The next jet: F-X & F/A-XX

[sferrin]

This is just wrong. F-111 was politically imposed by McNamara but F-X which became F-15 started before combat in Vietnam even began.

Yep. It was in response to the Mig-25, which is why the F-15 initially had a Mach 2.7 requirement.

[zero-one]

You want an ATF before the stealth requirements was increased? Then you'll love Su-57. Purely as an airframe and with definitive engines, it's got more potential than F-22. It's got more range, more maneuverability, bigger weapon bay, etc. That would fit original ATF RFP better than F-22 currently.

I was not against the increase of Stealth or the decrease in maneuverability. This is because those decisions were based on combat experience.

You seem to be implying that the reason I don't like the PCA and F/A-XX is because there is a possibility it won't be an airshow monster. No its not. My issue with both programs is that they won't be designed from recent combat data. They will instead be designed from training simulations and expectations.

When was the last time aircraft were designed using those 2 factors alone.

TFAX which became F-14 would also happen regardless of Vietnam because it didn't take combat for USAF and USN to see F-111 as failure.

Why do you keep saying that. I've provided so many sources that just flat out counters that. they point to Vietnam as the catalyst for the Teen series. If you can provide your sources that specifically state that the F-14/15/16/18 would have been what they are regardless of Vietnam then we can debate that.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120204215 ... m/vf15.htm

The F-111B had been designed for the long-range Fleet Air Defense (FAD) interceptor role, but not for new requirements for air combat based on the experience of American aircraft against agile MiG fighters over Vietnam. The Navy studied the need for VFAX, an additional fighter that was more agile than the F-4 Phantom for air-combat and ground-attack roles

And what experience do you have that your judgment should be trusted over USAF's? Guess USAAF and USN should rely on biplanes at start of WW2 because those single wing monoplanes are so unproven.
You seem to really want F-22 to be the "right" answer and you're trying to fit future doctrine and aerial warfare around it. Which is backwards and should be other way around.

I'm not, I'm saying trust the judgement of the people who issued the requirements for the F-X, VFX, LWF, ATF and JSF programs. Those guys based their judgement on recent combat experience.

People who are issuing requirements on PCA are the same kind of people who issued the requirements for the TFX.

[zero-one]

Yep. It was in response to the Mig-25, which is why the F-15 initially had a Mach 2.7 requirement.

Exactly, if not for actual combat The F-15 would have been faster but less agile.
Thanks Sferrin

[disconnectedradical]

I was not against the increase of Stealth or the decrease in maneuverability. This is because those decisions were based on combat experience.

You seem to be implying that the reason I don't like the PCA and F/A-XX is because there is a possibility it won't be an airshow monster. No its not. My issue with both programs is that they won't be designed from recent combat data. They will instead be designed from training simulations and expectations.

When was the last time aircraft were designed using those 2 factors alone.

F4U, P-38, P-47? What combat experience was used to design those?

Would you rather go into Vietnam with aircraft that preceded the F-4 then?

Why do you keep saying that. I've provided so many sources that just flat out counters that. they point to Vietnam as the catalyst for the Teen series. If you can provide your sources that specifically state that the F-14/15/16/18 would have been what they are regardless of Vietnam then we can debate that.

That isn't even what you first said, so now you're moving the goalpost. You said that without combat from Vietnam, there would be no teen fighters and F-111 would be the fighter to replace the F-4. That's fundamentally wrong, the F-14 and F-15 would still happen without Vietnam, but may not in the form that they are. LWF was more influenced by Vietnam combat, but the original version is for lightweight day fighter, and that's not what the F-16 is used for today. With how expensive F-14 was, a cheaper alternative like the F/A-18 was bound to happen.

People who are issuing requirements on PCA are the same kind of people who issued the requirements for the TFX.

What a load of sh*t. How do you know people issuing requirements for PCA isn't somehow using the same lessons as ATF and JSF did? Just because a few concepts out of the many aren't to your liking? Stop projecting what others think.

Sometimes there can be gamechanging technology that redefines air combat. For example, high power lasers.

