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Future Carrier (Including Costs)

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Future Carrier (Including Costs)

Old 3rd Oct 2011, 22:26
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F-35B makes first vertical landing at sea 03 Oct 2011

F-35B Finally Lands on the Wasp! by Amy Butler at Oct/3/2011

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&news paperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3af697a44f-732a-447b-842f-b01523428b9a&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

"The F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing Joint Strike Fighter has taken a step forward in its testing program today with the first landing onboard the USS Wasp...

...A second F-35B is expected onboard within days; two aircraft were
outfitted with monitoring equipment for this test period. A test phase will
follow including roughly ['roughly'? funny girl ] 67 vertical landings...."
_________________________

F-35B makes first vertical landing at sea By Dave Majumdar
Monday Oct 3, 2011

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/10/marine-defense-f-35b-makes-first-vertical-landing-at-sea-100311w/

"...The aircraft, called BF-2, made the landing at 3:20 p.m. Eastern time
over the Atlantic onboard the USS Wasp...."
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Old 3rd Oct 2011, 22:28
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F-35B makes first vertical landing at sea 03 Oct 2011

There was a database error (this VL does not compute? or 'computer says no...') hence temporary double post and any way....

F 35B 1st Landing on USS WASP - Utube Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7cAmCCmObw&feature=feedu

"Uploaded by usnavy on Oct 3, 2011
F-35B test aircraft completes its first landing aboard USS Wasp."

Click on thumbnails for the bigger picture:



Last edited by SpazSinbad; 4th Oct 2011 at 00:22.
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Old 4th Oct 2011, 00:03
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CVF LSO Position Decided at USN LSO School Confab

Latest USN LSO newsletter PDF Oct 2011 has a story about CVF change over to F-35Cs with RN staff getting the gen for the future:

http://www.hrana.org/documents/Paddl...ctober2011.pdf (1.5Mb)

Building the Queen Elizabeth
"...Over the course of two weeks in September, officers from the Royal Navy and engineers from Aircraft Carrier Alliance (the company spearheading the design and development process) conducted a development seminar at the Landing Signal Officer School. In addition to the LSO School Staff, Captain Stoops (Former CVN-73 Air Boss) and CDR Bulis (Current CVN-75 Air Boss) were also in attendance to lend their expertise....

...After much debate and discussion, to include extensive LSO-related presentations by the LSO School Staff, the decision was made for the LSO Platform to be located at the exact same position in relation to the intended hook touchdown point as it is on our Nimitz class ships...."

More to the story in the PDF
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Old 29th Nov 2011, 18:09
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Ares: Video: F-35C Launches From EMALS
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Old 29th Nov 2011, 21:47
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Navy will be 'too small for two carriers'

No need for aircraft without the carriers.

The UK will "certainly" not be able to operate both Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers in 2020 if the Royal Navy is reduced to 29,000 personnel in line with current planning, the head of the Royal Navy has said.

First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, speaking at a Henry Jackson Society event on 24 November, said that manpower was one of his most "significant concerns" regarding the future of the navy.

Current navy assumptions will see the second-in-class aircraft carrier fitted with catapults and arrestor wire ready to operate the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter carrier variant in 2020, but the fate of HMS Queen Elizabeth, which will launch first and be used to train crews in handling HMS Prince of Wales, is less certain.

"There's a people issue here," said Admiral Stanhope. "I don't have enough people in a 29,000 navy to operate two aircraft carriers."
Navy will be 'too small for two carriers' - Defence Management
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Old 29th Nov 2011, 22:27
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Well, if they were to go down the route of crewless frigates, then they'll have enough spare crew for the carriers.. DARPA are already planning such ships - see US crewless, automated ghost-frigate project takes shape ? The Register
Of course the ideas not new - see this german test from 1928
Image of crewless warship in mock battle - august-1928 by Science & Society Picture Library

Now if we were to give up on the F-35, maybe buy a few second hand F-18s as a stopgap and instead go for unmanned fighters then the manpower situation would be even better. By the time the carriers will supposedly be fully capable in 2030 with a full air wing, then the F-35 will be superceded technology anyway: everything will be UAV. Time to make the jump NOW
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Old 30th Nov 2011, 15:54
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Jamesdevice,

Unmanned aircraft save 1 person airborne - the pilot - but according to Wiki at the time of writing, 39 Sqn had around 90 people to operate 2 (increasing to 6) Reaper.

Of those there are twelve 3-man crews. 36 'crew' As compared to what would be between 4 and 12 pilots if they were manned aircraft.

And how many more are added to the engineering teams to deal with the real time data link/uplinks blah blah blah...

The 8 aircraft Harrier det at KAF operated with around 100 total personnel.

