There must be some advantages for using them, not quite sure off the top of my head. But the carriers will not be fitted with arrester wires and catapults, they have an inbuilt provision for them so as to make them future proof as they are expected to last 50 years.
All i can make out though is that the carriers could be fitted to take the conventional F-35 which has greater fuel capacity and mounting the gun in the airframe as opposed to a pod. The RAF may have a more appropriate use when proper airfields arn't available but there's no advantage i can make out for the Navy.
The F-22 is much larger for a start
and was designed from the ground up to be the absolute best in the world at what it does, at a time('81) when America was throwing money at defence, fearing the ruskies coming over the hill at any moment. Very little has been compromised for the sake of cost effectiveness. The F-35 is a consumer product at the end of the day and will eventually be sold all around around the world, just as the F-16 is today, price is a big factor. Don't be fooled though, neither anywhere near the realms of 'cheap'.
EDIT: Seems the site I pilfered the image from has a very technical answer to the OP http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0216.shtml Worth a read
Last edited by chuckskull; 19-07-2009 at 10:53 PM.
samcross (19-07-2009)
It's not entirely accurate though - the site seems to suggest this Hi/Lo strategy and the planes for it were planned from the start.. I thought the reality was they blew stupid amounts of money on the F15 because they'd seem some data about the Mig 25 and thought it was a super-plane that did ludicrous speeds and would just eat anything they could come up with.. when in fact it was a dedicated short flight interceptor that manouvered like a cow. By the time the myth was exploded it was too late so they were stuck with a really expensive and hard to maintain aircraft that happened to be really easy for SAMs to lock onto. Hence need for a simpler, cheaper aircraft that could be operated in remote theatres more easily and the light-weight fighter tender. The F16 won that competition and was chosen by the air force, but the YF17 that lost was still good enough that the Navy chose an aircraft based on it, the F18, for themselves to replace (not work alongside) the F14.
The F22 is the replacement for the F15, but hopefully less easy to shoot down with SAMs, while the LWF concept continues with the JSF and the F35 replaces the F16/18 (and AV8B).
why do you think that the F-15 is very easy to shoot down with SAMs?
I know of nothing that says that it's any worse than any other conventional aircraft (& indeed given it's manoeuvrability & countermeasures it's probably better than most).
The F-16 was originally designed partly with a view to being a cheap daytime fighter for export to friendly nations (same role as the F-5 had performed ).
& yet I'm not sure that even 1 has been shot down by a SAM* (groundfire, yes) .
On the other hand F-16s have been, Tornados have been (partly due to their operating level at the time) etc. etc. but F-15s tend to operate at medium - high altitude anyway.
quick check suggests that they lost 1 -E in Desert Storm to a SAM but I still haven't found an A/B/C/D loss.
Medium-high altitude is fine for SAMs, but the reason there aren't more losses is because they tend to avoid flying them over any area that has decent SAM coverage.
what's decent SAM cover?
with man portable SAMs they are pretty pervasive & all you need is 1 ...
Medium - high altitude gives more to time/options to react to a threat & is more likely to be a radar guided SAM hence affected by countermeasures - at low level with a modern SAM an engagement can be under 2 seconds (e.g. Starstreak will travel 2.5K in 2 seconds). Not long to identify & react to the threat especially as you will have fewer options due to ground proximity.
Can you cite your sources that the USAF were especially terrified of SAMs re. F-15s before/during the Gulf wars?
Very few F-15's have been lost to enemy fire over the years. The USAF is very proud of the fact none of theirs has ever been taken down in air to air combat. Not to mention they are a very solid plane with a huge wing area, one israeli F-15 landed safely with only one wing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1KBQ96_DI
It's not the fact that F-15's in particular are easy to shoot down with SAM's but that generally you find out where SAM sites are once you're in their range and if the guy pressing the buttons has any brains he will only turn it on if he thinks he can kill you. Along with many nations possessing man portable SAM's. The first thing you'll know about a SAM is often lots of beeping(Assuming your plane is newer than their SAM) or a smoke trail, and of course at this point the missile is in the air and coming toward you a great rate of knots.
