Forum: General F-35 Forum

Quote:

As for a hypersonic bomber forget it, the technology isn't there yet which is why the X-30 was cancelled.

We are currently in the Wright Brothers era of hyper-sonics, around the time they were playing with advanced kites and engines.
The struggle continues to get a hyper-sonic test platform to perform the hyper-deed for more than a handful of moments.
Those test platforms are put into the best possible hyper-sonic ignition environment with the help of good ole' rocket motors.

When they can build an operational hyper-sonic missile, that can maneuver and seek a target, then you might take the next step and start thinking about an unmanned hyper-sonic craft of some kind that could execute a mission, and return to base.
When you succeed in getting that far then maybe you could convince congress to pay for a manned X craft, but it would be unlikely to be a green light for an operational heavy bomber that consumes the AF budget for a decade or so.

Can anyone explain why an anti-ballistic missile system couldn't engage a hyper-sonic craft? To a layman like me the difference appears to be just altitude, which seems to favor the interceptor.

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@archeman, go do some skeet shooting and keep moving the clay piegons farther back and launch them at ever increasingly faster speeds. Let me know how that works out for you.

alloycowboy wrote:

@archeman, go do some skeet shooting and keep moving the clay piegons farther back and launch them at ever increasingly faster speeds. Let me know how that works out for you.

How is that relevant?
The interceptors are guided. More range just gives them more time to orient on the target, and the speed of the target just makes it that less maneuverable.

@count to 10.....

The higher and faster the target flys the harder it is to hit because your timing and accuracy has to be that much more precise even with guide missiles. Small errors at launch mean large misses at altitude.

Throwing unlimited amounts of money at a problem does not necessarily solve it. Over thirty years ago (Reagan era) we started throwing literally trillions of dollars at the "Star Wars" program. There were eventually supposed to be orbiting "death stars" that would melt enemy warheads as they headed towards the US. After trillions of dollars and huge amounts of research and development, we've essentially got nothing. Human knowledge, science and technology simply aren't there yet. There are a few lonely missiles up in Alaska that might be able to hit a lonely Korean missile headed our way, but even the ABL just got parked. Regardless of the money spent, human brains just haven't come up with the right solutions yet.

Hypersonic aircraft are at the same impasse. Yes, there will probably be a hypersonic missile someday, and possibly even a manned hypersonic aircraft, but the number of problems that need to be solved before then is immense. There is simply too much that we don't know how to do yet.

Also, hypersonic aircraft and missiles may be good for fixed strategic targets, but the physics involved in using a vehicle travelling at Mach 5+ to do CAS or escort helicopters into an LZ or get into an air-to-air dogfight (many-vs-many scenario) would seem to be insurmountable. Remember, despite its stealth characteristics, the F-35 is an A-10 / AV-8 / F-16 / F-18 air-to-ground attack aircraft replacement. It is not a B-2 strategic bomber, or an F-22 air dominance fighter. A hypersonic vehicle might be a good B-1 / B-2 / ALCM replacement, but I don't see it replacing the tactical fighter any time soon.

alloycowboy wrote:

@count to 10.....

The higher and faster the target flys the harder it is to hit because your timing and accuracy has to be that much more precise even with guide missiles. Small errors at launch mean large misses at altitude.

That doesn't appear to be an issue.

alloycowboy wrote:

@archeman, go do some skeet shooting and keep moving the clay piegons farther back and launch them at ever increasingly faster speeds. Let me know how that works out for you.

acboy: I might be confused (has happened before!) or perhaps I asked the question incorrectly.
If you already have an anti-aircraft system that can intercept ballistic missiles, wouldn't a hyper-sonic aircraft be just as or more vulnerable to that system?
The hyper-sonic aircraft can't leave the atmosphere else it would starve it's engines so it will be at probably a lower altitude and AFAIK it isn't moving at a greater speed than the ballistic missile. Since it is an aircraft it will be considerably larger than a missile assuming it intends to return home which doesn't concern the missile.

Your skeet example seemed to me to support to the fact that hyper-sonics aircraft were more at risk.

I always learn far more in a debate when I am wrong! When I'm right, I end up walking away with nothing more than I arrived with....

Meteor wrote:

Hypersonic aircraft are at the same impasse. Yes, there will probably be a hypersonic missile someday, and possibly even a manned hypersonic aircraft, but the number of problems that need to be solved before then is immense. There is simply too much that we don't know how to do yet.

Also, hypersonic aircraft and missiles may be good for fixed strategic targets, but the physics involved in using a vehicle travelling at Mach 5+ to do CAS or escort helicopters into an LZ or get into an air-to-air dogfight (many-vs-many scenario) would seem to be insurmountable. Remember, despite its stealth characteristics, the F-35 is an A-10 / AV-8 / F-16 / F-18 air-to-ground attack aircraft replacement. It is not a B-2 strategic bomber, or an F-22 air dominance fighter. A hypersonic vehicle might be a good B-1 / B-2 / ALCM replacement, but I don't see it replacing the tactical fighter any time soon.

