F-35 internal fuel, range

[outlaw162]

Did youse yanks have a preference for which wing for drop tank?

F-101 drivers would have needed a bigger wing to go with their tailored trousers.

Not a lot of wing area to hang a fuel tank. The short time I was associated with the VooDoo at Niagara, I also don't think I ever saw one with 2 tanks (interference drag?). Couple of X-country flights I rode along on while waiting for a local checkout were flown clean, roughly 650 nm legs at 0.88 IIRC (hour+15ish?+reserve), which seemed pretty impressive to me for that era. Beautiful machine.

Niagara VooDoo with one tank and below belly of VooDoo with 2 tanks:

[spazsinbad]

They must have had tight trousers to make room for dem BALListics!

[energo]

:roll: They must have had tight trousers to make room for dem BALListics!

Or JUGGs.

[spazsinbad]

Correct. Depends upon your individual perspective. Thanks for the mammaries....

[optimist]

Btw.,Israel to Bushehr is around 820 nm, to Tehran around 800 nm. Both more than 670 nm, but less than 40% more than 670 nm

The 670nm is a combat radius under specific conditions. This figure can be shortened or extended depending on the misson at hand. The below 2016 LM chart states a 760nm combat range in an air-to-air config. Norwegian F-35 pilot Morten Hanche is on record stating that the F-35A enjoys 30-70 percent more range than the F-16AM depending on the circumstances.

Then there is the "routing factor": The distance to target vs. the distance actually flown to reach the target. A non-stealthy fighter will tend to fly around the SAM or radar bubbles - increasing the distance flown - whereas a stealthy aircraft can fly a more direct route through the SAMs. According to this chart, an F-15E enjoys a -30 percent routing factor whereas an F-22 (or F-35, probably) only has a -6 percent factor. Meaning: The stealthy aircraft has a lot more effective range for the same amount of fuel (and tanker support).

Nicely done.
Another way is to say, both have about 18k lb internal fuel. One weighs 43.3k. The other weighs 29.3k.

[mixelflick]

It's good to (finally) have a fighter with real legs. I mean in both the F-22 and 35's cases, especially the latter.

The F-14D carried 16,200lbs of gas, F-15C 13,500, F-16 7,000 and SH I think is 13,550 or so. It always bugged me the Flanker carries a lot more, over 20,000lbs. I realize there's more to an aircraft's range though, than just internal fuel load. Number of engines, alititude, airspeed, lift vs. drag etc all play a part.

But now, we have two beasts that carry 18,000lbs or so - flying "clean". It's about time we got an aircraft out there not so dependent on tankers. It's good SH Block III is getting additional gas with CFT's, I'm a fan of those. Unless they're on an F-15EX.. can't punch them like you can EFT's.

Anyway, it looks like the F-35 will be our longest legged fighter for awhile. At least until PCA gets here. Fantastic piece of engineering. Saw one at an airshow sitting next to an F-15C. Would have never guessed it carried so much more fuel, especially given the size discrepancy!

[eagle3000]

I find the F-22's range remarkable, especially when considering its configurated for the air to ground mission. Carrying 2 1,000lb JDAM's plus 4 AAM's.. Makes you wonder what it's true range with just 8 AAM's is.

It may not be comparable to the F-35, but it's an incredible achievement IMO, especially considering they shaved 5,000lbs of fuel from the prototype. Throw in the fact its second to none at well, almost everything - and it's truly exceptional IMO.

If I were one of those engineers, I'd be really proud. Hell just as an American, I'm proud of what they accomplished..

Its not going to be much, about a 420lbs difference assuming that they use AVEL's to carry the GBU-32s. If they use a different heavier launcher it'll be a bit more but in the grand scheme of things a 500lb difference is only about 0.7% of the gross T/O weight without bags. Probably will have only a very minor affect on range.

