Smaller transistor size processors don't run Hoter at same clock speed With smaller transistor size u can pack more translations in a area which allows for higher frequencies (smaller connection b/w the transistor allows to meet hold time and other parameters for higher frequencies ie less time). Therefore it depends on what kind of performance you want from your processors.
well the Philippine air force is now planning to buy F-16 Block 70 Viper or The SAAB JAS 39 Gripen C /D. not so sure what planes they could get, they are also waiting for the KF-21 if the next president isn't stupid. which one is the better? F-16 Block 70 Viper or JAS 39 Gripen C/D? in cost and combat ability. The F-16 Block 70 said it will deliver at 2027 and only 12 + 2 F-16 block 50(old),but the Air Force need it ASAP. The Gripen C/D will be at 2024 and it will get twice the number than F-16 B70. also why SAAB didn't offer the E/F?
@@ryanc00p3r3 Below is the current (as of 02 June 2021) state of the negotiations: _"Status: PAF TWG selected F-16C/D Block 70 Viper on August 2019. PAF approved selected on September 2019, and DND approved selection on 30 October 2019. Despite approval, it appears that pricing issues has stalled negotiation with Lockheed Martin and re-opened the line of communications with Saab. As of June 2021, DND is said to prepare submitting proposal to Malacanang based on Saab's offer, which was selected due to pricing and delivery schedule."_ Source: www.phdefenseresource.com/2020/01/multi-role-fighter-aircraft-horizon-2.html The same article also discusses the conclusion of the Slovakian Fighter Competition which had a similar choice to make: _"The JAS-39C/D Gripen was found to be be less capable in carrying load and equipment, lower fuel capacity, lower tactical range, lower endurance, lower climbing ability, and significantly lower acceleration compared to the F-16 Blk 70/72. The Gripen was also found to be using older generation of avionics like radar (non-AESA), early warning and protection systems, etc, which doesn't meet current and future air operation requirements of the Slovakian Air Force. The Gripen was found to not have significant improvement over the older MiG-29 despite being a new aircraft."_
@@ryanc00p3r3 _"also why SAAB didn't offer the E/F?"_ A good question as the E/F is supposed to be even cheaper and supposedly significantly more capable... However, production only started in 2020 (in Brazil) so availability could be the reason.
@@854gabryel of course. The Mirage III is legendary ! The Mirage V Then there is the Israeli versions like the Nesher and Kfir, there is also the South African Cheetah The Mirage IV is a twin engine strategic bomber/recon aircraft The Mirage 4000 is a prototype F-15 like heavy fighter (basically a twin engine mirage 2000) The Mirage F-1 is a non delta mirage (so it’s not very hard to tell apart from the other mirage) The Balzac and Mirage IIIV are VTOL prototype ( not very good, but still to this day the only Mach2 capable vtol ever build)
Thank you sir! PS: the audio got a lot better now :) Great videos, please keep 'em up. Videos like this are hard to came in YT, experts like you are a rare beast in this plataform :)
The content of this channel is excellent; all killer, no filler. You should make a course on communication for engineers. The skill you have developed in that area, is extremely rare, and underrated, in our profession.
If you consider making a follow-up ... given how counterintuitive & interesting the topic is. CPUs become more efficient & if a computer uses 2kw, then, it must exhaust 2kw of heat. Usually, tech is made in cutting edge industries like F1 or in the military where gov has $$! Aircraft all do similar tasks (in diff. envelopes) yet, gov. ignored making an OS / framework. PCs, gamers, android & iOS has for 20y what the military only began working on in 2000s
If you are interested TCP/IP operates on level 2 of the 7 level model. TCP/IP has two main versions that are used IP v4 and IP v6. Most programming uses the presentation levels 6 and 7 and calls the operating system to access the other levels. I believe that this is correct but I have not worked in IT for 20 years, so I might just be telling you the status on the playmate of the month.
Have been looking forward to this video. A clear and relatively concise explanation regarding the limits of the F-16's upgradability. I can see the same happening in Russia with the Fulcrums. There is not much left in the Fulcrum that the Flanker's can't readily be adapted to take on with ease and that's not even taking the smaller budgets into account. One must accept the limitations inherit with smaller, lighter aircraft, for now they will forever remain second fiddle to the bigger heavy fighters despite a manufacturers best efforts. Going to be interesting seeing how things go from here.
Light fighters have one advantage though: they're cheaper. Although this arguably does not matter as much because pilots and training capacity are always limited to a degree outside of a total war scenario.
Hello Mr. Millenium may I ask you if it would be a terrible idea to take an existing design and make it 10 - 20 or 50% bigger and then make the neccessary adjustments, and if so what would be the issues? Thank you very much. Very appreciated videos.
Very interesting video, when things get theoretical you know it is a good video 😉 Regarding what you said between minute 09:00 and minute 10:00 i'd say is something would require more time on screen. Software is most probably the least explored part of defense technology, let alone concepts like monolithic applications in defense industry. I would love to hear more, that's for sure.
I agree with what you recommended in the video but perhaps the F-35 like systems and avionics can be introduced in the Next Gen F-16 BlockXX or a redesigned F-21? Or perhaps we will have to wait for the NG F-16XL or the F-36 Kingsnake? Perhaps much cheaper than the F-35 but with 85% of the capability, specifically for EW.... I believe that the Gripen E/F already does this at a very low life cycle cost...
I understand that you don't mess with the aerodynamic profile without doing much redesign to everything.. but, how do that account for the proliferation of conformal fuel tanks? They are essentially bolted on as an afterthought on perfected aerodynamic profiles like the F-15, F-16 and Mig-29. But it seems to work out great, so much as these modifications are permanented in later variants, like the F-15EX, F-21 and Mig-35.
Where does that leave the B-52 ? It's likely to fly through the 100 year service mark. Anything is possible, it's a matter of economic viability and diminishing returns.
We can only speculate, my own speculation is no unless its VTOL capable, the US isnt looking for the same thing the russians do. The US dont have the need in super maneuverability and it is regarded pointless in any plan for air superiority and mostly redundant in gen 5 fights. The fight as it is now relies heavily on system fusion, datalinking, and force integration. The USAF relies on a united force of organized aircraft using a GCI to direct as it always did, the main difference that was made since the 90s was how much autonomy the flights have, considering the new systems they have more freedom of movement and less pressure on the GCI which allows for a fluent and flexible strike force.
i recall john boyds comments when it was suggested that an internal extension ladder be included in the design. let the pilots stand on a fruit box. too much weight.
