Forum: F-35 Lightning II

kingj wrote:

The Indian MRCA competition is budgeting the Mig 35 at $38.5 mill.

That price is way too low to be a realistic figure. The Mig 35 will likely be more in the $50-60m price range, especially in light of the fact that in 2004, the Mig 29K cost $46m.

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How good are the BVR's in a dogfight? The 2 bvrs was an assumption of a typical encounter.

AMRAAMs are effective down to 2km, so it's not likely to be an issue.

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Lol, no, if I were flying an F35 with 4 missiles, I would stress.

Again, the 4 missile load out is only the initial one, with 6 or more being the eventual load out. Secondly, the F-35 will enjoy contempt of engagement, which means that it can either set itself up in an advantageous position, or avoid engaging if this isn't feasible.

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I dont doubt you, but I cant help feeling intimidated by the flankers range, thrust, radar, manoeuvrability, 10 missiles and cost, especially for countries that need the F35 to be their air dominance fighter.

The Flanker isn't more maneuverable than the AMRAAM, or the F-35's sensors, and the F-35 is highly maneuverable too. It also enjoys being a much harder target for the Flanker's missiles to lock on to.

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kingj wrote:

The Indian MRCA competition is budgeting the Mig 35 at $38.5 mill.

Do you really believe that they will sell MiG-35 at the price of MiG-29s ‘sold’ to Algeria few years ago.
You do know that India and Russia have a history with ‘post contract price renegotiation’?

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Lol, no, if I were flying an F35 with 4 missiles, I would stress.

Why would you stress?

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I dont doubt you, but I cant help feeling intimidated by the flankers range, thrust, radar, manoeuvrability, 10 missiles and cost, especially for countries that need the F35 to be their air dominance fighter.

Do you think that the Su-35 has greater range? I highly doubt that. Fuel fraction of the Su-35 and F-35 are almost exactly the same. I don’t feel that the F-35 should be intimidated. Thrust, ok the Last Flanker has 5% better T/W ratio. But then again – we don’t know what is the max thrust for the F-35. We do know that the F135 achieved more than 50000lb thrust in some tests. Radar? Why do you fear that yesterday’s tech PESA radar? The F-35 has considerable more advanced radar set. Maneuverability? Sure, the Flanker is maneuverable, but we don’t know if it’s more maneuverable than the F-35 and even if yes – how much. We do know that the F-35 is more or less as maneuverable as the F-16 so it’s in the same class as the Last Flanker. 10 missiles? You only need one missile. One good missile. The F-35 has an advantage here. Cost? The Last Flanker won’t cost less than the F-35 – price tag for both a/c will be the same.

Wouldn’t you be intimidated when if you find yourself in a fighter that can easily be detected from far far away, but you would not be able to effectively detect your enemy? How are you going to use all your thrust, maneuverability and 10 missiles when you can’t see the enemy?

exec wrote:

Do you think that the Su-35 has greater range? I highly doubt that. Fuel fraction of the Su-35 and F-35 are almost exactly the same. I don’t feel that the F-35 should be intimidated. Thrust, ok the Last Flanker has 5% better T/W ratio. But then again – we don’t know what is the max thrust for the F-35. We do know that the F135 achieved more than 50000lb thrust in some tests. Radar? Why do you fear that yesterday’s tech PESA radar? The F-35 has considerable more advanced radar set. Maneuverability? Sure, the Flanker is maneuverable, but we don’t know if it’s more maneuverable than the F-35 and even if yes – how much. We do know that the F-35 is more or less as maneuverable as the F-16 so it’s in the same class as the Last Flanker. 10 missiles? You only need one missile. One good missile. The F-35 has an advantage here. Cost? The Last Flanker won’t cost less than the F-35 – price tag for both a/c will be the same.

Wouldn’t you be intimidated when if you find yourself in a fighter that can easily be detected from far far away, but you would not be able to effectively detect your enemy? How are you going to use all your thrust, maneuverability and 10 missiles when you can’t see the enemy?

While agree with some of your statements you obviously ignoring some known/reported data and make a lot of assumptions yourself at the same time without backing them up. Official information available about the F-35 and Su-35 indicate a considerably longer range for the latter on internal fuel. I personally believe that the range figures stated for the F-35 are quite conservative and could be ~1/3 higher. Meaning 3000 km isn't unrealistic, but still falls short of the Su-35S stated 3600 km figure with some anecdotal evidence of a max range up to ~4500 km on internal fuel. I also don't know why you are assuming the F-35s engine thrust as it is stated as that of the Su-35. The 50000 lb were achieved on a bench test and that's fine but max achievable performance on a bench test and useful thrust considering engine life time and maintenance are yet two different things.
And for that matter the Su-35 appears to be a fair deal more manoeuvrable than the F-16 especially with the uprated TVC engines and much better flight controls as opposed to the original Su-27 which shares the same aerodynamic layout.
Not that all this means that the Su-35 is a "better" aircraft, but it looks like you try to doubt available figures on one side, but come up with unproven assumptions on the other side. Doesn't add up for me, except we consider an extreme bias here...

Scorpion82 wrote:

The 50000 lb were achieved on a bench test and that's fine but max achievable performance on a bench test and useful thrust considering engine life time and maintenance are yet two different things.

And wouldn't that same criteria apply to the Flanker?

shabah_cactus wrote:

The F-35, an underpowered semi-stealth waste of effort.

Only thing going for it is its "stealth" and VTOL.
It can't turn like the F-16 (which it's supposed to be replacing)
Its thrust to weight is mediocre (0.8-0.9)
Does not even look anything like a solid fighter, more like a repugnent insect.
Helmet/"interface" looks like a cheap prop from an obscure horror film in the early 2000's
Slow
Will not survive down low (like an A-10 or an F-15E)

Im all for new tech., but this is unacceptable that this ****bird is going to be the new workhorse of our once great Airforce. Does anybody out there, honestly think the F-35 is anything impressive?

Your missing out the whole point of the program. 3 separate airframes from one common design. No need to go low with the sensor package and weapons capability. Lifting body design negates wing load penalties as well as no external load penalties on first strike missions. T/W ratio improves as fuel is spent. This improves dramatically since there is no parasitic drag from external stores involved. Making assumptions like you did leaves you truly shortsighted to the endgame.

sferrin wrote:

And wouldn't that same criteria apply to the Flanker?

It does... Question

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 is unimpressive.