Speed is no help when you're up against a direct energy weapon. Mach 10 (at 100,000 feet) is still about 120,000 times slower than the speed of light. So the Mach 0.8 plodding YAL-1 will blast your Mach 10 fighter out of the air...
Who is gonna make the 5-gen fighter first?
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dragonfire
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dog fighting will become a thing of the past sure, however speed is still important and if one can launch a platform which can launch weapons against enemy installations and return back to home base then imagine the advantage
Hypothetical situation:
USAF has a fleet of stealth hypersonic bomber / fighters - It has a very long range. The US can launch aircraft against enemy targets from the states itself and it can reach any part of the world in 2 hrs or less (Delhi to LA is about 12800 kms @ Mach6 - India beacuse it is at the opp side of the US) Even if this is a costly craft one can start thinking about the need of lesser no of costly aircraft Carriers for the US beacuse the capabilities of the fleet of hypersonic stealth fighter bombers. Air craft carriers are costly to acquire but also extremely costly to maintain and operate and carries a large no of sailors
- lots of scifi stuff but only beacuse its about the next gen
dragonfire
New Member
Abraham i am talking not only about next gen speed but also next gen stealth - there are new technologies - for eg DRDO scientists recently unvieled a technology which when applied to existing ballistic missiles can increase their range by upto 40% - likewise there will be a lot of improvement in stealth technology - i mean we have moved away from climate controlled hangars for stealth aircraft whose stealth features would be compromised when it rained
It's not an issue of dogfighting being a thing of the past.
The issue is about weapons management - not platform management.
What use is a manned fighter when there is a real capability to take it out with a direct energy weapon at "nn"' thousand miles and where the vectoring for that kill could well be (and has been) space based?
the construct is changing.
nothing on earth is out of range, everything is able to be targeted. modern airforces will be and are planning for hybrid ORBATs. Thats no sci-fi
again, next gen stealth (which the americans are the only ones to have 4 working manned generations of) is about emissions management - it's not about material science issues.
and it's not "stealth" - it's LO or VLO. Stealth is the walmart expression for a complex but changing capability
You can't wave a magic wand it at and assume that science will conquer all. Stealth consists of many features and to avoid being detected by radar you need to apply subtle shapes to the aircraft. None of these techniques apply to the shapes needed for a hypersonic intake. Then of course there is heating by friction which will raise the temperature of the surface of the aircraft to over 1,000 degrees C at hypersonic speeds. How are you going to hide that from an IR sensor?
The only way to make a hypersonic aircraft stealthy against radar and IR sensors are some kind of energy fields that absorb or deflect RF energy and absorb IR wavelength. If we can do that I would imagine we can counter gravity, tap zero point energy and provide reactionless thrust. In which case we will be flying to Alpha Centauri and not bothering with mach 10 stealth fighters.
VLO is a complex solution to complex problems. A very fast VLO (Mach 3+) is as with the technology of the near future a intrinsic fallacy. The very important IR spectrum would be uncontrollable as Abraham already said. The shapes to achieve VLO and very high speeds are partly conflicting. So I personally think that we will see relatively slow VLO manned and umanned autonomous platforms interacting with each others dominating the future skies. Direct energy weapons will play a very important part, as they offer capabilities unlike any other system. With the potentially huge ranges covered at the immense speed by the weapon systems VLO will become thus even more important.
Plasma stealth? I know at this point it's a demo-stand technology, but if it matures...
And maybe low level, under the weather operations? DEW is very much a high altitude clear air weapon as any half decent cloud is like a steel wall to even a high power laser beam. In the 2050+ air battle where ABLs might be as common as AEW&C (or even on the same platform) watching the weather may be the only way to get a strike mission through.
Plasma stealth has been around since 1958 and was attempted to be used in high speed (Mach 3+) aircraft. But since it relies on ionised gas surrounding the aircraft is something really hard to make work. Maybe a plasma spike hypersonic could feasible create a large plasma stealth bubble but that's a lot of air needed to be ionised. Even when it works its only a -20 dBsm improvement which is going to get a big hypersonic platform down to the RCS of an F-5 to F/A-18E/F but no where near VLO.
It would have to mature. As I understand it, the ions around the vehicle cause it to glow at night like a neon light, in addition to blocking radar. The Russians are thinking of using it as a LO idea on their engine intakes.
So why does being in a cockpit provide you with an advantage from being in an office 10,000 miles away? In the office you can have access to all the same inputs the pilot in the cockpit has, only interrupted by the lag and latency of the system (so maybe a second). You have all the advantages of a safe and comfortable environment, toilet breaks, shift working, mass expertise to call
A human in the cockpit offers the "human brain" as a direct interface with the fighter. The ability to make deductions and analyse situations for which a computor has not been built for. The friction of war itself make it desirable.
The risk of losing the link or of having ECM blocking communications of a sixth generation fighter must be taken into consideration as well. It may be easier for an adversary to disrupt communication than to build a counter fighter.
The US has not had a war with ECM being used to any great extent, by a modern military. It would be a weak spot to be exploited.
Should the link be disrupted, should the mission go on, be recalled, what are the circumstances at the scene. The best interface with the fighter and the decisions that would have to be made would be with the pilot.
A human in the cockpit offers the "human brain" as a direct interface with the fighter. The ability to make deductions and analyse situations for which a computor has not been built for. The friction of war itself make it desirable.
The risk of losing the link or of having ECM blocking communications of a sixth generation fighter must be taken into consideration as well. It may be easier for an adversary to disrupt communication than to build a counter fighter.
The US has not had a war with ECM being used to any great extent, by a modern military. It would be a weak spot to be exploited.
