The F-35 No Holds Barred topic

[Triton]

But when you have a program that's a trillion plus dollars then we're talking about the kind of money where you could just BUY the country you're having problems with instead of making fighters to bomb it....

The cost/benefit ratio is getting extremely thin.

The trillion dollar figure that is thrown around is misleading because it is the guestimated cost of the F-35 program of 2,443 aircraft over its entire 55-year life cycle! It presumes a 25-year production cycle and then a 30-year service life. In addition, the projected cost of fuel, parts, upgrades, and related construction costs is also included with a multiplier intended to account for 55 years of price inflation.

Source:
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2011/July%202011/0711edit.aspx

 

[sferrin]

But when you have a program that's a trillion plus dollars then we're talking about the kind of money where you could just BUY the country you're having problems with instead of making fighters to bomb it....

The cost/benefit ratio is getting extremely thin.

The trillion dollar figure that is thrown around is misleading because it is the guestimated cost of the F-35 program of 2,443 aircraft over its entire 55-year life cycle! It presumes a 25-year production cycle and then a 30-year service life. In addition, the projected cost of fuel, parts, upgrades, and related construction costs is also included with a multiplier intended to account for 55 years of price inflation.

Source:
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2011/July%202011/0711edit.aspx

Dude, throwing facts around when discussing the F-35 is no way to make friends.

 

[sublight]

But when you have a program that's a trillion plus dollars then we're talking about the kind of money where you could just BUY the country you're having problems with instead of making fighters to bomb it....

The cost/benefit ratio is getting extremely thin.

The trillion dollar figure that is thrown around is misleading because it is the guestimated cost of the F-35 program of 2,443 aircraft over its entire 55-year life cycle! It presumes a 25-year production cycle and then a 30-year service life. In addition, the projected cost of fuel, parts, upgrades, and related construction costs is also included with a multiplier intended to account for 55 years of price inflation.

Source:
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2011/July%202011/0711edit.aspx

The cost over 55 years makes the pill a bit less bitter, but I would lay hard money down that it wont be in US service in 30 years, much less 55! We are in an age of accelerating technological advancements and I think the service lives of platforms will get shorter and shorter iterations. But I bet the prices wont get smaller with them. The REAL challenge ahead is deciding how much money to lay into a platform based on the knowledge it will be obsolete faster than any platform before it.

 

[sferrin]

But when you have a program that's a trillion plus dollars then we're talking about the kind of money where you could just BUY the country you're having problems with instead of making fighters to bomb it....

The cost/benefit ratio is getting extremely thin.

The trillion dollar figure that is thrown around is misleading because it is the guestimated cost of the F-35 program of 2,443 aircraft over its entire 55-year life cycle! It presumes a 25-year production cycle and then a 30-year service life. In addition, the projected cost of fuel, parts, upgrades, and related construction costs is also included with a multiplier intended to account for 55 years of price inflation.

Source:
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2011/July%202011/0711edit.aspx

The cost over 55 years makes the pill a bit less bitter, but I would lay hard money down that it wont be in US service in 30 years, much less 55! We are in an age of accelerating technological advancements and I think the service lives of platforms will get shorter and shorter iterations.

It's actually going the other direction. Compare how long the F-86 was in front line service to the F-100, then F-4, then F-15.

 

[Triton]

The cost over 55 years makes the pill a bit less bitter, but I would lay hard money down that it wont be in US service in 30 years, much less 55! We are in an age of accelerating technological advancements and I think the service lives of platforms will get shorter and shorter iterations. But I bet the prices wont get smaller with them. The REAL challenge ahead is deciding how much money to lay into a platform based on the knowledge it will be obsolete faster than any platform before it.

If the service life of the F-35 is not going to last 30 years then it certainly won't cost the projected $1 trillion dollar cost estimate and a smaller number than the projected 2,443 F-35 aircraft will be built by the United States at a projected cost of $382 billion over 25 years. I presume that another military program will be initiated during this period to replace the then obsolete F-35 Lightning II if there is no upgrade path for the existing aircraft.

