The F-35 No Holds Barred topic

[Broncazonk]

Finally. The truth about the F-35 is finally starting to come out. I can't wait to see how the paid Lockheed Martin internet forum "opinion makers" on this list and others will spin this.

Bronc


Reduced F-35 performance specifications may have significant operational impact

Flightglobal - Dave Majumdar (Washington DC)

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/reduced-f-35-performance-specifications-may-have-significant-operational-impact-381683/

The Pentagon's decision to reduce the performance specifications for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will have a significant operational impact, a number of highly experienced fighter pilots consulted by Flightglobal concur. But the careful development of tactics and disciplined employment of the jet may be able to mitigate some of those shortcomings.

"This is going to have a big tactical impact," one highly experienced officer says. "Anytime you have to lower performance standards, the capability of what the airframe can do goes down as well."

The US Department of Defense's decision to relax the sustained turn performance of all three variants of the F-35 was revealed earlier this month in the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation 2012 report. Turn performance for the US Air Force's F-35A was reduced from 5.3 sustained g's to 4.6 sustained g's. The F-35B had its sustained g's cut from five to 4.5 g's, while the US Navy variant had its turn performance truncated from 5.1 to five sustained g's. Acceleration times from Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.2 were extended by eight seconds, 16 seconds and 43 seconds for the A, B and C-models respectively. The baseline standard used for the comparison was a clean Lockheed F-16 Block 50 with two wingtip Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAMs. "What an embarrassment, and there will be obvious tactical implications. Having a maximum sustained turn performance of less than 5g is the equivalent of an [McDonnell Douglas] F-4 or an [Northrop] F-5," another highly experienced fighter pilot says. "[It's] certainly not anywhere near the performance of most fourth and fifth-generation aircraft."

At higher altitudes, the reduced performance will directly impact survivability against advanced Russian-designed "double-digit" surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems such as the Almaz-Antey S-300PMU2 (also called the SA-20 Gargoyle by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), the pilot says. At lower altitudes, where fighters might operate in for the close air support or forward air control role, the reduced airframe performance will place pilots at increased risk against shorter-range SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery.

Most egregious is the F-35C-model's drastically reduced transonic acceleration capabilities. "That [43 seconds] is a massive amount of time, and assuming you are in afterburner for acceleration, it's going to cost you even more gas," the pilot says. "This will directly impact tactical execution, and not in a good way."

Pilots typically make the decision to trade a very high rate of fuel consumption for supersonic airspeeds for one of two reasons. "They are either getting ready to kill something or they are trying to defend against something [that's trying to kill] them," the pilot says. "Every second counts in both of those scenarios. The longer it takes, the more compressed the battle space gets. That is not a good thing."

While there is no disputing that the reduced performance specifications are a negative development, there may be ways to make up for some of the F-35's less than stellar kinematic performance.

Pilots will have to make extensive use of the F-35's stealth characteristics and sensors to compensate for performance areas where the jet has weaknesses, sources familiar with the aircraft say. But engagement zones and maneuvering ranges will most likely be driven even further out against the most dangerous surface-to-air threats.

In an air-to-air engagement, for example, tactics would have to be developed to emphasize stealth and beyond visual range (BVR) combat. If a visual range engagement is unavoidable, every effort would have to be taken to enter the "merge" from a position of advantage, which should be possible, given the F-35's stealth characteristics.

Once engaged within visual range, given the F-35's limitations and relative strengths, turning should be minimized in favor of using the jet's Northrop Grumman AAQ-37 distributed aperture system of infrared cameras, helmet-mounted display and high off-boresight missiles to engage the enemy aircraft. If a turning fight is unavoidable, the F-35 has good instantaneous turn performance and good high angle of attack (50°AOA limit) performance comparable to a Boeing F/A-18 Hornet, which means a similar strategy could be adopted if one finds him or herself in such a situation.

Lockheed, for its part, maintains that the F-35 has performance superior to that of any "legacy" fighter at high altitudes. "Having flown over 4000 hours in fighter jets, I will tell you the F-35's capability at altitude, mostly driven by the internal carriage of those weapons, as a combat airplane, this airplane exceeds the capabilities of just any legacy fighter that I'm familiar with in this kind of regime," says Steve O'Bryan, the company's business development director for the F-35 during a January interview.

But much of the discussion is theoretical at this point, the F-35 has not been operationally tested, nor have tactics been developed for the aircraft's usage. How the aircraft will eventually fare once fully developed and fielded is an open question.

 

[2IDSGT]

I can't wait to see how the paid Lockheed Martin internet forum "opinion makers" on this list and others will spin this.

:

 

[Abraham Gubler]

I can't wait to see how the paid Lockheed Martin internet forum "opinion makers" on this list and others will spin this.

Who are these people you refer to?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Actually this entire site was created 7 years ago as a long term project to entice aviation professionals into a forum where Lockheed Martin employees could indoctrinate them in the "One True Way" of F-35. All that stuff about datacentres moves was a bluff - the forum runs out of Lockheed corporate HQ. All forum donations are going to fund Block 3F improvements in JSF.


