary tanks. The Eurofighter or Rafale sees the F22 supplementary tanks, and fires a Meteor at 80 kilometers, then turns away. The Meteor flies a mile per second, whereas the Eurofighter/Rafale recedes at 600 meters per second. Within 30 seconds, the Eurofighter/Rafale is out of range of the missile launched by the F22. That later missile has covered only 40 kilometers. The Meteor’s exact range is not too clear, up to 150 kilometers, and, in any case it is much greater than any USA missile, and so is its speed.
In the other case the F22 is approaching at mach 2, in its stealthy mode. At this point, even 100 kilometers away, it’s already in deep trouble with the Rafale, which can listen in a passive way with its phased array radar. Ok, the F22 also has a passive mode, and let’s suppose it picked up the Rafale. To start having a chance to kill the Rafale, the F22 needs to approach within 50 kilometers, and even closer to the Eurofighter (which can flee faster).
By then both European fighters will see the Infra Red signature of the F22. Do not forget that the F22 is large and hot. An enormous object with a skin temperature above 100 Celsius is plainly visible, from very very far. It was already very visible ten years old tech, and it gets more visible all the time. Maybe soon it will be visible 100 miles away… both the Rafale and the Eurofighter are equipped with sophisticated Infra Red detectors.
So say combat starts. At 50 kilometers, the F22, to be stealthy had no tanks to start with, is already missing at least 100 miles of fuel relative to European fighters. Now both the Rafale and the Eurofighter have demonstrated supercruise at mach 1.4 with the tanks and weapons on, so, independently of more sophisticated measures the Euro fighters can escape the F22′s missiles, then turn around, and come back supercruising for more, chasing down the F22 (which supercruises at mach 1.8 with nothing outside).
At that point the planes are 150 kms apart, still within Meteor range. And the Euro fighters have established dominance (as the F22 fled), they can patrol.
Should the F22 persists and join combat some more, it will run out of missiles. It can carry a maximum of 6 missiles inside, the European fighters can carry more. Say everybody carried 6 missiles, and finally they run out of missiles (as happened in Vietnam), and gun fighting is engaged. Then, clearly, the F22 is toast. If it does not run out of fuel, its Thrust Vectoring has proven lethal when confronted to Rafales, Eurofighters, and even… Mirages.
In case of a long distance fight against Rafale the F22 is particularly toast, because the Rafale can make itself invisible on radar, but then can pick the F22 on Infra Red, and then fire an Infra Red (French) MICA missile, flying at one kilometer per second, with a range of 80 kilometers. The F22 will be killed without even knowing what hit it!
I will not even bother to speak of the F35. It has all defects of the Raptor, and not too many of its qualities (such as speed). Being smaller than the Raptor, it carries fewer missiles, is much slower, etc. Anyway, it’s testimony to the USA MIC’s power than the program has evolved in the world’s greatest sinkhole… mysteriously joined by countries with a superior plane (the Eurofighter).
PA
August 18, 2012 at 5:25 am |
Another point is that the Meteor can vary its speed according to the distance of the target, and optimizes fuel for hitting the target at maximum speed, with no fuel left. All this is possible because it’s a Ramjet.
Studies have shown though that interception with MICA IR missiles will be more frequent, better adapted to the stealth of the Rafale (and extremely deadly to the F22, a huge IR target; the Rafale makes a much smaller IR target, deliberately so). Thus, say a Rafale would carry 6 MICAs and 2 Meteors….plus THREE tanks… A enormous amount of stealthy firepower, and stamina… No wonder the USAF refused to engage F22s against Rafales in BVR fighting…
PA
August 24, 2012 at 12:38 am |
Thank you very much for the welcome, Patrice.
Your answer had me remembering something I read on the subject although I do not remind where :
400 million bucks for a Stealth Uberplane that may then only be useful to down AWACs; not the best return on investment,
is it?
August 24, 2012 at 1:29 am |
Dear Taygibay: I don’t even think it could down AWACS. Two things: if it approaches fast, progress in Infra Red detection will make it very visible. don’t forget the French MICA IR, a passive Infra Red missile, has a range of 80 kilometers (that’s a minimum range as such missiles go so fast, they can keep on flying for a much larger distance, depending how high they are. That’s how a civilian airplane was shot down over the Black Sea, something like 100 kilometers beyond the range of the missile shot in an exercise).
