Yeah but it's also a fact that the senate armed services committee has some very big reservations about the programme. The progress in testing is of course, welcome news; but an article sourced only from Lockheed Martin has to be taken with a pinch of salt. The quick look report makes for far less encouraging reading!

Are you sure you don't work for Lockheed, WO?

I'm sure that nay sayers will once more suggest that Lockheed Martin are dreaming but I like to think the glass is half full (or should that be fool)

Click

Two snippets from this weeks AWST (Farnborough Special). The first raises the issue of obsolescent hardware - IIRC a problem also met on the F22 at about airframe 50-60. Caused due to the 20-30 year protracted design/production cycle. The second reference the F-35C hook.

.....The 3I package, to be installed on aircraft in LRIPs 6-8, will include the 2B release rehosted on new computer hardware, selected to handle obsolescence issues...

....Work also continues on a redesigned tail hook and dampener for the F-35C. The original design failed to grasp the arresting wire in slow, ground based trials last year. Carvalho says Lockheed Martin began testing the tailhook - which has a sharper point designed to scoop under the wire - in May and it ""caught the wire every time" in ground tests. Work is underway on the dampener, and Vemlet hopes to see it tested by early fall. The first arrested landing on a runway is expected in 2013....

Sorry, subscription paper copy. Should be available online next week for non-subscribers.

here is the text for that part from AW
In addition, the Pentagon has broken the Block 3 increment into two pieces—Block 3I (initial capability) and Block 3F (full capability), says Venlet. “We don't want to throw too much in it so that it can't be done,” he says, noting that Block 3 may also include some regression work from Block 2B. The 3I package, to be installed on aircraft in LRIPs 6-8, will include the 2B release rehosted on new computer hardware, selected to handle obsolescence issues. The 3F tranche will feature new capabilities that are key to the F-35's core mission‚ such as multi-ship suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses as well as new air-to-air and air-to-ground modes. This package also will include the full complement of weapons carried internally and externally on the aircraft, says Venlet. It is slated for inclusion on the LRIP 9 aircraft, and defines the capability that will be available at the end of the development phase of the program in 2017, he notes.
Once the process is stable, Venlet says the program office hopes to issue a software refresh every two years.

ORAC

Sorry - trouble with PPRune/my machine/it being Friday the 13th meant that I managed to delete my reply whilst trying to edit it. I attempted to make the point that Technology Insertioon is becoming the norm - see this RUSI paper.

These are a couple of replies to previous posts that I managed to write and not post. Sorry if this appears messed up, with replies not in chronological order...

We also have to think about what is actually achievable, considering finical, technical, manpower, and training considerations. No point in aiming for things that are not achievable.

Nor has the Government outlined a coherent policy for preparing for a F35B/STOVL future, as opposed to the post SDSR plan of attempting to prepare for a CTOL future, with personnel on exchange Stateside.

I have commented in this before. We need to just get on with it, which to my mind seems to mean that a policy change is needed as I suggested here.

Presumably it will be easier to prepare future CVF crews with the skills needed for STOVL operations than for CTOL ones? Add to that the very real possibility of embarking Harriers aboard Illustrious/Queen Elizabeth? These things make the switch from F35B to F35C seem more logical.

Why can we not embark foreign Harriers?

Better still, borrowing a few AV8Bs from Spain or Italy (particularly the former as they may be needing the UK to chip in to the bailout fund - and are allegedly looking to mothball their carrier) would give us aircraft to train with, and a real capability. Alternatively (and since the US want us to have a carrier capability) lease a few AV8Bs (with support Memorandum of Understanding). But we need to do something.

When I heard of the move from F35C back to F35B (and STOVL operations), I thought (hoped) that it would follow that a lease or whatever of Harriers would take place - as this would give us the capability back now and allow us to prepare properly for the future. Why are the politicians so unwilling to consider making this a success?

We need to do something.

True, but unless one is a feckless waster, dodgy foreign power, anthropomorphic global warming activist or Olympic (all praise the great olympic cock-up) related, anything that costs more than three shillings and tuppence is not going to get past government bean counters.

For "not_a_boffin" - question 143 onwards is Bernard Gray shedding a bit of light on the factors behind the cats/traps conversion cost escalation.

There is a reference to "other equipment being needed to operate CV variant as well as the cats & traps".

House of Commons - Uncorrected Evidence - HC9-ii

Thanks for that JFZ.