A BRU-46/A is used. Mounted on a plate which is in turn bolted to the structure, at least that's what it looks like to me. Overall, such a setup should be quite a bit lighter than two LAU-142/A AVELs, which are reportedly 113 lbs each. One BRU-46/A weighs 46 lbs.
Meaning any difference in weight and thus range is negligible.

[eagle3000]

A Raptor with only internal load and no supercruise segment should have a really super radius, but I haven't seen exact numbers.

590 nm is the official subsonic radius. As shown in the Combat Radius Comparison chart posted above.
450 nm with a 100 nm supersonic dash.

What I find remarkable is how the F-22 has a 590 nm radius, when the F-35A has a 760 nm radius. With an as near as makes no difference identical fuel load.
The F-22 is about 48% heavier - so you would image it should have about 68% of the F-35A's radius. In fact it has 78% of the radius. Which means the F-22 uses its fuel about 15% more efficient than the F-35A. And that is despite being burdened with fuel hungry leaky turbojets.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

What I find remarkable is how the F-22 has a 590 nm radius, when the F-35A has a 760 nm radius. With an as near as makes no difference identical fuel load.
The F-22 is about 48% heavier - so you would image it should have about 68% of the F-35A's radius. In fact it has 78% of the radius. Which means the F-22 uses its fuel about 15% more efficient than the F-35A. And that is despite being burdened with fuel hungry leaky turbojets.

Twin engines and bigger wing let it fly higher, a higher fineness ratio and better wave drag characteristics let it fly faster (even if just 20-50kts in cruise it all adds up). These let it use less fuel than the weight implies and lets it go a tad farther per unit fuel than its weight would imply.

[eagle3000]

Btw.,Israel to Bushehr is around 820 nm, to Tehran around 800 nm. Both more than 670 nm, but less than 40% more than 670 nm

The 670nm is a combat radius under specific conditions. This figure can be shortened or extended depending on the misson at hand. The below 2016 LM chart states a 760nm combat range in an air-to-air config. Norwegian F-35 pilot Morten Hanche is on record stating that the F-35A enjoys 30-70 percent more range than the F-16AM depending on the circumstances.

Then there is the "routing factor": The distance to target vs. the distance actually flown to reach the target. A non-stealthy fighter will tend to fly around the SAM or radar bubbles - increasing the distance flown - whereas a stealthy aircraft can fly a more direct route through the SAMs. According to this chart, an F-15E enjoys a -30 percent routing factor whereas an F-22 (or F-35, probably) only has a -6 percent factor. Meaning: The stealthy aircraft has a lot more effective range for the same amount of fuel (and tanker support).

Nicely done.
Another way is to say, both have about 18k lb internal fuel. One weighs 43.3k. The other weighs 29.3k.

It doesn't adress the issue at hand though.
Which is range increase due to more fuel carried.

No matter what your radius r is, if you add 40% to that, r is going to be 1.4*r afterwards. You can insert 600, 670 or 760nm for r, 40% more is 40% more.

Btw., note how the F-22's radius goes from 590 nm to 850 nm with 2 600 gal bags. That's 44% more, albeit with tanks dropped. So I'm assuming LM assumed the same for the F-35s 40% increase.

[eagle3000]

What I find remarkable is how the F-22 has a 590 nm radius, when the F-35A has a 760 nm radius. With an as near as makes no difference identical fuel load.
The F-22 is about 48% heavier - so you would image it should have about 68% of the F-35A's radius. In fact it has 78% of the radius. Which means the F-22 uses its fuel about 15% more efficient than the F-35A. And that is despite being burdened with fuel hungry leaky turbojets.

Twin engines and bigger wing let it fly higher, a higher fineness ratio and better wave drag characteristics let it fly faster (even if just 20-50kts in cruise it all adds up). These let it use less fuel than the weight implies and lets it go a tad farther per unit fuel than its weight would imply.

Thanks for saying that. It's what I figured, I just didn't want to say what might be considered heresy by the F-35 crowd.

