Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Wildcat1 on February 28, 2012, 12:12:38 PM
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Hi all, my apologies if this would be better off in the o'club.
I realize the F-35 is not replacing the super hornet in the navy, rather replacing the legacy hornets. I also realize the F-35 and F/A-18E will have two different roles in the navy, but my question is would replacing the hornets with F-35s really be more effective than upgrading the hornet fleet to super hornets?
Sure, the JSF has some real advantages over the super hornet, such as low-observability, internal weapon stores, AESA radar and a more efficient engine, but there are also some stark disadvantages.
-the JSF has low-observability features, but the huge engine with a huge afterburner will light up on IR trackers
-the fact that it is a single engine aircraft could limit It's capabilities in carrier operations.
-the JSF has a thrust/weight ratio of 0.94 while the super hornet has a thrust/weight ratio of 1.15. This means that the super hornet is better in the vertical, can sustain sharper turns without losing energy, and recover from stall speeds quicker.
-the substantial cost of this project makes the unit cost of the JSF very high. Around 3 super hornets can be bought for one JSF.
What do you think would be the Navy's best option?
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Cheapest options? Drones.
Most effective option? Upgrade the FA18 even more.
Balanced option? Mix of F35 and FA18.
Most expensive option? Convert F22s into carrier capable planes.
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F-22s are probably going to end up being cheaper than the F-35s lol their price is rising and rising...
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buy raphales :P
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The super hornet is a dead end. You might as well claim that upgrading F-15s would make them a viable replacement for F-22s because they cost less.
Yes, maybe they will, but they still won't have the capabilities and performance, nor will they have the integrated features/functions that the new airframe has which will allow it to receive upgrades for 50 years to come.
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Given the ongoing problems getting the F-35C carrier qualified, this may be a moot discussion. There was a 100% failure rate in the last rolling hook engagement test in front of Pentagon inspectors. Depending on who's blog you read, it's either a minor problem or a major one so the next few months will be interesting.
Here's a link to a good description of the problem.
http://rt.com/news/f-35-design-flaw-917/ (http://rt.com/news/f-35-design-flaw-917/)
Here's the text of the problem.
"A design flaw in the US Marine Corps version of the F-35 Lightning II, which prevents it from landing on an aircraft carrier, could see the highly advanced vehicle grounded indefinitely.
The F-35C, also known as the carrier variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (CV JSF), is one of several fifth-generation fighters developed under the JSF program. New documents reveal that the aircraft has a crucial flaw, which could prevent it from ever being able to land on a vessel.
A Pentagon Concurrency Quick Look Review (QLR) of November 2011 says that all eight run-in/rolling tests undertaken at NAS Lakehurst in August 2011 to see if the F-35C could catch a wire with the tail hook have failed. The tail hook is meant to catch one of several wires stretched across the deck, after which a special arresting engine kicks in to quickly slow the aircraft down.
In the case of the F-35C, the decades-old trick doesn’t work. The tail hook is located too close to the main landing gear, so the springs supporting the arresting cable don’t have enough time to raise it after the wheels run over it for the hook to engage.
In fact, the F-35C has the shortest distance between the tail hook and the wheels among a dozen past and current aircraft deployed by the US Navy, the report says, making the CV JSF “an outlier.”
The flaw seems to be inherent to the design, and engineers simply cannot relocate the hook without a major overhaul of the construction, which is likely to be too costly for today’s cost-conscious Pentagon. At the same time, Lockheed Martin, which produces the F-35, said as early as 2007 that all variants of the vehicle were “mature and ready for production.” "
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cMr5OCfm618/Tu60NyM_2UI/AAAAAAAABn4/z9lX9xMqku0/s1600/F-35+Hook+vs+Wheel+Height.jpg)
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The current proposed solution is to modify the design of the hook to keep the hook point closer to the deck and below the center-line of the arresting cable.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-snJZR7orgJk/TurXfH_aX1I/AAAAAAAABno/xOotNBWCOFI/s1600/f_35chooksideviewgraphic_566.gif)
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That's very old news, and the article biased. There's a ton of press trashing this thing at any chance they can. They conveniently forget other super-successful aircraft with very long careers that had their own developmental problems.
F-8 Crusaders spinning into the water on takeoff, anybody? Surely an inherrent design flaw, unfixable, right? Nope... Put a couple fins under the back end and you have "The Last of the Gunfighters" that saw service with the French until just recently.
What plane was it where they made the catapult tow bar too short to reach the actual deck? F-14?
These things happen. They get fixed. It's far from an unfixable problem, and they could easily move the hook if they needed to. It would just show up on successive production models, not existing ones. They are incorporating TONS of fixes to the production lines as they continue these flight tests. The production models later on will actually have dozens upon dozens of enhancements and improvements, from the internal wing braces that connect to the fuselage, to certain types of skin construction at points that flex, etc.
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LOL Krusty you are so funny some times! :rofl
There are legitimate concerns about the F-35 program and it's ability to meet it's objectives in a cost effective manner. I have a relative who's a former professor of Acquisition at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, not to mention her 30 years as a Naval Officer. So I tend to believe her opinion about how the government (and the Navy) is viewing the procurement process.
Just to be clear, I am not advocating going with the Super Hornet only that the F-35C is facing some significant challenges to getting acceptance. If you look at the history of joint service aircraft development you can see that there have been few good programs and several bad one's. Not that it can't be done, but for every F-4 program there are 2 F-111 programs.
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There ARE concerns, yes... But who is concerned and why? That's another matter... Most of the concerns were brought about by the folks running the oversight rather than the aircraft itself. I won't stir up a mess about the size and scope of the project and contracts, etc, but a lot of the delays have been self-inflicted by the same folks complaining of delays.
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buy raphales :P
LOL didn't you see what happened when the USAF tried to buy some airbus refueling planes?
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has any mil aircraft ever come in on time and on budget? or any mil procurement? or for that matter, any big govt project? :headscratch:
edit: I might put a bet on the RN navalising the typhoon at this rate :bhead
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has any mil aircraft ever come in on time and on budget? or any mil procurement? or for that matter, any big govt project? :headscratch:
edit: I might put a bet on the RN navalising the typhoon at this rate :bhead
I think during the war as well as some Skunk Works projects. Anyone know of any others?
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hehe skunkworks ... I'm not sure black budget projects count since, well, we dont know what the budgets or deadlines are :headscratch:
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hehe skunkworks ... I'm not sure black budget projects count since, well, we dont know what the budgets or deadlines are :headscratch:
Do you know of any other way the govt ever gets anything done or paid for on time?
Back when I was a mechanical contractor we would usually be the only bidder on federal projects because it took at least 12 months after the agreed upon date to get paid.
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Kusty I was wondering where you got your information that your opinion is based on?
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I do not know much about the F35, but most of the reports I am seeing bashing it are from media journalists who really don't know anything about planes except that they have wings and go fast.
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Hopefully Mace sees this and can weigh in...
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I do not know much about the F35, but most of the reports I am seeing bashing it are from media journalists who really don't know anything about planes except that they have wings and go fast.
Same people who can't tell the difference between a rock and an AK-47?
(http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic727643_md.jpg)
(http://www.gunslot.com/files/gunslot/images/63248.jpg)
(http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/data/2/US_AIR_FORCE_ID_CHART.jpg)
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Nevermind...
Great thread! :aok
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The F-35 is supersonic without AB as well and much cheaper on fuel. Doesn't matter toward purchase cost, but does matter to the pilot trying to make it to help a buddy, or trying to get home.
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I would caution government contractor's and others not to be drawn into this obvious attempt at data mining .
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It is absolutely amazing that Krusty is such an all around knowledgeable fellow when it comes to everything aviation. Be it pre-production fighter aircraft, prototypes, one offs, or full fledged production, Krusty claims knowledge about all. Hell, he is so knowledgeable that he knows more than most people that were involved in the actual history!
BTW, a few years back, he was an avid arborist that had two year old 80 foot tall evergreens in his back yard!
Yeah Krusty!
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It is absolutely amazing that Krusty is such an all around knowledgeable fellow when it comes to everything aviation. Be it pre-production fighter aircraft, prototypes, one offs, or full fledged production, Krusty claims knowledge about all. Hell, he is so knowledgeable that he knows more than most people that were involved in the actual history!
BTW, a few years back, he was an avid arborist that had two year old 80 foot tall evergreens in his back yard!
Yeah Krusty!
Sounds like a really great guy! I wish I knew everything aviation related. ;) Would save me a lot of effort trying to become a Navy aviator.
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The Mexican side of me is to lazy to dig it up but Mace already addressed this topic in another thread about a month or so ago.
ack-ack
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The Mexican side of me is to lazy to dig it up but Mace already addressed this topic in another thread about a month or so ago.
ack-ack
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,325723.0.html
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http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,325723.0.html
That's what I was looking for! Thanks
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The Mexican side of me is to lazy to dig it up but Mace already addressed this topic in another thread about a month or so ago.
ack-ack
There is a time to prove Jeremy Clarkson wrong, and there is a time to ignore what he said in the first place.
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My background is two decades plus of sheer, straight in-your-face politics. Both the F-35 and the F-22 should have been cancelled in the 90's. They live because of lobbyists like me. END OF DISCUSSION!!! Period!
Next subject...
Boo
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IMO, the best solution would be to upgrade the existing F/A-18 fleet as far as possible (upto and including thrust vectoring and canard wings if viable and effective, similar to the F-15 S/MTD) to both improve preformance and extend their usefull service life so we have a bit of time to take a good long look at where we want to go with the F-35C.
If that turns out being nowhere, then scrap that project, and go back to the drawing boards. Wouldn't be the first time the USA abandoned a project like that.
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There is a time to prove Jeremy Clarkson wrong, and there is a time to ignore what he said in the first place.
I'm allowed to poke fun, goes with the territory.
ack-ack
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I'm allowed to poke fun, goes with the territory.
ack-ack
Excellent point <S>
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Some folks don't know what a malcontent and troll Bodhi is. They're new and haven't had the displeasure to experience it.
I've been following a number of discussion threads on the F-35 in other forums and some of them quite lengthy (90 pages+) and some including current pilots (one forum has a current day F-22 pilot that chimes in at times). The majority of all the negative press on this plane is unjustified. There are a lot of egos being bruised, a lot of palms being greased, a lot of politicians posturing for their states (which is false posturing since THEIR STATE is creating jobs by helping build the thing) and the end result is the ****-storm of negative press. None of it means a hill of beans.
