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Has The SU-33 Flanker D Made The F-18 Obsolete?

C

casey jones

Charter Member
I have been reading the Defense Weekly Site and the Chinese military website, then the artical about the Su-33 Flanker D surfaced. First I am not a expert on these matters I am only asking for those on our forum who can present their knowlege on what they think. In the above websites it said the Su-33 is now being reversed engineered by the Chinese, they were able to buy a prototype rom the Ukraime government, Russia is very concerned about this, the Russian Navy has been useing the SU-33 to launch from their only aircraft carrier...however they use a "ski-jump" type launch in favor of the normal catipault used by the US Navy..there is a narrow advantage of this allowing the SU-33 to reach flying speed quicker but the downside is it cannot carry its full load of fuel and armament. According to the break down of specs on the SU-33 Flanker D it is twice as fast as the present F-18E and more manuverable then the F-18E. Accordingly the F-18 originaly developed by Northurp Airplane Corp back in 1974 as the YF18 was to be designed for the USAF, but was rejected. The F-18F is a re-designed F-18 and is an almost new airplane. Sometime last summer the Air Force of Malaya? and the US Navy competed in dogfights (friendly The Mig 29s outmanurvered the Navy F-18s.


Cheers

Casey
 
Up close, the 18 might be out maneuvered by a 29 but the NCTR radar in the 18 can tell it's a Mig 29 well before the merge and the Fulcurm would be eating a "slammer" (Aim-120) in a real fight.
 
Yep, the use of advance radar and weaponry guidance systems means that our fighters never really have to get within dog fighting range of the enemy to blast them from the sky. You don't need to be the most agile plane when your kills are taking place 20, 30 or 40 miles away.

OBIO

I am going to move this to the Newshawks forum since it is a general topic thread and not pertaining to FS2002 or Fs2004.
 
The subject matter is a moot point with maybe. some exceptions. After much study on the matter and former contract employment within DARPA, I have reached the conclusion that integrated airframe systems and support for Super-Maneuver capability is a total waste of time and money. First off, lets clear the air about what the number truly mean. Turn rates and top speed are important but quite often the performance gaps aren't enough to grant assurance of dominating the battle. It's really more about the tactics/training or the pilot and electronic warfare/radar,weapon systems/fire control, and information/situational awareness bundled into one that decides the outcome as opposed to specific stats on a particular aircraft. In Vietnam, some of our best aircraft were used yet they came up short against older less sophisticated Mig-17F's. The Mig while being old enjoyed a 5 to 8 degree per second turning advantage on jets like the F-4 and F-8. The F-4 had far better weapons and systems but in a "wagon wheel" fight(common to the NVAF tactics), it would get sliced and diced. Through ACM training programs(Top Gun and later Red Flag) our pilots were taught vertical energy tactics that exploited a weakness in the Mig's envelope. As a result, we were able to turn dismal combat results into a rout in our favor in nearly every engagement. One way we learn about what a potential adversary aircraft is capable of is by testing them thoroughly. Days past, we tested nearly every Mig jet from the 50's and 60's(Mig-15's,17's, 21's, 23's, a single Mig-25(static tested only) and learned how to defeat them. We have had access to Mig-29's and SU-27's for nearly 20 years now and the Govt has over 30 Mig-29's including the advanced Fulcrum C variant in our possession. Besides digging into the true weapon systems and radar capability, we do run flight tests and ACM/DACT runs with these planes. One thing I can speak confidently on and that is that our Avionics(as well as Europe and Israel) are not even close to being outclassed by Russian Avionics. I say this not as petty insult but as fact. As one Engineer I talked to who is involved in F-22 and F-35 Avionics Integration and MSIPDEV's said: "The day the Russians pass us in the level in Avionics we are at now and in the future is likely to be the day the Devil has ice sickles hanging from his chin". One area he mentioned where they have an excellent level of development is advanced radar element design but the lack of good filtering and NCTR capability detracts from such design advantages greatly.

At this point, the Global/360 Degree Environment Sensor and Weapons Envelope capability really make Air Combat the most Lethal environment on any battlefield. It's truly frightening compared to days of old even though none of it should ever be considered a cake walk so to speak.

If there is a future conflict involving the F-22, F-35, F/A-18E/F against previous and current generations of Chinese and Russian designs, the Lethal Superiority of the former will be immediately and painfully obvious and over before it becomes grand in any measure of scale. Let us hope it shall not come to pass but better to be prepared with overwhelming technical capability and excellent training than to take anything for granted.
 
I have heard that the west had superior Radar techonology but the Russians had superior IR capability. Somthing else to consider, the Russian designs typically require less ground infrastructure for manufacture and support. A potential conflict might reveal that the Russians would be able to recover/rebuild losses faster than the West. I think WW2 Soviet forces were able to overwhelm the generally superior German equipment/technology really by numbers and ability to produce replacements at a faster rate. In the short term I think the west would prevail but in the long term, the Chinese or Russian manufacturing rate capability would be difficult to keep up with.
 
pilottj said:
I have heard that the west had superior Radar techonology but the Russians had superior IR capability. Somthing else to consider, the Russian designs typically require less ground infrastructure for manufacture and support. A potential conflict might reveal that the Russians would be able to recover/rebuild losses faster than the West. I think WW2 Soviet forces were able to overwhelm the generally superior German equipment/technology really by numbers and ability to produce replacements at a faster rate. In the short term I think the west would prevail but in the long term, the Chinese or Russian manufacturing rate capability would be difficult to keep up with.
Click to expand...

The combat effectiveness of IRST Sensors on Mig-29's(same ones as one the Sukhois) have demonstrated to be insufficient or giving any real advantage over Western designs. The kill ratio involving F-15C's against Mig-29's,(some even flown by Russian Pilots standing in for the end customer air force) has been in favor of the F-15C 100% to 0% for the Migs. Those kills occurred using Legacy Radars and Weapons albeit those Legacy Radars did feature early versions of NCTR(Non-Cooperative Target Recognition). The prime reason the rout of such a magnitude came to pass is that the front line Russian Radars from that generation of Mig and Sukhois were developed from the AWG-9 of a captured Iranian F-14A flown by a IAF Pilot defecting to the Soviet Union. While the newer Phazotron sets are way better than their Legacy sets, they are known to have lesser filtering and discriminatory capability than Western sets but perhaps greater range. One area the Russians did move ahead on was with the R-73 Missile. That was an impressive design and still is. The Russians got part of the idea for the Archer from the Agile Dogfight Missile that the US Navy designed and tested in the mid 70's. It got canceled because the USAF didn't want the weapon which was shown to have advantages over the then current AIM-9. We and the rest of the West have closed the gap in terms of Short Range IR A2A Missiles. Our BVR weapons have enjoyed good success as well but clearly the future designs will likely be all aspect combination envelope A2A Weapons. Some already exist but more are sure to follow. Some designs are scary. Highly CM resistant Staring Focal Plane IR Sensors(EM Spectral) with Radar Datalinks or Radar Elements mixed in as well as Aero/Thrust Vectoring which render Super-Maneuverable Fighter capability useless.

Key Factors in the success of Future Fighter Designs. Stealth, Range, Weapon Capability, and Sensors fused to High Situational Awareness in Global Aspect Effectiveness. The other side to this is that there are a number of new Self Protection Systems coming out that are far beyond the scope of ordinary chaff/flare dispensing.
 
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