As a note he says this will be the "new mainstay of the air force" however we still have the F-22 as our air superiority fighter which is still believed to be better then anything out there, and indeed in their simulation the only limitation to the F-22 was there were too few of them. So this isn't really about America losing air superiority its about a few analysts not taking into account the entire mission of the three branches of the military. Maybe this plane doesn't stack up well against the F-16 or F-22, but It sure beats the Harrier and the F-18.
Because the JSF is a shitty bomb truck too. It doesn't have the range, capacity or loiter time of nearly any other option. And for CAS vs bomb hauling, the JSF simply doesn't have the gun (and again, lacks the loiter time).
"As a note he says this will be the 'new mainstay of the air force' however we still have the F-22 as our air superiority fighter which is still believed to be better then anything out there, and indeed in their simulation the only limitation to the F-22 was there were too few of them."
We aren't dealing in hypotheticals where we can have any number of planes we want. That's the basic lesson of the RAND study: dollar for dollar you can have so many more SU-3 7 derivatives that even if the F-22's have a perfect kill probability, they quickly exhaust their magazines and have nothing else to do. And that's the outcome of the simulation: the F-22's live, most of the rest of the blue force dies, and red gains air superiority over the straight of Taiwan via the remaining flankers.
"It sure beats the Harrier and the F-18."
The FA-18 is more capable than the F-35 in both the A2A and A2G missions as a result of its superior capacity, range, and time on station. Comparing the FA-18 to the F-22 is more muddled, and IMHO comes down to an assesment of the relative performance of stealth vs EW. The prevailing attitude among the Russian military designers is that stealth is mitigated by state of the art communicating radars and passive emission detection (they claim detection of the F-22 at 50km on passive IR alone). And of course, as soon as the F-22 takes a shot stealth is no longer a consideration. Thankfully the F-22 is fast enough that it can turn and run. The F-35 can't, which is why they were decimated in the sim.
Also, a Su-35 Flanker cant fire a missile at 50km without radar lock, which would be difficult against a F-35. Even if they did fire a future Long-Range IR missile, the F-35 would detect and release flares to avoid the missile. Also, the kinetics of the missile would make it hard to track a F-35 during terminal phase.
A F/A-18 has significant less range and time on station than F-35, with both internally fueled. The F/A-18 carries all weapons externally.
As for your comment about stealth when the F-22 fires a missile, that assumes the F-22 doesn't change course after firing said missile. The F-22 would most likely turn away from the target, so they are not staying behind the missile relative to the target.
Pretty much everything you said in this entire thread is wrong or at least misguided.
...
>the F-22's live,
F-22 is cheaper than F-35 (and btw looks better - weapons look is important for projecting power - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtahqXjFcxU :), yet F-22 program was closed because of cost while F-35 continues (and still seems to be in R&D stage, though the late stage of R&D). Something bad about F-22 vs. that being good in F-35? Or just government spending logic?
Interesting also that there is a ban on export of F-22 (even to good friends like UK/etc) while F-35 is supposed to be available for export.
We've virtually abandoned A and B line planes because the testosterone blinded fighter mafia in the airforce would rather have fun toys than useful equipment, and the navy is right there with them because heavy planes can't take off from aircraft carriers. It doesn't help that the one bomber the air force begrudgingly agreed to acquire is an obscenely expensive hanger queen, designed for nuclear bombing runs deep into the Soviet Union.
If the army wasn't barred from operating fixed wing aircraft by the pernicious Key West agreement, maybe they would operate as a voice of reason.
We should be working on a replacement for the AC-130 (1968), the A-10 (1977), and B-52 (1955!). To the extent we actually need more air superiority fighters they can bring back the F-22 line.
Two observations along these lines, however:
* The B-52 originally was the US Air Force's all-purpose bomber when it rolled out in the 50s. It was a conventional heavy bomber, a strategic nuclear bomber, and a cruise missile platform all in one. Over time, however, the USAF's bombing roles have become split; the B-1 now takes on the role of a conventional bomber, while the B-2 is used for deep-penetration strikes and standoffs.
