Fifth generation fighters

CONTENTS

04INTRODUCTION

SECTION 1 GENESIS OF THE BREED

1 GENESIS OF THE 08CHAPTER GENERATIONS

The first jet fighters took to the skies during the Second World War but after 1945 the development of airframes and engine accelerated.

70CHAPTER 10 MIG 1.44

It’s almost as futuristic as you can get and still retain development status as a radical test bed for new technology with 3D nozzle deflection.

78CHAPTER 11 SUKHOI SU-47 BERKUT

The Russian heavyweight fighter manufacturer developed a radical forwardswept wing test aircraft and provided a potential denied only by political vacillation.

15CHAPTER 2 GENERATION GAP

86CHAPTER 12 SUKHOI T-50/SU-57

22CHAPTER 3 GENERATION RISING

96CHAPTER 13 CHENGDU J-20

SECTION 2 DESIGNING FOR THE FUTURE

102CHAPTER 14 SHENYANG FC-31

Following the first two generations of fighter aircraft, technology pushed the boundaries of speed and capability, turning dogfighters into missile platforms.

As global confrontation threatened in the height of the Cold War, proxy conflict brought a surge in technological innovation.

30CHAPTER 4 THE SEARCH FOR STEALTH New threats from robust air defences stimulated a drive toward low observable combat aircraft and a whole new way of designing fighters to survive.

38CHAPTER 5 UNDER THE SKIN

When aircraft went stealthy, control systems had to keep up with unstable aircraft designed with advanced avionics and advanced flight control systems.

This definitive Russian fifth-generation fighter emerged from a long line of developed variants originating with the Su-27 family to exhibit unique capabilities.

Almost out of nowhere, China displayed breakthroughs in stealth and high performance in a fighter that may not be all it seems.

Whereas the F-22A was built in limited numbers for special incursions, the first mass production fighter of the fifth generation offered three variants for different services.

© 2018 Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission

FRONT COVER IMAGE: America’s Lockheed Martin F-22, F-35 and China’s J-20 provide capabilities defining them as fifth-generation fighters, with several leading contenders presenting aircraft already flying. (VIA DAVID BAKER)

Several countries aspire to take a place at the top table of fifth-generation types, some might make it but a few never will get that seat.

122CHAPTER 17 FIGHTING THE FIFTH

8 LOCKHEED MARTIN F-35 54CHAPTER LIGHTNING II

ISBN: 978-1-911276-58-6

106CHAPTER 15 NEW ENTRANTS

SECTION 3 THE FIFTH GENERATION First of the fifth, this new fighter that emerged from early work on stealthy aircraft with low observables became the backbone of the air dominance threat.

Printed by: William Gibbons and Sons, Wolverhampton

SECTION 4 ASPIRANTS, THREATS AND FUTURES

110CHAPTER 16 CONTENDERS

7 LOCKHEED MARTIN 46CHAPTER F-22A RAPTOR

Published by: Mortons Media Group Ltd, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR. Tel. 01507 529529

Seeking a small fifth-generation fighter with potential for export, China has produced an F-35 lookalike with not all of the variability.

6 SURVIVAL IN 42CHAPTER HARM’S WAY

New sensors to improve situational awareness matched advanced radars capable of seeking out targets beyond visual range for longdistance defence.

Author: David Baker Design: Lucy Carnell, atg-media.com Cover design: Holly Furness Reprographics: Angie Sisestean Production editor: Pauline Hawkins Publisher: Steve O’Hara Advertising manager: Zoe Thurling Publishing director Dan Savage Marketing manager: Charlotte Park Commercial director: Nigel Hole

Existing aircraft, long in the tooth and honed in war, are receiving upgrades that will give them capabilities very close to bespoke fifth-generation types.

With technical challenges to their survival, the fifth generation are having to upgrade their capabilities to retain their unique role in conflict.

18 ENTER 127CHAPTER THE SIXTH

What can we expect with the sixth-generation fighter generation and how will they integrate with a warfighting scenario so very different from that of today?

62CHAPTER 9 MIG-35

Some say this Russian fighter is not of the fifth generation but its capabilities are growing and it is closer than most other types to the golden accolade.

FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

3

INTRODUCTION

Introduct 4

FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

ABOVE: Russia’s new fifth generation, represented by the Sukhoi Su-57. (VIA DAVID BAKER)

T

A US Air Force pilot from the 58th Fighter Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing from Eglin AFB guides a Lockheed Martin F-35A into position for a photo-sshoot. (USAF)

tion

he story of the fifth-generation fighter is a product of several evolving steps, advanced forward by technology, engineering, science and investment – from politicians, military services and industry. But to understand how the fifth has evolved it helps to see from whence it came and how 40 years of engineering and science helped build a bridge from the piston-engine fighters of the Second World War to the stealthy fighters of today, agile and equipped for electronic warfare as an integral part of their design. It is all about the never-ending quest for air superiority.

In the air combat arena of the 21st century, air superiority has stretched toward air dominance – a goal sought but hardly ever likely to be achieved completely. Air superiority, as defined in fighter terminology, requires total control of the skies and that has already been achieved in some recent conflicts, usually employing highly trained, skilled and experienced fighter pilots pitted against lower levels of efficiency and effectiveness, either through poor training or an absence of experience. Air dominance, on the other hand, is about eliminating the ground threats too. And that is more difficult to achieve.

Over the last 80 years, jet aircraft have evolved from sluggish contemporaries of prop-driven fighters, hardly keeping up with the performance of piston-engine powered combat planes, to supersonic, highly agile, electronic platforms launching weapons to targets in the air or on the ground beyond visual range. A dynamic in that line of progress has been the extraordinary advances in the science of flight added to outstanding breakthroughs in exotic technology.

Joined together, it has been a powerful stimulus to successive generations of combat aircraft.

It is quite common to refer to jet fighter aircraft within successive generations of increasingly sophisticated capabilities, beginning with the first fighters and progressing to the very latest air dominance, fifth generation, types.

But in reality there is no definitive agreement on just what those generations represent and where each generation starts or by what criteria it ends. Each source consulted has its own interpretation of what constitutes a specific generation, broadly defined as sequential steps from the first jet fighters introduced to operational service to the present and beyond.

What follows in the opening chapters after this introduction is merely one sequence of categorisation defined by steps in technology, in aircraft design and within the evolving changes that have characterised steps from first to fifth in a succession of generational types framed by performance and capability. But there is no binding agreement as to where to draw the divisions between generations of fighter type, this being only one interpretation open to debate and redefinition. Yet, for all the boundary uncertainties, it is helpful to begin with a basic understanding of how the generations matured.

SMALL BEGINNINGS

Discounting experimental, conceptual development aircraft and prototypes which never saw operational service, logically the first generation has to begin with the Messerschmitt Me 262, the world’s first operational jet fighter, and the Gloster Meteor, its contemporary and in many ways a superior fighter. Where the Germans excelled in aerodynamics and planform design, the British had more reliable and, arguably, better engines. Pilots who flew both Me 262 and Meteor concluded that a German jet fighter with British engines would have been an unbeatable combination, a view expressed to this author by General der Jagdflieger Adolph Galland, an arch exponent of the Schwalbe.

British and German superiority was not to last, however, as the vastly superior financial resources of the United States quickly gained on the lead of European manufacturers. Frequently it came with the help of those assets – willingly offered up by the UK and ‘liberated’ from FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

5

SECTION 1 – CHAPTER 1

ABOVE: First of the fifth, an F-22 Raptor peels away during a close pass. (USAF) Germany – providing encouragement to a major programme of development and expansion as a Cold War descended over the victorious powers on a legacy of the Second World War. The journey from that day to this has seen the end of the Soviet empire and the birth of a new race – not for direct military confrontation (although that seems at times to reappear if only temporarily) – but for technical and commercial advantage in consolidating industrial and political alliances in an effort to deter equals and increase exports. Aircraft now have a dual function – to return development investment through international sales as well as consolidating indigenous defence needs.

The fifth generation has evolved gradually over the last 30 years, and some types conceived then are only now emerging for service introduction. The extended development of the Joint Strike Fighter is a case in point, built as a platform upon which can be grafted a wide range of new systems, sensors and avionics equipment which will undoubtedly see it succeeding through 5+ and 5++ evolutions. Yet the aircraft it will operate with are changing too and the way in which future air combat will integrate with new capabilities, and changing requirements, is deeply challenging to the air planners of today and the pilots of tomorrow. When the F-35 was conceived through the JSF programme, the B-2 had not yet entered service and its presence in the mix has only marginally changed the way the 6

FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

F-35 is perceived. But that is about to change.