This WILL be our frontline fighter for a generation to come. That's already been decided. The rest is just Fox News and BS posturing. Don't believe me? Do the research yourself. Just don't take Bodhi's comments to mean anything.
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I have and I find you position lacking Krusty. It is far from certain that the F-35 will fill all the roles it was intended to. It may eventually, and it may do them well, but there are significant issues that need to be overcome. And those concerns are from people within the program office, not outside.
Modern defense programs are never a done deal anymore until the product has been delivered.
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So Baum are you suggesting that Canada should rethink it's purchase of F35's?
Of course we dont have a carrier so the inability to land on 1 is not a concern. :devil
It's been a huge debate up here but I think the decision has been made to go ahead with the purchase.
:salute
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Looks like they should of stuck with the Super Tom Cat. :noid
That being said, this is going to be a really BFD to the F-35 program, what a basic but serious goof on the aircraft designers.... I personaly thought the F-35 always seemed to short, stout and compact of an airframe for a work horse... but don't tell me my speculations are gonna start having sound justification now.
The F-18E is probabley gonna be around a lot longer now. The Navy was really going for focusing on equiping F-18F (they are leaning twords prefering nothing but two-seaters, it gets really busy up there these days) and F-18Gs (two-seat, Growlers, to replace the ancient outdated Prowlers) in the meantime, I've been told very recently they very strongly desire to get away from 1-seat configurations... so given that holds true and the F-35 didn't have any problems arise... they might still of been looking to replace it (or not relyed very heavily upon it as a work horse) as soon as deliveries began.
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So Baum are you suggesting that Canada should rethink it's purchase of F35's?
its ok for you guys, we've already thrown billions of £££s into its development :uhoh
btw is there anything else out there with the 35s capability? I'm not aware of any :headscratch:
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Just like a lot of things in life, everyone wants it perfect now now now. Not gonna happen. We are doing things with the F-35 that have never been done before. This will take time to do. The F-35C will be the first truely capable Stealth plane launched off the carrier. A amazing concept. but its going to take time to get everything correct. Things with the F-35 are not the same with conviential aircraft. So it will take time to modify and adjust to get it to work right.
The F-35 is no different from other aircraft in that it has growing pains. Out here at Edwards, we are hitting test points everyday and bringing this plane closer and closer to seeing service. Some days are good, some days are bad. My plane has been down over a month due to mods, but they want to make sure its all good before they give us the flight clearance we need to fly again. Who knows when we get it.
In the end, I guess I am saying just sit back and watch what is happening with the program. Watching a Aircraft mature is quite intresting to see.
My plane (AF-03) in formation with AF-02 and AF-04
(http://www.aviationnews.eu/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/F-35-USAF.jpg)
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btw is there anything else out there with the 35s capability? I'm not aware of any :headscratch:
Depends on what you're refering to. The F-22 is almost certinally a better air-superiority fighter. The F-15E is probably comperable as a strike aircraft. Clearly theres the F-18E/F for carrier opps.
But I don't think theres currently an aircraft out there that quite as versatile as the F-35 is.
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The F-35C will be the first truely capable Stealth plane launched off the carrier.
I just found this statement kind of funny.
"We're gonna launch this really stealthy aircraft that nobody can detect from this enormous freaking aircraft carrier !"
:lol
Carry on Gents. :salute
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I seem to remember the same gripes and whines back in the '70s and '80s with the F-16, F-15 and F-18. "It's over budget!", "It's not going to perform as planned!". They turned out alright... Better than alright in most respects, and outstanding in others.
Sheeple never change.
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I just found this statement kind of funny.
"We're gonna launch this really stealthy aircraft that nobody can detect from this enormous freaking aircraft carrier !"
:lol
Carry on Gents. :salute
Right....but after the aircraft launches you then have to track where it goes (hence the stealth) and then shoot it down, which part of the "stealth" makes it harder for infrared and radar seeking missiles.
Question, why is the paint in the pics different shades of grey around details?
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I just found this statement kind of funny.
"We're gonna launch this really stealthy aircraft that nobody can detect from this enormous freaking aircraft carrier !"
:lol
Carry on Gents. :salute
In a battle group that basically controls every inch of air and sea space, from sea bottom to atmosphere top, for 600 miles around it. And moves at 30+ knots while operating day and night. Yes, the USN CV/Battle group, a total failure as a weapons system. :huh
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Depends on what you're refering to. The F-22 is almost certinally a better air-superiority fighter. The F-15E is probably comperable as a strike aircraft. Clearly theres the F-18E/F for carrier opps.
But I don't think theres currently an aircraft out there that quite as versatile as the F-35 is.
I'll repeat - the versatality/usefulness of the F-35, by the time it's finally going to be delivered, is ALREADY starting to be seriously questioned - if for no other reason than its single-seat configuration and the limitiations already being had by existing fighter aircraft with that configuration, in active use, today. There's just too much s!@# going on up there for a single pilot to handle ontop of aviating, navigating and communicating these days - especially with those units assigned to CAGs.
OK, so it does have stealth, lets see how long/popular that flavor lasts after they develop the next greatest and coolest thing in military aviation - very very likely to be some comlpex high-tech deivce/system requiring idealy a weapons officer/back seater to effectively operate while flying and to use in combat.
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Depends on what you're refering to. The F-22 is almost certinally a better air-superiority fighter. The F-15E is probably comperable as a strike aircraft. Clearly theres the F-18E/F for carrier opps.
But I don't think theres currently an aircraft out there that quite as versatile as the F-35 is.
I agree, and I should have been more specific - similar performance, stealth, radar, bombload and most significantly of all a massive great gap in the middle of it for spooky stuff.
for every other role we could easily navalise the typhoon, but its ability to carry a huge generator and plenty of equipment for various C&C/weapon systems in a fighter is unique afaik. and by weapon systems I mean ECM/laser/microwave/EMP/other physics stuff, the kind of thing we cant hang off a hardpoint yet.
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Right....but after the aircraft launches you then have to track where it goes (hence the stealth) and then shoot it down, which part of the "stealth" makes it harder for infrared and radar seeking missiles.
In a battle group that basically controls every inch of air and sea space, from sea bottom to atmosphere top, for 600 miles around it. And moves at 30+ knots while operating day and night. Yes, the USN CV/Battle group, a total failure as a weapons system. :huh
Ugh... I know how it works fellas, just interjecting a little humor into your experten conversation. Lighten up.
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Question, why is the paint in the pics different shades of grey around details?
What details, can you explain a little more.
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I'll repeat - the versatality/usefulness of the F-35, by the time it's finally going to be delivered, is ALREADY starting to be seriously questioned - if for no other reason than its single-seat configuration and the limitiations already being had by existing fighter aircraft with that configuration, in active use, today. There's just too much s!@# going on up there for a single pilot to handle ontop of aviating, navigating and communicating these days - especially with those units assigned to CAGs.
That doesn't mean that the airframe itself isn't versatile, becuse it is. I don't think theres any other aircrame out there that can carry as many weapons in as many different combinations. That in and of itself gives the F-35 some inherent versatility and mission flexability that other airframes simply lack. Granted its overall usefulness is under question, I don't think the actuall versatility is.
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Just imagine Adonai getting out of the Death Rattlers only F-18E/F and handing him the keys to an F-35!
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Just imagine Adonai getting out of the Death Rattlers only F-18E/F and handing him the keys to an F-35!
:rofl
ack-ack
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Well if politics and fighting about hitting program requirements hadn't intervened, this would have been the Navy's first stealth aircraft.
(http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/A-12-Avenger-Fort-Worth.jpg)
It's funny that the lawsuit about the cancellation of the A-12 has gone all the way to the supreme court, and there's hardly any news coverage about it. The B&W is an artists impression, the lower images are of the full size mockup that was built.
Now I'm sure that Adonai must have flown this!
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So Baum are you suggesting that Canada should rethink it's purchase of F35's?
Of course we dont have a carrier so the inability to land on 1 is not a concern. :devil
It's been a huge debate up here but I think the decision has been made to go ahead with the purchase.
:salute
Wait what? We did? When? :huh
And :lol yes, no aircraft carrier, but we could just put a bunch of sheet metal on top of a barge, couldn't we? :D :bolt:
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Found this on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lPZDc8mzsY&feature=youtube_gdata_player (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lPZDc8mzsY&feature=youtube_gdata_player)
It was made by the media, so who knows how much of it is truth and how much is, well, horse-hockey, but it seems to me the capabilities of the F-35 will blow other airframes out of the water when it comes to true multi-role ability.
The fact that you can concentrate on both A/G and A/A threats simultaneously is incredible. Being able to have both feeds show up for the pilot at the same time I'm sure is going to save lives down the road.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y44lftPGWvM
Try this video out Wildcat. It was made by Lockheed Martin and was shown to us on our first day with the F-35.
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Every time I seriously sit down and think about the F-35, F-22, and B-2, all I can do is think about the Tiger, the Panther, and the Tiger II...
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That doesn't mean that the airframe itself isn't versatile, becuse it is. I don't think theres any other aircrame out there that can carry as many weapons in as many different combinations. That in and of itself gives the F-35 some inherent versatility and mission flexability that otherd airframes simply lack. Granted its overall usefulness is under question, I don't think the actuall versatility is.
When I think F35 I think single engined raphale with a cloak. Carry on :)
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Every time I seriously sit down and think about the F-35, F-22, and B-2, all I can do is think about the Tiger, the Panther, and the Tiger II...
Ask any surviving allied tanker what he'd rather be in...
"Tiger"
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Every time I seriously sit down and think about the F-35, F-22, and B-2, all I can do is think about the Tiger, the Panther, and the Tiger II...
Consider this:
No Middle Eastern air force has any more than 250 fighters in their inventory, and most of those are 3rd generation airframes.
China has at this time 110 examples of the J-11 (indigenous copy of the SU-27), and around 50 examples of the imported SU-27 and SU-30 airframes. They also have 190 examples of the J-10.
The most numerous fighter in their inventory? Just under 300 examples of the J-7, an advanced version of the MiG-21.
