Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Daubie on December 23, 2011, 03:40:44 AM
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The statement below is not mine, but I agree.
"This video is fresh (for the public). It was made just six weeks ago in the
Atlantic, just off Newport News (Hampton Roads), Virginia .
These are the latest sea trials of the F-35B on the USS Wasp. They were
very successful, with 74 VL's and STO's in a three week period. The media
and the program critics had predicted that we would burn holes in the deck
and wash sailors overboard. Neither of which happened. You will notice a
sailor standing on the bow of the ship as the jet rotates. That was an
intentional part of the sea trials.
Try viewing Full Screen - impressive.
No catapult...... No hook ............ It's a new world out there.
It really is.
The shape and scope of warfare - worldwide - just changed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki86x1WKPmE&feature=colike
Think - this new, monster killer aircraft can land in a tennis court and
take off from it.
All the "Special Ops" that always had to be executed from helicopters? Look
at this. Warfare has just changed (again). Thank God, that we, America ,
are the ones changing it and keeping us safe"
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How would you like to be the test pilot flying this very expensive aircraft in deep water and lose it to an accident?
I think that raised hood device behind the cockpit is for air intake for the downward thrusting engines, not a speed brake.
You can see the downward airflow over the water, after the jet leaves the boat.
I was in New Orleans on liberty when an English Harrier jump jet ship with the forward, up swooping, takeoff deck, aircraft carrier was also in port, before the Falklands War, about 1979 or so. I got to tour their ship. So the idea is not new, just the technology.
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So were the Harriers THAT far gone in ability that we needed to get rid of them and fund this thing?
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From what i understand a fully loaded harrier can only take off with assistence from a jump ram.
Nor can a fully loaded harrier hover in flight.
Only lightly loaded/armed harrier could take off from a stand still, and even then the time of hover was limited to around 30 seconds before the coolant ran out and things started to get real..real hot.
The harrier is also not stealth and its navigation/tracking systems are all beans vs. the JSF.
so..yeah.
"Edit:Also keep in mind the age of most air frame's in service right now, most are already some 20-30 years old. They need to rest, or alot of pilots world wide will die to catastrophic failures. Everyone knows this, hence why so many nations are backing this program up."
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Some comments (reality check)
Profile for this is going to be the same as the Harrier, STOVL (Short Takoff/Vertical Landing), i.e., it will not take off vertically fully loaded although, just like the Harrier it can takeoff vertically with a light load of fuel/weapons.
This does not take the place of helicopters for SOF, that's what they want the V22 for.
The "guy" at the end of the deck is there for the "test" only in that he is part of the normal flight deck compliment. His job is to look down the foul line to make sure no person or thing crosses over into takeoff area of the deck, that's why he's giving a "thumbs up." You make it sound like he was "placed" at the end of the deck to prove a sailor won't get knocked off the flight deck. I guarantee you that that is not the way you test for this danger.
Further, as a reality check, sailors get knocked down fairly frequently due to jet blasts, even from conventional aircraft. More rare is getting blown over the side but it does happen and it is not unique to STOVL. None of this is of course "new" but the "media" picks up on statements they don't (or won't) understand and repeats them ad nauseum like idiot parrots. This is how concerns about ablation of the flight deck ("burning holes") or blowing people off the deck get misrepresented as mistakes and the result of stupidity. Sure, those are concerns that need to be tested but this isn't information from "critics," it's just common sense. The F14A+, B, and D all created concern about Jet Blast Deflector ablation because of the increased power (and heat) of the GE F110 afterburner. This is one of a couple of reasons why the F14 with the GE engines didn't launch in AB but it wasn't a mistake and the F14 didn't need AB to launch with the new engines anyway. The press doesn't understand that sort of thing and loves to trump up controversy especially if they can make a defense contractor or the military look stupid. In the 1980's there was one of those 60 Minutes episodes where they tried to prove how stupid the military was. In that episode, a "critic" claimed that the AIM-7 Sparrow wasn't a good missile because it flew too fast to hit its target and the morons at 60 Minutes actually broadcast that as factual information just because it made us (and Raytheon) look bad.
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I'm not a fan of the F-35 but this seems a media hit job that is rather inaccurate and/or intentional.
Boo
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So were the Harriers THAT far gone in ability that we needed to get rid of them and fund this thing?
Although very impressive in "Combat" take-off mode, the Harrier's severely short battle radius 190 miles, when I was in Korea, & only slightly improved by take-off ramps, make it very limited in effectiveness in forward bases or even in carrier use. No one wants anything within 190 miles before you can engage it. IMO :salute
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Anybody know how it performs compared to Chinese/Russian fighters? Haven't really kept up with the program, but it looks intriguing.
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My understanding on the death of the harrier was owing to the very short life spans (comparably to other military aircraft) of the airframes. Simply put, these aircraft timed out quickly and were to a point, somewhat disposable. The F-18's airframe is similar in that it has life span limitations as well. Part of the growth of the early Hornet program introduced the straps on the vertical fins to help mitigate cracking of the vertical fins.
Anywho, that F-35 looks very impressive. Hope that it can perform as advertised in combat and can be fielded for a reasonable price.
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I am very lucky in having to work on the F-35 out here at Edwards. It is only on the F-35A (we are getting carrier and the STOVL varient later this year). This program has made huge leaps and bounds, and is progressing on track. The STOVL is a very impressive machine, and will out perform the harrier in every way. Just give it time and this program will be very impressive once it matures more.
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PS Jump jets may have a severely limited battle radius and unable to Combat Take -Off vertically when fully loaded, but it is absolutely impressive to see one taking off in that manner, & they do "Jump" just like a grasshopper, straight up, much faster than you would have imagined when seen for the first time. I was at Osan AB Korea in '78/79 and saw it first hand. If it was impressive then......? :salute
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The biggest problem with the F-35 is that its basically going to replace all Naval fixed wing tactical aircraft, and it only has one engine.
Guess what the two leading class-A mishap aircraft are in the U.S. military? And what common characteristic do they share? I'll tell you that the Marine Corps needs a replacement for the Harrier--the capability to have fixed-wing on an amphibious assault ship is huge for Marine expeditionary forces--I've seen the difference first hand. I just don't know that we can afford this thing, but it looks like we're going to try...
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I think the bigger problem with the F-35 is that they're trying to get it to suit the purposes of too many branches. The military has been trying for DECADES to develop aircraft that meet the needs of all three aerial services, and after almost 100 years of effort there's only been ONE OTHER EXAMPLE (F-4) which really has. The needs of the Air Force, Navy and Marines are really just too different for one airframe to adequately fill.
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Sax... As compared to what? Why can't 1 plane (technically 3 different variants of one plane) serve multiple arms of the armed forces IF each arm is getting a superb plane?
For the Navy: It blows away the Super Hornet. Well and truly there is nothing the Super Hornet has over this plane. You can't launch a Hornet without 3 gas bags on it, and it has to have tankers refilling it during sorties. It also can't go supersonic.
For the Marines: It's leaps and bounds ahead of the Harriers in payload, range, and total capability. Harrier range was something on the order of 200 miles, right? They also replace their aging Hornet fleet. See "Navy" comment.
For the Air Force: F-16s can't cut it. To get ANYWHERE they have to carry 3 fuel tanks and refuel 4 times each way. F-15s and F-16s are falling apart due to age and fatigue, and are limited in as much as how useful they are attacking defended positions. F-22s will still rule the skies as air superiority fighters as far as their lifespan permits, but we really need an overall plane. Something that can do first strike, something that can perform CAP, or fighter sweeps, all just by changing the weapons loadouts. It also has more stealth than any other fighter save the F-22, giving it a massive edge in air to air combat. It also favors comparably to the F/A-18 in terms of manuverability so it's no slouch in a close-in fight either. The Air Force needs this just as badly as the Navy and Marines need theirs.
