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-   -   F-35 Cancelled, then what ? (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/424953-f-35-cancelled-then-what.html)

JSFfan 8th Feb 2013 18:16

"The effectiveness of ANY weapon system cannot be objectively assessed by the fact that it can go quite fast carrying some weapons. The only OBJECTIVE assessment that we can do just now would be as I have said (and you have ignored) before is to run the simulations to check that it can do the job"

I agree, what happens under the skin is far more important
It is silly to use Jane's specs to judge an aircraft, but I'm not the one hand wringing over the F-35ab being a bit slower than a "clean" f-16 in level flight trans accel. (level flight trans accel is something I've never heard doing operationally) and for the hand wringers, block 6 has an engine upgrade
.
The not going as fast as a clean f-16 in trans acell has been public for 12 months now and I guess would have been known that the pre 2001 wasn't going to be met when they put the 2005 design into a wind tunnel.

The 9+ air forces are running sims, They started with a LER of 3:1 and now have a LER of 6:1, 4 vs 8.

kbrockman 8th Feb 2013 18:18

We have an expression over here; "no more eggs from that farmer"
I think it's safe to say that people like Tom Burbage are one of those farmers,
He's been pretty much death wrong or wilfully deceptive in almost all of his statements concerning all things F35.

Trustworthy info is hard to get by on things like the F35 (or most other defence projects), the only thing we can put faith into are rapports from neutral overseeing boards like eg. the GOA or the defence commission or even people involved in the past that are no longer tied to the program and have nothing to benefit from it or those not directly involved that worked on similar programs.

Problem is that exactly these people are very critical about the way the JSF program is evolving, and more worryingly , what it will ultimately turn into and what price will have to be paid for this wonderweapon.

Hearing statements like today's , 'the F35 will basically outperform every 4th generation fighter' are questionable even if we only go by the raw data that is available, it all just doesn't add up.

Anyway, I'm getting rather tired about all this,we seem to rehash all this again and again and every time we actually see neutral rapports there just seems to be way too many problems and chronic performance shortfalls.

Maybe this whole program is indicative of the deeper problems in our societies and economies.
It has become a work-scheme and profit-scheme too big to fail, a bit like one of these massive banks or corporations that need to be bailed out at all costs destroying the fabric of what it was supposed to serve in the first place.

// my final rant.

PS; I hope we Belgians look at our empty pockets before committing to this atrocity and choose something a little more sensible, I'm not getting my hopes up though.

PPS I've been in the engineering sector basically my whole life and the idea that big projects like this are bound to run overtime, overbudget and out of spec is a fallacy , non politicised big projects can be executed within acceptable limits when only objective data and criteria are used.
just my two cents.

JSFfan 8th Feb 2013 18:34

As to a timeline, it was made public in Jan 2012 and in Mar 2012 this was said
ParlInfo - Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade : 20/03/2012 : Department of Defence annual report 2010-11
we put the real data from the airplanes in the simulation and they run up many, many runs to get the numbers we are talking about.
Mr Liberson: And it is very important to note that our constructive simulations that Mr Burbage talks about without the pilot in the loop are the lowest number that we talk about—

the greater than six to one. When we include the pilot in the loop activities, they even do better when we include all of that in our partner manned tactical simulation facility.
Mr Burbage: We actually have a fifth-gen airplane flying today. The F22 has been in many exercises. We have one of the pilots here who flew it and they can tell you that in any real-world event it is much better than the simulations forecast. We have F35 flying today; it has not been put into that scenario yet, but we have very high quality information on the capability of the sensors and the capability of the airplane, and we have represented the airplane fairly and appropriately in these large-scale campaign models that we are using. But it is not just us—it is our air force; it is your air force; it is all the other participating nations that do this; it is our navy and our marine corps that do these exercises. It is not Lockheed in a closet genning up some sort of result.

