Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Sandboxx"
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@arvont1 There isn't a $1.7 Trillion number. That's made up/guesstimate as to what acquisition, operations, and maintenance will cost into the 2070s, 50 years from now.
It would be like telling someone a particular new car is expensive because of what it will cost in gas, parts replacement, oil changes, dealer services, fender benders, and all costs for you, your kids, and grandkids who drive it in the future.
Makes you wonder what motive is involved behind those numbers.
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@Dr.Westside YF-23 represented several major risks that didn't exist with the proposed F-22A, which were already solved on YF-22 out of the gate.
1. YF-23 PAVs cracked several windscreens during sustained supersonic speeds.
2. Boundary layer diverters didn't allow speed past Mach 1.82, required a total redesign of the intake geometry.
3. Every control surface required 2 hydraulic actuators, laid on their sides.
4. Weapons bay storage and ejector racks were never solved, weapons bay was limited in AAM capacity to 5. Proposed F-23A would add another forward weapons bay, increasing the aircraft overall length even more, limiting g in pitch, yaw, and roll axes, still not reaching the 8 AAM weapons count.
YF-22 PAV1 demonstrated a classified time-to-climb record and Mach 2.2 on the same flight.
YF-22 could carry and separate 6 AAMs, while proposed F-22A would carry 8.
YF-22 could supercruise and maneuver extremely well across the regime.
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I spent 2 decades at the Air Force Flight Test Center from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, in addition to flight test assignments that took us to West Germany and UTTR. I became very familiar with aircraft recognition in the most diversely-represented airspace in the world when it comes to military aircraft, because we had everything in that area between Edwards, Plant 42, China Lake, Point Mugu, El Toro, Nellis, and Miramar.
We used to sit in the jacuzzi at night looking at the stars 2-3x per week. In 1987-1988, we started noticing a large, silent, airliner-sized aircraft with Nav lights flying into the Antelope Valley and into the landing pattern at AF Plant 42 in Palmdale.
This was a fairly-common occurrence, but I could never make out the shape other than the Nav lights.
Maybe it was YB-2A flights pre roll-out, but it was silent, about that size.
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@bigearl3867 There was no cut in defense spending, but reallocation of F-22 money to MRAPs.
USAF did not go along with it, as multiple USAF Chiefs of Staff literally sacrificed their careers trying to save the Raptor, and were fired.
They also knew and explained to Congress that not replacing F-15Cs with F-22s would cost more in the long run, and leave a fighter gap as F-15s built from 1979-1986 would time-out their airframe service lives, requiring billions in SLEP and sensor upgrades.
SECDEF Gates was on a mission to kill the F-22, and it had nothing to do with money.
The F-22 was going to be forward-deployed in Europe (UK, Germany, and other bases) to the tune of 200 aircraft.
Same for in the Pacific out of Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, and Guam. CONUS fighter squadrons along the coast would regularly rotate through Europe and the Pacific for Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises like we have always done.
This would have given Theater Combatant Commanders the no-BS capability to erase any air force in those regions.
This is why the Russians and Chinese wanted Obama to keep SECDEF Gates on after Bush43, to see to it that the Raptor program was terminated politically before it could go into Full-Rate Production.
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@termitreter6545 F-35A current production lot is $77.9m. F-35B and C are more, but nothing is even remotely-close to $250m even in unit program cost.
Unit flyaway is the air vehicle engine combo.
Unit program is that plus spares, pylons, LAUs, ejector racks, support equipment, simulators, and a weapons package of AAMs, JDAMs, and whatever the customer orders, so unit program costs are elastic.
US average unit program costs projected for 2456 JSF airframes will be $157-$162m each with all the extras. That's less than Rafale F4 unit flyaway cost with no weapons right now (213€ million per India deal).
F-16E/F UAE Desert Falcons were $200m each unit program from 2005-2008.