So what if it happens to have commonality? You can't have this kind of advanced weapons platform on a small scale. If ONLY the Air Force or ONLY the Navy were getting a 5th Gen sealth fighter/attacker like this, it would bankrupt them and the project would fail. Instead, all 3 branches benefit.
I know it hasn't always worked out in the past, but despite the 99% politically motivated bad press (mostly be people who don't know what they're talking about) this program is a must, and it's progressing quickly right now. It worked for the F-4. It didn't work for the F-111. I can't think of too many others where we've tried that since the jet age emerged. There really aren't all that many that I can think of.
Looking at it objectively, it is a step ahead of what it is replacing in most ways. It's also a much needed replacement. Win-win! Now if the politicians and political lobbyists would just leave it alone so we could get it done...
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For the Navy: It blows away the Super Hornet.... It also can't go supersonic.
Super Hornet can go supersonic, I believe its top speed is 1,190 mph.
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/fighter/f18ef/ (http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/fighter/f18ef/)
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LOL!!!
That's rich... It can break Mach1 from what I've read if it has nothing on it, no missiles, no weapons, no fuel tank, no underwing pylons (they add massive drag, being toed outwards), but it requires 4-stage afterburner to do so and that gives it a flight time of somewhere like 5 minutes before it has to land.
Whereas the F-35 can fly its entire mission carrying guns and bombs to target and back while supercruising past Mach1 and not in afterburner mode.
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LOL!!!
That's rich... It can break Mach1 from what I've read if it has nothing on it, no missiles, no weapons, no fuel tank, no underwing pylons (they add massive drag, being toed outwards), but it requires 4-stage afterburner to do so and that gives it a flight time of somewhere like 5 minutes before it has to land.
Whereas the F-35 can fly its entire mission carrying guns and bombs to target and back while supercruising past Mach1 and not in afterburner mode.
laugh all you want but do you have any references?
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The f-35 is to the U.N. and its allies what the tie fighters is to the empire.
Mass produced cheap and worthless. :rock
Really guys, one engine, on a navy fighter? dum da dum duuum duuuuuumb!
US military of the 21st century, "GENTLEMEN, FAILURE IS A OPTION!"
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laugh all you want but do you have any references?
Any resource out there will tell you the Hornet and SuperHornet are subsonic aircraft when flown in actual missions. They are not speed demons unless stripped down to the bare bones with nothing onboard, and then the lack of any internal fuel means they can only do it for extremely short periods of time. Putting a couple underwing tanks on to increase that fuel load adds so much drag they effectively cannot sustain Mach1 speeds and become (for all intents and purposes) grounded in the low speed regime. Add missiles, bombs, targetting pods, more gas tanks, and it gets slower and slower.
Instead of just looking up a hypothetical top speed, check out a number of discussion boards that often have actual Navy or ex-Navy pilots chiming in from time to time.
To sum it up bluntly... The Hornets and SHornets are bomb trucks. It's just the current age of the bomb truck with the Navy. They can carry missiles and fire them, but for all intents and purposes who are they going to fight? They were designed as light weight multirole attack craft. They are outclassed by most foreign designs in all but radar.
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Any resource out there will tell you the Hornet and SuperHornet are subsonic aircraft when flown in actual missions. They are not speed demons unless stripped down to the bare bones with nothing onboard, and then the lack of any internal fuel means they can only do it for extremely short periods of time. Putting a couple underwing tanks on to increase that fuel load adds so much drag they effectively cannot sustain Mach1 speeds and become (for all intents and purposes) grounded in the low speed regime. Add missiles, bombs, targetting pods, more gas tanks, and it gets slower and slower.
Instead of just looking up a hypothetical top speed, check out a number of discussion boards that often have actual Navy or ex-Navy pilots chiming in from time to time.
To sum it up bluntly... The Hornets and SHornets are bomb trucks. It's just the current age of the bomb truck with the Navy. They can carry missiles and fire them, but for all intents and purposes who are they going to fight? They were designed as light weight multirole attack craft. They are outclassed by most foreign designs in all but radar.
You have still failed to provide any references, lay of the BBS posturing, and provide it... Post some links to these discussion boards, I bet many players in the community would be interested in checking it out.
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The biggest problem with the F-35 is that its basically going to replace all Naval fixed wing tactical aircraft, and it only has one engine.
Guess what the two leading class-A mishap aircraft are in the U.S. military? And what common characteristic do they share? I'll tell you that the Marine Corps needs a replacement for the Harrier--the capability to have fixed-wing on an amphibious assault ship is huge for Marine expeditionary forces--I've seen the difference first hand. I just don't know that we can afford this thing, but it looks like we're going to try...
I believe the quote from the Pratt and Whitney rep when asked "what happens when the engine fails" was "it won't." This, from the company that brought us the mighty TF-30 roman candle. Operating from a CV thousands of miles from shore? Give me two GE's any day.
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LOL!!!
That's rich... It can break Mach1 from what I've read if it has nothing on it, no missiles, no weapons, no fuel tank, no underwing pylons (they add massive drag, being toed outwards), but it requires 4-stage afterburner to do so and that gives it a flight time of somewhere like 5 minutes before it has to land.
Whereas the F-35 can fly its entire mission carrying guns and bombs to target and back while supercruising past Mach1 and not in afterburner mode.
Well....I agree the services need the F-35 and I am no fan of the Hornet but you're going over the top here. The Hornet is not the fastest fighter out there but it's supersonic at altitude with stores but not on the deck but then even the F-14 was limited to 650KIAS below 12k ft with stores and, on the deck, 650KIAS is subsonic. As for fuel, you're quoting on the deck fuel consumption. The F-14 could burn up 20k lbs of fuel (it's entire internal and external load) in eight minutes on the deck in full AB but had plenty of fuel for extended AB use in combat, supersonic dashes at altitude, or a max performance climb to altitude. The Hornet has less fuel and more drag, that's true, but it's not subsonic except at low altitude. Also, don't forget that while the pylons can't be jettisoned the external tanks and bombs can which makes a tremendous difference in the Hornet's performance. If he gets in an engagement the Hornet pilot can hit the jettison button and make most of the junk go away.
As for the F35, it cannot "fly its entire mission...while supercruising past Mach 1." I've never seen anywhere that the F-35 is spec'd for supercruise but even if it is you can't get away from physics. Supercruise still requires lots more gas than subsonic cruise even because the engine still needs to produce AB-like levels of power and that means gas, lots and lots of gas. Not using AB makes it more efficient but it still eats up gas. Yes, the F-22 can sustain supersonic speeds at MRT but even it doesn't fly its entire mission supersonic because its fuel consumption would cut its range in half. Again, I've got no love lost on the Hornet, I think it was a massive mistake for the Navy but it is what it is and it's not bad.
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The F-35 is not designed for supercruise. The main mission will be to penetrate enemy defences at subsonic speeds using stealth to take out targets.
Here is a good video to get a good idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y44lftPGWvM
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Krusty, the problem is that the 3 separate services require 3 very distinct types of capability, with the air superiority role of the Navy and Marine Corps overlapping. That being said, a jack-of-all trades aircraft is going to have compromises built in to fit all 3 services, meaning its not ideal for anyone.
The Harrier is perfectly capable at its designed mission. The beauty of the aircraft is that it doesn't need long legs, since it can take off very close to the action. As an CAS platform, it has no 1-target equal. I've seen every aircraft in the inventory perform CAS missions, and the Harrier is the most capable on and off the target, bar none. They're hard to see, very maneuverable in that regime, and flown by the best pilots in the Marine Corps who have an appreciation for the ground fight. That being said, yes, it needs a replacement.
The F-18 isn't sexy, but it gets the job done. D's and F's bring a lot of capability that the single-seaters don't have. D models in the Marine Corps can perform just about every mission imaginable, but really begin to shine in the TAC(A) / FAC(A) role. The F-35 won't be able to perform these missions with anywhere near the ability of the two-seat Hornets.