Hi! Really nice vidéo. And really better sound. In a view or a long time use of a retrofited airplane, the cost of fly per hour can be a return of investment : f35 flight hour IS 30.000 dollars, and F16 : 7000. For some country, a new version of a good light fighter is a better choice than ugly F35. Thanks very much.
I suggest you read up on the f35 alis then you will know that, an sw update would be the least of your problems. www.airforcemag.com/f-35-program-dumps-alis-for-odin/
When designing the J35 Draken, a small space was reserved for the possibility of moving the engine forward a bit, in case the centers of gravity and lift were found to be unsatifactory after flight testing. As it turned out, the centers were where they were designed to be, and this space was not needed. However, a new version of the Avon engine were developed, with a fan disk added as a new first stage. (a "zero stage"). This new version of the engine was of course a little longer, and the space reserved in the Draken design, was the exact length for this new engine to fit... as if designed for it. Luck should have no place in aircraft design, but still...
As airplane enthusiast, I like every video of yours because you explain it very well and the topics make sense. Looks like you listen to your audience.
Well don't feel all clever now knowing what TCP/IP is 😁. (Not that my network admin skills are anything to boast about!) It's worth mentioning that a lot of this also applies to submarines. If you want to make any major change to internal arrangements you basically have to do a major redesign. This is what the Royal Navy's _Astute_ class fell victim to. It was originally conceived as a relatively modest update to the _Trafalgar_ class. However, the navy wanted Rolls Royce's newer more powerful PWR2 reactor instead of the PWR1 which was pretty obsolete by the mid-90s. However the PWR2 is significantly larger and this set off a whole chain of issues that resulted in an entirely new boat. Even with all that work however, there were still problems getting a gear set designed for a 5200 tonne boat to convert the turbine output into shaft revolutions to push a 7400 tonne boat up to tactically required speeds.
Partially true. This is somewhat a cliche. However, if you read the book "Loud and Clear" by Iftach Spector, there is an astonishing description of a 1 vs 1 dogfight between an Israeli F-4E and a Syrian Mig-21 in 1973, where the Phantom outmaneuvered the Mig in "scissors" at extremely low speed and altitude, theoretically the worst case scenario for the F-4, leading to the stall and crash of the Mig. My point is that, in the right hands the (slatted) Phantom was and still is in some countries, a very agile and maneuverable plane. Additionally, in Vietnam some pilots pulled 12 g trying to dodge SAMs, something that you simply cannot do today with the Fly-By-Wire systems.
The F-4 was actually a very excellent aerodynamic design and was capable of reaching its stated maximum mach values while combat-configured, even with EFTs, not that this was every tactically-relevant. It had a really strong wing design and how it was joined to the fuselage, and a stores carriage arrangement that allowed for full A2A loads to be carried without being impeded by A2G loads. That full A2A load included 4x AIM-7 and 4x AIM-9. The Typhoon is the closest thing to it in that regard, since the Typhoon also carries its BVR missiles in recessed stations under the wing/fuselage. We mandated that the F-15 be able to carry the same A2A load as the F-4, which also influenced the stores capacity of the ATF program. The F-4 was a pivotal fighter design on the teen series, with influences carrying over to the F-14 and F-15, and by extension, the Su-27, Typhoon, Rafale, and F-22.
Yeah, lower top speed in spite of having more thrust and THREE TIMES THE COST of an F-4J. They were also slightly harder to land on a carrier because the Spey has a poorer throttle response than the J-79. This was a slight difference but men who flew both from carriers were unanimous. The F-4K and F-4M did have better subsonic and transonic acceleration, but the ridiculous cost had far-reaching effects on RAF force size. If they had just bought F-4J Phantoms they could literally have bought twice as many planes and still spent substantially less than they did over the lifetime of the F-4 in the RAF and Royal Navy.
@@FireAngelOfLondon It seems British pride/politicians insisted on local engines in the American airframes for no better reason that to give Rolls Royce something to do with the Spey, a perfectly fine engine that just wasn't the right fit for the Phantoms. Even the notoriously nationalist French kept the F-8s more or less stock. And the Germans simplified their Phantoms quite a bit, but kept the engines even if they had other problems. And later on the British did the same with the Apache... but with less compromise in performance/price/etc. It's all very well supporting national interests and industry, but is it worth it if the results are a dubious improvement at best?
@@DavidLee-df888 Overall there was no real improvement in the Spey engined F-4s. They gained some advantages yes, but they lost as many and the ridiculous price was a disgusting waste of money. British companies could have been propped up just as effectively by license-building the engines and avionics and having stock F-4J Phantoms. If the law was what it ought to be then the politicians who made the decisions that led to the F-4M and F-4K would have gone to prison.
@@FireAngelOfLondon I agree, that was my point. I'm all for supporting British industry, but this was an almost complete waste of money. The government might as well have not bothered ordering the modified Phantoms if the intention was to replace the TSR.2 to save money, good job there! Should have stuck with standard Phantoms, or paid General Dynamics to finish development of the F-111, or even restart/continue developing the TSR.2 if the tooling had survived. Or even the P.1154
He didn't say it would 'negatively effect the overall aircraft' (although one could argue that the Spey _did_ do so to the F-4). He said it isn't so easy as just bolting a new engine in, it usually requires extensive changes that add a lot of cost and difficulty to the project, so in addition to the avionics problems, it isn't much cheaper than just designing a new plane. Unless you find an an engine of the exact same diameter, length and size, you will need to redesign the bulkhead frames, perhaps the fuselage, you will need to relocate a lot of equipment to bring the weight distribution back to the correct limits, rewire and replumb all the associated connections for the engine and relocated equipment. Obviously a plane can be re-engined, it has been done many times. The F-16, the F-14, the Vulcan, the F-4, the U-2, the F-18, etc, etc. In some of those cases the engine was specifically designed to fit in that application to start with, so it was less of a problem (the F-16), or the plane _was_ basically redesigned (U-2, F-18), or they just decided it was worth the expense anyway. He is talking about modern fighters though, the F-16 in particular. It was already re-engined once, and it is unlikely that they can find a way to fit an engine of significantly increased power or economy without basically redesigning the fuselage. When the added expense of this is taken in consideration _with_ the added expense and difficulty of trying to upgrade to modern avionics, the total cost is not much less than just designing a new jet.