Few could have foreseen the tidal wave of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) which have greatly influenced the air combat arena in the last decade or so. As a first-tier addition to primary reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities they are without equal and the fifth-generation fighter will operate on, and because of, information received after a strike package has left the runway. Battle management has shifted from ground stations in the rear, perhaps several hundred kilometres from the battlefield, to airborne command posts within region, to real-time information and data streams flowing on a continuous basis from UAVs and satellite-based information systems, some of which will use voice communication and commands from enemy sources to relocate mission vectors and targets.

New air vehicles are emerging now which may require extended support from fifthgeneration types in a multirole application to clear ground threats for incoming strike packages with not-so-stealthy components, manned and unmanned, following through on a real-time/ re-targeting basis. It was for this kind of stealthy penetration, loiter, re-targeting and strike capability that the B-2 was originally designed.

A primary objective of the stealthy bomber was to penetrate Soviet/Warsaw Pact airspace and hunt down and destroy mobile ICBMS

before they could launch and send their nuclear warheads to distant targets. With the end of the Cold War that requirement changed – and so did the configuration of the aircraft for a new role, redefined by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact as a unified threat against NATO forces.

In less than a decade the B-21 Raider will be in service and its mission too may evolve over time. As a very long range, nuclear-capable strike system it will be a target that enemy forces on the ground and in the air will attempt to hunt down and it may not survive unattended by networked assets managed by fifth-generation fighters. Which is the very essence of what defines a fifth-generation combat aircraft: a command control node for handling a range of in-area assets toward a unified objective broken down into several separate threat regimes. It would be a bold person indeed who images the B-21 as a fixed-mission asset and it will surely change the nature of air warfare as it bridges the divide between autonomous and piloted systems.

But there is more to the fifth generation, as it introduces a range of capabilities which had no precedent on fourth-generation types, specifically the advanced level of current low observables technology and the acclaimed benefits of thrust vector control. Even to the extent that some work has been done on examining the possibility of adapting the Typhoon to carry thrust-vectored nozzles. This aircraft is uniquely designed for high agility and has only latterly

come to have a multirole capability – much to the annoyance of some who wanted to keep it clean and mean! And the costs generally of these new technologies will come down with high production runs, as we are already seeing with the F-35, which is already cheaper than some of its fourth-generation competitors for orders.

A NEW GENERATION

Beyond the fifth there are redefinitions as to what constitutes a fighter, perhaps best described as a combat aircraft exclusively dedicated to annihilating enemy air threats in whatever form they take, while attacking ground targets merely as a means of survival rather than for some tactical or strategic aim; air dominance being a subset defined by self-preservation rather than as some independent military objective. In that regard it brings us full circle to the definitions used at the beginning of this introduction, namely to define air superiority as the ‘silver bullet’ for opening the battlespace to options for friendly land, sea and air forces intent on neutralising hostiles – be they organised gangs of rebel hordes or major powers seeking territorial or military advantage. Which brings us to the sixth generation, logically an uncharted future defined by technology, yet to be invented, and to the changing face of the battlespace map.

One-third of global military expenditure is funded by the Unites States alone, on national programmes in support of land, sea, air and space forces. What the US develops affects the remainder of the world and as a leader in air combat capabilities, the United States will be largely responsible for defining the future of the air combat arena – for several decades to come, despite assurances that major players such as Russia and China are catching up. As we define in Chapter 17 Threats to the Fifth, we explore the encroaching importance of space-based assets in providing the means to enable fifth-generation aircraft to operate with superior technical capabilities and to so define the sixth generation.

Aircraft and GPS-guided weapons depend on satellites to honour their promises, when called upon to deliver, and the collective net-centric space is only going to increasingly rely on Earth-orbiting satellites to maintain

ABOVE: A new era of electronic warfare was born during the Second World War, epitomised here by a Messerschmitt Me-110G-2 at RAF Museum Hendon, England. (VIA DAVID BAKER) that advantage over fourth-generation types.

It has been a long time coming. From the 1960s, military satellites have been used to enhance navigation, expand communications and inter-service links around the globe, map potential enemy targets with a precision measured in metres rather than miles and to construct an alert network on a spread from early-warning of imminent nuclear annihilation to the intelligence required to command and control forces in the air over hostile territory.

