F-35 Cancelled, then what ?
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I'm not so sure stealth will become a non issue, but it will require some serious advancements to become an entirely effective methodology. It isn't enough to reduce or deflect reflected em radiation, it must be (completely) passively absorbed or actively negated.
It isn't enough to reduce or deflect reflected em radiation, it must be (completely) passively absorbed or actively negated.
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Ok I agree with that, maybe I was not being clear enough, I meant stealth as it is now.
I'm sure new forms and technologies of Stealth will appear in the future ,as will new and more effective ways of detecting threats.
The technical race in weaponry is a fact , now more than ever but that is no reason to give up on the basic principles of weapon tech design, in case of fighter-jets, performance , numbers (affordability), maintainability matter just as much as it did in the 40's or 50's.
As an analogy look at other segments in the military, look at it's most basic component , the soldier, just like 200 years ago you need a well trained, physically and mentality fit soldier to begin with, everything extra you can expand upon only if the basics are ok.
Same goes for hand-weapons, ships, rolling equipment, etc... .
The F35 doesn't deliver on some of the basics (for the right price) and is therefore compromised from the very beginning.
I'm sure new forms and technologies of Stealth will appear in the future ,as will new and more effective ways of detecting threats.
The technical race in weaponry is a fact , now more than ever but that is no reason to give up on the basic principles of weapon tech design, in case of fighter-jets, performance , numbers (affordability), maintainability matter just as much as it did in the 40's or 50's.
As an analogy look at other segments in the military, look at it's most basic component , the soldier, just like 200 years ago you need a well trained, physically and mentality fit soldier to begin with, everything extra you can expand upon only if the basics are ok.
Same goes for hand-weapons, ships, rolling equipment, etc... .
The F35 doesn't deliver on some of the basics (for the right price) and is therefore compromised from the very beginning.
This is worth a look.
RUSSIAN RADAR CAN NOW SEE F-22 AND F-35 Says top US Aircraft designer - YouTube
RUSSIAN RADAR CAN NOW SEE F-22 AND F-35 Says top US Aircraft designer - YouTube
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Extra 6 of the best for Norwegians
Norway authorizes purchase of six more F-35s
Norway authorizes purchase of six more F-35s | Reuters
"Dec 11 (Reuters) - Norway's parliament authorised the government to purchase another six Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets for about 4 billion crowns ($654.7 million), the parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee said on Wednesday.
The six jets, to be delivered in 2018, bring the Norwegian order to 16 planes...
...Norway plans to buy a total of 52 F-35s by the end of 2024, but purchases for each year have to be separately approved by parliament...."
The six jets, to be delivered in 2018, bring the Norwegian order to 16 planes...
...Norway plans to buy a total of 52 F-35s by the end of 2024, but purchases for each year have to be separately approved by parliament...."
CM - I find it hard to believe that the F-35 program was not designed against a projected threat that would improve during its lifetime. Also, the susceptibility of stealth at the F-117/F-22/F-35 level to VHF radar has been known, even publicly, since the year dot.
The primary countermeasure was to avoid such radars and prevent extended tracking, thus preventing a hand-off to a higher-frequency radar that had the accuracy to manage an intercept. Avoidance was pre-planned on the F-117 (mostly if not exclusively) while the F-22 and F-35 are supposed to be able to locate and evade pop-ups.
We do know that JSF is eight or nine years behind schedule and consequently will face improved threats - more mobile, more powerful and accurate, AESA-based VHF, sensor-fused with AESA tracking radars. All of that makes pop-ups more of a problem, as well as creating the potential recognized by Eurofighter of herding the penetrators into gap zones where they can be more easily detected by fighters.
For the US, the answer may be to improve SEAD/DEAD with Next Generation Jammer, MALD-J, LRASM (which certainly has potential against big emitters on land as well as at sea) and (cough, ahem) certain other assets. It's easier using these assets to get your stealth airplanes through, than to blast a path for radar-shiny jets, so score half a point for stealth. Difficulty: Ivan ain't dumb, hence the Pantsyrs (CIWS for Aegis-on-wheels) to defend the key nodes in the system. (And as KBrockman points out, this is a good early application for DE.)
Which raises the question: if I can't afford all the above enablers (and JSF is doing a very good job of trying to squeeze them out of the US budget), am I on the right track - or would I be better off loading my Typhoons/Gripens/Rafales with standoff weapons + fielding some stealthy UCAVs?
The primary countermeasure was to avoid such radars and prevent extended tracking, thus preventing a hand-off to a higher-frequency radar that had the accuracy to manage an intercept. Avoidance was pre-planned on the F-117 (mostly if not exclusively) while the F-22 and F-35 are supposed to be able to locate and evade pop-ups.