Russia, if you consider them a threat (which frankly I wouldn't, they like keeping their hands clean), has around 250 examples of the MiG-29, and around 230 SU-27s.
Absolutely these numbers go way up in times of crises, but if production can happen at the rate Lockheed Martin is claiming, we would have over 300 F-35s after just one year of production. Couple that with 187 F-22s and that is quite the formidable force.
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Some folks don't know what a malcontent and troll Bodhi is. They're new and haven't had the displeasure to experience it.
I've been following a number of discussion threads on the F-35 in other forums and some of them quite lengthy (90 pages+) and some including current pilots (one forum has a current day F-22 pilot that chimes in at times). The majority of all the negative press on this plane is unjustified. There are a lot of egos being bruised, a lot of palms being greased, a lot of politicians posturing for their states (which is false posturing since THEIR STATE is creating jobs by helping build the thing) and the end result is the ****-storm of negative press. None of it means a hill of beans.
This WILL be our frontline fighter for a generation to come. That's already been decided. The rest is just Fox News and BS posturing. Don't believe me? Do the research yourself. Just don't take Bodhi's comments to mean anything.
LOL, you want a tissue?
I am far from a troll when it comes to you. You are a serial know-it-all on these forums. You toss your supposed knowledge about absolutely everything aviation and history related and claim it as fact. Most times it is rebuked as an outright fabrication of your mind.
There is a reason that there is a Krusty scale when it comes to bullcrap on these forums.
One would think that with maturity, you would learn that you do not know everything. You obviously haven't. Instead of manning up and admitting you do not know everything, you attack the messenger. Just remember, that every time I see your nonsense, I am going to call it as such.
Oh, and one last thing, the F-35 is not guaranteed to be our front line fighter of the future. The country is bankrupt and people are looking at the cost over runs of the program and are asking serious questions especially since the costs are likely to equate that of the F-22, which was cancelled because it is so much more expensive than the F-35. LOL, what a joke. All it takes now is someone in a very powerful place to say no, we are not going forward and wasting anymore money.
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OK, so it does have stealth, lets see how long/popular that flavor lasts after they develop the next greatest and coolest thing in military aviation - very very likely to be some comlpex high-tech deivce/system requiring idealy a weapons officer/back seater to effectively operate while flying and to use in combat.
The next greatest thing might be the Chinese making 20,000 cheap drones that far outnumber the missiles we have to shoot them down.
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Ask any surviving allied tanker what he'd rather be in...
"Tiger"
I'd rather be in the sherman with 10x the numbers behind me...thats what he's getting at
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Some folks don't know what a malcontent and troll Bodhi is. They're new and haven't had the displeasure to experience it.
I've been following a number of discussion threads on the F-35 in other forums and some of them quite lengthy (90 pages+) and some including current pilots (one forum has a current day F-22 pilot that chimes in at times). The majority of all the negative press on this plane is unjustified. There are a lot of egos being bruised, a lot of palms being greased, a lot of politicians posturing for their states (which is false posturing since THEIR STATE is creating jobs by helping build the thing) and the end result is the ****-storm of negative press. None of it means a hill of beans.
This WILL be our frontline fighter for a generation to come. That's already been decided. The rest is just Fox News and BS posturing. Don't believe me? Do the research yourself. Just don't take Bodhi's comments to mean anything.
Here in Boise all the Bone-Heads that bought property off the end of an existing airport runway are now screaming how the increased noise of the F-35 will ruin their property value and quality of living. When I was a kid we lived a few miles from Williams Field Apache Junction Arizona. Back then the T-38's et al could freely fly over and sonic boom us without fear of public out cry. We all understood why they were training. As a kid i loved it. Made me dream of "The Right Stuff" guys we had been watching on TV & everyone was intrigued by what those brave men were accomplishing. We actually saw the X-15 fly over more than once. Good memories! Now people just yawn and gripe about selfish, inconsequential, Me Me BS!
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Some folks don't know what a malcontent and troll Bodhi is. They're new and haven't had the displeasure to experience it.
I've been following a number of discussion threads on the F-35 in other forums and some of them quite lengthy (90 pages+) and some including current pilots (one forum has a current day F-22 pilot that chimes in at times). The majority of all the negative press on this plane is unjustified. There are a lot of egos being bruised, a lot of palms being greased, a lot of politicians posturing for their states (which is false posturing since THEIR STATE is creating jobs by helping build the thing) and the end result is the ****-storm of negative press. None of it means a hill of beans.
This WILL be our frontline fighter for a generation to come. That's already been decided. The rest is just Fox News and BS posturing. Don't believe me? Do the research yourself. Just don't take Bodhi's comments to mean anything.
Bodhi has been restoring Warbirds. He is very well versed in most vehicles, especially winged aircraft.
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I'd rather be in the sherman with 10x the numbers behind me...thats what he's getting at
The issue is we don't nessicarily have to make that choice. Would you rather be in an M4 with 10x the number behind you, a Panther fighting at a rough 4:1 numbers disadvantage....... Or in an advanced US design like the M26 thats comperable to the Panther, but more expensive than the M4, with 6x the number behind you.
And I'm still for an extensive upgrade package to extend the service life of our more numerous and cheaper, if older, airframes. A bit like asking if you want to be in the M26 with 6x the numbers, a Panther fighting 4:1 disadvantage, or an upgunned and armored M4 with 9x the numbers.
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Its not so much about the quality of the tanks. Its about our ability to sustain them in the field. That was the German's weakness, not being outnumbered. I'll take 1 M1A1 versus 4 T-72s any day of the week in a match, but can we sustain F-22's and F-35's long enough to cull through the lower quality opposition? Its not just about getting missiles down range.
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Just like a lot of things in life, everyone wants it perfect now now now. Not gonna happen. We are doing things with the F-35 that have never been done before. This will take time to do. The F-35C will be the first truely capable Stealth plane launched off the carrier. A amazing concept. but its going to take time to get everything correct. Things with the F-35 are not the same with conviential aircraft. So it will take time to modify and adjust to get it to work right.
The F-35 is no different from other aircraft in that it has growing pains. Out here at Edwards, we are hitting test points everyday and bringing this plane closer and closer to seeing service. Some days are good, some days are bad. My plane has been down over a month due to mods, but they want to make sure its all good before they give us the flight clearance we need to fly again. Who knows when we get it.
In the end, I guess I am saying just sit back and watch what is happening with the program. Watching a Aircraft mature is quite intresting to see.
My plane (AF-03) in formation with AF-02 and AF-04
(http://www.aviationnews.eu/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/F-35-USAF.jpg)
Do those f-35s have their RAM on? Seems like you can see a lot of rivets and seams.
Guess it isn't needed in basic flight-test.
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I've got very few concerns about the plane's development problems as every single airplane ever built had to overcome problems....that's why it's called development. Flight test is specifically intended to uncover problems so they can be fixed. Sure, lots make a living by criticizing things that aren't quite right but then those same people usually don't understand what they're talking about and many have other motives. Burning holes in decks or a skipping tailhook sound like big deals to folks that don't understand the complexities and realities of aircraft development but these types of problems are almost always solvable either through engineering or procedure. Remember the original Hornet's cracking tails? Fixed with doubler plates at the fin root and strakes added to the leading edge extension. The F-14B/D burning holes in jet blast deflectors? Fixed by simply not using afterburner during a cat launch. Skipping tailhook? I'm guessing it'll be solved by some combination of these rather mundane fixes: redesign of the hook point, lengthen the entire tailhook assembly, adjust/change the tailhook dashpot, or change the approach speed to change the approach AoA and hook to eye distance. Will it cost money to fix? Sure it will but there is no such thing as a perfect airplane leaping directly from the drawing board to our CVN decks.
Unfortunately, I have far more confidence in the ability of American companies to produce superior products than I have in any American politician's ability to make rational decisions. The grim reality is that DoD is 19% of the national budget but is taking 50% of the cuts mandated by sequestration. We're already losing one CVN (technically not "officially" gone but for all intents and purposes it is) and they're rescheduling the production of new CVNs from one every four years to one every five. This will actually drive up the cost not only of the CVNs but of all the other ship work being done by our now very limited shipbuilding capabilities. In addition to the loss of CVNs they're already accelerating the retirement of many of our other ships as well as yet more reductions in force.
Of course, there's the little detail that the actual cost of the "low end" F-35 is now pretty much equal to the "high end" F-22 at about $200M per copy. Did the program guys and contractors lie when they first started development of this plane? No, probably not, but then they originally costed the thing out based on amortizing the development costs across the thousands of airplanes the government said it would buy. Do the program guys and contractors have a problem admitting the hole they're in? Yes, absolutely. Think of it this way. You're a contractor that sells a program to the government at a fair price but then the government decides it needs to buy condoms for union workers building unprofitable electric cars that nobody wants so it reneges on the deal and wants now to just buy half as many planes and, OBTW, they also want you to add in new capabilities X, Y, and Z all at the original fair price. You now have three choices; either eat the cost increases (which is nearly impossible with a program of this size), pass on the price increase to the government (and likely be accused of being a war profiteer and get the whole program cancelled), or you fudge and hope you get far enough into the program that it'll be considered "too big to fail." That is the unfortunate way that things are when dealing with the US Government. There are liars and cheaters on both sides of this equation but in my experience most of the problems are started by the government (i.e., politicians) that thinks a contract isn't binding but merely a list of suggestions (like the Constitution) while the defense contractors get far more than their fair share of the blame.
If Mace were making the call we'd be buying fewer cell phones for poor people and instead bite the bullet and continue with the F-35 but the bottom line here is the Navy probably isn't going to be able to afford it. I'd also guess the Marines are in the same boat with the F-35B. UAV's can't do the job and won't be able to for any reasonably foreseeable future so those of you suggesting that'll solve the problem can drop that idea. Try to do as much with a UAV as you can with a manned airplane and guess what? The development cost and price of each UAV will be close to the manned airplane although you do save some of the costs related to aircrew. Even there the savings are exaggerated since you still need to train the UAV operators to fly and fight even if they're not sitting in a real cockpit.
Unless something major happens in the government such as eliminating the $1 Trillion program known as Obamacare we're going to be buying "free" condoms rather than new jets.