They are just about every pilots worst nightmare. You can't see them on radar, they are usually portable, easily concealed and incredibly difficult to engage without specialised weaponry and electronic warfare capabilities(HARM or wild weasel units). Without those, most pilots only have afterburners, G's, personal skill and prayer as a defence.
Last edited by chuckskull; 20-07-2009 at 06:36 PM.
the typhoon can't easily be navalised - the arrestor hook is far land operations, and it is not just the landing gear that needs to be strengthen but the entire airframe - landing on a carrier is a controlled crash.
The Royal Navy are going down the F-35B (VSTOL) route because of commonality with the RAF who want VSTOL. As the amount we will likely buy will be tiny (barely enough to fill the carriers) any if not all the airgroup on the carriers will be RAF planes
re: SAMs, the sams that shot down tornados etc in the 1st Gulf War were afaik low level sams - low level flight gives far less time to evade. Longer ranged/high level sams are radar guided, and even before launch a pilot will know if they have been detected due to search radars. Plus as radar frequencies get know jamming etc against them gets better they are negated somewhat. Iraq's air defence system was seen as a highly dangerous one in GW1 but with various means it was largely negated.
Of course the MIG25 formed the basis of the MIG31 which had the first production airborne phased array radar. Anyway it was used mostly to plug gaps in the Soviet radar chain and for the interception of bombers neither of which required much maneuverability.
The F16 was developed primarily since the F15 was a complex and very expensive fighter to purchase and the F4 could not be replaced on a one to one basis. The F16 used one of the engines found in the F15 and was originally developed as a very maneuverable day only fighter-bomber. The original F16A and F16B did not have the ability to guide radar guided missiles like the AIM7 Sparrow as early versions of the APG66 could not do so and the airframe was made with very little exotic materials like titanium to cut down on costs. Only with the arrival of the F16A ADF conversions in the late 1980s and the F16C could the F16 actually use the AIM7 and AIM120.
It will interesting to see the Russian PAK-FA when it does fly(hopefully within the next two years). It was sad that the Mig 1.42 demonstrator only had a few test flights.
The Russians did so with the Su27 and the Su33 naval derivative uses STOBAR. The SU27 is a bigger aircraft than the Typhoon so I do not see why it should be an issue. In fact the French have a naval version of the Rafale already so we could always get that instead. After all the Naval Lynx and Jaguar had French involvement so I would see no issues there too.
I do agree that the reason the RN is buying the VSTOL is due to the RAF requirement as it would be easier to maintain less types and also per unit cost would drop for a larger buy too.
The F-35 is also stealth capable, which while not particularly useful for the current counter insurgency efforts it's a very nice string to have in your bow none the less.
Regarding portable SAMs, helicopters have very effective counter measures. In fact, they seem to be so effective, that the launcher can't get a lock and are sometimes found left disbanded. The defensive suite in most aircraft is automatic, so when it picks up a missile threat, its type is identified and the appropriate counter-measure is launched (chaff/flares) almost instantly. The system can be fooled though by false readings; better safe than sorry though I guess!
Mainly because it was the US/UK that sold them the system, so we knew exactly what frequencies it used and how best to counter it!
The French were originally in the Eurofighter program, but wanted a carrier capable aircraft which the other nations did not want; so they left and created their own (the Rafale, which looks quite similiar to the Typhoon). However, they did have to extend their carrier (Charles de Gaule) in order for it to work.
While this is true of most recent conflicts we've been involved in, this only because the enemies involved were using outdated(usually early cold war era) equipment we had already figured out how to beat or as you rightly pointed out weapons we sold them, obviously the vast majority of those completely combat ineffective against our own forces.
Newer systems developed by friendly and not so friendly countries pose a much larger threat, CLOS and beam riding systems are incredibly hard to effectively counter. Many using multiple guidance systems and ECCM.
Just like every other weapon, it's an arms race, you develop a new weapon, someone develops a new protection and the cycle continues.
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