And again, the F-35 is a single-engine jet. That's a huge liability, but it was designed that way to reduce cost. What that means is that whenever there's an engine failure, the aircraft is a goner. Referring back to my earlier post, the F-16 and AV8B are the two highest class-A mishap aircraft in the U.S. inventory, and they're the only two single-engine aircraft.
I don't really have an answer for the problem, I just know that the F-35 is going to be lackluster, compared to its cost and development. Given the nature of air warfare these days, I think the F-18E/F was a very cost-effective way for the Navy to go.
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We need stornets.
Stealth super hornets. :rock
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Krusty, the problem is that the 3 separate services require 3 very distinct types of capability, with the air superiority role of the Navy and Marine Corps overlapping. That being said, a jack-of-all trades aircraft is going to have compromises built in to fit all 3 services, meaning its not ideal for anyone.
The Harrier is perfectly capable at its designed mission. The beauty of the aircraft is that it doesn't need long legs, since it can take off very close to the action. As an CAS platform, it has no 1-target equal. I've seen every aircraft in the inventory perform CAS missions, and the Harrier is the most capable on and off the target, bar none. They're hard to see, very maneuverable in that regime, and flown by the best pilots in the Marine Corps who have an appreciation for the ground fight. That being said, yes, it needs a replacement.
The F-18 isn't sexy, but it gets the job done. D's and F's bring a lot of capability that the single-seaters don't have. D models in the Marine Corps can perform just about every mission imaginable, but really begin to shine in the TAC(A) / FAC(A) role. The F-35 won't be able to perform these missions with anywhere near the ability of the two-seat Hornets.
And again, the F-35 is a single-engine jet. That's a huge liability, but it was designed that way to reduce cost. What that means is that whenever there's an engine failure, the aircraft is a goner. Referring back to my earlier post, the F-16 and AV8B are the two highest class-A mishap aircraft in the U.S. inventory, and they're the only two single-engine aircraft.
I don't really have an answer for the problem, I just know that the F-35 is going to be lackluster, compared to its cost and development. Given the nature of air warfare these days, I think the F-18E/F was a very cost-effective way for the Navy to go.
The only thing I really took to heart was that "the F-35 was designed to reduce cost" You're entirely correct, of course, but um...
I would be most concerned myself about economies of scale, If there was a desperate need for this aircraft in quantities..
Back to WW2, Didn't in some-part the Soviets help win the war by sheer production? As did the United States?
As awesome as it is...it reminds me of Nazi Germany: An army very wide, but not real deep. (thats not the quote, but you get it)
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I think the past 60 years of engine development have proven that single engines are not as much a liability as first thought of in the '50s. There used to be regulations stating that no 2-engine airlines can be operated over water, as well. That was changed as the technology and the power of those engines continued to improve. Now the Boeing 777 can operate safely with 1 engine running, even!
The thing is the Navy doesn't need an Air Superiority fighter. It's not replacing an Air Superiority fighter. The Hornet and Super Hornet are NOT air superiority fighters. They're attack craft that can defend themselves when they go in to bomb ground targets. The Navy hasn't had Air Superiority fighters in a long long time.
That's not what it's replacing, and that's not what it should be.
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Now the Boeing 777 can operate safely with 1 engine running, even!
The thing is the Navy doesn't need an Air Superiority fighter. It's not replacing an Air Superiority fighter. The Hornet and Super Hornet are NOT air superiority fighters. They're attack craft that can defend themselves when they go in to bomb ground targets. The Navy hasn't had Air Superiority fighters in a long long time.
That's not what it's replacing, and that's not what it should be.
Note that currently, there are no single-engine airliners operating...anywhere. Heck, the FAA doesn't even like the Caravan for people moving just because it has 1 engine. You ask Hornet pilots how excited they are about transitioning from a two-engine aircraft to a single-engine aircraft? For the Harrier pilots, its a wash, since ejection training is already their most important T&R syllabus item anyway. Its not called the Carolina Lawn Dart for nothing.
The Navy most certainly has an air superiority mission. Krusty, Naval aviation doctrine is one of air superiority, not air supremacy (Air Force). The F-18 is used to fill that role. May not be the most potent air-to-air platform out there, but its capable, and for the single-seat Hornet community, that's their main mission. Dropping bombs is secondary. Trust me, back in the day, Navy Hornet drivers were almost as big a liability as Bombcat drivers when performing CAS. The community is much more savvy now, but air-to-air is still their primary mission, as it is even for single-seat Hornets in the Marine Corps.
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I think the past 60 years of engine development have proven that single engines are not as much a liability as first thought of in the '50s. There used to be regulations stating that no 2-engine airlines can be operated over water, as well. That was changed as the technology and the power of those engines continued to improve. Now the Boeing 777 can operate safely with 1 engine running, even!
The thing is the Navy doesn't need an Air Superiority fighter. It's not replacing an Air Superiority fighter. The Hornet and Super Hornet are NOT air superiority fighters. They're attack craft that can defend themselves when they go in to bomb ground targets. The Navy hasn't had Air Superiority fighters in a long long time.
That's not what it's replacing, and that's not what it should be.
Engine development, greater thrust, greater efficiency, greater reliability are all great but thrust still = 0 when one engine goes out. Also, someone actually believes Pratt & Whitney that it'll never fail? Grumman advertised the F-14 as being "unspinnable." It didn't work out that way and believing in P&W's "never" failing engine won't either. Also, don't forget that an engine failure can occur for numerous reasons, not all of them internal to the engine that will "never" fail. Those advocating for the single engine have probably never been by themselves, out of radio contact, 500 miles away from the CV and 2,000 miles away from land and gotten an oil-pressure light or rising EGT or busted bleed duct or nozzle failure or engine boost pump failure or any of the other myriad things that can go wrong with hi-tech machinery. How about the possibility of a simple fastener that was stripped by the 18-year-old plane captain that works its way loose and down your intake? Something that small can cause a small chip in a fan blade that causes two chips in the 1st stage compressor which leads eventually to a catastrophic engine failure as it eats itself up. Who doesn't fly fighters in that environment? The US Air Force. Any guesses who struck out "twin" and penciled in "single" in the statement of work? The single engine decision is probably the biggest single (no pun intended) real "cost" of a single airframe for three services. Also, who the heck else is building a single-engined fourth or fifth generation fighter? NOBODY...but us. The Rafale, Typhoon, F-22, SU-27, SU-3x, MiG-29, are all twins as are both the Russian T-50 and Chinese J-20. Off the top of my head I think the F-16, Mirage 2000, and J-10 are the only single engine aircraft that would be considered anyone's front line fighter and the only "new" one of those three is the J-10 (which is just a Chinese knockoff of the Israeli knockoff of the F-16).
As for the air superiority thing, well, you're just wrong Krusty. In any realistic evaluation the primary mission for all the Hornets remains air-to-mud but it's not because of the airframe or because air superiority isn't a Naval Aviation mission, it is. In my experience, some of the lack of emphasis comes from the historical development of the community. The original Hornet drivers came from the A-7 community and thought that all they needed to proclaim themselves "fighter pilots" (besides going USAF where they think everything is a "fighter") was a pointy nose and twin tails but they still flew like attack pukes. They were so cute...like kittens with all their snarling and little claws and constant sucking at the tanker tit. The Tomcats, being the grown up cats, would just bat them away and they'd run off and go drop green turds on the ground somewhere. They were good at dropping stuff but sucked in the air even with all their brand new geewizz computers helping them fly their planes. It's gotten better over the years primarily because of the Tomcat squadron transitions but most of their training $$$ still goes to air-to-ground. That's driven by the real-world fact that we've been fighting since 1990 against enemies with little to no air-to-air capability but there are plenty of countries that do and that number is growing so air superiority will continue to be a requirement.
