Bin JSFand go straight to UCAVs?

[Lazer-Hound]

With the US forces cutting back on near-term JSF numbers, would it not be a good idea to bin the project altogether and invest the money saved in UCAV's? Near and medium term threats could be dealt with by current production fighters, or upgrades thereof, until such time as the UCAV's are ready and can be deployed in force.

Just a thought.

[LowObservable]

You work for Boeing, don't you?
Seriously, there was a plot afoot to stretch out the Super Horny with a Block 3 coated with Dr Wiechmann's Miracle Disappearing Goo, thereby pincering Dave-C between that and the UCAV, but I don't think it got anywhere.

[LowObservable]

Not that I know Dr Wiechmann, who of course does not exist. :E

[LowObservable]

And who can imagine the Marines going to UCAVs?

From the halls of Montezuma to the streets of Fallujah
Our robots fight our battles while we prop up the bar

No way, Sir.

[ChristopherRobin]

good idea! except for the fact that the self-licking lollipop known as D Flying and Co. insists that UAVs must be an order of magnitude safer than manned aircraft, thus no doubt making them comfortably too expensive to threaten the way that certain people like things.

In addition, it's verboten to fly UAVs in the UK outside of segregated airspace such as ranges due to the chances of collision with VFR traffic. The US are moving forward on some of the issues, I believe, but in the UK one part of the MOD wants to buy and use UAVs, while another part of the MOD places increasingly higher obstacles in the way (test programmes fully in line with manned aircraft etc.)

I'm not saying that UAVs shouldn't be safe, as they can hurt people on the ground, but shouldn't there be some consideration given to the fact that most people hurt in aircraft crashes are usually in the aircraft at the time?

It's a nice thought, but the dark forces of bureaucracy will do for UCAVs what enemy air defence never could: stop them flying before they take off!

Besides, what makes you think that a multi-billion dollar agreement with an international partner has anything whatsoever to do with improving military capability?

[Training Risky]

Maybe when the Chief of the Air Staff is a robot, or worse....






























.... a civil servant.
:}

[MarkD]

Maybe when the Chief of the Air Staff is a robot, or worse....
.... a civil servant. :}
I thought they already were the latter these days...

[L J R]

Have you actually seen the cost of an X45 (or whatever the super dooper UCAV is called) Yes cheaper than F-25 / F-22 .....but not by much

[ORAC]

Have you actually seen the cost of an X45 (or whatever the super dooper UCAV is called) Yes cheaper than F-25 / F-22 .....but not by much

Without in any way commenting on the effectiveness of a UCAV, the point made by the maunfacturer is not the unit cost of the airframe, but the lifetime ownership cost...

Assume no pilot, and an airframe life of 40 years. Around 8 pilots at training cost of £5m each and total amortisation costs of about £20 each. Then there are the required flying hours to keep them current, and replacement airframes etc etc...

Boeing offered a packaged UCAV in an environmental container good for 20 years - they maintained and updated it - you pulled it out and flew it when required. UCAV "pilots" trained on sim and the odd real UCAV. Total whole life cost about 20% of a manned aircraft.......

[ChristopherRobin]

Assume no pilot, and an airframe life of 40 years. Around 8 pilots at training cost of £5m each and total amortisation costs of about £20 each.

£20 each eh? I always said FJ crews were overpaid.

[sense1]

And who would there be to go to post airshow parties to keep the UAS girlies entertained if there weren't any aircrew?? :E

[Brian Abraham]

Lazer-Hound (tonque firmly in cheek) Youre not Duncan Sandys love child?

Duncan Sandys - He was appointed Minister of Defence in 1957 and quickly produced the 1957 Defence White Paper that proposed a radical shift in the Royal Air Force by ending the use of fighter aircraft in favour of missile technology. Though later Ministers reversed the policy, the lost orders and cuts in research were responsible for several aircraft manufacturers going out of business. As Minister of Defence he saw the rationalization (ie merger) of much of the British military aircraft and engine industry - which led ultimately to a single airframe manufacturer British Aerospace, and a single engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce.

[Lazer-Hound]

Lazer-Hound (tonque firmly in cheek) Youre not Duncan Sandys love child?

Duncan Sandys - He was appointed Minister of Defence in 1957 and quickly produced the 1957 Defence White Paper that proposed a radical shift in the Royal Air Force by ending the use of fighter aircraft in favour of missile technology. Though later Ministers reversed the policy, the lost orders and cuts in research were responsible for several aircraft manufacturers going out of business. As Minister of Defence he saw the rationalization (ie merger) of much of the British military aircraft and engine industry - which led ultimately to a single airframe manufacturer British Aerospace, and a single engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce.

The difference between UAV's and missiles is that missiles can't loiter or return to base and undertake repeated missions. UAV's can and do. They can also stay on station far longer than any manned aircraft, and (for UCAV's) pull the sorts of G that would kill a human pilot. Plus it doesn't matter that much if one crashes or is shot down. How many pilots are killed each year in combat OR TRAINING?