If the stealth plane approaches super slow, it can still be seen, by just using two AWACS, as one is bound to see it from the side (where the radar reflections are much stronger!) German Eurofighter pilots know this, and basic tactic will be to spread squadrons in a “wall”.
In a related subjects, the Iranians used F14 Tomcats, with their powerful radar, as AWACS during the Iran-Iraq war. After suffering heavy losses, the Iraqis (or maybe French pilots flying) Mirages reacted craftily. They flew their Mirage F1 so low that they could not be seen by the AWACS. Then they peaked up, and shot down the F14s. True they also had new French aircraft and missiles… But the fact remains that flying real low allows one to approach AWACS…
PA
August 23, 2012 at 7:38 pm |
Excellent analysis Patrice.. I am from India and wanted to put some questions on Rafale, F22 and Pakfa.
Rafale is a swing role aircraft , no doubt about it, as in your analysis it proves to be more cost effective than the white elephant F22, which isn’t cost effective by any means.
But the thing keeps on popping up in my mind is why the USAF and Pentagon are still foolishly pursuing that program when they know it is not worth investing in its current design.
If their 5th Gen program is not working then why dont they start a new project to design and mass produce aircrafts that are practical and their stealth lies somewhere between a 4.5 Gen aircraft(Like Rafale) and a truly stealthy 5th gen aircraft, i.e a 4.75 Gen aircraft (in terms of stealth and avionics ) like the Pakfa?
August 23, 2012 at 10:42 pm |
Sushant: Welcome to this site! Especially from India. I think India has a lot to teach to the world, and, in particular, China and Russia, both senile elephants, in important ways. The ancient Greeks knew India enough to be influenced by it. They called Indian philosophers, “gymnosophers”, meaning naked wisemen…
The F22 Raptor is not just a white elephant. It has now proven its inferiority to the Eurofighter. Indeed, it’s now clear that the F22 would not be able to use its stealth in a meaningful way (it would be detected at least 50 kilometers away on a clear day, from its infrared emissions). But it would be handicapped by it. One thing I did not say is that, by spreading out, two Eurofighters could see, on conventional radar, the F22, because the stealth effect is maximized frontally (where, hmm, the IR shining of the F22 is maximal…).
So after a long range dogfight with missiles and counter-measures, it would be down to a conventional dogfight, where it is known already that a simple Mirage can outfight the F22 (handicapped by its weird geometry, its large size, and its gas guzzling Thrust Vectoring…
The USAF had initially announced it wanted 750 F22, and less than 200 have been made (including prototypes). They know it does not work, and that is why they proposed the F35. The F35 adressed what they consented to admit where the problems with the F22… But they did not admit to its main problems, in no small part from self hypnotism. Now the confrontation with the Eurofighter has made the situation clear.
So India made an excellent choice with the “omnirole” Rafale. It remains to the US Navy to do the same. even Israel is leaving the sinking F35 (discreetly, they want fewer and fewer of them…)
The one and only true Fifth Generation stealth aircraft is actually the Rafale. Rafale’s SPECTRA, active stealth can be improved indefinitely. When the stealth engineers, USA style, thought of stealth, they did not think of astronomy. In astronomy detection of weak radiosources and weak infrared sources progresses by leaps and bounds. This makes passive stealth impossible.
The Pak Fa seems to me to have lots of the problems of the F22 from large size to meager payload (less than the Rafale, for three times the naked mass). As soon as they punch the power, it will stick like a sore thumb in the Infra Red, an obvious target for a MICA IR missile (range 80 kilometer, speed one kilometer per second). The Rafale and Mirage can carry up to ten MICA IR.
It’s all about the MIC, not really defense…
PA
August 24, 2012 at 12:55 am |
To add to Patrice’s answer, Sushant, “why the USAF and Pentagon are still foolishly pursuing that program” concerns less the F-22 since its production is now ended for keeps than the F-35. And yet as I mentioned, the Lightning II has the “merit” of infeudation** of partner/client Nations to the American MIC.
However, the U.S.N. has already begun looking ahead to the next stage as seen in the Boeing FA-XX you check here : http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/us-navy-issues-fa-xx-rfi-370806/
Better safe than sorry, go Navy go,
Tay.
** Erratum for the initial mispelling in my first answer. An atavism of sorts for a native French speaking person, sorry.
