New F-35 Report

[Totalize]

So the theory goes....

The Chinese apparently have developed a ground based radar system that can detect stealth aircraft. So they supposedly could see an F-35 problem is, they haven't figured out how to coordinate a SAM attack against them. Probably only a question of time though. Nothing as far as I know of any air to air capability. Assuming their ground control and admin hasn't been taken out beforehand they could GCI fighters on to the F-35. They got a pretty good fighter in the licence built SU-27 which they call the Shenyang J-11. Of course the Russians have the SU-33 which is probably the best navalized fighter in the world at the moment. What really scares me is the new and highly advanced Su-35 with its vectored thrust capability. All these Russian aircraft be they SU, Mig-29 are built to withstand rough ground terrain (improvised airfields) and have STOL capability making them all tough, very highly maneauverable aircraft in a furball especially the Su-35 and Su-33 with its canard wings. Their weapons systems are also top notch. The PAK FA looks curiously like the F-22 and is suppose to be replacement for the Su's and Mig's. These countries of course are not our enemies but our trading partners but in a shooting war (god forbid) they should not be underestimated.

 

[pbehn]

Great info pbehn! Certain things to look at - How many were due to training? It was mentioned that there were a lot of accidents in Arizona. If you look into operations at Luke AFB, it's a training base, you're naturally going to have a high rate by nature of the operations.

Preperation for war - again agressive training will induce accidents.

There were a few component failures (Turbine blades coming apart, generator and fuel control failures) but scanning thorough a few pages I found nothing to show that any of these failures were due to "maintenance," but that's not to say there hasn't been a maintenance related class A incident during the F-16's operational history. I have a meeting with my boss, I'm going to hit him up abut engine failures and maintainer induced incidents.

FB ..I was looking at the accidents by year which covers all forces. As you can see it doesnt go into great detail and there are a lot of them since many were accidents that didnt result in total loss. Some losses were due to training like a pilot who ran his internal fuel dry while external tanks were full, this being not unterstanding procedures after inflight re fueling. Is landing with gear still raised lack of training or a "brain fart". I was struck by the number of accidents caused by UC failure mainly corrosion and worn seals but these were not so much in US operation. Budgets and environments are different.

Just from memory I think the RAF lost more pilots in training for Desert Storm than on ops themselves. I drove from London to North England in Summer 1990 and the sky was full of RAF and US jets on exercise circling before landing in East anglia /Lincolnshire.

With regards to the F 35 I am sure the Royal Navy's aircraft will not strike a wild boar on take of so that is one worry off my mind.

 

[buffnut453]

With regards to the F 35 I am sure the Royal Navy's aircraft will not strike a wild boar on take of so that is one worry off my mind.

True, true...but they'll still have to look out for crushing bores. There are plenty of them around to hit!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

FB ..I was looking at the accidents by year which covers all forces. As you can see it doesnt go into great detail and there are a lot of them since many were accidents that didnt result in total loss. Some losses were due to training like a pilot who ran his internal fuel dry while external tanks were full, this being not unterstanding procedures after inflight re fueling. Is landing with gear still raised lack of training or a "brain fart".

A common "brain fart" to even the most seasoned pilots!

I was struck by the number of accidents caused by UC failure mainly corrosion and worn seals but these were not so much in US operation. Budgets and environments are different.

Sometimes corrosion issues may happen to brand new components due to the operational area.

Just from memory I think the RAF lost more pilots in training for Desert Storm than on ops themselves. I drove from London to North England in Summer 1990 and the sky was full of RAF and US jets on exercise circling before landing in East anglia /Lincolnshire.

I think you'll find that may be true to many of the participants in Desert Storm.

With regards to the F 35 I am sure the Royal Navy's aircraft will not strike a wild boar on take of so that is one worry off my mind.

Spoke to my boss about F-16s, as mentioned, many years in the F-16 community. "Chief Chuck" mentioned there were engine issues in the mid-1980s where low time engines were throwing compressor blades. GE came up with a fix but that didn't prevent the loss of several aircraft throughout the world. He confirmed that there were very few maintainer induced class A incidents. The few involved FOD and improper engine buildup in the engine back shops. Your data base shows few, I bet they are less than 5% of the total class A mishaps

 

[Torch]

The F-16s problems were wiring, says so in this movie...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterburn_(film)..:-)

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The F-16s problems were wiring, says so in this movie...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterburn_(film)..:-)

See my post (87). One of a few problems.

 

[Torch]

I actually saw that movie a long time ago, wasn't bad. Basically the wife was trying to clear her test pilot husbands name after a fatal crash, shows her struggle with General Dynamics in trying to get the truth out.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I actually saw that movie a long time ago, wasn't bad. Basically the wife was trying to clear her test pilot husbands name after a fatal crash, shows her struggle with General Dynamics in trying to get the truth out.

She won 2 or 3 million but was not awarded the money because of a technicallity IIRC

 

[Torch]

hmmm didn't know that..

