F-35A/C to carry heavier weapons internally?

I finally had a chance to watch John Venable's briefing of his latest report on the F-35A. Once tidbit that I haven't read about previously that he mentioned is that the F-35 is designed to fly as part of larger formations than a four ship. I would think that with stealth aircraft - like with the F-117s over Iraq - you could fly with less and distribute them over a larger area - looking for gaps in enemy air defenses. But what he says makes sense from a ISR and data fusion perspective.

Seamlessly integrating Navy, Marine, and AF F-35s on one network will allow the US to take down IADS much more effectively.

Yes, and a "formation" has tens of miles between elements. It is closer to what you imagined than it sounds.

Examples of the 'formation four' concept (for the RAAF F-35 only - there are others) in the Oz sub-forum: viewtopic.php?f=58&t=23043&p=387285&hilit=formation#p387285 & viewtopic.php?f=58&t=23043&p=315303&hilit=formation#p315303

"...AVM Gordon [RAAF] said the F-35A was “easy to fly” but “training F-35A pilots is very different to training pilots in other fighters because of the nature of fifth-generation capabilities.”

A formation would be spread over tens of kilometres and “wingmen will be a tactical node providing sensors, weapons and manoeuvrability in direct support of the mission objectives. Flying is the easy bit. Making the right decisions in exploiting the information advantage is the hard part.”..." 02 Feb 2018 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation ... 1998d58392

"......While F-111s used to fly two miles from each other, the RAAF's JSF fighting methodology would probably start with a three-ship formation flying tens of miles apart but operating in concert, exchanging and fusing data from each other over a much larger area of airspace.

"But the real power of this aircraft will be once you start utilising a four ship formation and integrating it as envisaged in Plan Jericho with other capabilities like Wedgetail, Poseidon, Triton, Growler, Super Hornet and the Air Warfare Destroyer." 13 Feb 2016 http://www.australiandefence.com.au/home/adm-editions

https://aviationweek.com/defense/f-35-mod-adds-new-missiles-weapons-bay

https://twitter.com/TheDEWLine/status/1 ... 7231978499

According to Steve Trimble's report, a source close to program tells him this modification is aimed to make the AARGM-ER and SiAW can be carried internally by F-35 A/C. Also, this is a necessary modification to implement the Sidekick concept.

Of note from Trimble's piece @ AvLeak... is that this 425 bulkhead mod is required to get to the internal sixpack of AIM-120s.

the F-35 is designed to fly as part of larger formations than a four ship.

MADL is designed to operate in a 25 node Network. Basically, 6 groups of 4 with a 25th node acting as a Gateway to the rest of the assets (ships, AWACS, OPs centers, 4th gen assets, etc).

And there are many RF emitter geolocation techniques that require large separation between
the datalinked receiving elements (aircraft) and in some cases very different flight geometries.

And there are many RF emitter geolocation techniques that require large separation between
the datalinked receiving elements (aircraft) and in some cases very different flight geometries.

The F-35 is going to be a MONSTROUS data sponge. In addition to all the RF, imagine networking the DAS for missile defense purposes.

the F-35 is designed to fly as part of larger formations than a four ship.

MADL is designed to operate in a 25 node Network. Basically, 6 groups of 4 with a 25th node acting as a Gateway to the rest of the assets (ships, AWACS, OPs centers, 4th gen assets, etc).

What is the 25th node? BACN?

It could be BACN, 5th-2-4th, ship-based, Freedom 550, or any other gateway that is connected to a MADL terminal.

More than likely you have 25 open spots then another 7 used for negotiation, error correction, and data integrity.

Where does 32 come from?

The smallest subnet mask that allows for 25 is 4-bits / 32. They might be slick and use a subnet mask hidden in 64-bit naming space. The more you allow for junk time to confuse the encrypted traffic the better your security in the transmission, but with the trade of needing additional error correction. One of the 25 slots is probably the master and is the broadcast signal to keep the other 24 in synchronization.

There is no sync. It's a daisy-chain network.

25 is the number of nodes, terminals, F-35s, etc that part of the network.

I don't care how they interconnected, you still need signal control. You're confusing Daisy chain with token ring.

The F-35 is going to be a MONSTROUS data sponge. In addition to all the RF, imagine networking the DAS for missile defense purposes.

Hey SF. By extension its predictive algos could be applied to a 'battlefield' to locate firing positions and intended targets of ballistic projectiles. Same for cruising-weapons which are now a part of missile-defense which process then can be applied to opposing glide-weapons. If learning-systems can also leverage the logged gathered data while flying, to locate a mobile shooter's point of origins, and the transit path it took before firing, and also to automatically locate where it fled to after it fired ...