???

 

[SteveO]

;D Nice one Paul.

 

[sferrin]

"The baseline standard used for the comparison was a clean Lockheed F-16 Block 50 with two wingtip Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAMs. "What an embarrassment, and there will be obvious tactical implications. Having a maximum sustained turn performance of less than 5g is the equivalent of an [McDonnell Douglas] F-4 or an [Northrop] F-5," another highly experienced fighter pilot says. "[It's] certainly not anywhere near the performance of most fourth and fifth-generation aircraft."

If that's the quality of the rest of the article it looks like a whole lot of hysteria over nothing. How often does the F-16 go to war clean with just two wingtip AAMs?

 

[JFC Fuller]

If that's the quality of the rest of the article it looks like a whole lot of hysteria over nothing. How often does the F-16 go to war clean with just two wingtip AAMs?

Certainly a fair point, a more logical comparison would be with an F-16 with six AMRAAMs as that is what the F-35 is said to be able to carry internally- if the configuration is ever cleared. With that said, given that most of the avionics and comms stuff in the F-35 can be retrofitted to legacy platforms the F-35 should be all about improved flight performance and signature reduction. If it is now only offering a major advance in one of those areas it does lessen the overall value of the project.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

Actually this entire site was created 7 years ago as a long term project to entice aviation professionals into a forum where Lockheed Martin employees could indoctrinate them in the "One True Way" of F-35. All that stuff about datacentres moves was a bluff - the forum runs out of Lockheed corporate HQ. All forum donations are going to fund Block 3F improvements in JSF.


???

Thanks Paul, Check is in the Mail, see you at the next meeting. Abraham is bringing the donuts this time, so I will bring the beverages. Password is "Bacon."

"This is going to have a big tactical impact," one highly experienced officer says. "Anytime you have to lower performance standards, the capability of what the airframe can do goes down as well."

The US Department of Defense's decision to relax the sustained turn performance of all three variants of the F-35 was revealed earlier this month in the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation 2012 report. Turn performance for the US Air Force's F-35A was reduced from 5.3 sustained g's to 4.6 sustained g's. The F-35B had its sustained g's cut from five to 4.5 g's, while the US Navy variant had its turn performance truncated from 5.1 to five sustained g's. Acceleration times from Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.2 were extended by eight seconds, 16 seconds and 43 seconds for the A, B and C-models respectively. The baseline standard used for the comparison was a clean Lockheed F-16 Block 50 with two wingtip Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAMs. "What an embarrassment, and there will be obvious tactical implications. Having a maximum sustained turn performance of less than 5g is the equivalent of an [McDonnell Douglas] F-4 or an [Northrop] F-5," another highly experienced fighter pilot says. "[It's] certainly not anywhere near the performance of most fourth and fifth-generation aircraft."

At higher altitudes, the reduced performance will directly impact survivability against advanced Russian-designed "double-digit" surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems such as the Almaz-Antey S-300PMU2 (also called the SA-20 Gargoyle by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), the pilot says. At lower altitudes, where fighters might operate in for the close air support or forward air control role, the reduced airframe performance will place pilots at increased risk against shorter-range SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery.

But how does it compare to a Skyraider?

Also what they did was give an "experienced officer" (in what?) some numbers and what he thought , in comparison to a loadout an F-16 never carries into war. And yet the test pilots who actually fly the aircraft can't be trusted. Makes sense.

Most egregious is the F-35C-model's drastically reduced transonic acceleration capabilities. "That [43 seconds] is a massive amount of time, and assuming you are in afterburner for acceleration, it's going to cost you even more gas," the pilot says. "This will directly impact tactical execution, and not in a good way."

Pilots typically make the decision to trade a very high rate of fuel consumption for supersonic airspeeds for one of two reasons. "They are either getting ready to kill something or they are trying to defend against something [that's trying to kill] them," the pilot says. "Every second counts in both of those scenarios. The longer it takes, the more compressed the battle space gets. That is not a good thing."

Bad news for the Navy then, because the Super Hornet is even worse.

So before you get our panties into too much of a twist even with the "horrible F-35C" loaded for combat, still out does the ol' super hornet loaded for combat in trans sonic performance .

In other news is the Phantom a bad plane?

 

[sferrin]

If that's the quality of the rest of the article it looks like a whole lot of hysteria over nothing. How often does the F-16 go to war clean with just two wingtip AAMs?

Certainly a fair point, a more logical comparison would be with an F-16 with six AMRAAMs as that is what the F-35 is said to be able to carry internally- if the configuration is ever cleared. With that said, given that most of the avionics and comms stuff in the F-35 can be retrofitted to legacy platforms the F-35 should be all about improved flight performance and signature reduction. If it is now only offering a major advance in one of those areas it does lessen the overall value of the project.

And with that load the F-16 will require external tanks to equal the F-35's range on internal fuel so throw at least one of those on as well. Oh, and an ECM pod and maybe a HARM (that huge RCS will need all the help it can get).

