F-35 May Never Be Ready for Combat

a reply to: yuppa

Exaggerates? Awwww.
www.veteranstoday.com...

It is no secret to most of you that “bad space guys” have been visiting earth. In fact, the only crazy part is the number of films that try to depict off world or interdimensional civilizations as having any human characteristics at all.

Quite the rant, actually.

originally posted by: Blackfinger

Director of Operational Test and Evaluation

Says it all...

LOL D.O.T.E.. I get it.

a reply to: yuppa let us see...can you apply your reasoning to the Vincennes firing on that Iranian commercial airliner ?
and how can the su24 not be a threat, obviously a planned manuever with high cover. the aegis clearly can take out multiple targets, so the Cook must immediatly begin taking out the cover... several other aircraft carrying antiship missiles.
my guess, they did not fire on the su24 because the could not and could not target high cover craft.
Knocking veterans today is easy if you dont read much of what they say.. there are over 20 experience writers there and some editors, making the posting of Sorcha Faal level content much less likely there, but a daily occurance on ATS.

Now FredT had some really good points, i will have to think a bit before responding. but my first response is that say the f22 can be seen 13 miles out, but my view...only with active suppression from computer controlled 30 element skin array. otherwise...it may be visible more than 100 miles out because those dead antennas are going to be good reflectors of attack frequencies. go refresh your antenna theory with the ARRL handbook.

a reply to: darkstar57

Your guess is wrong. Do you know how many times Soviet and Russian aircraft have maneuvered around US ships that did absolutely nothing? The Vincennes fired on the Iranian aircraft because it was considered a threat. It was in a high threat area, where multiple ships (civilian and military) had been hit by missiles in recent months, and about a year after the Stark was hit by an antiship missile, and within months of another ship hitting a mine. Tensions with Iran were high, and the crew mistook the aircraft for an F-14.

There have been no incidents even remotely close to what happened in Iran that would have caused tensions to be high enough for the crew to fire on the Su-24. Flying around them doesn't cut it. They were in international waters, which means the Su-24 had the right to do anything short of firing on them that it wanted to. As long as it didn't do anything that put the ship in danger, they weren't going to shoot at it. We're not at war.

As for Veteran's Today, again, the article tracks back to a single source, from their site. That means they took it from another site and reposted it. And if you read anything about the guy behind the site, he says that "50% of what he writes is a lie so that they don't kill him for posting the truth". You might think they're a great source, but they suck. There isn't a shred of evidence that the Cook left the area for anything other than a routine transfer back out. They don't stay on site for months at a time, unless they're part of a carrier group. They make port calls, and transfer in and out of areas.

Just because an aircraft has antennas doesn't mean that it has active stealth systems. Again, they have to transmit and receive data, which means they need antennas to do so. Almost all of the stealth on any given aircraft is from shaping and materials, not active systems. If the only way that the F-22 was going to get that close by using active systems, they'd have a lot more than 30 antennas to cover the entire aircraft.

Maybe you should have read the Wiki page better about the 30 antennas you keep saying are active stealth systems.

The RWR is a passive radar detector with more than 30 antennas blended into the wings and fuselage for all-round coverage.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: darkstar57

Zaph is 100% correct, firing in a non threat situation is just not done, there are multiple levels of safeguards to prevent these types of foreign aircraft "buzzing" incidents from escalating into anything more serious.

The Russians are doing similar things all over the world, as are the Chinese. From the North see, through to the south China sea it's all just a bit of posturing.

