AHC Harrier replacement
- Thread starter La Rouge Beret
- Start date
Delta Force
Banned
Ideally the Joint Strike Fighter program would have been broken up into two programs, one for the conventional USAF and USN aircraft and another for the STOL/VTOL role. It's gone the way of the F-111 program right now, with commonality being more of a headache and hassle than a means of saving money, because conventional and STOL/VTOL aircraft are quite different.
It in fact started out this way, and the programs were later merged. The ideaI i believe was to try and replicate the success of the F-4.
The F-35A is actually crrently the cheapest and most reliable part of the program, not that this says much. And it doesn't really help the people who have committed to the VTOL version.
Tbh VTOL is pretty much a dead requirement now, no one really needed it. CVF could easily have been been built for CATOBAR, as long as the proper descion had been made in time. And the other harrier operators have theirs mostly for pretty useless light cvs that are little more than prestige projects.
An affordable low observability fighter to replace the F-16 was what was needed, that requirement has been totally unfulfilled.
abc123
Banned
Caught in the act.
Can I get more info about this image? What happened to that Harrier?
Correction: Boeing lost the JSF competition. It's LockMart's pretty toys you have to wait for
Scrapped for spare parts
The rockape whose trench it almost landed in, can be seen looking at the wreckage here
Nick P
Donor
The article http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2012/04/harrier-forward-operating-base-falkland-islands/ gives the wrong aircraft number, it was XZ989.
XZ989 was a Harrier GR.3 which first flew 3rd October 1981. Delivered on 27th November 1981 and lost in a crash on 6th June 1982. Short service life!
http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=55553 says the airframe was robbed of any spare parts which presumably made it lighter and easier to be moved back to a ship and ultimately used as for Ground Instruction at RAF Gutersloh.
The nose section was intended to be used for a Recruitment tool, presumably mounted on a trailer for airshows etc.
"Suffered loss of power while landing at the Port San Carlos F.O.B. on 08:06:1982, the aircraft hitting the ***** very hard and skidding to a halt (Wg Cdr Squire, the pilot, was shaken but not injured). Damaged beyond the resources of the BDR team and used as a spares source. Moved to RAF Stanley by 18 Sqdn Chinook after the ceasefire and then flown to Wideawake aboard LTW Hercules C.1P XV298 on 20:11:1982 Transfered to Heavey Lift Belfast G-BFYU and arrived at RAF Wittering on 23:11:1982. Removed to BAe Dunsfold by 15:03:1983 for assessment but eventually classified as CAT 5. Still at Dunsfold on 10:01:1985 when the maintenance serial No 8849M was allocated it, pending transfer to RAF Gutersloh for Ground Instruction duties."
From: FALKLANDS, The Air War. by Burden, Draper, Rough, Smith, & Wilton. Arms And Armour Press, 1986.
Your mistake is in seeing the F-35 as a project to build a capable combat aircraft, rather than as a method of funnelling as many tax dollars as possible into the pockets of LockMart.
Well yes and no, BAE said they could have easily converted it from VSTOL to CATOBAR configuration at minimal cost - what they meant was they guessed they could without doing their sums first. The new RN carriers were intended to be fitted with EMALS (Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System) instead of the steam catapults used on most modern carriers. Unfortunately, they have had some issues with this and there were also doubts the RN Queen Elizabeth class actually would have sufficient electrical power to run the system...and converting them to steam catapults would mean adding "Donkey" boilers to the design, which would have required considerable redesign and alterations to it. Also BAE wanted a lot of cash to do the work!
Riain
Banned
Your mistake is in seeing the F-35 as a project to build a capable combat aircraft, rather than as a method of funnelling as many tax dollars as possible into the pockets of LockMart.
That's very cynical, what makes you think the F35 will not be a capable combat aircraft?
The F35 was intended to be a low cost F16 replacement - it is not low cost. It has consistently failed to meet the targets set for both performance and development, it has a much shorter range than was expected. The F35 has been described as "can't turn, can't fight and can't run away" in the notorious RAND institute report.
It is currently developing serious faults every 4hrs or so, the lift engine on the B model has a serious fault which may/may not be fixable any time soon, they also had to remove the fire suppression system to meet weight targets. It takes 17+ hours of maintenance for every hour of flight (actually that means each member of its 17 man ground crew has to work 17 hours to keep it flying so that works out at 289 hours total).
The vaunted stealth ability is so good the USN and Marines are increasing their respective F18 Growler/EA6B fleets to support them.
And the costs keep going up. And up. And Up.
Not the most successful program in history and if so much had not been poured into it I suspect it would have gone the same way as the Dodo.