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

Finally. The truth about the F-35 is finally starting to come out. I can't wait to see how the paid Lockheed Martin internet forum "opinion makers" on this list and others will spin this.

Ya!! Dave Majumdar working for lockheed?

Once engaged within visual range, given the F-35's limitations and relative strengths, turning should be minimized in favor of using the jet's Northrop Grumman AAQ-37 distributed aperture system of infrared cameras, helmet-mounted display and high off-boresight missiles to engage the enemy aircraft. If a turning fight is unavoidable, the F-35 has good instantaneous turn performance and good high angle of attack (50°AOA limit) performance comparable to a Boeing F/A-18 Hornet, which means a similar strategy could be adopted if one finds him or herself in such a situation.

But much of the discussion is theoretical at this point, the F-35 has not been operationally tested, nor have tactics been developed for the aircraft's usage. How the aircraft will eventually fare once fully developed and fielded is an open question.

Flightglobal - Dave Majumdar (Washington DC)

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2013/01/whats-the-operational-impact-o.html

That means that pilots won't be able to fly the F-35 like an F-22 Raptor or even an F-15 (or any other fighter for that matter), it has to be flown like a JSF. Tactics will emphasize stealth and sensor capabilities, says Col Andy Toth, commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida, which is the first DOD F-35 training unit.

"The advantage of the F-35 is a result of being a 5th generation platform and an evolution in technology. Stealth characteristics and sensor fusion will enable it to get in to a target relatively undetected, have the ability to strike a ground asset or engage an enemy and exit the scenario without the threat even knowing it was there," Toth says. "We will continue to work, as the system comes online, to develop tactics that take advantage of the 5th generation capability much like specific tactics were developed for the F-22, different from fourth generation platforms."


Those tactics will inevitably emphasize beyond visual range combat. "Between [the AIM-9X], DAS [distributed aperture system] and the helmet, you deserve to die if you take this thing to the merge," a friend of mine, who is a former naval aviator, told me bluntly after I asked him for feedback on the main article. "I'm sure someone trotted out the 'F-4/Gun' story, but the reality is that the ROE [rules of engagement] that was in place in the 'Nam that drove the need for the gun... ROE that put the F-4 in an environment that made the AIM-7 [Sparrow semi-active radar guided missile] terribly unreliable to start."

But even the best-laid battle plans can fall by the wayside upon first contact with the enemy. "You can only do so much with tactics and sensors when the entire air vehicle is at a disadvantage," warns one highly experienced fighter pilot. "It's going to be interesting to see if tactics can make up for the F-35's shortfalls."

Confusing... Its almost like someone is Jumping to conclusions Without the whole story and just bolding the bad parts.

 

[AeroFranz]

May I suggest a different consideration on the reduced performance of the F-35?
Forget the fact that the aircraft won't pull X g's at Y altitude and will burn Z poinds more of fuel. The matter of fact is that the aircraft will not deliver performance that was stipulated in a contract, and that LockMart is getting paid for in its entirety. Does anyone else see something fundamentally wrong with this?

It's like going to a car dealer and paying for an MR2 spyder and the dealer gives you a Sienna van. If you don't like it, well, you can always walk.

Where is the accountability?
The truth is Lockmart promised more than they could deliver, and they can get away with whatever they please (as long as it doesn't impact the bottom line of the next quarter) because there is no alternative. And so half the airforces of NATO are held hostage and the warfighter does not get what it was promised.
So the F-35 is still going to be survivable. Fine. You know what's more survivable? An F-35 that pulls 10% more sustained g's, accelerates faster, and you've already paid for!

 

[SpudmanWP]

anyone else see something fundamentally wrong with this?

Nope.

That's the difference between a development contract vs a production contract.

If LM had reached the goal of X-gs at Y-speed with Z-fuelrate in SDD and then failed to deliver that in production... you would have a point.

In an SDD program there are certain things that are "required" and others that are "goals". The Customer then gets to decide that if a requirement or goal looks like it will be missed, they can either spend more money to fix it now (which will result in an IOC delay) or they can go to IOC now with what they have and can get back to the original requirement/goal at a later upgrade.

In this case they decided that money would be better spent getting to IOC now with a very slight performance reduction and upgrade later vs delaying the IOC even further and having to keep all the older airframes flying for even longer.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

anyone else see something fundamentally wrong with this?

Nope.

The F-18E/F needed some serious performance rewrites and of course the mighty F-22 compromised on its cost numbers...

Where is the accountability?
The truth is Lockmart promised more than they could deliver, and they can get away with whatever they please (as long as it doesn't impact the bottom line of the next quarter) because there is no alternative. And so half the airforces of NATO are held hostage and the warfighter does not get what it was promised.

You do realize that LM and the "warfighters" are working hand and glove in all this? One of the most bizarre aspects of the public perception of the F-35 is that LM and the military are seemingly divorced and its all a one way street, with LM doing the dictating and the government crying in the corner. So did LM promise more than it could deliver or did the military ask more than could be given?