Suspect the "other equipment" might be a Fresnel fit, the camera system and potentially they're suggesting they hadn't included the AAG fit as well. 280 compartments changed will often mean something as simple as the parts list altered for a different piece of equipment, although in some cases it will mean major structural mods.

However, still doesn't explain the mahoosive amount of manpower. Combined total of EMALS & AAG procurement in the USN budget book ranges from $675M + $146M to $846M + $184M over the two ship sets ordered thus far, including engineering support. Worst case, call it $1Bn, which is £700M in real money, leaving £1.3Bn of manpower to execute the conversion. At £50/hr, that's still 26 million manhours, half that if you go extreme and suggest £100/hr. Given that HMS Illustrious took around 22M manhours in total to build from scratch thirty years ago, I remain sceptical that the figures purely reflect the conversion.

However, it's done, let's get the ships in service and crack on.

:):)Smug grin on face


I was thinking that the operating components of the catapults were not independent and it was unlikely that buying two would be half the price of buying four but I was assured they were indeed fully independent..

However we now find out that the basic research might not have been done and there was no glojo to ask such a basic and fundamental question!


. As usual I sing the same song as Not A Boffin and if this is an example of their lackadaisical costings then let's pick a number, double it and then divide by the angle of the dangle to get the figure we want.

Bernard Gray, Chief of Defence Materiel talks about wanting to pay his senior staff more money to retain them and then make it easier to employ retiring senior officers.. I would suggest employing people capable of simple costings and asking the most basic of questions! That committee meeting contained more waffle than my evening Waffle Pie!

So, to repeat a couple of earlier questions

1) was the competing EMCAT system from Converteam ever costed out?
2) was the Internal Combustion Catapult Launch System (ICCALS) ever looked at? I understand thats a possible retro-fit to the older USN carriers that can't be fitted with EMALS

I have seem statements from someone claiming to work on CVF that part of that "cost of additional equipment relating to "cat & trap"" includes carrier-based airborne refueling aircraft for recovery tanking (either separate aircraft or integrating buddy-tanking capability on F-35C and buying the buddy-tanking equipment).

That wouldn't surprise me and is a bit naughty if true. Larger STOVL formations may also require tanking, it isn't just a CTOL thing.

NaB - The requirement for tanking support for STOVL ops might be more rigorous in the SRVL case, with less recovery flexibility in the case of a fouled deck.

On the other hand the B does can't carry enough gas to be a very interesting tanker, anyway.

"The requirement for tanking support for STOVL ops might be more rigorous in the SRVL case, with less recovery flexibility in the case of a fouled deck. "

The plan is to dump the extra weight and land vertically in case of a fouled deck

Presumably the tanking costs were not included in the STOVL option? Interesting - makes you wonder if they were comparing like with like - for a fair comparison of options, the combat radius of the B vs C option should have been the same - in this case would recovery tanking really be needed for the C to achieve the same strike capability as a B?

Buddy tanking's not just about recovery, though, is it? There're a bundle of other capabilities involved. More and more it's clear that this was a case of, 'Now this is your answer, go find me the reasons.'

:ugh:

It is absolutely senseless talking about tanking capability as that died when the option for cats and traps died.

We have ALWAYS been quite clearly told that if we want the 'B' to have ANY type of tanking capability the FULL costs of research, design,development and testing for this feature will be down to the United Kingdom. The USA are not interested, never have been interested and presumably never will be interested in having such an expensive, technological advanced aircraft as a tanker!

Judging on how our bean counters do their costing I think it fair to suggest that these design costs would far exceed the simpler task of converting our floating steel launch and recovery platforms into proper, self supporting aircraft carriers.. Have I still got a strong opinion regarding this decision?

Glojo,

i'm as thick as a whale omlette - how/why would giving an F-35B a tanking capability be that much harder than taking a buddy re-fuelling pod from a Tornado, or F/A-18, and nailing it onto the inboard pylon of an F-35?

i'm not saying a 'good' tanking capability, i'm merely asking why physically addapting such simple, legacy equipment would be so cripplingly expensive/hard?

Warning!
 

Cokecan, be careful of trying that new-fangled common sense. It has no place in modern military procurement, and could even be considered as career-limiting at your annual evaluation ("...candidate demonstrates a lack of strategic perspective...")

I mean, why use a perfectly effective system as fitted to the Super Hornet? <when a riduculously sky-high priced new system, which is is 'conceptualized' (my deliberate Zed / zee) and CADed from scratch - and can then have the original TOR amended so that the cost can ramp is of course the model answer>.