F-35A versus Saab Gripen NG

[loke]

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... ca-458962/

Such a system could increase the survivability of 4.5 gen fighters like Gripen E/F quite significantly I would think.

Weight less than 10 kg -- so 8 of these would weigh the same or slighthly less than 1 AIM9X or Iris-T!

And such a system would increase even more the survivability of a 5th gen fighter like the F-35. So the point is?

What I mean with the above is that:
- All the systems that may/could/would improve a 4th/4.5th gen fighter aircraft survivability will also improve the survivability if 5th gen and even more so when compared to 4th/4.5th gen fighters (due to the combinations other features that 4th/4.5th gen fighters don't have, namely stealth).

I just pointed out that this can increase the survivability of 4.5 gen fighters. For those that do not have access to 5. gen fighters this could be very useful. Of course any air force that can get access to a "true" 5.gen fighter would go for it (at least until 6. gen becomes available). However F-35 is not available to all air forces. Thus, those air forces that do not get access to the F-35 would be interested in technology that can significantly increase survivability. If this technology works then it would definitely increase survivability.

[ricnunes]

I just pointed out that this can increase the survivability of 4.5 gen fighters. For those that do not have access to 5. gen fighters this could be very useful. Of course any air force that can get access to a "true" 5.gen fighter would go for it (at least until 6. gen becomes available). However F-35 is not available to all air forces. Thus, those air forces that do not get access to the F-35 would be interested in technology that can significantly increase survivability. If this technology works then it would definitely increase survivability.

Ok, Roger that!

[XanderCrews]

[kimjongnumbaun]

The problem with this system is the white elephant in the room, someone can see you and is shooting at you. There’s lots of dead pilots out there who were hoping their ASE would save them and it didn’t. The best route is not to be seen or shot. The rest is just a band aid.

[vilters]

What can be seen, will be shot at.

[jetblast16]

[F-16ADF]

I could be wrong, but it looks like they had their main's off the runway at around 2300ft. Guessing they were with near full internal fuel.

cool video

[disconnectedradical]

Seems like F-35 rotate on take off a quicker than Gripen.

[ricnunes]

The problem with this system is the white elephant in the room, someone can see you and is shooting at you. There’s lots of dead pilots out there who were hoping their ASE would save them and it didn’t. The best route is not to be seen or shot. The rest is just a band aid.

Indeed!
I would say that it's like Body Armor on infantry soldiers, it may (and does) help in some instances but if the soldier is out in the open and everyone sees and shoots at him/her then there's very little or basically nothing that the Body Armor can do to help.

[viper12]

Technically, body armor helps a lot. Of course, not being seen is the first thing an infantryman should do, but most injuries on the battlefield aren't caused by direct hits with bullets but rather fragments from shells and the disintegrating environment (rocks, trees, concrete and glass destroyed by explosions for example).

That's why only till recently (approx. 20 years), body armor rated for fragmentation (and maybe 9mm rounds) only saw widespread use in militaries (that could afford it). And materials developments in the past decades allowed the design of truly bulletproof vests, with ceramic plates for example covering the most vital areas while textiles protecting against fragmentation cover as much as possible other parts of the body.

If fragmentation weren't the leading casualty mechanism, we'd see minimalist vests with only tiny ceramic plates covering only the most likely angles at which vital organs could be hit, similar to the all-or-nothing armor scheme on battleships, yet even plate carriers cover a fair part of the torso. The most glaring example of the importance of fragmentation is the proliferation of spectacles (and goggles) ; they're not just there for soldiers to look cool, they can stop quite a lot of stuff : https://www.army.mil/article/121595/eye ... protection

Or this (p.349-350) : https://books.google.com/books?id=UHhKh ... on&f=false

[ricnunes]

Yes, you're absolutely right viper12.

I would also say that body armor helps very, very much specially in terms of being the diference between surviving (even if the soldier is "put out of action") or dying after being hit, this for all the reasons that you mentioned.

And of course if I were a soldier going to the battlefield I would never go without a body armor, this given the choice that is.