[crosshairs]

I was not against the increase of Stealth or the decrease in maneuverability. This is because those decisions were based on combat experience.

You seem to be implying that the reason I don't like the PCA and F/A-XX is because there is a possibility it won't be an airshow monster. No its not. My issue with both programs is that they won't be designed from recent combat data. They will instead be designed from training simulations and expectations.

When was the last time aircraft were designed using those 2 factors alone.

F4U, P-38, P-47? What combat experience was used to design those?

Would you rather go into Vietnam with aircraft that preceded the F-4 then?

Why do you keep saying that. I've provided so many sources that just flat out counters that. they point to Vietnam as the catalyst for the Teen series. If you can provide your sources that specifically state that the F-14/15/16/18 would have been what they are regardless of Vietnam then we can debate that.

That isn't even what you first said, so now you're moving the goalpost. You said that without combat from Vietnam, there would be no teen fighters and F-111 would be the fighter to replace the F-4. That's fundamentally wrong, the F-14 and F-15 would still happen without Vietnam, but may not in the form that they are. LWF was more influenced by Vietnam combat, but the original version is for lightweight day fighter, and that's not what the F-16 is used for today. With how expensive F-14 was, a cheaper alternative like the F/A-18 was bound to happen.

People who are issuing requirements on PCA are the same kind of people who issued the requirements for the TFX.

What a load of sh*t. How do you know people issuing requirements for PCA isn't somehow using the same lessons as ATF and JSF did? Just because a few concepts out of the many aren't to your liking? Stop projecting what others think.

Sometimes there can be gamechanging technology that redefines air combat. For example, high power lasers.

Excellent post. Right on the mark.

There were many people other than Boyd that thought the USAF had lost a2a ability by the time Vietnam heated up. The F-111 was a failure for the USAF and USN as a ultimate fighter.

1. F-15 was designed in the late 60s and the basic platform was conceived in 66 or 67 - not sure about selection. How many Thuds and Phantoms had been lost to Migs by that time period? It was designed around lessons learned from F-111.

2. The mighty Tomcat was designed solely around lessons learned from the F-111. It had nothing to do with being better than the Phantom in a knife fight. The Navy had a gunfighter called the Crusader. Grumman really did a masterpiece work with the Tomcat and avoiding the F-111 pitfalls. But it had nothing to do with Vietnam and Migs. If it was going to be a gun fighter - truly so - the Navy wouldn't have accepted the tf30 fiasco. Had Vietnam not happened, the tomcat would likely still be the same tomcat.

Vietnam had heavily influenced the F-16 and hence the YF-17 for that competition. But the USAF and USN quickly gold plated both aircraft and increased their weights with avionics, thus sacrificing some raw performance for capability and thereby moving on and away from Vietnam.

[southernphantom]

I was not against the increase of Stealth or the decrease in maneuverability. This is because those decisions were based on combat experience.

You seem to be implying that the reason I don't like the PCA and F/A-XX is because there is a possibility it won't be an airshow monster. No its not. My issue with both programs is that they won't be designed from recent combat data. They will instead be designed from training simulations and expectations.

When was the last time aircraft were designed using those 2 factors alone.

F4U, P-38, P-47? What combat experience was used to design those?

Would you rather go into Vietnam with aircraft that preceded the F-4 then?

Why do you keep saying that. I've provided so many sources that just flat out counters that. they point to Vietnam as the catalyst for the Teen series. If you can provide your sources that specifically state that the F-14/15/16/18 would have been what they are regardless of Vietnam then we can debate that.

That isn't even what you first said, so now you're moving the goalpost. You said that without combat from Vietnam, there would be no teen fighters and F-111 would be the fighter to replace the F-4. That's fundamentally wrong, the F-14 and F-15 would still happen without Vietnam, but may not in the form that they are. LWF was more influenced by Vietnam combat, but the original version is for lightweight day fighter, and that's not what the F-16 is used for today. With how expensive F-14 was, a cheaper alternative like the F/A-18 was bound to happen.

People who are issuing requirements on PCA are the same kind of people who issued the requirements for the TFX.