August 24, 2012 at 1:03 am |
*miSSpelling* Sigh, not doing well, darn me
A typo in an erratum,
sorry all and good day”
August 24, 2012 at 2:00 am |
Dear Taygibay: Now let me follow this. The F35 was supposed to replace the F18 Super Hornet. Now they are talking about the F18 going until it breaks apart in 2030… That’s as clear an admission that the F35 does not work. Indeed the F18 has triple the range, carries much more, goes faster… OK, the F35 “stealth”… But does that really has a meaning, besdies being a poorly constructed aircraft?
Also the USA MIC will have to discover $$$ don’t grow on trees, even in the USA. The USAF already has a (ill defined) long range bomber program (of sorts). At some point the B52s will fall apart…And the USA spent 400 billion already on a useless plane (F35, and I am not counting the just as useless F22). A plane like the Rafale is equipped for nuclear strikes with a stand off supersonic cruise missile (and it can take off in 400 meters…). With air refueling and supplementary tanks, they can go far (5,000 kms at least)…
PA
August 24, 2012 at 1:21 pm |
Yes, Patrice! Your second paragraph’s first sentence in the above reply is spot on : Dollars, or Euros et al for that matter, do not grow on trees!!! That is quite simply the crux of the matter and explains why the Rafale now seems so attractive.
Let’s remember :
A- that France has a much less important budget to devote to military spending than the U.S.A.
B- that France compares to the U.S.A. in its will to produce mili tech on a National basis for reasons pertaining to independence of means and action, which reaches both the
military but also consequently industrial sectors.
C- that the Rafale was intended from the start as a Do-it-all
weapons system* for monetary reasons that had already reached the thinkers of defence matters and politicians in Paris at the time ( circa 1980s ).
That is what makes the Rafale so attractive nowadays ( and why Dassault coined the much maligned Omnirole tag/term for its fighter-bomber).
.
!
In the meanwhile, America started down the same road to the two-pronged approach that brought us the F-22 & F-35
duo. However, having both the habit of ultra-tech and some billions more to spend, the MIC was empowered to go for broke which it dutyfully did
Two planes instead of one, Stealth wunderbar, etc even as budget shrinking was rearing its ugly head in real politics.
Russia & China were the left-over “losers” of the Twentieth century’s second half, Cold War et al and could be counted on to play catch-up, as they did with PAK_FA or J-20, thus justifying the on-going bonfire of American taxpayers’ hard earned cash.
Had the 21th century not come along, all would have been fine but, alas, it did
The MIC still does not know how to do cheap; the military still thinks of needs as being filled by the red&white-clad chap from the end of the year smorgasborg of mili goodies and of course, polticos have become way too proficient at throwing money out the windows to just give up the habit ( probably as hard a job as that of smokers & heroin addicts anyhow ).
A nice little world-spanning financial crisis later, F-22 is but a fourth of planned acquisition target and closed and the F-35
gets caught with its fat dysfunctional paw in the honey jar.
Thus the little French plane that could ends up closer to reality and its requirements and while India’s first stringent and honest tender gives it the thumbs up, one can’t but wonder why the person that decided to go for the OneMilitaryNationalIndependent option has not been awarded the Logic Nobel Prize.
Bets are now open on future realignment of concepts …
Good day all, Tay.
P.S. BTW, had it not been for the “too many cooks spoil the sauce” and reliance on American sourcing, the EF2000 might
very well have been just as good.
August 24, 2012 at 6:01 pm |
Dear Tay:
As it is the EF2000 (Eurofighter Typhoon) is VASTLY inferior to the Rafale:
1) Can’t bomb alone (it needed Tornadoes to designate targets in Libya, just as the UK was retiring a Tornado squadron)
2) The radar of the Rafale is way ahead, and the EF 2000 hopes to catch up by 2018, or so. By then the Rafale would have moved on.
SPECTRA is made by Thales which is contracted to make the electronic of the new heavy British aircraft carriers… That means the electronic superiority of the Rafale is acknowledge by all.
The EF 2000 does not have ONE clear advantage on the Rafale. They have both supercruised, all weapons hanging out, around Mach 1.4 (Rafale) 1.5 (EF). So the much vaunted EF speed advantage on the Rafale is insignificant in practice.
The fact that the EF 2000 depends on so many USA equipment is obviously a disavantage, as the USA has used this in the past (say against… Finland).
What you point out is that the French had to go lean and mean. The USA MIC became fat and lazy. I view the much vaunted “stealth” as just a story that could be sold to legislators. “Stealth” has allowed to spend one trillion dollar on various programs (F 117, B2, F22, F35, and many other prototype) of dubious military value (the heavy bombing being done by B52, B1, F16, F15, F18, A10…). It was a story for children, and the children bought the new toys.