Anyway, my point (and looking in hindsight, perhaps this wasn't the best analogy) was having a situation where an infantry soldier was exposed in the open and where enemy soldiers could see and shot at him. In this case the protective body amor wouldn't help the soldier much (except perhaps, helping him to survive with severe wounds) similarly to (IMO) what would happen if one 4/4.5th gen fighter aircraft equipped with the defensive measure above would have to face "in the open" (airspace) a 5th gen fighter aircraft that would see it first and shoot first.

[mikc]

Where did you find this?? what sources did you use? talk about some cherry picking

Public sources, you're free to google and easy to calculate. I don't think so, these are major milestones that every aircraft manufacturer makes public.

13 years to field 3 prototypes?

By your calculation standards it took +14 years to get a single F35 in the air, development started in 1992 and flew in 2006. Impressive! 24 years to IOC (a very dubious one). Great!!. I see a trend here... maybe 34 years to FOC.

If this idea of priorities and schedules is hard to comprehend you can look at how Saab is prioritizing the Gripen E far more heavily than the F

Is that a problem for anyone? The development of Gripen F is done by Brazil for Brazil in Brazil with help from SAAB.

Testing takes a lot of time when there's a lot of problems with the product and this causes huge delays. I get that and then you have lower your demands, accept less functionality and accept faults, get delayed deliveries as with the f35. If max speed is so easy why delay testing it? The first thing you want to test is the flight envelope, right?

But on the bright side, you get a hell of a lot of training aircraft and aggressors from all those aircrafts that can't or is too expensive to upgrade to fighting standards.

Having a lot of test flight hours doesn't make a test program great, it makes it expensive and late. I wouldn't brag with that picture.

"Our big issue is software," said Will Roper, the Air Force undersecretary for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, adding that it wasn't a problem exclusive to the F-35. "Almost every software-intensive program is over budget and behind schedule."

Roper, who has been on the job for less than two months, told Pentagon reporters last week that "the physical pieces of the plane are moving in the right direction," but the software issues on the F-35 aren't.

"To me, it's a software program at this point," Roper said of the Lockheed Martin aircraft, the largest procurement program in Pentagon history with costs projected at upwards of $400 billion.

"The rest of acquisition can be improved, but it's the software -- we've got to up our game," he said. "A lot of the sustainment problems could be solved if we could do the software."

And this is after IOC and at the time when the SDD program is closed.

LM testing (you started it) A F22 PIO crash during testing if you don't recognize it.

f22 pio .jpg (8.95 KiB) Viewed 90998 times

Result of a great F35 test program

If they are so security minded and cautious in the JSF program, why didn't they prioritize GCAS from the beginning that could have prevented the second crash?

[Tiger05]

13 years to field 3 prototypes?
By your calculation standards it took +14 years to get a single F35 in the air, development started in 1992 and flew in 2006. Impressive! 24 years to IOC (a very dubious one). Great!!. I see a trend here... maybe 34 years to FOC.

Program started in 1996, not 1992, while the SDD phase of the JSF program only started in 2001... Your 'calculations' are off. That the first F-35 first flew only five years after the SDD contract was awarded is actually a quite impressive feat given the complexity and the level of ambition of the program.

Meanwhile it took a decade for the much more modest Gripen E to take the air despite the fact that it was not even a major redesign but just an upgraded version of an existing jet. When the Gripen E finally reaches FOC in 2026, almost two decades would have passed after the Gripen NG was launched in 2007. Two decades to field a new version. Let that sink in for a second.

[SpudmanWP]

If they are so security minded and cautious in the JSF program, why didn't they prioritize GCAS from the beginning that could have prevented the second crash?

They had to wait for basic GCAS dev to finish, then they could work on getting it into the F-35. The same applies to UAI.

The best way to develop a new function is to use a "known quantity" airframe and NOT a new airframe that is still in development itself. Trying to add functionality into an in-development airframe is a big mistake (hello scope creep) that leads to big delays and cost increases.

[knowan]

I smell a fresh account troll