Forum: General F-35 Forum

“Maneuvering is Irrelevant”: That was the statement of Northrop Grumman when referring to one of the capabilities of the JSF that the EODAS is suppose to give it. So, if the statement is taken seriously by our Navy, Marines and AF in the near future maybe they’ll stop teaching ACM to our fighter pilots. Something similar happened during the Vietnam air war era- the “experts” thought that a new technology (missiles) was going to change the WVR air combat arena. The over confidence in that new technology made our air power weak and because of that we lost many lives (some even said our pilots trained almost as commercial airline pilots). History is there to help us learn from our mistakes. New Technology is important, very important, but there are aspects of aerial combat that history has shown to be unchangeable. Superior fighter maneuverability or better pilot ACM training over many years has made our Air Power the best in the world. In Vietnam we suffered greatly because of the lack of those two aspects. If the EODAS and other JSF sensors turn out to be unreliable like the missiles did during the Vietnam conflict we are in a great problem. I hope I am wrong…

PS: Pardon for anything wrong in my writing: English is a second language to me.

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I think it's pretty safe to say that ACM training will not be deleted from fighter pilot training, regardless of avionic capabilities. The F-35 wouldn't have been designed as a 9G/high AoA fighter, if the USAF only planned on flying in straight lines. What that statement actually means is that airframe performance alone, won't be the deciding factor, in combat. Not that pilots won't be maneuvering.

@ Cadel..... During the Vietnam era the pocket calculator were just starting to hit people desks, and since then electronics and sensors have come a long way since the early 70's. Air and Space has really good article on the Sidewinder. Their is also a book on it's development that I have been meaning to read.

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/Sidewinder.html?c=y&page=1

http://www.amazon.com/Sidewinder-Creative-Missile-Development-China/dp/1557509514

There is also a really good video that illistrates the capabilites of the latest generation of Aim-9X Sidewider.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LxhLMiRklQ

Also keep in mind the next generation of missile is currently under development and should coincide with the arival of of the F-35 on the flight line.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/raytheon-reveals-first-glimpse-of-next-generation-missile-353359/

Maneuverability being irrelevant means that the F-35 drivers won't be performing ultra-hard maneuvers just to defeat an opponent by getting into optimal positions to fire their missiles. With EODAS and a HOBS missile like AIM-9X and the Next Generation Missile coming into service the F-35s could simply target the bandits and ripple-fire their missiles without having to chase after said bandits or bleed off energy maneuvering their aircraft just to get into an appropriate LAR. By maintaining energy and letting the missiles do the turning, the F-35s will have a better chance to escape/disengage while the missiles intercept their targets.

The F-35 is designed to pull the maneuvers to fight if necessary considering its +9g/-3g design load factor and supposed outstanding performance in ACM parameters, but having missiles that pull 50-60Gs would certainly give the Lightning II drivers more options when it comes to maneuvering so that energy need not be wasted and thus allow for higher survivability. Hence, I am sure that BFM and the like will still be taught in the event the F-35s have to maneuver at some point to get a good Pk or to enhance survivability.

The notion that technology can overcome all rules of engagement is always rather entertaining as the continued prediction that aircraft never need merge again, that maneuver ability will no longer be needed either offensively or defensively, etc.

It's a statement by a corporation or in other words a press release. A more truthful prediction might have been 'maneuvering is less relevant' but that's not great marketing.

So 'less is more' in other words? Very Happy

Pretty much.

@lb..... No one is dismissing ACM's classic rules of engagement, it's just that given the recent advent or new technologies we aren't sure how the classic rules of ACM are going to apply.

lb wrote:

The notion that technology can overcome all rules of engagement is always rather entertaining as the continued prediction that aircraft never need merge again, that maneuver ability will no longer be needed either offensively or defensively, etc.

It's a statement by a corporation or in other words a press release. A more truthful prediction might have been 'maneuvering is less relevant' but that's not great marketing.

