What if the Russians bid the PAK-FA T-50?
What if the Russians allow the S. Koreans to stuff it with S. Korean engines and electronics?
The S. Koreans already operate a Russian Helicopter. Have knowledge on building the F-15SK.
This could be the scenario that helps them save face and one up the entire region. You would have the S. Koreans with a stealthy airplane that has the performance of the F-15 with the sensor capability of the best in the region.
And it would be stealthy. Add some Meteor Missiles to the plane and you have a long range archer, a close range knife fighter and an overall brawler in the heavyweight class that is as nimble as a featherweight.
It would rule the Pacific.
We'll take a few for Oz as well please.
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ReplyDeletesorry for the double post.
DeleteI suppose that could be a possibility.
ReplyDeleteI see a few problems though, some of which maybe the F35 shares, but problems none the less.
1) Sk doesn't have a history with russia on deals this big and that does matter to a point
2) Hard to say but the Pak-Fa maybe even further behind in development that the F-35, or at least will not be ready till a later date.
3) The Pak-Fa stealth engines are supposedly far from finished, and assuming SK could or would fill the gap seems heavy
4)Ive heard there are problems with the radar on the Pak-Fa, and it has reportedly no or little LPI mode. In a sense damaging its stealth and ability compromises were made for.
5) There is strong evidence that the Pak-Fa is actually the least stealthy between all the current generation 5s being only stealthy from the front and very little anywhere else, less than the J20(maybe not from the front because of canards but everywhere else), F22, and even F-35 probably has better all round stealth and maybe even better from the front given the US advantage in coatings and materials.
In many ways the Pak-Fa is just not stealthy enough in its current form (remember this sort of is russias first crack at stealth) and it isn't so amazing anywhere else to make up for it enough.
Frankly the Pak-FA is a inferior far less stealthy F-22 that is probably slower, and while aerodynamically superior would probably lose to the F22 in virage time turn. (F-22 has much larger tails and controls surface areas and is smaller.)
Pak-Fa has a higher wing load without better thrust/we ratio, and not much else to its name than being able to carry 2 more missiles and a larger combat radius than the F-22.
The design of the J-20 compared to the F22 is even worse, but interestingly the J-20 is a much more serious threat to the Pak-Fa. (mostly because the Pak-Fa has no real stealth RCS advantage and maybe even disadvantage depending on the angle, really comes down to how badly those retarded canards on the J-20 ruin the entire stealth shaping purpose)
No real details have been released about the Radar on the Pak Fa regarding its LPI. [That is there secret] Nothing worth knowing about there L Band radar has been released either. How effective we do not know. Has it got jamming ability? will it be used to cue the ASEA once it picks up something. Will it work well in conjunction with other Pak Fa's. [One big antenna?] The USSR and Russia in the past have come up with many breakthrough solutions. There is nothing to say they don't have one this time. There Infrared will more than likely be the equal or better than anything around. Plenty of experience there. Slower? Faster from all official reports. It may be a little bigger but nothing has been said about its weight. Its fuel and armament load indicates they may have been successful in keeping it very light. With Russia being the world leader by far in titanium construction and combined with composites there is nothing to say it can't be very light. We know nothing about the composites they are using and the coating. The present Engines have a little less thrust but they do weigh about 400kg less than the F119 each. The vertical stabs on it will save weight being smaller. Specific thrust is more important than sheer thrust. Higher wing loading? It depends on which armchair expert you listen to? What we must accept is the designers words that it will be more agile than the SU35 and the fact they say it surpassed its design specifications in many areas during there virtually trouble free testing to date. Recently there Engine designers talked about Stealth type engines. They have done trials but are not that keen about putting them on even the new engine if they mean considerable extra weight as on the F22 and loss of thrust. They said they had it down to about 9% loss but in there mind that was not good enough. It should be ready by 2016 they say. Ready for the Indian version and the second batch for Russia. They say they are going to put some sort of IR measures on the present model using an envelope of cool air to suppress the signature of the engine. It for sure can't have a worse back end than the F35.
DeleteI don't think even Sukhoi could out lobby Lockheed. After the F-15SE was rejected I will not be surprised by anything that Lockheed does. I wouldn't even be surprised if they had already killed a few people that threatened this program for whatever reason.
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DeleteWell, it is very,very,very unlikely to happen....