LowObservable 8th Feb 2013 19:09

To start with, let us be honest: Mr Flynn works for Lockheed Martin. And when he talks to the media in an official capacity, he answers at that moment not to the flight-test organization but to the company's marketing, advertising and communications side.

Everyone selling anything says what they can get away with, whether it is simply telling porkies or selective data. (As in the commercial airplane world, where there were 105 ways of quietly lopping a couple of seat rows and four revenue freight containers out of your competitor's jet in a supposedly comparable layout.)

But the aircraft does not lie.

Compared with the JSF:

The Phoon is two tons lighter empty, and will be lighter by a larger margin at start-of-combat with the same fuel fraction (which determines how long you can fight and still get home) and weapon load.

The Phoon has equal static mil thrust and 93 per cent of the max thrust. It has a lower-bypass engine cycle which is increasingly advantageous as speed increases. (The F135 is optimized for SLST - score another hit on A/C capability for the B version.)

The Phoon's body is several feet longer and has much less volume (by two weapon bays and 8,000 lb of fuel) so its fineness ratio is greater. It also has a lower cross-sectional area that peaks much further aft.

The Phoon wing is 20 per cent larger in gross area, probably 50 per cent larger in net area, has a lower T/C-ratio and greater sweep.

Laws of physics > statements of LockMart employee.

Basic Tech Intelligence > PR and advertising.

This is not to say that the F-35 was incompetently designed. The requirements for the F-35 and Typhoon were vastly different - as different as the Buccaneer and the F-4K/M, although both had two seats, two Speys and a radar, as different as a Tornado and an F-18.

LockMart and the JSF peanut gallery are free to argue that their approach delivers a better military capability, but to try to make the case that JSF is better at what a Typhoon is intended to do... Sorry.

Also, this is all a bit amusing coming from the crew who also tell us that "maneuvering is irrelevant". Make your bloody minds up, will you?

Just This Once... 8th Feb 2013 19:18

Meanwhile the USMC are getting used to the idea that the F-35B will be covered in pylons, may need a jammer that does a bit more than what the APG-81 can provide, may need to carry IR weapons as a matter of routine and may need better defensive capabilities when having to fly under the weather to acheive VMC.

They are also starting to talk about a targeting pod too.

We have come a long way...

peter we 8th Feb 2013 19:56


They got the Harrier working , I fail to see why the F32 wouldn't have worked out.
Because the people who got the Harrier working couldn't get it working and developed the F-35 instead, because that was the solution to the problem.

Excuse me if I am speaking out of turn.

kbrockman 8th Feb 2013 20:51


Because the people who got the Harrier working couldn't get it working and developed the F-35 instead, because that was the solution to the problem.

Excuse me if I am speaking out of turn.
You mean that Boeing, aka ex-MDD didn't know about hot air ingestion and choose the wrong path , while all along they had the AV8B in their portfolio?

LID devices ,when the gunpods wheren't installed, was something they came up with, no?

Also the hot-air gasses on the X32 are a good deal further aft compared with the Harrier, hard to imagine that with some tweaking they couldn't get their system working adequately.

JSFfan 8th Feb 2013 21:43


Meanwhile the USMC are getting used to the idea that the F-35B will be covered in pylons, may need a jammer that does a bit more than what the APG-81 can provide, may need to carry IR weapons as a matter of routine and may need better defensive capabilities when having to fly under the weather to acheive VMC."
There was talk of that jammer pod, I guess that may happen when you want IOC with block 2 and the cake isn't cooked till block 3, I haven't seen any real development of the idea, do you have a recent link? or are you reminiscing a what if

meanwhile the USAF seem happy and the USMC "will" be happy
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/Mag...112fighter.pdf

He did say, however, that F-35 requirements call for it to go into battle with “no support whatever” from AWACS/Growler systems.

“I don’t know a pilot alive who wouldn’t want whatever support he can get,” O’Bryan acknowledged. “But the requirements that we were given to build the airplane didn’t have any support functions built in. In other words, we had to find the target, ... penetrate the anti-access [defenses], ... ID the target, and ... destroy it by ourselves.”