We do know that JSF is eight or nine years behind schedule and consequently will face improved threats - more mobile, more powerful and accurate, AESA-based VHF, sensor-fused with AESA tracking radars. All of that makes pop-ups more of a problem, as well as creating the potential recognized by Eurofighter of herding the penetrators into gap zones where they can be more easily detected by fighters.
For the US, the answer may be to improve SEAD/DEAD with Next Generation Jammer, MALD-J, LRASM (which certainly has potential against big emitters on land as well as at sea) and (cough, ahem) certain other assets. It's easier using these assets to get your stealth airplanes through, than to blast a path for radar-shiny jets, so score half a point for stealth. Difficulty: Ivan ain't dumb, hence the Pantsyrs (CIWS for Aegis-on-wheels) to defend the key nodes in the system. (And as KBrockman points out, this is a good early application for DE.)
Which raises the question: if I can't afford all the above enablers (and JSF is doing a very good job of trying to squeeze them out of the US budget), am I on the right track - or would I be better off loading my Typhoons/Gripens/Rafales with standoff weapons + fielding some stealthy UCAVs?
LO,
Stealth is governed by the law of diminishing returns. Adding a bit of stealth is quite cheap - call it signature reduction. Even an 80% solution isn't too bad, but beyond that it gets really expensive and the broader the bandwidth you want to cover the worse it gets. Because of its size, JSF was always going to be a tough one which is why it suffers in the rear sector and down in the VLF region. B2 is a much better size and shape for this kind of thing.
As much of its stealth in is its shape, there's not that much that can be done to develop it further, so as it falls behind, it stays behind.
Given the choice, I'd go for the stand-off weapons next.
Stealth is governed by the law of diminishing returns. Adding a bit of stealth is quite cheap - call it signature reduction. Even an 80% solution isn't too bad, but beyond that it gets really expensive and the broader the bandwidth you want to cover the worse it gets. Because of its size, JSF was always going to be a tough one which is why it suffers in the rear sector and down in the VLF region. B2 is a much better size and shape for this kind of thing.
As much of its stealth in is its shape, there's not that much that can be done to develop it further, so as it falls behind, it stays behind.
Given the choice, I'd go for the stand-off weapons next.
PS: the weapons race never ended, so a "new" one need not begin.
PS:
What Courtney Mil said, about diminishing returns.
Last edited by Lonewolf_50; 11th Dec 2013 at 16:31.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Huffington Post: F-35 Contract May Be the Worst Deal the DOD Has Ever Made
Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said that "little attention was paid to the F-35 data rights ownership issues until about 18 months ago and it is a high priority issue today." The "Pentagon and its lawyers are working with the JSF program's main industry participants to sort out data rights ownership questions, many of which remain unresolved."
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I guess every time we fill up at the pump we're helping Norway pay for its F-35's
PS: The pice by piece funding of the Norwegian F-35 is a formality, all 48 will be bought, it´s just that funding must be voted on each each year as part of the annual national budget. As it happens 6 aircraft are on the 2014 budget.
General Mark Welsh III, the US Air Force’s Chief of Staff, explained during an AEI event that there are big swaths of the budget that his service can’t touch, leaving little space to adjust to sequestration.
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I was under the impression that sequestration is out of the window now because a new budget is probably a fact now that the democrats and republicans have come to an agreement.
First real budget since 2009, immediate effect for the DoD is at least a budget increase of 21 billion$.
House approves budget deal aimed at averting shutdown - CNN.com
edit for link
First real budget since 2009, immediate effect for the DoD is at least a budget increase of 21 billion$.
House approves budget deal aimed at averting shutdown - CNN.com
edit for link
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Is the BILL the same as this one on earlier date 10 Dec 2013?
Lawmakers Reach Deal on U.S. Defense Authorization Bill 10 Dec 2013 Roxana Tiron
Lawmakers Reach Deal on U.S. Defense Authorization Bill - Bloomberg
Lawmakers Reach Deal on U.S. Defense Authorization Bill 10 Dec 2013 Roxana Tiron
"U.S. House and Senate negotiators settled on a $552.1 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2014... and approve the Pentagon’s request for F-35 fighters....
...F-35 Purchases
Under the bill unveiled yesterday, the Pentagon would be allowed to buy the 29 F-35 jets it had requested. The fighter, made by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), is the military’s costliest weapons program.
The Pentagon’s current five-year plan calls for increasing F-35 production to 42 jets in fiscal 2015, which begins Oct. 1, 2014, from 29 this year and in fiscal 2013. The rate would increase to 62 in 2016, 76 in 2017 and 100 in 2018, according to internal Pentagon budget documents. The new plan will be released next year with the Pentagon’s fiscal 2015 budget plan.