[doge]

From the video posted by spaz.
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=15969&p=440986&hilit=kQjwSmKOjQA#p440986
UK F-35B Pilot Liuetian Commander Stephen Collins, talks about Speed and Fuel of the B model.
He says the F-35B can stay in the air for over an hour Loiter, even after a combat...!! wow!
Long Loiter time that doesn't seem like a STOVL fighter...! Really a STOVL fighter !?!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQjwSmKOjQA (Extract Closed Captions subtitles from Youtube.)

F-35 PILOT REVEALS EXPERIENCE OF FLYING FROM HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH
13 May 2020
@17:00~
whereas now you're accelerating all the way up to the front end of the ramp and of course the aircraft is designed to work it's low speeds in its short takeoff configuration you know a lift fan that's providing thrust from the front of the aircraft a nozzle at the after portion of the aircraft it's angled downward so the wing's are only providing a portion of the thrust.
and the rest has been done by the engine and the lift fan but yeah it does feel pretty so to start with but then quickly she starts to accelerate you convert out of what's called the Stovall mode the short takeoff and vertical landing mode into what we call our conventional mode.

and now the aircraft is back into a fighter aircraft she starts accelerating pretty quickly once you get past 300 knots forward, and knots comes pretty quick then you have 500 knots and you can start raising the nose and now you can climb from from sea level up to 30,000 feet in a manner of just a few minutes.

he even got an afterburner available as well which really starts to accelerate the aircraft and we can be over the speed of sound in in short order so you know less than a minute or so the actual top speed of the aircraft is also classified but uh over mark 1.0 it's no problem at all we start to run out of speed as we as we get much faster than that but again it's a it's normally a trade-off between how much, fuel do we want to burn to stay above that that's super super cool stay in that supersonic regime because of course we can we can definitely go there and we can deftly speed at high speed but we're going to be burning our our fuel much much more quickly which means we're going to be out of the fighting coming home much more quickly.

so what we'd like to do is stay around around the supersonic region, but not far far into it so that we can just apply a little bit of judicious use of afterburner when we need it to accelerate and then for example be ready to employ our an air-to-air missile or execute a 1v1 merge to start a saw some air combat maneuvering and we have the energy in the air speed package we need to do that emit when we're not required to do that we'd like to slow down we'll be about 350 knots or so which is still plenty fast but we're not wasting all that fuel and we can still then be able to stay in the airspace for over an hour or more required.
and especially if we have airborne tankers available we can get more fuel while we're airborne and continue to maintain our presence in the airspace.

[doge]

In this recent video, Mr.Billie Flynn introduces the F-35 and praises the F-35's Engine and Fuel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZAtRBPmOE (Extracted Youtube subtitles closed captions.)

hi everybody i'm billy flynn. senior f-35 test pilot for lockheed martin. we're really sorry we can't be there in person this year. we'd love to show off the jet and tell you about what the f-35 can do but it's not going to happen during this covid19 crisis.
behind me you can see that we're fabricating f35s. we have created a safe work environment for our subcontractors and the men and women that build the f-35. we're building them we're flying them and we're testing them because the world hasn't stopped and our f-35 operators need to have this jet in the air to protect the men and women around the world.
it is the most complex aerial vehicle ever made and theprecision it takes to fabricate an f-35 to ensure that everything works every single time is an enormous task and we haven't lost sight of that goal even during the covet 19 crisis.

now that belgium has selected the f-35 belgian industry will be involved in the fabrication and sustainment of this jet now and for many decades in the future. that's a level of technology that was unheard of in previous legacy fighter programs but the f-35 is a new generation.
this is the f-35a fifth generation stealth fighter. the most advanced combat fighter in the world today. so let's talk about some really interesting parts of this airplane. as a stealth fighter it is almost impossible to detect in the air. and that is all generated by the geometrical shape of the airplane.
so that the edges don't reflect radar energy that otherwise within an aircraft and bounce back and be seen that doesn't happen in an f-35. every panel every access that the maintenance technicians would have to get to has those jagged edges and when we close it all up on every single day we fly.