It’s highly likely that, should a force of 195 F22s (all there is!) opposed 195 EF 2000s, the F22 force would be exterminated. Let alone if they faced 195 Rafales… The Rafale, by the way, can play the penetrating nuclear bomber that the USA wants to develop (although it has not been decided whether it would be supersonic or not; a nuclear armed Rafale can penetrate under the radar at supersonic speed).
The EF 2000 was developed because Dassault insisted on a smaller plane (for the aircraft carriers and… stealth…). In practice, although a small beauty, the Rafale carries as much and goes as far, or more and further than its competition, be it EF 2000, or F22.
In truth too, Dassault thought it had decades of experience with building fighters, and should be the boss, and did not want to build a plane by commitee. EADS is mostly a civilian company, not military, and it is widely viewed that the EF 2000 is their first and last fighter-bomber. Several of the techs they used were first developed by Dassault, sometimes decades before (delta wing, canard, fly by wire). Dassault’s real name was Bloch, a French Jew, and Dassault stayed secretly very close to the Israeli Air Force (Kfir fighter, etc.)
The Rafale can take higher gs, from the simple trick of a 29 degree seat… (But it has the displays and commands to go with it). It’s pretty hilarious that, in the end, the USA is left with the F teens series… (There is no doubt these are excellent planes, BTW…)
PA
October 3, 2012 at 7:29 pm |
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October 4, 2012 at 8:02 am |
Your analysis is hilariously ill-informed and mostly wrong. You are aware that in these exercises that the F-22 starts defensive. The fact that the Rafale or EF-2000 have scored “kills” on the F-22 means nothing; EF-18Gs have scored “simulated” BVR kills on the F-22 while F-18Es have scored simulated kills on the F-22 with a combination of helmet mounted displays (which the Rafale was famously late in getting) and high-off-boresight missiles. The F-22 has gone up against F-15SGs which have AESA radars and much more powerful IRST sensors than Rafale not to mention greater speed and range and far more powerful EW systems than the Rafale. Whatever WVR deficiencies the F-22 may have are being solved with the addition of the HMD and HOBS.
October 4, 2012 at 4:30 pm |
Dear Marauder: Maybe some of what you say holds the road as a partial point of view. I don’t have the time to dig. However it’s deeply irrelevant. Obama himself saif that: “[the F22] did not work too well, so we stopped it”. Actually the F22 works so poorly that getting in the air at all seems too much of a challenge, most of the time. Clearly both the stealth-everything and the Trhust vectoring were mistakes. Also the plane, while huge, hence highly visible, carries very little. The F22 has never seen a combat mission. Indeed, it’s not clear what it could do (can it even carry bombs?).
The F35 has all the defects of the F22, plus new, more drastic ones. Its performance is similar to that of the ill fated F105 Thunderchief of the Vietnam war. Its range is ridiculous, and obviously the F18 is a much better plane (which did not make it very far in the Indian competition for a new superiority fighter-bomber… for insufficient performance).
The Rafale is a fully functionnal “omnirole” fighter-bomber. It has proven it in Afghanistan, and in Libya, and, soon it will do so in Mali. After killing Kadafi’s armor in the opening, it killed Kadafi himself at the very end. Meanwhile it did high precision bombing that the Eurofighter needed assistance (from Tornadoes!) to do…
For the USA to acquire the Rafale and the Meteor while selling the Europeans some of the areospace where the USA is superior (drones), is the way to do it. One has always to remember 1939… When France and britain were on one side, and the USA, de facto, on the other…
PA
October 4, 2012 at 8:02 pm |
What does Obama know about 5th gen fighters? His administration capped F-22 production on the supposed basis that Russia and China wouldn’t be producing 5th Gen aircraft in the near-term. That reasoning has been shown to be quite faulty. Presidential candidate Romney has indicated that he will re-open the F-22 line (the line is “warm”).
If the thrust-vectoring and low-observables were mistakes why are the Russians and the Chinese and the Indians and the South Koreans and the Japanese all committing the same blunders on their future aircraft? Europe has no future manned aircraft either under-development or planned. Eurofighter proposed a thrust-vectoring version of the Eurojet engines to India and India flies thrust-vectoring versions of the Su-30. These are huge airplanes which have performed very well in exercises with US and European forces.