Now, philosophy and doctrine aside, is the Hornet/Super Hornet an "air superiority fighter" or not? Of course it is. Download the bomb crap and upload AMRAAMs and AIM-9X and all variants can take on anything currently out there. In particular, the Super Hornet with AESA radar is pretty amazing. It can't turn quite as well as some fighters but what people don't understand is that in an air-to-air missile environment this supermaneuvability and post-stall maneuvering is mostly a bunch of crap. Let some SU-27 drop anchor to try his "Cobra" and I'd have an AIM-9X up his prettythang in two seconds and be on my way. Why have the airplane do all that turning when the missile can do it better? Supermaneuverability is sexy and sells airplanes but I don't see that much tactical utility in it.
The thing that really slays me about the F-35 though is the cost of the plane. In the 1990's the Navy decided to buy the Super Hornet over the advanced Tomcat because, they claimed, of the Tomcat's extraordinarily high $50M per unit cost. So, how much does the F-18E/F cost? Oh, round $55M. Now they're buying an airplane that is supposed to run...wait for it....$115M-$135M. That's what some program guys are claiming but program guys have never, ever, been an accurate source, you can tell they're lying because their lips are moving. For instance, they like to leave out little things like Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) where the government procures things like Inertial Navigation Systems, Electronic Warfare Systems, or Ejection Seats on different contracts and then furnishes them to the airframe builder to install. Actual costs based on experience with the F-22 production shows we're looking at closer to $200M per copy, the same as an F-22. Why so expensive? Probably a lot of it is because of all of the still changing requirements from all of the different customers and changing procurement numbers. It's a vicious circle where lower numbers procured means higher cost per unit and the higher cost per unit leads to lower procurement numbers and so on. The rest is unanticipated delays based on unrealistic expectations prior to development and production problems. A million here, a million there eventually adds up to real money.
The idiotic claims by the press about the F-35 burning holes in carrier decks aside, there's a real problem here and what choices do we have? F-15's, F-16's and legacy F-18's are falling apart and with Obama's half-a-trillion dollar cut to defense beginning next year we won't be able to maintain but a few of these platforms so what are we going to do besides bitting the bullet and getting the F-35 deployed?
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Both Hornet and the Super Hornet are supersonic fighter jets just like practically every first line fighter jet in the western world.
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Also to add to why the hornets are seen carrying so much fuel lately, is that their loiter times over-target and further away from their CV or base in the last ten years has been greater than ever. Take into account that most fuel is used on T/O and landings (especially if they're still laden with ordnance), and they strap as much as they can on. Another recent development and tool added in the last decade are F-18s that can be equiped with a refueling pod - their job is specificaly to refuel the forward operating F-18s so that they can avoid a costly T/O or landing and they are intentionaly loaded to the gills with fuel as they offload most of it to other F-18s and are back in short time. Also, I'm not certain if its practicied, but I've read and know it's "in the books" now with the refueling pods that over-weight F-18s laden with weapons can T/O light on fuel, then get topped-off with fuel shortly after T/O and climbingout, and then proceed to the target area with all those weapons and then with plenty of time to use them.
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Mace,
Awesome and extremely informative reply. It is nice when someone with real, hard won knowledge from the Navy adds their two cents to the mix. It make listening to the "know-it-alls" much easier to stomach, especially when they are so totally and politely beaten down.
<S>
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Yes Mace, that was a very informative and well written post.
Thank you for the good reading material. :aok
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Also to add to why the hornets are seen carrying so much fuel lately, is that their loiter times over-target and further away from their CV or base in the last ten years has been greater than ever. Take into account that most fuel is used on T/O and landings (especially if they're still laden with ordnance), and they strap as much as they can on. Another recent development and tool added in the last decade are F-18s that can be equiped with a refueling pod - their job is specificaly to refuel the forward operating F-18s so that they can avoid a costly T/O or landing and they are intentionaly loaded to the gills with fuel as they offload most of it to other F-18s and are back in short time. Also, I'm not certain if its practicied, but I've read and know it's "in the books" now with the refueling pods that over-weight F-18s laden with weapons can T/O light on fuel, then get topped-off with fuel shortly after T/O and climbingout, and then proceed to the target area with all those weapons and then with plenty of time to use them.
"Buddy tanking."
The Russians also adopted this method of inflight refueling to extend the range of their Su-33s since they didn't have a dedicated carrier based refueling aircraft.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/FA-18_Hornet_and_Super_Hornet_040913-N-8158F-155.jpg/800px-FA-18_Hornet_and_Super_Hornet_040913-N-8158F-155.jpg)
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They were so cute...like kittens with all their snarling and little claws and constant sucking at the tanker tit. The Tomcats, being the grown up cats, would just bat them away and they'd run off and go drop green turds on the ground somewhere.
This one had me laughing for a good couple of minutes out loud.
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Mace,
Awesome and extremely informative reply. It is nice when someone with real, hard won knowledge from the Navy adds their two cents to the mix. It make listening to the "know-it-alls" much easier to stomach, especially when they are so totally and politely beaten down.
<S>
He should have included what it took to keep the Tomcat flying. The F18E/F costs about 1/5'th the maintenance man hours per hour of flight that the F14 took. Then, since the F14s didnt age very gracefully, it would have cost a further fortune just to upgrade them for further service life. What good is a cheaper delivery price if it costs you 5 times the cost of fighter X just to keep the things flying?
The sortie rate per maintenance hour for the F35C is going to be off the scale compared to legacy fighters like the F14. Compare it to buying the Lemon car for cheaper but then going broke just keeping it on the road and being able to even use it far less. Even if you wanted to compare 1974 $$'s to 2011 ones, which is silly in the first place. The Tomcats engines were so problematic, even with two of them, they accounted for about 1/3'rd of all accidental airframe losses. I remember when we lost three in one month in the mid-90s and the USN ordered NO supersonic flight at any altitude for the entire fleet.
And it would have cost about 10 Billion $ to upgrade the F14 fleet in the mid-90s, and for what? We'd still end up with a one dimensional fleet air defense fighter with no air to ground capability, except for a few D's, still costing us a fortune to maintain, and now with no Soviet threat to defend against.
Ten years from now compare airframe loss from engine failure per flight hour between the twin engined F14 and the single F35C. I think your going to get a good laugh at the doomsayers. I remember when people were running around pulling their hair out over the F16 and it turned out to be one of the best Jet fighters ever designed.
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"Buddy tanking."
The Russians also adopted this method of inflight refueling to extend the range of their Su-33s since they didn't have a dedicated carrier based refueling aircraft.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/FA-18_Hornet_and_Super_Hornet_040913-N-8158F-155.jpg/800px-FA-18_Hornet_and_Super_Hornet_040913-N-8158F-155.jpg)
Been going on a long time.
(http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/uploads//monthly_06_2011/post-3212-1309138943.jpg)
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I remember when people were running around pulling their hair out over the F16 and it turned out to be one of the best Jet fighters ever designed.
No doubt it has value in the air, but it also has a class A mishap rate almost 3 times that of the F-15. And that excludes class A mishaps due to FOD, bird strikes, etc. Perhaps even an acceptable rate overall, but still suffers in comparison to its twin-engined peer...
Source: US Air Force Safety Center http://www.afsc.af.mil/organizations/aviation/enginestatistics/index.asp
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He should have included what it took to keep the Tomcat flying. The F18E/F costs about 1/5'th the maintenance man hours per hour of flight that the F14 took. Then, since the F14s didnt age very gracefully, it would have cost a further fortune just to upgrade them for further service life. What good is a cheaper delivery price if it costs you 5 times the cost of fighter X just to keep the things flying?