this aircraft becomes stealthy and undetectable and why is that important it's survivability. and everyone expects the men and women to fly an f-35 to come back every single time and stealth is one of the biggest reasons why that will happen.
so here are some of the interesting systems. it has a very sophisticated electronic sensor array a radar in old days. there's a thousand little electronic arrays right up here in the front of the aircraft and they look everywhere around and see at the same time everything in the air and on the ground.
this is the electro optical targeting system. it's housed in a sapphire glass nose it allows us to focus and zoom in on anything on the ground or in the air that we want to see with extraordinary fidelity so that we know exactly what we're attacking.

inside the aircraft we can house a combination of many radar missiles or a combination of bombs and missiles once those weapon bay doors close. and we're in the air we don't have the drag and we're not less maneuverable like we were in legacy old aircraft where those bombs and missiles hung from the outside and slowed us down.
this aircraft has a single engine built by pratt and whitney. it is the most powerful fighter engine ever developed and the most efficient. it's hidden in the back here you see the jagged edges of the nozzle.
43,000 pounds of thrust. that's more than the thrust of the two engines of an F-18 in full afterburner we get from this single engine. allows us to go 1.6 times the speed of sound.

Allows us to go further in the air, or stay longer over our mission than any engine ever in history. This airplane holds nearly 9,000 kilograms of fuel, and what does that mean well that again is more than all the fuel, that can be carried by an F-16 or an F-18 or a Euro Fighter Typhoon even with all their fuel tanks hanging from the bottom of the airplane which we don't have.
and why is that important? well our missions are long distances from home and for us to get to where we're going to do our mission to do our patrols we need the fuel to get us there and once we're there when we're actually doing the mission.
that's why we want all that extra gas to allow us to stay on station patrol to surveil to see everything around us.

so now let me talk about the coolest part of the f-35. this is my helmet. so let's be really clear. this is as good as tony stark wore in the iron man and avenger movies that we all love. it's the helmet for the f-35.
and it does some really magical things. we have two cameras in the front and they project images on this clear screen we see in front of us.
it shows us how fast we're going how high we are what heading we are and information about the weapons that we need to pay attention to we feed in imagery from cameras just like this.

this is the part of the distributed aperture system. there are six infrared cameras. the six cameras build a spherical round image about the airplane and wherever i look wherever i point my helmet that hot and cold imagery is presented to me enough so that if i chose to look down between my legs underneath the aircraft.
i would see all the imagery underneath me and i turn night time into day and the pilot in the f-35 all of a sudden sees everything around when otherwise it would be as black as imaginable.
that gives us the situational awareness that gives us the safety as we fly the aircraft so that we know everything that exists wherever we fly. it is really as cool as any space movie we've ever seen.

well that's our quick tour of the f-35 fifth generation multi-role stealth fighter the future of fighter aviation now and for the many many decades to come.
hope you've enjoyed the tour seen some of the tech and see why we think this is really like a spaceship now remember stay safe out there.
mask up and we'll see you soon you.

Does this, mean that Mr.Billie Flynn says a Longer Range on the F-35 than on F-16, F/A-18, EuroFighter with the 3x Drop Tanks loaded ? If so... Wow!!

[doge]

Wow! Very specific the Range/Fuel comment by USMC's F-35C pilot Maj. Robert Ahern !!
He says the Range of the F-35C is Longer than that of All Fighters except the F-15E !! Wow!? Astonishment!! Really!?
https://news.usni.org/2020/12/10/marine ... base-plans

