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British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

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Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#161

Post by Thoeu388 »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #147
Thoeu388 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point. But: - right now we have fighters from Sweden (not Soviet design obviously) - Soviet planes came with technical plans, we would be probably capable to fix them by our selves to huge extend. Ukraine maintained their Soviet planes for 10 years during war. Also we manufactured some airplanes ourself, and even today Czechia produces fighter jets. - Many countries produces Soviet derived planes and spare…

Calling the L39 a jet fighter is a bit of a stretch. It's a trainer that can be armed and used to intercept general aviation aircraft.

If F35 gets grounded again for some software error, or virtual helmet reality problem, that will be our only air defense :(

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#162

Post by fsloth »

Pixie_Dust wrote: post #129

“in light of potential Russian aggression in Europe” Who was it pushed NATO right up against Russia's border. Despite repeated statements from the Russians that there would be push-back. -- coob > “NATO have always been on Russia’s border.” (deleted) On the Soviet Unions border. When the Soviets relinquished control of the client states to the west, they were given an understanding that NATO would not expand east. (a…

Modded down for a good reason.

1. The client states weren't client states. They were de-facto annexed polities with centuries of distinct characteristics. After Soviet Union fell these countries could resume their legitimate existence.

2. Russia has always been an imperialistic, genocidal and brutal country, incapable of creating anything of lasting value. A country on the Russia's border has no reason to be categorized under "russian dominion".

Legitimate states have unalienable right under international law to guide their own path, regardless who their neighbours are.

If your neighbour is Russia, you really want to ally with a larger party.

"Who was it pushed NATO right up against Russia's border."

Nobody PUSHED NATO. This is what is wrong about the posting above. The CCE countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, knew very wall what Russia was and that it had not changed.

They wanted to join NATO exactly because they knew Russia would one day again attempt to annex them.

Unless Estonia was in NATO, Russian armors might very well be now in Tallinn.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#163

Post by lumost »

worrycue wrote: post #91
gostsamo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can withstand only certain G-s of acceleration. Remove them, and you have a much more manueverable craft.

Manoeuvrability probably isn’t as useful as it used to be. Fighter jets used to need to keep their radar, in the nose of the aircraft, pointed at their target to keep the target lit up for the missile to find. At close enough range if you can out turn your opponent and get out of its radar, you can “break radar lock-on”. Today though, missiles have their own radar that works at close ranges but, if I’m right, still n…

The AIM-260 can be guided by AWACS to within ~5 km of target, where it then turns on it's own radar for final targeting. Generally, the expectation of a modern F-35 pilot is to act as a missile truck with the basic A2A/SEAD/CAP mission being to fly within a viable area to deploy the missile, release, get out of dodge. Of course, there are hundreds of counter-measures aimed at disrupting this mission, and counters of counters which the pilot must be an expert in.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#164

Post by qaq »

wongarsu wrote: post #105

Cold-War West Germany had about 30 "Emergency Airstrips", about 3km long Autobahn sections that could be converted to airports for military use. Complete with parking lots designed for aircraft parking, mobile air control towers, etc. Large enough that we landed C-130 Hercules on them. Similar strips exist in Finland, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. Though most of the German locations are now retired and removed.

Same was true for USSR but obviously way bigger numbers. Thats how Ukraine managed to keep jets flying after the runways were targeted.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#165

Post by napoleon_thepig »

smcl wrote: post #149
PedroBatista wrote: post #145

Yeah cool, and can the support necessary to keep an F-35 active be performed on a road? The Harrier and Gripens can and kinda were designed with that in mind. The F-35? I doubt it. I'm sure on paper someone will write and another one will approve, but in reality and in a real war scenario I have serious reservations.

To an non-expert like me the Gripen just seems so well-suited for Ukraine's Air Force in this conflict - relatively inexpensive, can land/operate in tougher conditions, can be serviced nearby (Czechia), outfitted to handle Western/NATO missile tech. I wonder what caused them to push so hard for F-16 instead.

The F-16 is the most numerous fighter jet in existence today and some countries are replacing them with F-35s, so there are a few dozen F-16s that might be available soon for Ukraine. On the other hand, the amount of Gripens available is in the low hundreds, which in practice means that Sweden would have to donate a significant part of it's current air force capability to Ukraine.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#166

Post by smcl »

hef19898 wrote: post #156
smcl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an non-expert like me the Gripen just seems so well-suited for Ukraine's Air Force in this conflict - relatively inexpensive, can land/operate in tougher conditions, can be serviced nearby (Czechia), outfitted to handle Western/NATO missile tech. I wonder what caused them to push so hard for F-16 instead.