For anyone doubting that unmanned is the future, look where the money is going:

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Teal_Group_Predicts_World_UAV_Market_Will_Top_54_Billion_Ove r_Next_Decade_999.html

Face facts, the days of the white-scarf brigade are surely numbered:)

[WE Branch Fanatic]

This has been discussed on PPRuNe before.

Will a UAV make us redundant? (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=52740&highlight=robot)

Worth a read - UAV problems (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=202530)

Lots of comments from me there, and PPRuNe hard hitters like Jackonicko. As such I feel it unnecessary to say much here but......

1. How many sorties have been saved by having a Pilot who could decide the aircraft was flyable by virtue of being in it? I'm led to assume UAVs will not need the level of bandwidth to provide the same level of information on the status of the platform as a pilot with five senses as well as instrumentation.
2. How many blue on blue incidents have been prevented by the pilot making an ID of friendlies? Unless you have fairly high bandwidth real time comms, can this be prevented from afar? What if the intelligence is wrong, the SAM facility is really a hospital?
3. What about air to air? In No Escape Zone, Nick Richardson describes an incident where he and his wingman were ordered by the duty AWACS to engage a pair of unknown aircraft. Richardson says that as they got to AIM9 range, they visually ID'd the as RAF Jags. What happens if an armed UAV comes across someone in the wrong place at the wrong time?
4. How do you propose communicating with these things? As the Bowman thread points out, a lot of infrastructure is likely to be need for any sort of real time comms. What if you want to fly sorties deep into hostile territory at low altitude? Use satellite comms then. OK, but what about the delay involved in using a satellite in Geosynchronous Orbit, particularly if you need to ID the target and release weapons. Build a constellation of satellites in medium or low Earth orbit (costs a lot). But what when weather causes high loss when you need high bandwidth communications?
5. What about the C3 problems involved with having scores of these flying at the same time, all armed with various weapons. The weathers taken a turn for the worse and a major part of your ground infrastructure has gone unservicible...........

[Spotting Bad Guys]

I'm an advocate of a manned/unmanned mix - but to answer some of your thoughts WEBF:

1. How many sorties have been saved by having a Pilot who could decide the aircraft was flyable by virtue of being in it?

True enough, but how many aircrew might be saved by not being forced to decide between having to eject/stay with a disabled aircraft sausage-side?

2. How many blue on blue incidents have been prevented by the pilot making an ID of friendlies? Plenty - but I would suggest PID of ground targets is probably easier with a high fidelity sensor combined with the ability to loiter persistantly over the target. Don't mixed up 'unmanned/remotely piloted' with autonomous.

3. What about air to air? See PID criteria as above.

4...Use satellite comms then. OK, but what about the delay involved in using a satellite in Geosynchronous Orbit, particularly if you need to ID the target and release weapons. Already being done, including day/night PID and engagement with A-G weapons. Actually, you do get used to delay remarkably quickly! That said, bandwidth management is a real issue.

5. What about the C3 problems Back to the Remotely-piloted/autonomous debate. With an RPV suitably equipped with IFF, Link16 and airborne radios the C3 is not really that much different to a manned platform.

Cheers

SBG

[LowObservable]

So far, the biggest step in UAV/UCAV acceptance is based on persistence. Quite simple aircraft can stay airborne much longer than people will tolerate, and very much longer than people can tolerate and perform well. Hell, 12 hours is a long time in a B-class recliner on a 777, and UAVs can do 36-plus without any exotic technology.
What's that let you do? You put video on the bad guys rather than taking strip maps and snapshots. Their actions and movements help you ID and target them. If you think something in the picture is interesting, you can rewind to 12 hours ago and see how it looked then, or you can sit there and zoom in for a closer look, comfortable in the knowledge that an SA-7 fired from Iraq can't hit Nevada. Take your time. Make sure.
Fast jet UCAVs might happen (particularly if they also offer a bit of persistence and can combine recce and attack) but nobody is ready to bite. I don't see it as the only jet on a CVF, because there are so many things that aircraft will be intended to do (can a UCAV go out and chivvy away some civilian jet that's getting too close?). But you could, today, build a UCAV to do the kind of narrow-spectrum mission that the F-117 was designed for.

[Brian Abraham]

Lazer-Hound - To resurrect the thread an interesting article. Dont think anyone will suggest the IAF dont have a grip on military matters.