Here's the actual video release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvnhFgzIKI&sns=em

The words are there "maneuvering is irrelevant" and yet the F-35's in that vid are shown doing plenty of rolling and fighter maneuvers. That line seems to me to indicate that "opposing fighter" maneuverability is irrelevant.

The constant tracking by EODAS of other fighters in the merge means that no matter how much turning a fighter is capable of until they can out-turn HOBS missiles, their ability to maneuver beyond that which the F-35 is capable of isn't going to matter in the scheme of things.

And here's what the AIM-9x was capable of in June 2000...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-CeuO1R ... ata_player

However this article/PDF has the same words: “Maneuverability Is Irrelevant”:

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Magazi ... ighter.pdf
OR

Fighter of The Future By John A. Tirpak Executive Editor July 2009 Vol. 92, No. 7

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Magazi ... ghter.aspx

"...However, according to Northrop Grumman, which supplies major sensor systems on the F-35, “maneuverability is irrelevant” for the F-35. The AN/AAQ-37 Distributed Aperture System, which projects a 360-degree image of surrounding air and terrain on the F-35 pilot’s helmet visor, helps the pilot see and target air and ground threats with high fidelity. It eliminates the need for night vision goggles, which have limited field of view and must be compatible with cockpit lighting. With the DAS, the F-35 pilot can literally look “through” the airframe structure—even beneath the aircraft—and shoot at targets that aren’t in front of him. Air-to-air missiles can actually be fired at targets to the rear. According to Northrop Grumman, instead of having to slug it out in a turning battle, “the F-35 simply exits the fight, and lets its missiles do the turning.”
QUOTE AT END OF ONLINE ARTICLE
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Northrop Grumman Sensors Take F-35 Out of the Fight By barry rosenberg
Published: 16 Jun 04

http://www.defensenews.com/osd_story.php?i=4140825

"...Maneuverability is irrelevant with DAS," said Northrop Grumman director of business development Mark Gaertner, speaking at Le Bourget. "The F-35 exits the fight and lets the missile do the maneuvering. The JSF just keeps its speed up and accelerates away...."

alloycowboy wrote:

@lb..... No one is dismissing ACM's classic rules of engagement, it's just that given the recent advent or new technologies we aren't sure how the classic rules of ACM are going to apply.

(not directed at you), but generally speaking..
did tactics not evolve as range progressed?
did tactics not evolve as speed progressed?
did tactics not evolve as maneuverability progressed?
did tactics not evolve as missile-seeker progressed?
did tactics not evolve as radar progressed?
did tactics not evolve as the development of the 'system' progressed?
do tactics not evolve as onboard sensors progress?
do tactics not evolve as data-sharing progress?

I am just wondering as missile PK approaches the high 90% range if we have not reached the point of "Mutally Assured Destruction" with fifth generation fighters. We might have to go back to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1iPrV3vSiM

I cannot hear the sound of the video. If it is about 'duelling' then there is no honour 'in a duel'. For the fighter pilot it is all about winning. And winning quickly with whatever means possible. Nothing else will do. Someone mentioned on a thread long ago and I have heard this since 1970 that fighter pilots are sneaky - sneaking up in 6 o'clock to shoot someone in the back. This is no duel. This is how it is and has been. If nowadays someone is shot down by an aggressor unseen then that is how it is today. There is a lot of B/S about dogfighting here. A fighter pilot goes out to kill and not be killed. No quarter (a great song by 'Led Zepplin' BTW just to lighten the mood). Whatever it takes to win then that is the story and you come home.

The most important lesson of history is not to be stuck in it. As pissflaps said, tactics evolve. So do the weapons. So do the design philosophies of planes. You either stay on the cutting edge of them all, or you die at the hands of those who do. Also importantly, peoples' bodies don't evolve, at least not on a time scale comparable to the others.