Trick question, because its always Lockheeds fault. I praise Lockheed, because somehow they have managed to escape both government and military oversight and accountability in a government run military program to maximize profits. even civilian corporations in the private sector don't get the kind of leeway the internet thinks LM is getting. Pretty amazing feat. Its like the worlds greatest criminal continually committing crimes and openly thriving in a police station.

(Its kind of like that except Dexter would have to be public about his crimes, in full view of the authorities as well)

One would almost think that if Lockheed was indeed guilty of all its charges both civilians and military personnel are completely derelict in their own over watch and accountability duties. Where are the parents?!?!

An interesting video with audio from F-16 warfighters on the inherent design compromises of all aircraft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335GdTqtyLs

 

[jsport]

A laughable defense of a broken system doesn't win wars.
The F-35 program is proof that a whole new idea of incentives and accountability is in order.
Appraising the utility and long term viability of Corporate socialist corporations is a start. Firm Fixed w/ incentives ie no more 'cost plus' is a start but only the beginning.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

A laughable defense of a broken system doesn't win wars.
The F-35 program is proof that a whole new idea of incentives and accountability is in order.
Appraising the utility and long term viability of Corporate socialist corporations is a start. Firm Fixed w/ incentives ie no more 'cost plus' is a start but only the beginning.

You mean the system is broken and blaming an individual program would be foolish? I agree

 

[JFC Fuller]

A laughable defense of a broken system doesn't win wars.
The F-35 program is proof that a whole new idea of incentives and accountability is in order.
Appraising the utility and long term viability of Corporate socialist corporations is a start. Firm Fixed w/ incentives ie no more 'cost plus' is a start but only the beginning.

Purely my humble opinion, but I have always felt that two fundamental mistakes were made in the JSF programme:

1) Effectively making whoever won the programme a monopolist on fast jet programmes for two decades meaning there were no other options if things started to go wrong. F-35 can not die because any 5th gen replacement aside from even more expensive to operate F-22s (and as that aircraft's upgrade funding shows it would need a lot of development) would be a decade or more away. Splitting out separate USN and USAF programmes- perhaps more akin to the LWF programme, would have kept an element of fear in it for the competitors. Think F-110 Spectre killing F-106A and F-105, far from an exact comparison I admit but hopefully it demonstrates my point.

2) The down-select was made far too early; Lockheed was selected on the basis of what was little more than technology demonstrator rather than a full prototype, essentially they won the contract, were given a position of monopoly and then they got to develop a product without any competition.

Whatever you think of Lockheed and the F-35 one thing is clear; Lockheed knows that there is only ever going to be X amount of money (whatever amount that turns out to be) available for the F-35 programme and over Y number of years. It does not really matter to Lockheed what the end unit price is or what portion of X is spent on RDT&E versus procurement as it all ends up under the heading of revenue on their balance sheet whilst their monopolist position in the western 5th gen market means they are assured 100% of X- whatever it turns out to be.

 

[chuck4]

A laughable defense of a broken system doesn't win wars.
The F-35 program is proof that a whole new idea of incentives and accountability is in order.
Appraising the utility and long term viability of Corporate socialist corporations is a start. Firm Fixed w/ incentives ie no more 'cost plus' is a start but only the beginning.

Purely my humble opinion, but I have always felt that two fundamental mistakes were made in the JSF programme:

1) Effectively making whoever won the programme a monopolist on fast jet programmes for two decades meaning there were no other options if things started to go wrong. F-35 can not die because any 5th gen replacement aside from even more expensive to operate F-22s (and as that aircraft's upgrade funding shows it would need a lot of development) would be a decade or more away. Splitting out separate USN and USAF programmes- perhaps more akin to the LWF programme, would have kept an element of fear in it for the competitors. Think F-110 Spectre killing F-106A and F-105, far from an exact comparison I admit but hopefully it demonstrates my point.

2) The down-select was made far too early; Lockheed was selected on the basis of what was little more than technology demonstrator rather than a full prototype, essentially they won the contract, were given a position of monopoly and then they got to develop a product without any competition.

Whatever you think of Lockheed and the F-35 one thing is clear; Lockheed knows that there is only ever going to be X amount of money (whatever amount that turns out to be) available for the F-35 programme and over Y number of years. It does not really matter to Lockheed what the end unit price is or what portion of X is spent on RDT&E versus procurement as it all ends up under the heading of revenue on their balance sheet whilst their monopolist position in the western 5th gen market means they are assured 100% of X- whatever it turns out to be.

I think the decision to incorporate STOVL into the basic airframe and selecting the winner based satisfying this very minority requirement was also a blunder of conceit, made with the assumption that technical superiority of American aerospace industry was so great that it didn't matter that the vast bulk of the tactical fleet would be saddled with avoidable design compromises.

 

[sferrin]

I think the decision to incorporate STOVL into the basic airframe and selecting the winner based satisfying this very minority requirement

Given it's the only option for the USMC fixed-wing operation off gators it's hardly a "very minority requirement".