Funny your picture of the SU54 and MIG-25 this morning got me thinking about upgrades too. They both have a very similar central role, I don't think air superiority or interception any more , I believe it is the interdiction of big air assets, Tankers, CCC and ELINT platforms but the Foxbat besides having a tonne of space has an additional kinematic aspect that makes it interesting and valuable as a platform for new high speed weapons. So for that function, unless another Mach 3+ plane is in development, may give it more service life than its replacement. Nevertheless, another thought provoking video, bravo.
Indeed, a pertinent question is whether the information technology data link capabilities of the F-35 are required for EVERY fighter aircraft, especially as remote controlled unmanned aircraft will be more common in the future.
F-16 isn't shelved but it is made by the same company that makes the F-35, it makes sense that Lockheed would only offer F-35 and not F-16 to customers.
@@unknownuser069 They’ve been making changes to TEWS and the EW suite on the F-15 for decades, and have kept pretty quiet about it until EPAWSS. F-15S, F-15SG, F-15QA, and F-15K all have GE F110 motors since F-15E airframe was strengthened for all the excess weight. No matter what they do, it won’t be worthwhile if it’s between the capability of F-35A and F-16V. I’d like to see a Graphene airframe JSF series with next gen VLO surfaces using programmable signal RF waveform attenuation to meet the threat radar freq. That’s what they’re working on now.
@@Mediiiicc F-16C Block 50/52 built by the actual company, General Dynamics, will be around for a long time serving through the next 2 decades. F-16s are still being delivered to Foreign Military Sales customers.
@@LRRPFco52 Lockheed only offers F-16 when it is not possible to offer the F-35, usually for political reasons. Canada and Switzerland are in the process of selecting a new fighter jet, Lockheed has offered them the F-35 but has not offered to sell them the F-16.
All f16 in US fleet are planned to be upgraded to the f16V i believe. i know as of 06/25/21 as many of 80 USAF F16C's have been upgraded with APG-83 which is basically a squished to fit in nose of f16, APG-81 of the f35 which is an CONSIDERABLE UPGRADE! But it's only half or really less than half the f35 avionics that make f35 so dam impressive like what make up DAS(Das or DASS?) giving it 360* IR coverage for hundreds of miles etc...
Engine changes remind me of the British F-4's which swapped J-79 turbojets for wider Spey turbofans. More power and better fuel economy vs higher drag and lower top speed. The speed reduction due to widening the fuselage and the inlets to accommodate the wider powerplants. But then the Israeli Kfir which swapped the original Atar for the J-79 certainly benefitted in every aspect.
Yes, one can swap engines. But as he said, it usually requires basically redesigning the plane. Widening the fuselage and inlets of an F-4 to accommodate more mass flow was not a simple task, which is one reason a British F-4 cost several times what as US F-4 cost.
@@justforever96 No, The F-14 was built to accept an PW engine that never showed up, so it was built with the PW-TF-30's from the F-111. A few years later the Navy asked PW to adapt the F-100 used in the F-15 and F-16 for the F-14, PW said no because the F-14 used analog controls while the F-100 was digital. The Navy then looke at the GE engines and asked them about the the engines from the B-1 bomber and was currently being developed for the F-16 and F-15. They one into an F-14A and made and and flew it, later they took another spare engine and put that on as well and the first F-14A+ was born. They then ordered the GE engine to be fitted into the F-14A's and for the F-14D. For the F-14 they took parts from the F-15E radar to upgrade the F-14's radar, a new cockpit displays, sensors and an IRTS system
Yes there already is because Lockheed Martin (who makes the f35) now has the rights to the F-16 When they purchase general dynamics they have a version of the F-16 that has all of the electronics from the F 35 it’s the block 70 And also the F 16 was designed to be easily upgraded from the get-go
@@MattyC62185 I was referring to your statement in your original post which said "the F-16 that has all of the electronics from the F 35 it’s the block 70..." If you had said "a small number of the electronics elements will be common with the F-35" I would cut you some slack.
@@rs232killer That’s what I meant Lockheed Martin makes the F 16 blocks 70 for nations who want electronics or fifth generation fighters but do not have the cash to spend on an F 35 like Bahrain for example
You have a very basic understanding of aerodynamics and the way some aircraft are built and why they're built and their Electronics capability, etc etc etc. I agree that you cannot totally upgrade an F-16 to all of the capabilities of the F-35 at least as much as the F-35 isn't Electronics mule and only powered by about a .66 to 1 power to thrust ratio, which is why it will never be much of a combat plane. Stupid remarks like the F-16 will not be stable if you put all the end of an F-35 on it, is idiotic because the F-16 is not a stable aircraft on its own to start with. That's why it is such a good dog fighter. You can however increase the electronics capability of the F-16 tremendously. Upgraded engines already exists on the aircraft, and more capable engines are available for it. But you don't need all of the capabilities of the F-35 in an F-16. The F-35 Electronics capability can be put into an aircraft and used as a Communications and electronics mule. It's never going to be a great combat aircraft in the first place, even though it can still have some missile capability which is the only thing it has anyway as far as combat. And still having more capable F-16, you can upgrade an F-15 and still have a more capable F15, and still have communications mule that is more portable than an awax. And then you will remove all doubt with all these people have talked about what a great aircraft the F-35 is, the F-35 is a plane that had barely has the capabilities of flight that the F4 had. It flies like a truck compared to the capabilities of the F-15 and F-16.
The modern avionics and displays are lighter, their computers are smaller, and their components are much much lighter end cooler. Now.... the F-35 sensors, and computer processors for the helmet and how all this data is received and integrated........ I don’t know. My guess is most top end intel processors can handle just about anything the military needs inside a fighter. So the question is how could this be transferred over to an f-16 or an aircraft like the A-10 or a future 5+ or 6 gen aircraft? My belief is it’s a lot easier than Lockheed, Boeing, Airbus or other manufacturers are willing to explain. I firmly believe that if Lockheed leadership felt their salaries and incomes and homes were at risk..... they could develop a 5++ or 6 gen fighter in a very short time. But as long as they believe they and their wealth is safe.... they’ll milk programs like the F-35 as long as possible.