At this point, the cost of development of the three variants of the F-35 Lightning II is sunk. If the Department of Defense were to cancel the F-35 program, the monies already spent in development of the aircraft would be lost and then you would then have to pay for a contractor to start the development process all over. At this point, is it better to just push ahead and work and pay for fixing the aircraft's technical problems than to throw it away and start over with the uncertainty of another program and perhaps another contractor?

How much is the development of a fifth-generation version of an F-5- F-16-class agile lightweight fighter going to cost? Can they really be purchased in greater numbers than the F-35? What about the decreased capability of the fifth generation lightweight fighter when compared to the F-35? What does the United States military do while the ten to fifteen years are spent developing this new aircraft? Buy more F-15 Silent Eagle or the F-18 International aircraft? F-16 Super Vipers?

 

[sferrin]

Can they really be purchased in greater numbers than the F-35? What about the decreased capability of the fifth generation lightweight fighter when compared to the F-35?

By the time you factor in stealth and the need for internal weapons carriage there will be no F-16-sized possiblity. (Unless you don't plan on anything larger than a few ASRAAMs and SDBs anyway). Consider that the F-16 only has 7,000lbs internal fuel, no stealth, and nowhere to stuff weapons.

 

[Triton]

By the time you factor in stealth and the need for internal weapons carriage there will be no F-16-sized possiblity. (Unless you don't plan on anything larger than a few ASRAAMs and SDBs anyway). Consider that the F-16 only has 7,000lbs internal fuel, no stealth, and nowhere to stuff weapons.

So it seems to me that if the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program were to be cancelled, the United States military would need to make do with purchasing the Boeing F-15 Silent Eagle and the Boeing F-18 International. It certainly would be good news to Boeing for a couple of decades while an alternative to the F-35 was under development, which may or may not be any more successful or less costly than the current F-35. No one seems to be advocating resurrecting the Boeing X-32 program as a viable alternative to the F-35.

If the United States demands fifth-generation strike capability provided by the F-35 or a similar platform, it has to be willing to pay for it.

Plus, what do our allies who have committed to the JSF program going to do? Buy Saab JAS-39 Gripen or Dassault Rafale fighters?

 

[sferrin]

By the time you factor in stealth and the need for internal weapons carriage there will be no F-16-sized possiblity. (Unless you don't plan on anything larger than a few ASRAAMs and SDBs anyway). Consider that the F-16 only has 7,000lbs internal fuel, no stealth, and nowhere to stuff weapons.

So it seems to me that if the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program were to be cancelled, the United States military would need to make do with purchasing the Boeing F-15 Silent Eagle and the Boeing F-18 International. It certainly would be good news to Boeing for a couple of decades while an alternative to the F-35 was under development, which may or may not be any more successful or less costly than the current F-35. No one seems to be advocating resurrecting the Boeing X-32 program as a viable alternative to the F-35.

If the United States demands fifth-generation strike capability provided by the F-35 or a similar platform, it has to be willing to pay for it.

Plus, what do our allies who have committed to the JSF program going to do? Buy Saab JAS-39 Gripen or Dassault Rafale fighters?

If the F-35 were cancelled the West would be out of a new fighter aircraft for the next 20 years. And all those billions of dollars get to be spent AGAIN just to get us where we are now. Seriously, the only people with any sanity even contemplating it are those with a vested interest in seeing Boeing and EADS get ahead. There is no sane, logical reason for cancelling the F-35.

 

[AAAdrone]

That and the massive flaw with Boeing's idea of "Evolutionary vs. Revolutionary" is that there's the possibility that the interim "Evolution" of the Super Hornet could VERY easily be our final solution for decades to come due to being unable to keep up funds for anything else. By then the rest of the world has caught up and then the US is stuck trying to get itself ahead again by spending far more money than what was ever invested in the JSF program just to fulfill the goal of our armed forces to always be able to obtain air superiority over the rest of the world.

The F-35 is revolutionary with the growth potential and capabilities that WILL ensure USAF air dominance for those decades to come, NOT some watered-down 5th gen son of a LWF.

 

[Triton]

Perhaps stakeholders in Northrop Grumman might be pleased by the cancellation of the Lockheed Martin F-35 program. Perhaps Northrop Grumman will come up with a solution based on the YF-23 design?

