Forum: Modern Military Aircraft

Is the F-35 a capable replacement for the F-15?

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If it's a more capable aircraft, I would say so. I think it's more maneuverable and has better stuff in the nose. I'd say it's pretty much a no-brainer. We'll certainly find out.

discofishing wrote:

If it's a more capable aircraft, I would say so. I think it's more maneuverable and has better stuff in the nose. I'd say it's pretty much a no-brainer. We'll certainly find out.

F35= Less capable...LO is it's only advantage. Performance wise it is way off the mark...the F35 is not more maneuverable and the F-15 V3 is "better in the nose"...in 2025 the "nose" of the F35 might be better then but not now and not by a long shot...

F-35 = POS

Just curios, where your insight comes from?

Last edited by jimraynor on Nov 18, 2010 - 03:34 AM; edited 1 time in total

golden_eagle wrote:

discofishing wrote:

If it's a more capable aircraft, I would say so. I think it's more maneuverable and has better stuff in the nose. I'd say it's pretty much a no-brainer. We'll certainly find out.

F35= Less capable...LO is it's only advantage. Performance wise it is way off the mark...the F35 is not more maneuverable and the F-15 V3 is "better in the nose"...in 2025 the "nose" of the F35 might be better then but not now and not by a long shot...

F-35 = POS

Stealth is the deciding factor and makes the F-35 better at air-to-air if for nothing else. Then you have to consider the AESA radar, EOTS and DAS, all sensor fused for extreme situational awareness, along with maybe some HOBS AIM-9X missiles...

There's no way in hell the current "air superiority" F-15Cs can compare.

golden_eagle wrote:

F35= Less capable...LO is it's only advantage. Performance wise it is way off the mark...the F35 is not more maneuverable and the F-15 V3 is "better in the nose"...in 2025 the "nose" of the F35 might be better then but not now and not by a long shot...

F-35 = POS

Wow, such an informed and insightful statement full of fact and unbiased....

You in Congress? Shrug

TEG

You people are frustrating, often I find postings that confess to know something but have no way to quantify your comments...maybe you fly in your Flight Sim 69.69 and beat the F-15 with a "simulated" F-35...in the real world if they hang anyhting externally off the F-35 the LO factor is negated...if it's in the pure air to air role the LO win's yes, but you still don't factor in the fact that the F-35 just isn't what the public thinks it is...JUST LOOK AT THE THING IT's A POS...only LHM defends it.

golden_eagle wrote:

You people are frustrating, often I find postings that confess to know something but have no way to quantify your comments...

Pot calling kettle.

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in the real world if they hang anyhting externally off the F-35 the LO factor is negated...if it's in the pure air to air role the LO win's yes,

That should be end of discussion right there.

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but you still don't factor in the fact that the F-35 just isn't what the public thinks it is...JUST LOOK AT THE THING IT's A POS...only LHM defends it.

So you admit that the F-35 is a more capable fighter...then fall back to "IT's A POS" and claim that Lockheed is the only one defending it. Not the US Military, which has banked its future on the F-35. Not the numerous other countries that are getting or are acquiring it...

My quantification is 14+ years of flying fighters, studying tactics, leading large force missions, oh and COMBAT TIME...the F35 has some really cool electrogizmogear but unfortunately it's gotten too heavy and truth be told it was never designed to be an air to air fighter, that's the F22's job...the F35 is a supporting role fighter only; kinda like the F16 is..."Air Superiority" can only be accomplished by the pure air to air fighters...

All valid, but just because it's LO dosent mean it's invisible...

The US heavy handed all these other countries into joining up so WE could even afford it...if I were them, I'd back out and go Eurofighter....proven, capable, and way less $$$....but I'm happy they are all vetted with us since it's jobs for Americans.

golden_eagle wrote:

My quantification is 14+ years of flying fighters, studying tactics, leading large force missions, oh and COMBAT TIME...the F35 has some really cool electrogizmogear but unfortunately it's gotten too heavy and truth be told it was never designed to be an air to air fighter, that's the F22's job...the F35 is a supporting role fighter only; kinda like the F16 is..."Air Superiority" can only be accomplished by the pure air to air fighters...

