Trends in Air to Air Combat

[Clark Griswold]

Purpose built aggressor from a 4th gen fighter: SAAB PRESENTS GRIPEN AGGRESSOR

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/gripen-aggressor-targets-uk-us-requirements-441052/

 

Doubtful it could/will happen but looking at their proposal (just the mock up and the articles linked above), I was wondering why they didn't offer this in a two crew configuration?  It would seem for a training aircraft, having a family model would be beneficial for a new dude to sit back and watch the fight, are ADAIR 38's usually flown single seat or do they usually fly with a second pilot or WSO to observe the scenario?

 

 

Edited September 18, 2017 by Clark Griswold

[brabus]

The only real value of a 2 seat would be if we bought the same aircraft for UPT and ADAIR. It would probably be more than needed for UPT equipment-wise, but at least there'd be a common aircraft for MX, logisitics, etc. 

[Clark Griswold]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

The only real value of a 2 seat would be if we bought the same aircraft for UPT and ADAIR. It would probably be more than needed for UPT equipment-wise, but at least there'd be a common aircraft for MX, logisitics, etc. 

Copy that.  

On the idea of a T-X Aggressor, article from 2015 but as we are approaching FY18, I wonder if the $220 million that was referenced to be spent 2018 is still there for T-X aggressor kit development?

Did a quick pass on the SAF/FM page but no joy.

[RTB]

11 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

...are ADAIR 38's usually flown single seat or do they usually fly with a second pilot or WSO to observe the scenario?

Usually flown single seat.  The second seat is helpful to allow in-house upgrades and qualification though.

[Clark Griswold]

5 hours ago, RTB said:

Usually flown single seat.  The second seat is helpful to allow in-house upgrades and qualification though.

Gotcha. 

One other question, are they talking about aggressor simulators for linked sim mission training or is this already happening in Virtual Flag?

[HossHarris]

Virtual flag has both "imaginary" bad guys as well as live bad guys in actual sims to varying effect. 

[Clark Griswold]

Copy all.

Continuing on Aggressor Aircraft and just seeing how the other side did it sts, found a bit on the FSU's aggressor aircraft and program:

https://thelexicans.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/soviet-aggressor-program/

Unsurprisingly, not much openly available but grist for the mill.

Question for 11Fs, if you could save one of the teen series fighters slated to be retired by the 35 as a "standard" aggressor for military provided training (in some specialized training configuration/mod), which do you think could give better training over the range of Air to Air threat simulation?  

F-15, 16 or 18?  Not phishing from Moscow or Beijing, and if OPSEC allows, informed opinions are appreciated.

[HossHarris]

12 minutes ago, Clark Griswold said:

Copy all.

Continuing on Aggressor Aircraft and just seeing how the other side did it sts, found a bit on the FSU's aggressor aircraft and program:

https://thelexicans.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/soviet-aggressor-program/

Unsurprisingly, not much openly available but grist for the mill.

Question for 11Fs, if you could save one of the teen series fighters slated to be retired by the 35 as a "standard" aggressor for military provided training (in some specialized training configuration/mod), which do you think could give better training over the range of Air to Air threat simulation?  

F-15, 16 or 18?  Not phishing from Moscow or Beijing, and if OPSEC allows, informed opinions are appreciated.

If money was no object?  F-15s with various radars. 

Most bank for the buck? F-16s with ea pods

[Clark Griswold]

19 minutes ago, HossHarris said:

If money was no object?  F-15s with various radars. 

Most bank for the buck? F-16s with ea pods

Copy that.  I thought the F-15 might be the preference (disregarding cost) for the performance, radar capability and size/capability for pods.  

[VMFA187]

3 hours ago, HossHarris said:

If money was no object?  F-15s with various radars. 

Most bank for the buck? F-16s with ea pods

Concur, Fulcrums are no longer the baseline threat which have more similarities to Hornets and Vipers. Flankers are more accurately simulated by Eagles for a multitude of reasons.

[HossHarris]

But eagles are getting pricey to operate and maintain ....