O’Bryan said the power of the F-35’s EW/EA systems can be inferred from the fact that the Marine Corps “is going to replace its EA-6B [a dedicated jamming aircraft] with the baseline F-35B” with no additional pods or internal systems.

Asked about the Air Force’s plans, O’Bryan answered with several rhetorical Questions: “Are they investing in a big jammer fleet? Are they buying [EA-18G] Growlers?” Then he said, “There’s a capability here.”

O’Bryan went on to say that the electronic warfare capability on the F-35A
is as good as, or better than, [that of the] fourth generation airplanes specifically built for that purpose.”
The F-35’s “sensitivity” and processing Power—a great deal of it automated—coupled with the sensor fusion of internal and offboard systems, give the pilot unprecedented situational awareness





ORAC 8th Feb 2013 21:52


O’Bryan said the power of the F-35’s EW/EA systems can be inferred from the fact that the Marine Corps “is going to replace its EA-6B [a dedicated jamming aircraft] with the baseline F-35B” with no additional pods or internal systems. Asked about the Air Force’s plans, O’Bryan answered with several rhetorical Questions: “Are they investing in a big jammer fleet? Are they buying [EA-18G] Growlers?” Then he said, “There’s a capability here.”
WILL F-35 CUSTOMERS GET ADVANCED JAMMER?

The U.S. Navy is providing some details about what the Next Generation Jammer might add to the air defense-busting capabilities of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but the unique and futuristic capabilities of the jammer raise questions about how many of those yet-to-be-defined abilities will be available to foreign purchasers of the JSF.........

Still to be determined is whether the NGJ system will be exportable to other JSF-buying nations. The NGJ is designed to defend the F-35 against heavily protected surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and suppress integrated enemy air defenses such as the SA-20. Advanced SAM systems might be used by Iran, for example, to defend nuclear weapons, ballistic missile and key command-and-control sites. U.S. analysts say only a stealthy, high-flying, supercruise aircraft can avoid destruction in the heart of such defenses.........

JSFfan 8th Feb 2013 23:12

"Still to be determined is whether the NGJ system will be exportable to other JSF-buying nations."

I did ask if there was a "recent link"
Ok, so it looks like you dug up a very old article, when there was talk about putting the NGJ on the f-35.
That question on export has already been answered for Aussies, we are getting the NGJ on the growlers when they are cooked and will probably finish up on UAV's. There are no plans to put the NGJ on any f-35

also Jurno speculation doesn't count "The NGJ is designed to defend the F-35 against heavily protected surface-to-air missiles " isn't a quote from Green

ITman 8th Feb 2013 23:35

Pentagon lowers F-35 performance bar

BY: DAVE MAJUMDAR WASHINGTON DC
11:03 14 Jan 2013
Source: Flight International

The US Department of Defense is lowering the performance bar for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter according to a new report by the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E).
The specifications for all three variants pertaining to transonic acceleration and sustained turn rates have been reduced. Worst hit in terms of acceleration is the US Navy's F-35C carrier-based model.

"The program announced an intention to change performance specifications for the F-35C, reducing turn performance from 5.1 to 5.0 sustained g's and increasing the time for acceleration from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach by at least 43 seconds," reads the report prepared by J Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's DOT&E. "These changes were due to the results of air vehicle performance and flying qualities evaluations."

The US Air Force F-35A's time has slipped by eight seconds while the US Marine Corps short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B's time has slipped by 16 seconds. However, turn rates for both the A and B models have been impacted more severely than the USN variant. Sustained turning performance for the F-35B is being reduced from 5G to 4.5G while the F-35A sinks from 5.3G to 4.6G according to the report.

Lockheed Martin

All three variants are having problems with their horizontal tails. "Horizontal tail surfaces are experiencing higher than expected temperatures during sustained high speed / high altitude flight, resulting in delamination and scorching of the surface coatings and structure," the report reads. "All variants were restricted from operations outside of a reduced envelope until the test team added instrumentation to the tailbooms to monitor temperatures on the tail surfaces."