In a real threat situation, that Su24 would have been scrap metal long before it got within visual range... simple as that

a reply to: TheBogmonster

Not to mention all the times our aircraft have been intercepted in crazy ways, that weren't shot at. There was a P-8 the other day that was intercepted and they closed to within 10 feet during the intercept. No shots fired. You don't just shoot at someone unless there's a valid threat, or an active war going on.

a reply to: darkstar57

See ZAPHODS post. he explpains it way better. I totally agree with his thoughts.

a reply to: Zaphod58 I read the RWR passage in wikipedia, and that is why i insist that once electronic management of the antenna array is lost, the f22 is naked as those 4 plastic trump statues posted by the killery gang.
Now imagine you are a 3 gig radio wave, 10 cm long, minding your own biz and making an EM field. but you run into two 5 cm pieces of wire (an antenna) with a radio amp at the junction...so suddenly you transition to a positive charge (left piece) and a neg charge right piece, and the radio amp sees the voltage, and absorbs the voltage while running it through capacitors, inductors etc. But wait...you have an expensive mil spec 10 gig cpu analyzing the signal...and making stealthy decisions. what it does will be tottally classified.
but wait . what happens if the radio amp is down, the electrical signal is still there. but hit a road block. the hams called it SWR. its going to return to the EM form.
And the antenna is not going to be covered by a rf absorbant coating...unless they have a coating that can alternately block then transmit RF.
That tiny reflected signal is just what the opponent is looking for.
Now, on the Vincennes downing cause it was in a high threat area.. Is that not exactly what the Black sea area is???? the Cook incident was ap 12, 2014, Crimea, Istanbul Ankara, Romania, (now home of maybe 10 nukes from Incirlik), are nearby. Brennan in Ukraine the 14th encouraging mercs to attack Russians. and the Cook did promptly retire to Romania, according to CBS...
That the f35 or f22 are jaybird naked without computer control of the antenna arrays is one of the way above top secret pentagon secrets. and a stealth coating and configuration will not hide SWR reflection, far as I know.

a reply to: darkstar57

You have absolutely no clue what RWR is. It has nothing to do with stealth, and can be found on everything from F-15s, to C-5s. It's a passive radar detection system that tells pilots when radar energy is hitting the aircraft. It can tell if it's an airborne or ground based radar, if it's ground based, the type of SAM it is if it's part of a SAM unit, the type of radar it is, if it's airborne, it can tell if it's a missile radar or aircraft radar, and where the threat is in relation to the receiver. It's been around since Vietnam. It's no different in the F-22, except that it's digital, and is more capable. The AN/ALR-94 has a longer detection range than the radar on the F-22 has, and it can steer the radar towards potential threats. There are classified aspects of RWR, but nothing that would have anything to do with an F-22 being stealthy or not.

The RWR usually has a visual display somewhere prominent in the cockpit (in some modern aircraft, in multiple locations in the cockpit) and also generates audible tones which feed into the pilot's (and perhaps RIO/co-pilot/GIB's in a multi-seat aircraft) headset. The visual display often takes the form of a circle, with symbols displaying the detected radars according to their direction relative to the current aircraft heading (i.e. a radar straight ahead displayed at the top of the circle, directly behind at the bottom, etc.). The distance from the center of the circle, depending on the type of unit, can represent the estimated distance from the generating radar, or to categorize the severity of threats to the aircraft, with tracking radars placed closer to the center than search radars. The symbol itself is related to the type of radar or the type of vehicle that carries it, often with a distinction made between ground-based radars and airborne radars. Audible tones are usually assigned to each type of threat or type of radar and are fairly distinctive. The more serious the threat, the more shrill the tone[citation needed]. For example, an active missile seeker might be represented by a high pitched, almost continuous trill, whereas the radar of an obsolete fighter type or SAM system might be a low pitched, intermittent buzz.

The typical airborne RWR system consists of multiple wideband antennas placed around the aircraft which receive the radar signals. The receiver periodically scans across the frequency band and determines various parameters of the received signals, like frequency, signal shape, direction of arrival, pulse repetition frequency, etc. By using these measurements, the signals are first deinterleaved to sort the mixture of incoming signals by emitter type. These data are then further sorted by threat priority and displayed.

