Let’s clear a few things up:
The term “5th Gen” started out as a marketing term without any clear definition. It has since been adopted to define a fighter with a VLO airframe & integrated avionics. Beyond that, it’s pretty much icing on the cake.
As far as that APA chart goes, it’s the typical “hide, obfuscate, lie, and make skat up” that we have become accustomed to from APA.
Let’s take a look at the way they put that chart together.
1. Super Cruise:
- a. Neither the Pak Fa or J-20 has demonstrated or announced super cruise numbers yet they get a pass.
b. What exactly are the Su-35’s super cruise numbers? How is it armed?
c. The JSF program announced that the F-35 can “maintain m1.2”, ie super cruise, yet are marked a “-1”
2. High Agility:
- a. Yes, the F-35 will likely not have the best agility of the three
b. The APA’s biggest mistake here is “stuffing the ballot box” with numerous ways of saying the same thing in order to make the F-35 look as bad as possible. All of the following are all part of the same thing:
- i. High Agility
ii. High Specific Excess Power
iii. Thrust Vectoring
iv. Large Thrust to Weight Multi-Engine Thrust Growth
v. High Combat Ceiling Loiter / Operate
3. Highly Integrated Avionics:
- a. Despite the F-22 and F-35 having a long design history of avionics superiority and integration, they are placed on par with jets that have relatively none (especially the J-20).
b. No mention of LPI & Directional datalinks and how they allow the seamless and uninterrupted sharing of data.
4. Electronically Steered Array (ESA) Radar:
- a. APA’s mistake is basing the entire scale on power alone and leaving out tech, LPI, integration, CPU processing capabilities, etc.
5. Sidelooking ESA Apertures:
- a. Why is the J-20 given a pass when there is no data?
b. Since when does a gimbaled array considered “side looking”?
c. Is there any official word on Pak Fa’s arrays besides artist’s rendering?
6. High Situational Awareness (SA) - Onboard/Offboard:
- a. Again, everyone given parity when there are glaring differences in systems
b. F-22 has no IRST, FLIR, EODAS, or HMD. Did it ever get SATCOM?
c. Pak Fa & J-20 have no FLIR, Directional Datalink (no info). They have MAWS apertures but I am not sure on EODAS-like functionality. SATCOM?
7. Supersonic Weapons Delivery:
- a. Everyone gets a pass… except the F-35 (really, “bomber doors”?). This is one the outright lies that APA is pushing.
b. Numerous times the program has stated that AMRAAMs can be launched at m1.6 and everything else they just said supersonic. The F-35 has already demonstrated the ability to operate its bay doors up to m1.6 9durring flutter testing).
8. Large Thrust to Weight Multi-Engine Thrust Growth:
- a. How does having two engines give you better growth potential than one? If you have the tech to increase engine thrust by x% for two engines, then that same x% of one engine will benefit you just the same.
9. Good Non RF Observables:
- a. Oh goody, the made up skat.
b. His own linked Thales pdf states that all tests were done at less than 2km.
c. Thales stated that the rcs of a wake vortex from a medium sized jumbo jet was 0.01m^2. How small would it be for a fighter jet?
d. Given that wake vortex gets worse the heavier the plane is, why is the F-35 (the lightest of all the planes) given the worst score?
10. Large Internal Usable Fuel Load (klbs):
- a. APA’s blatant mistake is looking at total pounds and ignoring how it’s used.
b. The point of “Usable Fuel” is how far you can go with it, aka range.
c. Why is the F-22 given a better score than the F-35 when the F-35 has a better range?
Parting thought:
The APA stuffed the box with related features to decrease the F-35’s score, yet did not add unique F-35 features as a way of increasing its score. What about:
- 1. EODAS for offensive & defensive ops
2. EODAS for navigation
3. Jamming using the radar
4. Directional Datalinks (Feature shared with the F-22’s IFDL)
5. UAI
6. Ability to carry 2k class weapons internally
7. STOVL
8. Ship-board ops
9. Pulse-for-pulse fusion of the radar and ESM
10. Pre-wired for NGJ
Before you say “That feature is ‘planned’ in plane X”, then what about F-35’s documented plans (that are currently being paid for)?
Items like:
- 1. 3-AAMs per bay (6 total)
2. DIRCM
3. Thrust improvements in the F-135
4. ADVENT engine
5. Weight reductions
My point is that the APA twisted the ground rules of the chart to try and push their agenda without having any non-public data on which to base a conclusion. This is one of the reasons why they were just about laughed out of the Australian Parliamentary Testimony last year.
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