Energy-maneuver theory is not wrong, but it has been surpassed. Like many historical breakthroughs in theory, its discovery allowed the rapid realization of its own obsolescence. Newton's laws of motion surpassed the observations of Galileo, but were then surpassed by relativity (which could not possibly have been discovered had it not been for the foundation of Newton's laws in the first place). Likewise, Energy-Maneuver theory codified successful dogfighting in a more general case (higher/faster) than had been possible before it. Then planes were built to exploit it. And it very rapidly became obvious that it was already at its limits. Even back in the 1980s this was recognized. Once the teen series were fighting the MiG-29 and Su-27 families, and pilots were training to fight with energy states in mind, the advantages it offered one pilot or another ran up against the law of diminishing returns. All of the 4th generation fighters can push at the g-limits of human endurance for as long as either side can realistically expect to survive in a merge. And it's a losing strategy in a prolonged combat; a pilot pulling lots of high-g maneuvers over and over and over fatigues and becomes less effective with time. A plane/pilot pair that survives its first few merges through superior kinematics is a much weaker fighting force than it was at the start. That could only have become obvious once we had planes that could do that in the first place. But it is obvious. And no 4th generation plane has kinematics so decisively superior to other 4th generation planes that kinematics can guarantee or even strongly predict a win. Kinematics hit a brick wall, or more to the point, a gelatinous, fleshy wall that they could not get beyond with the pilot intact. Incremental improvements in kinematics mean nothing, and have meant nothing since the F-16 came into service. It simply is not possible to make a truly meaningful improvement in kinematics with a manned aircraft any more.

So, the intelligent move was to expand the theory and design the 5th generation planes to the new understanding of air to air combat theory. Kinematics of the missiles rather than the plane had to be improved. And they were. The sensors had to be improved to give first look/first shot. And they were. The networking had to be improved to let multiple fighters share data, understand the whole battlespace better, and out-know their opponents. And such networking was improved. And very importantly to US air dominance, we developed a decades-long lead in stealth, to deny the also-improving enemy sensors first look. Concentrating on these areas while ignoring tactically useless, law-of-diminishing-returns improvements in kinematics is the obvious choice to win future air combat, just as improving energy recovery and energy retention at the expense of top speed was the obvious choice in transitioning from 3rd to 4th generation fighters. The 5th generation plane is designed to a more modern, more intelligent way of fighting than the best thoughts that could possibly have guided the design of its 4th generation predecessor. To win, a 5th generation fighter needs to be only somewhere in the general vicinity of the kinematics of an F-16. A little better, a little worse, it makes no difference at all. It will likely win for the same reasons the F-16 itself would likely beat an F-4: experience with its predecessors revealed the limitations of the prior design theory and the tactics that accompanied it.

Conan wrote:

lb wrote:

The notion that technology can overcome all rules of engagement is always rather entertaining as the continued prediction that aircraft never need merge again, that maneuver ability will no longer be needed either offensively or defensively, etc.

It's a statement by a corporation or in other words a press release. A more truthful prediction might have been 'maneuvering is less relevant' but that's not great marketing.

Here's the actual video release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvnhFgzIKI&sns=em

The words are there "maneuvering is irrelevant" and yet the F-35's in that vid are shown doing plenty of rolling and fighter maneuvers. That line seems to me to indicate that "opposing fighter" maneuverability is irrelevant.

The constant tracking by EODAS of other fighters in the merge means that no matter how much turning a fighter is capable of until they can out-turn HOBS missiles, their ability to maneuver beyond that which the F-35 is capable of isn't going to matter in the scheme of things.

And here's what the AIM-9x was capable of in June 2000...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-CeuO1R ... ata_player

Exactly. A Sukhoi Su-35S can pull all the 10g maneuvers he wants. He will be hard pressed to match the maneuvering capabilities of the AIM-9x, the Iris-T, the Python 5, etc. Missiles like that can perform maneuvers in the 50g-60g range and with the lead pursuit flight profile they fly combined with thrust vectoring/fancy control surfaces (in the Python's case) and an IIR seeker that can filter out the latest generation of flares due to image contour discrimination techniques there is very little chance a Sukhoi has of defeating it. Heck, even Carlo Kopp realizes the awesome power of missiles like ASRAAM vs. the R-73. He just doesn't like to talk about it in the context of F-35 Rolling Eyes

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Forum: General F-35 Forum

History, Technology & the F-35