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Sadly this poll will become useless probably by the end of 2012, because they'll be more remote controlled X-47 jet fighters than 109s made during WWII.
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I'd rather be in the sherman with 10x the numbers behind me...thats what he's getting at
I wouldn't. During the D-Day invasion two lone Tigers, cut off from their retreat, destroyed more than 80 attacking Shermans. They surrendered when they ran out of ammo. The Ronson/Tommycooker/rolling coffin/Zippo was a deathtrap against German armor.
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Sadly this poll will become useless probably by the end of 2012, because they'll be more remote controlled X-47 jet fighters than 109s made during WWII.
Good lord, no.
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Mace,
That is a great reply. I think some in this thread could learn from it with regards to informed opinion and conjecture.
While I agree that the military deserves the absolute best, I feel that we have gone beyond what we truly need as a free society. Please do not take that as support of cuts in any way shape or form as proposed. It is meant that our country needs more bang for our bucks and we need to be cost effective. Absolutely, our domestic expenditures are beyond ridiculous and out of control and they need to be reigned in, unfortunately we can't discuss what we think here as it becomes political and crosses that line, frankly, I miss the old boards, but hey, I don't own this playground.
What I think we need on the F-35 is a breather, and a realistic assessment from those in charge of the program with real consequences in they are wrong. What is the realistic cost of delivery per unit? This is a very responsible request as many nations have spent tremendous amounts of development capital based upon a unit cost that was far below what is currently advertised. As the per unit delivery cost rises, more nations are going to be forced to scale back acquisitions which in turn is going to drive up per unit costs. Where does that end? How much will we realistically spend per unit? Is 300 million per unit a more realistic cost? At that point is it not better to simply continue a scaled development of the F-35 and bring back the F-22 at a much cheaper per unit cost? I know the roles are different and the F-22 is not navalized (sp?) but at what point do we risk insolvency of the DoD budget to support the F-35 along with all the rest of the programs?
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I wouldn't. During the D-Day invasion two lone Tigers, cut off from their retreat, destroyed more than 80 attacking Shermans. They surrendered when they ran out of ammo. The Ronson/Tommycooker/rolling coffin/Zippo was a deathtrap against German armor.
And yet, they still lost the war because they would have things happen, like running out of ammo. A quality tank/plane is only as good as your ability to sustain it. My point, ultimately, is that if the darn things get so expensive that we can only buy half the number of airplanes to "replace" the ones we have now, we have just a bit more than 50% of the original capability, i.e. a more capable aircraft, but half the number to fly. Is one squadron of 12 F-35s as good as two squadrons of 24 F-18Es? Maybe in a straight up dog-fight--I don't know. But when you consider the logistics of them, and only having half the squadrons available to deploy, I think there's a point of diminishing returns in there.
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The Germans had no commonality at all in their armed forces; hundreds of different vehicles and different calibers. The F-35 is the exact opposite of this, providing a high degree of commonality between Air Force, Navy and Marine. The German army was strangled by air interdiction. Without it they would have thrown the allied armies back into the English Channel. Had the Allies had one tenth the number of a similar tank to the Tiger or Panther rather than using sergling Shermans they would have won more decisively and with far fewer crew casualties.
This is the last forum I'd expect to find advocates of the "quantity over quality" argument.
The net result of all of the deficiencies of allied armor was that advancing was much slower and more expensive in terms of tanks and infantry than it otherwise would have been. Five hundred burning British tanks at the end of the failed operation Goodwood made dramatic testimony to the disadvantages that inferior tanks brought on to the allies. Total allied armour causalities in Normandy were running at three times the German total. The tankers kept fighting but costs were extremely high and the men were losing confidence in their tanks, despite usually having superior numbers, artillery and air support.
"As we go now each man has resigned himself to dying sooner or later because we don’t have a chance against the German tanks. All of this stuff that we read about German tanks being knocked out makes us sick because we know what prices we have to pay in men and equipment to accomplish this."
Eventually the allies blasted their way out of Normandy with the aid of 3,300 planes dropping a total of 14,000 tons of bombs in three hours, literally obliterating anything in the path of the advance with a tonnage of bombs only exceeded by Hiroshima. Advantages in numbers, a willingness to take losses, and massive advantages in artillery, air support, fuel and supplies made it possible for the allies to advance in Western Europe and eventually win. However the inability to produce a tank that could take on the panzers on even terms and the terrible causalities that this caused in men and machines is something that should not be forgotten.
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The thing about quantity over quality as an argument is that it relies on the originating force being okay with losing thousands and thousands to get 1 objective. Stalin had no qualms with this, for example. In WW2 spin it how you will, we had the same mentality. "Throw men and equipment at it and hope they job gets done before you run out" doesn't work in the modern world -- at least not with military endavours.
The focus has changed from replacing troops/men to RETAINING troops/men. This is smart as it banks on the combined education they gather as they serve, and reduces overhead/training for replacements to fill in for casualties.
Philosophically speaking, that is...
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the swarm of drones scenario is exactly why the 35 will be useful in a way that all the other conventional fighters cannot be - guns and missiles will be almost useless against them, but a 35 with a DE weapon could keep swatting them out the sky til its loiter time is up ...
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The thing about quantity over quality as an argument is that it relies on the originating force being okay with losing thousands and thousands to get 1 objective. Stalin had no qualms with this, for example. In WW2 spin it how you will, we had the same mentality. "Throw men and equipment at it and hope they job gets done before you run out" doesn't work in the modern world -- at least not with military endavours.
The focus has changed from replacing troops/men to RETAINING troops/men. This is smart as it banks on the combined education they gather as they serve, and reduces overhead/training for replacements to fill in for casualties.
Philosophically speaking, that is...
But what I'm talking about isn't a quantity versus quality issue. I absolutely see the value in high-quality equipment. But there's a certain limit. In a high intensity conflict, we're going to lose aircraft, no matter how high quality they are, and some we'll lose because of the planes breaking, non-combat operational losses, etc. I'm just not sure that the reduction in aircraft we can buy (because of their extreme price) is going to support our operational need. I could be wrong. I have no doubt that the F-22/F-35 would defeat these obsolescing enemy aircraft individually, but it takes more than single combats to win. They have to be able to persist on the battlefield.
[edit] I suppose ultimately, what I'm saying is this: do we need the absolute highest technology available (F-22/F-35) with half the numbers, or a moderately high tech aircraft (say updated F-15/18) and keep the same numbers? Maybe Eagle or Mace could answer that, as I'm drifting out of my wheel house on this part of the discussion.
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Do those f-35s have their RAM on? Seems like you can see a lot of rivets and seams.
Guess it isn't needed in basic flight-test.
They all have LO (Low Observiable) on them. AF-01, AF-02 and AF-04 are not up to the standard that AF-03, AF-06 and AF-07 are at. AF-01, AF-02 and AF-04 are Flight Science birds in which they test out how the aircraft handles, IE; Max speed, Max G, weapon Pylon testing, Wet runway testing, and so on. AF-03, AF-06, and AF-07 are mission systems birds in which they test all the mission systems like Radar, DAS, and how stealty the F-35 is.
Yes, LO is needed in basic flight-test.
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can a F18/15 carry a MW generator inboard with all its associated systems, as well as an inboard weapons bay, while supercruising with the dar profile of a F117?
"fighters" stopped being fighters decades ago when they turned into weapons platforms. BVR missiles were the start, and that was almost 50yrs ago. working tech we have now makes almost everything youre used to obsolete, and its only going to be a few more years before its operational.
this is the C21st gents, keep up! :D
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Stoney, i think a big reason the F-22 will be effective is because its stealth. You can't hit what you can't see, and since we can shoot from beyond visual range, and shot from an aircraft thats really hard to detect on radar, they can't see us.
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While I agree that the military deserves the absolute best, I feel that we have gone beyond what we truly need as a free society.
Not sure what you mean here. Building what most people consider to be "absolute best" has served the US very well for decades but have we really built the very best airplanes we can without regard to cost? No, not really, but you do reach a point of diminishing returns as every plane has tradeoffs in the name of cost. Also, just to keep things in perspective, while the F-35 will probably have an actual per unit flyaway cost of closer to $200M versus the F-18E/F's $55M is this increase really extraordinary? The F4 Phantom had a flyaway cost of about $2M in the mid-sixties but the F-14A which came out in the early 70's cost $35M. In this case, the F-14 did absolutely everything better than the F4 even with the crappy TF-30 engines so was it worth 18 times the cost? It and the F-15 were the premier air superiority fighters in the world for decades, far longer than any other fighter aircraft in history so yes, history has proven that they were worth the expense.
It is meant that our country needs more bang for our bucks and we need to be cost effective.
Absolutely. The switch from twin to single engine is part of the attempt to be cost effective as is the single seat, both are compromises. I personally disagree with these decisions but there's no doubt they were intended to keep costs down. The unfortunate result will be the loss of some aircraft to engine failures and less effectiveness in high task load environments. It's unavoidable but I'm sure there's some number cruncher deep inside of the five sided windtunnel that has figured out that the loss of a few aircraft (and pilots) is cheaper than providing two engines and two aircrew. It's just the cold hard facts of life.
How much will we realistically spend per unit? Is 300 million per unit a more realistic cost?
The $200M figure I quote is based on studies of what the airplane will actually end up costing including amortized development costs and GFE. The Pentagon's program manager claims a much smaller cost of (IIRC) of something like $120M (which I don't buy). However, when you consider the difference in price between the F-4 and the airplanes that replaced it I think it's reasonable to consider a four time increase over the F-18E/F as realistic and acceptable. Of course whether or not it's affordable given the debt being racked up right now is a different question.
At that point is it not better to simply continue a scaled development of the F-35 and bring back the F-22 at a much cheaper per unit cost? I know the roles are different and the F-22 is not navalized (sp?) but at what point do we risk insolvency of the DoD budget to support the F-35 along with all the rest of the programs?
It's completely unrealistic to consider a navalized version of the F-22, it would be a completely different aircraft (even if it looks similar). The Navy planned to build it's own version of the F-22 in the late 80's. The F-22 came out of the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter) program when the YF-22 beat the YF-23. One of the reasons the YF-22 won was that it was more adaptable to being built as a carrier fighter called the NATF (Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter). I never saw the NATF concept itself but I did see its cockpit drawings while at VX-4 in 1990. Interestingly enough, it had a wing-sweep control. :rock If you look at the YF-22 and YF-23 it's pretty obvious that the YF-22 airframe was much more suitable to a swing wing than the YF-23 due to the way the air intakes pass upwards through the mid-fuselage area. Bottom line though is there would have to be major changes to the F-22 to navalize it and that program would also be as expensive as a totally new aircraft program.