The sortie rate per maintenance hour for the F35C is going to be off the scale compared to legacy fighters like the F14. Compare it to buying the Lemon car for cheaper but then going broke just keeping it on the road and being able to even use it far less. Even if you wanted to compare 1974 $$'s to 2011 ones, which is silly in the first place. The Tomcats engines were so problematic, even with two of them, they accounted for about 1/3'rd of all accidental airframe losses. I remember when we lost three in one month in the mid-90s and the USN ordered NO supersonic flight at any altitude for the entire fleet.
And it would have cost about 10 Billion $ to upgrade the F14 fleet in the mid-90s, and for what? We'd still end up with a one dimensional fleet air defense fighter with no air to ground capability, except for a few D's, still costing us a fortune to maintain, and now with no Soviet threat to defend against.
Ten years from now compare airframe loss from engine failure per flight hour between the twin engined F14 and the single F35C. I think your going to get a good laugh at the doomsayers. I remember when people were running around pulling their hair out over the F16 and it turned out to be one of the best Jet fighters ever designed.
Man, this is so full of it I don't know where to begin. I do first have to applaud the fact that you've put more nonsense into fewer lines than most people on this board are capable of and that's saying a lot. I could write a tome about all the things you have wrong here but I'll try to just hit a few of the wavetops here.
First, maintenance man hours per flight hour (MMHPFH) was higher for the F-14 than F-18E/Fs. This is a surprise? The F-18E/F is brand new, the last F-14 was built in 1990 and we had only been procuring new F-14's at the rate of about a dozen a year, not nearly enough to keep the average age of the fleet reasonably low. The average age goes up and the maintenance costs go up, happens with every single airplane. But let's compare apples to apples. In 1990 at VX-4 we compared MMHPFH for our new F-14D's against our new Hornets (apples to apples bro) and the MMHPFH was only 2%-5% higher than the Hornet. Most of the additional man hours was related to the wingsweep mechanism of the F-14, obviously a logical outcome since the F-18 doesn't have the wingsweep or, more importantly, its advantages. For that additional cost the wingsweep gave the F-14 greater speed, more maneuverability, better energy retention, greater load, greater bringback, lower landing speed, and lighter weight. Pretty darn good tradeoffs compared to the F-18E/F's wing rock and angled speed brakes...errr...weapons pylons.
Second, the F14 didn't "age gracefully?" As I mentioned above, the last F-14 was built in 1990 and they continued to fly until 2007. The average age of our F-14A's in my last fleet squadron was 17 years and that was 1993. Also, if you think the F-14 didn't "age gracefully" don't forget the F-15 pilot whose airplane broke in half. Not a particularly "graceful event" and no F-14 ever did that. Even in 1993 we had to send wing sweep actuators (not an insignificant part since two of them are used to sweep the wings) off the ship and back to the States for hand rebuilding not just because there were none on the ship, there were NONE in the entire F-14 supply line. We were also constantly forced to rob parts from one airplane to fix another. Doing this crap means you more than double the maintenance time because every time you pull a part you risk breaking it or something else in the process. This was all happening already in the early 90's, I can't imagine how much worse this got 10 years later but how precisely is this the airplane's fault? Yeah, didn't age gracefully, right.
Third, the F35C. You claim the F35's sortie rate is "going to be off the scale." Really? This tells me that you know little about airplanes, less about maintenance, and nothing about contractors (or the F-22 for that matter.) Pratt & Whitney, the same company that built the wonderful TF-30-414A afterburning high-bypass turbofan engine for the F-14 that "caused 1/3 of all accidental airframe losses" (your words) can now make an engine that "won't break?" Wow. And Lockheed, who can't stay on schedule can build an airplane that doesn't break? You mean like the F-22 which has totally failed its availability metrics? OK, yeah, I believe you, no really, I do. Really.
Fourth, costs. The "Super" Hornet was sold to Congress as a modified F-18C/D and therefore cheaper to build. What a load of BS. It's basically a completely different plane with all of the developmental problems and expenses of a new airplane but then McDonnell Douglas needed to lie because they knew had competition. The Tomcat 21 would have retained the existing airframe and used the development work already done on the weapon system and engines for the F-14D. Not only would it have been cheaper but also more effective. Faster, longer ranged, bigger payload, heavier bringback and more maneuverable than the F-18E/F.
Fifth, where did I use 1974 dollars??? I mentioned the estimated costs of both the Tomcat 21 and Hornet 2000 in 1990 dollars versus what the "Super" Hornet actually costs because that's when the argument was taking place. The estimates for the F-35 are current dollars but you're going to tell me that we've had 300% inflation since 1990 so $200M per airframe is now reasonable? Now who's being silly?
Sixth, engines. These are your most woefully ridiculous statements. You're quoting some generalized statistics about F-14A's with Pratt & Whitney TF-30 engines and pretending they apply to the whole F-14 program. It's true, the TF-30s were a piece of crap and caused many mishaps in the F-14A but perhaps you're unaware of the F110-GE-400 engine in the F-14B and D which caused none of the problems the TF-30 caused, they fixed them and provided a ton of extra thrust to boot (actually, several tons additional thrust). Basically, this is nothing but a strawman set up using the faults of the TF-30 and pretending that it applies to either the F-14D or what would have been the Tomcat 21. Nonsense. You're also confused about the subsonic restriction. One F-14D was lost to a catastrophic engine failure during supersonic flight. The mishap was caused by the failure of the screech liner in one of the engines. No, the entire "fleet" was not limited to subsonic flight, just F110 equipped F-14B's and D's and only until they uncovered the problem. You appear to claim that in some way you were in a position to know all this stuff since you say "we lost," or, are you just implying that you "were there" to support your story? I say this because you not only appear unfamiliar with F-14 engines but also the fact that a catastrophic failure where no cause has been determined means it's kinda mandatory to restrict operations until you know what did it. If you were really "there" with actual insight into actual aviation you'd know that. Doesn't ring a bell, huh? Also, for someone so much "in the know" you seem to have missed the fact that at about the same time F-18's were also restricted but in this case, it was the entire "fleet". Hazard to guess why? Screech liner failure in their GE F404 engines. You don't even know what a screech liner is, do you? (Ah, I can hear the keyboard clattering away as you google it). You know none of this but buy into Pratt & Whitney's claim their new engine "won't break." BTW, the screech liner is the inner lining of the afterburner can and the problems were fixed for both the F110 and F404 engines.
Seven, you're seriously going to claim the F-14 was a "one dimensional fleet air defense fighter?" What year did you write this, 1980? First, it was an air superiority fighter and second, we started carrying bombs on the F-14A in 1987 and there were many improvements made over the years to give both the A and eventually the D greater capability including precision munitions but that's really completely irrelevant since the point was whether or not the Navy should have bought the Tomcat 21 or the Hornet 2000. Basically, it's just another of your strawmen. The Tomcat 21 would have had all of the Hornet's air to ground capability so the whole premis of your argument is moot. Also, where do you pull out 10 Billion $ as the cost to "upgrade the F14 fleet" and to what? Dude, what the hell are you talking about?
Let's bottom line this. VX-4 participated in wargames and studies comparing the Tomcat 21 to the Hornet 2000 and the Tomcat won every single test except for one, life-cycle cost. Even the F-14D beat the Hornet 2000 on mission effectiveness when given full precision weapons capability and AMRAAM (both easy to do with the existing weapon system architechture). And no, the life cycle cost problem wasn't maintenance, it was two aircrew versus one and the expense of recruiting, training, maintaining and paying RIOs. Also, if McDonnell Douglas had been honest about the costs in the first place the Tomcat 21 would probably have been a clean sweep over the Hornet 2000 even in life cycle costs.
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:ahand
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Been going on a long time.
(http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/uploads//monthly_06_2011/post-3212-1309138943.jpg)
Wow, what a neat photo. It almost looks like the refueling aircraft has to be in a constant dive and the receiving aircraft need be angled at a high AoA to maintain that formation.