 

[AAAdrone]

NG's working on the F-35 too so how would they benefit by having their own product cancelled?

Also it would cost WAAYYY too much money to bring back the YF-23 and make a production fighter out of it. Like sferrin said, cancelling something only means that to bring it back a couple of decades later we would have to invest huge amounts of money into it all over again. All of the sunk costs associated with a new fighter would need to be tended to all over again just to make an F-23 variant possible.

At that point we would be wishing the F-35 was never cancelled to begin with as at least F-35's sunk costs are done and gone.

 

[unclejim]

the F-35 is another F-111. We all know it. I believe tops 500 airframes will be built.

 

[sublight]

I don't think the F35 will be cancelled it has too many Congressmen attached its too big to fail. And I dont think we're going to load up on silent Eagle or EVO super hornet either. The most likely thing to eat into F35 will be X47 and its descendents. There is a lot less cost involved, and a hell of a lot less bureaucracy since AF and navy decided to go their own ways nullifying a joint platform.

 

[sferrin]

the F-35 is another F-111. We all know it. I believe tops 500 airframes will be built.

Who is this "we"? Certainly not the pilots actually flying the thing. Parroting the old saw "it's another F-111" sounds like one has been drinking the Kool-Aid rather than thinking for themselves.

 

[sferrin]

Perhaps stakeholders in Northrop Grumman might be pleased by the cancellation of the Lockheed Martin F-35 program. Perhaps Northrop Grumman will come up with a solution based on the YF-23 design?

Oh yeah, that'd certainly get us an F-16, F/A-18, and AV-8B replacement sooner and cheaper.

 

[Thorvic]

the F-35 is another F-111. We all know it. I believe tops 500 airframes will be built.

Who is this "we"? Certainly not the pilots actually flying the thing. Parroting the old saw "it's another F-111" sounds like one has been drinking the Kool-Aid rather than thinking for themselves.

Except all the pilots cleared so far to fly the thing are never going to be publically negative about it as these are either program test pilots or service pilots authorised to fly the thing. Couple that with flying with in the very safe flight restrictions placed upon the thing by due already determined flaws or the limitations in the capability of the current flight control system.
Face it were not going to know the actual capabilitties, performance and cost for another couple of years until the flight development program is completed, the software matured and the systems proven. It may fly through these tests and come out with flying colours and no more defect or limitations identified, but givn their track record so far most apart from the avid fans expect more issues to corp up as the testing intensifies. The key question is how big an impact these issues will have to the performance, capability or safety and the knock on effect to the cost and delivery of decent production aircraft. So far the aircraft has been given the benefit of the doubt so far, but with alot of resrvation.

 

[kcran567]

How did the f-35 get to be a trillion dollar airplane, and get so ridiculously expensive between prototype and production? It certainly is not that groundbreaking in concept: a stealthy plane with internal fuel, a big engine, some new radar and detection systems...not much new except for some fancy electronic devices that we are still not sure will work in combat. That's why I think a 5th gen lightweight fighter concept is a great idea, but its too late for that anyway due to the money sunk into the f-35. Maybe the answer is to cancel the f-35 b and c and force the Navy and Marines and other customers to make due with the f-35a. The "multipurpose fighter" idea to replace the f-16, f-18, A-10 and harrier is the biggest mistake. There should have been separate new aircraft for these roles. Surely, with todays manufacturing and technology an A-10 follow on should have been built. No way can the f-35 effectively do the job of an A-10 to support the troops. That requirement is for a big gunned maneuverable aircraft that can stay over the battlefield to support troops on the ground. The more one looks at the f-35, the more it looks like a complete financial fraud designed to basically say "oops we made a mistake" while pulling vast amounts of loot in to the contractors involved. That was the real purpose of the f-35. The silent f-18 hornet, and maybe a re-winged, f-16 with a new stealthy intake and nozzle and conformal fuel tanks and missile racks like the silent eagle/hornet might work in the interim to save us from the f-35 mess.

 

[Matej]

I am wondering how can the last 20 posts for the ordinary reader help him to learn more about F-35 JSF!

If you want senseless and endless pub hassle about how good or bad F-35 is, create a topic in the bar.