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@Brian Waas As soon as the USMC saw how capable their F-35Bs and Cs were, they retired their EA-6Bs. F-35s in Israel, USMC, USAF, and RAF have been in combat since 2017, to include strike missions, ISR, Defensive Counter-Air, Interceptor, and Airborne Warning & Control.
Unit Costs on F-35As are lower than Gripen E, Rafale, and Typhoon.
Every single pilot with combat experience in 4th Gen fighters who transitioned to F-35 said they would absolutely take the F-35 into combat over the legacy birds, which are laughable in comparison. What is it that they know and understand that you don't? Start there and work up from that point.
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@Brian Waas The A-6 doesn't have better maneuverability in any flight regime than an F-35. This is one of the most preposterous claims I've heard to-date, and I've seen a lot of grossly-uninformed people commenting on F-35 over the years.
If you ever look at a combat-configured F-16, F/A-18, F-15C, Su-27/30/35, or MiG-29, they're carrying all kinds of external stores that create parasitic drag and reduce their speed and maneuverability.
All of them also have huge RCSs, so they show up in the JSF MADL web either on the ground, or shortly after take-off hundreds of km before they get into their WEZ profiles.
They're being tracked, PID'd, and enter into missile solutions before they realize it. They don't receive any spike or missile approach warning because of AESA LPI, fused passive sensors, and cooperative LPI midcourse data link guidance.
Their only notification of being targeted is the Mach 4 missile coming down through their airframe, igniting their fuel and sending their airframe into various flaming chunks of falling metal.
That's literally your missile warning when you're up against 5th Gen.
The F-35s fly faster and maneuver as well or better when combat-configured compared to F-16s and Hornets. A combat-configured F-16 won't even touch Mach 1.5 and a Hornet is lucky to hit Mach 1.2 when configured.
If you go faster in the Su-27/30/35, you just cut the Time of Flight for F-35 missiles and expand the No Escape Zone parameters, all while flying blind.
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@Mr.mysterious76 The planned acquisition budget for all 3 US services combined over the life of the program is around $400 billion for 2,456 airframes, support equipment, logistics, simulators, etc.
That’s an average unit program cost of $162.8 million per airframe, which is right about the unit flyaway cost for Rafales and Typhoons. Their unit program costs are well over $210 million per airframe.
Unit flyaway is just the aircraft + motor. Unit program cost includes spares, pylons, ladders, storage racks, test equipment, new logistics to maintain the aircraft, a basic weapons package, ejector racks, etc. Unit program costs vary a lot based on what weapons are bought in that fiscal year to accompany the fighter purchases.
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@brrrtnerd2450 I grew up watching them flying with AIM-9Js, then Ls, then Ms, so when I saw them start to fly later Block Vipers with -120s on the tips, I wondered what was going on. I first thought it was some kind of optimum stores management approach under the assumption that if they fired AIM-120s first, it would make the aircraft more maneuverable, but it was in fact due to the SFC and better performance with them there all the time. It’s counter-intuitive. They usually fly with 3x AIM-120C7s, 1 AIM-9X, and whatever A2G weapons on stations 3 & 7, either HARMs or GBU-12s, sometimes multiple GBU-12s on TERs.
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@techtical7079 Read what high hour Viper pilots have said once they converted to F-35A regarding BFM. Same with legacy Hornet pilots who converted to F-35B or C. Once they learn to use the 28°/sec yaw rate and the vertical, it's over for a combat-configured F-16 or Hornet, not that they would realistically merge anyway.
A lot of people make the mistake of viewing airshow demos of slick, stripped-down fighters flown by demo pilots.
Even after you jettison external fuel tanks and bombs, you still have an 800lb ECM pod, 455lb FLIR Pod, pylons, and 4 or more missiles on the LAUs. F-16CM will also have the HARM Targeting System Pod.
All of those things are heavy and draggy, noticeably reducing aerodynamic and kinematic performance.
An F-35 with internal bombs and missiles will still out-climb, out-rate, and get solutions on you first if for some crazy reason it allowed you near it.