* One big hurdle in the development of a B-52 replacement is the limitations on the number of strategic bombers allowed under the New Start treaty. The US cannot easily develop new nuclear-capable bombers under this treaty, and thus must keep a chunk of the B-52 fleet around to maintain the nuclear capability.
This seems an inadequate and/or overly-simplified explanation. The F-14 was a beast, far heavier than the F-35 or, for that matter, the A-6. And that was 1960s technology. Surely now we could build a capable, carrier-launched ground-attack craft with weight comparable to an F-14?
I think you may have missed the B-1 and the enormous focus on UAVs by all of the branches.
trying to argue that we need the F-35 or that it will provide any kind of strategic military value is absurd.
To a certain extent, this has been true for more than two decades. I used to work as a radar engineer for the RAAF, and every time we went on exercises against US forces (both teams flying F 18s, but with different missile payloads, we had AIM9s, the Americans had AMRAAM), we would see our aircraft swatted from the sky before we could even get the bogeys on weapons-system radar. Talk about dog-fighting maneuverability and visibility is just ridiculous - if you're using those characteristics, you've already lost the battle. In the control room we used to joke that the USN could have sent P51s equipped with AMRAAMs and AWACS support and they would still win.
Modern fighter aircraft need to:
a) not be seen b) be fast (time to target is still important!) c) carry a decent payload of weapons.
Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need to carry it's own sensor suite.
Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is almost inconsequential.
The federal government does not analyze spending the same way we do because __spending benefits the economy__, which is part of the government's responsibility. They intentionally spend money to stimulate the economy.
So when the military spends $1 trillion on planes, they are really trading $1 trillion for planes plus economic stimulus.
In other words, the planes don't literally cost $1 trillion. Rather the cost of the planes = $1 trillion minus the economic benefit of spending.
...or, maybe, education?
But what happens to your bombers when you don't have air superiority?
What would China's economy look like after they decided to launch an invasion of Taiwan?
SEAD, CAS, precision bombing, cargo and personnel transport -- these are missions that our military will actually be called on to perform, not the dogfighting the fighter pilot mafia wishes was needed.
I'm just going to leave this here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/olsen_raptor_case_ge...
And the fact that the F-22's stealth coatings, even if they work, ablate in rain.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/f-35-gets-stealthier...
And of course the ludicrous idea that the F-35 can replace the A-10 Warthog in combat.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/a-10-f-35-air-force-...
The A-10 problem bugs me more than the others. The A-10 is a proven warplane that ground troops count on for cover. The F-35 doesn't have the capability to fulfill its role, which could place our troops in greater danger.
Compromised designs are compromised designs.
What's really sad is comparing the capabilities of today's carrier airwing with what was available in 1991. Then you had F-14D, F/A-18C, S3, A-6. A great array of aircraft that had the range to take the fight to the enemy.
Now you have the F/A-18E, F/A-18C, and that's it. No S3 for ASW, no long ranged tactical bomber, an "interceptor" that has short legs, and you've also given up your KA-6D for inflight refueling, relying on buddy tanks off the already shortlegged F-18.
sigh...
Also, the vertical takeoff capability will be mandatory for a hypothetical future war against a major power. Once the huge, lumbering aircraft carriers are sitting on the sea floor, they will be replaced by heavily armored battleships. In a major war, the only sea launched aircraft will be VTOLs.
Huh... there isn't a single battleship in service in any navy in the world.
US hasn't realized this yet because we are currently using our military might to pick on folks who are decades if not a century or more behind us technologically but would likely be a different story against a more up to date competitor.
And if you think CVNs are expensive, you should research how much retrofitting an Iowa Class with a STOVL flight deck would cost. And then factor in manning costs for a ship that needs close to 5000 sailors.
Drone payloads are still relatively light compared to heavily-laden fighter-bombers (or indeed outright bombers). This will likely evolve over time (the future bomber program requires both manned and unmanned capabilities in some proposals).