 

[Thorvic]

I am wondering how can the last 20 posts for the ordinary reader help him to learn more about F-35 JSF!

If you want senseless and endless pub hassle about how good or bad F-35 is, create a topic in the bar.

Thats the trouble official information is spoon fed jazzed up happy news power point presentations and the doom & gloom stories from the doubters. The truth lies somewhere in the middle of a struggling, expensive program that should hopefully produce a competant operational aircraft in front line service in the next decade.
Thats why it prompts so much debate because the real news has to be assessed from the Comical Ali style propoganda, the end is nigh reports and actual valuable snippets when officials are actually honest about the program when having to answer the latest negative news or report.

 

[sferrin]

I am wondering how can the last 20 posts for the ordinary reader help him to learn more about F-35 JSF!

If you want senseless and endless pub hassle about how good or bad F-35 is, create a topic in the bar.

Thats the trouble official information is spoon fed jazzed up happy news power point presentations and the doom & gloom stories from the doubters. The truth lies somewhere in the middle of a struggling, expensive program that should hopefully produce a competant operational aircraft in front line service in the next decade.
Thats why it prompts so much debate because the real news has to be assessed from the Comical Ali style propoganda, the end is nigh reports and actual valuable snippets when officials are actually honest about the program when having to answer the latest negative news or report.

And then filtered through a set of bull$hit filters because most only believe they're hearing the truth when it lines up with what they want to hear. Someone who actually flies the plane says it's good? They must be a Lockheed drone (never mind that they're a member of the UK military). Or it's "oooh, they fly the plane, they'd never say anything bad about it". Unless it's any other aircraft, then it's "ZO(MG@! the pilots sayz it's kicks major AZZ". Seriously, we'd be hearing the same kind of crap about just about any other aircraft that's ever made it into service.

 

[Arjen]

BB1984 sums it up on Ares:

I think there is a very important part of the success/failure dynamic that gets lost: there is a distinction between the F-35 program succeeding or failing and the F-35 succeeding or failing as a design and that this is much more than semantic.

The F-35 program was funded to do a very specific mission: produce an affordable strike fighter to fill the fighter gap. It has failed on both counts regardless of how good (or bad) the F-35 turns out to be. This means the F-35 program is an unmitigated failure not as a matter of opinion but as a matter of fact. If the F-35 program had put up PowerPoints that said "we will be years late and billions over budget but we will produce a fantastic bleeding edge plane" the program would have been cancelled in its first year.

Given this, I think that "haters" sometimes let our anger at the mismanagement, stupidity, and outright lies that built the F-35 program to color our opinions of the plane per se: we hate the program so much that we actually want the design to fail. But this is a problem because it obscures the key debates that need to happen just as much as the pro-F35 people's "remain calm, nothing to see here, move along, move along" crap.

We are where we are and, even if the haters' big wish of program cancellation were granted, we don't have money and we don't have time for clean sheet development and, in any case, as AC and I talked about in another thread, the same people and forces that FUBAR'd the F-35 will create and run any replacement program so even that fantasy would never work out.

The question now is what to do with the F-35 we have, not the F-35 we wanted. I think a lot of comes down to very important issues that are not being debated:
-- should the US abandon the "High-low mix" force concept and instead go all "High Mix" as the USAF and the USMC want to with the F-35?
-- Is their a sufficient need for "low mix" affordable strike aircraft to justify a new development? If not are the alternatives (legacy airframes, foreign procurement, and a fighter derivative of the LIFT trainer)cost-effective?
-- Given that all of the assumptions underlying the F-35's planned production run are false, what should the production run be as a high mix adjunct to the F-22?

All of these questions key off having a realistic grasp of the scenarios expected and the F-35's performance in those scenarios vs. the same amount of dollars worth of the alternatives (not the same number of alternative planes, the same number of dollars worth of the alternatives).

BB1984 admits he's no fan of the F-35. He does leave room for the F-35 to eventually succeed as an operational aircraft.

 

[Grey Havoc]

More storm clouds. Via Aviation Week: Italy Widely Expected to Scale Back F-35 Orders

 

[sferrin]

BB1984 sums it up on Ares:

I think there is a very important part of the success/failure dynamic that gets lost: there is a distinction between the F-35 program succeeding or failing and the F-35 succeeding or failing as a design and that this is much more than semantic.