[Clark Griswold]

14 hours ago, HossHarris said:

But eagles are getting pricey to operate and maintain ....

No doubt but this could be a good mission for the Joint Force, NATO, Aussies/Japan/SK burden sharing arrangement, not holding my breath for something like that, but a robust aggressor capability and training is a universal requirement for all the allies.  

On the AF keeping an organic aggressor mission... seems like a good fit for the ARC: depth of experience in units focusing on that mission, scalable at will for training cycles / deployments / new threats, etc... was it ever discussed to send that mission in whole or part to the ARC?  Put the units at or near domiciles and you would build and retain a high experience aggressor pilot cadre.  

Edited September 28, 2017 by Clark Griswold

[brabus]

It's already part of the ARC. Though there is not an entire ARC squadron with their own jets (at least I think the 38s are AD iron), but plenty of ARC guys work in an AD squadron.  I agree though, it's a mission that could work well in the ARC, especially for guys who are older, still want to fly something fast, but don't have the desire to keep up with all the requirements demanded by an F-X. Great for a part timer especially. 

Edited September 28, 2017 by brabus

[VMFA187]

On 9/27/2017 at 6:17 AM, HossHarris said:

But eagles are getting pricey to operate and maintain ....

At least they’re still airworthy. Most legacy Hornets are not.

In hindsight, a mix of Eagles for standard Flankers and H/VF profiles and Super Hornets simulating reduced RCS Flankers would be ideal, even if incredibly unlikely.

[pbar]

12 hours ago, brabus said:

It's already part of the ARC. Though there is not an entire ARC squadron with their own jets (at least I think the 38s are AD iron), but plenty of ARC guys work in an AD squadron.  I agree though, it's a mission that could work well in the ARC, especially for guys who are older, still want to fly something fast, but don't have the desire to keep up with all the requirements demanded by an F-X. Great for a part timer especially. 

Two of three Navy Aggressor squadrons are Reserve squadrons IIRC.

[Clark Griswold]

On 9/28/2017 at 5:18 AM, brabus said:

It's already part of the ARC. Though there is not an entire ARC squadron with their own jets (at least I think the 38s are AD iron), but plenty of ARC guys work in an AD squadron.  I agree though, it's a mission that could work well in the ARC, especially for guys who are older, still want to fly something fast, but don't have the desire to keep up with all the requirements demanded by an F-X. Great for a part timer especially. 

Gotcha - I should have clarified my point or idea would be for an ARC unit solely focused on the aggressor mission, owning the iron also.  I could see the ARC leery of converting a Wing over to this mission only so I would see it more as a squadron/detachment of an established wing, geo separated.

Put this in the not gonna happen column and probably not that much cheaper than flying an aggressor modified F-15s but with the divestment of operational F-4s that would probably not need that much mod, buying F-4s from Greece, Germany, Turkey, Japan, etc... might be useful for an aggressor.

[Buddy Spike]

On 9/28/2017 at 5:51 PM, pbar said:

Two of three Navy Aggressor squadrons are Reserve squadrons IIRC.

All of them are.  VFA-204 is the only Navy Reserve squadron that pretends to still have a "strategic reserve" posture.  VFC-12, VFC-13, and VFC-111 are all adversary-only and Navy Reserve.  With Legacy Hornets, VFC12 and VFA-204 struggle to provide enough flyable aircraft and usually have to rely on each other to supplement support detachments.

NAWDC is active duty and does Top Gun support, but they are not an adversary squadron per se. 

 

[Clark Griswold]

Not exactly on the topic of air to air but a possible encore career for the 15/18 in the German AF:

Germany asks for Boeing fighter data as weighs order options

Kinda surprised they haven't come up with a Strike Typhoon version yet in lieu of an RFP from Boeing

 

[SocialD]

On 9/27/2017 at 11:52 PM, Clark Griswold said:

On the AF keeping an organic aggressor mission... seems like a good fit for the ARC: depth of experience in units focusing on that mission, scalable at will for training cycles / deployments / new threats, etc... was it ever discussed to send that mission in whole or part to the ARC?  Put the units at or near domiciles and you would build and retain a high experience aggressor pilot cadre.  

