McCain weighs in on the A-10 debate

[jollyFE]

When I was stationed at Nellis in the early 90's I was in an OT&E unit where we evaluated a CAS version of the F-16.  Sure it looked cool painted camo green, but we found it didn't have the loiter time that the A-10 had, couldn't as low and slow as the 10, and when we fired the 30 mm gun pod on the center-line pylon, the acft shook so bad the pilot couldn't read gauges.  It was vibrating to the point that several boxes on the cockpit side panels shook out of place...quite a unique feeling you get as a crew chief when the pilot starts handing you boxes and control heads that are usually secure, even during high G maneuvering.  When I was a flight engineer on CSAR helos, nothing and I mean nothing gave us the warm fuzzy like having an few A-10s flying as your RESCORT.  We had 15Es, 16s, 18s and even Harriers try to do the job but the 10 excelled at it.

[PR3D4TOR]

First of all - don't underestimate MiG-21... MiG-21 Bison with up-to date radar, Helmet display, modern ECM and VVR+BVR missiles with 21,800 lbf "WEP" engine with well trained crew is very formidable opponent even against F-15C - as was shown at Red Flag.

I shouldn't double or quadruple  the time of the development. The weapon systems are get upgraded all the time and avionics is being replaced up to several times during airframe lifespan. If it was so complicated (~= the design of a new aircraft) the upgrades would never be done.

Sure I agree that the MiG-21 was an astonishing aircraft in its time, and with upgrades it is still a relevant platform. However, when you put all those new off the shelves avionics, sensors and weapon systems on it you don't count the time spent on developing those systems. Don't you see you could do the same with the F-35? The plane itself has been flying for several years. You could put all that off the shelves gear on the F-35 and fly it into combat now, but it wouldn't be what the F-35 was meant to be. Most of the increased complexity of the F-35 is the avionics, sensors and weapon systems. The fancy glass cockpit and the advanced FBW system. The sensor fusion, the helmet and the uber multi function radar. Without these things the aircraft itself is nothing more than a stealthy, long-range F/A-18.

In that test fight with the F-16... If the F-35 pilot had all his new toys in working order, the sensor fusion would have picked up the F-16 on radar and IR, identified it, displayed it in the pilots helmet view with a threat analysis and recommended actions. The pilot would have looked at the enemy icon and hit a button, perhaps two, and in short order a missile would have raced out to meet the F-16. The F-16 would not have known what was going on until 5-10 seconds before being blown apart, when his RWR screams a warning of the AMRAAM's radar locking on to him in the terminal phase of its attack.

[PR3D4TOR]

And sometime in the future you can probably take similar off the shelves systems and put it on a MiG-21 and marvel at how awesome the good old MiG is.

However, someone has to make those systems first and it takes time.

[Serenity]

Few things...

It shouldn't take a great deal of time to develop an aircraft, take a look on some of best selling aircraft around:

- A-4 Skyhawk, first flight 1954, introduction 1956 - 2 years
- MiG-21 - first flight 1956, in service 1959 - 3 years
- Mirage III - first flight 1956, introduction 1961 - 5 years
- F-4 Phantom, first flight 1958, introduction 1960 - 2 years
- F-15 - first flight 1972, introduction 1976 - 4 years
- F-16 - first flight for YF-16 1973, introduction 1978 - 5 years
- MiG-29 - first flight 1977, introduction 1983 - 6 years

Some Most Revolutionary designs:

- Harrier - Hawker Siddeley P.1127 1960, Harrier in serice 1969 - 9 years - first ever operation STOVL aircraft!!!
- Have Blue first flight 1977, F-117 in service 1983 - 5 years first ever stealth bomber.



At this point I wanted to "trash" the F-35 (F-35B: 2006 - 2015 - 9 years, F-35A - 2016 - 10 years and F-35C 2018 -12 years planned)

However I realized that F-35 isn't outstanding, if I take delay from first flight to introduction of latest airframes:


Gripen   1988 - 1997   9 years
Rafale   1986 - 2001   15 years
Typhoon 1994 - 2003   9 years
Raptor   1997 - 2005   8 years

It looks like modern industry "unlearned" how to develop an aircraft. Today you have all CAD/CAM technologies, digital simulations you couldn't dread of in 60th and yet it takes 2-3 more times to produce an aircraft. 

Horrible!

It's not just about how quickly you can ink up the new design. What about developing a supply train for parts? Learning the system well enough to apply it properly in combat? Training the maintainers, the crews and pilots?

[FBKampfer]

The question is whether combining all that tech into one airframe is worth it. Could we have built essentially just two different planes with drastically different capabilites and design, but sharing this line radar absorbent materials, the glass, etc for cheaper?

If we wanted a strike fighter for the marines, really it needs a data link, a decent radar,  and a bunch of weapons and fuel. I get the feeling the B is going to be used as essentially a stealth harrier, which we could have had combat ready by 2010.

Granted the A and C models would need greater capability, eliminating the B as a tie in would simply work to an extent.


I just feel that weapons design has really become too integrated, too advanced perhaps. We look for complex solutions to simple problems.

[PR3D4TOR]

Sure you could, and isn't that what they've done? F-22 for air superiority. F-35 for multirole strike fighter. The Navy hasn't had a pure fighter since the F-14 went the way of the dodo, and has operated a fleet of strike fighters as its only A2A capability for the last 10 years. The Marines have only operated the AV-8, and the F-35 is big step up for them.