The F-35 program was funded to do a very specific mission: produce an affordable strike fighter to fill the fighter gap. It has failed on both counts regardless of how good (or bad) the F-35 turns out to be. This means the F-35 program is an unmitigated failure not as a matter of opinion but as a matter of fact. If the F-35 program had put up PowerPoints that said "we will be years late and billions over budget but we will produce a fantastic bleeding edge plane" the program would have been cancelled in its first year.

Given this, I think that "haters" sometimes let our anger at the mismanagement, stupidity, and outright lies that built the F-35 program to color our opinions of the plane per se: we hate the program so much that we actually want the design to fail. But this is a problem because it obscures the key debates that need to happen just as much as the pro-F35 people's "remain calm, nothing to see here, move along, move along" crap.

We are where we are and, even if the haters' big wish of program cancellation were granted, we don't have money and we don't have time for clean sheet development and, in any case, as AC and I talked about in another thread, the same people and forces that FUBAR'd the F-35 will create and run any replacement program so even that fantasy would never work out.

The question now is what to do with the F-35 we have, not the F-35 we wanted. I think a lot of comes down to very important issues that are not being debated:
-- should the US abandon the "High-low mix" force concept and instead go all "High Mix" as the USAF and the USMC want to with the F-35?
-- Is their a sufficient need for "low mix" affordable strike aircraft to justify a new development? If not are the alternatives (legacy airframes, foreign procurement, and a fighter derivative of the LIFT trainer)cost-effective?
-- Given that all of the assumptions underlying the F-35's planned production run are false, what should the production run be as a high mix adjunct to the F-22?

All of these questions key off having a realistic grasp of the scenarios expected and the F-35's performance in those scenarios vs. the same amount of dollars worth of the alternatives (not the same number of alternative planes, the same number of dollars worth of the alternatives).

BB1984 admits he's no fan of the F-35. He does leave room for the F-35 to eventually succeed as an operational aircraft.

Is this necessary?

 

[GTX]

A tad late since it happened a few weeks ago, but still it is positive news on the F-35 front:

Panetta Lifts F-35B Probation

By Amy Butler abutler@aviationweek.com
NAS PATUXENT RIVER, Md.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ushered the F-35B out of the penalty box, after the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (Stovl) version of the stealthy fighter was sidelined for poor performance for more than a year by prior Defense Secretary Robert Gates.Standing in a hangar in front of BF-4, one of two F-35Bs to conduct testing on the USS Wasp amphibious ship last fall, Panetta spoke to a small audience of government and industry workers on the Joint Strike Fighter test team.

“We now believe that because of your work the Stovl variant is demonstrating the kind of performance and maturity that is in line with the other two variants of JSF,” Panetta said here Jan. 20. “The Stovl variant has made — I believe and all of us believe — sufficient progress so that as of today I am lifting the Stovl probation.”

Gates said last year that if the F-35B development project, which at the time was suffering from major testing problems, did not turn around in two years, he would recommend its termination. But he left office last summer, leaving the issue to be addressed by Panetta.

Gates’s announcement was followed quickly by a multibillion-dollar restructuring designed to reduce the concurrency between the development and production phases of the JSF program. The project also includes the F-35A, designed for conventional takeoff and landing, and the F-35C, designed for use on an aircraft carrier. The restructuring announced early last year also decoupled testing for the F-35B, which at the time was suffering, from the A and C models.

George Little, Panetta’s spokesman, said the secretary’s decision to lift the probation was underpinned by improvements in five key areas: structural shortcomings in the Stovl bulkhead, flutter in the auxiliary inlet door, problems in the lift-fan clutch, unexpected wear and tear on the drive shaft, and heating on the roll-post actuator.
The utility of Stovl aircraft — namely the AV-8B Harrier — in recent operations in Libya and Afghanistan has “made an impression on him,” one defense official said, speaking about Panetta.
Though the B variant has emerged from probation thus far unscathed in development, defense officials are expecting a reduction in the production numbers of F-35s in the fiscal 2013 budget being sent to Congress on Feb. 6. This will extend the production plan and likely drive the per-unit price higher, at least temporarily, until orders go up. Lockheed Martin officials originally said their goal was to produce one fighter a day to reap the benefits of savings with high order numbers.
When the B was put on probation last year, Gates trimmed production of the Stovl version.