ReplyDeleteRussia won't sell it's top fighter to a US ally. The only way they would go for it is if they offer some sort of detuned export, no stealth PAKFA. They would just sell the basic airframe and engines. Let the Koreans get the airframes and engines, assemble them in Korea with an European AESA. I doubt US govt would give an export license to Raytheon or Northrop. Korea would have to finish the cockpit with Western standard gear, radar, ECM, integrate all the data fusing,etc and do the weapons testing since they would want AMRAMM or METEOR plus JDAM,etc....Yeah, plus Korea would have to develop their own stealth coatings, parts and paint and test that too. It would be very time consuming and very expensive but they would have one hell of a top of the line fighter.
In pure A2A combat, at long range BVR, you don't need all round stealth anyways, you are looking at each other head on so PAKFA doesn't need to be perfect all round, just good frontal LO and let METEOR do the rest. As for LPI, you could compensate with a good IRST.
USA wouldn't be very happy and probably would play the no communality card. Funny thing though is the F35 has zero communality with F15s and F16s but, hey, who is paying attention to that?
The biggest problem probably comes from South Korea itself. You have to be pretty stupid to believe that South Korea needs the F35 to deal with North Korea threat when most of it's air-force belongs in a museum. So why PAKFA? It would be a major statement from the part of South Korea, almost like giving the middle finger to China and Japan, it also would signal that they would be looking at major warfare with China or Japan over SCS. It is a clear and major statement that I don't think SK is ready to take politically.
Problem with North Korea is that they seem to be playing to a different playbook than the rest of us. The F-35 in this case would not be for A2A usage, what South Korea is more afraid of is the North getting another brainfart and lobbing a few more rounds of artillery cross the border. The South Korean government has all but sworn a blood promise to their people that they would counterattack the artillery unit involved the next time it happens, and the fastest way to do that is an air strike, anything else would have to involve moving army units into place first and that divorces the cause from the effect as well as takes time that would make the government look slow and ineffective. To do this, they would need an aircraft that can penetrate or skim the border without taking too much fire and blow the offending artillery unit to bits of meat and metal.
DeleteIt's hard to live next door to an armed nutcase. Even more so an armed nutcase with nukes and a history of violence for violence's sake.
So F-35 for ground attack in North Korea's case. With a bit of SRBM chasing on the side maybe?
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ReplyDelete-Nobody know about the furtivity of T50, nor if it's better than F35, neither J20
ReplyDelete-None of these aircraft are in final version.
-furtivity is more propagand than combat proven.
-The case of SK is illustrative of the need of thousand of less high tech bombers : their need is more 400 A10 than 60 F35 to take out 60 years of artillery stockpile ! I don't even know if they have enough bombs to take them all out !
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ReplyDeleteI will try to give an update on the situation. It wasn't the ROKAF or DAPA that overturned the decision the selection committee, but a panel of "civilian advisers" who make up half the committee members. These people are civilians from ordinary lives who have little understanding of military equipment and are easily swayed by what they read in the press and on TV. Prior to voting, Lockheed Martin ran an intense anti-Silent Eagle publicity campaign with hired publicists(Whom I am sure will be getting big bonuses) as a 40-year old obsolete design. To the amazement of the ROKAF and the DAPA officials at the meeting, these civilian panel fell for it; the ROKAF official's desperate 2.5 hour attempt to sell the Silent Eagle to these civilian panel members failed, and the motion to buy the Silent Eagle was turned down.
ReplyDeleteSo now what's gonna happen is that the current F-X III will be cancelled and a new one with different budget and requirements will be started, which the Defense Ministry officials say could reach a decision in two years but is unlikely, because the opposition party officially backs the Silent Eagle and is refusing to increase funding, so it will drag out. In the meanwhile, the money for F-X III will be returned to the Treasury to fund other weapons projects, namely the army and navy's pet projects.
Now that the purchase is delayed by 2~5 years, the hole in the ROKAF jet inventory is inevitable, and the Korean aerospace suppliers that were counting on Boeing's tech transfer and offset program will be massively hit, already reflected at the stock market. The KFX program is also massively impacted, because it was counting on Boeing's extensive tech transfer program to proceed with the full development of the KFX project by early next year is also delayed indefinitely because they must find alternate source of technology which is definitely not Lockheed Martin, which opposed the KFX project from the beginning and refused the tech transfer program.