Too heavy for what? It weighs about the same as the F-15. The wing loading isn't far off from the F-16, but more importantly, the F-35 isn't a tube with wings, so the wing loading figure you'll get will severly underrate it. Combine that with an engine that appears to be great at outrunning 4th gen fighters and I don't see where the F-35 is too heavy. I disagree on the F-35 not being designed as an air to air fighter too, it's doing just that for many nations, US included. Also, as far as I know, the APG-81 is a lot closer to the APG-77 than the APG-63 is, specifically in LPI capability. That's a pretty big advantage.

golden_eagle wrote:

My quantification is 14+ years of flying fighters, studying tactics, leading large force missions, oh and COMBAT TIME...the F35 has some really cool electrogizmogear but unfortunately it's gotten too heavy and truth be told it was never designed to be an air to air fighter, that's the F22's job...the F35 is a supporting role fighter only; kinda like the F16 is..."Air Superiority" can only be accomplished by the pure air to air fighters...

What did you fly, and what squadrons did you serve with? Shocked

golden_eagle wrote:

All valid, but just because it's LO dosent mean it's invisible...

This is the worst argument of all time. It doesn't matter if it's invisible, that's not the point. Just being harder to detect alone is a big advantage. You can't hit what you can't see, and you're still screwed even if you do see them... because they probably saw you first, they therefore act before you. OODA loop- should sound familiar...

Quote:

My quantification is 14+ years of flying fighters, studying tactics, leading large force missions, oh and COMBAT TIME...the F35 has some really cool electrogizmogear but unfortunately it's gotten too heavy and truth be told it was never designed to be an air to air fighter, that's the F22's job...the F35 is a supporting role fighter only; kinda like the F16 is...

Uhh... sure. I guess you had an underling take care of all the writing..?

Too heavy- Not really. What's heavy mean, anyway? The F-35 is survivable because it's LO and will have a huge situational awareness advantage over any adversary. It didn't need to slim down the fuel fraction to hit extreme performance because extreme performance is not what it needs. To get the range desired on current fighters, you have to stick tanks on them, which pretty well destroy the original intent of keeping an airplane small and light in practice.

Even as an energy fighter, the F-35 won't be terrible. 43,000 lbs of thrust will take care of that.

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"Air Superiority" can only be accomplished by the pure air to air fighters...

And I'm sure you have this tattooed somewhere.

Boy, I'm sure glad we had those Light Grays to air superiority over Afghanistan. And man, how screwed we would be by those Iraqi MiG-29's! I mean, it's not like a dinky Fighting Falcon can do anything AtA...

shingen wrote:

The Golden Eagle is fine vis a vis the Su-35. The Su pilot has no major advantage he can leverage to consistently beat the Eagle.

Ah no, according to this guy http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 917860219# in the right hands, the SU-30MKI is more than a match for an F-15. I’m surprised you guys haven’t seen this, it’s the one where he describes “drilling the brains out” of the Indian SU-30MKI drivers who went over for Red Flag in 2008.

3:15 : explains how the SU-30MKI is better than legacy F-15 and F-16 and why.
3:25 : describes how it has longer ranged weapons
3:35 : how it’s no where near the capability of the F-22
3:45 : what went wrong at COPE India
6:42 : How the Indians got sick of losing 1 v 1s to the Mountain Home guys
7:40 : What’s wrong with the SU-30MKIs thrust vectoring and how it can work against it
8:05 : How an Eagle driver can beat a raptor (if he’s both good and lucky)
9:05 : How you never get that close to an F-22 anyway Very Happy

9:10 : Laughing at the Indians who are jinking all over to get to the merge despite the fact that the Indians have their jammers on and how “…your missiles aren’t working so you get to this visual fight…”

9:40 : “Drilling their brains out…”

Other interesting tid-bits:
F-22 sustained turn rate 28 degrees +
SU-30MKI sustained turn rate 23 degrees per second (no where near the raptor)
F-15 sustained turn rate 15-16 degrees (instantaneous 21)

Etc. it’s a very interesting brief. The important fact to take away is that the SU-30MKI is a very impressive airplane and in the right hands it’s going to be a serious problem for an Eagle or Viper driver who isn’t as up to date in his training as the Mountain Home guys.

More importantly, he’s talking about an SU-30 NOT an SU-35! The SU-35 has bigger engines, new cockpit and systems, bigger radar, their own NCW etc. and as such is a much bigger problem.

The best hope for the F-35 is that it can play the BVR game the same way the Raptor does and that the front aspect stealth will let it get away with it. That and that the full panoply of NCW can be brought to bear effectively.

Videos of sims I saw recently (admittedly I didn't get to see the conditions they were set up with) pitting SU-35s v F-35s didn't go so well for the F-35s
( frequently expended all air-to-air return to base and fuel bingo return to base ).

Two Cents

Forum: Modern Military Aircraft

What will replace all of the F-15s?