The U.S. Marine Corps, which will operate the F-35B, is slated to be the first customer to declare operational use for the aircraft as early as 2016, depending on the pace of testing and training at Eglin AFB, Fla. After the U.K. opted to walk away from the B, Italy is now the only international customer officially planning to buy the aircraft. Nonetheless, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said he remains “bullish” on the future of the F-35B.

With a much more productive year of testing in 2011 (following the abysmal performance of the Stovl variant in 2010), the test force is looking ahead to weapons separation trials this year, says Lt. Col. Matt Kelly, F-35 flight operations lead at the Patuxent River testing facility. The team has already conducted flights of the F-35B carrying weapons at subsonic and supersonic speeds. Initial flutter testing with the weapon bay doors open in flight have shown no significant problems, Kelly says. The major step, he says, is to drop weapons for the first time, a milestone expected in the second half of the year. Likely candidates will be the 500-lb. Joint Direct Attack Munition and the AIM-120 and AIM-9X missiles.
Thus far, the F-35B has been flown to Mach 1.4.

Kelly says he also expects to begin testing a redesigned tailhook for the F-35C in the second half of the year. The current design encountered problems last year when officials attempted rolling tests and the tailhook skipped over the wire owing to its weight and a problem with the dampening system. CF-3 will be the first test aircraft to have the new tailhook installed.
After the initial ship trials with the F-35B last fall, the B model is not expected to go to sea until 2013, with the C model following in 2015, Kelly says.

Aircraft BF-4 is now operating the Block 1A software and BF-5 is using the 1B package. Kelly says the Block 2 software, which will be used by the Marine Corps to declare operational capability, is not expected at Patuxent River until late this year.

In addition to having multi-level security, the 1B software will have new voice recognition technology that will allow the pilot to conduct some hands-free operations, such as switching the radio channels and squawking identification codes to air traffic control. Eventually, Kelly says, pilots hope to use the voice recognition technology for such operations as changing multi-function displays or shifting modes in the aircraft.

Meanwhile, officials at Edwards AFB, Calif., where the F-35A test force is located, conducted their first night flight with the conventional aircraft this week.
Flights at Eglin have not yet started, however. And, the aircraft there are now being used only for ground maintenance training.

Now I am sure some will still find a way to deride this development...but then again, many of these same people only a year or so ago were adamant that the F-35B Probation was the death knell for the variant altogether... :


Regards,


Greg

 

[sublight]

Ok, apparently I've missed something. The UK sold all of their Harriers, and I wasn't aware they had dumped F35B. So the UK is just not going to do STOVL any more, or are they just going to wait it out for Lockheed VARIOUS?

 

[sferrin]

Ok, apparently I've missed something. The UK sold all of their Harriers, and I wasn't aware they had dumped F35B. So the UK is just not going to do STOVL any more, or are they just going to wait it out for Lockheed VARIOUS?

Currently they've swapped their B's to C's. (I won't be at all surprised if they end up going back to B's though.)

 

[robunos]

Currently they've swapped their B's to C's. (I won't be at all surprised if they end up going back to B's though.)

As i understand it, neither will come too pass. What I believe is to happen is that the first CVF will be sold upon completion, along with HMS Ocean, and the second CVF will then be converted to a Helo Carrier to replace Ocean. So, no F-35s of any flavour. Remember, the CVFs are only being built, because the contractors made sure it would cost the UK Government more to cancel them than to complete them.


cheers,
Robin.

 

[unclejim]

I may be drinking Kool-Aid, but the F-35 is still another F-111. Only now the attempt is to replace four aircraft with wildly different missions. F-16, AV-8, F-18. and A-10. Foolish and stupid concept, and also dangerous to our nation and servicemen. And now the argument is we have spent so much on it well we have to grin and bear it, it would take too long to develope another aircraft, yada yada. No, it just means the days of manned fighters MAY be closer to the end. I hope not.