The F-22 is the other component, the other airframe.

[FBKampfer]

Sure you could, and isn't that what they've done? F-22 for air superiority. F-35 for multirole strike fighter. The Navy hasn't had a pure fighter since the F-14 went the way of the dodo, and has operated a fleet of strike fighters as its only A2A capability for the last 10 years. The Marines have only operated the AV-8, and the F-35 is big step up for them.

The F-22 is the other component, the other airframe.

Following that, we should have navalized the F22, and just scrapped the F35 A and C completely.

For that matter, I understand that they wanted an export fighter, but since  both are Lockheed designs, they could have simply used F22 geometry, skipped a large portion of airframe design, and modify as needed to accommodate the systems.


The whole JSF program seems to have been a little unneeded for the US military.

[Rich46yo]

Exactly how would you "navalized" the F22? Most of all since at every phase of its development it was a pure air superiority fighter. This is another knucklehead idea from Airpower Australia, whom as usual, forgot to mention it would have taken a complete redesign on the aircraft. Far more difficult then drawing a few pictures and putting it on your web page pretending to know what you are talking about.

The entire concept is insane. If the original F22s cost from 250 to 350 m, depending who you ask, how would a "Sea Raptor" be affordable since it would have to have even more capability, add the cost of redesign? Fact is it was never even seriously considered.

Following that, we should have navalized the F22, and just scrapped the F35 A and C completely.

For that matter, I understand that they wanted an export fighter, but since  both are Lockheed designs, they could have simply used F22 geometry, skipped a large portion of airframe design, and modify as needed to accommodate the systems.


The whole JSF program seems to have been a little unneeded for the US military.

[FBKampfer]

Exactly how would you "navalized" the F22? Most of all since at every phase of its development it was a pure air superiority fighter. This is another knucklehead idea from Airpower Australia, whom as usual, forgot to mention it would have taken a complete redesign on the aircraft. Far more difficult then drawing a few pictures and putting it on your web page pretending to know what you are talking about.

The entire concept is insane. If the original F22s cost from 250 to 350 m, depending who you ask, how would a "Sea Raptor" be affordable since it would have to have even more capability, add the cost of redesign? Fact is it was never even seriously considered.

What exactly must it be capable of, other than catapult takeoff and arrested landing? This is an issue of strengthening the airframe, no?

[Serenity]

What exactly must it be capable of, other than catapult takeoff and arrested landing? This is an issue of strengthening the airframe, no?

Stall speed, AOA, and bringback weight. EVERYTHING about a navalized plane comes down to those last few seconds before the boat. How slow can you get it in order to give the pilot a fighting chance. How much ordinance can it land with at slow speeds so it doesn't have to dump the leftovers. How fast can it accelerate back up to flight speed if you miss a wire. etc.

[JVboob]

Funny you bring up the navalized tid bit. Ive heard but havent confirmed this, there are F16 "mail curriers" that are capable of landing on a carrier.

Anyone know anything about this? I have no clue nor have I tried to research it. It does sound pretty interesting.

IMO, keep the 16s ditch the f35. why? We have the f22 for air supperiority, we have the aging A10 for CAS we have the F16 jack of all trades. f35 isnt going to replace the A10 or the f16.

 Why cant a CAS oriented a/c like the A10 be designed? A new flying tank with a big gun and 78568658923lbs of ords. that fills the A10s roll. keep the f16s untill the "new" tank buster is in full production then start to design a replacement for thef 16s...

[Ack-Ack]

Funny you bring up the navalized tid bit. Ive heard but havent confirmed this, there are F16 "mail curriers" that are capable of landing on a carrier.

While the USN did (maybe still does) have a handful of F-16s, they were are all land based and never were used as "mail carriers" since they were not modified to operate from a carrier.  The USN F-16s were used as aggressor aircraft for Top Gun.  Used to watch them take off from NAS Miramar when it was still a navy base.

The Model 1600 was the proposed naval version of the F-16 but lost out to the F-18.

[HPriller]

What exactly must it be capable of, other than catapult takeoff and arrested landing? This is an issue of strengthening the airframe, no?

Go to an airshow, look at the landing gear of an F-15, then look at the landing gear of an F-18.  Even though the F-18 might be smaller the gear looks to be more than double the size to handle the harsh nature of carrier landings.   Designing a modern jet for carrier operations must be done from the ground up.  I doubt it be even possible to modify an F-22 for carrier use without spending as much or more money than designing a new carrier plane from scratch.  It just isn't practical, the differences are a lot more extreme than you think.

[DaveBB]

I highly recommend the book "Black Aces High".  It is about an F-14 squadron in the Serbian Air War.  The F-14 had many qualities revered by naval aviators: range, endurance, loiter time, and payload.  The RIO served an especially important part as a second set of eyes.  This prevented many friendly fire incidents in which the A-10 is notorious for (I personally know two guys who I went to high school with who were in the battle of Nasiriyah.  A-10s strafed them like crazy, and blew up AAVs with maverick missiles.  The gun camera footage was later *accidentally* destroyed).

Two sets of eyes are better than one.   Especially when you are blowing up your own troops.

[10thmd]

I agree with Ranger statement about the A-10 being a life saver. Also DaveBB most of us Groundpounders would rather have an A-10 over us than a F-14 any day of the week. I have had 2 doing gun runs on a 5 story building right next to me. I say if the Air force doesn't want them, give them to the Army. We will fly them till the wings fall off.