• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

The RCAF's Next Generation Fighter (CF-188 Replacement)

SupersonicMax said:
Loachman: Bagotville is probably th best hidden secret in the Air Force.

It may not have been thirty years ago, or maybe just not with the Anglo guys. Maybe the Francos were the 20% not bailing.

I heard that claim from several. I used to go to Baden for one Happy Hour per month, as I knew quite a few people, including guys from my course in Moose Jaw - and the Mess shenanigans were a little different as well.

Airlines were hiring as well.
 
... besides, pilots don't want adult supervision in their aircraft... :stirpot:
 
Backseat drivers...

I've flown over 4000 hours without a navigator. Show me a navigator who's flown even a small fraction of an hour without a Pilot.
 
Loachman said:
Backseat drivers...

I've flown over 4000 hours without a navigator. Show me a navigator who's flown even a small fraction of an hour without a Pilot.

On the other hand, how many ACSOs have done controlled flight into terrain, vs the number of pilots who have done it?
 
You don't need a backseater to avoid CFIT.  Look up Auto-GCAS.  Here's a video of a real save on an F-16C (single seat): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WkZGL7RQBVw

Obviously, all the piloting mistakes will be made by pilots since they are the ones in charge of flying the aircraft and the aircraft itself.
 
dapaterson said:
On the other hand, how many ACSOs have done controlled flight into terrain, vs the number of pilots who have done it?

No nav has ever got himself and his Pilot lost, in cloud, in mountainous terrain...?
 
Meanwhile Boeing pitching Block 3--rather than Super Super Hornet (aka "advanced")--to USN.  Price? RCAF?

Boeing’s Souped-Up Super Hornet Adds Smart U.S. Navy Firepower

As President Donald Trump signals he may reconsider the mix of F-35Cs and F/A-18s for the carrier air wing of the 2020s and beyond, Boeing is pitching an upgraded “Block 3” Super Hornet designed to add firepower and act as a smart node on the U.S. Navy’s future network. 

While the service’s first F-35Cs will come online in 2018, the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet will make up at least half of the carrier air wing through the 2040s. The challenge is to keep the Super Hornet, an airframe originally designed in the 1990s, relevant and effective against advanced threats into the middle of the century. 

That issue is nothing new for Boeing, but the discussion about the next step for Super Hornet has shifted in the past few years. While the “Advanced Super Hornet” Boeing proposed in 2013 focused on stealth, the new and improved Block 3 is designed to optimize the Navy’s integrated network architecture, says Dan Gillian, Boeing F/A-18 and EA-18 program manager.

The big question for the carrier air wing through the 2030s, says Gillian, is:  “How can the Super Hornet evolve in a complementary way with the E-2D [Hawkeye] and Growler to help address some of those carrier gaps?”

Boeing believes the Navy could detail a plan to procure the Super Hornet Block 3 as soon as the fiscal 2018 budget proposal, expected later this spring. A fiscal 2019 buy would mean Boeing could have aircraft off the production line in the early 2020s, Gillian notes...

Gillian envisions a Block 3 Super Hornet working in tandem with the stealthy F-35C, Growler’s full-spectrum jammer and E-2D’s early-warning capability to dominate the skies. The addition of a long-range infrared sensor (IRST) will allow Block 3 to detect and track advanced threats from a distance, while conformal fuel tanks (CFT) will extend range by 100-120 nm. The CFTs are designed to replace the extra fuel tanks Super Hornets currently sling under the wing, reducing weight and drag and enabling additional payload.

These changes allow a fully loaded Block 3 Super Hornet to operate in conjunction with a stealthy F-35, providing air cover and greater magazine depth.

“You can have an F-35 in its very stealthy way doing a deep-strike mission with Super Hornet providing air superiority at that same range, or you can have Super Hornet carrying large standoff weapons that F-35 cannot carry, with F-35 providing some air cover,” Gillian says. “You get very mission-flexible, so range is important.”..

Certain features of the 2013 proposal, such as the enclosed weapons pod and internal IRST sensor, were dropped from the 2016-17 package because Boeing’s analysis determined the Super Hornet was “stealthy enough [emphasis added]”—it can fly full-up and still be survivable. Boeing engineers found they needed to make design compromises to significantly reduce the aircraft’s radar cross-section—for instance, by restricting payload.

“At some point we drew a line that would allow us to be stealthy enough in a balanced survivable way to be effective, and that is what we think we have,” Gillian says. “The F-35 is a stealthier airplane, but we have a balanced approach to survivability, including electronic warfare and self-protection.”

Block 3 also features an advanced computing infrastructure designed to take advantage of the future carrier air wing’s sophisticated sensor architecture. The aircraft will have an advanced cockpit system with a large-area display for improved user interface, a more powerful computer called the Distributed Targeting Processor Network (DTPN), and a bigger data pipe for passing information known as Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT). TTNT is already a program of record for Growler and E-2D, and DTPN is also fielded on the Growler...