 

[sublight]

I may be drinking Kool-Aid, but the F-35 is still another F-111. Only now the attempt is to replace four aircraft with wildly different missions. F-16, AV-8, F-18. and A-10. Foolish and stupid concept, and also dangerous to our nation and servicemen. And now the argument is we have spent so much on it well we have to grin and bear it, it would take too long to develope another aircraft, yada yada. No, it just means the days of manned fighters MAY be closer to the end. I hope not.

I was in the Fort Worth plant back in 2005 when they did a presentation on JSF and the Air Force guys were saying it was going to replace the A10. I laughed at them and commented the F35's stall speed was likely more than the max air speed of the A10. I didn't make too much of a stink because my friend was head of Lockheed JSF PR at the time and he was going to hit me later. Is the Air Force still maintaining that the F35 will replace the A10? Is there a powerpoint presentation/roadmap where they specifically show this?

 

[Dragon029]

I don't necessarily see why the A-10 can't be replaced by the F-35; the A-10's job is to kill tanks and kill enemy-held positions. Yes the F-35 won't be swooping in, firing it's Vulcan, but that's because that's a needless operation - yes the F-35 won't quite have the exact same destructive power as the A-10, but it'll be relatively close, with the same number of hardpoints.

Load it up with SDB's and ejector racks and you can have F-35's taking out close to 20 separate targets in one sortie. Add in that the F-35 can get to the fight faster than the A-10 and will outnumber them in the field, and you have a plane that'll rock the enemy.

Now, cost-wise, obviously it'll be an increase in expenditure, but hey, whaddya gonna do

 

[sferrin]

I may be drinking Kool-Aid, but the F-35 is still another F-111. Only now the attempt is to replace four aircraft with wildly different missions. F-16, AV-8, F-18. and A-10.

There's no reason whatsoever three of those roles couldn't be replaced with one type. Hell, the Convair 200 could have done a respectable job of it 30 years ago. To say that it's merely an F-111, and therefore a failure, just because one aircraft is filling the roles of a few, is simplistic at best. And that's being charitable. Trying to use it to replace the A-10, yeah that's not too bright. They tried it with the F-16 (with a podded 4-barrel Avenger no-less) and that didn't work too well. On the other hand CAS has evolved since the 70s. Now you're just as likely to have an F-15 at altitude with JDAMs, LGBs, and a cannon to provide cover. Or even a B-1B or B-52,

 

[kcran567]

Yeah, the f-35a could effectively replace f-16, f-18s. And the f-35b could replace the Harrier.


But no way in HELL could it replace the A-10. Hands down the purpose built A-10 is a stunning success in its mission, esp. battlefield troop support, loiter, and tank killing. A big gunned, maneuverable and agile aircraft that is not supersonic, but fast enough to be effective. The f-35 just is not made to do that job. The f-35 flies too fast for this mission. The f-35 has no big, fast firing gun, no armor protection for the pilot due to extreme concerns for ever increasing f-35 aircraft weight (the A-10 has a bathtub of heavy armor to protect the pilot) and the f-35 is basically a flying gas tank, which is great for a fighter's fuel fraction, but not when you are doing battlefield support and close air support over troops on the ground in enemy territory which is the A-10s primary mission. So in some respects the f-35 will get by as a strike fighter, but no way will it be able to do the highly specialized job of the A-10. Any nation that buys the f-35 thinking it will be able to provide effective close air support now will have to give that mission up entirely. The enemy now has a weakness to exploit because that mission profile is not being met by the f-35.

 

[robunos]

The idea is that the F-35 provides 'Far-away Air Support', by loitering and high altitudes and long slant ranges, whiles dropping precision guided munitions on the enemies heads, without the risk of getting shot at...


cheers,
Robin.

 

[sferrin]

The idea is that the F-35 provides 'Far-away Air Support', by loitering and high altitudes and long slant ranges, whiles dropping precision guided munitions on the enemies heads, without the risk of getting shot at...


cheers,
Robin.

Why don't you ask the guys who would know - those fighting in Afghanistan? As for down in the weeds with a gun, nothing is going to do better than a GAU-8. But then you're not going to use an F-teen or Eurocanard to do that either so what's your plan there?

