Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

RobertDyck · 2025-12-07 23:40:19

The current Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced the F-35 fighter jets that have already been paid for by the previous Prime Minister would be accepted. However, no further F-35 jets would be purchased. Canada is in negotiations with Sweden to purchase JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets. Donald Trump, one of his cabinet ministers, and the US Ambassador to Canada have said they doesn't like this.

I would like to challenge Trump and his crew with a simple test. Fly an F-35 to Resolute Bay in January. Leave it parked outdoors overnight for 12 hours in temperatures between -30°C and -40°C, then scramble in the morning when it's still dark. Resolute Bay is above the arctic circle, sun doesn't rise in January at all. Scramble simulating a Tu-95 bomber flying over the north pole. From engine start can it reach 50,000 feet in 5 minutes? (1953 requirement for the Avro Arrow)

I posted that paragraph on Facebook. One person claimed "A Gripen on internal fuel only would be close to bingo fuel in a maximum performance TTC to 50k. That doesn’t matter though, since the engine would be destroyed on the takeoff roll."
I would like to hear from GW Johnson: is this true?

I would like to point out history of the Avro Arrow. Russia test flew the Tu-95 bomber (later called Bear) in 1952. This was a threat to North America, because it was designed to carry nuclear bombs, and was the first Russian bomber capable of flying from Russia to the US and back, dropping said nuclear bombs. Response by the US was to design and build the B-52 bomber, which was better than the Tu-95. Response by the Canadian air force was to write requirements for a new All Weather Interceptor. Those requirements were made available to Canadian contractors in 1953. RCAF Specification AIR 7-3

Performance

Maximum Speed: Mach 2 maximum at altitude, with a cruising speed of Mach 1.5 at 70,000 feet (21,000 m).
Altitude & Climb Rate: A combat ceiling of at least 60,000 feet (18,000 m) and a climb to 50,000 feet within 5 minutes of engine start.
Manoeuvrability: The ability to perform a 2g turn at Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet without losing speed or altitude, a requirement described as highly challenging even by modern standards.
Range: A normal mission range of 300 nautical miles (556 km) and a high-speed interception range of 200 nautical miles (370 km).
Operational Constraints: The aircraft was required to operate from a 6,000 ft (1,830 m) runway and have a ground turn-around time of less than 10 minutes.

Design and Systems

Crew: A two-place (pilot and weapons control officer) design was specified to handle complex operations and potential automation failures.
Powerplant: A twin-engine configuration.
Armament & Systems: An internal armament package capable of carrying up to six long-range air-to-air missiles and 50 shorter-range 2-inch rockets. This was paired with a highly advanced, integrated electronics system for radar detection, navigation, fire control, and flight control.

The RCAF determined that no existing or planned aircraft from other nations could satisfy these demanding requirements, prompting the domestic development of the Arrow.

Now I know the F-35 cannot supercruise at all, much less achieve supercruise at mach 1.5 at 50,000 within 5 minutes of engine start. One question is whether the F-22 Raptor can do this? But the question I asked is whether F-35 can reach 50,000 at all within 5 minutes of engine start. Under conditions I just listed.

tahanson43206 · 2025-12-08 07:12:21

This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members.

This topic seems sure to receive at least one additional post.

In the context of Mars settlement, it seems reasonable to suppose there will be no fighter jets at all. However, vacuum capable missiles seem likely to be needed for planetary defense from the beginning of permanent residence.

Index:
GW Johnson https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 59#p236059

(th)

GW Johnson · 2025-12-09 12:17:13

Rob:

I don't know enough to respond fully to what you asked in post #1 above. But I will say what I do know.

The cold soak up there in Arctic Canada does present some pretty serious problems operating gas turbine engines. It usually takes a wide-cut fuel to get reliable ignition and operation, when the plane and fuel are that soaked-out that cold or colder. Such fuels would be Jet-B/JP-4 (pretty much the same product sold to different customers with different specs). The JP-8 that most modern military jets burn is not a wide-cut fuel, but a kerosene, rather similar to JP-5/Jet-A/Jet-A-1. Freezepoints vary with the spec a little, but fall in the -58 to -65 F range (-50 to -54 C). Wide cut will successfully go colder than that. Gasoline goes much colder still. It is not the actual freezepoint, but the cold vapor pressure which governs the vapor/air ratio in the combustor cans, that is the real issue.