 

[JFC Fuller]

Given it's the only option for the USMC fixed-wing operation off gators it's hardly a "very minority requirement".

It is if you compare the USMC F-35B buy to the combined USAF, USN and USMC F-35A/C requirement; 340 versus 2,103. I am not saying it is not an important requirement, it is, but it is still a requirement for only a minority of the US F-35 volume requirement.

 

[Sundog]

I still can't believe this program wasn't cancelled already out of abject embarassment. Nevermind that damn near every TLR for the program was way off and a hell of a lot of heads should have rolled for it. This program has been one of the greatest failures of management at every level that I have ever seen, both on the corporate and government side.

I would cancel the A and the C and let the Marines do whatever they need to to keep the B variant, including stripping out capabilities that aren't ready and won't be ready for another ten years anyway.

Then I would start a new program based on the Sikorsky approach to the S-97. I would have the few airframers we have left design a fighter first, with attack capability and a basic RADAR ECM system that actually works. Anything else would have to earn it's way on to the airframe by first proving it actually works in reality, not a computer sim or powerpoint war, and that it was affordable.

But that would make sense. Lets keep throwing money into the most expensive combat turd in history. It has stealth capabilities that will be mostly obsolete by the time it becomes operational, according to the USAF anyway, but ECM should make up for it! Hell, we could buy Growlers right now to cover that territory.

Hey guys, send me a few hundreds of billion dollars. I can design and build you a panacea tacair plane twice as good as the F-35. I promise!

 

[sferrin]

Given it's the only option for the USMC fixed-wing operation off gators it's hardly a "very minority requirement".

It is if you compare the USMC F-35B buy to the combined USAF, USN and USMC F-35A/C requirement; 340 versus 2,103. I am not saying it is not an important requirement, it is, but it is still a requirement for only a minority of the US F-35 volume requirement.

In that case you may as well lump the F-35C in there as well and say that "sea-basing is a minority requirement". :

 

[chuck4]

Given it's the only option for the USMC fixed-wing operation off gators it's hardly a "very minority requirement".

It is if you compare the USMC F-35B buy to the combined USAF, USN and USMC F-35A/C requirement; 340 versus 2,103. I am not saying it is not an important requirement, it is, but it is still a requirement for only a minority of the US F-35 volume requirement.

In that case you may as well lump the F-35C in there as well and say that "sea-basing is a minority requirement". :

Sea based F-35C didn't dictate a unusual basic layout needed solely for its own purposes onto the F-35A or F-35B. F-35C also didn't then force F-35A or F-35B to suffer delays because F-35C can't actually take off from carriers, needed to be substantially revised in order to do so, and then for sake of appearences forced the already satsifactory F-35A and F-35B to accept the same changes, unless for their purposes, in the name of "commonality".

 

[sferrin]

Given it's the only option for the USMC fixed-wing operation off gators it's hardly a "very minority requirement".

It is if you compare the USMC F-35B buy to the combined USAF, USN and USMC F-35A/C requirement; 340 versus 2,103. I am not saying it is not an important requirement, it is, but it is still a requirement for only a minority of the US F-35 volume requirement.

In that case you may as well lump the F-35C in there as well and say that "sea-basing is a minority requirement". :

Sea based F-35C didn't dictate the odd fuselage layout common to all three variants. It didn't force F-35A or F-35B to suffer delays because F-35C can't actually take off from carriers, needed to be substantially revised, and forced the already satsifactory F-35A and F-35B to accept the same changes in the name of "commonality" for sake of appearences.

You missed the point. The number of a model does not necessarily equate to degree of importance.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

1) Effectively making whoever won the programme a monopolist on fast jet programmes for two decades meaning there were no other options if things started to go wrong.

One could say the same thing about a myriad of military programs the first that comes to mind being the F-22.

Splitting out separate USN and USAF programmes- perhaps more akin to the LWF programme, would have kept an element of fear in it for the competitors. Think F-110 Spectre killing F-106A and F-105, far from an exact comparison I admit but hopefully it demonstrates my point.

Not really, since there was never any danger of an F-106 or F-105 landing on an aircraft carrier. the company that makes the naval aircraft would always have the upper hand, unless of course you specify that both aircraft types must do the same things. In which case you are now funding two programs that do the same thing, and its only a matter of time before someone recognizes the redundancy and cancels one of them IE F135 vs F136

2) The down-select was made far too early; Lockheed was selected on the basis of what was little more than technology demonstrator rather than a full prototype, essentially they won the contract, were given a position of monopoly and then they got to develop a product without any competition.

If the Government is willing to fund both programs for a half decade up until LRIP before deciding a winner (again) that is up to them. The Companies themselves sure couldn't afford it so the taxpayer will have to pay for both longer before deciding on one. Bonus question, if the aircraft continue to have issues, do we fund them up until full production and then cancel one in favor of the other after 100 or 200 units?

Always bet on black. But also red. bet on them both at once.