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Wow, what a neat photo. It almost looks like the refueling aircraft has to be in a constant dive and the receiving aircraft need be angled at a high AoA to maintain that formation.
With props as tankers the difference in stall speed usually requires a slight descent to keep their speed up. Same thing happens when a jet refuels from a C-130. This picture looks a bit extreme though and it's pretty obvious that the camera is tilted.
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One thing that no one has mentioned yet in the F-35's favor is that most of them are being sold to foreign countries instead of being kept for ourselves (i.e. the US). The friendly world is helping finance the F-35, just upgrading a F-18 or some other already-existing aircraft wasn't going to make that happen. If we don't make the F-35, then all other nations get their new aircraft from Russia or Europe. Then we lose our expertise in making aircraft, and our "competitors" gain it. Making modifications to suit all those different countries is chump change compared to not doing it, losing our expertise, and not getting F-35 contracts. Making those modifications to suit foreign buyers more than accounts for all the modifications we'd need for our own Air Force, Navy, and Marine uses, so that's a non-factor. And I believe the economies of scale of making one airframe and selling (customized) versions of it to everyone (internal or external) almost certainly outweigh designing whole new aircraft customized for every role.
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Nice arguments all. :salute
This is what is needed, click on the picture of the f/a-24 shadowcat to see, it is beautiful to fly. ;) :rock
http://combatace.com/files/file/6920-fa-24-shadowcat-beta-10/
:bolt:
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One thing that no one has mentioned yet in the F-35's favor is that most of them are being sold to foreign countries instead of being kept for ourselves (i.e. the US). The friendly world is helping finance the F-35, just upgrading a F-18 or some other already-existing aircraft wasn't going to make that happen. If we don't make the F-35, then all other nations get their new aircraft from Russia or Europe. Then we lose our expertise in making aircraft, and our "competitors" gain it. Making modifications to suit all those different countries is chump change compared to not doing it, losing our expertise, and not getting F-35 contracts. Making those modifications to suit foreign buyers more than accounts for all the modifications we'd need for our own Air Force, Navy, and Marine uses, so that's a non-factor. And I believe the economies of scale of making one airframe and selling (customized) versions of it to everyone (internal or external) almost certainly outweigh designing whole new aircraft customized for every role.
That's all true but it still boils down to how many airframes are going to be bought. Each time the price goes up do a modification someone, somewhere, drops another two dozen airframes off their purchase (or threatens to cancel all together like Australia). Also, with Obama's half-a-trillion-dollar defense cuts kicking in next year they're already talking about what'll happen to the F-35. The options are scale back, delay or cancel. With the largest cut to defense spending in history upon us who knows what'll happen.
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Mace, I would differentiate between "aging gracefully" and "still being a capable performer"...
I believe the retirement of the Tomcat was hastened by a long string of crashes where otherwise perfectly normal Tomcats ended up going into the drink, and no reason was found other than age of the airframe? It seems (from an outsider perspective) that this sped up the retirement of the platform, and if I recall there were a couple of fleet-wide groundings trying to figure otu what happened.
So yes, while F-15s are aging as well, so were the F-14s. Each in their own way. Even the F-16s are so heavily patched with stiffener plates it's ridiculous. The only semi modern plane we have was the F-22 and it was cancelled. We need something new. Fresh off the production lines, with no stress on the airframes.
P.S. I wouldn't say that simply because you can put missiles on a plane that it is an air superiority fighter. Air Superiority is taking control of an entire airspace over enemy territory, denying them the ability to fly in that territory across a wide envelop of altitudes and speeds, and maintaining that superiority. The F-15 is by design an air superiority fighter. The F-18 by design was a "normal" fighter, so semantics aside I don't think it qualifies. It cannot dominate an air space either because of lack of range or lack of speed or what have you. It's a "fighter" -- but not a "superiority fighter." The Tomcat wasn't one either, being designed as a pure interceptor for nuclear bombers. Sure, they trained and practiced dogfighting, etc, and it could fire plenty of missiles, etc, but the desing wasn't "air superiority" per se. That is what I meant by saying the hornet wasn't an air superiority fighter. Fighter, sure, but air superiority? Nah.
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Fighter, sure, but air superiority? Nah.
I agree with all of you points Krusty. But the F35 ?? -Fighter, sure, but air superiority? Nah.
That applies here as well. How Mace described the F14 being able to beat threats like the SU27 etc applies still to the F35 really - it's lethality is all based off its senors and very capable weapons like the Aim9X etc. In terms of performance that you were just comparing the F18 with the F16 and F14, the F35 from what we've been given so far isn't going to "perform" any better than any of them. There are HUNDREDS of videos and articles with very well known aviation experts raving on and on about how it has no thrust, can't turn, can't run, can't bla bla bla. If even half of it is true, then it sure won't be an "air superiority" anything in terms of the airplane performing. It'll just be brand new (which I agree with you, is needed).
I thought a lot about what Mace wrote about the F14, and how if he had to engage one of these new super threats he wasn't too plussed about it as he seems to have supreme confidence in the ability to detect that threat first, and that the weapons available will kill it. Really, it makes perfect sense today. You don't really need to be able to pull 11 G's sustained in a 50 foot circle when you have a missile that will outperform ANY threat at any distance or airspeed. What is really needed then is the ability to ENSURE you get that first shot, so that enemy plane that is as good or better than your airframe is burning in pieces before it can prove that.
I for one am looking forward to the F35, as Canada has been flying the same time out F18's since 1982 or so, and we are down to about 60 that are up to modern standards, not counting our 2 seat trainers, plus 20 in war storage. While the F35 won't be the optimal fighter for flying way up here in all this huge arctic airspace protecting all of you Yanks from Russian bombers (yes you can laugh), at least it'll be brand new like Krusty said, and have some pretty crazy sensors and new weapons.
Personally, I think in ten years or so they'll have fielded a small airborne laser in that 100kw or whatever range they are going for and it'll just be PEW PEW PEW for air combat after that, and airplane performance won't matter so much as their speed and targeting capability for a directed energy weapon.
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Man, this is so full of it I don't know where to begin. I do first have to applaud the fact that you've put more nonsense into fewer lines than most people on this board are capable of and that's saying a lot. I could write a tome about all the things you have wrong here but I'll try to just hit a few of the wavetops here.
Maybe had you not started off the post like an fool we could have had a good converstion. Its true some F14s were upgraded to limited bombtruck upgrades towards the end of their service lives but that was never part of their intial design. F6s and F7s were a lot cheaper when the 14 came on line, an aircraft designed from the start to protect CVs from Soviet maritime strike aircraft and ATA dominance. At this role the Tomcats exceled but they were very expensive to maintain and it would have cost a fortune to upgrade the entire fleet to a true multi-role capability.
http://www.topedge.com/alley/text/other/bombcat.htm
The table below features full dates for each squadron. The F-14 "Upgrade" is a separate program but closely linked to the LANTIRN upgrade. It fits systems from the F-14D into F-14A/B's, providing them with a digital architecture, allowing the aircraft to carry advanced weapons such as Paveway III LGB's and in future types such as the JSOW (Joint Stand Off Weapon) and JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Weapon). Also upgraded is the RWR, the brand new AN/ALR-67. Bol chaff/flare launchers are fitted, increasing the number of expendables carried. Radar upgrades and a NVG compatible cockpit complete the "Upgrade".
Initially the Navy ordered 13 LANTIRN pods, since then at least another 25 have been ordered. As well as pods F-14's have been undergoing the modifications necessary for them to carry the pod. During 1997 pods and modified aircraft were in relatively short supply, thus they were transferred to squadrons on deployment, squadrons residing at NAS Oceana often had no aircraft modified for LANTIRN. As more aircraft undergo modification this need to transfer aircraft has slowed and will soon stop. The decision, early in 1997, to reduce the numbers of F-14's in the Fleet (due to higher than expected fatigue) has meant less airframes for modification and thus the program's completion earlier.