Marines Demonstrate Ability to Include Carrier-Based F-35Cs in Expeditionary Base Plans
By: Gidget Fuentes December 10, 2020
SAN DIEGO, Calif., – The Marine Corps’ first carrier-capable F-35C Lightning II squadron demonstrated, for the first time, the capability to quickly rearm and refuel at expeditionary land bases, a mission key for future island-hopping operations that top leaders envision the U.S. military will face.
Maj. Robert Ahern of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 was the first to land the F-35C at the expeditionary landing field at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., last week.
The jet’s landing gear hit the AM2 metal matting and its tailhook grabbed the arresting cable at the desert training base. VMFA-314 crews quickly descended on the jet to refuel its tanks from a KC-130 Hercules tanker airplane and arm the jet with a pair of 1,000-pound GPS- guided bombs. About 10 to 15 minutes later, the jets launched back into the air to complete a scheduled bombing mission.
The Dec. 3 flight demonstrated the expeditionary landing capability for the carrier version of the F-35 on land using the M31 Expeditionary Arresting Gear System installed at the desert EAF. It was the culmination of a training effort that began in June that would prepare the squadron for future expeditionary advanced base operations or EABO.
But there was a hurdle. “The ‘hot reload-hot refuel’ combination was not certified for the F-35C,” said Ahern, a former F/A-18C Hornet pilot.
The “Black Knights” of VMFA-314 are slated to deploy in late 2021 aboard aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). But while contractors and the joint program officer continue M31 arresting gear testing and data analyses, Ahern said, certification wasn’t slated to happen until fiscal 2024.
That timeline “doesn’t really work for us, because we are deploying with Carrier Air Wing 9,” he said. “We may be called upon to execute expeditionary advanced base operations. We need to be able to do this. This is something that hasn’t been done yet with the F-35C.”
“It’s a very efficient evolution,” he added. “Now if I land the jet and I stay in it, you reload the jet I can do that in 10 to 20 minutes and the jet is ready to go, so we will definitely use that capability.”
While at the recent Weapons Tactics Instructor course at Yuma Marine Corps Air Station, Ariz., the VMFA-314 set out to demonstrate the capability to do a hot refuel/rearm trapping at an EAF.
“We got that certification. The ordnance team went through a bunch of demonstrations, first with the jet off and finally with the jet running, loading weapons in the bays and on all the stations on the wings and while getting refueled at the same time,” Ahern said. The next hurdle “was to get the M31 arresting gear certified for the F-35C. Never been done before, and it’s something that has been used by F/A-18s for years.”
The M31 system is “designed to be set up anywhere, where you basically bolt this thing to the ground on either side of the runway and then you string cable between it,” he said, noting “you can conceivably build a small airfield or you have a strip of highway that makes sense or maybe you have a runway that part of it is cratered and you can only use half of it.”
How they did it
The demonstration happened after much discussion and work among squadron members, engineers and others, Ahern said. They had to analyze and calculate ground speed at landing and max weight at trap, so they used carrier landing data as a starting point. Then they requested 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing to provide a KC-130 Hercules from the “Raiders” of Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 352 for a full day’s support at MCAGCC, where Marine Wing Support Squadron 374 runs the airfield and operates the M31 system.
Fourteen Marines in two of the squadron’s ordnance teams and ground crews boarded the Hercules for the morning flight to Twentynine Palms. There, they set up the air-delivery ground refueling system that enables fuel to flow from the KC-130 either with its rotors turning or off via a hose to the receiving aircraft.
After trapping at the EAF, Ahern taxied over to the KC-130 parked nearby at the refuel/rearm area and squadron crews simultaneously refueled the F-35C and loaded GBU-32s, a GPS-guided, 1,000-pound bomb, one in each weapon bay.
“We park the jet once, and it all happens at the same time. Like a NASCAR pit crew,” Ahern said.
It took a few minutes after Ahern landed for the MWSS Marines to reset the arresting gear for his wingman to land. “My jet was fueled and ready in 10 minutes,” he said. Once his wingman got refueled, armed and cleared to fly, both pilots left for a bombing range near Yuma to attack targets before returning to Miramar.
Squadron Marines including the ordnance “worked all the details to get everyone on the Herc and loaded, Ahern added. “There was a ton of coordination that had to happen. They get to an airfield that most of them had never set foot on, and then immediately had to execute, and they crushed it.”