- Put the aggressor mission in ARC units located at/near major airline domiciles.

- Have the blue air go TDY to the Red Air turf. 

- If the above bullet is not attainable, then staff it well enough so that guys only have to go TDY once or twice a year (1-2 weeks max).

- Non-deployale billets.

- Reduce monthly sortie requirements to be easily attainable in 2-3 days.

Do those things and you would have ZERO problems filling an Guard/Reserve squadron with part timers willing to fly aggressors.  Dreaming, I know.  

[Clark Griswold]

8 hours ago, SocialD said:

- Put the aggressor mission in ARC units located at/near major airline domiciles.

- Have the blue air go TDY to the Red Air turf. 

- If the above bullet is not attainable, then staff it well enough so that guys only have to go TDY once or twice a year (1-2 weeks max).

- Non-deployale billets.

- Reduce monthly sortie requirements to be easily attainable in 2-3 days.

Do those things and you would have ZERO problems filling an Guard/Reserve squadron with part timers willing to fly aggressors.  Dreaming, I know.  

Yup 

If I were king for a day, put them also near established ranges, ideally with GCI and not too far from tankers, off the top of the cranium, LAX-LAS-SLC-DFW-MIA, fit some of those nice to have features.

Dreaming probably but all they can say is hell no, propose it and give'em a reason(s) for military aggressors vice contracted red air.  

[Clark Griswold]

Not air to air but an example of AI likely to migrate to fighters...

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-can-help-hunt-down-missile-sites-in-china/

 

[di1630]

I enjoyed the read but realistically I’m just wondering if you are going to get the train moving to modernize EM in 2017.

It seems by the F-35 that our focus isn’t on fighter EM.

Has there been a A/A fight since Vietnam where EM has been the deciding factor?

Not trying to take away from your work. I’m just trying to picture a B-1 crew applying the concept vs telling them what seems obvious....if you are in front of escort and an A/A threat pops up...run.

1964 EM in fighters was everything but today a highly capable EM fighter can be easily defeated by better technology which is where our focus has been.

Let’s say hypothetical an F-35 vs a Eurofighter.

[SurelySerious]

9 hours ago, di1630 said:

Let’s say hypothetical an F-35 vs a Eurofighter.

Trick question: the fuel from the fuel truck was too warm, F-35 doesn’t get airborne, Eurofighter bombs F-35. 

 

Sorry for the derail. I digress. 

[JeremiahWeed]

17 hours ago, Supercritical said:

Thanks for the read.

Here's the kicker: I would say that BVR uses EM just as much as WVR.  I think dudes already do this in execution when they inflict energy costs on the enemy's aircraft/missile combo to create a BVR advantage.  Those tactics take the form of rules-of-thumb (distance, time, geometry, etc.), but I would argue that those are merely simplifications of an underlying energy relationship.

That's the idea of the paper: depending on the missile and the tactics, the 'blue' region might extend out to 69 NM and span +-69 degrees from boresight.

So, do you have some examples of how an air-to-air pilot might apply these principles to employment in 2017?  What am I going to do or think differently in an F-22 or even an F-15 as I commit ~100 NM from some inbound hostiles?  Back to the B-1 for a moment, when faced with a known threat approaching a BVR WEZ, what is that pilot who is well versed in this line of thinking going to do today that he wouldn't have done a week ago before he read your paper?

[Clark Griswold]

Non-fighter pilot asking:

Is it the fighter's EM that matters more now or the EM of the weapon that really matters?  With late generation AAMs and the capabilities of the cueing sensors (AESA radar, JHMCS, etc...) is that really the EM battle that matters more now?

Just from this open source graphic of a Python 4's capabilities, it seems to me that a fighter still needs maneuverability but with the capability of the missiles/sensors, I would really want the capability to defend/disengage/countermeasure and reposition for round 2.

That defensive move might be a high g turn or from my perspective it would probably be better to have really good transonic acceleration to separate from the bandit and his weapon while giving me time, distance and energy to fix the glitch..

Edited December 5, 2017 by Clark Griswold