The F-35′s Air-to-Air Capability Controversy

The $300+ billion, multi-national F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the largest single military program in history. It’s also reaching a critical nexus. In order to keep costs under control and justify the industrial ramp up underway, participating countries need to sign order agreements soon. The problem is that the F-35 is not a proven fighter design, with a demonstrated baseline of performance in service. It’s a developmental aircraft in the early middle of its test program, which is now scheduled to continue until 2018 or even 2019.

As one might expect, this status makes the F-35 a controversial long-term bet in many of the program’s member countries. Costs aren’t certain, numbers ordered are slipping in many countries, timelines aren’t certain after numerous schedule delays. With combat testing still a year or 2 away, even operational performance isn’t certain. That’s especially consequential for air forces that expect to field the F-35 as their only fighter.

September 2008 featured a very public set of controversies around the F-35′s air combat performance. Many partner countries were beginning to make decisions about their long-term needs, so the altercation in Australia became a controversy with implications, and responses, that reached well beyond that continent’s shores. The RAND study that triggered it didn’t specifically address the F-35, but it does have implications for the F-35′s projected performance – and for the heart of the USAF’s current fighter force concept.

This article takes a much closer look at the RAND Pacific Vision study, while bringing in other opinions, analyses, and subsequent developments. Understanding the F-35′s real air superiority potential and weaknesses, and their implications for partner nation participation, has only grown in importance since 2008.

Read more at: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-f-35s-air-to-air-capability-controversy-05089/#more-5089

China Tests Carrier Killer DF-21D Missile; ‘Sinks’ U.S. Aircraft Carrier

By Wendell Minnick

Taiwan-based Want China Times has published suggestive evidence that China has tested its Dong Feng 21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), also known as the “Carrier Killer” to fans.

This missile will keep the “dog” out of China’s “backyard.”

According to the January 23 article, “PLA ‘sinks’ US carrier in DF-21D missile test in Gobi,” the “People’s Liberation Army has successfully sunk a US aircraft carrier, according to a satellite photo provided by Google Earth, reports our sister paper Want Daily — though the strike was a war game, the carrier a mock-up platform and the ‘sinking’ occurred on dry land in a remote part of western China.”

“A satellite image reveals two large craters on a 200-meter-long white platform in the Gobi desert used to simulate the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. The photo was first posted on SAORBATS, an internet forum based in Argentina. Military analysts believed the craters would have been created by China’s DF-21D anti-ship missile.”

“While claiming that the missile has the capability to hit aircraft carriers 2,000 kilometers away, the nationalistic Chinese tabloid Global Times stated that the weapon was only designed for self-defense; the DF-21D will never pose a serious threat to US national security because it is not even able to reach Hawaii, the newspaper said, though fully aware of the US naval deployment in the Western Pacific.”

“Underlining this point, Global Times took a common line from China’s national defense doctrine before the country acquired an aircraft carrier of its own — namely that carriers are an offensive weapon while anti-ship missiles are defensive. ‘It can be used like a stick to hit the dog intruding on our backyard, but it can never be used to attack the house where the dog comes from,’ the paper’s commentary said.”

read more at: http://blogs.defensenews.com/intercepts/2013/01/china-tests-carrier-killer-df-21d-missile-sinks-us-aircraft-carrier/

China’s Y-20 transport conducts maiden flight

Article from flightglobal.com, photo from businessinsider.com

China has conducted the maiden flight of the Xian Y-20 strategic transport from the Yanlian airbase.

Footage on Chinese state television shows the four-engined aircraft, bearing number 20001, taking off, landing, and taxiing. It does not appear to have retracted its landing gear during the flight, a common practice on maiden flights.

Official Chinese news agency Xinhua also posted images of the first flight.

The news comes just weeks after Beijing officially confirmed that it is developing the aircraft, following the emergence of images on Chinese defence sites during the last week of 2012.

"We are developing large transport aircraft on our own to improve the capability of air transport," China's defence ministry said.

"The advanced long-range carrier is being developed to serve the military modernisation drive, as well as to meet demands in disaster relief work and humanitarian aid in emergency situations."

The PLAAF now operates a fleet of 20 Ilyushin Il-76 strategic transports, with another 30 on order.