Forum: F-35 Lightning II

The plus the F-22/35 can be over target collecting data, while the E3/E8 would be @ a standoff range.

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Last edited by bonhoffer on Feb 11, 2011 - 03:42 AM; edited 4 times in total

I really want to laud Fmr Sec Wynne for both verbalizing an argument made internal to the AF for some time and bringing some of the key issues into the open to debate.

While his proposal would be convenient given the budgetary pain the AF is facing, there are several fatal problems why this can't work.

The first concerns basic physics. E-3/E-8 have been specifically designed for their missions, and antenna technology advances can't provide miniaturization as an option (the speed of light stays a constant, sorry). Tactical aircraft are designed for their particular mission -- to kill and survive -- not with extra weight, margin to see more than the things they need to kill or be protected from. They were also designed with the E-3/E-8 in mind, so 360 radar coverage is not a design requirement. The requirements officers that built the KPP's for these jets would not think of accepting lower combat performance to be a surveillance node.

GMTI, for example, requires a long electrical length (big aperture or really high frequency) and an adequately slow platform to see slow moving targets and get the necessary monopulse TLE needed for tracking dismounts in irregular warfare settings. In a conventional engagements, a GMTI radar would need a high power-aperture product with sufficiently narrow beams (again dependent on electrical length) to scan large areas quickly. Range is and always will be dependent on the power aperture product and nothing reduces risk and multiplies effectiveness like range -- range buys you time.

The very characteristics which make tactical assets survivable, hurt their wide-area sensor capability -- even when aggregated they don't line up to provide consistent coverage. Even with very large numbers of CAF assets (which the AF doesn't have) a synthetic picture is currently unfunded, difficult to implement, susceptible to mission assurance problems and not robust when the topologies of combat aircraft are considered (in very few scenarios can CAF assets be uniformly distributed throughout a region of interest -- not only is this inefficient, but do we really expect pilots to fly in a manner that helps the macro surveillance picture as opposed to their own survival?).

That is the main irony here when this argument is made: the CAF doesn't want to do surveillance, but their leadership will say that they can to direct investment their way. Fortunately, the services have oversight and CAPE won't let the AF be too myopic.

Additionally, even if this network could be funded, implemented and feasible the latencies involved are non-trival and can't work for stressing scenarios.

That said, this would be a good study to show where the boundaries of physics really are for this problem. As it is now, I am very confident a cost benefit analysis would show that current investments enable a much cheaper COA to use large manned platforms for ISR and BMC2 across the IrW and symmetric spectrum for some years to come. The game change will come here from a new set of survivable, cost effective (probably minimally or unmanned) assets that are sufficiently linked together and designed for these missions.

Not from taking aircraft optimized for tactical engagements and just expecting them to do wide area search as some degraded mode. Good grief Mr Secretary.

Excellent post, bonhoffer, but don't you know that the boundaries of physics and the friction of war, like manouverability and interminable development woes, are irrelevant in the context of JSFantasy World?

JL

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 Shoots Down AWACS and JSTARS