The RWR is used for identifying, avoiding, evading or engaging threats. For example, a fighter aircraft on a combat air patrol (CAP) might notice enemy fighters on the RWR and subsequently use its own radar set to find and eventually engage the bandit. In addition, the RWR helps identify and classify threats—it's hard to tell[citation needed] which blips on a radar console-screen are dangerous, but since different fighter aircraft typically have different types of radar sets, once they turn them on and point them near the aircraft in question it may be able to tell, by the direction and strength of the signal, which of the blips is which type of fighter.

en.wikipedia.org...

As for the Black Sea, no it's not a high threat area, like the Gulf was at the time of the shootdown of Iran Air. In the Gulf a US warship had already been hit by antiship missiles, ships had hit mines, tankers had been hit and damaged in attacks, or taken by militants. Show me any of those things happening in the Black Sea.

Again, when operating alone ships are only in an area for a short time, before transiting. They went to Romania, and made a port call, and then rotated with another ship that was coming to the area. Perfectly normal rotation.

Hey zaph does the tr3b have a RWR system? And can that russian gizmo knock her down?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

I think the Tr3b has a ID10T system.
And you'd have to be Russian to mess with it.

a reply to: grey580

Maybe they can attract some of the piper/cessna market?

Ensuring that the antenna's themselves are stealthy is part of the antenna design. Special care must also be taken when integrating an antenna into a stealthy aircraft. Google "antenna RCS reduction". Stealth aircraft need careful sensor design to ensure a low RCS.

An easy to spot example with with AESA radars. They are usually tilted upwards by several degrees when mounted in fighter aircraft. Google "AN/APG-81". iirc, the radome is typically made of frequency selective materials, so the shape of the array itself is extremely important.

a reply to: darkstar57

Lol CBS.. they are as reliable as RT for truth these days.

a reply to: darkstar57

My point about any antenna, even disconnected, is that it will echo its favored wavelength making stealth impossible. citing military acronyms is not convincing. Here is a little home experiment if you have a wifi router and spare antennas. place your laptop where the wifi antenna cannot see the router...like it is on a metal table or in an open microwave oven (faraday cage) then place the spare antenna where it can see the router and the pc. you will see the signal strength go up on the pc.
now imagine that spare antenna on an f22. think it through.
now about the black sea not being a threat zone like the waters around Iran.
You have heard of Aleppo for instance and the Russian port at Tartus, and their airbase at Hmeimim? and their launch of cruise missles from a vessel in the black sea hitting ISIS targets? you notice how close Incirlik airbase is to Aleppo? And how many air missions launched from there, including two su24s apparently chased by two f22s over northern Syria?

You want to stick with that statement about the black sea not being a threat zone????

a reply to: grey580

I heard the russian version of the tr3b has a breathalyzer built in before you can power it up.

Any tr3b spinning wildly is russian. And theres nothing wrong with the craft its self.

a reply to: darkstar57

Yes, I do, because I didn't say it wasn't a threat zone, I said it wasn't a HIGH threat zone. Even with the Russian bases unless Russia is going to get trigger happy and shoot at them while they're there, it's still a much lower threat than the Gulf. Once again, name ONE TIME a ship was hit by a missile or a mine in the Black Sea like it was happening in the Gulf around the time the Iran Air plane was shot down. It is an increased threat area but nowhere near the level of the Gulf.

As for the antennas you can dance and move the goalposts all you want but you're still wrong. They have a physical coating on them that dampens reflectivity while allowing signals to be registered, just as the airframe does. So how are you planning to stop that from working? It's 100% passive so once again how do you plan on stopping passive systems from working?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

russian tr3b runs on vodka.

the breathalyzer is to make sure the pilot is properly intoxicated.

a reply to: grey580

Oh my! now another version of that awesome craft! It must be the TR3V (name code: triple vodka)

Returning to the OP, the fact is that when you try to do such a multirole-multiservice platform you end up with terribly contradictory parameters of design, having to do trade-offs from every perspective.
Initially i was a firm agnostic about it, but i must say i´m proved wrong overtime, and considering ALL that i know it can do and therefore ALL that i don´t, this aircraft is slowly becoming to show herself as a game changer. No kidding