Survival

In relation to aircraft observability to radar and vulnerability to associated firing solutions, there still seems to be a lot of confusion out there of what defines a stealth aircraft and what defines a "balanced" survivability aircraft design.

True stealth aircraft designs take a great deal of care to make sure that the areas of interest (such as a nose-on aspect) have good shaping.

Balanced survivability fighter aircraft designs like the Typhoon, the Rafale and Super-Hornet try to use shape and radar absorbing material and skin where possible along with trying to hide the leading edge of jet engine components, to degrade the effects of the kinds of radars that are most likely to kill you, such as air-intercept-radar, radar in missile seekers and high-frequency surface-to-air missile radar ground guidance stations. The results have been reported as tactically useful, but they are not stealth aircraft.

Where are stealth aircraft and balanced survivability aircraft designs on this chart?



The "balanced" part comes in where in a terminal defensive situation, the use of on-board defensive jamming aids--combined with the enhancements mentioned above--help to further reduce the effects of enemy radar emitters. A towed decoy fused to the defensive system (for example, the ALE-50/55 on the Super Hornet) helps survivability in terminal enemy missile events even more.

While on-board defensive jamming may make your general location locatable, it makes it harder for the enemy to use a radar-homing missile against such aircraft in a defensive situation.

The survivability design of the F-35 is flawed. Badly. The F-35 has good nose-on shaping; just not so good anywhere else.

Welcome to "affordable", "export-friendly" stealth. That was the hope anyway. Or the hopes of what may be the greatest defense industry Ponzi scheme.

Ever.

The F-35 is neither balanced survivability nor a true stealth aircraft. The F-35 has no credible defensive jamming. Those selling the idea that the F-35's AESA radar as a defensive device against enemy terminal radar concerns aren't believable. Power output limits, thermal concerns along with the limited field of view and in-band frequency limits make the idea of the F-35 radar as a defensive solution of little value. It is only useful on a marketing PowerPoint slide to the clueless. And, unlike the designers of the F-22, the F-35 will not be in possession of true stealth, high-speed and high altitude to help degrade enemy no-escape-zone firing solutions of weapons. The thrust-vectoring on the F-22 is also an aid for quickly changing direction at Mach and not just sub-sonic speed.

The balanced survivability people have a workable solution, combined with, "man's got to know his limitations", (Dirty Harry; Magnum Force).

The F-22 designers also have a workable defensive solution: extreme performance regardless if the aircraft is or is not, naked due to degraded low observability event.

The F-35 design is not useful for future air combat survival. And, certainly, not at any price. Further, the numerous faults in the design--since it will be unable to face emerging threats and is too expensive to own and operate for anything else--point toward "balanced" survivability aircraft like the Typhoon, Rafale and Super Hornet, as providing more overall value to an air arm.

By 2020 (if there are no more delays), a seriously flawed F-35 may be ready to fight an air war 21 years earlier: ALLIED FORCE 1999.

Failure of the F-35 program--for a nation over $16T in the red--should be easy to define.

F-35 electronic warfare capability affected by production quality

The Senate is concerned about the F-35s electronic warfare ability in relation to production quality affecting apertures on the airframe, Reuters reports.

Apertures are a tough thing to design for stealth aircraft. The aircraft has to be stealthy, yet let antennas and radar detectors peak through the skin without creating adverse radar concerns.

The F-35 has 10 apertures that pertain to radar detection as can be seen from this graphic.



As a comparison, the F-22--sometimes described as an antenna farm--has around 30 apertures on the airframe.

Production quality has nagged the F-35 program even while proponents complain more aircraft need to be built per year. The problem with building a higher quantity of F-35s is that what is currently being built are "mistake-jets" because of production knowledge immaturity.

The electronic warfare concern may have been one of the classified issues mentioned in last years DOD "quick-look" report" pointing to a variety of F-35 troubles.

Electronic warfare is an interesting term with the F-35. It has no wide field of view self-defense jamming equipment. One of the assumptions is that the narrow-band and narrow field of view radar in the nose will perform some jamming functions. Due to the cooling issues and sustained power with AESA radars, this is probably not a very reliable function. The aircraft will have narrow-band, mostly nose-on low-observable capability and some expendable decoys. A towed decoy--combat proven in ALLIED FORCE 1999--is not expected until Block 4. Whenever that happens.

A paper on predicted F-35 survivability can be read here.