I know people fear China but they are no cold-war Russia. Anything conventional and the US is in the lead by a lot. There's no reason to discuss anything nuclear because everyone loses in that case.
A surprising thing is that countries taking part in development are not permitted complete access to program data. The U.S., despite making use of other nations expertise in the development and manufacturing of the F-35,is trying to keep some aspects classified from the nations who are supposed to buy the plane!
Some Canadian pundits have (not seriously) called for the F-35 to be ditched and the Avro Arrow resurrected. The Arrow was developed in the 50's as an interceptor and, other than being significantly faster than the F-35 is probably inferior for Canada's requirements. It was designed in the freakin' 50's! It really is amazing that Canada went from manufacturing other country's WWII propeller plane designs to building prototype's faster than today's state-of-the-art F-35 in just a little over a decade. The fact that the F-35 is significantly slower than a 55 year old jet really shines light on how compromised its design is.
There are many rumors surrounding the cancellation of the Avro Arrow since it was probably superior to any other interceptor of its time, and one that refuses to die is that the U.S. was pressuring Canada to drop the program since Boeing, Lockheed, etc. felt threatened by Avro. Avro was basically destroyed by the cancellation of the Arrow, and guess where Avro engineers wound up!
I mention all this because Canada, despite being a perpetually self-doubting nation, has significant aerospace and weapon expertise. Canada also has some pretty unique design requirements not met by any existing fighters. The budget to build fighters locally may not ultimately exist, but if the Canadian government decides to compromise to cut costs, the F-35 is a horrendous option. It doesn't meet Canadian requirements, isn't on time, is getting more expensive every day, and the U.S. is trying to treat them like turn-key installations rather than selling planes.
Why should the U.S. care? Every nation that bails on the JSF program will raise costs for those that remain. Once one nation leaves, a domino effect will likely ensue. Based on this article, I can't say that's necessarily bad!
There are two types of F-35 test aircraft: flight sciences jets, which don't have the full avionics suite, but are instrumented for testing things like flutter, flight qualities, weapons testing, etc. -- and mission systems aircraft, which have the full suite of avionics and are thus more encumbered with restrictions. Foreign persons aren't allowed around the mission systems aircraft without an escort, and aren't supposed to even see the panoramic display in the cockpit. But what do you do when it's a night shift and the only flight systems engineer on duty who is officially qualified to perform certain operations is from the UK? You get a piece of foam, cut it to the size and shape of the display, and write "BRIT BLOCKER" on it in sharpie, and use it whenever the Brits are around.
Further absurdity kicked in when some of the first jets built specifically for the UK were tested. Those jets had the full avionics systems, of course, which meant that foreigners couldn't work on them. So the UK engineers weren't even allowed to be around the jets that were to ultimately be owned and operated by the UK.
This is nonsense. The tradeoffs for speed are fantastically expensive and haven't made sense since the 1950's. You reach Mach 3 only with an extremely high fuel expense, with afterburners, so expensive it limits your combat time to minutes. This made sense in the obsolete 1950's role of interceptors (like Avro Arrow), which chased obsolete 1950's strategic bombers. The adversary is obsolete, the role is obsolete, and the tradeoff is also obsolete.
While we're doing nonsensical comparisons with cold war interceptors -- they also carried air-to-air nuclear missiles [1][2]. The F-35 is not only slower and heavier, it also carries smaller weapons!
(edit: I should clarify I'm not defending the F-35 (I'm ignorant about it), only criticizing the interceptor comparison, which is invalid).
Here is actually a link to a video of the plane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8lTGTPQlDE, note the old Canadian flag at the beginning, the Canadian flag we all know was created in '65.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-official...
However, I'm not certain the Gripen have enough range - at least not until Gripen NG comes around. That may change that equation.
They could probably just build four times as many for less cost. I don't know what it would look like once you factored in readiness, basing, pilots, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35
What's wrong with hackernews today are a bunch of musq-worshipping, "smartphone" toting, self-righteous dolts opining on subjects they have zero depth on.
Let me guess, you are boss with a joystick on your Apple Thunderbolt display and MSFT Simulator-X.