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can a F18/15 carry a MW generator inboard with all its associated systems, as well as an inboard weapons bay, while supercruising with the dar profile of a F117?
"fighters" stopped being fighters decades ago when they turned into weapons platforms. BVR missiles were the start, and that was almost 50yrs ago. working tech we have now makes almost everything youre used to obsolete, and its only going to be a few more years before its operational.
this is the C21st gents, keep up! :D
The F-35 can't carry any directed NRG weapons of the sort you're talking about either nor can it supercruise. Yes, EMP generating bombs are possible (although almost as dangerous to our own aircraft as to the NME) but viable directed NRG weapons for aircraft are decades away and present tons of problems not the least of which is simple physics. Also, "fighters" stopped being fighters decades ago? Really? Lots of folks thought missiles meant the end of "fighters" in the 50's and early 60's which led to removal of the guns and the end of ACM training as the services focused on faster and faster missile-armed interceptors. The Navy's Ault Report proved the fallacy of that argument in the late 60's which led to the creation of TOPGUN and we've had real fighters ever since.
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But what I'm talking about isn't a quantity versus quality issue. I absolutely see the value in high-quality equipment. But there's a certain limit. In a high intensity conflict, we're going to lose aircraft, no matter how high quality they are, and some we'll lose because of the planes breaking, non-combat operational losses, etc. I'm just not sure that the reduction in aircraft we can buy (because of their extreme price) is going to support our operational need. I could be wrong. I have no doubt that the F-22/F-35 would defeat these obsolescing enemy aircraft individually, but it takes more than single combats to win. They have to be able to persist on the battlefield.
[edit] I suppose ultimately, what I'm saying is this: do we need the absolute highest technology available (F-22/F-35) with half the numbers, or a moderately high tech aircraft (say updated F-15/18) and keep the same numbers? Maybe Eagle or Mace could answer that, as I'm drifting out of my wheel house on this part of the discussion.
Those are all good questions but here's one you didn't consider. If you're limited in the number of aircraft you can put on a flight deck (and we are), quantity isn't an option, it's all about quality.
Also, for those arguing quantity vs quality it was supposed to have been Stalin that said "quantity has a quality of it's own." He certainly had a valid point but there are limits to quantity as well. Manpower to fly and maintain large numbers of airframes is a basic necessity and is even more expensive than the airframes themselves so thinking that building thousands vice hundreds of airframes is going to be cheaper is an incorrect assumption.
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Not sure what you mean here. Building what most people consider to be "absolute best" has served the US very well for decades but have we really built the very best airplanes we can without regard to cost? No, not really, but you do reach a point of diminishing returns as every plane has tradeoffs in the name of cost. Also, just to keep things in perspective, while the F-35 will probably have an actual per unit flyaway cost of closer to $200M versus the F-18E/F's $55M is this increase really extraordinary? The F4 Phantom had a flyaway cost of about $2M in the mid-sixties but the F-14A which came out in the early 70's cost $35M. In this case, the F-14 did absolutely everything better than the F4 even with the crappy TF-30 engines so was it worth 18 times the cost? It and the F-15 were the premier air superiority fighters in the world for decades, far longer than any other fighter aircraft in history so yes, history has proven that they were worth the expense.
What I was trying to allude to is that as a free society we have different costs and responsibilities that we have taken on that preclude us from having large numbers of and multiple systems of extremely expensive high tech and expensive weapon / observation / deterrent systems. Comparing costs to the the past is difficult and in many ways a recipe for disaster when going forward. In many ways, it is apples and oranges, sure it is based in dollars, but those dollars have very different values. Here nor there. We have to balance our systems costs and I think that as the future goes forward the costs are becoming prohibitive. In many ways we have to
Absolutely. The switch from twin to single engine is part of the attempt to be cost effective as is the single seat, both are compromises. I personally disagree with these decisions but there's no doubt they were intended to keep costs down. The unfortunate result will be the loss of some aircraft to engine failures and less effectiveness in high task load environments. It's unavoidable but I'm sure there's some number cruncher deep inside of the five sided windtunnel that has figured out that the loss of a few aircraft (and pilots) is cheaper than providing two engines and two aircrew. It's just the cold hard facts of life.
Cost effective is fine, but at the cost of risk to the aircraft makes the switch too much of a worry. I am very disturbed by the engine manufacturer's statements that the engine will not fail. That is arrogant and irresponsible especially considering the tolerances and requirements of these engines. As a member of the elite naval aviation community, you of all people understand the value we place upon survivability of our flight crews. I simply can not see the use of a very complex single engine system as being able to guarantee the redundancy to protect the investment in aircrew as well as very expensive aircraft. Taking the peacetime stats losses aside, imagine combat. You have been there in aircraft, I have not. What I do know about aircraft and especially jet engines and complex aircraft, they do not like damage. The logical conclusion is that combat losses will be much higher owing to a single engine configuration.
The $200M figure I quote is based on studies of what the airplane will actually end up costing including amortized development costs and GFE. The Pentagon's program manager claims a much smaller cost of (IIRC) of something like $120M (which I don't buy). However, when you consider the difference in price between the F-4 and the airplanes that replaced it I think it's reasonable to consider a four time increase over the F-18E/F as realistic and acceptable. Of course whether or not it's affordable given the debt being racked up right now is a different question.
I am of the same opinion and I used $300 million as a worst case scenario. The original cost per aircraft was supposed to be much lower than they are talking now. As cost of development and re-engineering goes up, the cost per unit goes up. That is going to impact the bottom line sooner or later for many nations beyond our own, especially with the EU's debt crisis looming. Several of those countries that are looking at major debt problems are also F-35 co-ventures. If they fall out, that means we pay an even higher cost per unit. Another though I am concerned about is life cycle cost of the airframe. With tech like this, it likely to be much lower than the legacy fighters. What do we do then, repeat this very cost intensive "arms race"?
It's completely unrealistic to consider a navalized version of the F-22, it would be a completely different aircraft (even if it looks similar). The Navy planned to build it's own version of the F-22 in the late 80's. The F-22 came out of the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter) program when the YF-22 beat the YF-23. One of the reasons the YF-22 won was that it was more adaptable to being built as a carrier fighter called the NATF (Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter). I never saw the NATF concept itself but I did see its cockpit drawings while at VX-4 in 1990. Interestingly enough, it had a wing-sweep control. :rock If you look at the YF-22 and YF-23 it's pretty obvious that the YF-22 airframe was much more suitable to a swing wing than the YF-23 due to the way the air intakes pass upwards through the mid-fuselage area. Bottom line though is there would have to be major changes to the F-22 to navalize it and that program would also be as expensive as a totally new aircraft program.
I am not suggesting the F-22 be navalized. It was meant that I did not believe it was possible. Interesting information though about the NATF. So, what do we do? I really do not have an answer, but I am concerned about our current direction. What I do worry about is that too much is being hung on the F35 being the "future". That attitude is likely to end up costing us through some concession in the long run.
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Its not just about quality. Its about sortie rate, survivability, reliability and precision of strike packages. The F-35C is going to have an extremely high sortie rate due to the reliability of its systems and ease of maintanance. Even the stealth coatings can be touched up with a paint brush now. The idea of sending a naval strike group in is to club the enemys vital sustems, the destruction of which will give us the air. Over the combat zone. Leaderships targets, air defence, communications, airfields, bridges...ect. It will resemble clubbing a baby seal more then it will dualing pistols at dawn. Or WW2 type air battles that last years. The opening days of a war with the US will see the enemy struck with thousands of precision munitions that will measure accuracy within feet. Thats the kind of war the F-35 is designed for.
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Mace you can probably answer this for me(a bit unrelated). While at KAF you see and hear a lot of planes taking off and coming in for landing.
I couldn't help but notice one thing, the difference in noise when an F16 or F18 is taking off/landing compared to a Raphael....The US planes were much louder, why is that?
I almost thought it could be the euros trying to save fuel...
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The F-35 can't carry any directed NRG weapons of the sort you're talking about either nor can it supercruise.
yes I should have said at supersonic speeds, not supercruise. but why cant the 35 be a platform for DEW? power isnt a problem (I would be amazed if the PTO shaft wasnt built into the design just as much for a generator as it was for the STOVL fan) and there are already lasers which have been succesfully tested for this role. certainly theres stuff to iron out, but all the pieces are there and Lockheed, Raytheon and others are putting alot of effort into making it work. I'd guess more like a decade than decades, which means at this rate it could enter service at the same time as the lightning ...
edit: I was being a little facetious about fighters, but the reality is that they are bomb trucks. It would interesting to see an inventory of what has been released in anger from hardpoints on NATO "fighters" over the last 30yrs, I doubt A2A weapons would even be 1% of it.
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In other news, the only plane with directed energy weapons is now grounded.
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Here in Boise all the Bone-Heads that bought property off the end of an existing airport runway are now screaming how the increased noise of the F-35 will ruin their property value and quality of living. When I was a kid we lived a few miles from Williams Field Apache Junction Arizona. Back then the T-38's et al could freely fly over and sonic boom us without fear of public out cry. We all understood why they were training. As a kid i loved it. Made me dream of "The Right Stuff" guys we had been watching on TV & everyone was intrigued by what those brave men were accomplishing. We actually saw the X-15 fly over more than once. Good memories! Now people just yawn and gripe about selfish, inconsequential, Me Me BS!
We already went through that down here. After a few years of nagging and complaining (and several court trips) the AFB agreed to "only use the runway in question when necessary". Waste of money and time. The AFB has been there much longer then their houses and they should have known and accepted the potential for noise. Several billboards around the area have a picture of an F-35 and "The Sound of Freedom" or "Freedom Has A Ring To It". I cant emphasize how much I appreciate the people that support the military around here.
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In other news, the only plane with directed energy weapons is now grounded.
Your talking about the 747 with a laser for shooting down missles?