Great show, keep up the good work! Side note, Air mass flow was not talked about. Like why the F16c needed a bigger air inlet when a new engine was added. But again, good job!!!
He did sort of, I thought. I thought that was what he was talking about when he said it needed new bulkheads and perhaps changes to the fuselage. Because you can't change just the inlet, you need to do the entire intake, perhaps widen the entire engine, probably the jet pipe as well.
We've been using the AFTI F-16, F-16 DSI, and F-16 LOAN testbeds for ATF and JSF technology test and integration from the early 1980s through 1990s before ATF CALF/SSF/ A-X designs were even proposed. Just like we used the F-8 and F-4 CCV to test fly-by-wire systems by 1974, even with coupled canards on the F-4 CCV, we use previous generation aircraft to develop the next. F-4 was a great, robust airframe with better multirole stores capacity than any of the teen fighters due to the semi-recessed AIM-7 stations. So why not just put the new avionics in the F-4? Maintenance access panels and its 1950s wiring harness architecture were tiresome to deal with for starters. 2 engines magnified maintenance and operations costs. Combat radius was really limited at around 370nm, about half of the A-7D. F-15 & F-16 offered much greater range, mx-friendly access panel architecture, superb pilot interface, improved radar size for F-15, and single seat crew that cut the demands on aircrew training fleet-wide. The cost/benefit analysis to upgrade or produce new F-4s with fly-by-wire avionics, new radars, new engines, canards, composites, single piece wind screen, new cockpits, etc. didn't fully solve the fundamental problems of range and 2-crew. That rear guy in back was no longer needed and would be best-used for more fuel. We converted Tactical Air Command from F-4E units to F-15A/C and F-16A. The 2 crew F-4 was still relevant for the F-4G Wild Weasel until it was eventually replaced by the F-16CJ and now F-16CM.
dear sir . i ask you about the opposite process . if the main problem of f35 come from stealth , built an f35 without the stealth skin, simplifig construction maintinence and reducing costs too
Not necessarily related to this video directly, but I recalled just now a question. In the previous F-35 videos, what do you mean by that they can't afford to be lost in combat (or something roughly to that effect)? Is it the lose of the aura of invincibility that the F-35 has, or is it purely their massive monetary costs? If so is, isn't an issue with all advanced newly produced western fighters with their cost being near the same price wise with the F-35?
Perfect picture at the beginning after the question! BTW - MIL-STD-1553B does include more than the Manchester biphase encoding (physical protocol) but also software protocol for message header, device addressing, data length and polling frequency. The issues putting new devices on are no plug and play (you touched on this) and also message frequency. Modern software designers expect on-demand network capability but the old 1553 system was a fixed polling system. You didn't use to have to make your own TCP/IP, you needed to make your own alternative to it. Again, your TCP/IP example was fine - but if anyone reading has TCP maintenance experience and thinks that the metaphor wasn't that scary, think again lol. Great video as always!
I worked on modifying F-16's for 13 years. Putting F-35 tech into the F-16 should not be a problem. Outcome may not be identical, but should be good non the less. Norwegian F-16s went from block 1 to block 50++ and they are not finished yet
They forget that the F-16 has been an ongoing upgrade program for years. Everything from RCS reduction, engine upgrades, alternate engines, radars. Not to mention that almost all the systems in the F-35 including it's engine intake, were tested using an F-16.
When they did MLU on the European F-16A/Bs built in Netherlands and Belgium (built from 1978-1982), each aircraft MLU process took 5 months and $37 million in mid-1990s dollars for the reasons discussed in this video. If you take the sunk costs of F-16A/B production from the late 1970s/early 1980s, add the MLU process in the 1990s, and calculate for inflation, you get an F-16A MLU bird that would cost $103 million today. F-35A costs $77.9 million and exceeds the performance of an F-16MLU in every relevant metric. F-16C Block 40-52s after CCIP cost even more due to all the additional features they get over an F-16AM. There’s a $462 million contract being filled right now for F-16CM just for the EPIDSU/EPIDS pylons to increase survivability marginally.
@@henrikg1388 Those kinds of money-laundering schemes played by the big boys are with much larger sales of forbidden weapons, narcotics, human trafficking, and illegal activities to governments not allowed to have those things. Embargo means the price goes up. A mesley upgrade contract for F-16s among authorized partner nations doesn't even meet the bar for entry into Panama Papers type corruption.
Hmmmm cette petite protubérance sur le F16 🤣 qu'est ce que c'est laid. Ils y en a qui connaissent cette petite phrase, un bel avion c'est un avion qui vole bien 😉
The logical reason for not using the F-16, is that there's been quite a lot of materials and aerodynamic development since then and a new airframe would allow these advances to brought into service giving a 4+++ generation replacement for the F-16 which can remain in service for 10s of years. Im surprised that the same thing hasn't been done for the F-15 as well, but I guess the requirement driving the upgrade programme doesn't allow an extended timetable. The USAFs mistake was thinking Stealth would be required for all new aircraft. They didn't allow for the peace dividend impact on how fast Stealth roll out has happened. I do wonder, given the proliferation of Chinese Stealth designs in or near service, whether investing in less Stealthy airframes make senses in the longer term though. If a short term replacement for the F-16 is needed them it might be cheaper to make the Gripen E/F under licence with US electronics as a temporary measure.
Because of stealth and the responses to stealth, all new fighters and bombers will require it. If you show up in a 4.5++++++ airframe to the sensor and missile fight designed to try to deal with stealth, you’re out-matched even more. Detection ranges are much greater on legacy high RCS platforms now. Missiles are more accurate and lethal against legacy airframes, while struggling to deal with VLO technology. The biggest, most over-looked aspect of this is in providing precise guidance solutions for RF seeker missiles, as well as IR seeker missiles, because people don’t realize that stealth also includes the IR spectrum. The US has spent billions on reducing IR signatures on the F-117A, B-2A, F-22A, and JSF series. Helmet-cued HOBS missiles don’t really work against 5th Gen, and IR SAMs don’t either. As the threat nations address this problem, it will make the lethality against non-stealth aircraft even more devastating. So stealth is a mandatory baseline moving into the future. China knows it. Russia knows it. UK, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and Sweden know it. China is the only other nation with 2 new stealth designs that are actually flying, with one in full rate production in the J-20B. Russia has not produced a true 5th Gen stealth aircraft with the Su-57, but it does have Low Observable qualities that make it a step above the Eurocanards and teen series no matter how you upgrade them. Any money spent on further developing teen series and Eurocanards outside of the projected O&M and life upgrades is a waste of money and sets one up for failure in the emerging IADS nets.