Do you understand what drives the cost of a physical good? Do you understand why the US government has structured the defense contractors into a prime-sub hierarchy? Do you understand why the US government has cost-plus contracts?
What do you know that I can't read on Wikipedia?
Why don't you Google the Forbes list and tell us about all of the billionaires the government is minting in the defense contracting industry?
You know where the money is going? Look at raw materials.
Why do we have prime contractors? So they aren't "too big to fail."
Why do we have cost-plus contracts? Because no one can hedge raw material and labor costs for projects that are 10-30+ year contracts. You see, the US government issues its own currency and as we have seen the Federal Reserve do since 2008, it can spend and self-finance(quantitative easing) as long as the political will exists to spend. The government has no budget constraint other than the arbitrary ones we periodically invent for it.
Canada's military budget is a fart in the wind and the only reason we are SHARING any piece of the development with anyone is diplomacy.
Tell us all something substantive and save the impassioned platitudes.
|------------------------|-----------|----------|
| | F-16 | F-35 |
|------------------------|-----------|----------|
| Maximum speed | Mach 1.2 | Mach 1.6 |
| Combat radius | 550 km | 1 080 km |
| Dry thrust | 76.3 kN | 125 kN |
| Thrust w. afterburner | 127 kN | 191 kN |
| First flight | 1974 | 2006 |
|------------------------|-----------|----------|
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...
One advantage that the F-35 does have is "super cruise", the ability to go supersonic without afterburners (F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoon have the same ability). Other fighters are restricted to subsonic speeds except for short supersonic dashes.
Total thrust is not particularly interesting for a fighter's performance, thrust-to-weight ratio is, and the F-35 is quite a bit heavier. The F-16 has slightly better than 1:1 "loaded", with the F-35 only getting there by restricting it to 50% fuel.
I am not sure how exactly combat radius is calculated, but the combat radius of the F-16 is listed as half of that of the F-35 and to get decent thrust-to-weight you have to halve to F-35's fuel. Go figure.
One more thing to consider is that the combat radius appears to be with internal fuel only. The F-35 being a stealth design, it has been "optimized" for internal carriage of weapons and fuel, whereas with the F-16 you probably just add a drop-tank if you need more range.
The F-16's max speed is far greater than Mach 1.2, I thought, or at least it used to be before they added on weight to the thing.
It's also well known that the designers optimized the F-16's ability to quickly lose/gain kinetic energy, what they call "dump and pump". This is hard to quantify.
Some of the "nextgen" fighter capabilities widely touted are "supercruising" (i.e. supersonic flight without afterburner) and thrust vectoring, i.e. changing directions quickly by nozzling engine thrust off center. Amusing, the original YF-16A prototype could supercruise, and execute a "buttonhook turn" maneuver, without the fancy 21st century engines.
Imagine what the F-22's P&W F119 engine could do in a modernized F-16 airframe....
Assuming the Falcon figure is for a fully-loaded plane, it wins on thrust-to-weight ratio.
Rate of climb on the F35 is classified, so can't be compared.
It's somewhat more difficult to get accurate turn performance and acceleration information about the F-35. If I understand correctly (again, can't really find anything but conjecture for performance charts) while the F-35 has more sophisticated aerodynamic designs, the large cross-section looks to be a disadvantage in turn rates and acceleration (especially trans sonic).
Also, the F-35 is more maneuverable than the current F-16s which have to hang a ton of armament on pylons, as well as drop tanks to get range equivalent to the F-35. And try flying any F-16 into S300 range.
Now the criticisms of the F-35B (Marine STOVL variant) are semi-valid, and have affected some facets of the F-35A and F-35C. But other than cost overruns, the performance of the aircraft will be fine.
Any sources for this claim? The details on sales deals are scarce, but from what I gather Block50/52 models should be in the $40M range, or maybe even as low as $15M. The major exception being UAEs heavily modified Block60 which seem to go for significantly higher (in the $100M range).