I saw the reason for having it in the first place but on the modern battlefield it isn't really needed.
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Quality vs. quantity:
Quality stops gaining you an advantage once "superiority" is achieved. If you can defeat your opponent in every engagement you cannot defeat it more with a better fighter. If you have more fighters, you can defeat it in more engagements.
So it all depends on who is your opponent. Does the US have an opponent that can match it current fighters in quality or quantity? China may be the only country that can pose a threat to the US on a large scale and the advantage is still decisively on the US side. Everything else will not even require the full deployment of the current US fighters.
Quality gains meaning again when your fighter adds something new to the table, beyond improved performance. Stealth can be such a thing. In small scale conflicts, like Iraq or Afghanistan scales, the air superiority is complete and there is no danger of running out of planes due to AA losses. However, it is vital not to loose planes at all, not because it weakens you militarily, but because of the moral hit to your side. For example, the US could keep taking a few hundred dead per year without suffering any setbacks to its infantry capabilities. The public opinion on the other hand will shift again the continued operation - as it has with Iraq and Afghanistan. If stealth and increased reliability can prevent even a few losses that are negligible to the force, but significant to the moral, then it may be worth the added costs.
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Quality vs. quantity:
Quality stops gaining you an advantage once "superiority" is achieved. If you can defeat your opponent in every engagement you cannot defeat it more with a better fighter.
Sure you can. With an equal fighter you can engage 1:1. With a better fighter you can engage 1:2. With an even better fighter you can engage 1:3 etc. With Super Uber Invincible fighter you need one fighter per engagement.
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Sure you can. With an equal fighter you can engage 1:1. With a better fighter you can engage 1:2. With an even better fighter you can engage 1:3 etc. With Super Uber Invincible fighter you need one fighter per engagement.
Mace and Eagle, would you guys rather fly in the late-model U.S. fighters (F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18) 1 versus 1 with current and near-future threat aircraft, or 1 versus 3 with the F-22 and F-35?
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I am not sure but there are a ton of Mig-21s out there and I assume they would even outnumber our current 4th generation fighters.
So would it be something like a single F-22 vs 6 Mig-21s.
Would that kind of threat be manageable?
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manageable? 9/10 it should be carnage :uhoh
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Well, I did once listen to a Dutch F-16 shoot down a Serbian Mig-29 in about 30 seconds using AMRAAM, so perhaps its possible.
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I am not sure but there are a ton of Mig-21s out there and I assume they would even outnumber our current 4th generation fighters.
So would it be something like a single F-22 vs 6 Mig-21s.
Would that kind of threat be manageable?
Hell, one F-22 vs. six J-10s or J-11s would be more than manageable
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I am not sure but there are a ton of Mig-21s out there and I assume they would even outnumber our current 4th generation fighters.
So would it be something like a single F-22 vs 6 Mig-21s.
Would that kind of threat be manageable?
2 F-22's can succsfully engage upto 17 opponents, IIRC (at least based on military exercises).
I mean the only fighter we're even remotely likely to face thats comperable to the F-22 right now (on paper, anyway) is perhaps the Su-37, the Su-47, and maybe the Mig-35.
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The SU-47 was nothing but a prototype, Sukhoi ended the project after they won the bid to develop the PAK-FA.
I think down the line, you have to consider how countries like China or India will allocate their top-of-the-line fighters like the J-20 or MiG-35. My guess is that these fighters will be built or squirrel in small numbers at first, because it will probably take a lot of money to produce them. Because of these low numbers, they will probably only be used for defending the capital region. This doesn't mean the F-22 or F-35 won't face these aircraft, but the probability of it happening often in a major air war is less than most people think.
Also, consider the implications if nations rush these ultra-modern aircraft into service, as I see China doing with the J-20. Problems may arise in operational conditions that no one on the development team foresaw. This might lead to significant order reductions down the line. There's a reason it took over 15 years to develop the F-22, and another 10-15 years for the F-35.
America and her allies will for a long time be leaps and bounds ahead of the rest when it comes to aircraft development.
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I still think the possibility of a swarm of super cheap drones is being overlooked here. How would the f-35 or F-22 stand up to a 10:1 or greater ratio of super small cheap drones. Something that could be printed out for say $15 million a pop or less. In a case like this I can definitely see it being possible for quantity to overwhelm quality.
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Well it depend. How well do those drones stack up against a manned fighter? Are they equal to an Su-27? An F-15? An F-22? Less than that?
And in military exercizes, they found that a pair of F-22's could engage a group of 17 IIRC.
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Sure you can. With an equal fighter you can engage 1:1. With a better fighter you can engage 1:2. With an even better fighter you can engage 1:3 etc. With Super Uber Invincible fighter you need one fighter per engagement.
Well, this is not how it will work in real life. What will happen is this: once superiority is achieved there will not be any dogfights at all. The enemy will simply stop flying against you and concentrate on ground based anti air weapons. Making yourself even more superior is a wasted effort. This is why multi-role aircraft are important - once superiority is asserted you can use these planes for strikes. Pure fighters may achieve the superiority with better ease, but then they become useless.
F-35 can strike, but except for special missions, quantity is crucial for air strike efficiency. Next generation planes do not multiply the carried loads and by keeping a small quality force you loose on potential volume. Numbers provide defense against AA weapons by saturation and confusion, so the improved survivability of more modern planes is somewhat offset by that.
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Well it depend. How well do those drones stack up against a manned fighter? Are they equal to an Su-27? An F-15? An F-22? Less than that?
And in military exercizes, they found that a pair of F-22's could engage a group of 17 IIRC.
Never believe these claims that come out of studies and exercises. They are usually conducted either buy or with the military but the results are turned over to political people. By "political" I don't necessarily mean politicians, but those people in the DOD, including the senior members of the services, that are more interested in "winning" an aquisition battle for their programs and dollars.
Go all the way back for instance to Billy Mitchell and the sinking of the Osfriedland. This test was set up with the Navy's cooperation to study the effects of bombardment on, what was then according to Mitchell, a modern, unsinkable "super battleship." He took the results of the test, ignored the fact that the Navy had already sunk ships with bombs and knew it could be done, completely ignored the fact the ship was undefended with no damage control people on it then went public, on his own to proclaim the supremacy of aircraft. This was a political stunt designed by Mitchell at odds with the tests. The question was not about whether an airplane could sink a ship but what the effects where (i.e., what was the nature of the damage) and what design changes needed to be made to increase ship survivability. Again, the Navy already knew airplanes could sink ships, they had done it themselves already (and were already building aircraft carriers) but Mitchell turned it into a political sideshow.
After WWII there was the move by USAF to claim it's B-36 could fly so high and fast with a big enough nuclear load to make aircraft carriers obsolete. The Navy countered by publishing a picture of a B-36 on one of it's high altitude missiles where it was supposedly higher/faster and therefore impervious to fighters. The picture was taken by a Navy fighter, from above.
Moving forward, there's the competition between advanced versions of the F-14 vs the F-18 which the F-14 clearly won but by the time the "political" classes of the Navy got ahold of it they hid the actual results and claimed victory for the F-18 because it was a bit cheaper even though the tests showed it was much less effective. We had similar experience with the USAF trying to demonstrate the AMRAAM was the best thing since sliced bread. Now I happen to agree that the AMRAAM is a terrific missile but it was also very expensive to develop. Part of the USAF's program to "get it sold" were to use the RED FLAG exercises to prove how great it was. I know this because I flew red air against them. They flew all their F-15's with AMRAAM using BVR tactics and were calling us dead within moments of the start of the exercise. What were we "equipped" with??? No forward quarter weapons at all, just AIM-9G/H which is a rear-quarter only IR missile. Hell, you could have done the same thing against an AIM-9G/H equipped NME if the Eagles had just had normal Sparrows. Again, I love the AMRAAM, we really needed it but in the politicized parts of the military the results of these tests become politicized which is easily done if nobody understands the conditions underwhich the tests were conducted.
The exact same thing is true with the F-22's tests. We don't really know the conditions of the test. Did they take a single F-22 and send it directly at 17 NME? If so, what was the ROE? BVR? What sort of NME aircraft were the and what was the environment? And, the most glaring question is how can they arrive at such an extraordinary number considering the F-22 doesn't carry 17 missiles and certainly isn't going to kill six with missiles and 9 with its gun. OR, does it just mean the F-22 could get a few kills and escape the remaining NME without getting killed itself? Or, does it mean that a squadron of F-22's against a squadron of NME fighters would have an overall kill ratio of 17:1. I flew in FFARP (Fleet Fightere ACM Readiness Program) back in the early 90's and the Section/Division I led had a 19:1 kill ratio so what does 17:1 prove? We need to buy more F-14As with Phoenix and Sparrows? Hardly. The point is to take "studies" and "exercises" with a grain of salt.
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The point is to take "studies" and "exercises" with a grain of salt.
Thank you for the very insightful post, Mace. Good stuff here.
- oldman
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F-35 can strike, but except for special missions, quantity is crucial for air strike efficiency. Next generation planes do not multiply the carried loads and by keeping a small quality force you loose on potential volume. Numbers provide defense against AA weapons by saturation and confusion, so the improved survivability of more modern planes is somewhat offset by that.
You're thinking in an old fashioned way. Even with non-stealthy aircraft we have less numbers being just as effective... What used to take 1000 bomber raids in WW2 can be done with 1 flight of 4 (or even less) in a Gulf War setting... What used to take millions of millions of bombs to take out (an industrial complex) now takes 1 plane with 1 bomb. Nothing like guiding an LGB through an air vent on a roof for maximum devastation vs carpet bombing a city, right?
On top of that, we have a large selection of ELINT and jammer craft that can interfere with AAA when really needed, and on top of THAT stealth negates most of the AAA. Baghdad F-117s proved that much. Only 2% of the entire combined air force was F-117s, but they dropped something like almost HALF of all the ord dropped in the conflict, and had over 80% success on those drops.
So, yes... Better planes CAN replace more and more planes of lesser capabilities. This has been proven throughout aviation history.
Otherwise the Soviet Union never would have been invaded by the Germans, because they had tens of thousands of obsolete planes defending their nation.