Whatever you think of Lockheed and the F-35 one thing is clear; Lockheed knows that there is only ever going to be X amount of money (whatever amount that turns out to be) available for the F-35 programme and over Y number of years. It does not really matter to Lockheed what the end unit price is or what portion of X is spent on RDT&E versus procurement as it all ends up under the heading of revenue on their balance sheet whilst their monopolist position in the western 5th gen market means they are assured 100% of X- whatever it turns out to be.

Thats not true at all, of course the unit price matters. Its far better to sell 100 1 million dollar planes than 1 100 million dollar plane. Especially if a potential customer only has 80 million to spend. The more you sell the more you can sell, and the more you sell the more support and profitability over a longer period of time. Of course unit costs matter especially in an international market. Its far better to sell 70 aircraft than 40 even if the amount is the same. Unit cost matters. You can't honestly think that if LM went to the USAF tomorrow and said "tell ya what, We will sell you half the planes at twice the cost, because the amount is all the same to us" that the USAF would say "Yeah that makes sense, who do we make the check out to?" Hell no it would be an Apocalypse.

There is competition, make no mistake if there wasn't competition we would havn't page after page talking about Eurofighter, Rafale, F-16s, Super Hornets, Gripens, F-15s, and even Flankers. There is huge competition especially on nations that are due to shop for aircraft in the future.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

I think the decision to incorporate STOVL into the basic airframe and selecting the winner based satisfying this very minority requirement

Given it's the only option for the USMC fixed-wing operation off gators it's hardly a "very minority requirement".

Not to mention the UK which is kinda heavily involved and has been from the start.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

I still can't believe this program wasn't cancelled already out of abject embarassment. Nevermind that damn near every TLR for the program was way off and a hell of a lot of heads should have rolled for it. This program has been one of the greatest failures of management at every level that I have ever seen, both on the corporate and government side.

What are you comparing it with?

I would cancel the A and the C and let the Marines do whatever they need to to keep the B variant, including stripping out capabilities that aren't ready and won't be ready for another ten years anyway.

ummmm Thanks?

Then I would start a new program based on the Sikorsky approach to the S-97. I would have the few airframers we have left design a fighter first, with attack capability and a basic RADAR ECM system that actually works. Anything else would have to earn it's way on to the airframe by first proving it actually works in reality, not a computer sim or powerpoint war, and that it was affordable.

huh?

while Sikorsky has an already outdated mockup pf the S-97 at its AUSA display, the Raider doesn't actually exist yet. The company expects to fly the first of two prototypes it is building in 2014.

http://defense.aol.com/2012/10/23/sikorsky-offers-s-97-for-armed-aerial-scout-without-flying/

Model program.

first proving it actually works in reality,

All of the things on the F-35 work in reality BTW, its getting them all to work together and in perfect harmony -- where machines get tricky. Tested individually in lab conditions everything works just fine. Thats why we have things like flight testing.

But that would make sense. Lets keep throwing money into the most expensive combat turd in history.

such reasonable hyperbole and name calling has convinced me.

Hey guys, send me a few hundreds of billion dollars. I can design and build you a panacea tacair plane twice as good as the F-35. I promise!

since you are using a theoretical aircraft that only exists in mock up as a proven model of mass production and combat capability I am sure it will work out swell

 

[JFC Fuller]

Why not fund two aircraft until they are ready for LRIP, assuming there is no concurrency? That makes the prize the production contract.

For LM, it is actually irrelevant whether they sell one $100 million plane or 100 $1 million ones, they still get $100 million. And as bonus, they also get to be responsible for developing the aircraft with near zero risk as they are already have the production contract and the government picks up the tab for all the cost overruns. If two aircraft are funded to LRIP the risk is huge, no production contract for the worst performing entrant.

Yea the UK requirement was huge, peaking as it did at 150 airframes, well under half even the USMC B requirement.

 

[AeroFranz]

That's the difference between a development contract vs a production contract.
If LM had reached the goal of X-gs at Y-speed with Z-fuelrate in SDD and then failed to deliver that in production... you would have a point.
In an SDD program there are certain things that are "required" and others that are "goals". The Customer then gets to decide that if a requirement or goal looks like it will be missed, they can either spend more money to fix it now (which will result in an IOC delay) or they can go to IOC now with what they have and can get back to the original requirement/goal at a later upgrade.

Spud, then someone didn't do their homework right. Maybe the customer defined goals that were too tough - but LM agreed to fulfill them. A reasonable quid pro quo should be "You stop giving me ridiculous requirements and I'll stop taking unreasonable risks to fulfill them."

Regarding meeting goals at a later date. Ben Rich used to say:
"Aeroplanes are like people. They all gain weight and never have enough tail ".
You gain weight EVERY day and you get thrust upgrades every once in a blue moon, which barely keeps up. You are pretty much stuck with the wing you start with for the lifetime of the aircraft, so even regardless of your T/W, your wingloading is only going to get worse. This is true for all aircraft, but better to start with a positive margin.