The F-22 carries 8 AAMs internally and a huge amount of fuel. It can supercruise in full combat configuration and sustain a 28 degree turn rate at least Mach 1.0 in this configuration. No other fighter in the world can do this. The Eurocanards can only supercruise in a near slick configuration.
Ever notice how the Rafale carries *three* external fuel tanks? It has very little internal fuel. The F-22 can drop GPS guided small-diameter bombs. It hasn’t seen combat because there’s been no need; there’s been no air-to-air threat that the US teen series couldn’t handle and the B-1B and B-2 have smashed the air defense systems and ground targets of Serbia, Iraq and Libya with no problem.
How is the performance of the F-35 similar to the F-105? The F-35 has greater range on internal fuel and a full combat load than almost any other fighter on the planet. The F-35A is capable of sustaining 9Gs and a 50 degree AoA. The F-105 could do none of these things; it was a supersonic tactical nuclear bomber which was quickly replaced by the vastly better F-111.
The Super Hornet is a very good aircraft but India refused to fund the EPE engines and conformal fuel tanks but apparently is okay with funding the Rafale’s AESA and Dassault’s horribly low-ball offer.
The production AESA in the Rafale is about the same capability as the AESA that flew in the F-16 Block 60 over a decade ago.
The Rafale was only able to bomb in the open after the US fired hundreds of cruise missiles and the B-1B and B-2 smashed the Libya air-defense system.
Why would the US want an 80′s era design like the Rafale when the 90′s era designed Super Hornet has proven to be as good if not better than the Rafale M in exercises (including one where the Rafale pilot dumped his aircraft in the sea during maneuvers and had to be rescued by the US Navy).
Meteor is still years away from initial service and has some major limitations the US used Ramjet powered AMRAAM in the first Gulf War with some success. A Ramjet AMRAAM was offered to Europe in the mid-90′s but the Euros rejected it and have spent the intervening nearly 20 years on Meteor which still has not entered service. If the Meteor is so good why did France recently buy and live fire the GQM-163 Coyote Ramjet missile from the US?
Only the UK, which co-developed the Meteor, has shown any interest in integrating the Meteor on its F-35s. The most common request from pilots is *more* air-to-air missiles not fewer. The Meteor’s weight, volume, drag and price run counter to this trend.
October 4, 2012 at 11:18 pm |
Dear Marauder: This is a vast and technical subject. The essence of my argument was that neither the F22 nor the F35 work. it’s true that
the USSRRussia and China have developped (PASSIVE) stealth planes of sorts, but, precisely, they found the whole thing flawed. The whole problem, at this point is that, short of flying a dirigeable, it’s impossible to hide Infra Red emissions.I was not the one who did a detailed comparison between the F105 and the F35 first. I am persuaded that the F35 will go the way of the F22; a few dozens produced, and then forget it.
What the AESA can exactly do is probably not out there in the open. I very much doubt the claims made for the Grippen (because of what happened in Switzerland, where the secret army study found the (Eurofigther and the) Rafale vastly superior, but the government went for the Grippen… A decision that will be some day reverted).
I have no doubt that the Super Hornet is a better plane than the F35, as far as winning in a war. Never heard about the Rafale in the drink, saved by Uncle Sam, although I heard about Rafales flying too low in mock combat…
The Rafales, covered and attacked Anti-Aircraft-Artillery and missiles, while the Mirages bombed Kadafi’s well defended armor army, 12 hours before the general attack against Libya’s anti-aircraft capability by the USA. The French suffered no losses and annihilated the armor army, on the outskirts of Benghazi. The French acted unilaterally, because waiting just one more hour would have found the entire armored army inside Benghazi. At it was, the first tanks reached Benghazi. Sarkozy announced during the last chance conference in Paris, around 10am, on Saturday, that the French Air Force had started bombing. That unilateral act was not expected by the Kadafis.
Overall, I am suggesting the West would be better served with much closer cooperation in armaments.
Mitt’s geometry is more variable than that of the F111. I am sure he will not start the F22 again. Except if he shut down the F35 first… I would bet he would start a new program.
PA
October 4, 2012 at 8:37 pm |
Don’t get me wrong: the Rafale is a very good aircraft, well respected by the USAF and USN and easily the best of the Eurocanards (though the Gripen-NG, if it’s ever developed, would be a very capable but less expensive alternative).
However, the Rafale is a very expensive fighter and its price and complexity puts it in direct competition with the Gen 4.5/4.75 Su-30MKI+/Su-35s and the F-15SG/SA/SE both of which are superior in most every respect.