The Pentagon’s projected price tag of $391.2 billion for a fleet of 2,443 aircraft is a 68 percent increase from the projection in 2001, as measured in current dollars. The number of aircraft also is 409 fewer than called for in the original program...."
...F-35 Purchases
Under the bill unveiled yesterday, the Pentagon would be allowed to buy the 29 F-35 jets it had requested. The fighter, made by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), is the military’s costliest weapons program.
The Pentagon’s current five-year plan calls for increasing F-35 production to 42 jets in fiscal 2015, which begins Oct. 1, 2014, from 29 this year and in fiscal 2013. The rate would increase to 62 in 2016, 76 in 2017 and 100 in 2018, according to internal Pentagon budget documents. The new plan will be released next year with the Pentagon’s fiscal 2015 budget plan.
The Pentagon’s projected price tag of $391.2 billion for a fleet of 2,443 aircraft is a 68 percent increase from the projection in 2001, as measured in current dollars. The number of aircraft also is 409 fewer than called for in the original program...."
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NIMITZ to perhaps Arrest the F-35C (1st part 2014) (2nd part with hook later)
Hooking at Pax River this month, with Lakehurst not ready yet apparently...
Lockheed: New Carrier Hook for F-35 12 Dec 2013 Dave Majumdar
Lockheed: New Carrier Hook for F-35 | USNI News
Lockheed: New Carrier Hook for F-35 12 Dec 2013 Dave Majumdar
"Lockheed Martin is set to deliver a production version of the tailhook for the carrier-based F-35C Joint Strike Fighter after an engineering glitch forced a partial redesign of the system.
“CF-3 is the test aircraft that is modified to conduct tailhook testing,” Lockheed spokeswoman Laura Siebert wrote in an email to USNI News on Dec. 12. “The airplane is in the final stages of preparation for test with the new tailhook module installed.”
The modified F-35C test aircraft will conduct flight test at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., until facilities are ready for trials at Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst in New Jersey to conduct roll-in testing.
“It will be ready for planned testing when the facilities at Lakehurst are ready,” Siebert said. “In the interim, expect checkout flights at Pax River this month.”
Roll-in testing is required to verify that the F-35C will be able catch a cable on a set of carrier arresting gear installed onshore at the Lakehurst facility. After the aircraft demonstrates that it can catch a wire on land, the F-35C will have to be tested at sea.
Arrested recoveries at sea should take place onboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in the first part of 2014 according to Lockheed officials. However, while the current plan calls for the F-35 to perform its sea-trials onboard the Nimitz, it could be another ship depending on the availability of carriers at the time.
Demonstrating that the F-35C can recover onboard a carrier is critical for a naval aircraft. The tailhook has been a vexing problem on the F-35C variant when it was discovered in 2012 that the hook could not reliably engage an arresting wire.
Lockheed and the Joint Strike Fighter program office ultimately traced the problem back to the shape of the hook and a faulty wire dynamics model supplied by the Naval Air Systems Command.
The solution was to reshape the hook point and adjust the system’s hold-down damper, which helps prevent the hook from bouncing around upon touchdown...."
“CF-3 is the test aircraft that is modified to conduct tailhook testing,” Lockheed spokeswoman Laura Siebert wrote in an email to USNI News on Dec. 12. “The airplane is in the final stages of preparation for test with the new tailhook module installed.”
The modified F-35C test aircraft will conduct flight test at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., until facilities are ready for trials at Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst in New Jersey to conduct roll-in testing.
“It will be ready for planned testing when the facilities at Lakehurst are ready,” Siebert said. “In the interim, expect checkout flights at Pax River this month.”
Roll-in testing is required to verify that the F-35C will be able catch a cable on a set of carrier arresting gear installed onshore at the Lakehurst facility. After the aircraft demonstrates that it can catch a wire on land, the F-35C will have to be tested at sea.
Arrested recoveries at sea should take place onboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in the first part of 2014 according to Lockheed officials. However, while the current plan calls for the F-35 to perform its sea-trials onboard the Nimitz, it could be another ship depending on the availability of carriers at the time.
Demonstrating that the F-35C can recover onboard a carrier is critical for a naval aircraft. The tailhook has been a vexing problem on the F-35C variant when it was discovered in 2012 that the hook could not reliably engage an arresting wire.
Lockheed and the Joint Strike Fighter program office ultimately traced the problem back to the shape of the hook and a faulty wire dynamics model supplied by the Naval Air Systems Command.
The solution was to reshape the hook point and adjust the system’s hold-down damper, which helps prevent the hook from bouncing around upon touchdown...."