I was thinking also about sensors. Do the F-22 and F-25 not have more sensors embedded in wings/fuselage that would be difficult/impossible to retrofit to an existing airframe?
There was that F16 VISTRA experimental plane in the 1990s. It ended up being used as a trainer later in it's life because they could program it to fly like almost any other jet with the thrust vectoring engine it had. Not stealth at all but why some degree of thrust vectoring control was never upgraded to other F16s doesn't make any sense.
@@Millennium7HistoryTech ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XZQDwRKHCSQ.html This footage was from it's early days. Later it was put in storage. NASA got it later again and had to rebuild parts of the electrical.
I think that limiting your discussion to the F-16 creates a self fulfilling argument. Replace the F-16 in your argument with the F-15 and you can see a different outcome. Stuffing the F-35 avionics in the F-15 airframe is much more doable. Your concerns with power and cooling are mitigated by the twin engine design along with the an already existing robust cooling system. I worked Avionics for the Tomcat for 20 years and over that time we saw many upgrades to systems. Those upgrades were difficult because we were trying to make new stuff work with old stuff. In the case of complete replacement of Avionics and Fire Control systems, that is not a problem. The majority of the work will be in teaching (reprograming) the flight control computers the new airframe.
Some of the most important features of the F119 motor come from the airframe it’s mounted inside. 5th Gen designs don’t have federated subcomponent systems like a 4th Gen aircraft. The AESA radar is part of the engines, which are part of the DFLCS, which is part of the VLO management software, which is programmed into the central brain, where everything connects. There’s a GE F100-GE-132 for the UAE Block 60 Desert Falcons with 32,000lb of thrust, meant to lift all the extra weight they packed into the F-16E/F. UAE bought those for $200 million each. After a few years of operation, they signed a peace deal with Israel so they could order 50 F-35As.
@@unknownuser069 It didn't compute when that statement was made by F-35 developmental pilots either, since my framework of understanding was based on systems architecture from the teen fighters, primarily the F-16 & F-15. If you look at the low pressure cold fan stage of the F135, it has heat exchangers integrated into it, which are an integral part of the IPP, which is integral to the radar power amps and other hot systems. Additionally, these are all integrated with the IR signature reduction systems, which are many. It's not what I originally thought it was. I expected to see a relative balance of federated physical sub systems "integrated" via fiber-optic connections with streamlined harnesses and basic layout like a Viper. Nope. The physical subsystems are integrated, eliminating the legacy E&E, APU, EPU approaches and creating something entirely different. It's revolutionary just from power generation, gas turbine engine, and flight control systems engineering, as well as maintenance access points. I assumed many things, but studied before drawing conclusions. At every turn, the JSF variant lay-outs are a series of inspiring engineering solutions. I am forced to recognize how brilliantly-executed the systems design is. Examples include the Electrohydrostatic Actuators with fly-by-light and fuel mass cooling, the radar back-end systems and EOTS accessible through the nose gear bay, the fuselage common inspection and service components accessible through the weapons bays, the RF antennae embedding all over like a Raptor, only done more efficiently, the cockpit with just a few switches for start-up and pilot-configurable Panoramic Display, the IR concealment systems.... It's radically different from a Viper in every way, all of them formed by hard lessons-learned on the teen series, F-117, & Raptor.
@@unknownuser069 I’ve merely re-stated what the test pilots have openly mentioned regarding systems connectivity and how it differs from the previous generation of design. I haven’t taken the "wrong implications". You might be used to dealing with children who don’t have any relevant background to this, but I’m not one of them. Of course the F-35 isn’t a single component. It has systems integration that is on a totally different level than 4th Gen fighters, as I described. X-35 was a different airplane. Different cockpit, engine, structures, no weapons bays, with some of the evolved systems from the AFTI F-16 and NASA F/A-18 that were developed for JSF, the EHAs and IPP being just 2 examples. F-22 was a radical departure from the F-15 as well, but they’ve been really tight-lipped on anything associated with it. Even if you knew someone on F-22 CTF, you couldn’t call over there just to chat. I know the IR concealment systems on F-22 are such that when you try to acquire it with JHMCS and AIM-9X, it doesn’t work. From there, you could work backwards and see how the airflow is managed through and around the TVC nozzles, coatings, structures, heat-sinking, etc. They were’t screwing around when they said VLO.
@@unknownuser069 I see where one of my statements was confusing and have amended it. The one about subcomponent systems. Of course there are subsystems, but the way things are integrated are much more intertwined than I originally assumed, before I dove deep into the F-22 and F-35 systems architecture. That’s the point I was trying to make. They didn’t just take 4th Gen systems design and pack them into 5th Gen airframes. They took decades of lessons-learned from performance, maintenance, modularity, upgradeability, and sustainability and incorporated that into the physical structures and systems in ways I’ve not seen done on the teen fighters. I was tracking what they were doing with the AFTI F-16 at Edwards since the early 1980s, and most of those systems went into JSF, some even into ATF before. If you look at the AFTI F-16, it had 2 pre-LANTIRN pods built into the wing roots. We knew that JSF would have an integrated FLIR/LST pod built into the airframe somewhere, as opposed to a bolt-on unit like LANTIRN/SNIPER/LITENING. We also knew that AESAs were the future. My initial expectations for JSF were a small airframe with a little AESA, integrated FLIR, with a VLO airframe. It is so much more than this because of the inertia of technological progression in each area of systems development, and the way they were all integrated together.
Because the added mass and center of gravity moved forward makes for better flutter suppression. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1DK-zGLK6GQ.html
It is a 9G fighter and you are worried about wing flex? You' better go and explain to all those engineers what this missed, and how they should fix it. Good thing we've got sharp eyes on RU-vid watching out for this stuff!
Ok but the big thing you didnt mention here is that avionics gets smaller and smaller over time. When the F16 came out a computer was the size of a building now my iphone has an order of magnitude more compute than the apollo missions did.