The next step will be a constellation of satellites which can directly connect swarms of unmanned and piloted aircraft and for these activities upgrades to existing fifth-generation types will be sufficient to embrace the new technology, much of which is coming from the commercial sector. In the last 35 years, the detailed intelligence from satellites essential to accurate targeting and map updates enabling air operations in and around contested airspace has

ABOVE: A fourth generation Mig-29M with qualities close to those of a fifth-generation fighter. (VIA DAVID BAKER)

shifted from highly classified 100% governmentrun programmes to a commercial sector where 70% of the information used by intelligence services is derived from private companies. When that shift migrates to communications as well, the sixth generation will communicate directly through vast constellations of several thousand commercial satellites in relatively low Earth orbit.

These constellations have been planned for some time, they have received licensed approval from the appropriate authorities and are being constructed as you read this. And there are several competing organisations, each preparing to launch in those staggeringly large numbers, an information-based environment in which demonstrations using laser-communication between satellites and specially configured F-16s are taking place now. Soon, direct communication between aircraft on opposite sides of the planet will be possible, perhaps routine if required, and that will define the sixth generation.

The connecting reach will see sixthgeneration fighters flying higher and faster, perhaps using hypersonic air-breathing propulsion systems such as the Sabre engine designed and developed in the UK and now being exploited by companies both in Britain and the United States in a series of development programmes already researching hypersonic cruise weapons. These revolutionary technologies will open the possibility for a wide range of trans-atmospheric vehicles capable of operating in the thin regions of the upper atmosphere and connecting directly across several hundred square miles to coordinate air operations on a level and at a scale impossible now but feasible within 20 years.

Behind it all is the fifth generation – an enabling series of radical technologies which equip front-line fighters in increasing numbers.

Within 15 years the proportion of fighters with stealth, supercruise and supermanoeuvrability, operating as sensor-fusion platforms in a net-centric environment will dominate the air combat arena, paving the way for an extraordinary series of warfighters yet to emerge.

FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

7

SECTION 1 – CHAPTER 1

Genesis of the

Generations CHAPTER 1

ABOVE: The world’s first operational jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262, entered service in July 1944 and failed to create the desired impact due to its late arrival and depleted production capacity. A superb aerodynamic design was compromised by an underpowered and unreliable engine. (DAVID BAKER)

O

n July 26, 1944 a de Havilland Mosquito from RAF Benson, Oxfordshire, was on a sortie to Munich. Its crew, Flt Lt A E Wall and Plt Off A S Lobban, approached their target at a height of 29,000ft (8840m) in relatively clear air. Suddenly, a German aircraft approached them from the rear, flying very fast.

Gating the throttles, Wall believed he could outrun his pursuer and use the superior speed of the Mosquito to avoid deflection from his primary mission. Instead of falling behind, the German aircraft gained on its target and as it drew closer Wall recognised it as one of the new Messerschmitt Me 262 jet-powered fighters on which most Allied aircrew had been briefed.

Wall turned to starboard to out-turn his adversary, taking advantage of the nimble Mosquito to briefly escape the jet fighter as it sped past, overshooting with a howling whine from its twin turbojet engines audible to the RAF crew. Inside the relatively spacious cockpit of the Me 262 Lt Alfred Schreiber came back four more times, completing fast fly-bys and on each one unsuccessfully bringing his guns to bear on his target, which evaded the slow-turning jet. Limited by short endurance, the Me 262 peeled away and as Wall powered the Mosquito

8

FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

out of cloud, suddenly the sky was empty.

Thus was the somewhat brief and inconclusive engagement of the world’s first jet fighter on another aircraft, an encounter consigned to the history books as the dawn of a new age g of jjet combat aircraft. Mistaken

in thinking he had a victory, Schreiber would go on to claim several more aircraft before he ran into a Spitfire on October 29, 1944.

But the appearance of this fast jet was not unexpected and had been anticipated since Allied intelligence began to build a picture of this maturing programme several years before.

A NEW DAWN

The race for speed had driven engineers and aerodynamicists to search for an effective use of reaction-engines in high-speed airframes from the late 1920s. Physical studies of gas dynamics and turbine technology in both mathematical theory and engineering practice opened the possibility of jet aircraft capable of very highspeed flight. Enthralled by talk of jet-powered combat aircraft, RAF recruits in the 1930s were wide-eyed at the thought of flying these superfast combat machines against inferior fighters.