I am very impressed by the 2 gee maneuver capability at 50,000 ft altitude in that RCAF spec. Service ceilings for jet fighters usually have been in the 50-60,000 foot range since the Korean War, right down to the present day, with exceptions like the U-2 and the SR-71/A-12 family. Service ceiling is defined in the FAR's to be the altitude at which max power climb rate is down to the almost-imperceptible 200 feet per minute. Military specs are similar. There is no maneuver at that service ceiling condition, the airplane can just barely fly unaccelerated straight and level. It's easy to stall at high altitude, and the stall danger is a violent spin, in air too thin to prevent inertia coupling. (BTW, the larger vertical fin on the B-17 from the E model of 1940-onward was a response to this same kind of high-altitude spin risk.)

The "combat ceiling" of 60,000 feet in the spec is not the service ceiling, not with a spec'd cruise at 70,000 feet! That would be one impressive high altitude airplane! I suppose the SR-71/A-12 might be roughly comparable with a Mach 3 to 3.2 max cruise at 85,000 feet. But those planes burned an early version of thermally-stable jet fuel designated JP-7. There is no JP-7 any more, but it would be similar to the kerosenes JP-5, JP-8, and Jet-A/jet-A-1. Wouldn't work well at all in Arctic Canada.

As for burning-out engines in a fast climb, there is a time limitation for operation at full power, because turbine blades, combustor cans, and afterburner/nozzle hardware just gets too hot at the max power setting. You can only do that for a very few minutes. But, it takes full power to climb fast. The "trick" really is being able to handle the heat long enough to get to high altitude at full power, to meet the time spec. If the engine was not designed to operate that long at max power, there is little you can do to meet the tougher short time spec to high altitude.

This effect was manifested in a different way in the Mig-25 Foxbat. That airplane, if carrying no external stores at all, could fly as fast as Mach 3.5. Its engines were short-life at only 500 hours. And you did not overhaul them, you simply replaced them. This obtains because of the max power setting for long intervals required to intercept at Mach 3.5, or to intercept at the redline Mach 2.8 and near-max power with external stores. At max power, engine stuff just gets hot. And at high supersonic, the inlet air is rather hot, which makes the whole problem worse. Carrying stores, the issue was vibration from the aerodynamics around the stores, but with the drag of the stores, it wouldn't have gone much faster, even without vibrations.

If you really want to fly high altitude with handling practicality, you must fly well-supersonic. The U-2 was subsonic, with a service ceiling altitude somewhere around 70,000 feet. But subsonic like that, the difference between stall speed and max speed was only 5 KIAS, even with that huge wing. And that huge wing made landings difficult indeed. The wind can upset you all too easily with a landing speed that low, in an airplane that big.

I hope that answers your question to me.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-12-09 12:36:22)

kbd512 · Today 02:37:58

RobertDyck,

Any kind of bomber Russia and China actually operate are about as maneuverable at high altitude as a beached whale. As GW already pointed out, they can just barely fly at all up there, and while they do move a bit faster because the air is so much thinner, they'd literally fall out of the sky if they didn't. For a strategic bomber cruising above 40,000ft, anything much beyond high subsonic level flight and lazy turns is wishful thinking. That means they're easy pickings for air defense missiles launched towards them on ballistic trajectories. Missiles will always out-accelerate manned aircraft on simple physics alone. How the incoming bombers and missiles are destroyed is unimportant. A job well done, efficiently and at minimal cost to Canadian tax payers, should be the desired end result.

The_first_of_two_Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense_%28THAAD%29_interceptors_is_launched_during_a_successful_intercept_test_-_US_Army.jpg

THAAD-ER could be ready in a few years instead of a decade, which is approximately how long Canada has been dragging its feet on modern fighter jet acquisition:

If you are sincere in your desire to defend Canadian airspace, and acknowledge the significant budgetary constraints applied to the Canadian military, then you ought to propose a solution that stands a chance of actually being ready and available when called upon to defend Canadian airspace. A few squadrons of fighters, even if they were Mach 4 capable, are simply not enough to defend a block of airspace as vast as the approaches to Canada. Radars and missiles can bring down enemy bombers and missiles a lot more cost-effectively than 2-5 squadrons of fighter jets. We throw more money than any other nation at fighter jets, but weren't able to purchase enough F-22s to merely replace the F-15. If America simply "gifted" all our F-22s to Canada, your military would run out of operational funding trying to maintain them as airworthy assets, as opposed to fully mission capable assets. We quit buying them because their radar and avionics tech is now ancient by modern standards.