True, but that is a one sided view. Antennas and power components do not become smaller because there are physical limits. Moreover smaller and more powerful digital electronics mean also higher thermal loads and cooling systems are not becoming any smaller either.
@@Millennium7HistoryTech when I say smaller I mean at the transistor level a modern MacBook Air has more compute than desktops 3 years ago and has no fans. The key components like the radar keeps getting bigger but the computers themselves that analyze data from sensors get smaller due to inherent advancements in computer technology.
Electronics upgrades will probably result in a reduction in size, weight and power consumption today. There's also a standard protocol suitable for communication in aircraft, called CANbus.
@@Millennium7HistoryTech Not yet, perhaps, but a simple open standard backed by experience on commodity hardware with millions of users over decades is likely to replace complicated and brittle proprietary ones. A military aircraft can be viewed as a network of controller devices going somewhere quickly in formation, a 3-D version of 2-D automobiles.
@@parrotraiser6541 To be honest, today there are already standards available for that, without using the CAN. It was in the 70's and 80's that they were not developed enough to allow for an easy upgradeability.
How can it be that the F-15 platform still can be updated? The new F-15 EX as not in common with an old F-15A. As fare as know the sensor fusion computer in new F-15 EX can read more code-lines than the one in the F-35. You have to make a video on the new F-15 EX
there is simply more room in the F-15 air frame than in F-16 air frame. Vipers are designed as lightweight fighter, so everything nonessential is striped down. In the beginning, the concept even called for a radarless, VFR only gun only fighter. On the other hand Eagles are designed as a air superiority fighter, and house more avionics from the beginning. So upgrading F-15 make way more sense, although the reduction in electronics size had benefited Vipers greatly
@@VuLamDang I still wonder how they cope with cooling issue. - So in future a bigger two engine platform would be ideal to cope with later updates. However, I am impressed that the old eagle platform still are evolving after nearly 50 years.
@@henrikerdland578 that's a big part of the problem and where the Eagle have the most advantage imho. A lot of the cooling power lay in how much fuel you carry - fuel is a greatest heat sink that actually need to be heated up and also not exposed to heating by air friction and shockwave at high subsonic to super sonic speed. The Eagle simply carry more fuel that can act as heat sink for the new avionics. 2 engines also provide way more electrical power, so that's another advantage too. I think F-22 platform will have the same upgrade potential as we currently seeing with the Eagle
@BB3 I believe that it would be very appropriate for SAAB to market various upgrade packages, avionics, radar, fuselage or engines, for the legacy Gipen C/D to some level of parody with E/F or NG demonstrator... as long as its cost effective and extend service life... I still believe that a better solution for Sweden would be to provide upgraded Gripen C/D to poorer NATO Nato nations, similar to the Hungarian and Czechia lend lease, including Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria in return for their existing Soviet planes to go to Ukraine... The Gripen should be used by Nato nations as the F-5 was cheaply supplied by USA to allies... Poland and Romania should be given F-16s for Soviet Planes as they operate the platform already... The Swedish Gripen low operational cost goals where clearly achieved and should be utilized for all Nato and other poorer nations worldwide... The F-35s c costs are Disasterous and only one of its many operational failures... Do yourself a favour and read the book "American Gripen" it details the failures of the F-35 and debunked the current misconception of the success of BVR Missiles, which form the backbone of the usage paradigm of F-35...
How ironic that F-35 avionics produce so much heat, while consumer electronics have advanced to provide all the computing power most people need in a mobile device that runs on a battery. Sure everything has to be re-certified for a new plane, but the question is why does so much of the software have to be written from scratch? There should be a generic avionics software / hardware platform that only needs to be customised for that model. Do other industries start completely from scratch every time they design a new model? Do Tesla rewrite the software for each new model of car, or DJI rewrite the software for every new drone?
Support costs are always important and a lot of it has to do with maintaining legacy support while providing new capabilities. So far the only plane he's covered with truly modular software support is the Gripen - if others have it, I'm not aware of it (but I don't pretend to be aware of everything). Your pc comparison is understandable but far from the mark. First your new software is going to have to fit in with the target hardware and the hardware isn't plug and play or even always off-the-shelf available - it's built to meet military hardening specs and power budgets that the software developers have no say over. Your new software design does everything but doesn't conform to the older messaging protocol, systems control budget, memory bandwidth, or CPU microinstructions? Sucks to be you because you are going to get to start over until you think you got it right. Finally you succeed! Is it time for a test flight. No. No it is not. Public law requires operational test and evaluation and that begins with preliminary and then critical reviews of everything you touched and everything anyone else has touched - and that will be led by the development agency in charge of your slice of heaven. Your software is not going to just be installed on a multimillion dollar airplane full of fuel and carrying weapons to start testing - you have far harder requirements than the commercial pc world. Oh - but you want to just run some of the old software on new hardware? OK, no problem. Are your new processors 16-bit like the old ones? No, but your 64-bit processor will be fine with it? OK - please show the review committee how the old software won't drive the new hardware to generate its own sneak circuits while operating under a military electrical overstress. You passed? Great. *We have just gotten started.* And that is why avionics costs more than PCs and military avionics costs even more than that. Did I mention that your stuff has to be capable in a nuclear warfighting environment? It's not a problem but we'll have to discuss those requirements separately. And while I have you here, we're going to want to see your program plan for line as well as depot maintenance, and of course, training for maintenance and pilots. Or you could just start with a modern, updated architecture and get away from the underlying legacy approach. Like say - the F-35 program. Or buy a Gripen. Or invent your own Gripen-like system. Apple came out with a new processor architecture upgrade and if you bought the new model iPhone when that happened, you were presented with the opportunity to buy new versions of your existing, paid apps or do without. One day my bank website told me that I needed to upgrade my browser. The browser upgrade failed because my older PC was no longer supported. I'm so sorry, what's that - new security threat but your home router is no longer getting security updates so you need to replace it even though it's running like a champ? Yes, other industries do too make it hard on us and make it very painful at times to update things and that definitely includes Teslas and PCs and smartphones and smart TVs and everything else. They get away with not having to do it at the cost of millions while operating and surviving nukes while being managed by new officers with Congress occasionally jumping in to help you make sure some of the development and acquisition money goes to the right districts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It is no longer like this. The USA has now an open architecture standard that was used on the F-18Block III, the F-35 has its own modularity, Saab also has a modular architecture etc. But till the early 2000s this was not the case. Most of the computers run ADA code directly on the metal or almost. The whole concept of "device driver" was not used. Mind, part of the idea was also to make the source code more easily auditable because there were way fewer "components".