What's troubling is that while the Air Force's strength is decreasing, the Navy and the Army are offering to reduce the requirement for the Air Force's jet inventory requirements by taking on some of the roles currently performed by the Air Force, such as strategic bombing and air defense with the Amry and the Navy's long range missile force numbering in tens of thousands of missiles and the locally made SAM system on all new Navy warships(Even the ROKN littoral combat ship has far better air defense capability than the USN's LCS). The reason for this is that the Army and the Navy buys mostly local weapons system which face little funding resistance, while the Air Force buys mostly imported weapons system that are judged by much harsher standard. So while the Air Force's $8 billion jet import program faces years of criticisms, betting, and reconsideration, the Army's $30 billion locally made ballistic/cruise missile program is passed quickly through all approval process, the difference being imported weapons vs locally made weapons.
So unfortunately, the trend of Air Force's downsizing at the expense of the Navy and the Army's arms build up cannot be changed until the Air Force has its own locally made platform, namely the KFX.
As for the PAK-FA, the DAPA did ask(actually beg) Sukhoi to participate in the F-X III but Skuhoi turned down citing their inability to deliver combat ready jets by 2016. but Sukhoi's bad experience in the F-X I also played the role in its decision to not participate.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the ROK's joint missile programs with Russia are doing well and has produced dozens of missile systems, the most notably the KM-SAM/S-350E SAM systems and the KL-SAM/S-450(?? I have no idea what Russians will call it) project is also smooth-sailing, and the Defense Ministry is trying to use the KL-SAM's 250 km range to cut down on needed numbers of fighter jets.
There is no S-450. The KL-SAM is based on S-400 and it's planned modernization to a degree. KL-SAM's missile has its lineage from domestic version 48N6 missile family( 48N6,48N6D, 48N6DM) then the export versions( 48N6E, 48N6E2, 48N6E3) of 48N6 missile.
DeleteBTW do you know if this S.Korean new ballistic missile and cruise missile have had Russian input ?
I mean this ones
http://en.rian.ru/images/17291/23/172912393.jpg
http://i.usatoday.net/news/_photos/2012/04/19/S-Korea-has-new-cruise-missiles-A91B865E-x-large.jpg
Both look like Iskandar ballistic missile and Iskandar-K cruise missile
Robert,
DeleteKL-SAM is a ducked rocket for aircraft interceptor to achieve 250 km range in a compact package, different from existing Russian SAMs.
As for both missiles, they are indeed based on Russian mechanical designs, but the warhead and guidance electronics are local.
Well, that's what i've read through. Was a while ago though and KL-SAM was just a rumor.
DeleteAre there any pictures of KL-SAM missile ?
@ Robert
DeleteRight now there is none, all we know this is in development as the follow-up project to the KM-SAM. There have been news articles about ongoing negotiations with Russia on a long range FCS radar for this system.
The good thing about the KL-SAM and the accompanying 800 km ballistic missiles for the KILLCHAIN is that both greatly reduce the ROKAF's fighter jet workload, and KL-SAM is an ROKAF program. The side effect is that it also reduces the Defense Ministry's perceived fighter jet needs for the ROKAF. The ROKAF, whose weapons are primarily imported unlike the Navy and the Army, are always put on a backseat in weapons acquisition priorities, and only a domestic fighter jet would fix this problem because domestic weapons programs are judged by a much lower standard than imported weapons.
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ReplyDeleteOh, the breaking news is that the president finally decided to go ahead with the full scale development of KFX to appease the angry Air Force(which backed the F-15SE but were snubbed by the selection committee's civilian panel) for them to finally get the permanent solution to the never-ending jet importing nightmare.
ReplyDeleteWhile the rejection of the Silent Eagle means no tech transfer(The F-35 comes with none), not relying on the US tech at all makes the resulting product far more exportable. This is a more difficult, time consuming path, but the president decided to go alone. Likely partners are Saab(which was involved in the pre-eliminary engineering), Rolls-Royce(the engine is almost certainly EJ220), and Israeli suppliers.
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ReplyDeleteUSA want to have a look on pak-fa, so why dont let the SK buy a few?
ReplyDeletePak-fa is not 5th generation, its just another upgraded version of 4th gen fighter. But unlike USA, upgrading already available F-15 and F-18 (with conformal tanks, stealth weapon containers, new avionics, etc) Russia goes complete FUBAR as usual -- building new 4th gen plane from scratch.
Its like at the beginning of WWII, when Russia had best in the world fighter plane in its category -- I-153 best BIPLANE in the world.