Canada's entire annual defense budget is around $12B USD, so maybe 1.5% of what the US spends on defense. Canada can still do quite a lot with the money it does spend, but only when it's very shrewd about where those defense dollars are spent, which means foregoing flash for substance. Air defense is mandatory in modern warfare, but how that's achieved is a choice which carries significant cost implications. If missiles weren't very effective, then they wouldn't be employed by the thousands by every modern military. Whether or not Canada buys American weapons, European weapons, or chooses to develop their own weapons is irrelevant to having something effective available, and in sufficient quantity, when that doomsday scenario you keep throwing out there is no longer a theoretical problem to solve.

Logistics wins wars, not who has the faster fighter. WWII German military hardware and training was judged as superior to most allied hardware, even amongst the allies, but for all their technical superiority, whether real and demonstrated in battle or merely theoretical, it never amounted to a hill of dog crap in the face of superior allied logistics.

Ask yourself how many bombers and missiles Russia or China might throw at Canada to wreck your economy. Next, ask yourself if Canada would have enough weapons (fighters / missiles / radars / spare parts / trained operators / usable air bases / etc) ready to use, from advantageous positions, to intercept all or most incoming weapons, if only Canada did "X" vs "Y" with their defense dollars. When the answer is "not enough", something's wrong with the chosen solution, however personally appealing.

kbd512 · Today 12:00:03

Now I know the F-35 cannot supercruise at all, much less achieve supercruise at mach 1.5 at 50,000 within 5 minutes of engine start. One question is whether the F-22 Raptor can do this? But the question I asked is whether F-35 can reach 50,000 at all within 5 minutes of engine start. Under conditions I just listed.

The F-4 Phantom was able to reach 82,000ft in 3 minutes 50 seconds, using full afterburner, despite its inferior thrust-to-weight ratio as compared to the F-35, so what makes you think F-35s cannot quickly reach 50,000ft?

Thrust-to-Weight with Zero Fuel / Zero Weapons of Select Fighters
Avro Arrow w/ J75 engines: 0.96:1
F-106A: 1.00:1
F-4E: 1.18:1
F-14D: 1.23:1
Avro Arrow w/ Orenda Iroquois engines: 1.25:1
JAS-39E/F: 1.25:1 <- Edit: I somehow forgot to include the Gripen in this list
F-18E/F: 1.37:1
F-35A: 1.47:1
F-16C/D: 1.54:1
Rafale C: 1.57:1
F-22A: 1.62:1
F-15C: 1.64:1
F-15EX II: 1.66:1 (no CFTs installed)
Eurofighter Typhoon: 1.67:1

All the rest of the fighters on that list are at least as climb-capable as the F-4 when proportionally laden with fuel and weapons. The F-35 has a significantly greater excess of thrust, relative to its own empty weight, than the Avro Arrow ever did, even if the Arrow was equipped with Iroquois engines that were never installed. The F-14D's initial climb rate was nearly identical to the F-35A. I've never heard anyone claim that a Tomcat couldn't climb very well. If all fighters on that list were proportionally encumbered with fuel and weapons, then as a general rule the fighters with higher excess of thrust would still climb better than ones with lower excess thrust.

Does aerodynamics still matter?

Absolutely. Quite a lot, actually.

How much less aerodynamic are the non-stealthy jets when they're carrying 2-4 gigantic fuel tanks on wing pylons as part of their combat configuration?

There's a reason why all the latest jets are carrying significantly more fuel internally, even if that means the base jet design has greater drag than a more streamlined airframe carrying less internal fuel. Drag penalties from multi-hundred gallon external fuel tanks are very real, to say nothing of how external point loads affect real world maneuverability limits to avoid over-stressing the airframe.

If the F-35s ultimately receives the 50,000lbf F-135 or F-136 engine refresh under development, then A model TWR becomes 1.71:1, outclassing the very best Gen 4.5 fighters. If the CNT / BNNT wiring replacement is fully implemented and Aluminum wing spars fully replaced with CFRP, there's a real shot of re-engined and re-manufactured F-35As hitting 2:1 TWR and F-35Bs being able to take off vertically with full fuel. C models would perform better than current A models. A models would be able to climb vertically, and quite rapidly, when laden with full internal fuel and 6X AIM-120s. Up to high subsonic speeds, they'd accelerate faster and therefore recover energy following hard maneuvering faster than all other jets with lesser TWRs and proportional fuel / weapons loads.

