Canada's new fighter jets thread v2.0

[ranchlandsselling]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

3) I talked to a gentleman who used to fly drones for a living. He even said that air to air combat in a fast environment is unrealistic. While a human controlled plane can react in an instant and has superior situational awareness. A drone pilot is basically stick wait 2 minutes for the turn or punch in pre determined course changes.

4) You can argue that drones are good for air to ground, however I would argue that drones have failed in air to ground due to incidences where again you don't have situational awareness and you have distance control. While you do have a incidences with a human controlled fighter bomber at least you have the ability to instantly evaluate the situation in theatre.

I really am enjoying this thread. It's interesting. I just don't have anything interesting to add other than some light humor.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't agree with your viewpoint on this. and we'll probably have to leave it at that. Acrobatic ability is great and looks pretty, but the human pilot is capable of being unpredictable.

It's trivial to make an AI behave unpredictably. I think you mean creative, not unpredictable.

Again, if you have multiple opponents with equal capabilities, you can be as creative as you want and you are still going to lose. Planes don't dogfight and rely on maneuverability anymore, they shoot missiles at each other from miles away. What, exactly, are you creatively going to do about having a half-dozen different missiles coming from different angles at your plane? Eject before they arrive?

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Missile technology is great but not perfect and you have to be able to lock on first.

You lock on long before you can see your opponent, via radar. What is a human going to do that's better than an AI can do as far as getting a radar lock? Twiddle the knobs creatively?

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Also with a lot of the focus being on denial of communication, there a risk that I can drop your 10 drones out of the sky by pushing the enter button on a keyboard. Its one of the biggest worries in the American military right now and why they don't see Drones as a viable air defense strategy.

Right now if you jam all communications and electronics on a plane, the pilot is practically useless, drone or not. The dubious advantage of having a guy in a plane who can engage visually acquired targets seems pretty well pointless - if you've lost the electronics battle, you've lost the sky. That's how the US has comprehensively beaten every air force and air defence they've engaged in the last 30 years - electronically first, weapons delivery after.

A decade from now, AIs should be semi-autonomous and you won't need to communicate with them any more than communicating with a human pilot. I don't think they'll be smart enough to perform ground attack missions, as that is far more complex a task, but shooting down enemy planes goes like this: positively identify as enemy, attack. That's not much beyond what AI can already do today.

A decade is a long time in modern tech. The Americans are used to being so far ahead that they can afford to spend multiple decades planning their weapons platforms, but they are in danger of losing their advantage very quickly indeed if they keep spending more and more money on fewer and fewer human-piloted planes. And unfortunately, Canada is pretty well just along for the ride.

[Zulu29]

http://bestfighter4canada.blogspot.c...d-fighter.html

Interesting article on ordering more than one aircraft.

[Zulu29]

Looks like Dassault sweetened the pot big time for Canada. Full access to all the data codes is absolutely huge for Canadian industry.

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2014/1/22/Fre...-on-fleet.aspx

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Zulu29

Looks like Dassault sweetened the pot big time for Canada. Full access to all the data codes is absolutely huge for Canadian industry.

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2014/1/22/Fre...-on-fleet.aspx

So basically, we'd be able to make it NORAD-compatible? How much would we have to spend for R&D (to get a plane that still doesn't have stealth)?

[CaptainCrunch]

Its just not a advanced enough plane if Canada is doing 20 to 30 year procurement cycles and it doesn't have the upgrade capabilities to keep it up to date.

Its still a near 100 million dollar per copy jet if Canada buys the B varient and up to 124 million per copy for the semi stealth version.

Plus the supply line for this jet is across the ocean.

While its a contender, its not a serious contender Canada is still going to buy a north american jet.

[dammage79]

Modern day transportation and logistics, especially when it comes to military pretty much eliminates the supply line across the ocean thing IMO.

Aside from that, I'm expecting these offers to ramp up significantly in the next while from the manufacturers in Europe. This Dassault thing is the first shot. They know they need the business and the EU free trade agreement needs to be explored and exploited a bit. I'll bet they'll add a significant price drop on the acquisition cost at some point as well. The EU guys know they have a great shot at stepping into north america here and will ramp up the efforts and get Canada to have an open competition. This only helps Canada get a much better deal in the long run. I'd expect Saab and Eurofighter to come into the fray shortly as well. Which will essentially get the Americans to pony up or back out. This news is nothing but a win for Canada I think.

