US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
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The impact can be minimized by having the RCS increases concentrated towards angles where you already have RCS spikes. The pods look pretty minimal and the drop tanks are supposed to be jettisoned with the pylons too so that nearly all the original RCS is restored.
F-23 is a bigger plane with more volume than the F-22, so definitely more range, but still probably not enough for the Pacific.
Don’t forget that it was infinitely cooler.
Anyway, I remember reading that 3 squadrons out of the 7 are deployed in the Pacific but around places like Alaska and Hawaii.
Wouldn’t you want to shift more squadrons and shift them closer to China? Like Guam or Japan? Hawaii and Alaska feels like way too far.
F-35 is not short legged for a single engined fighter. But the Pacific theater is simply too large for most combat aircraft to handle.
Wouldn't it be funny if the US basically licenced Kaan's fuselage and installed their own equipment (sensors, engines, etc.) in it? (for clarification: this is meant to be satire) A stealth, future proof F-15EX is essentially what you're describing, and imo Kaan more or less fits the bill.
Since VLO is not needed for most missions, I have a lot of faith in these external pods. Going forward, I think every 5+ gen aircraft is going to need those for a variety of missions. Be it LO tanks, sensor/EW pods or EWPs; they will end up being really effective.
F-35 is not short legged for a single engined fighter without external tanks... but the F-35 cannot carry any so it's hard to compare.
Yeah the pacific theater is clearly too large for it without de facto air supremacy. That plane rely on tanker, the future boeing MQ-25 Stingray could help the situation in that case but not much.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Correct on the first part.
the Combat range of an F35A is 1230km
The F16 is 870km
The Gripen is 810km both are listed with External tanks. Without tanks both Gripen and Falcon would be about 500-550km. F35A and C have substantially longer ranges for single engine fighters.
wrong on the second. It’s not that it can’t it just doesn’t. Because of the amount of on board fuel the F35A hasn’t had the need to carry tanks so it was put off with the Raptor taking the lead on tanks development.
F35 was conceived to carry 2x 426 U.S. gallon drop tanks external.
F-35 29t MTOW vs F-16 19 t... gripen 16,5 t... MTOW, you still need to compare apple with orange.
A f-16 with, conformal fuel tanks which hold an extra 3,200 lb. of fuel combined with a 320-gal. centerline tank and two 600-gal. underwing tanks, have an unrefueled mission radius of 1,025 mi (1640km)when carrying a typical strike load of two 2,000-lb. bombs and four air-to-air missiles. So it's not to bad I think and strangely more than a F-35 that is way bigger and don't need extra fuel tanks...
We can also compare the F-35 with another single engine fighter with a MTOW in his size bracket too. The old F-105 that had 24t MTOW and for 1250km of combat range. It's a 60 years old fighter jet.
Some like to compare these two fighters for their respective roles and flaws. Comparable weight, size, range and carrying capacity.
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That's not how militaries replace or think about aircraft though. F-35 is a replacement for F-16s, not for everyone, but for plenty of countries. F-35 is also enabled by its stealth, which lets it take more direct routes to objectives. By any measure really, F-35 is a pretty long-ranged single engine fighter.
Don't forget that F-16 with conformal tanks and underwing tanks will carry the same payload than F-35 further. So if we compare range... it doesn't do better. Long ranged ??? maybe if you remove the capabilities of other carrying extra fuel tanks...it's cheating the numbers in a way.
It have plenty of other capabilities beside that but for range... it's still far from what needed. If we compare package, it's better than most single engined fighter on paper because of all the other assets it possess. But it still short legged...
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