 

[Token]

The Chinese apparently have developed a ground based radar system that can detect stealth aircraft. So they supposedly could see an F-35 problem is, they haven't figured out how to coordinate a SAM attack against them. Probably only a question of time though. Nothing as far as I know of any air to air capability.

Sorry, this will be a long one.

This actually was not much of a "development" for the Chinese, other than now they (and many other nations) have this task as a stated goal, instead of just an ancillary fact.

Stealth technology, at least all that is public knowledge to date, has always been frequency specific. That is to say, you can't make it work for all frequencies all the time. This is well documented in the theoretical work before the first intentionally working examples, and in all relevant publications since then.

As a general statement and up to a certain point, most acknowledged stealth technologies work better at higher frequencies than at lower frequencies. For sure this is true of surface materials, such as radar ablative (or absorptive) materials, used to reduce signature. Shapes tend to work with flatter responses across a fair bandwidth, but falls on its face when dropping out of the Optical region into the Mie and then Rayleigh regions. That means shape is a good technique until the wavelength of the RF energy starts to be a significant portion of the length (along any dimension) of the target or a definable sub-section of the target.

So in designing a stealth platform you look at what systems it will face. You look at the frequency ranges of those systems. You prioritize the threats. You set Radar Cross Section (RCS) goals based on those prioritized threats and threat frequencies. You accept (edit, not "except") performance, engineering, and fiscal trade-offs to optimize your performance to the highest threats, and accept the fact that others will be less well controlled.

Shooters, things that can kill the platform, are obvious high priority threats. Many times I don't really care if you can see me or not, as long as you can't shoot me. By their nature, shooters tend to be higher frequency threats. Ground based shooters want maximum antenna gain and small beam size, for a given antenna size this means you must move the frequency up, gain is improved by either increasing antenna size or increasing frequency. Mobile systems want small, more portable, antennas. Airborne systems face obvious size constraints, again pushing towards higher frequencies for similar performance. Missiles have a very finite frontal section, again pushing frequency up for acceptable antenna performance.

So you can determine the precise frequency range of known threats (via ELINT) and the general lower frequency limit of probable yet-to-be designed systems.

Behind shooters in the threat list would probably be high precision ground or airborne tracking systems that hand off to shooters. They similarly want small beams for that high precision, again pushing freq up, although maybe not as high as the shooters.

And of least threat would be the early warning radars. Radars that can't do anything to you, but can tell the target you are on the way. For several reasons these radars are also often the lowest frequency. These radars have always been the most likely to see a stealth platform. The recent trend has been to push these radars even lower in frequency, with higher technology providing enhancements to signal processing.

What is old is new again.

When radar first started it worked at HF (High Frequency, or the shortwave bands), in 1936 the British Chain Home radars originally worked in this range. As technology rapidly advanced frequencies quickly moved up (to leverage antenna gains). By early WW II most radars were in the VHF (Very High Frequency) or higher range, with UHF and low microwave frequencies being the trend. By the end of WW II frequencies up to about 10 GHz (modern radar X band) were in use.

After WW II that was the way it went, low freqs, down to about 150 MHz but generally higher than that, for early warning, or acquisition radars, and higher freqs, up to about 20 GHz, for shooters. There were systems outside these ranges, of course, but this was a huge percentage of all radar. The Russian P-8 "Knife Rest" radar (an advancement of the P-3 "Dumbo"), developed in the late 40's from WW II experience, is an example of an early VHF radar. Its decedents, the P-12, P-18, and even the new anti-stealth family of Nebo radars, have continued in the same band. And there were always a small number of fringe "Over The Horizon Radars" (OTHR), often working at HF, for really long range targets.

Enter stealth.

Stealth technologies have been VERY affective at protecting the platform from shooters. It is very likely that now and in the future no front line aircraft, no matter how inexpensive, will be fielded without some consideration of the RCS. Some will give it a passing nod, and some will make it a priority.

This has driven radar designers back down in frequency. UHF, VHF, and HF are again in vogue. The Russians have a whole family of modern radars today developed from the original, 70+ year old, Knife Rest and Spoon Rest families. The Chinese have followed suite, sometimes exact copies and sometimes indigenous development. There are more HF OTHR systems in use around the World than ever before. The Chinese have many, and the Russians recently developed and deployed a new one called the 29B6 "Container". The US has multiple US ROTHR AN/TPS-71 radars. France, England, Iran, India, Australia, and possibly Israel, all have HF OTHRs. And the thing to remember about HF OTHRs is that, because of their low frequency and long wavelengths, they have the potential to detect stealth platforms as easily as they can detect any other target of about the same size and similar construction material.

Sure stealth can be relatively easily tracked (always could be) by some radars, and stealth has always been trackable by shooters (it is not a Klingon cloaking device), just at reduced ranges. But tracked is not the same as negated. Shooters still have to kill the platform, and as long as shooters have trouble that increases the survivability of the platform. First to sight, first to fight, or lose sight, lose fight. I don't have to be invisible, I just have to see you first, and then you lose.