I do grant you, Flying Pay bills will probably be less with UAV.
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Old 30th Nov 2011, 16:16
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FB11
you're forgetting that by then the UAVs will be autonomous....
Dial in the destination, specify the targets(s) or target types, launch them and forget them till its time to land. And even that can be done autonomously.
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Old 30th Nov 2011, 16:55
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specify the targets(s) or target types, launch them and forget them till its time to land
Love to hear your views on how that will work for CAS and TiCs (amongst other tasks that currently require a human in the loop) ...
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Old 30th Nov 2011, 18:22
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Jamesdevice,

Oh, of course 'autonomous'; the new catch-all for those who believe manned aviation is over by Christmas and there'll be a surplus of pilot brevets sitting on a shelf somewhere in Stafford.

Who dials in the targets? Who has done the analysis on the targets in the first place? What happens when the targets move?

Do these automonous air vehicles have self loading fuel; weapons; mission data and engineering? Are the air vehicles just sent over the border to drone around (pun intended) and come back after 5 hours having decided how to react in the ever changing environment of a real battle space?

Warfare will always involve people in the loop when it comes to delivering violence to the enemy. We are many, many years, (if indeed a politician would ever allow), autonomous vehicles on land, sea or air being let loose to have a scrap.

The level of autonomy you suggest about may even remove the 3 crew from the console in Creech but I struggle to see how taking the biological mass out of the cockpit (or remote cockpit) will do what you initially suggested which was to reduce manpower.

The flying pay savings still stand though.
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Old 30th Nov 2011, 22:38
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There are only 2 ways unmanned aircraft save money... reducing the size & complexity of an aircraft by removing the cockpit & life support systems (including bang seats), and reducing the training costs for aircrew (note I said reduce, not eliminate).

The main drive for unmanned aircraft comes from 2 points... eliminating the political cost of losing pilots in combat (or having them be captured), and increasing range and/or payload due to not having to consider human factors in aircraft design and mission planning.

Even so-called "autonomous" combat aircraft still have data-links allowing a controller to monitor it in real-time, and to take control if the situation changes or something malfunctions... and this communication is subject to jamming, etc, while a piloted aircraft is not.

In a manned aircraft, the pilot is "on location" and can make changes and decisions without communicating outside the aircraft.
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Old 1st Dec 2011, 21:08
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I feel guilty about having this conversation on the Harrier thread and hopefully this is a better location for this type of discussion?

Originally Posted by Our Boffin
No idea re F35 buddy stores (or more precisley wet wing hardpoints). Daft way to use a $150M strikefighter if you ask me.
TOTALLY 100% agree and please do not think this was my idea. I was just the messenger.

The U.K. has asked Lockheed Martin to assess the feasibility of using the F-35C in a buddy-buddy refueling mode. Under rules of the JSF program, countries must themselves fund studies into unique capabilities they want for an aircraft. Since the U.S. can rely on F/A-18E/F Super Hornets as carrier-based refuelers, the U.K. has to finance the engineering assessment on its own.
It seems crazy that at this late stage our Ministry of defence does not have a finite requirement of what is required for a complete air package for this 21st century state of the art carrier.

I think it is a given that having multiple types of aircraft will be an extremely expensive option but surely having to develop a fourth generation aircraft to carry out such a mundane task is going to be a HUGE expense and a horrible waste of a valuable resource?

The more I think about the S3B option, the more it appeals. Another question... I accept the 35C is supposed to be a stealth aircraft but would it also be worth having the Growler as part of your air group? Or if the EW requirement is required would you opt for the older Prowler?

PLEASE accept my apologies for jumping ship but this does appear to be a more apt place to have this discussion.

Will the first completed carrier still have the ski slope and if so why, unless I guess they operate up in the Artic circle where they might be able to take advantage of the snow? (apologies for my humour)
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Old 1st Dec 2011, 21:14
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This is a perfect example of why all MOD projects are late and cost many times more than the original estimate. They cannot seem to grasp the concept of design freeze.
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Old 1st Dec 2011, 21:50
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QE will not have a ramp.

Thats relatively simple to fix and not really a design freeze issue.

The "support a/c" issue is one that is pertinent to US/UK and FR. Trouble is that the Common Support Aircraft (CSA), disappeared up it's own @rse in a plethora of weird low-signature complex a/c (go on, use Gary Google). Most of this appeared to be driven by the EA requirement, which as is now filled by the Growler, might allow a more common sense debate.

Requirement - Simple, low cost aircraft, capable of operating between SL and 35000ft, max speed 400kts, carrier compatible, able to have a disposable load of ~ 10-12te, sufficient internal volume to carry 2 crew, plus up to 3-4 MSO. NO STEALTH REQUIRED.

No powerpoint / Rhino art please, submissions to NAVAIR.....
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Old 1st Dec 2011, 23:46
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F-35 Production Must Slow

Well the aircraft and the carriers may end up available at the same time.
Fatigue testing and analysis are turning up so many potential cracks and "hot spots" in the Joint Strike Fighter's airframe that the production rate of the F-35 should be slowed further over the next few years, the program's head declared in an interview.

