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Subject: F-35 news thread III
jessmo_24    1/12/2011 7:23:24 AM
BF-2s 1st vertical landing. *ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS3ngl1GcaI&feature=player_embedded NAVAIRSYSCOM 10 Jan 2011 "F-35B test aircraft BF-2 accomplishes its first vertical landing and conversion back to normal flight mode at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The integrated test team is testing both the STOVL and carrier variants of the F-35 for delivery to the fleet. Video courtesy Lockheed Martin."
 
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keffler25       6/25/2015 7:53:37 PM
Topic polluted by the troll. Sorry about that, Jessmo. Keep the news coming anyway. Valuable service.
 
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keffler25       6/25/2015 7:55:09 PM
LGBs.  

Whats the answere here? Is it hypersonics, or a crap load of SDB? The SDB could not have come at a better time.

And I wouldnt be surprised if the next generation of Bomb will weight in at 100Lbs.

I could easily see a GPS INS guided precision 100LB Bomb carrid at 10 a rack versus the SDBs 4 a rack

Such a weapon with glide characteristics would be great for saturaing soft targets and point defenses.

IMO the future is in mach 5+ high speed penetrator weapons, ( even if delivered from space) and low end\

SON of SDB types.

 
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jessmo_24       6/26/2015 12:18:55 AM
Keffler,
 
That wont solve the issue. To use LGBs you need to be in LOS of the target, which limits stand off range.
That is the gist of the article. We Have plenty of jadams and laser jdams. But they can be shot down, and you have to get notoriously close to use them.
 
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keffler25       6/26/2015 9:37:14 AM
Modern American LGB kits have an INS and a clock installed . No problem hitting anything 'reasonably accurately' from long range. They have to be shot down. Good luck with that, kimosabe..    

Keffler,

 

That wont solve the issue. To use LGBs you need to be in LOS of the target, which limits stand off range.

That is the gist of the article. We Have plenty of jadams and laser jdams. But they can be shot down, and you have to get notoriously close to use them.

 
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jessmo_24       6/26/2015 7:07:07 PM
Systems like TOR, iron dome, and land based phalx type Point defense systems?
 
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keffler25       6/26/2015 7:40:32 PM
You'd need a particle beam weapon or an 85% PK SAM to try. And the attack munitions are much cheaper than the defensive missiles. I'll take that exchange and count myself very happy. Guided bombs are easy for us to make, effective interceptors for our enemies are not.   
Systems like TOR, iron dome, and land based phalx type
Point defense systems?

 
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jessmo_24       6/27/2015 2:23:55 AM
And what about a gun based, CIWS? Does the Tor M-1 ( or another Russian point defense vehicle) Have a Gun based last ditch system? Remember they are using Iron dome to shoot down artillary rockets.
 
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jessmo_24       6/27/2015 2:24:27 AM
DRFM defeated By AESA
 
Air Marshal Brown: I think if you have a look around on an F16 sometimes that is not wonderful either. But getting back to the situational awareness, the ability to actually have that data fusion that the aeroplane has makes an incredible difference to how you perform in combat. I saw it first hand on a Red Flag mission in an F15D against a series of fifth-generation F22s. We were actually in the red air. In five engagements we never knew who had hit us and we never even saw the other aeroplane at any one particular time. That is a current fourth-generation aeroplane.
The data fusion in the stealth makes such a difference to your overall situational awareness it is quite incredible. After that particular mission I went back and had a look at the tapes on the F22, and the difference in the situational awareness in our two cockpits was just so fundamentally different. That is the key to fifth-generation. That is where I have trouble with the APA analysis. They tend to go down particular paths in the aeroplane, whether it is turn rate performance or acceleration. These are all important factors, but it is a combination of what you have actually got in the jet and the situational awareness that is resident in the cockpit of a fifth-generation aeroplane that makes the fundamental difference…

To me that is key: it is not only stealth; it is the combination of the EOS and the radar to be able to build a comprehensive picture. In that engagement I talked about at Nellis, in Red Flag, the ability to be in a cockpit with a God's-eye view of what is going on in the world was such an advantage over a fourth-generation fighter—and arguably one of the best fourth-generation fighters in existence, the F15. But even with a DRFM jamming pipe, we still had no chance in those particular engagements. And at no time did any of the performance characteristics that you are talking about have any relevance to those five engagements .
 