Then again, thinking about this, the USAF really plans on logistics, and most of the plans I've seen really focus on how plans can carrying something (usually bombs) to a place, from far away, and flying around enemy radar and other badness. They really need the equivalent of a fedex truck that can't be shot down.
The F-16 is the "low" part of the "high/low" multirole fighter strategy. For the air force, the "high" jet is the F-15. The F-22 is predominantly designed for air superiority, and thus is most directly a replacement for the F-15C. Whether it really even replaces the F-15C is questionable, since the quantity produced is extremely small compared to the overall legacy fighter fleet.
The assumption is that gap will be filled by the F-35 and the F-16 will be replaced by the F-35.
The major difference is in posture. The US military wants to be able to project power globally. That means fighting from carriers or allied bases of varying quality half way around the world. The Chinese only care about their borders and regional power projection. VSTOL doesn't gain them anything since they'll never be that distant from their own bases.
This is the same reason why the Chinese haven't put much into carriers, but have a ton of ballistic missile ships.
Indeed, the same is true of the J-15 (an Su-33 clone), which is currently the only carrier-capable aircraft they've flown. Fewer than 16 of these aircraft have been built. Its use of the AL-31F makes the J-15 hard to produce, but also severely limits its payload/range.
For reference, over 500 of the mainstay F/A-18E/F Super Hornets have been built, and ~1500 of the previous models (A-D) were produced.
The Russians are none too pleased about Chinese repurposing and reverse engineering of their aircraft (particularly for engines), and have stopped selling Su-27s and many aircraft parts to the Chinese over IP disputes.
The lack of Chinese airpower and carrier operations isn't a product of posturing or strategic differences. They've invested a huge amount of money retrofitting the Admiral Kuznetsov (now Liaoning), are building a second one, and are training pilots for carrier ops with foreign trainers.
The Chinese air capabilities are instead hampered primarily by a lack of engine technology and production capability. Never mind the lift-fans.
The Liaoning is a bit of a weird duck. It provides air cover and anti-submarine capabilities to naval formations, but it's not capable of projecting power into a region via strike missions the way US carrier groups do. It fits within the posture I described. But also it seems like it may just be a boondogle to satisfy some admirals that want to be one of the nations that has a "carrier".
That being said, there are still some significant problems with the F-35.
And many of those ships are carrying large numbers of SS-N-22 Sunburns, only one of which can sink a carrier, and which stand reasonable odds of penetrating even the latest generation point-defense platform. Fire ten at a carrier, maybe one or two get through, no more carrier, battle over.
Also, only the four Sovremeny-class destroyers carry that missile.
Possibly they are only doing this to fake us out, and I don't disagree with the war nerd's argument that carriers make worryingly good targets...but I wouldn't write off the whole concept just yet.
http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-china-joins-the-yacht-club/
The DF 21 is basically unstoppable, best long term solution inho is putting drone carriers underwater
Your only other options are to fly your planes straight from the USA to your target, or to build bases with airstrips all over the world, which are easily bombed.
This is changing...
vs.
"The F-35, by contrast, is being designed by some 6,000 engineers led by a rotating contingent of short-tenure managers, with no fewer than 2,000 government workers providing oversight."
Although the 30 months quote is really misleading: the surface analysis prefiguring the Have Blue concept were started in 1974, XST phase one was started in 1975, the Have Blue demonstrator first flew in 1977.
31 months (not 30) is the time between the full-scale development decision and the first test model, decision to operational capability took 5 years (minus a month, November 1978 to October 1983) and almost 8 if you add the Have Blue studies.
These are all good things, though. It's a focused airframe absolutely excellent at what it does. Much like the A10 really.
> and was relatively quickly retired
Beg pardon? The F-117 reached operational capability in 1983 and was retired in 2008 (the original plan was 2011, it was retired earlier to free money to buy F22s). And they've flown as recently as 2010 around Nellis.
It's time to stop the charade of war, and help your own citizens instead.
Historically there have been military conflicts between superpowers. So I'd say its incumbent on those claiming we won't have wars to explain what's changed and why we won't have anymore major military conflicts.