That's a pretty good answer. It's more less what I was thinking when I asked the devils advocate question. Still, it's intriguing. If you could eliminate an enemy's tactical air power on the ground and largely take down his air defense C2 with weapons of this type, then whatever CAS and BAI platforms you had (A-10s and 4th gen planes with smart weapons for example) could largely get the job done from there.

You're assuming that the best way to accomplish that task is through a kinetic kill, ie., blow it up. Based upon what's actually going on in the real (black) world out there, that's not the primary focus today. Cyberwarfare is "where it's at". The Israelis flew non-stealthy F-15Es through the Syrian IADs to take down a potential WMD site by inserting a bunch of ones and zeroes into where the Syrians didn't expect it. The Stuxnet and Flame viruses have wreaked havoc with their targets. The Chinese have apparently had great success with penetrating and compromising US systems.

Currently the best way to take down an enemy IADs (including fighters) is non-kinetically. In that sense, the EA-18G is probably the most valuable and effective aviation asset in the US inventory, with its ability to inject attack algorithims into enemy systems. If you can make the enemies' command and control network non-functional due to being made deaf, blind, and mute, your CAS and BAI forces can pretty much roam at will.

alloycowboy wrote:

Redbird.... You got to to stop listening to river otter as he isn't thinking through the problem clearly. He forgot why the F-35 has a spherical infared remote sensor system for a reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58N6Plr17GU

As for a hypersonic bomber forget it, the technology isn't there yet which is why the X-30 was cancelled.

Ah, yes, the tired old infrared video.

Distance never exceeded two miles, the operators knew where the F-22 was at all times and had to aim the camera by hand, and it was a plane doing airshow maneuvers in airshow trim with (just like it wears a Luneberg lens) presumably none of its infrared countermeasures on to hide what its actual capability is. And the details of the video suggest the gain settings of the camera were all the way to 11; that big exhaust plume was no whiter in the image than a number of points on the fuselage itself. The camera was also zoomed all the way in to the F-22; worthless for scanning a volume of sky to find something. If that's what IR can see of an F-22, it's useful to make nice pictures of the plane up close if you already know where it is, but it's not really useful for finding the F-22 in the first place. I'm sure there are better IR systems than that camera. And IR gets harder to stealth up close. But it does not have the range of radar and will never replace the detection capabilities that stealth systems have taken away.

And that's my point: I didn't say you couldn't dogfight a stealth fighter with eyes or IR at point-blank ranges if you happen to already know where it is. I said you'd be running up against the law of diminishing returns trying to find it in the first place. You can't fill the sky with FLIR-equipped fighters at 2 mile intervals. Especially when those fighters are not stealth, and can be easily avoided by a plane that is. And when that stealth plane only needs to get within 20 miles of its target even when using gravity bombs. Even another stealth fighter would have to stumble upon the incoming stealth fighter by dumb luck in order to get it in range to "find" it by IR.

Meteor wrote:

You're assuming that the best way to accomplish that task is through a kinetic kill, ie., blow it up. Based upon what's actually going on in the real (black) world out there, that's not the primary focus today. Cyberwarfare is "where it's at". The Israelis flew non-stealthy F-15Es through the Syrian IADs to take down a potential WMD site by inserting a bunch of ones and zeroes into where the Syrians didn't expect it. The Stuxnet and Flame viruses have wreaked havoc with their targets. The Chinese have apparently had great success with penetrating and compromising US systems.

Currently the best way to take down an enemy IADs (including fighters) is non-kinetically. In that sense, the EA-18G is probably the most valuable and effective aviation asset in the US inventory, with its ability to inject attack algorithims into enemy systems. If you can make the enemies' command and control network non-functional due to being made deaf, blind, and mute, your CAS and BAI forces can pretty much roam at will.

IW/Cyber relies on the scale of the systems architecture as well as it's integration format to bring all elements under attack through the very nature of their (EWR cues Battery Search cues Engagement Radar) lines of cross-dependent C3.

Yet it doesn't have to be that way and costs will lead the way. A ten million dollar 3D UHF radar which hands off tracks can be easily replaced with a 2 million dollar range tracking camera on the back of a high mobility 5 ton truck.

Small ADADS type systems, using commercial imager technology, can be used both for gapfill on the ground against lower altitude threats and slung beneath small HALE LTA or even rapid rise (boosted) tethered Aerostats to provide network mosaic tracking with laser or burst microwave directional burst comms in a purely broadcast mode to hidden control nodes which are FO or further point to point directionally linked.