Neither was it a dream, for several countries were on the verge of demonstrating such a capability.

With research into propulsion and aircraft design funded by the government, as measured by practical experiments and tests, German aircraft and engine manufacturers led the field, despite the early work carried out by Frank Whittle in Britain. Two years after beguiling his fellow flight cadets at RAF Cranwell with ideas of building a working jet engine, Whittle had registered his patent for a turbojet on January 16, 1930 and set up a private company, Power Jets, in March 1936.

Paradoxically, the unwieldy bureaucracy of the German government restricted support for free enterprise and work by Heinkel and Junkers was held back by a reluctance to divert resources to a still questionable concept. Nevertheless, work did progress but not quickly enough to beat Frank Whittle, who fired up his first gas turbine engine on April 12, 1937. Nevertheless, once begun, progress in Germany was rapid, with the world’s first jet aircraft taking to the air when the He-178 made its first hop on August 24, 1939 followed by the first official flight three days later.

Despite a promising start it was not Britain that became the second country to put a jet aircraft in the air, that distinction falling to the Italians when Mario De Bernardi piloted the Campini Caproni CC.2 on August 27, 1940. It was powered by a thermojet engine in which a piston engine replaces the turbine with a j It was not successful,, the conventional turbojet.

ABOVE: Italy’s Caproni Campini CC.2 was powered by a thermojet engine and while unsuccessful it is notable for being the world’s second jet aircraft to fly.

(DAVID BAKER)

ABOVE: The thermojet engine adopted for the CC.2 incorporated a piston engine with a large propeller to achieve the same results as a compressor, and which is seen here on test with the aft fuselage section removed.

(DAVID BAKER) basic design of the thermojet being flawed in that it progressively lost power the higher it flew.

Britain was the third country to fly a jet aircraft, on April 8, 1941 when the experimental Gloster E.28/39 made a few short hops, nine days after the first flight of the Heinkel He 280 – the first aircraft specifically designed as a fighter.

But that aircraft was eclipsed by the Me 262, which took to the air for the first time powered by jet engines supplemented by a nose-mounted piston engine on March 25, 1942, and as a pure jet piloted by Fritz Wendel on July 18 that year.

Astonishingly, considering the dominant role they were soon to play in the evolution of first-generation jet fighters, America was a long way behind but soon caught up courtesy of a leap forward provided when US Army Air Forces’ Maj-Gen “Hap” Arnold arranged for all the drawings on the Whittle engine to be sent to the United States. It went with approval for General Electric to copy it as the GE Type 1, which made its first bench run on April 18, 1942, exactly one year after the Me 262 V1 had first taken to the air with a single piston engine. Less than five months after the bench run, Bell Aircraft was contracted to build a prototype jet fighter.

For the allies, the British were still in the lead. On February 7, 1941 the Ministry of Aircraft Production had ordered 12 jet fighters and sufficient jigs and tools plus production facilities for turning out 80 aircraft of this type per month. It was initially called Thunderbolt but it would become known as the Gloster Meteor. The company had been a lowproduction manufacturer, despite having built the Grebe, the first fighter ordered for the RAF after the First World War, and the last RAF biplane fighter, the Gladiator. Before the

ABOVE: Japan’s Nakajima Kikka jet fighter was designed around the Me 262, drawings of which had been supplied by Germany for a type which came too late to see service before the war ended. (DAVID BAKER) Meteor, Gloster had built little more than 1,400 aircraft of its own design, half of which had been the Gladiator. It would soon mastermind production of almost 4000 Meteor jet fighters.

When it first flew on November 13, 1943, as the world’s second axial turbojet fighter, the Meteor was in some respects superior to its German counterpart, although nobody knew that at the time. But the Meteor was 16 months behind the Me 262 and it would never see combat before the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. Neither would the de Havilland Vampire, Britain’s second jet fighter.

Characterised by twin tail booms and a single Goblin delivering a thrust of 3100lb (13.79kN) it was marginally less powerful than the Meteor, which carried two 1700lb (15.1kN) Rolls Royce Welland I engines. Nearly 3300 would be built, an astonishing figure for post-war austerity Britain.

