Forum: F-35 Lightning II

as below, AN/APG-79 cannot find F-22 in WVR range.
can it find F-35 in this range?

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthre ... mp;page=17

Of all the fighters of this generation I have flown on (Generation 4plus), the F/18 Hornet is the most battle-tested platform. APG-79 AESAequipped versions of the Super Hornet have been doing duty off Americancarriers for a few years now often as force multipliers for non-AESAequipped birds. This is a tough as nails, fully evolved jet which setsnew US Navy benchmarks for reliability and ease of maintenance.

For me though, the highlight of the sortie turned out to be somethingutterly unexpected. As our formation headed back towards Lemoore, oneof the pilots called out "Raptor, Raptor." I asked Wimbo what "Raptor"meant. He laughed and replied "You heard it right Vish. It means F-22."And then, to my left at about 11 O'Clock, I saw the sinister shape ofan F-22 stealth fighter as it did a gentle victory roll and went on itsway. Thats right, I got intercepted by a stealth fighter, possiblyanother first for an Indian civilian wannabe pilot! Nobody in theformation seemed to know what was lurking, certainly not my AESAequipped bird - we had the radar on alright ! Lets hope the Sukhoi T-50FGFA works out OK for the Indian Air Force ! And if it does, then restassured, I will be waiting for that phone call from the boffins atSukhoi if not the Indian Air Force. Lets see if I can continue to ridemy luck !

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I too saw that report, quite amazing! (and sure to upset more than a few naysayers!)
I guess though if there's nothing to make a return signal go back to the radar set then it matters little if its an AESA or not looking in its direction. I should imagine the F-35 would be able to pull off a similar sneak approach to what that Raptor did as its RCS shouldn't be to far off of the F-22's in the frontal sector.

Last edited by geogen on Oct 13, 2010 - 01:00 PM; edited 1 time in total

The problem of course is that in this scenario there was apparently no big aperture LW IRST on board the SH. When properly 'sensory aware', then the whole ball game changes no matter what/who the opponent, VLO cruise missile, is. No matter how you cut it, at least 2 jets in the SH flight simply need to have such IRST (superior to that of the F-35s 3rd gen MW aperture) in order to gain maximal SA in the fight. Otherwise it's unfortunately a 'legacy' engagement with less than efficient results shall we say, to be expected in such a case against LO. The last element then would be the obvious advantage of actually having a proper weapon, to match the sensor capabilities. I.e., you'd probably prefer to engage first and take the first shot(s) prior to tangling within a mutual NEZ envelope. Hence, in your hypothetical SH vs F-35 training fight, the SH might wish to employ an asymmetrically ranged BVR munition (IIR/dual-mode the better) too, in order to offset the tactical disadvantage of being 'locked up' first on radar. My two cents. Regards.

edit: I concede this thread was about AESA detection performance vs VLO/LO (which of course is no publicly known data) and went off topic with regards to IRST.

And if there's cloud or moisture in the air? Remember IRST is nothing more than a dead weight in such conditions. Ask yourself, would you like to fly a fighter that has to rely on the mk1 eyeball and an IRST as its primary sensors whilst the other guy has an AESA set that can see you? I sure wouldn't and I doubt many professional pilots would either!

(I did say the naysayers would be upset didn't I)

While nobody can infer publicly from a blog post the classified performances of various AESA sets (in this case an APG-79) against an F-35 at different angles, I would highly recommend u not engage against LO/VLO in future without hanging an IRST. The worn out argument of, oh there might be some clouds so IRST will be irrelevant, is simply a non-starter, I'm sorry.

And yes, fwiw, I have and continue to highly support F-22 and F-35 (especially the former) integrating the LW class IRST ASAP. Re: F-35, perhaps the IRST system as well as some expendables maybe, could be integrated into the LO gun pod on the CL, in lieu of gun? Cheers.

geogen wrote:

The worn out argument of, oh there might be some clouds so IRST will be irrelevant, is simply a non-starter, I'm sorry.

Worn out argument? What? So clouds have somehow been eliminated have they, looking out my window right now I can not see a single bit of blue sky anywhere as the whole sky is covered by... cloud.
There are of course other atmospheric conditions that effect the performance of IRST's and it will for the forseable future be a secondary sensor that is cued by the primary sensor which is radar (at least all the while that those little problems called clouds exist anyway) and if the primary sensor is unable to do its job the pilots SA is greatly reduced.

Of course IRST's are not irrelevant but on the other hand they are simply not the wonder sensor certain people are making them out to be.

Quote:

Of course IRST's are not irrelevant

Thanks for including that, lol its like pulling teeth sometimes on these back and forths, eh. Anyway, of course LW IRSTs are not the silver bullet vs X-band LO and VLO, just as slung tactical L-band AESA pods likely to hit the scene mid-century will not, nor even those slick L-band type G550s et al.

Yet to further clear up the issue; if we back up a couple of posts... please note it was only being assumed that SH IRST was not yet in operation and/or not employed on that particular sortie, nothing more. And please note that vs a LO aircraft you'd absolutely have a much better advantage sensor-fusing your big aperture LW IRST vs a LO opponent (if there happen to be some spotty breaks in the clouds during a sortie, or you are flying above clouds, etc), than NOT doing so. And, as noted, a first shot 'capable', dual-moded/IIR munition will give a further advantage over a lessor NEZ ranged capability of your opponent. Hence, all the above are indeed relevant factors to compute into the 'crazy rules' handbook of future air combat. The more, the more your advantages, just as X-band LO and especially VLO would give you a specific advantage to factor in, yes. imho.