Last edited by kbd512 (Today 16:45:23)

RobertDyck · Today 12:34:46

Thank you for the reply. As you mentioned, Canada is vast. Only Russia has more land area than Canada. But most of the population is huddled south where it's warm. And where crops can grow. The north is vast with very little there. Fighter jets were the 1950s defense against strategic bombers. In the early '60s the US government convinced Canada to get Bomarc missiles. They had problems, didn't work very well. So now you're arguing for a ground launch system that hasn't been fully developed yet.

If a Russian bomber can fly faster than a fighter, if just needs to spot the fighter at distance with radar. It doesn't have to be a precise radar lock for a missile, just enough for a warning. As long as the bomber stays at least 100 miles away from the fighter, it can't do anything. The bomber doesn't require sharp turns, just enough to keep the fighter at distance. That's what an interceptor must be able to cruise (no afterburner) faster than the bomber. Now look at not only 1952 vintage Tu-95 Bear bombers, but Tu-22M3 Backfire and Tu-160 Blackjack. An interceptor's job is different than an air superiority fighter. Also realize the Tu-160 is used to launch cruise missiles, so must be shot down much farther back.

The first reason Canadians objected to F-35 was cost. Not just acquisition cost, but maintenance and operation. How effective is it? Can we afford it? JAS-39 Gripen has a similar acquisition cost, but much cheaper to maintain and operate. And it's designed for Arctic cold.

Performance of fighters you listed are impressive. Now could they operate in the cold of the scenario in post #1? Temperature I listed is typical for night in January in the city where I live. It can get colder at the location listed. Can an F-35 operate when cold soaked?

kbd512 · Today 14:34:32

RobertDyck,

So now you're arguing for a ground launch system that hasn't been fully developed yet.

THAAD has been operational since 2008. Strapping a 2X more powerful rocket motor to a weapon already designed to accelerate to hypersonic speeds doesn't make it a completely new weapon with completely unknown characteristics. What I'm suggesting is that Canada take a proven weapon system, like THAAD or Patriot, let LM develop the improved motor unless you have the R&D and manufacturing capacity to do that yourselves, and then add a home-grown kill vehicle to Canada's version of the weapon. That's what you guys already do with every American weapon system you purchase, so why should this one be any different?

If a Russian bomber can fly faster than a fighter, if just needs to spot the fighter at distance with radar. It doesn't have to be a precise radar lock for a missile, just enough for a warning. As long as the bomber stays at least 100 miles away from the fighter, it can't do anything.

I find this idea of the F-35 being tracked by an enemy bomber from 100+ miles away, to be quite fanciful. If considerably more powerful ground stations cannot do that with any degree of reliability, no, just... no. When the F-35 is equipped with AIM-260s or AIM-174Bs, those bombers absolutely are within range. AIM-174B can hit bomber-sized targets from 250 miles.

The first reason Canadians objected to F-35 was cost.

So, your counter-proposal was to acquire considerably more expensive and maintenance-intensive jets like the F-22, on the sole basis of it being able to "supercruise"?

Do you not see how absurd that is?

If bombers really can see the F-35 on their radar screens, is the Gripen going to be less visible to the bomber?

And it's designed for Arctic cold.

You think Alaska isn't cold, or that when we conducted flight ops below the Antarctic Circle aboard carriers, that somehow doesn't count as cold weather?

Do you realize that we leave the jets on the flight deck at night, with fuel in the tanks, and then use them the next morning?

Cold-soaked, or heat-soaked, is the only kind of "jet operating" we do in the Navy. The only thing we remove is ice, because ice will screw up any aircraft ever made, period. We don't show any deference to "fancier" stealth aircraft brought aboard. If it's on our flight deck, then it's a combat asset, or we send it home because it's useless to us.

The Gripen's airframe is made from the exact same kinds of materials as the F-35, and uses an American Super Hornet engine. The F-35 in particular uses its fuel as a heat sink, so it can definitely heat up the airframe if necessary. Making the jet in Sweden vs Texas doesn't imbue its airframe materials with special properties. America operates combat jets in every climatic conditions imaginable, from Death Valley heat, to jungle insect FOD and humidity, to ice-spray encrusted aircraft carrier flight decks rolling and bobbing around off the coast of Antarctica.

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Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

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