Meanwhile, the F-35B and C variants continue to have issues with transonic roll-off and buffeting. On the F-35B, the program introduced vehicle systems software to reduce rudder and flaperon hinge moment in the transonic/supersonic region. "The program expected to see improvements in transonic wing roll-off with these changes, but results were not available at the end of November 2012," the report reads.

Transonic buffet is more severe on the F-35C compared to the other variants due to its larger wing. "The program is making plans for investigating how to reduce the impact of transonic roll-off in the F-35C with the use of wing spoilers; however, detailed test plans are not complete," the report reads.
Meanwhile, the aircraft's crucial helmet-mounted display still has problems with jittery images and is not meeting specifications for night vision acuity. Additionally, a new problem called "green glow" has been discovered where light from the cockpit avionics displays leak into the helmet-mounted display and degrade visual acuity. However, the image latency is now within tolerances. "Latency of the projected imagery from the DAS [distributed aperture system] is currently down to 133 milliseconds, below the human factors derived maximum of 150 milliseconds, but still requires additional testing to verify adequacy," the report reads.

Perhaps in worst shape is the F-35's software. According to the report, even the initial Block 1 software package is not complete, some 20% remains to be delivered and flight tested. An initial version of the more advanced, but still not combat capable, Block 2A software was delivered four months late to flight test. "In eight subsequent versions released to flight test, only a limited portion of the full, planned Block 2A capability (less than 50 percent) became available and delivered to production," the report reads. "The program made virtually no progress in the development, integration, and laboratory testing of any software beyond 2B. Block 3i software, required for delivery of Lot 6 aircraft and hosted on an upgraded processor, has lagged in integration and laboratory testing."

Meanwhile, structural durability testing continues, but the F-35B has hit a snag. "The program halted testing in December 2012 after multiple cracks were found in a bulkhead flange on the underside of the fuselage during the 7,000-hour inspection," the report reads. "Root cause analysis, correlation to previous model predictions, and corrective action planning were ongoing at the time of this report."

Lockheed could not immediately offer a substantive comment. "Our experts are going through it so it will be a while before we have detailed questions like yours answered," the company says, but adds, "From an Operational Test and Evaluation perspective, we fully expect to deliver a qualified product to OT&E as scheduled."

ORAC 9th Feb 2013 11:03

JSFfan,

The point is as follows.

1. THe USN has accepted that the JSF internal jammer will be incapable of meeting the Day 1 threat by 2020 (prior to IOC) and that the NGJ is required to provide EW cover to penetrate enemy defences.

2. The NGJ integration with the JSF has been deferred indefinitely - which will, therefore require an escort jammer - either F/A-18G, UCAV or other.

3. Any partner nation not buying/ being allowed to buy the NGJ loses the Day 1 capability rendering the stealth aspects of the JSF of little or nugatory value.

It would be interesting to compare the cost and capability of a mixed F/A-18G + F/A-18E fleet versus an 18G/JSF and, for other partners such as the Dutch, Turks etc a Rafale/Typhoon/F-15E force fitted with NGJ for self protection.

Exnomad 9th Feb 2013 13:13

F35 etc
 
Bearing in mind that the sizes of the ships was at least partly due to Brown.s desire to keep his pet shipyard busy. If at the outset VTOL was to be specified we could have had at least three smaller ships.
The present ones without cats and traps will not be able to operate conventional aircraft form other airforces, which was at least one of the claim originally

Mk 1 9th Feb 2013 13:31

LO, lots of 'if's' there:

IF the F-22 had continued in production...IF the F-35 production doesn't top 3 figures...

I can top that: IF they stop production and terminate the program now then it could be the F-35 is probably the most expensive bird per unit production on the planet!

