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Red Flag and the F-35 Kill Ratio Is 15:1
The much maligned F-35 did very well at the February 2017 Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nevada. In fact the F-35 dominated the skies. When paired with F-22 the kill ratio may have been as high 17:1.
In the past few months reading through news stories about the F-35 I wondered why the F-35 was denigrated in the US, but Australians and Europeans were so impressed by this aircraft. The F-35 is available for purchase by American allies, the F-22 is not. The Red Flag exercises provided the answers to that question.
In the first day of sorties during Red Flag not a single F-35 was lost to “enemy action”, and not one F-35 was grounded to mechanical or electronic malfunctions. Throughout the exercise the operational ability to keep the F-35 flying was approximately 92%.
What this means to NATO is that the Russians would not be able to support ground troops and it would allow NATO to dominate the sky. The Russian Air Force would not be able to protect Russian armored or infantry units. The Russian Air Force would have to sit on the ground, or risk being destroyed in a very short time, or confined to Russian airspace.
Published in MilitaryRunning from January 23 to February 10, this year’s Red Flag involves more threats to pilots than ever before, including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), radar jamming equipment, and an increased number of red air, or mock enemy aircraft. Against the ramped-up threats, the F-35A only lost one aircraft for every 15 aggressors killed, according to Aviation Week.
The F-35 Lightning II’s advanced avionics software was the star of the show, as multiple F-35s successfully compiled data into a detailed layout of the battlefield with each individual threat pinpointed. The stealthy aircraft could then slip into weak spots in the defensive layout and take out SAM targets, opening up the space for follow-on forces of legacy fighters. Even when the F-35s ran out of munitions, F-22 and fourth-generation fighter pilots wanted the aircraft to remain in the combat zone, soaking up data and porting target info to the older fighters.
Before where we would have one advanced threat and we would put everything we had—F-16s, F-15s, F-18s, missiles—we would shoot everything we had at that one threat just to take it out, Lt. Col. George Watkins, 34th Fighter Squadron commander, told Aviation Week. Now we are seeing three or four of those threats at a time.
The F-35 and the F-22 Raptor pair up to make a particularly deadly team, according to the pilots. The Raptor uses its advanced air maneuverability to shield the F-35 from airborne threats while the F-35 relays data to the F-22 to paint a clear picture of the battlefield. Once the duo of fifth-generation fighters take out an initial wave of ground and air targets, F-18s, F-16s, and F-15s bring up the rear to provide support, all receiving target data from the F-35s in the field.
To operate at the upper, outer edge of the envelope — yes. However, it would be a poor design that would fail to allow you to either get home after an engine failure or at least get down in accordance with proper aerodynamic principles.
Skyler,
I vote for your assessment. Four may not be too much different than two but I suspect two makes a great deal of difference over one. When I was selling process control redundancy was a religion. Engineers are not very superstitious, testing out everything, so it was more like a true religion.
Regards,
Jim
You must be familiar with risk analysis. Redundancy can introduce more risk in some situations by increasing the risk of a single component failure. For example if the pristine engine is very reliable but has a higher probability of failure due to human error during maintenance, you have nearly doubled the likelihood of having an engine malfunction. Consider that some engine failures are inherently catastrophic so redundancy doesn’t help. You will lose more two-engine airframes.
I’m not saying this applies to any particular plane but it’s an example of how engineers might show a single engine is safer in some designs.
Mark,
I understand what you are saying. However, there are also additional factors other than human errors during maintenance. First, extreme conditions on take-off and landing that can not be avoided in a wartime situation. Second, having part of your airplane shot away.
Your hypothetical certainly is possible but possible isn’t probable. I’d need a lot of convincing. Although I am not against mysticism when applied to religion, I am extremely empiric when considering fighter aircraft.
Regards,
Jim
OK. Is there data that the F-15 with two engines is safer than the F-16 with one?
This has some.
It’s never quite apples to apples because the jets have several different engines. I found another site with raw data per-engine-flight-hour sorted by airframe and engine type:
US Air Force Aviation Safety Division
For equivalent engines the F-16 has a 4 to 8 times higher engine-related Class A mishap rate than the F-15.
Except there is this strange outlier of the F100-PW-229. The F-16 has 0 mishaps in over 381,000 flight hours compared to 7 in 1.2M engine flight hours for the F-15. And the F-15 rate with the -229 is 3 times the rate for other engines. So what’s going on here?
Guess time.
I assume the data is for US and foreign aircraft.
The 229 is in Block 52 F-16. Several European countries have these.
It’s also used on the F-15E Strike Eagle.
Perhaps a greater proportion of F-15E than Block 52 F16 have seen action in the middle east where sand is a big issue.
Same comparing Strike Eagle to air-to-air variants F-15A-D, as there was less need to send air-to-air aircraft to the middle east. Also, even if there, they may fly above sand compared to the air-to-ground mission of the Strike Eagle.
What are the ways an engine can fail? Broadly, there are several. Here are some thoughts without implying there aren’t more modes:
I won’t say this is an exhaustive list. But that’s a reasonable start.
When someone starts telling me that “single engine aircraft are historically more reliable” than multi-engine aircraft, in my mind a little flag goes up the pole. The flag has a BS on it.
Newer designed engines are more reliable because we’ve learned over the decades how to make them better and how important it is to reduce maintenance costs/requirements. Saying that a single engine aircraft is more reliable than multi-engine aircraft doesn’t make a lot of sense.
See, ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION OF NICKEL-BASED SUPERALLOYS DUE TO GYPSIFEROUS DESERT DUSTS, DISSERTATION, Matthew B. Krisak, Major, USAF AFIT-ENY-DS-15-S-066
He validates my Middle East theory, but also notes problems at all altitudes of flight.
“GYPSIFEROUS DESERT DUSTS”
Otherwise known as “Saudi Sand.” I remember learning about it on our way to Saudi in the few days after Saddam invaded Kuwait. It sticks to engine compressor blades and can affect the efficiency enough to cause stalls.
I had known about CMAS (calcium magnesium alumino-silicate) and molten sand attack.
This has several adverse mechanisms. The easiest to understand is that in the hotter parts of the engine the components have ceramic coatings to help insulate the metal substrates from the hot gases. The molten sand infiltrates the porosity of the ceramic coatings on the various components. With the porosity filled, the coating can’t accommodate differential thermal expansion issues as the engine cycles and causes coating delamination/spall.