[Zulu29]

Agree with above, supply line is not an issue, in fact, the issue of supply or maintenance would be severely diminished with having full access to the data codes for the aircraft. It eliminates us having to go to the manufacturer for updates/repairs for certain things and allows us to give that technology to a canadian company. Win win. I'm on record for being anti-F35 and prefer the Eurofighter, but it would be happy with the Rafale as well. It flew seamlessly with NATO forces in the bombing campaign in Libya. Apparently it uses some different weapons than the normal NATO ordinance but we could update that. We seem to update or "Canadianize" everything anyway.

[speede5]

I work on the Hawk and if you think having suppliers overseas is not an issue I can assure you that you are wrong. It is a complete pita. It is also very expensive.

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by speede5

I work on the Hawk and if you think having suppliers overseas is not an issue I can assure you that you are wrong. It is a complete pita. It is also very expensive.

Is that just a problem in general or strictly with overseas suppliers? From what I gather, part of the economic benefits of the Rafale and Gripen is the ability to make parts, actual aircraft, components, etc in Canada. The US companies have offered nothing in that regard.

I would imagine dealing with any supplier is a pita and expensive.

[CaptainCrunch]

More delays on the f-35 as they become self aware

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/02/f3...#ixzz2sPnEUjab

As to what steps might be taken to prevent future prototypes from achieving self-awareness, Fennell explained, “We’re developing a net-centric cluster-group forum, a sort of network for their collective ‘minds.’ We hope that it will keep them from creating unique self-identities, and instead form one easy-to-manage super identity.”
Asked what it might be called, Fennell considered it for a moment.
“Well, the F-35 hovers and flies in the sky, and we’re creating a network of them, so … maybe something like ‘Sky-Net?’ That has a nice ring to it.”

Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/02/f3...#ixzz2sf1J3UFG

[Fire]

I welcome our new F-35 overlords.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Why can't we buy Russian jets? So beautiful...

I think if you look at the housing debacle at the Russian-Sochi Winter Olympics, there's the answer to your question.

[CaptainCrunch]

There seem to be a lot of issues with the Russian aviation export business, they recently lost a tender to supply India with Mig-35's mostly due to issues with the sharing of technology, the poor performance of the engines and radar systems and the supply chain demands that the Russian's had put in place in their tender to compete.

However the Russians seem to have the Chinese over a barrel, the Chinese J-10 fighter



Was supposed to be a completely Chinese built endeavor, but it sounds like the Chinese are having trouble "designing" (which means that they stole the design from the Russians) and manufacture of the really complex engine and have now been forced to buy engines from the Russians.

[oilyfan]

Looks like an Eurofighter on steroids. Albeit cheap Chinese "rhino penis" steroids

[dammage79]

Let's just hope that China never gets their military hardware act together. Otherwise my kids'll be speaking mandarin in no time.

[worth]

Gen. Michael Hostage, head of air combat command in the U.S., said the F-35 is critical for the future of that country’s air force. But in an interview with the Air Force Times, published in February, Hostage pointed out the F-35 needs to work hand-in-hand with the F-22.

“The F-35 is not built as an air superiority platform,” Hostage said. “It needs the F-22.”

The U.S. Air Force is upgrading the F-22, which officers see as essential. Without the upgraded F-22s, “the F-35 fleet frankly will be irrelevant,” Hostage said.

Thoughts?

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03...-general-says/

[photon]

The F-35 isn't an air superiority fighter, it's a multi-role fighter. In terms of previous models the F-22 is like the F-15 and the F-35 is more like the F-18 or F-16. It can dogfight, but it's not as good at it as the F-22.

For Canada though, we're not going to have a dedicated air superiority fighter, the F-18 was a multi-role fighter so the F-35 makes sense as its replacement. The argument about the F-22 makes sense for the US, but not for us I don't think unless we want to spend a lot more $$.

[CaptainCrunch]

I can't say it any better then Photon.

The F-22 is not made for air to ground. The F-35 can do air to air and do it better then most of the current fighter inventories out there. It will get killed by a dedicated interceptor.

Hostage is schooled in the American strategy of different fighters in different roles.

We'll send in F-14's for air cover while F-18's go into the mud.

We as a country don't have that luxury. We have to have the best multi-role fighter that we can get that's at least a generation or so ahead because we need our fighters to remain relevant and up to date and in service for 30 to 40 years.

[Harry Lime]

I'm not sure if this has been posted as of yet, but a very interesting read on the various options for Canada going forward.

http://gripen4canada.blogspot.ca/p/t...pable-and.html

Originally Posted by Zulu29
Looks like Dassault sweetened the pot big time for Canada. Full access to all the data codes is absolutely huge for Canadian industry.

If Saab makes their offer sweeter, I kind of like this option after reading this article. I don't really have any expertise to offer, but love the discussion about aircraft, and hope for once the government makes a sound military decision instead of a political one.