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On top of that, we have a large selection of ELINT and jammer craft that can interfere with AAA when really needed, and on top of THAT stealth negates most of the AAA. Baghdad F-117s proved that much. Only 2% of the entire combined air force was F-117s, but they dropped something like almost HALF of all the ord dropped in the conflict, and had over 80% success on those drops.
So, yes... Better planes CAN replace more and more planes of lesser capabilities. This has been proven throughout aviation history.
So, you think that stealth is negates AAA? Read the following:
While Zoltan's peers and superiors were pretty demoralized with the electronic countermeasures NATO (especially American) aircraft used to support their bombing missions, he believed he could still turn his ancient missiles into lethal weapons. The list of measures he took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan's battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles.
taken from: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20051121.aspx
That quote is about Col. Dani Zoltan, the commander of the Serbian AA battery that shot down an F117. He proved that Stealth can be countered, even by equipment that was considered obsolete. He used cunning, training, and sound tactics to catch that F117, not luck like some people try to counter with.
The point is, when you buy fewer numbers of high tech gadgets, when those gadgets are lost, you have less to fight with. I am not arguing for quantity, just that the belief that stealth is not all it is cracked up to be, especially with newer and better detection systems.
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I predict that the era of active detection systems is just about over, and that passive detection capabilities will be the main focus of future development. Just like active sonar for a sub, using active radar will be tantamount to suicide in the future. After all, its like a soldier searching for the enemy at night with a flashlight.
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You're thinking in an old fashioned way. Even with non-stealthy aircraft we have less numbers being just as effective... What used to take 1000 bomber raids in WW2 can be done with 1 flight of 4 (or even less) in a Gulf War setting... What used to take millions of millions of bombs to take out (an industrial complex) now takes 1 plane with 1 bomb. Nothing like guiding an LGB through an air vent on a roof for maximum devastation vs carpet bombing a city, right?
On top of that, we have a large selection of ELINT and jammer craft that can interfere with AAA when really needed, and on top of THAT stealth negates most of the AAA. Baghdad F-117s proved that much. Only 2% of the entire combined air force was F-117s, but they dropped something like almost HALF of all the ord dropped in the conflict, and had over 80% success on those drops.
So, yes... Better planes CAN replace more and more planes of lesser capabilities. This has been proven throughout aviation history.
Otherwise the Soviet Union never would have been invaded by the Germans, because they had tens of thousands of obsolete planes defending their nation.
F-35 will not carry any weapon that cannot be installed on previous generation aircraft. The only advantage is the platform itself. Electronic warfare is a big unknown. Everyone keep their abilities highly classified, so the real effectiveness is not clear, unless we are talking about obsolete equipment that has been studied and tested thoroughly, so the counter measured could be highly optimized against them. The effect of EW against new equipment is not something that you want to bet your life on.
"Stealth" currently means just radar. There are already all aspect IR missiles that can reach 10-15 miles. It is true that without a radar lock the acquisition will be difficult in less than favorable conditions, but still. I do not underestimate it. As I said in my first post two pages ago, stealth can be the added value that will justify a new generation of fighters, but it will be decided by points, not by KO.
The F-117 example does not teach us much. Could the US and allies achieve the striking goals with other planes? I bet that the answer is a big YES. But sure, if you already invested the money and equipped yourself with a better aircraft with lower loss-rates, it would be stupid not to use it to the max. What I claim is that whether or not F-117 existed made near zero difference in the tactical sense. It makes a huge difference to public opinion and support of the war if you do not loose planes+pilots, even if you can tactically afford it.
The comparison to WWII is also irrelevant. We are not talking top notch vs. obsolete - we are comparing superior equipment (upgraded F-15,16,18) to even more superior equipment (F-22,35). In WWII terms, the comparison will be the Russian front of 1942: history vs. the scenario in which the Germans had 109K, 190D and Me262 in 1942 - would it make a tactical difference when the LW had complete dominance already?
Another WWII example is the F4U vs. F6F in the navy. The F4U was clearly the better performer of the two. BUT the F6F was better in every aspect that has nothing to do with flight - in particular (but not only), it was cheaper, produced MUCH faster and easier to maintain (in a navy full of Grummans). While inferior to the F4U, the Hellcat was still superior to the opposition. The Navy could have equipped a small number of squadrons with F4U, or equip the entire navy with "inferior" F6Fs - they wisely chose the latter.
The best performer is not always the best choice, especially if it is an over-achiever.
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Well. look at it this way; we're not even using a fraction of the output we would have in a wartime situation (and I mean legitimate wartime, as in a major war against another country, not 'war on terror'). And yet we still maintain effective numbers of superior equipment.
Our M1A2 which is armed with a 120mm L/44 could quickly be upgunned with a more powerful 120mm L/55.
If we need numbers and need them now, we could built a horde of strikers with 105mm L7 guns and press those into service as high-speed tank destroyers.
We could built a swarm of F-16's if we needed more numbers.
So you're comparing the USA at its current production of military equipment, that ranges from half-assed to non-existant, to some other country going full-out. And even then, its not at all clear we would lose a fight.
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Well. look at it this way; we're not even using a fraction of the output we would have in a wartime situation (and I mean legitimate wartime, as in a major war against another country, not 'war on terror'). And yet we still maintain effective numbers of superior equipment.
Our M1A2 which is armed with a 120mm L/44 could quickly be upgunned with a more powerful 120mm L/55.
If we need numbers and need them now, we could built a horde of strikers with 105mm L7 guns and press those into service as high-speed tank destroyers.
We could built a swarm of F-16's if we needed more numbers.
So you're comparing the USA at its current production of military equipment, that ranges from half-assed to non-existant, to some other country going full-out. And even then, its not at all clear we would lose a fight.
Unfortunently, things don't work that way anymore. The idea of ramping up production to produce vast numbers of modern fighters is a pipe dream. I had a discussion years ago with some very senior Grumman reps while I was doing F-14D OPEVAL and asked them how quickly they could build more F-14's at war time. There answer was that they could double their production in the second year. The first year would be the 12 already contracted for and under construction, the second year 24 and the third year maybe a few more but that was about it. This is because of the long-lead-time items like titanium and the ability of their sub-contractors to build their parts. When Grumman was building F4Fs and F6Fs they built everything but the engines and guns but now everything comes from other places and they only built the airframes. For instance, Hughes made the APG-71 but also made the F-15's APG-70, the F-18's APG-65 and others. Hughes didn't have the production capacity to significantly increase their production rates. Same for the engines (GE), ejection seats (Martin Baker) and hundreds upon hundreds of other parts. The complexity of a modern fighter is only outstripped by the complexity of building them.
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Mace,
You might be surprised, but the number of GFE items in WW2 US aircraft was actually quite high. Not the level of today, but it was very high. I learned that when he restored our first B-25. That was bad, but fighters seemed almost worse.
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I think you would be supprised Mace, in WWII, even a bombed out, material starved Germany was able to produce over 1000 Me-262's in less than a year, which were extremely complex and difficult to manufacture for the time. Now granted that an F-14 or an F-16 is significanly more complex than a 262, I'm still sure we would be able to get our yearly production up into the triple didit ranges if we go flat out.
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One of my favorite examples along these lines (other than the F-117 shootdown) is the Argentine Air Force during the Falklands. They did what no one in the Royal Navy (or the world for that matter) thought they could do with their obsolescing aircraft and weaponry, and that's sink a lot of British shipping. Would have been even worse, if the accounts I've read are correct, if they'd had the proper fuzes for the iron bombs they were hitting the ships with.
The F-117 got shot down because we got sloppy and overly reliant on the technology, rather than sound tactics. Furthermore, the same thing caused the death of around 150 Kosovar Albanians, in two separate incidents, when our FAC(A)s mis-identified refugee convoys as Serbian army formations trying to V-ID vehicles from extreme altitudes, relying on technology rather than sound tactics. Its also the reason why 17 Marines got killed in An Nasariya by USAF A-10s in March 2003. I could go on and on here. Bottom line, and this was my original point that kind of got lost in the discussion, is that its not the tools, but how you use them that make the difference.
We built something like 44,000 Sherman tanks during WWII. The Germans built something like 1,400 Tigers. I don't know how many T-34s the Russians built, but it was close to the Sherman numbers. Now, I've never heard a German tanker complain about the Tiger, much the opposite really. But, ultimately, that type of production and fielding disparity was decisive, rather than the quality of the weapons. If we can't afford to buy enough F-22/F-35 to persist in the air in a high-intensity environment, that's a problem in my opinion. The Osprey is another aircraft I have similar feelings about, but since we're getting them in quantities for a one-to-one swap for the Frog, I don't have as much heartburn about them. Its not about the length of development, or the cost of development, per se, but the ability of the aircraft to operate continuously in a high-threat environment during sustained operations. Are we gonna have enough of them after a few get shot down, some are lost due to non-combat operational losses, and after the wear and tear of high-intensity operational tempo starts to impact our ability to maintain them in sufficient numbers. Maybe we will, but my gut tells me that we're getting close to a point with these two aircraft where top technology is too expensive to be cost-effective.
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Germany produced 50,439 tanks in WWII. Of these 2,027 were Elefant and Tiger I and II, 6,557 Panthers, 13,522 Panzer IV and 16,409 Panzer III.
Germany lost the war because they were fighting the whole world except Italy and Japan. They lost on a strategic level, but without allied air supremacy Operation Overlord would have failed completely. Allied tactical air power, and air interdiction of German supply in particular, was the only factor that prevented the Germans from throwing the allied armies back into the English Channel. One third of the German tanks in France were destroyed by their own crews when they ran out of supplies and had to buggy on foot. Still allied tank losses were so bad that the allied crews had all but lost hope of surviving. Nevertheless, Germany would still have lost the war in the east where the war in Europe was really decided. For all its Hollywood glamour the war in Western Europe was a sideshow.
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Germany produced 50,439 tanks in WWII. Of these 2,027 were Elefant and Tiger I and II, 6,557 Panthers, 13,522 Panzer IV and 16,409 Panzer III.
Germany lost the war because they were fighting the whole world except Italy and Japan. They lost on a strategic level, but without allied air supremacy Operation Overlord would have failed completely. Allied tactical air power, and air interdiction of German supply in particular, was the only factor that prevented the Germans from throwing the allied armies back into the English Channel. One third of the German tanks in France were destroyed by their own crews when they ran out of supplies and had to buggy on foot. Still allied tank losses were so bad that the allied crews had all but lost hope of surviving. Nevertheless, Germany would still have lost the war in the east where the war in Europe was really decided. For all its Hollywood glamour the war in Western Europe was a sideshow.