"The analyzed hot spots that have arisen in the last 12 months or so in the program have surprised us at the amount of change and at the cost," Vice Adm. David Venlet said in an interview at his office near the Pentagon. "Most of them are little ones, but when you bundle them all up and package them and look at where they are in the airplane and how hard they are to get at after you buy the jet, the cost burden of that is what sucks the wind out of your lungs. I believe it's wise to sort of temper production for a while here until we get some of these heavy years of learning under our belt and get that managed right. And then when we've got most of that known and we've got the management of the change activity better in hand, then we will be in a better position to ramp up production."

Venlet also took aim at a fundamental assumption of the JSF business model: concurrency. The JSF program was originally structured with a high rate of concurrency -- building production model aircraft while finishing ground and flight testing -- that assumed less change than is proving necessary.
LINK
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Old 2nd Dec 2011, 06:32
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A bit further down in that same interview, Adm. Venlet said:

The required changes to the aircraft aren't a matter of safety or of the F-35's ability to perform its missions, Venlet said. They're necessary, though, to make sure the plane's structural parts last the 8,000 hours of service life required. Nor are the weaknesses surprising in the world of fighter jets, he added. The discoveries are "not a quote 'problem with the airplane,'" Venlet said. "It's a fighter made out of metal and composites. You always find some hot spots and cracks and you have to go make fixes. That's normal. This airplane was maybe thought to be a little bit better, wouldn't have so much discovery. Well, no. It's more like standard fighters."
Not as sensationalistic and useful to the "F-35 is worthless and needs to be canceled" crowd, but very important for us all to remember.

These aren't reasons to cancel the aircraft, but rather reasons to move back towards separating prototypes and developmental models from production models.

A bit more delay in IOC in order to "get it right the first time".
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Old 2nd Dec 2011, 07:25
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A bit more delay in IOC in order to "get it right the first time.
Not the best choice of words and something that in all fairness to everyone involved with this aircraft... Probably an impossible dream.

I am NOT being critical of this specific aircraft, I would like to think I am being realistic and would simply ask what military aircraft in recent times has come straight out of the box and gone operational without 'teething problems'

Is the F-35 any better or any worse than its predecessors or do we now have the technology to detect all these issues?

I am still concerned over the lack of forethought into the make-up of the complete air package on these carriers and am still not convinced we will ever see them both fully operational. Will we have the man power to put these ships to sea?

To me the term fully operational means deploying overseas with an operational air group and being able to deploy anywhere in the World to carry out any task demanded by Her\His Majesty's Government.

I cringe at the thought of putting an E2 on the deck of a 21st century carrier and what next, the Fairey Swordfish?

No doubt the F-35C will have the ability to carry out automated landings aboard the carrier and this type of avionics will be expected on all carrier based aircraft. I dread to think of work involved to drag these older aircraft into the 21st century but experiences so far have dictated that this is not an easy, nor cheap task. I am still of the opinion that the cheapest option would be to bite the bullet and buy 'off the shelf' any and all support aircraft UNLESS the conversion work is achievable and at an agreed contract price!

*********************************************************

Unmanned Aircraft
Surely they are here and there numbers are increasing annually. Boots on the ground locating targets or even the UAV that can remain on site for 24hrs hunting targets of oppurtunity and then engaging with air to ground missiles?

Can these 'boots on the ground' launch their own radio controlled aircraft to illuminate a target or area they want hit and then have the larger UAV carry out the task? I am thinking back to Desert Storm and those evil 16" guns of the USS Missouri. The accuracy of her weapons was mainly down to this type of technology. Maybe our second or should that be first carrier might deploy with smaller UAVs
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Old 2nd Dec 2011, 08:59
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Nothing wrong with the E2. Gary Google E2D and see a brand new, straight off the production line cab that does exactly what is required. Doesn't need to do Mach 2, doesn't need to have the RCS of a gnats @rse, just needs to work well every day.
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Old 2nd Dec 2011, 09:44
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Nothing wrong with the E2. Gary Google E2D and see a brand new, straight off the production line cab that does exactly what is required. Doesn't need to do Mach 2, doesn't need to have the RCS of a gnats @rse, just needs to work well every day.
Wise words

Off the shelf and just what the doctor ordered. That surely means we will not buy it?

  • A completely new radar featuring both mechanical and electronic scanning capabilities
  • Fully Integrated "All Glass" Tactical Cockpit
  • Advanced Identification Friend or Foe System
  • New Mission Computer and Tactical Workstations
  • Electronic Support Measures Enhancements
  • Modernized Communications and Data Link Suite


Why would I want an E2D flashlight? HUMOUR
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Old 2nd Dec 2011, 10:15
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As mentioned days ago, it's not just an aircraft carrier with a few strike fighters on board (with or without fatigue cracks), it's a complete, integrated package of ships, systems, sensors. And that includes AEW/AWACS. E2D looks like a good solution.

On the lighter side: Sun King Hey Ya - YouTube
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