The Rafale is more expensive than the Super Hornet Blk II and at best marginally more capable; the Super Hornet International would still be cheaper and would eliminate most of Rafale’s advantages. The UAE famously remarked that Rafale was “yesterday’s technology.” If you’re a country that is able to spend $90 million per fighter and doesn’t want to buy Russian or American then the Rafale is a very good aircraft.
The F-35 comparison is quite controversial. The folks at Air-Power Australia have been highly critical of the F-35 but have been totally dismissive of all of the Eurocanards. This is partly due to Australia’s unique defense needs and may not truly reflect the intrinsic characteristics of these aircraft.
October 5, 2012 at 12:03 am |
The French language source for the Rafale’s crash during air-to-air combat exercises against USN Super Hornets is here:
http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-du-point/jean-guisnel/crash-d-un-rafale-en-mediterranee-02-07-2012-1480056_53.php
There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that Russia, India or China are discontinuing their VLO fighter efforts; on the contrary they appear to be accelerating them. The PAK-FA, FGFA and J-20/J-Whatever are well underway with development contracts and production contracts signed or pending. They’ve put their money where their prototypes are.
Yes, IR emissions are a challenge but one that can be addressed through a combination of active and passive features or in the case of the F-35, directed infra-red countermeasures (DIRCM) that can blind the Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) used in IIR systems like AIM-9X, MICA-IR and IRSTs used by Rafale, the F-15SG/SA and many other aircraft. DIRCM has already been used in combat on larger aircraft to defeat IR SAMs.
Unlike FPAs, AESA radar receivers are highly immune to EM saturation attacks. Also, IRSTs have 40 – 50KM in ideal conditions (low humidity, high altitude, clear skies); the crystal clear, long range IRST images you’ve seen are mostly taken in Nevada or a similar climate like the middle east. Or they are extremely close range captures (like the IRST image of the B-2 taken during an airshow).
The new engines being developed by the US Air Force research lab in conjunction with Pratt & Whitney (to be retrofitted to the F-35) and GE are specifically optimized to reduce IR emissions; body IR can be alleviated by dumping skin friction heat into the fuel but the heat exchanger/engine interface needs more development scheduled to be completed around 2020.
The Gripen evaluated by the Swiss Air Force was clearly out of its league (the Swiss Air Force’s legacy F-18 Hornets were superior). But the Rafale and Eurofighter are way too expensive and complex for Switzerland’s needs.
Really, the Super Hornet International would be the best fit but the “Buy European” pressure groups won out. If developed, the Gripen NG will surely be a successful export aircraft and Switzerland will benefit from the sales. Neither Eurofighter nor Rafale could provide that level of industrial engagement.
Nearly 200 F-22s were produced in its 8 year run. The F-35 continues to win new export customers and its current export customers are starting to pay for their initial aircraft. Money and aircraft have changed hands which is far more than can be said about Rafale and India.
Capping F-35 production or canceling it is extremely unlikely because of the interlocking industrial arrangements within the US and the JSF partners. Are the Brits going to walk away from a F-35B that has 30% UK content? That’s the same percentage UK content as the Eurofighter!
F-35 is being produced at a rate of four aircraft a month with ramp rate of 20 – 30 a month well underway for full-rate production. The mature Super Hornet line does around four aircraft a month. The Eurofighter line has a slightly higher production rate but it is scheduled to decline and layoffs at the factories have already begun.
Dassault can do *one* Rafale a month! That’s not particularly impressive for an aircraft that began deliveries *ten* years ago! Maybe Dassault can surge to a higher production rate; I’m sure the Indians are eager to see that day.
With the new ADVENT engines scheduled for 2020 there is talk of a 5.5/6th gen new aircraft and the USN has already sent out a Request For Proposals; Boeing is known to have an internally funded 5.5/6th gen development project and I’m sure Lockheed and Northrop Grumman do as well.
But the bigger priority is the Next Generation Bomber.
The US offered to cooperate with Europe on what became the Meteor; Hughes/Raytheon had already successfully destroyed Iraqi aircraft with Ramjet AMRAAMs in the first Gulf War and offered a variant to Europe. But Europe *refused* The US tried to cooperate with Europe on what eventually became ASRAAM but Europe refused and the US went on to develop the AIM-9X (now in Blk II form) which has outsold ASRAAM internationally by a huge margin.