Of course, I have not touched on passive or bistatic techniques…but then this post would be twice as long

T!

 

[buffnut453]

Great post Token. As you rightly observe, seeing a "stealth" aircraft is irrelevant if the air defence systems can't actually engage it.

 

[Totalize]

Token,
Very interesting comments and education. I agree they don't have to be invisible but just have to be the first one to fire.

Perhaps on the electronics side Stealth uses some type of frequency hopping technique to mask the platform's signature making it look like background noise. Construction material would be known frequency dampening/absorbing type stuff?

 

[ScreamingLighting]

And that's the main flaw with HF/VHF/UHF radars (at least to my limited knowledge) is that it requires a heavily networked system, and if one part of that system fails, then the whole thing collapses. E.G. If you destroy the huge HF/VHF/UHF radar, the shooter radar will have a very hard time seeing the target. If you destroy the shooter radar, then the HF/VHF/UHF complex will see the bandit, but will not be able to provide the resolution to guide a missile to the target. If you jam communications, then all of the units lose coherency as a fighting unit. Wouldn't exactly call it the most effective system while taking fire from anti-radiation missiles and generally in most combat scenarios. The threat presented is real, but is not the 'stealth killer' some would like you to believe. I might be wrong, if I am, please do correct me, I'm all ears.

 

[Token]

And that's the main flaw with HF/VHF/UHF radars (at least to my limited knowledge) is that it requires a heavily networked system, and if one part of that system fails, then the whole thing collapses. E.G. If you destroy the huge HF/VHF/UHF radar, the shooter radar will have a very hard time seeing the target.

Most air defense systems these days lean heavily towards an IADS (Integrated Air Defense System). You really cannot do it all with one radar (other than very local and typically short range stuff), and so most shooters rely on external queuing of some kind.

Even in WW II this was often true, targets for AA guns had to be detected, identified (so as not to shoot a friendly…if possible), and then designated (so that assets were used efficiently, if 100 guns shoot at one incoming flight, and all others are ignored that is not very good). Typically this was done by 2 or more units in coordination.

If you destroy the shooter radar, then the HF/VHF/UHF complex will see the bandit, but will not be able to provide the resolution to guide a missile to the target. If you jam communications, then all of the units lose coherency as a fighting unit. Wouldn't exactly call it the most effective system while taking fire from anti-radiation missiles and generally in most combat scenarios.

It is not really resolution that is the issue, but rather the fact that search radars and target trackers / fire control do different tasks, and in order to do them well need to be pretty specialized.

As for jamming, it is hard to jam fiber or copper direct links. So if I was designing a system I would lean on those whenever I could, field fiber especially.

HF and VHF radars are pretty immune from ARMs, typically a missile airframe does not have a large enough frontal section to support the necessary antennas for those bands. For example the current generation AGM-88 is advertised to have a lower frequency limit of about 500 MHz, well up into UHF. But that is OK, those VHF and particularly HF radars are typically not very mobile, or take a while to set up / take down, so other munitions will do them just fine.

T!

 

[buffnut453]

HF and VHF radars are pretty immune from ARMs, typically a missile airframe does not have a large enough frontal section to support the necessary antennas for those bands. For example the current generation AGM-88 is advertised to have a lower frequency limit of about 500 MHz, well up into UHF. But that is OK, those VHF and particularly HF radars are typically not very mobile, or take a while to set up / take down, so other munitions will do them just fine.

Which means they might be able to watch the F-35 coming in to drop an LGB on their radar site.

 

[gjs238]

Which means they might be able to watch the F-35 coming in to drop an LGB on their radar site.

While they're oblivious to the other F-35 illuminating the target.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Great accurate info guys! Everyone thinks (especially armchair generals) that stealth aircraft will operate solely on their own merits and detractors have tried to discredit the concept based on "stealth" being built into the aircraft alone. I was on the F-117 program early in the program and remember someone saying "the article is invisible to radar" and immediately an engineer correcting him saying, "It's not invisible, just hard to see on radar." Combine that with ECM and you complete the circle.

 

[gjs238]

Great accurate info guys! Everyone thinks (especially armchair generals) that stealth aircraft will operate solely on their own merits and detractors have tried to discredit the concept based on "stealth" being built into the aircraft alone. I was on the F-117 program early in the program and remember someone saying "the article is invisible to radar" and immediately an engineer correcting him saying, "It's not invisible, just hard to see on radar." Combine that with ECM and you complete the circle.

Do you think the retirement of the F-117 was more due to budget cuts than anything else?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Do you think the retirement of the F-117 was more due to budget cuts than anything else?

Yes - and paying for the F-22 and F-35

 

[buffnut453]

Which makes perfect sense. For all the bruhaha over the F-35, the F-117 simply was too limited in terms of capability.