With it's long range and ability to carry (and if needed bring back) a heavy load of ordnance the F-14 has become the carrier's deep strike platform, in effect replacing the A-6. Although not a true all weather platform (the FLIR's effectiveness is downgraded by cloud or rain) the F-14 is highly effective in the self-escorted strike role, leaving the shorter ranged F/A-18's to carry out missions closer to the carrier. In theory the F-14 will be replaced by th F/A-18E/F, but even that will not have the same range in strike missions (475nm for the F/A-18 compared with the F-14's 650nm). The Bombcat was recently called upon to remind Saddam Hussein of the consquences of defying the UN, aircraft from VF-211 and VF-102 flying missions as part of the Southern Watch operation over Iraq.
The F-14A has a long history of accidents and has been grounded at least twice since it was introduced to fleet service in 1973. Pilots have criticized its TF-30 engines as underpowered and unreliable and complained that the two-seat fighter is difficult and dangerous to fly at low speeds and low altitude.
There have been 110 "Class A Mishaps"-those with fatalities or million-dollar-plus damage, or both-involving the F-14A and more than half of them took place during landing approaches.
According to the Pentagon, all production versions of the F-14A last year had a rate of 5.76 Class A mishaps per 100,000 flying hours, more than double the 2.07 rate per 100,000 hours for the more modern F/A-18 carrier fighter the Navy also uses.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-02-28/news/9502280127_1_kara-hultgreen-engine-failure-uss-abraham-lincoln
Maybe next time reply like an actual human being and we can have a legitimate, respectful discussion. The maintenance issues and costs of the F14 fleet wasnt exactly a secret.
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What i find comedic about all of this is the military is already testing "and has for years" long range missiles that can go mach 5+ and hit any target by VISUAL tracking from half a world away. "with precision so precise alot of them are "iron heads and use kinetic impact only"
What is also funny is the fact we use a joint tracking system for everything, everything is connected to everything else, if one see's it, everything see's it, and if ones on the ground,ones in space,and ones in air,then you have a three way tracking of all angles,speed and heading. (Land,sea,air,space)
WE "the united states" already know there is no such thing as "pure stealth" When you have something the size of a bird, or golf ball moving at 800+ mph at 30k and higher you can bet your bellybutton its not a bird.
Hell ask any "fighter pilot" these days and they will tell you one thing, we aren't (fighter pilots), we are buss drivers..and the payload is our passenger's. We take off, fly to a target.. press a button and fly home, that's that. Its the same reason no one should fear the newest Russian and Chinese stealth fighters, or the "can turn on a dime and stall to do amazing moves!" they are so well known for. Its always a moot point when a thrust vectoring aim9-x is locked onto you by 3+ targets all telling that missiles EXACTLY what said target is doing. Russian's & chinese should invest in ONE thing,and one thing only. A ejection seat that can get there pilot out of THAT aircraft ASAP should any missiles launch or hostile action is detected. because that's EXACTLY what they will need to save there fighting forces arse's.
:Edit: Lets not even forget the fact we have been pioneering in stealth missile and bomb tech for a long time as well. (1954-60 and on)
The f-22 & F-35 will simply be one thing, weapon delivery systems.
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It seems like Richie wants his :ahand handed to him by Mace again.
I wonder who's gonna win this bout...the blowhard or the guy that has real world experience flying the Tomcat?
ack-ack
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P.S. I wouldn't say that simply because you can put missiles on a plane that it is an air superiority fighter. Air Superiority is taking control of an entire airspace over enemy territory, denying them the ability to fly in that territory across a wide envelop of altitudes and speeds, and maintaining that superiority. The F-15 is by design an air superiority fighter. The F-18 by design was a "normal" fighter, so semantics aside I don't think it qualifies. It cannot dominate an air space either because of lack of range or lack of speed or what have you. It's a "fighter" -- but not a "superiority fighter." The Tomcat wasn't one either, being designed as a pure interceptor for nuclear bombers. Sure, they trained and practiced dogfighting, etc, and it could fire plenty of missiles, etc, but the desing wasn't "air superiority" per se. That is what I meant by saying the hornet wasn't an air superiority fighter. Fighter, sure, but air superiority? Nah.
Semantics are important. There is a defined difference in the U.S. military between "air superiority" and "air supremacy". Air Force doctrine is built around "air supremacy", whereas U.S. Navy doctrine is built around "air superiority". "Air superiority" is defined as: "That degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another that permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by opposing air forces." "Air supremacy" is defined as: "that degree of air superiority wherein the opposing air force is incapable of effective interference." The Air Force tries to dominate airspace in a manner that allows aircraft like cargo planes, air refuelers, command and control aircraft, attack aircraft, etc. the ability to operate unhindered, requiring no escort, etc. Air superiority means that the air dominance, as mentioned, is temporary, localized, and eventually that chunk of airspace reverts back to neutral or enemy control. So in that sense, the F-18 could be considered an effective air-superiority fighter in that its limited range, weaponry, and performance is sufficient to accomplish local air superiority that allows whatever mission to be accomplished, before the entire friendly force withdraws. Escort missions, for the most part, aren't even in the Air Force lexicon, because in a air supremacy doctrine, they're unnecessary. Escort missions, on the other hand, are a fundamental part of Navy aviation operations, because in air superiority doctrine, you only intend to control airspace temporarily.
EDIT: The F-15 was designed as a "air supremacy" fighter--that's its role. The F-22 was designed as a "air supremacy" fighter. Naval aviation isn't doctrinally tasked, organized, nor equipped for air supremacy. Its aircraft reflect this, as does the Air Force's. This type of language is extremely important (and I can't stress this enough) in the way each service approaches its assigned mission. These doctrinal differences even conflict in areas, which leads to misunderstandings between the services about how each does its job, and how to interact, regardless of whether or not senior military leadership or the civilian leadership is cognizant of it.
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Maybe had you not started off the post like an fool we could have had a good converstion. Its true some F14s were upgraded to limited bombtruck upgrades towards the end of their service lives but that was never part of their intial design. F6s and F7s were a lot cheaper when the 14 came on line, an aircraft designed from the start to protect CVs from Soviet maritime strike aircraft and ATA dominance. At this role the Tomcats exceled but they were very expensive to maintain and it would have cost a fortune to upgrade the entire fleet to a true multi-role capability.
Maybe next time reply like an actual human being and we can have a legitimate, respectful discussion. The maintenance issues and costs of the F14 fleet wasnt exactly a secret.
Fair enough but maybe next time you don't jump into a conversation and start an argument about something that is 1) not what I said and 2) irrelevant. Do that and I will be happy to respond differently but I will apologize if I came off ticked, because, quite frankly, I was. After decades of hearing the same old recycled claptrap and myths about the F-14 vs F-18 debacle I do get short fused. Sorry if I went overboard on you.
Here, respectfully and like an actual human being are my final comments.
What I was trying to explain is that you're mixing apples and oranges. The discussion was not about a stopgap measure to give precision air-to-ground capability to old F-14s (the program you refer to was called "Quick Strike"), the reliability of 15-year-old Tomcats, or how crappy the TF-30s were (Apples) but rather whether the Tomcat 21 or Hornet 2000 was the better plan for a future Naval strike/fighter aircraft after both the Navy's NATF (Navy version of the F-22) and A-12 (A-6 replacement) programs were cancelled (Oranges). Yes, two-decade-old airframes, even "upgraded" but still old ones, are extremely hard and expensive to maintain but new ones are not and there was simply not that big of a difference between new-construction aircraft. Quick Strike was a stopgap program to upgrade old airframes that came about AFTER the Navy chose the Hornet 2000 over the Tomcat 21, it never was an alternative to the Hornet.