The simple truth is that the military-industrial complex is just a giant leech on our economy that has somehow convinced Americans (and other nations) that it's necessary to buy these multi-billion dollar systems because of all the fear-mongering bullshit that's spewed. Roosevelt's line about the only thing we have to fear is fear itself is apt here.
The amount of waste in our system is disgusting. If we had a smart electorate, our defense budget would be much, much smaller.
I've read that some think the F-35 is problematic in this regard as well. It will be more expensive to maintain pilot training in these planes, and this will result in less US pilot training.
EDIT: Also, the F-35 seems to be putting all of its eggs in the "stealth basket." It can't loiter like an A-10 for ground support. It can't turn with the F-15, F-16, or F-18 for the air superiority role. It's all about getting in undetected, and firing high-tech missiles. If something goes wrong with that, the pilots are stuck with a less dependable and less capable aircraft.
A-10: holds 1350 rounds of 30mm ammo. F-35: holds 180 rounds of smaller 25mm ammo internally, plus 220 rounds externally
A-10: 1.8 hour loiter time. F-35: Not listed, but as a high subsonic (stall speed) fighter, it's going to be shorter
A-10: Has titanium armor protecting the pilot & critical systems. F-35: Already overweight, no chance of any armor.
A-10: Can be field repaired. F-35: Because of stealth requirements, only the simplest of damage can be repaired in the field.
And then there's the price...
[Edit: Added stall speed qualification]
Of note, I think it was Pierre Sprey's (quoted in this article) baby.
"In the scenario, 72 Chinese jets patrolled the Taiwan Strait. Just 26 American warplanes — the survivors of a second missile barrage targeting their airfields — were able to intercept them, including 10 twin-engine F-22 stealth fighters that quickly fired off all their missiles"
To summarize this scenario:
() Successful Chinese first strike.
() 72 Chinese aircraft.
() Operating at short range
() With initiative
() 10 F22
() 16 F35
() Operating at long range
() Without initiative
In assessing the probability of the scenario, my questions:
() how many allied drones?
() where is the Navy?
() when did the straight of Taiwan stop being
a nuclear tipping point?This is always what bothers me about any discussion of the modern US military. It seems like every "war game" or scenario is half baked, where US forces go head to head against a similarly artificial Chinese or Iranian or PRNK force. The winner of the scenario wins the war, and peace is restored to the universe.
So 1: What is the scenario where two nuclear powers engage each other directly that does not end in nuclear war?
2: What non-nuclear nation has the capability to engage the US in conventional warfare after a flurry of cruise missiles and drone strikes? A lot of good an air force will do Iran if it's destroyed on the tarmac.
Ah, good old theory, it's always more reliable than practise!
As to A2A, there are far too many obstacles for this happening soon.
Plus, there's the whole notion that in a conflict against a peer opponent, that we'll somehow be able to manage the command and control of drones; that the opponent won't be able to disrupt our satcoms and other control channels. This notion is a bit naive. There will be a place for a man in the cockpit for quite a while.
We already have human piloted aircraft carrying and launching what amounts to air-to-air drones. Essentially a modern fighter is a flying aircraft carrier which carries a load of short range drones.
There are some interesting optimization problems where the shorter the range, generally the faster and more maneuverable and effective the weapon is. I think a 500 mile range air-to-air cruise missile would be pretty ineffective and easy to avoid compared to a modern short range missile.
Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.
The F-4 lesson was "everyone knew" that ever more expensive and technologically advanced munitions were the way to go, so no gun pod just drop missiles. (missiles are essentially somewhat dumb short range drones, although there's a lot of overlap in the categories...) Turned out to be a near disaster and they ended up bolting a human operated gun to the F-4. People actually died because of this design mistake. The USAF is in no hurry to kill a bunch more people with the same conceptual mistake.
I am certain that the same scenario is about to play out with drones. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not with the USAF as the victims, but "in a decade or so" the same disaster will happen again. It is, after all, the same situation, so expecting a different outcome would be insanity.
Presumably most of these were F-4 pilots? I thought one of the most salient points of a drone is that it doesn't have a pilot?