When Lt Schreiber encountered the RAF Mosquito over Munich in July 1944 it heralded the dawn of a new age – one which would open unheralded possibilities for air combat, adopting the general principles which had matured through 30 years of experience in aerial jousting but developing tactics and warfighting very different in the detail. It presaged a new era in aircraft design and manufacturing, with new technologies forged during the Second World War, capabilities brought to the fighter that would challenge scientists and engineers in a broader field of air combat.

As the war came to a conclusion in the first few months of 1945, Germany introduced a jet interceptor, the He-162 Salamander.

ABOVE: The Whittle W.1 developed by Power Jets, a company set up by Whittle to demonstrate the possibilities of an air-breathing reaction engine which, unlike the liquid rocket motor, could achieve sustained operation for lengthy periods. (DAVID BAKER) Novel and innovative, it was designed from the outset for mass production as well as for minimal servicing and maintenance. These latter qualities, so necessary in conventional manufacturing, were deemed unnecessary because damaged airframes could be written off and quickly replaced through cheap mass production. Powered by a single BMW 109-003E, it had a limiting Mach number of 0.75 but displayed high manoeuvrability and sustained high speed. Fewer than 300 were produced and it succumbed to a collapsing manufacturing base and evaporating resources.

Both the Meteor and the Vampire saw operational service in Europe before the conflict ended, the Meteor being used to down V-1 flying bombs, usually by flying alongside and flicking the assailant’s wing, disrupting the controlling gyroscope and sending it earthward prematurely.

America’s first jet fighter prototype, the Bell P-59 Airacomet, first flew on October 1, 1942 but failed to impress while a handful of Lockheed YP-80A Shooting Star jet fighters saw limited service in Europe but engine fires and accidents prevented engagement with the enemy.

FROM EXPANSION TO CONTRACTION

ABOVE: Gloster Meteor F.3 with Welland engines, representative of the world’s second jet fighter to enter service, operational with the RAF from July 1944 at around the same date as the Me 262. (DAVID BAKER)

For a very brief few months after the end of hostilities, Britain was the world leader in operational deployment of jet fighters. It did not last long. The first Russian jet fighters appeared in early 1946, initially using engines liberated FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

9

SECTION 1 – CHAPTER 1 from Nazi Germany toward the end of the war; most notable of which was the MiG-9. Powered by a pair of RD-20 engines, essentially the BMW 003, the MiG-9 had a limited performance, was underpowered and quickly outdated by successive designs such as the MiG-15, which made its first flight in 1947 and revolutionised the capabilities of Soviet jet fighter and interceptor units with which they were equipped.

The MiG-15/-17 family of jet fighters that emerged by 1950 would set in play contenders for air superiority totally unexpected in the West and their time would come quickly as tensions between political ideologies grew into direct confrontation. It was the challenge from Soviet military technology, plus the retention of a very large standing army, that frightened the West into responsive action through advanced engineering designs and new offensive and defensive systems. This would underpin successive generations of fighters and interceptors.

In the West, in the wake of a devastated Europe, only the United States and Britain had credible air forces capable of matching Soviet capabilities, although their technological supremacy would be fleeting and short-lived.

In the five years after the end of the Second World War, the assumption was mistakenly held that this would continue for many years. A degree of self-delusion set in as the expansion of air power during the war was followed by five years of contraction.

In the three years after the Second World War US air power was drastically reduced, the naive assumption being that the quality of American design and engineering would maintain a strategic and tactical advantage over the quantity of men and material mobilised by the Soviet Union – and for a very long time.

This delusion would hold sway for several decades, although dented by the detonation of a Russian atomic bomb in 1949, by the firing of the world’s first intercontinental

d HHavilland ill d VVampire i T.11 T 11 (XJ-771) (XJ 771) from f a batch b t h off six, i one off which hi h was ddelivered li d tto th the RRoyall NNavy. Unlike U lik the th Meteor, M t the th VVampire i evolved l d into it ABOVE: A de ABOVE the Venom and bequeathed the twin-tail boom arrangement to the Sea Vixen. (DAVID BAKER)

ABOVE: America’s early experiments with jet fighter concepts realised the Bell P-59 Airacomet, which took to the skies in 1942 but proved to have little potential. This particular aircraft is a prototype YP-59A. (USAF)