So cooperation on armament development with Europe has a fairly terrible track record. Even so, I want MEADS to succeed because I too think trans-atlantic cooperation is important. In any event, the US will get the PAC-3 MSE developed for MEADS regardless of whether MEADS is put into production or not.
Perhaps a joint Air-to-Surface Ramjet cruise missile derived from the Meteor and the Coyote would be a good project for Europe and the US to undertake. There’s clearly a need on both sides of the atlantic for such a capability.
October 5, 2012 at 11:42 am |
Patrice,
Je découvre votre site et vous félicite pour cet excellent article.
J’aurais des propositions à vous faire pour l’améliorer en tant qu’expert en systèmes d’armes aéroportés.
Bien à vous.
October 5, 2012 at 3:52 pm |
Paul:
Merci de votre appreciation, et j’attend les ameliorations avec interet!
Patrice
October 11, 2012 at 3:52 pm |
Patrice,
vous pourriez en rajouter une couche en Air-Sol avec l’AASM (Armement Air Sol Modulaire).
Ce concept, à l’instar du MICA en air-air offre des capacités inégalées en termes de souplesse d’emploi (mulicibles, tous temps, courte à moyenne portée, précision, cibles en mouvement avec la nouvelle version guidée laser, capacité de tir en virage de très bassse altitude jusqu’en haute altitude.etc.) ; cela a fait la différence au dessus de la LYBIE.
Ceci, sans compter les économies d’échelle en termes de panoplie d’armements et coûts d’intégration avion.
En air sol il faut au moins 3 F-35 avec des JDAM’s courte portée pour faire le travail d’un Rafale réalisée bien mieux en moyenne portée en MA ; et il en faudrait au moins autant pour l’air-air.
Il convient de rappeller que le F-22 cherche à faire modifier son logiciel de tir pour devenir capable d’engager en air sol autrement qu’en mission préparée à l’avance !
Définitivement, comme vous, je m’interroge sur la pertinence du concept F-22 et F-35.
L’AASM s’est inscrit dès le départ comme étant une famille d’armements de précision faisant la jonction entre la courte portée des armements AGL et celle des missiles longue portée type SCALP.
Je reste à votre disposition pour d’autres éléments et entre autres vous détailler la genèse du sigle AASM.
Je vous laisse toute liberté pour intégrer ces éléments comme bon vous semble en langage angli-saxon.
Cheers.
October 11, 2012 at 4:12 pm |
Patrice,
j’ai une image pour améliorer le logo mais n’arrives pas à l’intégrer ni à vous l’envoyer.
October 11, 2012 at 4:34 pm |
Paul,
Oui, les mysteres de l’Internet sont profonds. Je vais vous expedier un courriel, sur compuserve, et il vous sera possible d’y repondre (si cela ne suffit pas, j’ai aussi um gmail.com! que j’expedierai si il le faut). Tres interessante, votre note precedente…
Les Americains ont, malheureusement, un bias anti-francais super desagreable… depuis 1934 (!), et cela a eut des consequences regretables sur l’Europe et le monde. Integrer plus les systemes de defense serait une bonne facon de sortir de cette orniere… Et il y a une bonne raison de le faire en ce moment meme, car les competences semblent for differentes en ce moment, suivant les armements.
PA
October 12, 2012 at 8:00 pm |
Patrice,
l’évolution des systèmes d’armes aéroportés ne sont pas le fruit du hasard.
Ils naissent du besoin de survivre à. bord.
Nous avons eu en France la formidable opportunité d’être autonomes et de ce fait libres d’inventer dans des budgets retreints.
De mon point de vue, le Rafale est le Spitfire du 21éme siècle et le signe avec 35000 h de vol.
Relire à ce propos le vol de Peter Colins. pilote d’essais UK, sur Rafale.
Cheers.
December 23, 2012 at 7:04 am |
I hope you did not have it already : http://www.latinaero.com/magazine/Lamag_issue-004/Latinaero_n-04_aug_sept_oct_2012-v1t.html#/60/zoomed
Check the JSF logo and a Merry Christmas to you & yours, Patrice
December 23, 2012 at 11:34 pm |
From an anglosaxon point of view, it is very hard to cope with a Rafale looking as a 21th century “Spitfire” fighter.