LO, one fact we do know is that F-22 production has stopped well short of the anticipated numbers (187 isn't it?). Obviously the final number of F-35's won't be known for probably 15-20 years, I guess they can crunch the figures then and we'll both know.

This is the sort of thing that Joe the alien (newly arrived from another planet) isn't going to understand. In this one statement you are comparing supposedly similar numbers of airframes (rough figs F-22 was supposed to run between 800-900 airframes wasn't it?) with 3 figs F-35 and seem to be surprised that the unit cost is higher DESPITE the F-35 having 3 versions designed and tested including a STOVL unit. And you've made this comparison based on a falacy (F-22 production has stopped - no use wishing for more, it's not going to happen).

So here my 'what if' for you based along similarly biased lines - what would the unit cost of the F-22 be if it had been designed in 3 versions incl VTOL- I'll even give you the original 800 odd production numbers - compared to the F-35 (orders standing at what 3000+?).

If you cannot see that the question you have asked and the comparison you have made is wrong then you've proved my point.

ORAC 9th Feb 2013 14:03


Obviously the final number of F-35's won't be known for probably 15-20 years
Well it's been known for almost a year that's there's no more money - any cash for future price increases comes from reducing the number bought.

So the F-35 is already into a death spiral; as the price goes up, the number to be built goes down, which drives the price up, which drives the number down..... and so on to the end.

The only question is how many get built before the plug is finally pulled.

Not_a_boffin 9th Feb 2013 15:11

No, that's just b0llocks
 

Bearing in mind that the sizes of the ships was at least partly due to Brown.s desire to keep his pet shipyard busy. If at the outset VTOL was to be specified we could have had at least three smaller ships.
The present ones without cats and traps will not be able to operate conventional aircraft form other airforces, which was at least one of the claim originally
No - that's an urban myth perpetuated by those involved in the interservice attempts to scupper the ships as being "too big".

The requirement as signed up and endorsed jointly in 1998/99 meant that three smaller ships would not have been able to meet it. ISTR the one-eyed Scottish financial genius was still festering away in his Treasury back then. The ships (STOVL or CTOL) were always going to be too big to build in any existing single UK yard - a fact exacerbated by Paul Drayson using the Defence Industrial Strategy as a club to beat BAES and VT into a joint venture (which VT later left).

It's really quite simple. The build location was driven (primarily) by the beam of the vessel, which in turn was driven partly by the size of flightdeck and hangar needed and partly by the need to make the flightdeck capable of being angled. You simply can't do this on an overall beam much less than 65m.

When the build strategy was being determined, every single UK yard was looked at. That meant Barrow (no beam restriction on the ways, but no way to get her into the outfitting dock and more importantly she'd be too long and too deep), Govan (not enough length or beam on the building way), Scotstoun (too small in every respect), Swan Hunter (too small ever since the daft Dutch idiot who bought the yard put the building dock in), Portsmouth (not enough beam in C&D locks, plus limited draft in 3 basin), Harland & Wolff (plenty of room in the building dock, but no steel, outfit or technical organisation left for something of this size, Cammell Laird (shed too small and at the time in receivership). Rosyth could not have been used to build it, because the steel and outfit facilities simply aren't big enough and there is no real room to expand without building an entirely new facility where RD57 (the abandoned Trident docking facility) stands. Nigg Offshore yard near Inverness was also considered, as was Inchgreen dock on the Clyde, but both were essentially bare facilities with Nigg not having been used for years.

The other problem was that none of these yards were individually capable of fabricating all the steel units and outfitting them at a sufficient rate to meet the original in-service date.

Once people got their heads around those factors, it was obvious that if the ship was to be built in the UK, she would have to be built in heavily preoutfitted units and assembled in a suitable dock. MoD wanted the ship built in the UK to retain onshore design and build skills, as well as ensuring that some of the protective details in the design of the ship remained in UK eyes alone. That left a choice between Inchgreen, Harlands and Rosyth for the assembly location, which was not really a choice at all as neither of the first two were "secure" sites (Harlands managed to let PIRA bomb Fort Vic in build), nor did they have the space and infrastructure to accommodate the steel units and people needed to assemble the ships. Rosyth did - and apart from the crane, required only minor mods to the dock.

