F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
And compared to an F-18, which also has a high-alpha capability? The bad thing about that is that high-alpha tends to be instantaneous turn, which bleeds energy, a traditional strength of American fighter design.
Subsystems-wise, the problem with that is that subsystems are easier to rip off or copy than the airframe. The airframe needs to be fully-tested, whereas a subsystem is more modular. It'll be highly dependent on US defense spending to keep the subsystems fully upgraded, especially with the expansion of the Chinese R&D complex, and when your subsystems are equal to the opponent's subsystems, it'll be maneuverability and speed that determines the fight. Not good for the F-35, although as I've stated before, the F-35's air-to-air mission will be Hawkeye-centered and the best counter to the aircraft will be yet another AEW&C + stealth fighter combo.
Subsystems-wise, the problem with that is that subsystems are easier to rip off or copy than the airframe. The airframe needs to be fully-tested, whereas a subsystem is more modular. It'll be highly dependent on US defense spending to keep the subsystems fully upgraded, especially with the expansion of the Chinese R&D complex, and when your subsystems are equal to the opponent's subsystems, it'll be maneuverability and speed that determines the fight. Not good for the F-35, although as I've stated before, the F-35's air-to-air mission will be Hawkeye-centered and the best counter to the aircraft will be yet another AEW&C + stealth fighter combo.
Brumby
Major
It would appear that the F-35 development team did not receive your memo on this point. The F-35 risk and potential development delays are primarily related to the systems and not hardware. You and the F-35 team seems to be operating from alternate universe.
At the last count, 8.5 million lines of code had been written for the F-35 vs. 1.7 million for the F-22. These line of codes is meant to drive the most comprehensive integrated system ever built in an aeroplane. The software delays are a result of integration. if the systems were modular, the job would have been much easier.
Uhhh... no
I said that subsystems are easier to copy than aircraft, not that subsystems are easier to engineer than aircraft. Airframes require comprehensive testing and are more dependent on the structural formula. Subsystems often use essentially off-the-shelf parts, even if that shelf is cutting edge, and the subsystems are easier to reverse engineer.
Another part of airframe vs subsystems is that an airframe is singular, subsystems are plural. Your Advanced Persistent Threat could have hit 20% of the airframe, but the information is useless because you don't have the other 80% of the airframe needed to get it up into the air. Stealing 1/5th of the subsystems, on the other hand, might give you a complete subsystem, such as EODAS.
Yet another thing is, the EODAS's generated 8.5 million LOC to date, no? The problem is that some of this code has civilian applications, will leak onto the civilian market (Oculus Rift anyone?), and can be remilitarized. Code is a lot harder to keep secret than schematics, since you don't need the schematics to use the product, while the code is often half the product.
If you're comparing the J-20 to the F-35, the big problem with the F-35 is that the airframe is mostly set in stone; the project dimensions are for large scale manufacturing to lower the cost of production and modification / phased production will defeat the purpose. And the airframe isn't all that excellent; we know that the airframe isn't good for sustained maneuverability, although it has an excellent fuel fraction. The J-20, on the other hand, has a good airframe, and has enough provisions for almost all of the F-35's subsystems, barring perhaps the laser dazzles to defeat IR missiles. The subsystems might not yet be mature, but somehow, or rather because of what I've mentioned above, the rate of maturation will be higher than of the F-35.
I said that subsystems are easier to copy than aircraft, not that subsystems are easier to engineer than aircraft. Airframes require comprehensive testing and are more dependent on the structural formula. Subsystems often use essentially off-the-shelf parts, even if that shelf is cutting edge, and the subsystems are easier to reverse engineer.
Another part of airframe vs subsystems is that an airframe is singular, subsystems are plural. Your Advanced Persistent Threat could have hit 20% of the airframe, but the information is useless because you don't have the other 80% of the airframe needed to get it up into the air. Stealing 1/5th of the subsystems, on the other hand, might give you a complete subsystem, such as EODAS.
Yet another thing is, the EODAS's generated 8.5 million LOC to date, no? The problem is that some of this code has civilian applications, will leak onto the civilian market (Oculus Rift anyone?), and can be remilitarized. Code is a lot harder to keep secret than schematics, since you don't need the schematics to use the product, while the code is often half the product.
If you're comparing the J-20 to the F-35, the big problem with the F-35 is that the airframe is mostly set in stone; the project dimensions are for large scale manufacturing to lower the cost of production and modification / phased production will defeat the purpose. And the airframe isn't all that excellent; we know that the airframe isn't good for sustained maneuverability, although it has an excellent fuel fraction. The J-20, on the other hand, has a good airframe, and has enough provisions for almost all of the F-35's subsystems, barring perhaps the laser dazzles to defeat IR missiles. The subsystems might not yet be mature, but somehow, or rather because of what I've mentioned above, the rate of maturation will be higher than of the F-35.
You've drawn a number of in-accurate conclusions here, with no factual evidence to support your conclusions? I really think you can do much better than this, I really do.
Both the F-35 and the J-20 are in LRIP, and yes their designs are "fixed", this is hardly a problem for either bird???
Brumby
Major
You are either spinning on this because you think we are morons or you are simply speaking out of total ignorance on the F-35 program and the nature of software development.
The genesis and foundation of sensor fusion was laid by "Red team" Dr. Paul Kaminski who was charged with looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities in stealth technology. One of the Red Team's Most important conclusions was that a stealth aircraft could not survive by low radar cross-section (RCS) alone, but by stealth and tactics. That assessment eventually lead to the early version of sensor fusion in the F-22 and based on the experience and learnings from that platform lead to the sensor fusion as we know of today in the F-35. The platform itself and integration of the systems is totally software driven. The lines of code needed on the f-35 is five times that on the F-22. The amount of testing required is significant in total and as a share between flight sciences (which is software dependent) and mission testing.
The nature of the testings speaks of the centrality of systems and software in the whole program and not as you tried to paint it.
If it was so easy to just copy a program then there would not be such a difference in scale of five times in lines of code between the F-35 and F-22 program. The lines of code just for the sensor fusion engine is reported to total half a million. The F-35 is a level four sensor fusion model as defined by JDL.
At level four, resources (sensors) are automatically task driven by complex algorithms that dynamically adjust each sensor operating individually and collectively with the objective to navigate through a non permissive environment based on threat signals and threat level assessment of the flight path. The sensors also collaborate between platforms within a flight formations. Each of the sensors involved complex decision trees and has to be tailored by lines of codes within each step. Making statements like copying as a solution just highlights the depth of ignorance to the nature of software development.
??? Either you have no idea what you are saying but trying to sound meaningful or I am too dumb to comprehend you.
Software language and coding is not the issue. It is the application of the codes. You just can't take a commercial application and just militarise the function. You can make assertions but it doesn't reflect reality. It just reflects ignorance.
Your main assumption is that the future battlespace continues to be airframe centric. The just released initial findings of the Air Superiority 2030 Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team
thinks otherwise. You obviously can continue to assert that you are smarter than the best brains/skills that the US can put together on this subject.
For the J-20 we get too few exact datas not surprising ofc... ! for do a precise comparison right now.
True, and knowing the path from proto-type to LRIP as faithfully as we do, its simple to observe changes, aircraft numbers, aircraft in primer etc, and make very accurate assessments. Everybody has to go through the same processes which makes life entertaining, we have a few gents such as BD,Jeff Head, and Deino, and even yourself who are able to squeeze the truth out of every photo.
You gents are amazing, and we are thankful to have Gents of such a high caliber filling in the blancks. So even secret projects give up their secrets to those who are able to make a few observations, LOL.