What a load of sh*t. How do you know people issuing requirements for PCA isn't somehow using the same lessons as ATF and JSF did? Just because a few concepts out of the many aren't to your liking? Stop projecting what others think.

Sometimes there can be gamechanging technology that redefines air combat. For example, high power lasers.

Excellent post. Right on the mark.

There were many people other than Boyd that thought the USAF had lost a2a ability by the time Vietnam heated up. The F-111 was a failure for the USAF and USN as a ultimate fighter.

1. F-15 was designed in the late 60s and the basic platform was selected in 66 or 67. How many Thuds and Phantoms had been lost to Migs by that time period? It was designed around lessons learned from F-111.

2. The mighty Tomcat was designed solely around lessons learned from the F-111. It had nothing to do with being better than the Phantom in a knife fight. The Navy had a gunfighter called the Crusader. Grumman really did a masterpiece work with the Tomcat and avoiding the F-111 pitfalls. But it had nothing to do with Vietnam and Migs. If it was going to be a gun fighter - truly so - the Navy wouldn't have accepted the tf30 fiasco. Had Vietnam not happened, the tomcat would likely still be the same tomcat.

Vietnam had heavily influenced the F-16 and hence the YF-17 for that competition. But the USAF and USN quickly gold plated both aircraft and increased their weights with avionics, thus sacrificing some raw performance for capability.

The Crusader was underpowered, had guns that tended to jam if taken much over 1g, and had limited payload compared to the F-4. As a "gunfighter", it left a lot to be desired.

[crosshairs]

Another book and google authority. Everything was underpowered until the teen fighters and tomcat was underpowered itself.

[zero-one]

You said that without combat from Vietnam, there would be no teen fighters and F-111 would be the fighter to replace the F-4. That's fundamentally wrong, the F-14 and F-15 would still happen without Vietnam,

You know what, you're trying really hard to look for holes in my argument. My point is simply this.
The F-14 and F-15 as they were actually built, not some alternate reality version, were influenced by the combat data from Vietnam.

Now could they have been built without Vietnam, maybe, I honestly think the F-15 would have been scrapped or just built in very small numbers. The F-14 was more likely since the navy didn't like the F-111B.

But would these alternate reality versions of the Teen series enjoy the same success they did in the Arab Israeli wars and ODS? I don't think so. For one thing it may have been the F-111 that carried the air superiority missions in those wars.

Sometimes there can be gamechanging technology that redefines air combat. For example, high power lasers.

High powered lasers have the potential to redefine air combat if they perform as expected.
Same thing they said about air to air missiles. But early air to air missiles did not perform as expected. Will these 1st generation lasers perform as expected? who knows.

[zero-one]

2. The mighty Tomcat was designed solely around lessons learned from the F-111. It had nothing to do with being better than the Phantom in a knife fight.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120204215 ... m/vf15.htm

The F-111B had been designed for the long-range Fleet Air Defense (FAD) interceptor role, but not for new requirements for air combat based on the experience of American aircraft against agile MiG fighters over Vietnam. The Navy studied the need for VFAX, an additional fighter that was more agile than the F-4 Phantom for air-combat and ground-attack roles

probably the 3rd or 4th time posting this.

[disconnectedradical]

Are you just going to parrot the same source over and over?

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military ... ft/vfx.htm

VFX was conceived in 1966-67, well before much of the air combat happened. The winning design Grumman model 303E was proposed in 1968. Other than that one source there’s nowhere else saying Vietnam had a big impact on F-14’s design.

[marsavian]

I remember the publicity and buzz around the F-15's birth at the time and it was pointed squarely at the Mig-25 Foxbat to be able to reach, intercept and shoot it down. Not once in all that time did anyone say in public we have to design a more maneuverable aircraft than Mig-21 because of Vietnam experience. So they put two big turbofan engines on a light body and went for climb and altitude records. Further proof is that the F-15A was originally rated only for 7.33g. As it happens with the thrust/weight ratio and low wing loading they built a maneuverable aircraft anyway which they completely unlocked with the F-15C 9g variant.