Israel's Military Changes for Nuclear Attack Aviation Week & Space Technology 09/11/2006, page 48
David A. Fulghum Tel Aviv
Israel's military makes changes that would allow it to fight after an attack on its networks
Printed headline: Nuclear Response
The military response to an Iranian nuclear or other asymmetric attack on Israel is already taking shape.
The Israeli air force (IAF) plans to curb its increasing reliance on unmanned reconnaissance and strike aircraft and to keep its manned aircraft--including the Boeing F-15I fleet of extended-range strike aircraft--longer and in greater numbers than envisioned even three years ago.
While manned and unmanned aircraft would be equally susceptible to spikes of energy produced by an out-of-atmosphere nuclear explosion, for example, the new operational concept is that a manned force could be reconstituted more quickly than one reliant on a network to function effectively.
"Clashes between conventional armies are over," says a senior IAF officer. Instead, he sees a small, network-centric air force scouring an almost deserted battlefield for terrorists and a few time-sensitive targets. Combined with special forces, the Israeli military expects to maintain a qualitative edge as long as all the linkages stay intact. However, the threat of new methods emerging for attacking the network-reliant Israel Defense Forces is causing a reassessment.
"You can never fully replace at least [manned] fighters," the IAF official says. "Maybe the proportion may change and you will need less. Uncertainty, surprise and the empty theater will ensure that you need a man in the loop." Even two decades from now, in "every scenario that I try to simulate . . . I can't find a replacement for the [manned] fighter."
But there is another, largely unspoken reason for not abandoning manned aircraft: It's the susceptibility of a technology-based military to computer-network, communications and electronic attacks--the latter most easily delivered, at least for the moment, by a nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude.
"The Western world, Israel included, is based on very sophisticated technology," the air force official says. "What will be the other side's answer? Our weakness is a [reliance on] technology, so that's where they will try to attack us. The asymmetric war will be not to shoot down UAVs, but [to disable them by] communications and computer war and other weaknesses in the [network-centric] system. If you rely on one tool, like UAVs, that's very sensitive to technology, you can find yourself in an unpleasant situation. To control and maximize the various factors, you have to be there. The smell and the color of the theater are necessary for you to analyze and understand any surprise situation."
Ironically, small fleets of UAVs carrying combinations of sophisticated new anti-missile and air-to-ground weapons are what may keep a foe such as Iran--which may one day have both ballistic missiles and nuclear devices--from using its weapons effectively.
Israel is analyzing the consequences of asymmetric warfare. Officials anticipate retaining more manned aircraft, such as the F-15I, longer.
Israeli planners have quietly reversed a 2003 decision to abandon development of air-launched weapons that can intercept ballistic missile within tens of seconds of launch. Instead of developing boost phase intercept (BPI) capability, Israel had decided to focus on finding and striking missile launchers (BPLI) because this was easier and cheaper. Now the emphasis has shifted to developing both new BPI and BPLI weapons, designing unmanned platforms that can carry combinations of them on long-endurance, long-range missions, and planning new missions for these weapons when carried by manned strike aircraft.
"Merging of the two missions is the way we are going," the IAF official says. "Each platform [manned and unmanned] brings a relevant advantage. Developing only one tool or one platform is the wrong approach."
In a related development, the U.S. Navy this summer demonstrated the ability to use a Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) against a moving target from a range of about 150 naut. mi. The target launched during the test from China Lake, Calif., was similar to Iran's mobile Shahab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile, according to Lt. Cdr. Anthony Wright, the Navy's air-to-ground weapons requirements officer. Although the test by no means indicates SLAM-ER would be effective against these moving targets all the time--in this case, the intelligence on the target was spot on--Wright says it's a step in the right direction.
The IAF's first large UAV, Israel Aircraft Industries' Heron, entered operational service in July. It has been widely used already during strikes on Hezbollah and on infrastructure targets in Lebanon. An Israeli aerospace industry official said the first large UAV purposefully designed for carrying missiles will be rolled out in 18 months. Also, a new generation of long-range, manned surveillance aircraft may carry combinations of these BPI/BPLI weapons to allow for instantaneous response to missile launches or launch preparations during intelligence-gathering missions.
A senior U.S. Air Force official contends that the Israeli stance reflects a predilection to rely on manned aircraft as part of an ingrained combat ethic to keep command as far forward and as close to the battle as possible.
"Like the U.S. Air Force, the [IAF's] tactical doctrine allows its flight leaders to have freedom of action at the point of contact and, with some limits, to make decisions on-scene rather than from a centralized air operations center," he says. "Unmanned, remotely controlled vehicles do not fit that proven tactical doctrine."
In fact, the USAF fighter pilot says Israel has little reason to fear Iranian ballistic missiles because of the capabilities of the Arrow system. Instead, the real threat is more likely to come from fixed-wing aircraft carrying air-launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. The combination can be launched with little notice and is hard to intercept. Iran is pursuing cruise missile technologies, and acquired six Kh-55 airframes and nonnuclear components from Ukraine.
An Iranian high-altitude nuclear burst is unlikely, he believes, because it would be uncontrollable and risk affecting southern European cities hundreds of miles away as well as critical space systems. Moreover, a nuclear burst could lead to engaging other countries in the conflict, a move the USAF official considers suicidal for Iran.
He suggests that a smart strategy for Iran would be to field a fighter-carried cruise missile with a nuclear warhead. This would allow Iran to intimidate its neighbors without having to commit to launching a ballistic missile that, unlike an aircraft, can't be recalled, he says.