Conceptual design uses pretty accurate numerical methods these days. Wind tunnel tests should give you a good idea of transonic drag. Missing the acceleration goals by a sensible margin, much greater than the confidence level of your analysis methods, seems unjustified.

"The F-18E/F needed some serious performance rewrites and of course the mighty F-22 compromised on its cost numbers..."

Agreed. F-35 is not the only bad boy. It gets singled out because so much rides on it.

JFC and Chuck4 - my thoughts to a t.

 

[SpudmanWP]

Why not fund two aircraft until they are ready for LRIP, assuming there is no concurrency? That makes the prize the production contract.

So you're willing to pay for two complete development programs?

How many planes could you not buy because you spent BILLIONS on a second development program?

 

[chuck4]

Why not fund two aircraft until they are ready for LRIP, assuming there is no concurrency? That makes the prize the production contract.

So you're willing to pay for two complete development programs?

How many planes could you not buy because you spent BILLIONS on a second development program?

How many planes have you already forgone buying because the project is more vastly overbudget than would likely be the case if the sole supplier didn't have you over a barrel?

 

[SpudmanWP]

It's nowhere near double and you're assuming that a second SDD program would be problem free. Remember that the X-32 had to be completely redesigned for the bid into a traditional 4-poster config.

What happens when you have two over budget programs? Based on history and the fact that JSF deals with new tech & merged functionality, this would be the likely outcome.

Not only do you have double the cost in SDD but you now have to pay to keep all your existing fighters flying for 10 years each (remember that we're skipping concurrency).

 

[Abraham Gubler]

So you're willing to pay for two complete development programs?

How many planes could you not buy because you spent BILLIONS on a second development program?

The price differential between running two programs much further into SDD before downselect is much, much less than that because so much of the technology development would be used by both aircraft. You don’t need to build two sets of engines and avionics they can selected earlier on. The advantage of furthering the competitive program is apart from commercial pressures to stay competitive it allows much better insight into identifying which solution can meet the requirement. And in this case, and virtually all stealth aircraft, keep weight and heat under control.

It's nowhere near double and you're assuming that a second SDD program would be problem free. Remember that the X-32 had to be completely redesigned for the bid into a traditional 4-poster config.

Only in the very early stages because the customer changed the requirement. Surely on this forum with its level of information people can stop misrepresenting the X-32 configuration change from something wrong with the design as to entirely the US Navy’s fault.

 

[SpudmanWP]

Avionics is one of the things that is taking so long to develop. How can you select it sooner?

I did not mean to imply that the X-32 change as it's fault... although its poor VL performance was

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Avionics is one of the things that is taking so long to develop. How can you select it sooner?

You select a single supplier of the various systems: radar, ESM, etc. Rather than each program building their own radar and so on.

 

[chuck4]

Or you can select competing vendors to develope competing offerings for each class of subsystem on fixed cost contracts under common performance and interface specifications. The interface specification would allow each of the winning airframes to incorporate either source for each class of subsystems, thus giving the procurement authority the benefit of competition and the availability of alternate/backup for each major development item.

 

[SpudmanWP]

And how would any of that be faster or cheaper than what we have now?

 

[chuck4]

And how would any of that be faster or cheaper than what we have now?

Fundamentally, it seem to me much of the technical problem with JSF can be attributed to lousy upstream engineering. Early technical specifications were set, and early engineering promises and decisions were made based short sighted considerations, and designed to perhaps meeting some short term (perhaps non-technical) objective rather than well considered to best improve the final product. The perception that any resulting deficiency could always be either forced on the procurement authority, or be fixed at the expense of the procurement authority because LM was the sole contractor and the procurement authority has nowhere else to go undoubtedly encouraged this "style" of project "management".

With competitive development, each vendor would live in fear of losing the main source of profit - production contract - if the development portion is not managed better than the other guys'. The procurement authority has somewhere else to go. Therefore vendor would be more motivated to make better upstream engineering decisions because there is no chance to keep the production contract and fix any mistakes made early on further down stream at government expense. The competition will go on for long enough to allow bad engineering decisions made early on to become menifest. So there is no benefit to making short sighted engineering decisions that makes the project look better at the time of vendor selection but which would explode before the project enters production. The vendors with too many bad engineering decisions will be shown the door. Their engineeing errors of judgement won't be fixed at government expense. The project will go on based on the team that didn't make those errors in the first place.

For the procurement authority - You can always select from the least over budget, the least overscehdule, and the least under-performing vendor for each component subsystem, thus minimizing the chance of one idiot team and manager from the one and only vendor becoming a bottleneck for the entire procureament project.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

Why not fund two aircraft until they are ready for LRIP, assuming there is no concurrency? That makes the prize the production contract.

Because it would cost billions? If you are unhappy with the cost of the JSF why would you develop 2? Not only that but a lot of the problems are of course discovered and corrected in LRIP (which is where the F-35 is now, and we are complaining) So how would it help? OR am I not understanding?

For LM, it is actually irrelevant whether they sell one $100 million plane or 100 $1 million ones, they still get $100 million.