 

[robunos]

@sferrin, my post above was meant as criticism neither of the F-35, nor the A-10, but was simply my understanding as to how the Air Force will persue the Air Support mission once the A-10 is replaced by the F-35.
I don't believe it's much different to what you yourself said in your post above :-

Now you're just as likely to have an F-15 at altitude with JDAMs, LGBs, and a cannon to provide cover.

For the record, my personal opinion is that for CAS, you've got to get 'down close and dirty', despite the risk of being downed. Standing off and using PGMs is fine, as long as the targeting information is accurate. The question is, on a confused, fluid, fast moving battlefield, will this still be the case?
This is, of course, where the A-10 excels, the 'visual CAS' mission. The converse argument is, however, that under any conditions other than absolute air superiority, an aircraft optimised for 'visual CAS', won't necessarily reach the area of it's mission, before being destroyed. This is the line of reasoning which lead to the CAS F-16, which you mentioned above, and the YA-7F. I happen to think this reasoning is flawed.


cheers,
Robin.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

Any nation that buys the f-35 thinking it will be able to provide effective close air support now will have to give that mission up entirely. The enemy now has a weakness to exploit because that mission profile is not being met by the f-35.

Yeah but the A-10 was never exported... So it would seem that no one other than the USA ever really thought there was a need for the A-10. So saying that
"the F-35 will never replace the A-10" to nations that never had the A-10 in the first place, doesn't mean much.


"Visual CAS" with the F-35 means being able to "look through" the aircraft thanks to the advanced sensors. Unlike the A-10 where the pilots gets to roll inverted and use binoculars. I know an A-10 pilot personally and she can't wait for the F-35.

 

[robunos]

"Visual CAS" with the F-35 means being able to "look through" the aircraft thanks to the advanced sensors. Unlike the A-10 where the pilots gets to roll inverted and use binoculars.

No. "visual CAS" means being so low, and so close, that you don't need to use advanced sensors, to see where the enemy and friendly positions are......

Unlike the A-10 where the pilots gets to roll inverted and use binoculars.

........................... ???


"There I was, upside down, nothing on the clock"................................. ;D : B)


cheers,
Robin.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

"Visual CAS" with the F-35 means being able to "look through" the aircraft thanks to the advanced sensors. Unlike the A-10 where the pilots gets to roll inverted and use binoculars.

No. "visual CAS" means being so low, and so close, that you don't need to use advanced sensors, to see where the enemy and friendly positions are......

Unlike the A-10 where the pilots gets to roll inverted and use binoculars.

........................... ???


"There I was, upside down, nothing on the clock"................................. ;D : B)


cheers,
Robin.

But we don't do CAS like that. its not safe for anyone and its not standard procedure. We would never tell an A-10 pilot "Hey how about you just get really low, really slow and kind of stick your head out and around and see if you can't see my american flag patch. Do you see me waving?" Pilots are not detectives, they don't fly in take a look and call their own shots with CAS. They rely heavily on FACs to micromanage every detail, right down to the FAC telling the pilots if they hit the target or if they need to correct and try again. So essentially you want to keep a capability that doesn't exist. A-10s have actually had a pretty dodgy record with friendly fire. And Many Marines I know personally were very scared of A-10s especially after the battle of Nasiraiyah were Marines were strafed using that "visual CAS"
that results in unneeded danger.

I love doing it 1940's style as much as the next guy, but as long as we have paid to have targeting pods, radios, range finders, lasers, and satellite guided bombs, and FACs we should probably use them. why do we spend all this money developing this technology so we can get all nostalgic and not trust it? If you can see the same thing from a safe distance that would have once required exposing yourself and others to extreme danger why don't we use the better tools? Do we really not trust it if, its on a screen? or trust what the FAC sees? he is pretty low and slow let me tell you.

 

[sublight]

Didn't the Air force say after Desert Storm, and I quote "The A10 really saved our asses" because of the ridiculously high sortie rate the airplane sustained AND the devastating lethality? Before that encounter they were all ready to dump the platform AND if I recall the Marines were extremely eager to buy all their A10's....

 

[Stargazer]

I do agree with Matej that the last few pages ought to be split and a new topic started in the "Bar" section.