Extended reach
The F-35C’s large internal fuel tanks give it more fuel – and reach – than any of the JSF variants, enabling it to carry up to 20,000 pounds of fuel.
“Your ability to stay on station and provide support is exponentially better than any other platform that is out there, with maybe the exception of a (F-15E) Strike Eagle the Air Force has,” Ahern said. “We are far and away the best for time-on-station range, and that matters.”

During a previous tour flying the F/A-18C over Syria and Iraq for Operation Inherent Resolve, “we had to go to the tanker all the time, because you had to maintain above a certain ‘bingo’ number and there were certain airfields you could divert to, so you need a lot of gas,” he said. But with the F-35C, “you hit the tanker a lot less and have a lot more options available and provide continuous support that other platforms could not.”
The F-35C’s capability to hot refuel/hot rearm at forward bases, such as on atolls or at remote airstrips – is a complementary capability to carrier operations and extends its reach when operating off deployed carriers. “For expeditionary base operations, we just need a small landing strip, whether we’ve built one ourselves or we’ve captured one,” he said. “It could be on a peninsula, it could be deep in a territory… and now I can refuel and I’m right back in the fight, vice having to fly back potentially hundreds of miles to some other more built-up location.”
“If we are called upon to push forward from where the carrier could be, in a higher fight, then now with this demonstrated capability, we could land at a small island airstrip, with expeditionary gear, similar to World War II island-hopping,” he said. “I can get bombs and gas and get right back into the flight without having to fly back to the carrier.

“We’ve tested and proven in the F-35C.”
The F-35C carries almost twice the fuel and “bigger and better weapons than the F-35B could carry,” he said, referring to the short takeoff and landing variant the Marine Corps has planned to buy in greater numbers than the carrier variant of the fifth-generation fighter.
The F-35C can complement the F-35B in supporting missions including armed reconnaissance, enemy suppression, strike coordination and close-air support, the latter the “bread-and-butter” mission for Marines.
“We have the flexibility for the what-if,” he said. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy, right? SO if you have this perfect plan for how the fuel is going to work out, and something changes it, you don’t have a margin of now I have to leave… leave for a period of time just to get gas… CAS is to provide support, and being overhead is doing that.”
The “Black Knights” got their first F-35Cs earlier this year and recently reached IOC, or initial operational capability. The squadron has 10 jets and is fully staffed with 14 pilots, who have been average 20 to 25 hours of flight time a month, Ahern said. Additional pilots are expected to join the 14 currently assigned before predeployment workups begin this spring at Lemoore NAS, Calif., with CVW-9.
“We’ve crawled, we’ve walked, and we need to start running so as we get on the ship, we can execute, at a high level, fully integrated” with the wing’s squadrons.

So...
Will the lined ranking standings look like this?

　　　5,556km　　~~　　 ????km　　~~　　　　About 4,000km
[CFT + 3xEFT] F-15E　 >　 F-35C　 >　 [3xEFT] F-15C/E, F-16C, F/A-18C/E　 >　 Clean 4gen Fighter Jets

(I am very excited.)
I am wondering how much the Range[km/nm] Gap is between F-35C and F-15E[CFT + 3xEFT]. Is the difference 100 km units? or 1,000 km?
Either way, I estimate would probably expect the F-35C's Range to be somewhere between 4,000-5,500km. Because, the F-15E[CFT + 3xEFT]'s Range is 5,556km/3,000nm. In addition, Because Range of almost All 4gen Fighter Jets with [3xEFT] are near or less than 4,000km.
Anyway... The F-35C's Range turned out has very Long!! I am very excited about this fact !! Its the fuel is... 20,000 lbs !!!!

[wrightwing]

You can't really compare the ferry range of one aircraft with the combat radius of another.