Talking about designing from war experience I repeat there still hasn't been a stealth fighter designed to counter resonant frequency detection at long wavelengths like VHF from war experience gained over 20 years ago which hopefully PCA should address. As for F-22 again, when will people finally realize its nothing more than a hotrod F-35 and let it rest in peace. New aircraft with the most modern stealth technology are needed now to counter the opponents latest moves not an updated blast from the past which intrinsically doesn't have stealth range greater than the always cheaper F-35 possesses.

[zero-one]

Yes, because its a perfect counter argument to yours
even if the designs were finalized early in the Vietnam war, fact is, the designs were influenced by what little combat data was available at the time.

Look my bottom line is this. The best combat aircraft ever built were all influenced by recent combat analysis.
on the other hand, aircraft created from expectations are hit or mis, they can be P-38s on one hand or F-111s on the other hand.

Lets not look further, The Soviets don't have as much combat data as the west. Isn't that a factor why their aircraft are always inferior to the west?

[marsavian]

Combat experience helps shape aircraft but that is a small factor compared to whether a design is good or not. The F-111 failed on so many levels to reach its design requirements in addition to the area you are concentrating on. The Russians have had decades to study stealth aircraft including the performance of their old SAMs against it yet still they concluded an evolved Flanker was the way to go forward for their next gen fighter, that's a conscious design choice made in spite of their war experience combating Western stealth aircraft via their proxies like Iraq and Serbia.

[hornetfinn]

Talking about designing from war experience I repeat there still hasn't been a stealth fighter designed to counter resonant frequency detection at long wavelengths like VHF from war experience gained over 20 years ago which hopefully PCA should address. As for F-22 again, when will people finally realize its nothing more than a hotrod F-35 and let it rest in peace. New aircraft with the most modern stealth technology are needed now to counter the opponents latest moves not an updated blast from the past which intrinsically doesn't have stealth range greater than the always cheaper F-35 possesses.

VHF radars have been well known systems for about a century and their ability to detect stealth aircraft has also been known for a long time. I think F-35 has been designed with that in mind and so were F-22 and B-2. Designing a maneuverable fighter jet to be fully stealthy even in VHF frequencies is difficult and costly. Easier and better to equip fighters with extremely capable ESM systems and extremely good situational awareness. F-117 was detected because it had no idea if there were any radars searching for it. Still even VHF radar had pretty short detection range against it even when the situation and geometry was very good for it. F-35 for example would likely have known there was P-18 operational and where it was. So it would've been able to go around it or kill it.

I'm not convinced that designing a fighter with stealth designed to counter VHF radars is really worthwhile. It's very likely that current stealth technologies will have pretty big impact even on VHF radar detection ranges. Even then those radars are necessarily very big (or have poor performance), limited to early warning and surveillance and are also very expensive. So there will be very limited numbers on them on battlefield and with modern ESM systems, they can be detected, geolocated and countered better with other options, IMO.

[knowan]

VHF radars have been well known systems for about a century and their ability to detect stealth aircraft has also been known for a long time. I think F-35 has been designed with that in mind and so were F-22 and B-2. Designing a maneuverable fighter jet to be fully stealthy even in VHF frequencies is difficult and costly. Easier and better to equip fighters with extremely capable ESM systems and extremely good situational awareness. F-117 was detected because it had no idea if there were any radars searching for it. Still even VHF radar had pretty short detection range against it even when the situation and geometry was very good for it. F-35 for example would likely have known there was P-18 operational and where it was. So it would've been able to go around it or kill it.

I'm not convinced that designing a fighter with stealth designed to counter VHF radars is really worthwhile. It's very likely that current stealth technologies will have pretty big impact even on VHF radar detection ranges. Even then those radars are necessarily very big (or have poor performance), limited to early warning and surveillance and are also very expensive. So there will be very limited numbers on them on battlefield and with modern ESM systems, they can be detected, geolocated and countered better with other options, IMO.

Worth mentioning again that a VHF-band JY-27 radar was destroyed by Israel on January 20.

It's unknown if they did use a F-35 or not to knock it out, but it doesn't matter much; either F-35s can get close enough to take the radar out, or even non-stealth airframes like F-15s and F-16s can do the same.