Should the link be disrupted, should the mission go on, be recalled, what are the circumstances at the scene. The best interface with the fighter and the decisions that would have to be made would be with the pilot.
The plasma field is suppose to "absorb" radar energy, therefore, there is no reflected energy to the radar. Plasma does not "block" radar.
Ahh the poet in the cockpit argument. Sounds nice but it total bullshit. The friction of war actually wants a more deductive and analytical thinker like a computer. To simply suggest that there will be situations outside the computer's programming is fallacious? What situations? I don't hear of Global Hawks encounting such situations? The fighter pilot is not an agent of grand strategic thinking but an instinctive and responsive agent. Computers can do this job far more effectively but perhaps with a lot less Aviator sunglasses style...
How does one disrupt communications between an aircraft at 40,000 feet and a satellite?
Then there is the assumption that the manned aircraft could continue its mission against a communications black out. Considering the importance of networks for survivability this is extremely unlikely.
Then there is the assumption that the unmanned aircraft can not continue its mission against a communications black out. They can identify and prosecute complex targets autonomously and are proven in doing so. Considering the lower chance of survivability without networked situational awareness it would actually be much better to send an unmanned aircraft into this environment than a manned one.
All the arguments against autonomous UCAVs are based on feelings not facts.
I couldn't find the source so I will 'wing' it as to how I read the article. You can draw your own conclusions.
"Basically the plasma that absorbs the radar signal surrounds the aircraft from nose to tail. It not only absorbs the incoming radar signal, but would significantly interfere with an outgoing signal as well. Ions don't distinquish between incoming or out going signals."
That may not make sense to you, but it did to me. Which is why current efforts are being used in the intake of engines and not the entire aircraft.
Just a thought, but would it work in the rain?
Not really. I was explaining this in the AFM forums. They have everything to do with recursive/reentrant echoing. Though you are right in one important sense that magnetic style surface RAM can't be used in supersonic and hypersonic vehicles. These requires magnetic particles to absorb RF and turn them into heat. However, high heat from air friction demagnetizes these particles.
Basically, the idea is an old one, developed back in the forties. This is the Salisbury screen concept, along with its variation, the Jaumann absorber. You let some of the RF in, which goes through a gap about a fraction of the frequency wavelength, then reflects against an inner layer and out through the screen again. By then the second wave would be completely out of phase with the first one, and they both cancel each other out. The problem is that these systems are frequency or bandwidth specific, and like anything dealing with RAM, you got a problem with thickness if you are dealing with longer wavelengths.
However, since this is obviously so mission focused it can mitigate bandwidth specific concerns. You just want to be optimized against C and X bands because that's where the longer ranged fire control radars are. Even if you're detected by L or S band style AEW radars, these can't bring a target lock on the hypersonic vehicle unless you have a C to X band radar doing the fire control.
There are similar systems in principle, basically trapping the radar echoes in a recursive principle, like two mirrors facing each other, until the waves run out of energy or cancel each other out. Sometimes the process is aided by adding absorbers in the intermediate cavity. All these can be built just under the skin using carbon fiber.
As for dealing with thermal issues, that's another thing though. Can't do much about the superheating air that forms around the vehicle in a shockwave.
Now how does plasma absorb RF. Simple. Read the previous paragraph on magnetic RAM. Plasma is magnetic.
Thanks for your further explanation. I do understand that the plasma will absorb incoming as well as outgoing EM waves. I had understood you meant blocking the radar on the non-plasma (search) aircraft."Basically the plasma that absorbs the radar signal surrounds the aircraft from nose to tail. It not only absorbs the incoming radar signal, but would significantly interfere with an outgoing signal as well. Ions don't distinquish between incoming or out going signals."
That may not make sense to you, but it did to me. Which is why current efforts are being used in the intake of engines and not the entire aircraft.
Just a thought, but would it work in the rain?
and that means that it stands out like a nun in the middle of a nudist colony using an anomaly detector.....
just to reinforce all my previous on how fast the future is upon us:
*Updated Apache Flies With New UAV System*
Jan 29, 2009
An AH-64D Apache Block III attack helicopter took its first flight recently, equipped with an upgraded version of the video from unmanned aircraft systems for interoperability teaming - level 2 (VUIT-2), called the Unmanned Aerial Systems Tactical Common Data Link Assembly (UTA).
The Longbow UTA, as Lockheed Martin is calling it, is a two-way, high-bandwidth data link for Apache aircrews that allows sensor and flight path control of UAVs. During the recent test, the UTA acquired and tracked a Boeing unmanned Little Bird in flight.
Apache crews will now be able to exercise control of UAVs at long ranges and receive real-time, high-definition streaming video of their multi-function displays. While VUIT-2 is a federated system, UTA is fully integrated with the Apache Arrowhead Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor system.
The Longbow UTA system, as currently configured by the U.S. Army, consists of either a fire control radar or a UTA, a fire-and-forget radar frequency Hellfire millimeter wave-guided missile and an all-digital M299 launcher. The new system will be fielded beginning in 2012.
note what is not said on the issue of a federated system - it means dismounted weapons delivery from the Apache to UAV is already in play. Transitioning the rotor concept is only a matter of time when you consider that dismounted management of fixed wing assets has been developed before this - and this is in fact using fixed wing developments
ASAT?
I'm not saying this is the future, I'm actually out of my class in this discussion, just throwing the possibility out there. If we're debating a peer or near peer power situation, then ASAT shouldn't be ruled out.
EDIT: Not directly related to 5th gen fighters, but relevant to the discussion on robotics, DID does a nice little analysis that confirms Abrahams views with de-facto programs and proposals.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/In-the-Loop-Armed-Robots-and-the-Future-of-War-05267/#more-5267
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