DF-F18Block3-2_Boeing.jpg

http://aviationweek.com/defense/boeing-s-souped-super-hornet-adds-smart-us-navy-firepower

Mark
Ottawa

 
The latest bit of insanity is that we are looking at buying two-seat Super Hornets and putting navigators in the back seat as Weapons System Operators (WSO). Our primary mission is air defence and there are no two-seat air defence fighters in the world today. There is a reason for that - navigators in fighters and many other applications have been overtaken by technology years ago.

The SU-30 and MIG-31 are certainly two-seat air defence fighters (and so are Iran's F-14). All due respect to Laurie Hawn, but just because he thinks that backseaters are a bad idea doesn't mean that he can throw out statements like that.
 
Ostrozac said:
The SU-30 and MIG-31 are certainly two-seat air defence fighters (and so are Iran's F-14). All due respect to Laurie Hawn, but just because he thinks that backseaters are a bad idea doesn't mean that he can throw out statements like that.

All of the aircraft you just pointed out are 30 year old designs.  In the case of the F14, the first flight was in 1970!  I'm sure our aviators in WWII would have loved to fly around in Sopwith Camels while taking on Me109s.  ::)

Sorry, I don't see the point of your argument.

I shouldn't be surprised though, Discussing Defence issues in Canada is a lot like reading a Cosmopolitan, the argumentation is cute but devoid of any real substance whatsoever.
 
And the Iranian F14s haven't had access to spares for about four decades.
 
Loachman said:
Backseat drivers...

I've flown over 4000 hours without a navigator. Show me a navigator who's flown even a small fraction of an hour without a Pilot.

In your fleet(s), sure.  I've done missions with 3 ACSOs (1 TacNav and 2 NavComms) onboard and all going pretty steady for an 8 hour ONSTA.   
 
I was 50-50 about putting this in the Politics thread, but it's still relevant here, so here it is - from Laurie Hawn's FB page (highlights mine)...
I re-confirmed that this week by speaking out rather more forcefully than was appreciated to the Commander of the RCAF and the Chief of the Defence Staff, on the issue of the CF-18 replacement.

(...)

The bottom line is that we can’t afford to do what we’re doing for a wide variety of reasons – Canadian sovereignty and security, financial, technical, personnel, moral, alliance support, Canadian industry, etc. If we carry on, I firmly believe and many others share my belief that we will kill the fighter force. I simply can’t support that and my conscience will not let me stay silent and be deemed complicit by that silence. I have been in and around the RCAF for 53 years and it is soul destroying to see what is happening in the name of politics. As anticipated, my vocal opposition to the plan was not well received by the most senior leadership of the RCAF and Canadian Armed Forces. I was asked to resign my position of Honourary Colonel of 401 Tactical Fighter Squadron (the oldest Squadron in the RCAF, 20 Nov 1918). That, I dutifully did, but since I’m not important enough to have sword, I just fell on my pen-knife ...
 
At they very least, more time ONSTA.  Point, ACSOs are more than just backseat drivers in the RCAF and some fleets can't fly without them.  There's more to an air force than its fighter force, and fighters aren't the only platforms that operate ISO the NORAD stuff.  :2c:

That is one switched-on, professional looking crew in the picture  ;D.
 
Eye In The Sky said:
In your fleet(s), sure.  I've done missions with 3 ACSOs (1 TacNav and 2 NavComms) onboard and all going pretty steady for an 8 hour ONSTA.

Without a Pilot? Methinks not. Sitting in the front seat? Methinks not.
 
Loachman said:
Without a Pilot? Methinks not. Sitting in the front seat? Methinks not.

And without technicians, the aircraft would not be flying; without AESOPs it would just be an airliner.

This is pointless. A modern combat aircraft is a team effort- trying to decide which is the "critical" MOSID is pointless.
 
Yes, I know...

There just aren't any uppity Flight Engineers here to use that one on.
 
dapaterson said:
Yes, but your community spends much more time on operations than others.

Do they though? 

I'd say the spread across the Air Force is probably pretty equal across the platforms in terms of aircraft being employed operationally.  Fighter jets are on NORAD duty 24/7, 365 days a year. 

dapaterson said:
In the Army, we let Corporal drive the bus.  Just saying...

The difference being, the bus costs thousands as opposed to millions of dollars per individual aircraft. 

SeaKingTacco said:
And without technicians, the aircraft would not be flying; without AESOPs it would just be an airliner.

This is pointless. A modern combat aircraft Warfare is a team effort- trying to decide which is the "critical" MOSID is pointless.

TFTFY
 
SeaKingTacco said:
A modern combat aircraft is a team effort- trying to decide which is the "critical" MOSID is pointless.

That was my point, just didn't quite make it as well as you did.  :nod:

Sometimes the folks we called "Driver" in the blackhat world need to be reminded they're just part of the effort that makes a mission a success.  You can fill a CP-140 with 20 pilots.  The best ones in the RCAF, or heck, make it the Aurora community.  The only way it is moving, let alone taking off, is behind a Mule. 

And that Mule...would be operated by maintainers.  ;)

Sorry for the slight derail!
 
Back
Top