You are missing my point.
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The lone F-117 shootdown has been attributed to piss-poor mission planning, where they had the SAME plane on the SAME mission passing over the SAME anti-air defenses... 4 times! On the 4th pass they had enough practice and with the good ol'e mk1 eyeball shot it down with the right amount of lead.
Not a detriment to the plane itself, IMO.
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The lone F-117 shootdown has been attributed to piss-poor mission planning, where they had the SAME plane on the SAME mission passing over the SAME anti-air defenses... 4 times! On the 4th pass they had enough practice and with the good ol'e mk1 eyeball shot it down with the right amount of lead.
Not a detriment to the plane itself, IMO.
You are full of crap Krusty and using excuses. The DoD has propagated that myth all along as they did not want the world to know that the F117 was trackable. That plane was "seen" by the Serbs archaic radar and the missile tracked and killed it. So much for the total reliance on stealth.
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cold war low frequency radar rigged with barb wire > high tech stealth :devil
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(soon to be skuzzified)
No, you sir are exactly what you described.
Maybe I was wrong on some of the details -- I did a little checking. I don't know if it was the same mission or multiple missions, but they had F-117s flying over the same defensive batteries repeatedly on the same flight plan. The SAMs that took it down were most likely optically-guided in nature, according to a snippet from a NATO loss report I found online. The retired AF general said there was 50/50 chance the plane was going down before it even took off. The Serbian General even made a comment that can be taken as surprise at the fact they did it.
A fairly consistent telling of what I can find is here, for those who don't have closed minds (including a few details about how the missiles were fired, etc):
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-58606.html
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No, you sir are exactly what you described.
Maybe I was wrong on some of the details -- I did a little checking. I don't know if it was the same mission or multiple missions, but they had F-117s flying over the same defensive batteries repeatedly on the same flight plan. The SAMs that took it down were most likely optically-guided in nature, according to a snippet from a NATO loss report I found online. The retired AF general said there was 50/50 chance the plane was going down before it even took off. The Serbian General even made a comment that can be taken as surprise at the fact they did it.
A fairly consistent telling of what I can find is here, for those who don't have closed minds (including a few details about how the missiles were fired, etc):
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-58606.html
Crying to Skuzzy because you were called on crap? You are too much. It makes me think of that old photo that Furball made of you.
As for the Serbian who commanded the battery that shot down the F117, Col. Zoltan, he stated that he modified the radar to track the F117 by studying available information on the aircraft. His battery was 13 KM from the F117 when he got it. Many reports stipulate that after hitting the aircraft with the fragmenting warhead of the SA-3, AAA opened up on the now very visible aircraft, ensuring it's demise. Further, Zoltan was repeatedly moving his radar and launching sites as Wild Weasels were actively searching for the sites and he needed to move to stay alive. He estimated that they moved 100 thousand kilometers in road miles during the 78 day campaign.
Lastly, many experts dismiss the official US account especially after considering that an admission of the aircraft's stealth being compromised would be a very embarrassing situation for high level personnel.
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Your OCD need to spew insults is why you'll get skuzzified. Don't blame me for that.
What you describe doesn't seem to conflict with the link I posted. They used what they knew and rigged up a system to get a SAM into the same spot as the F-117. SAM, Flak, AAA, if you have a fair course/plot on the target you can shoot something to where it'll be in X time at Y distance. It's how submarines did it in WW2, also.
Oh, and for the record I'm not saying it was undetectable. The radar signature was so reduced to be impossible to lock on, but it wasn't gone. It was so small it blended in with background noise and so forth. I never said it was as good as the USAF claimed and I don't pretend to support the propoganda they might use to cover it up. It was, however, a blunder of planning. The same mission at night, for example, would have been better.
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I was on ship that night, in the Adriatic with our Marines on TRAP standby. I had just finished dinner that night when it went down, and went up to the TACC on the ship to listen to/watch via Link 11 the rescue mission to pick up the pilot. We got sloppy and the Serbs took advantage of it. But, we were sloppy because we thought the tech would do the heavy lifting for us, rather than sound fundamentals. Guy almost got captured as half the damn Serb army was chasing him around the countryside.
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You are missing my point.
Probably. I'm good at that.
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Krusty, You need to get a grip. Stop making things up and I won't keep pointing out your fabrications.
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Without taking sides between Krusty and Bodhi, the problem seems to stem from a simple misunderstanding of how "stealth" works (or in this case didn't). BTW, none of what I'm going to say is classified, it's basic Stealth 101 and is easily available in open source plus these fundamentals have been known for decades. There is a lot more I'm not saying but the fundamentals is all that's important to this discussion.
Stealth airplanes are not completely invisible to radar and how visible they are depends a lot on radar frequency. Only so much radar NRG can be absorbed, the rest is "managed" by reflecting it away from the emitter. The B-2 is an easy example. If you look at the top view of the plane you immediately notice that it's angular...I know...duhhhhh. Those angles serve to reflect radar NRG off at a different angle than where it was received from but there's a problem with this. Each of the leading and trailing edges (and even seams along panels and edges) creates a relatively strong reflection to any source that's perpendicular to it because each is basically nothing but half of a dipole antenna. This is particularly a problem if that source is low-frequency (i.e., long wave-length) with a wave length the same (or multiple of) the physical dimensions of the object it's hitting. Since most airplanes are designed around aerodynamic, not radar reflection, considerations there can be hundreds of straight edges and each creates its own reflection so the average airplane is one big old radar reflector and is easily detected from any direction. This is a problem even if the whole vehicle is covered with RAM so the designer has to manage the reflection that can't be absorbed. Notice in the picture of the B-2 how almost every straight edge or seam on the plane is parallel to the leading edges of the wings.
(http://trainers.hitechcreations.com/files/mace/800px-B2PlanViewLines.jpg)
In other words every single edge is perpendicular to only four distinct directions so the B-2 has only four lobes perpendicular to the leading and trailing edges which means that those are points at which it's easier to detect. I'm not saying it's easy to detect, just easier compared to other directions. There's still lots of other things going on but this is basic physics. That's also why the F-117's construction is only part of how it achieves stealth, the other is a mission planning system that manages it's route so as to control where those reflections are pointed.
The fact that the F-117 in Serbia flew a repetitive track made it predictable. The fact that the Serbs moved their radars made them unpredictable. When you combine their apriori knowledge of where the F-117 would go along with some weak detections by their low-frequency, long wave length air search radars it's fairly easy to see how they improved the likelihood that they would get a shot. Also, based on the fact that the F-117 pilot didn't get any RAW indications means (to me) that the missile was optically guided which is made possible because the missile operators knew where and when to look for the target. The claim by the Serb commander that he modified his antennas seems extremely unlikely to be true. He made have tried some mod but the fact that he successfully killed the F-117 doesn't prove the mod did anything at all. It's sort of like those people that put one of those supposedly power enhancing things that plug into your car's cigarette lighter and then claiming it gave him 30 more HP. Bull. The only thing he could have done that might have been even remotely successful would be to tune his radar frequency to give him a wavelenth that was an exact multiple of the F-117's leading edge but I have no idea is this is even possible with his equipment.
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We built something like 44,000 Sherman tanks during WWII. The Germans built something like 1,400 Tigers. I don't know how many T-34s the Russians built, but it was close to the Sherman numbers. Now, I've never heard a German tanker complain about the Tiger, much the opposite really. But, ultimately, that type of production and fielding disparity was decisive, rather than the quality of the weapons. If we can't afford to buy enough F-22/F-35 to persist in the air in a high-intensity environment, that's a problem in my opinion. The Osprey is another aircraft I have similar feelings about, but since we're getting them in quantities for a one-to-one swap for the Frog, I don't have as much heartburn about them. Its not about the length of development, or the cost of development, per se, but the ability of the aircraft to operate continuously in a high-threat environment during sustained operations. Are we gonna have enough of them after a few get shot down, some are lost due to non-combat operational losses, and after the wear and tear of high-intensity operational tempo starts to impact our ability to maintain them in sufficient numbers. Maybe we will, but my gut tells me that we're getting close to a point with these two aircraft where top technology is too expensive to be cost-effective.
I don't think thats an apt comparison. Germany only produced about 36k Panzer III, IV, Panther and Tiger tanks/Ferdies. A fair number of the Panzer IVs will be early models with the short 75, and most Panzer III's will be Ausf J1 and earlier, without the long 50mm gun. Germany still would have lost if they'd cranked out 50K Panzer IV Ausf. H's instead, because even with that, they were still fighting against better than 2:1 odds best case sceario.
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I don't think thats an apt comparison. Germany only produced about 36k Panzer III, IV, Panther and Tiger tanks/Ferdies. A fair number of the Panzer IVs will be early models with the short 75, and most Panzer III's will be Ausf J1 and earlier, without the long 50mm gun. Germany still would have lost if they'd cranked out 50K Panzer IV Ausf. H's instead, because even with that, they were still fighting against better than 2:1 odds best case sceario.
Ok, maybe so. They certainly bit off more than they could chew, won't deny that. But my point remains. Especially the second part of my last post.
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Ok, maybe so. They certainly bit off more than they could chew, won't deny that. But my point remains. Especially the second part of my last post.
Fair enough, not arguing your point. Just saying that our current situation isn't comperable to that of WWII Germany's. Infact, I don't think its comperable to any previous situation, at least not to the point that we can extrapolate a likely course of events based on previous actions.
We don't know the wartime production of either ourselves, our our enemies. We don't even know who we would be fighting against, or who would be fighting with us.
I think its near-guaranteed that the US could force any individual nation, or a fair-sized chunck of the EU (but not all of the EU together) into air-denial operations, or perhaps even full on air-incapability with a bit of luck, for a limited period of time (say, 3-4 months?), and would be able to maintain air-parity for anywhere between another 6 months and indefinetly (depending on whos fighting against us/with us).
But I don't think theres any chance that the USA would be overwhelmed within the first 9 months of opperations. Say what you will, theres no denying that we have one HELL of a production capacity, and the logistics train to keep supplys moving.