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jessmo_24       6/27/2015 2:33:55 AM
The IDF announced in April 2011 that the Iron Dome battery deployed in Be’er Sheba intercepted two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip at night. However, beyond the initial investment, at issue is the cost asymmetry between improvised rockets at maybe $500 a pop vs. intercepts estimated to cost $50K+ each. More broadly, which approach to take for missile defense has been a subject of intense debate in Israel for years. This cost vs. benefit public discussion is still very much alive.
 
Iron Dome Missile 50K
 
I dont have access to a decent search engine atm ( work) But Im sure Paveway, and jdam are over 50K
 
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jessmo_24       6/27/2015 4:34:30 AM
Under the F135 Block Upgrade Plan, a series of initial ‘Block 1’ improvements might potentially be available for new-production examples and for retrofit into existing ones from as early as 2018. Then a second series of AETD project-derived, more substantial ‘Block 2’ improvements could be put “into production in the very early 2020s”, depending on “funding and the requirement pool”, according to Kenyon.Although Kenyon points out this plan is “not part of the F135 programme proper”,
he said “it is an opportunity looking ahead to demonstrate fuel-burn cost savings” to F-35 operators – and particularly to the US Navy, with which P&W is working to try to get the Block 1 F135 upgrades into production within the next few years.

The Block 1 upgrades rely partly on development work that P&W carried out for a demonstration in autumn 2013 for the navy’s XTE68-LF1 project. This focused on demonstrating a capability for higher operating temperatures in the F135’s turbine and introduced a variety of new technologies into the engine’s high-pressure turbine (HPT) module. These improvements, which Kenyon described as “advanced cooling technologies”, included new casting technologies for metal- alloy parts; new, highly temperature-resistant HPT materials; new thermal barrier coatings for HPT blades and vanes; more temperature- resistant oils for lubricating and cooling; and a new main shaft bearing. He said P&W’s XTE68-LF1 demonstration in autumn 2013 was “tremendously successful” – so successful that it recorded “the hottest-ever temperature in a production engine”.
P&W has parlayed this successful demonstration into another F135 development initiative on which it is working with the US Navy, called the Fuel Burn Reduction (FBR)programme.

FBR has married the HPT technologies from the XTE68-LF1 demonstration with a series of improvements to the F135’s six-stage, all-blisk compressor to produce an engine offering a fuel-burn reduction of “about 5% – and we’ve identified another couple of opportunities to give [another] 1%-2% of fuel-burn improvement”, said Kenyon. However, saying the XTE68-LF1 and FBR technologies would just reduce fuel burn only in production F135s would be inaccurate: the technologies would also offer other improvements. “TheJPO(F-35Joint Programme Office) and navy are both focused on [engine] life-cycle cost and they need to have the technology working reliably,” said Kenyon. An important feature of the XTE68-LF1 and FBR advanced cooling technologies is that “you need less air to do the cooling [in the HPT] and you can use it more to do other things, with the cooling capability already in the engine. We’re using low-lying fruit to get better thermal management,” he said.

“Right now I’m going to insert this nice cooling technology into my turbine because it helps with [life-cycle] cost [by making the engine more durable], but I could use it to generate more thrust” – perhaps up to 10% more, making the F135 capable of meeting any foreseeable F-35 thrust-growth requirement.

There is no doubt about this. During its original ground-testing effort for the F135, P&W ran an unimproved engine at thrust levels of up to 51,000lb in uninstalled configuration (ie without any accessory gearboxes or drives drawing power from the engine). This suggested that, even on an installed basis, the F135 had several thousand pounds of additional thrust available if necessary, if run at high temperatures.

Kenyon pointed out that, although the F-35 airframe has had heat-retention issues, “right now, there are no thermal restrictions with the engine”. In-service F135s are operating within the specifications required by the JPO and presumably could be operated at a higher maximum temperature as long as the F-35 airframe could withstand and dump the additional heat burden.
F-135 block 1
 
 
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