You are absolutely correct that engines were a huge problem but the problem was limited to F-14A's with TF-30's, not D's with F110's and, with a couple of exceptions (principally about Hultgreen's mishap but that's another subject), the article you link to describes it well. The F110 engine had none of these problems and was a joy to fly.
My assertion is simple. The Navy made a huge mistake in building F/A-18E/F rather than an F/A-14E. I didn't say a thing about upgrading existing F-14 airframes and accepting the maintainability issues of old airframes. If that were what I was saying then you have a point but nowhere did I say or intend to say that the Navy should have simply upgraded existing airframes rather than buy Super Hornets. New construction F/A-14E's with the capabilities and internal redesign based on Grumman's Tomcat 21 concept would have given us far greater capability than the F/A-18E/F at only slightly higher maintenance costs (it would still have wingsweep). In the end, development of an F/A-14E would have been cheaper than the Super Hornet because so much work had just been done on the F-14D. It would have been cheaper to flight test and produce because the airframe would have stayed the same (with the possible exception of an expanded glove area).
An F/A-14E would have been even better with the F110-GE-429 engines which would have given an additional 4k to 5k lbs of thrust over the F110-GE-400's in the F-14D. A full Monty Tomcat 21 (there were actually several proposed Tomcat 21 packages) would have been a true 4.5 generation fighter with fly-by-wire, AESA, greater maneuverability, more thrust, more fuel, and even greater range, payload and speed and been still been cheaper than the F/A-18E/F.
:aok
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Mace, I would differentiate between "aging gracefully" and "still being a capable performer"...
I believe the retirement of the Tomcat was hastened by a long string of crashes where otherwise perfectly normal Tomcats ended up going into the drink, and no reason was found other than age of the airframe? It seems (from an outsider perspective) that this sped up the retirement of the platform, and if I recall there were a couple of fleet-wide groundings trying to figure otu what happened.
So yes, while F-15s are aging as well, so were the F-14s. Each in their own way. Even the F-16s are so heavily patched with stiffener plates it's ridiculous. The only semi modern plane we have was the F-22 and it was cancelled. We need something new. Fresh off the production lines, with no stress on the airframes.
P.S. I wouldn't say that simply because you can put missiles on a plane that it is an air superiority fighter. Air Superiority is taking control of an entire airspace over enemy territory, denying them the ability to fly in that territory across a wide envelop of altitudes and speeds, and maintaining that superiority. The F-15 is by design an air superiority fighter. The F-18 by design was a "normal" fighter, so semantics aside I don't think it qualifies. It cannot dominate an air space either because of lack of range or lack of speed or what have you. It's a "fighter" -- but not a "superiority fighter." The Tomcat wasn't one either, being designed as a pure interceptor for nuclear bombers. Sure, they trained and practiced dogfighting, etc, and it could fire plenty of missiles, etc, but the desing wasn't "air superiority" per se. That is what I meant by saying the hornet wasn't an air superiority fighter. Fighter, sure, but air superiority? Nah.
Krusty, if you check out my last post I think I answer your question about the airframe. Yes, old airframes are high maintenance, there's no doubt about it. What I object to is the overly simplistic point of view that, by definition, the F-14 was hard to maintain. The problem was that the last airframe was produced in 1990 and we didn't even procure the airplane fast enough for the 10 years before that to keep the average age of the fleet down before production ended.
As for "air superiority" Stoney describes the doctrine well but the issue of what is or isn't an "air superiority fighter" is an interesting discussion. First, you have to remember that air superiority is a mission, not a fighter. The same is true for interceptor and fleet air defense. Sure, some airplanes are optimized for a particular mission (some may actually limited to that mission) and become known for that role but the F-14 could do all three missions easily because it was the most flexible fighter in the world. The swing wing (pure freaking magic), ability to carry Phoenix, Sparrow and Sidewinder, a gun and awesome radar made for an exceptional package and arguments to the contrary are specious. Second, air superiority vs air supremacy is a numbers game. A CVN doesn't carry enough fighters to establish and maintain air supremacy over a broad area say, like Iraq. The Navy's more limited numbers of fighters means it establishes air superiority, more correctly local air superiority for a limited period of time. All of this obviously becomes easier the more CVN's you have in the area because, as I said, lot's of it is simply a numbers game.
So, what missions could the F-14 do well? Actually, all of them and it did them very well.
Fleet air defense mission? Of course because the F-14 had the range and endurance plus the AWG-9/APG-71 and Phoenix missile. Was it just a fleet air defense fighter? Absolutely not. The Navy experimented with two other options designed solely for Fleet Air Defense, one of its own volition and the other was forced on it. The F-6 Missileer was designed in the late 1950's and was a straight wing plane that looked similar to the A-6 without the sexiness (jk, the A-6 was an ugly crate also). All it was to do was to hang around on a CAP station carrying a bunch of missiles to defend the fleet but was slow and that was all it could do so it was dumped. The crew even sat side-by-side so they could hold hands. In other words, it wasn't a fighter. The failure of the F-6 led to F-8 Crusader then the F-4 Phantom, both true fighters although the F-4 was more of an interceptor. When the F-4 needed replacement SECDEF mandated that the Navy would use a version of the F-111. The crew also sat side-by-side holding hands but the F-111 was at least fast. Unfortunately it was huge, couldn't turn, and had lousy visibility. In short, although the USAF calls anything that isn't a tanker or a B-52 a fighter, the F-111 was not a fighter. It probably could have served as a Navy bomber if it weren't huge but that wasn't needed because the Navy had A-6's and A-7s. The Navy knew it needed a fleet air defense fighter that could hang out on station and Grumman designed them one.
Interceptor? The F-101, F-104, F-4, F-106, etc., were all interceptors. They could get there quickly but couldn't turn worth a darn because they had wings optimized for speed, not lift. The Navy needed an interceptor that could launch straight off the deck and haul balls to a long-range target and kill it with forward quarter, beyond-visual-range missiles. Grumman designed them that to.
Air superiority? Download the Phoenix rails and load up four Sparrows and four Sidewinders and the F-14 could turn with most anything out there and was competitive against the F-15 (which also carried four Sparrows and four Sidewinders). Yes, I know some will object and there are a couple of caveats to the F-15. The F-15 could out turn the F-14 at high altitude because that's where the F-15's wing was optimized to fight; however, the F-14 could out turn it at low altitudes where low Mach meant we could get our wings out. Even with the TF-30's we did well because the F-14 maintained E much better with the high-aspect-ratio wings (out of course). With F-110's it was eye-watering. So yes, Grumman built that also.
The F-18E/F? Hummmm. I agree with Stoney. It's basic role is self-escorted attack but leave off the bombs, drop the two inboard pylons, upload a single centerline tank, AMRAAM and AIM-9X and sure, it could do the air superiority mission. Because it's slower I'd say it's not as good for either fleet air defense or interceptor. Defending a CV battle group against incoming supersonic bombers and missiles means you need to get places quickly or stay on a long range CAP for an extended period of time neither of which the E/F excels at.
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187 F22s were delivered and the line was "mothballed" so they can resume production easily.
USA has all the F22s they will likely ever need.
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Fair enough but maybe next time you don't jump into a conversation and start an argument about something that is 1) not what I said and 2) irrelevant. Do that and I will be happy to respond differently but I will apologize if I came off ticked, because, quite frankly, I was. After decades of hearing the same old recycled claptrap and myths about the F-14 vs F-18 debacle I do get short fused. Sorry if I went overboard on you.
Well at least your not one of Ack-Acks tools, "does he have any left"?, so we'll move on respectfully.
Dont take things so personally. The only point I was making was the decision to cut off the Tomcat was one based on cost and mission projection. It was a hard sell looking around for enemies, at the time, to justify the $$ needed to both upgrade and build new Tomcat airframes at the time.
You can say whatever you want back. It wont "tick me off". I promise.