ABOVE: The h cockpit k off a Vampire FB Mk.2 k displaying d l a vintage layout l reminiscent off Secondd Worldld War piston-engine aircraftf withh llittlel attention to the h ergonomics of later jet aircraft of the 1950s. (IAN DUNSTER) 10

FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

ABOVE: The P-59 incorporated nose armament of three 0.5-calibre machine guns and a single 37-mm cannon. Note the chin intakes for the single turbojet engine. (USAF)

ABOVE: Lockheed’s P-80A Shooting Star, the first successful US jet fighter, this particular example modified for a photo-reconnaissance role. (USAF)

before late 1954 and the re-establishment of multirole aircraft which had been forced upon allied air forces during the Second World War would not reappear for 20 years after that conflict was over. In the meantime, allied air forces would continue to acquire increasingly sophisticated technology, sometimes to the detriment of the flying skills of the pilot, in the vain search for supremacy in interception and penetration. Paradoxically, it was the Soviet Union that unwittingly provided the spur for US doctrinal planners to keep their eyes off the ball and go for all-out speed and interception rather than manoeuvrability and dogfighting.

Almost as soon as the Second World War was over, political hostilities between East and West brought a need to acquire tactical and strategic intelligence on the position, strength

ABOVE: Seaborne fighters developed for the US Navy included the McDonnell F3H Demon, a prototype of which is seen here on the carrier USS Coral Sea in 1953. (USN) ballistic missile coupled to the launch of the world’s first satellite just eight years later.

Rewriting many of the assumptions about air power doctrine, a scientific advisory panel in the United States urged the newly emerging Department of Defense to concentrate on speed and this led directly to a disestablishment of tactical air power in favour of strategic strike underpinned by the colossus of a mighty bomber force equipped with atomic weapons. In fact, many blamed the emerging doctrine of overwhelming and disproportionate response, fielded equally by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, as abandoning the army which air power had done so much to support in the recent global conflict.

In the mistaken belief that speed, evading concentrated air defences and single-point interception would govern future air warfare, scientific and technological development steered toward the offensive capabilities of a force of supersonic assets. Which is why the newly formed independent US Air Force in 1947 flexed its doctrinal muscles on the first supersonic flight by Charles “Chuck” Yeager in the Bell X-1 in October that year.

But in basing future planning on the belief that science, technology and engineering would win the next war, the US pressed ahead with development of point interceptors.

Unforgivably, that had been the mistaken belief in the 1930s. It had not been true then.

and deployment of Russian land and air forces.

This was satisfied to some considerable degree by clandestine overflights using Second World War aircraft probing deep into Soviet territory over the North Pole, where Soviet defences were almost non-existent. That, in turn, prompted a major national counter response on the part of the Russians to develop, and

B h wings i folded, f ld d on an elevator l off the h carrier i USS ABOVE: ABOVE AAn F2H Banshee, Essex in 1951, a type that performed well during the Korean War. (USAF) deploy, primitive air defence systems gradually shifting from anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) to surface-to-air missile (SAM) technology.

Alone, this move would outfox the Americans for more than a decade, until the experiences of the Vietnam War would once again turn fighters into mud-movers, with SAMsuppression and anti-air-defence roles grafted on to increasingly diverse capabilities for fighters and ground attack aircraft. It was a long step to take from the initial jet fighters of the immediate post-war era but the trajectory upon which this evolution would take place was sustained in large part by the employment of systems initially fielded during the Second World War. A return to swing-role employment of fixed-role interceptors and fighters that had taken place during the mid-years of the Second World War – turning aircraft such as the Spitfire and the P-47 Thunderbolt into ground attack aircraft – was slow in re-establishing the defining roles of air combat aircraft. It was, again, the eternal conflict as to whether fighters are dedicated high-speed interceptors or dogfighting combat aircraft, a role largely unchanged since 1916. Paradoxically, it was the latter which spawned the first mature first-generation US fighter, the North American F-86A Sabre.