December 25, 2012 at 6:47 am |
Well the F22 was a disaster, and the F35 looks like an even bigger disaster… the entire principle of dumb stealth turns out not to be stealthy, but certainly dumb, something that was obvious all along…
Now anybody who thinks in the Pentagon will go the drone route (that’s already engaged, including by the Navy), or then the … Rafale/Typhon(=Eurofighter)(/Wiggen) route. Now of these the Rafale is better, overall. Logically the USA and company should buy Rafales while selling combat drones… And cooperation may be the better thing for hypersonic ramjets… There will already be cooperation with NASA’s Orion, to be pushed and fed by ESA’s ATV…
PA
December 25, 2012 at 7:31 pm |
Patrice,
Good point of view!
US ISR Combat drones are a must today and I hope the FAF Will have some of them soon.
They are useful when air superiority is on.
If not, the Rafale will vanisch such aircraft from the skies as fast as to tell about it.
This still remain true against low manœuvrering UCAV limits in g loads due to the need to keep satellite communications.
I personnally think the US Navy cope with E-F/A 18 & G Hornets is for the capabilities to jam a far superior ECCM spectrum the stealth concept can’t cope with.
Happy Christmas.
December 25, 2012 at 9:02 pm |
Happy Winter Solstice/Saturnials/Noel/Xmass, Paul!
I did not think about maintening a link put a clamp on high g loads… A drone could certainly not fly upside down… It’s rather ironical that the F18 Super Hornet looks better than the F35… In most ways… And the F18 has a huge range. All this making, I’m afraid, the F35, at most, into a niche product… Funny that they persist in funding it, with all the budget cuts looming…
PA
December 26, 2012 at 10:26 pm |
Patrice,
The price to pay for passive stealtiness is less fuel aboard, a poor A2A & A2G capacity, and medium handling performance.
A part ECCM and SEAD capabilities, the F-18, all types is a dog infront the
December 26, 2012 at 10:51 pm |
Patrice,
The price to pay for passive stealtiness is less fuel aboard, a poor A2A & A2G capacity, and medium handling performance.
A part ECCM and SEAD capabilities, the F-18, all types is a dog in front the Rafale.
USN pilots where impressed by it when training aboard the Nimitz CV.
Regards.
December 30, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Paul: meilleurs voeux! Another problem with USA style stealth is that the sharp angles create unnatural aerodynamics, and that, in turn creates quick demolition of the plane. They had to replace parts of the F22 with sturdy, but much less stealthy material. As planes are supposed to be used multiple times, it’s a serious problem.
The range of the F35 is less than a third that of the F18, no?
As the Brits were able to detect in combat low flying small Exocets from 20 kms away, 30 years ago, I really doubt that big lumbering planes cannot be detected from very far away, nowadays… Let alone their Infra Red signatures!
PA
January 30, 2013 at 6:35 pm
And then…
A few batch of Rafale and Mirage 2000-D supported by Special Forces have vanished the rebels from Mali.
Apart from Danger Room, the mediat silence all around the world about this war is astonishing !
January 30, 2013 at 9:52 pm
dear Paul: Pas de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles! I think the French are determined to get the job done, instead of focusing on Public Relations (as was done in Iraq/Afghanistan!)
I am pretty happy at having changed Obama’s mind about USA refueling French planes!
See my essay on the need to refuel the French. http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/mali-usa-ought-to-fuel-france/
See also latest:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/mali-lesson-iii/
PA
January 1, 2013 at 8:52 pm |
Excellent !
Huntig with the bow since the seventies, I never adopt plastic vanes for all the reasons written above.
Using right handed recurve bows from the shelf, I found that that the best fletching for hunting is obtained with left wing 5 3/4″”banana” cuting style and glued helico left on the shaft.
January 1, 2013 at 10:18 pm |
Patrice,
Forget the text below,
it was intended for an arrow fletching Company !
However stealthiness when hunting with the arrow and bow is a key to succeed.
So, the modern technology of compound Bows don’t fit me.
What is interesting in that topic : keep in mind what is the best for hunting and go simple !
January 2, 2013 at 6:17 am |
Paul: happy new year…and those recent bows look silly with all their wheels and cables… How much better are they really?
PA
January 2, 2013 at 11:30 pm |
As a finest fighter aircraft, the broadhead , the arrow and the bow must be superb to go in efficience.
It is for both of these two weapons systems to get efficient and simple to manage.
Here we are in another circle where everything counts for a fighter,
Bow mechanics with cams are looking to be as much a technology error for hunting as it is with the F 35.
Plase correct my anglosaxon .
Greetings
January 3, 2013 at 7:01 am |
Paul: Your Anglo-Normand flies functionally, differently from the F35!
PA
January 3, 2013 at 7:43 pm
Thank’s !
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