They rarely do BFM in post E-Jett configuration, outside of Fighter Weapons School in USAF. WIC emphasizes combat configurations, which is why the F-22 and F-35 are what they are.
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@carlosamigosAUS Su-35S already is the standard for upgrading Su-27SM3 and Su-30SM2 for common Irbis-E PESA Radar, glass cockpit using Western electronics, common data link, and improved performance engines.
The Irbis-E is easily outclassed by the Rafale F4's tiny AESA, which is easily out-classed by the AESAs in the F-15C+, F-15E+, F-22A, and F-35s.
Super Flankers are literally at the bottom of the pile when it comes to modern fighter Radars, electronics, and overall systems, while also having huge RCSs.
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There are F-16XL test pilot reports openly published now. They loved the performance and handling, but all complained about the loss of T/W ratio. It had longer legs than anything except the Vark. The USAF fighter culture was heavily focused on the new capabilities of the F-15 and F-16, with pilots rating fighters by how well they could retain energy and execute excellent climb rate, as well as improved visibility from the teen series cockpits. HOTAS was also a new thing and a big deal, since many had F-4 experience to compare and contrast against. The XL was seen as a step backwards in the energy department when it came to turns, but was better at straight and level flight than the others. You didn’t need to touch burner to refuel when combat-configured like you do in a Viper.
The big pluses with the XL were combat radius and stores per sortie. You could service multiple TGT sites and TGT sets in a single sortie and still have tons of station time without need to refuel. If half of the F-16s in Desert Storm were F-16XLs, it would have increased the amount of deliverable ordnance in a much lower overall sortie count, which could have cut the length of the bombing campaign down. In combat configuration on an F-16A or F-16C, you only really have 2 primary mission-relevant weapons stations available. Every single other station is occupied with ECM, FLIR, or EFTs, plus AAMs for self-defense or rare opportunistic A2A TGTs that somehow slipped through the Grey Eagle’s claws.
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@kermittoad Gripen E estimated unit flyaway was $85m in 2015 before it even went into production. Saab refuses to say what the unit flyaway cost is. $85m in 2015 is $107.29m in 2023.
Since all the weapon stations but 2 require pylons, and Gripen is an antiquated legacy design, its unit program costs are higher. Here's why:
Lack of systems integration requires external fuel, Recce, FLIR, targeting, decoy, and other combat systems to be attached to weapons stations. FLIR and Recce pods are millions of dollars/Euros each.
So now you have a more expensive unit base price with added millions worth of pods, for less capability than an F-35 with all its FLIR, EW, targeting, and sensors integrated as a baseline without sacrificing any weapons stations.
Weapons stations on F-35s only carry....weapons.
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@Fng_1975 I lived through all of this and closely followed the development of the F-14 from the 1970s onward, so there’s no confusion over here. I wasn’t in a NAVAIR community, but in the AFFTC side, but we were always going to China Lake and Point Mugu was right nearby as well. Hornet pilots flying as impromptu aggressors within the Air Wing setting up attacks against the carrier group have stated that it was pretty easy to slip past F-14/AWG-9 coverage. APG-71 had the multimode features since it was basically the same Radar as in the Mudhen, but with some additional features specific to Navy requirements. My family did a lot of work on F-15E APG-70 systems integration with various weapons, developing the various modes and expanded employment capabilities in the early days of that program, right after we did AIM-120 integration and certain IFF features on the F-16C at Edwards.
Baby Hornets were never meant to replace the Tomcat, nor did they. They replaced the F-4J/N/S and A-7E. Super Bug replaced the F-14 and A-6E, which was definitely a compromise. F-35C is not a compromise relative to the F-14D in any metric. F-35C can execute deep strike into the MEZ where no Tomcat could ever go, and prosecute a longer mission radius in any mission set, to include Fleet Air Defense. F-35C creates a whole new level of networked Fleet Defense while simultaneously contributing to maritime patrol, ISTAR, and ASW.
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