There is no reason for massive, 20ft tall, SAM cannisters which reach out 200+km from their launch point because no missile system is ever more effective _as a point defense_ weapon than the range of it's engagement radar as detecting the threshold RCS of the target.

if you have ARH or IIR onboard however; you can shoot from a remote launch box which -has no- associated emitter at all but is simply emplaced on a pre-surveyed series of hardstands with access to FO or laser/microwave relay targeting to fire as the threat passes over. This is particularly dangerous with hypervelocity threats like 9M96 and ERINT which can rapidly rise up to even F-22 operational heights in the 50-60K height band.

Finally, if you have some guts, you can combine the system parameters of fixed wing and missile based defenses by using systems which exploit the technology base of target and recce drones (Mirach 600 and Tu-349 for instance) to fire off of catapults on big trucks and fly up to height before sweeping forward in large skirmish lines of optical seekering using technology similar to the AAQ-37 EODAS to do rapid sweeps out to 200-300nm or more. Burst chatter between the pack members only happens when a target is detected and is again, able to be RF independent because, at height, there is limited risk from weather masking of signal.

Since they are already -at- the general target proximity when a threat is detected and because they can trade airbag/parachute recoverability for LO coating cost, they don't suffer the greatest single failure of most SAM type systems which is inherent to their very high speed: a one pass hit-or-miss-ile throwaway nature. This will also effect the level of sophistication in their commo suite protections against cyber as they attack and reattack threats which are crossing the fence heavy with gas before going on to kill the standoff ISR and EA assets as well.

The nature of cyber is that of arrogance. Assuming your spoof signal worked is foolish if you have to get close to prove that you are not the one being gulled. It also assumes that you can in fact -see- all the threats (or at least 'hear' their emissions) at the same time you are not yourself saturated by their sheer numbers.

With a missile costing one million and an interceptor costing 80-100 that might be so. But if you use a system of distributed launchers and passive sensors which make no giveaway as gateway emissions until the moment of ambush when the target passes over their engagement radius, you can employ swarming tactics with systems that cost -somewhere inbetween- (say 5-10 million) the two costs and which are not geographically isolateable to a given area like an airbase complex.

The final reality of cyber attack then comes down to the security of your supplier manufacturing base as the means to generate virus free subcomponents which are actively swept for foreign data intrusions before assembly and storeage of the systems in secure facilities.

Iran is rapidly attaining this level of indigenous aerospace autonomy across the board.

Cyber only works so long as the enemy systems cooperatively allow it. Hard kill works whether they want to play or not.

When NATO supposedly blew up Serbia's air force on the ground only to watch a veritable horde of MiG-21s leave their hardened shelters and fly north the day after the ceasefire, the only kills we could count on as being unable to further influence the air war were those which we -saw- the flamer go in as smoking holes from direct A2A engagement.

With the value of LO being what it is, it would be just too bad if we counted on softkill to disable a threat force and then overconfidently commited limited airpower assets only to find that we were dogpiled by a threat which was anything but reduced.

galoot wrote:

Iran is rapidly attaining this level of indigenous aerospace autonomy across the board.

of course they are, bless your heart.

An Iranian domestic manufactured jet fighter could theoretically duplicate the RCS of say a F-117. What I doubt is they could make a jet with a high serviceability of a mature fighter. Its not nearly effective to have a fighter that flies twice a month, and is in the shop the rest of the time.

One thing about the F/A-18E/F is that the airframe is reduced RCS compared to previous models. An F-15E airframe has a RCS of 15.0M2, compared to a F/A-18E/F with a RCS of 0.1M2. Whats interesting about that is that the SH coatings require relatively little servicing, compared to the F-117, B-2 or F-22.

A country like Iran would find it very difficult to domestically produce a 4.5th gen Reduced RCS airframe and skin.

What they can produce is a mock-up or scale model of something that looks like it could plausibly have a low RCS.

count_to_10 wrote:

What they can produce is a mock-up or scale model of something that looks like it could plausibly have a low RCS.

Ahh, when you get down into the LO range, things like edges matter. The F-22 doesn't actually have RAM over the entire airframe, but mainly on the edges. The SH is the same. The RAM seal is used where the panels meet. This detail wouldn't be apparent from a photoshoot, unless the photographer knew exactly what to look for.

For a while, we flew a repaired F/A-18F that required a very expensive visit back to Boeing for a panel to be fully restored, in a sensitive area. Apparently, ground equipment had damaged a composite panel, and replaced with a temporary panel, that didn't have the RAM impregnated coatings. The temporary repair allowed the jet to fly as a test aircraft, but not in combat. Because the LO coating is usually serviced during phase inspection, the idea was to keep the jet flying test missions until phase. If the full nature of the damage had been apparent, it would have been a Class-A ground mishap ($1m+ at the time) if they included the cost of recoating aft underside of the jet. A misalignment or crack in the coating, can significantly increase the RCS of the jet.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

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