This is the reason why there is no rush to carry the sidewinder internally in the F-35.

The F-22 is stealthy enough to get within sidewinder range of a Sukhoi and the F-35 is not.

The F-35 will however see the Russian from a long ways off and either BVR or leave.

What the F-22 and F-35 need now is a stealthy air to air missile. Perhaps turbojet powered with afterburner for the final dash.

hcobb wrote:

This is the reason why there is no rush to carry the sidewinder internally in the F-35.

The F-22 is stealthy enough to get within sidewinder range of a Sukhoi and the F-35 is not.

This is based upon what exactly?

hcobb wrote:

This is the reason why there is no rush to carry the sidewinder internally in the F-35.

The main reason for there being no rush for internal Aim-9X is that for the US, the role the that the F-35 will play does not require it so soon after IOC. Blk 4, which is due 2-3 years after IOC, is scheduled to contain AIM-9X internal integration.

hcobb wrote:

The F-22 is stealthy enough to get within sidewinder range of a Sukhoi and the F-35 is not.

If we are talking about an approaching shot, the 9X has a likely range approaching 10nm (Aim-9X Blk2 has a lofting profile which will allow a longer shot) which is likely outside the detection range due to the reduced frontal RCS of the F-35. With IRST this is moot, again one of the reasons the F-35 concentrates on AMRAAM carriage instead of Aim-9X.

hcobb wrote:

What the F-22 and F-35 need now is a stealthy air to air missile. Perhaps turbojet powered with afterburner for the final dash.

The new JDRADM will likely (as is currently being developed) have a multipulse TVC motor.

With all due respect to this writer, NO civilians are shown the full capability of the aircraft they are flying in, especially with respect to radar and Electronic Warfare performance...

At best he got a ride in a down-spec'd Rhino. A perfect example of this is the infamous Dr Kopp and the Rhino ride he got less than a decade ago. He waxed lyrical about the jet on that occasion (and clearly it must have been the truth because he would be far beyond such shoddy promotion as speaking favourably about such an inferior jet, just because he got a free ride in one, wouldn't he? Afterall, that's the domain of corrupt, incompetent military forces beset by groupthink isn't it?)

Anyway, Kopp's jet was an APG-73 equipped aircraft that wasn't even AMRAAM capable...

Furthermore, given that this writer was on a demonstration flight, can anyone here honestly believe therefore, that the pilot was SERIOUSLY fighting his aircraft?

I'm not intending to diminish the capability of the Raptor here, nor denigrate the writer, but if he expects people to believe that he saw an APG-79 operating at full capability AND that it was unable to get even the slightest detection on the Raptor when the Raptor was within visual range and presumably coming more or less head on, then I'm sorry, but I can't help but think he's adding a bit of sensationalism here...

Especially when he uses this comment as a segue into his opinion about how great the PAK-FA is going to be for India...

SpudmanWP wrote:

If we are talking about an approaching shot, the 9X has a likely range approaching 10nm (Aim-9X Blk2 has a lofting profile which will allow a longer shot) which is likely outside the detection range due to the reduced frontal RCS of the F-35. With IRST this is moot, again one of the reasons the F-35 concentrates on AMRAAM carriage instead of Aim-9X.

The AIM-9X has a longer range than 10nm against an approaching target(regardless of which Block), not that this has anything to do with how far off the F-35 can be detected.

Agree with Conan: "With all due respect to this writer, NO civilians are shown the full capability of the aircraft they are flying in, especially with respect to radar and Electronic Warfare performance..." but cannot say exactly in the case of the writer in question. However recently there was a '60 Minutes' TV report about Australian Air Force new Super Hornets with the TV reporter being given a ride, with a camera setup to look back at reporter (i.e. he could not show the instruments). The reporter made a point of saying he was not shown all the capability of the aircraft. I looked online for a transcript or any video but did not find anything. I'll keep looking though.

What was interesting to me is that this same 'TV Reporter' was claiming (because a retired Air Vice Marshall ex-F-111 pilot was saying) that the Super Hornet was a 'Super Dog' aircraft - Dog = bad. WTF - so by the time same TV reporter gets into a SuperDog in Australia the same reporter is waxing lyrical about what a great aircraft it is. Haha. Jets and Gs will do that to ya. Very Happy

"Speak of the Devil and his chains rattle" Twisted Evil

(famous OldeOzNavy Shocked

saying if you don't know) here is the transcript link: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stor ... supersonic [just had to insert the correct dribble into google] at dialup speed things are sloooowwwww.....

And here is a video link: http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/supersonic/x373v26

I have no idea what is said (slow dialup) so sue me if my recollection is not word perfect. Twisted Evil

Playing with numbers (as inaccurate and simplified as those public numbers may be) gives F-22 detection range beyond 10 miles for most radars. I have serious doubts about these claims of the F-22's invisibility at WVR range. If it's true at all, it would probably be due to some LPI jamming and not stealth.

And just so ye know what a super dog really looks like, here tis: Very Happy

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

AESA can find F-35 in WVR range or not?