It's telling that a lot of the quotes from this article comes from former members of the "fighter mafia" that pushed for focused designs from small groups done in "stealth" before the committees with their "mission creep" hit the design process. The F-16 and A-10, as a result, were widely hailed as revolutionary designs for the roles they were meant for (although in hindsight they followed the obvious path for air superiority and close air support aircraft). The F/A-18 was not quite as capable, but was nevertheless able to benefit from the design knowledge gained by these programs.
The managers/designers of the F-16 and A-10 programs include Chuck Spinney and Pierre Sprey, both heavily quoted here. John Boyd was one of the major figures, and is probably one of the most hated men in the Pentagon, but has since passed away.
The F-35 is succeeding brilliantly in its mission, though, which is to funnel taxpayer money to a nice fat cross section of the military-industrial complex.
You can draw numerous analogies between the development and "success" of the space shuttle, and the F-35 program.
Identical management style means identical results, more or less. Its going to cost a lot more than planned, satisfy no one, kill a bunch of the good guys, take a lot longer to develop, cost more to operate. This is the "startup lesson" of this story and why its on "Hacker News". You wanna screw up your startup, go ahead, do it just like the STS or the F-35 did and have a committee promise everything to everyone.
And in one of its secondary missions, which is to generate hundreds of thousands of votes for many Reps. and Senators, spread across many Congressional districts and states - and both parties.
Am I the only one shocked that a country spend this much to make a weapon? Is there any decency left?
In other words just have a detachable VSTOL module instead of having to integrate it into the plane.
With appropriately sized rockets, it would allow you to take off with a full load of fuel and armaments. You'd still need at least a short landing field, but that is easier to manage if you are light on fuel and have dropped all your bombs. Depending on the landing gear and other needed design elements (air intake protection for example), you could maybe land on grass.
Of course, even if "ditch it in a convenient large body of water" was a suitable substitute for vertical/short landing capability for carrier-based aviation, it wouldn't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-based airfields.
So, this would be less capable -- and probably more expensive -- than just building a VSTOL aircraft to start with.
Even if you could slow the thing down enough to deploy a parachute ... if the results of building VSTOL into the plane are so disastrous then surely it's worth exploring other options to be able to deploy fighters from boats without needing an carrier with a full airstrip on it.
it wouldn't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-based airfields.
Right, so from what I read just now (about the harrier at least) it doesn't have those advantages anyway because the vertical thrust ruins the landscape and kicks up dirt which clogs the engines ... perhaps that's fixed by the thruster fan of the F-35?
But the point is that the main reason they wanted this capability is so they didn't need carrier support to have their own aircraft, not so they could land in random spots on land, right?
Looking at it from the now, we probably should have built the full F-22 order and scrapped the F-35 for something far cheaper. I still think a successor to the A-10 and an evolved F-18 would have been better paths. Perhaps we also shouldn't award both contracts to the same company.
It might seem like a valid point except that the war game deliberately crippled all the F-22s (the U.S. air superiority fighters) and instead pitched the F-35s (the U.S. jack-of-all trades jets) against Chinese air superiority fighters. It shouldn't be a surprise that a computer doesn't like that fight but it's a contrived and fairly silly situation since it's not really the F-35s job.
We can't buy F22s. I'm pretty sure we would (and so would the UK, Japan, Saudi Arabia and a number of other close allies), but the US Congress has banned their export.
There is a constant undercurrent pushing for Australia to buy Russian fighters. They're cheap, they don't make design compromises we don't care about and you can actually get some, rather than seeing the delivery date receding like a desert horizon.
And more to the point: our neighbours are buying them. In a confrontation, they'd win. Which rather defeats the point of buying billions of dollars of air superiority hardware, don't you think?
Edit: Funnily enough, Lockheed has advertising spread throughout Canberra, our national capital. I mean everywhere. Especially in the airport, it's like a giant Lockheed showroom. I get the sense that they are feeling spooked.