Again that is not true. There is reason ford invented the Model T and went with the assembly line. All cost savings in manufacturing turn into profit. So if LM Is getting 25 percent profit from 100 aircraft that is better than 15 percent profit from one aircraft. Thats the problem with your little equation there. It only works if there is 100 percent profit in each case. Hell right down to taxes it makes more sense to spread profits out and elongate them. As boeing has slowed the line on its Super Hornet it has increased their price= in other words the aircraft costs more but their profit is the same.

Revenue-expenses= profit. The fewer aircraft you make the more expensive they are and the less you profit. So if LM wants to maximize profit, they are going about it all wrong.

When you are talking about a line of 3,000 you get more profit. This is the reason why people who are against the F-35 make such hey about talk of individual nations canceling orders, because it affects the entire line of cost. If you need further evidence of this you can take a look at how cutting LRIP orders has resulted in drastically fewer aircraft for higher individual costs.

Finally beyond initial price, there is such a thing as spares and support. So you want to provide as much spares and support for as long as you can to as many customers as possible. Max profitably. LM will make far far more on the F-35 than the F-22 even though the cost won't be nearly as much.

Yea the UK requirement was huge, peaking as it did at 150 airframes, well under half even the USMC B requirement.

It had more to do with them being at the tippy top of importance in partnership right along with the US.

 

[jsport]

A laughable defense of a broken system doesn't win wars.
The F-35 program is proof that a whole new idea of incentives and accountability is in order.
Appraising the utility and long term viability of Corporate socialist corporations is a start. Firm Fixed w/ incentives ie no more 'cost plus' is a start but only the beginning.

You mean the system is broken and blaming an individual program would be foolish? I agree

blaming the individual program is foolish and continuing to ignore a broken procurement structure is also foolish.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

How many planes have you already forgone buying because the project is more vastly overbudget than would likely be the case if the sole supplier didn't have you over a barrel?

So what you are saying is that by fully funding and backing the F-16 (which had an awful lot of problems in its early days) the USAF missed its chance to develop another aircraft? Or the Navy with the F-14?

I don't know we don't traditionally do it that. We make our pick and we build it. No one seemed to screaming and yelling when the USN was developing the super bug all by its lonesome and it ran into problems. Or the F-22? C-17?

As much as we are praising competition its A. largely government funded B. Government doesn't move at a speed that can actually take advantage of competition. C. Companies depend on making long term plans D. The military also needs to know these things E. What makes us so sure that the government doesn't keep competition moving and the "wrong" plane still wins?

The same government that thought of the JSF and then picked the X-35 over the X-32 is now suddenly going to fund two programs and nimbly use the competition to always make the right decision? : Good luck with that.

And how would any of that be faster or cheaper than what we have now?

Fundamentally, it seem to me much of the technical problem with JSF can be attributed to lousy upstream engineering. Early technical specifications were set, and early engineering promises and decisions were made based short sighted considerations, and designed to perhaps meeting some short term (perhaps non-technical) objective rather than well considered to best improve the final product. The perception that any resulting deficiency could always be either forced on the procurement authority, or be fixed at the expense of the procurement authority because LM was the sole contractor and the procurement authority has nowhere else to go undoubtedly encouraged this "style" of project "management".

With competitive development, each vendor would live in fear of losing the main source of profit - production contract - if the development portion is not managed better than the other guys'. The procurement authority has somewhere else to go. Therefore vendor would be more motivated to make better upstream engineering decisions because there is no chance to keep the production contract and fix any mistakes made early on further down stream at government expense. The competition will go on for long enough to allow bad engineering decisions made early on to become menifest. So there is no benefit to making short sighted engineering decisions that makes the project look better at the time of vendor selection but which would explode before the project enters production. The vendors with too many bad engineering decisions will be shown the door. Their engineeing errors of judgement won't be fixed at government expense. The project will go on based on the team that didn't make those errors in the first place.

The pessimist in me just thinks it prolongs the deception and encourages hiding problems, but to each his own. As we scream that the procurement system is a disaster our plan to fund more projects? Not even "independent" IE non "joint"projects had direct competition after selection (would have loved to see an LRIP F-23)

Or as we talk about government welfare and corporate profits, that the competition continues to stretch the process even when they know they can't win? About the best thing that could happen is to keep making the money for as long as possible knowing the government prefers the competition over you. In that case keep taking your billions, and don't worry about producing anything of value. How much does the government continue to fund if lets say the F-32 never really gets the STOVL to work and can't make it to LRIP? In that case is the government fully funding an aircraft it won't pick purely for the sake of "competition"?

IF it wasn't for the JSF we could have 3 seperate threads about 3 projects, with 6 competing designs going over cost and over budget The JSF is a monopoly. Thats not a secret. The Government can be cruel like that because they can have and encourage monopolies. But here is the issue: individual programs with far less ambitious goals have gone over time, over budget, been canceled, etc. The government weighed the cost of multiple programs vs monopoly and decided monopoly was the way to go. they each have their benefits and drawbacks.