The idea that Rosyth was chosen to appease the Great Financial Genius / One-Eyed Pillock is superficially attractive, but is actually a myth. He - more than anyone - delayed the ships and increased the cost by continually blocking the order in his last years in HMT and as PM - it was only when he was grasping at any straw he could lay his hands on to get re-elected that the build contract was allowed to be signed.

If F35B (or indeed F35 in toto) is canned, the ships will still be capable of conversion to operate F18s or Rafale in CTOL mode if required. It was simply judged too expensive (on the basis of some rather funny numbers that even the HCDC couldn't work out) at the minute compared to using F35B - doesn't mean it can't be done.

I've been very impressed with the standard of build and outfit on QE whenever I've seen a unit. The constant arguing about the type of aircraft and the tortuous approvals process have not been success stories. The build most definitely is.

By the way, no-one would wish to operate f/w aircraft in VTOL mode from ships - no useful payload at all.

dervish 9th Feb 2013 15:42

Not a Boffin

I must say I enjoyed reading that last post. It should be required reading in MoD on so many levels. The one thing I'd say is that no reasonable person should expect the HCDC to be capable of working out anything related to defence. :E

susanlikescats 9th Feb 2013 15:57

Dear JSFfan (love the name, I totally get it),

Have you looked around recently at the sort of flying things your near neighbours and possibly-soon-to-be-floating-off-your-shores-once-they've-got-the-carrier-thing-licked neighbours may be bringing to any party? Are you really convinced that whatever version of the 35 your American chums let you buy - and in the numbers you're able to afford - will do anything other than raise an amused eyebrow from these people?

I only ask because I've already seen the amused eyebrow being raised...

Not_a_boffin 9th Feb 2013 16:45


The one thing I'd say is that no reasonable person should expect the HCDC to be capable of working out anything related to defence.
You are of course correct! What I meant was that even when it was clear that MinDEST, CDM and DCDS CAP didn't really know what was going on in the evidence sessions, they weren't pressed on the matter.

LowObservable 9th Feb 2013 17:01

Mk 1...

I don't really understand what you are getting at.

My comment was: "Unit production cost of the B (under discussion here) is by any definition about three-quarters of what RAND estimated the F-22 would have cost in continued production, if everything goes to plan and at triple-digit total F-35 production rates."

I may have to be more detailed. I was not talking about the total number of aircraft built because it does not matter as much as production rate per year - not at any rate in defense economics, where everything is paid year-by-year, so a manufacturer can't take a loss in prospect of big profits down the road. F-35s to be bought in 2030 have no effect on 2018 costs.

All F-35 projections currently assume total all-variant rates well above 150/year, from 2018 buy year forward.

Even so, the average procurement unit cost of the F-35B in 2018 (in BY12 dollars) is $138 million. RAND's 2010 calculation was that building 75 more F-22s over about six years (on top of the 187 already funded) would result in an APUC of $173 million, at a far lower production rate.

So all the factors you're talking about have already been washed out of the comparison.

ORAC - O'Bryan's comments about the Marines not replacing the EA-6B and its implications for the F-35 EA capability are... interesting. There has never been any mention of an active EW system on the F-35 aside from functions built into the radar (X-band and front sector only). Indeed, the JSF requirement was written only a few years after the chief engineer at LM-Sanders, now BAE Systems Nashua, described active EW as "going the way of the buggy whip industry".

Also, it's hard to see why an LO aircraft would need high-powered jamming of the kind needed by an escort or stand-off EW aircraft. Certainly not for self-protection. And integrating such a thing into an aircraft that's already short of space and cooling, given the difficulty of adding large apertures to an LO airframe, would be challenging.


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