While the P-80A had fielded opportunities for learning an entirely different way in which to

JET ON JET

The first US fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight would not enter service

Æ

ABOVE: The McDonnell F3H-2N Demon poses for a PR shot during a cross-country fight in 1956. (USN) FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

11

SECTION 1 – CHAPTER 1

ABOVE: An F7U-3 in flight, circa 1955, powered by two 4600lb (20.46kN) thrust Westinghouse turbojet engines, four cannon in the upper lips of the intake fairing and underwing rocket pods. (USN)

ABOVE: First of the post-war US aircraft carriers, CV-41 Midway supports the launch of a Vought F7U-1 Cutlas which was developed from captured German research work sporting p g a veryy low aspect p wingg with 38-degree g sweepp and almost parallel p chord. ((USN))

ABOVE ABOVE: CConsidered id d bby many to bbe one off the h most aesthetic h i off the h earlyl jet j fifighters, h the h Hawker H k Sea S Hawk H k replaced l d the h Attacker A k when h iti enteredd service i with ih the Royal Navy in March 1953. The definitive FGA 6 was powered by a single 5200lb (23.12kN) thrust Rolls-Royce Nene engine. (DAVID BAKER) maintain, service and prepare aircraft for flight, this jet fighter would be quickly outdated – not by the enemy but by rapidly advancing technology, a lot of it acquired from the Germans at the end of the war. Some of it in the form of liberated spoils; a lot of it by active cooperation of former scientists, engineers and technicians, not least of which was manifest through the swept wing.

The US Navy had a jet combat aircraft in development from the beginning of 1945, the North American FJ-1 Fury, and it was proposed that the Army Air Force valuate its suitability as a land-based fighter. Like the P-59 and the P-80, the Fury had straight wings and was firmly in the ranks of a subsonic aircraft with little more performance than the German Me 262.

When the war in continental Europe ended in May 1945 a veritable treasure-trove of valuable research information became available.

The Germans had been engaged in one of the most wide-ranging research programmes of modern times, investing vast amounts of money into science, technology and engineering to support the war effort and to build a significant 12

FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS

lead over the allies. Aeronautics, jet and rocket propulsion and the exotic science of highspeed/high-altitude aerodynamics benefited greatly from this research and this information proved invaluable in the post-war race for supremacy in weapons and military equipment.

One segment of research concerned the use of swept-back wings to improve stability and airflow in the transonic regime, where compression and turbulence around the speed of sound caused problems for straightwing aircraft. The Me 262 had modest sweep of 18.5 degrees, not to improve transonic performance but to compensate for the extra weight of the turbojet engines and restore the appropriate centre of lift. There had been no attempt to apply sweep technology to the German jet although some aerodynamicists had wanted to give the type a 35-degree sweep to improve its high-speed performance.

When the German results became known to US aircraft designers, a classified “secret” kept from America’s allies for some time, North American hastily applied it to the land-based

version of the Fury, designated the F-86 Sabre, despite it delaying the type by almost a year.

But the results paid off, as did the opportunity to give the type a fully pressurised cockpit, a lengthened fuselage, power-boosted ailerons and automatic leading-edge slots. The type first flew on October 1, 1947, exactly two weeks before the Bell X-1 broke the sound barrier for the first time.

What the Americans obtained from the Germans the Russians also had and when the MiG-15 first flew on December 30, 1947 it was similar in appearance to the F-86, except for a mid-fuselage mounted wing, also swept at 35 degrees – whereas the F-86 wing was low mounted – but with a horizontal tail on the upper section of the vertical fin carrying modest anhedral. Several competing Soviet jet fighters contested the apparent superiority of the MiG-15 but it prevailed as the fighter of choice for the Soviet Air Force. The F-86 had some technical advantages, specifically in the all-flying horizontal tail in the F-86E from 1951, which, combined with linked elevators and power boost for the tail flying surfaces, aided control in the transonic area.

By 1950 tension between East and West had reached a heightened state; in early 1948 a group of Soviet operatives completed a coup in Czechoslovakia that toppled the one remaining East European democratic country into Communist control and the Berlin blockade from June 1948 to May 1949 raised the temperature on the Cold War. When the Russians detonated their atom bomb on August 29, 1949 and China was taken over by Mao Zedong’s communist forces in 1950, the age of contraction in allied military power was brought to an end.

In April 1950 Soviet MiG-15s appeared over the city of Shanghai to chase away Nationalist bombers attempting to attack the city and on June 25 North Korean forces invaded South Korea with Mao’s support, quickly followed by

ABOVE: Of equal aesthetic attraction to the Hawker Sea Hawk in form and layout, the Hawker Hunter, seen here in its two-seat trainer variant, was one of the most successful post-war military aircraft produced by the UK. (TIM FELCE)