Easy: avaiability, in every sense. There are many, many more F-16 in service to draw from. As are more operators, making training easier. And maitennace, everything from spqres to sites to people, is much easier to come by at scale for F-16s. All of the above under the caveat of needing it now .

Ah yeah I only just looked at its wiki page now, there's about 150-ish in total and under 30 in Central Europe (14 in ČR, 14 in Hungary - suspect the latter wouldn't be too keen to help out Ukraine).

Edit: wow apparently as-of 2010 there were around 4,500 F-16 delivered around the world.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#167

Post by tinix »

sillywalk wrote: post #55
chinathrow wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder about FOD. i.e. all the crap in and around a highway that could damage the engines.. They would send out personal to remove FOD (foreign object debris) before any operations and before laying those mats, I assume.

Just some musing on the logistics and difficulties etc. of theoretical "distributed" highway F-35b operations.. [Numbers found by google search :_) ] 30 ISO containers for just the runway, = 30+ vehicles, + munitions, spare parts, maintenance personnel, that computerized logistics thing - ODIN/ALIS, food and water, security for the personnel, generators to power all the computers to support the aircraft, . would ther…

they can refuel in the air...

https://www.boeing.com/defense/kc-46a-pegasus-tanker/

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#168

Post by lumost »

gostsamo wrote: post #109
worrycue wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manoeuvrability probably isn’t as useful as it used to be. Fighter jets used to need to keep their radar, in the nose of the aircraft, pointed at their target to keep the target lit up for the missile to find. At close enough range if you can out turn your opponent and get out of its radar, you can “break radar lock-on”. Today though, missiles have their own radar that works at close ranges but, if I’m right, still n…

If the ai plane can fly higher and faster than the rocket or at least a human plane because it does not have to care about a human body, then you have scenarios where the rocket must be shot significantly closer to catch the plane. Not much into military stuff, but seems logical that more options create more margins for success. Savings on inner space, human training, and equipment are only a bonus.

In most modern aircraft, the aircraft over g's long before the human body. When aircraft are pushed to the limit in a combat situation, you'll hear the warning alarm blaring "over-g, over-g" as continued operation in that domain will either tear the wings off - or permanently degrade the airframe.

The main advantage of a drone is expendability - sending a pilot to certain death is not something the military wants to do. However there are missions where risking a 300 MM drone on a 30% chance of destruction makes sense. A missile truck drone with an AESA radar could likely maintain a 4:1 kill ratio by simply flying further into enemy air defenses than a human pilot would. It doesn't matter if you lose the drone if it kills 4 other air defense targets worth 300MM.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#169

Post by Thaxll »

PedroBatista wrote: post #155
smcl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an non-expert like me the Gripen just seems so well-suited for Ukraine's Air Force in this conflict - relatively inexpensive, can land/operate in tougher conditions, can be serviced nearby (Czechia), outfitted to handle Western/NATO missile tech. I wonder what caused them to push so hard for F-16 instead.

One of the reasons is there are much more F-16s both in number of units and consequently support ( of all kinds ) and know-how from many operator countries. Unfortunately the Gripen is the plane everyone talks and loves but "nobody" buys them. The Rafale is in a similar situation. AFAIK there are many minor reasons but the main one is: "Nobody got fired for buying IBM", aka the F-16, it's all fine and good, NATO, etc…

The rafale is successful though, it exports pretty well.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43367/the-uae-has-just...

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#170

Post by KineticLensman »

rjsw wrote: post #138
KineticLensman wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. My comment was really a somewhat cynical view of the state of the UK's armoured vehicle capability. Our primary infantry fighting vehicle (Warrior) is about 40 years old now, and its upgrade programme has recently been canned after it proved impossible to fit modern turrets onto the antique hulls. But the cavalry regiments (who use tanks but ride horses ceremonially) would get very upset if the state of their…

I don't think the Warrior upgrade programme was cancelled due to it not working, just that the government wanted to save money.

Saving money was definitely an excuse as well but my understanding was that the old hulls had all been modded / bodged over the years and didn't therefore present a uniform integration target for new components. A bit like the failed programme to upgrade the engines in the Nimrod aircraft, where it eventually transpired that the different planes were essentially unique in terms of dimensions and design (thus requiring multiple (expensive) solutions).

[Edit] Not saying that engineering difficulty was the only factor behind these cancellations, but it clearly was a significant cost driver.

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