It is difficult to compare the F-35 to consumer electronics, because, the F-35 is basically a late 90s, maybe early 2000s program. The plane is basically running on windows 98 and equivalent hardware. Additionally military hardware is always more bulky, because larger processor architectures are more resistant to EMP, radiation, etc. NASA loved the 8086, because it is basically bulletproof, I presume the same principle applies to fighter jets. There are approaches of writing middle-ware to decouple critical software from add-ons, but AFAIK that came a bit later.
@@henrikg1388 I'm not sure what you are asking me. It sounds like you want me to count the number of notes in some songs and compare the numbers. Things are what they are. I mentioned the Gripen as what I hoped would be a relevant counterpoint to the comparison of the F-35 and PCs, not because I wanted to debate airplanes but because I wanted to debate the idea about comparing aircraft to PCs. I picked the Gripen because it carried encapsulation all of the way to the kernel for its weapons modularity and because it wasn't the F-35. It's an aspect that came to mind at the time I replied, if something else about a different plane occurred to me when I was writing, I would have used it instead of the Gripen and instead of the F-35. BTW - Ada was named for Ada Lovelace so it's ok to call it that way. 🙂
You are spot on. The F16 is a superior aircraft but lagging behind because of it's upgradability, or rather it's potential upgradability. Just comparing to the Gripen lauched about 10 years after the F16 it's software upgradebility is inferior. Though the Gripen F hss major hardware upgradings, new engine, wider wings and more hard-points, it still remains the same aircraft. The difference is software architechture which seems to the F35s. Just consider why Boeing chose SAAB as a partner for the new USAF trainer T7 trIaner? Like all other manufacturing; it's no longer about the hardware but about the software. The F16 will reign the skyes with new software. ..
Most likely they are going to totally revamp and replace the F16 C/D with F16V and the F36 Kingsnake which is a highly modernized version of the mothballed program F16XL.
In the case of a purchase of a new platform instead of upgrading you should not only consider the fly-away price of a plane but the additional cost of the whole infrastructure, spare parts etc you will not have to pay for if you upgrade an existing platform. F-35's flyaway cost may be close to 100m right now, but if you check several contracts that took place, the price exceeds 150m per plane. For instance, HAF is upgrading its F-16 Block 52+ & Block 52+ Adv to the V variant (Block 72) for less than 20m per plane (84 planes in total). Although F-35 is of course much more advanced, with the same amount of money spent, less than ten places would be purchased and such thing would not make sense. At the same time, logistics concerning all the rest of the parts except to the new avionics remain the same. Of course Block 52 is a relatively modern block and not everything has to be replaced for the upgrade, but this case shows that things are not black or white and the upgrade sometimes really makes sense.
While F-16 block 70/72 is almost as expensive to buy as F-35, the maintenance cost will be cheaper than F-35 isn't it? The engine is more familiar, logistic chain and maintenance worker only need slight change etc.
Well IRIAF tried to integrate F14A with AL31 and R27... it resulted to many expensive electricity bills for the design bureau buildings, many conscripted engineers missing their regular leaves for failing to produce the required results, a number of fist prints on the walls, few tossed around broken desks, one air intake reaped off the air frame and sucked into a brand new engine, and time after time of computers on-board the Tomcat going 🤯 when trying to talk to the R27s... and if you think that was naively ambitious, they then tried to swap the tail of the F5E with a V shape tail and pluge in two RD33, without actually redesigning the front of the plane, resulting in absolute horrifying flight characteristics including total loss of rudder control beyond certain speeds, because Da, both of them just go through the engine intake turbulence trail... these days they just adhog F5A/Bs with some upgrades and keep calling them new names, and who cares if they don't actually work, they fulfill their propaganda mission all right, otherwise everybody knows a turboprop attacker does those stuff just fine at fraction of production and operational cost... and certainly none of them are painted Blue angles livery anymore...
Perhaps you can explain how Saab was able to design the Gripen to be so easily upgraded. Maybe you already discussed that in your Gripen videos but I can’t remember. Thx, great videos.
A real-time, multi-tasking, executive operating system software package that isolates each program and weapon control software in it own memory space and time slot allocation. If you add a new weapon software/hardware package it has no effect on the other run time software modules other than requiring a bit more CPU time. Each software module can be assigned a task priority so that it gets serviced by the OS at regular intervals often enough that target acquisition and tracking computations maintain required accuracy and data is not lost. If one of the software modules would happen to fail or get hung waiting for an event, it has no effect on the other software modules since each software task is only allocated a 'time slice' of the cpu(s) time. This is similar to how Linux and other modern operating systems are designed using 'structured programming languages' that use a modular design to isolate each software task from the other tasks and increase system reliability and ease of software maintenance.
The F-16 is built by the same company that builds the F-35 The engine does not have to be changed as the F-16 already has engines that can be improved. As far as stealth, it does not need to be as stealthy as the F-35, just reducing the RCS from the engine inlet and fan blades will do.
This video explained why it is expensive to add individual upgrades to older platforms. However, the F-16 was the first fly-by-wire so it obviously had computers and even simple computers sucked a lot of power back then. It is not obvious that new avionics would violate the power capabilities of an F-16 merely by inspection. ( We can assume heat and cooling goes along with power requirements since wasted power is turned into wasted heat). It it was easy, I assume that the suppliers would have suggested it, but it is not the dumbest idea. Simple computers back then took some space also. I agree it would likely not be practical, but a complete replacement of avionics is not the same as adding components with all of the added integration issues. I think the best way forward is for the open architecture avionics to get reused into new designs. The avionics seems to take a long time to develop and debug.
I have always thought that the F-16, a great idea and a great plane, should have been kept and progressively upgraded with the latest engine, weapons and avionics available. I never thought that the Air Force's changes to the plane to add attack capabilities, in the form of lots of heavy air to ground munitions, made any sense. All changes should have been made to improve it's abilities as a lightweight WVR air superiority fighter. The voice to add conformal tanks was a mistake in my opinion, their extra weight and drag cannot be jettisoned as external tanks can in an emergency.