On the other hand, you can buy cheaper fighters and more of them, but are your cheaper fighters better than the other teams cheaper fighters. I don't know, one thing I do know is Australia is not going to ever have an air force comparable to China in the future.
No wonder we are broke.
Before merging, Lockheed and Martin both had the reputation of being really hidebound. From experience, Martin was exceptionally married to processes and procedures and tradition.
If you look at other things that LockMart has (like the Littoral Combat Ship, http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/littoral-combat-ship...) you can see that LockMart has general engineering problems.
General engineering troubles seems to plague LockMart.
My experience started off with a two-hour meeting discussing retirement benefits and health insurance, when I was a temporary part-time employee who got neither, and went downhill from there.
I mean, it's not like they're also building an aircraft carrier that can launch ballistic missiles, cruise at 50 knots, go up rivers and also submerge... or are they :-)?
I think this is one fail in the article. Yes the F-35 kinda sucks when it's given other planes jobs, compared to how well planes designed to do one specific job do at that one specific task. How about comparing it to something even worse? Then it still sucks, but its not quite the worst case, even if its still the most expensive of the bad situations.
The F-35 also has significantly better avionics than the F-16C Block 50.
For a more balanced opinion go to http://www.f-16.net
It appears likely to take another decade to get the JSF program where it should already be. By that time it'll be a trivial matter to swarm these planes out of the sky with drones that cost 5% to 10% as much per plane. Even a limited country such as Iran is going to be able to take down the F-35 by throwing multiple drones at it.
Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need to carry it's own sensor suite.
Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is almost inconsequential.
(This comment is copy+pasted from demallien's comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6213619 )
Dogfighting is obsolete as homing missiles fly faster, farther, and are more maneuverable than the plane carrying them. Air superiority belongs to the plane with the more sophisticated radar and stealth that is flying at a higher altitude. Flying faster also aids intercepting incoming aircraft or escaping interception attempts.
The idea that a war is going to come down to a single F-35 vs a Sukhoi without any other support factors is a bit fanciful.
The F-35 is looking a bit expensive for what you get though.
I feel like I've read this same article about the Shuttle and one of the Army vehicles, maybe the M2 Bradley.
Fighters, as a delivery/sensor platform need to be manoeuvrable to not get hit. It's economics - people are expensive to train, sensors are expensive, and so you need an expensive system that you can reuse to ensure a good ROI.
Couple this with the increasing effectiveness of ground based missile defences and it's questionable whether you can plausibly hope to penetrate an airspace defended with a next generation, automated, system anyway. Whether investing that sort of money in the aircraft is going to give you something survivable. I don't believe it's ever been tried against a current gen system, and I'm aware that operating in areas with previous-generation air-defence systems has been incredibly risky already.
However. -chews her lip- If you don't have a lot of money sunk into your delivery platform - and if your sensors are out of harms way - then the survivability of the remaining components of the system, the bit that just has to get your missile, or whatever, into the area becomes a non-issue.
To an extent the original cruise missiles were the answer to just that question with respect to the Soviet Union: How do you penetrate a well defended airspace without losing an unacceptably high investment?
Consequently, I wonder whether air dominance, in the mid to long term, is going to be increasingly determined by the quality of your missiles. By extremely long range missile systems interacting with very powerful, networked, sensors (that might be, for example, based on drones far beyond the active area.)
Under that sort of interpretation, you won't have a fighter. At its logical extreme, you'll have a cruise missile that can go to the operational area in a reasonable timeframe and has a very fast second or third stage to do the final closing with the target. You can make your cruise missile go faster than any fighter could, because the airframe is a throw away, and because you don't have to hold any fuel back to get back to base, and because it will be vastly lighter, and because you don't have to worry about any squishy human riding in it.
That seems, to me, like the logical extension of the see first shoot first doctrine that the F-22 and 35 were based upon, the logical extension of drones as a low-cost delivery method, and the logical extension of the need to penetrate increasingly well defended airspaces.
If that is how things go, the quality of the aircraft you have becomes largely irrelevant. They'd never get close enough to the action to need great performance.
I'm sure that's in lots of papers in China today.