Well, there is the upgrade, and then there is how long it actually takes to field a brand new clean-sheet design and certify it for combat operations and building up supply chains. Where-as you can have a "proven" airframe, engineering mistakes have already been mitigated, maintenance crews are familiar with the type, ready supply for spare parts, pilots intimately familiar with flight characteristics, so less training necessary on that front. While it cost more for improved performance, most of the other associated costs from a brand new airplane have already been paid for.
BIGGER engine to offset higher weight = more fuel, to maintain usefull range = more weight = larger airframe = needs a larger engine to maintain performance = still more feul= larger airframe = more weight + still larger engine,,,
At the same time, astonishing miniaturization of electronics constitutes a paradyme shift. Good point about cooling though, with larger and large density, comes greater heat dissipation.
@@Millennium7HistoryTech I kinda figured you either worked on these kinds of projects ... or even assisting a professor. Impressive degree of continuity and deep knowledge.
@@Millennium7HistoryTech Scusa, ma sei italiano? Mi piacciono molto i tuoi video, conosco e capisco abbastanza bene inglese..ma in caso sarebbe interessante se tu facessi qualche video in italiano!
@@Millennium7HistoryTech About the 4 Gen updating, what do you about the Eagle? Is it good enough to fight against the Flanker family, like the Su-30 or/and the Indian and Chinese versions?
@@blackcat3383 Eh, sarebbe molto facile, ma invece di essere 30K saremmo 3K, forse. E se cosi' fosse non avrei quel rivoletto di fondi che mi consentono di comprare l'equipaggiamento, i libri ed abbonarmi alle riviste. Comunque grazie per il supporto!
4++, he opens his video with the answer. They are 2 different animals, one is in ur face with a big payload while the second one may or not be there when u wanna go try to intercept...... and then u find out that the 16s aren't alone...
A redesign like the F/A-18 may be the solution, or the F-16XL. A clean sheet design will have to many teething issues to save any money, it seems like a reason to employ engineers rather than a way to save any real money.
The issue of the F35 is not the cost per unit now. It's the cost of maintenance. The F15EX is more expensive than the F35, it's the cost of keeping it in the air.
A very well rounded explanation of the problems associated with installing new features on an existing airframe. One thing occurred to me, however. Upgrading a the existing F-16 airframe has many problems that might be avoided if the folks looked at a variant- the F-16XL. That aircraft has a greatly expanded internal volume that might provide the room to accommodate most, if not all, the desired upgrades.
I wish they would take a look at an airframe we already have, the NASA version of the F16XL. It has Super Cruise, outstanding range, and weight lifting power.
This video goes over why upgrading a plane is not so simple, reactivating a retired experimental airplane would be even worse. A clean sheet design just makes more sense.
@@Mediiiicc F-16 XL is not an experimental fighter, was used in the 1984 in the competition against the F-15E. The F-16 was designed with a modular wing scheme, and the XL was a option.
And probably add to the fact that F16 airframes when originally designed were shrink wrapped around minimal electricals/electronics. And from the group of people who ‘hated’ the idea of complicated avionics.
I'm pretty sure that the military electronics follow the same heat/power/performance curve as normal consumer electronics and thus upgrading old computer systems into modern one's will produce less heat, demand less power and give higher performance.
That's not quite right. Moore's Law is basically dead at this point - transistor density will be less than double from this point on going forward. The cost of going to more dense "nodes" is going up quadratically. When going to a more dense "node", designers can choose EITHER more performance for the _same heat and power_ OR the same performance, for _less heat and power._ There is no magic compromise that promises less for all 3, unless you are willing to throw away more than half of the performance gains. Secondly, a lot of performance gains have actually come from instructions per clock increase. That is to say, making each time the processor does stuff to information, each "tick" does more things. This more than anything is why marketing in the form of raw frequency increases has been effectively dead as of...the 2010s. Basically AMD Athlon and Intel Core times. It is more efficient to make each "tick" produce more calculation, than simply making each "tick" go by faster and faster. Thirdly, military grade processors are at least several nodes behind in terms of individual transistor size. This is due to the needs for EMP hardening and the increased exposure to ionising radiation especially at altitude, as well as electronic noise from the radar and enemy aircraft. If consumer electronics are at say 5nm, chips for the military might still be stuck at 30 or 40nm for this reason. Smaller and smaller transistors become much more sensitive to electronic noise and ionising radiation. For this reason, military processor architecture designers might elect to focus much more on instructions per clock increases and architecture tricks like increased caching, instead of die shrinks and raw frequency gains. These gains require a _lot_ of investment in R&D and engineering though. It also has to be said that IPC gains are very hard fought and have diminishing returns. At some point there is no alternative but to shrink. Each time they do though, implies a massive capital outlay of completely retooling lithography machines and fab assembly lines which might only produce several hundred thousand chips instead of several hundred million. With low production numbers also comes high unit cost. Add on the fact that lithography machines are only really produced by 2 or 3 countries with extreme demands, and the prospect of military chip die shrinks further recedes. This is why it is not surprising to me that a plane like the F-35 uses liquid cooling for what is basically a late 90s, early 2000s era processor. If benchmarked today, I would wager that an individual F-35 processing chip might be comparable to the Intel 3000 series. There are multiple reasons militating against biennial die shrinks the consumer industry enjoys, for military hardware.
For the same performance, yes. For the huge power of _newer_ equipment, no. Perhaps all the industry techs are just lying between their teeth, but from everything I have heard, lack of cooling is the main problem with upgrading old jet.
The F-15 SA/QA/EX still showed us, that the right platform can be brought from the early 1970s, well into the 21st century with a fraction of the cost of a new platform and the lifecycle costs are also a lot cheaper, because most ground infrastructure and trained personell can be used to operate it. But I think that the F-15 is a unicorn and such endeavor makes not sense with many other platforms.
One could argue that the Jas system seems more agile, so far there has been little problem adding funktions to it. The situation on the F35 seem to be shall we say more complex in its structure since flight critical systems are separated in the Jas 39 E there is less that can go wrong the F35s ongoing war with Alise seems to be over after a cost of hundreds of millions. I can only say that the new system ODIN better work if not the US taxpayer will be billed another hundred of Milions. One could gave bought an airwing of Jas E for the cost of the ALIS system.
Gripen E isn't even production-ready after 14 years of development. There isn’t even a production sample in existence, and they haven’t even flown at night as of HX 2020.