It is currently developing serious faults every 4hrs or so, the lift engine on the B model has a serious fault which may/may not be fixable any time soon, they also had to remove the fire suppression system to meet weight targets. It takes 17+ hours of maintenance for every hour of flight (actually that means each member of its 17 man ground crew has to work 17 hours to keep it flying so that works out at 289 hours total).
The vaunted stealth ability is so good the USN and Marines are increasing their respective F18 Growler/EA6B fleets to support them.
And the costs keep going up. And up. And Up.
Not the most successful program in history and if so much had not been poured into it I suspect it would have gone the same way as the Dodo.
I would respectfully suggest that you give the anti-F-35 coolade a rest and wait a decade or three until we are in a position to make any kind of judgment as to its success.
Would that be a decade or three after it enters service? How long will we be waiting for that?
Frankly, I'd be a lot less cynical if the damn thing had been seen in the wild. We're coming up on 20 years since it was announced, and it still hasn't made it to customers in significant numbers (or at all outside the US), let alone actually been used operationally. It costs more than the F-22, is considerably less capable in most important respects, and seems to be constantly developing new problems. Just to make the picture complete, it's not even clear if it'll be worth the cost if/when it finally shows up: it's low-observable nature seems of limited utility in modern threat environments, and causes issues with payload storage. For anything you don't need a stealth aircraft for, other platforms seem better and much cheaper. For anything you do, it's very much second-best.
I'm willing to reserve final judgement until we actually see how it performs in service, but until it does my patience is wearing a little thin with being told how wonderful it will be. Let's see it in action first.
I agree, except my patience is wearing a little thin with being told by armchair experts how terrible it is. Have you heard of a problem story?
Personally? No; it's been a long time since I moved in such circles (insofar as I ever did). My knowledge on the subject is only as much as I can get from the internet. If you want specific issues, I'd recommend starting here or here. Even applying the most charitable possible interpretation to those articles, it seems pretty clear that cost and availability are nowhere close to meeting expectations. That might be okay if it was at least performing to specification, but note all the Pentagon reports which indicate areas in which it is not.
I agree it's premature to say that it's an expensive boondoggle which can barely fly, let alone fight (tempting though that may be to some of us). But I don't think we can realistically say that the program is essentially going according to plan, either. To me it looks like it's encountering more issues than anyone had expected, which causes me grave concern about whether it will ever meet the hopes of it's customers.
Sorry Gunnarz, I meant the concept of a problem story. It's more a term I got from a sociology friend. Basically, it means it's natural for people to form impressions about someone or something and then suffer from a form of bias that means they take notice of anything that confirms the impression (the problem story) and discount anything that would suggest it may be wrong, or at least somewhat more nuanced. That's what I believe is happening here. Some people have formed the opinion that the F-35 is a lemon and they're not taking notice of anything that would suggest otherwise. Of course, it works the other way too, but generally I'm seeing the anti-F-35 taking precedence here.
Ah, I see. Useful concept, I've encountered something similar under the heading 'confirmation bias' (apparently I don't associate with enough sociologists, which is not something I thought I'd ever be saying).
In any case, I agree that phenomenon is occurring here. There's a tendency for the debate to become polarised, with people either being all in favour of the machine or all against.
Personally I tend to think the F-35 is going to be a disappointment, but I'd love to be proved wrong. Unfortunately the only way we'll really know is when people with a little less invested in one or the other of the dominant narratives get the chance to kick the tires, light the fires, and take it up for a spin. The fact that this is not yet possible, despite all the time and money that have been poured into the program, is the biggest warning sign to me.
I understand where you are coming from. Every combat aircraft has problems - the F15A when it entered service had significant reliability problems that took a long time to resolve, largely that was a training issue. Even the mighty Hunter had all sorts of problems when it was introduced.
The problem is the F35 has only reached many of its program goals by LockMart and the program managers moving the goal posts on range, manoeuvrability and payload whilst simultaneously reducing safety (no fire suppression system on the B to meet weight reduction requirements for example). The recent lift fan fire points to a significant error in the design of the system which at best will require modifications to several components or at worst will need a partial redesign and changes to the production line at massive cost.
This program is urgently needed as many countries are now flying very old and increasingly hard to maintain airframes which should have been replaced several years ago, the USAF has many front line fighters which are 30 years old.
At root the problem was this was really a bit too far for the industry. A better solution would have been to evolve stealthier variants of existing aircraft matched with longer ranged stand off missiles.
When I think of the F35 program I just think it epitomises the phrase the better is the enemy of the good.
The problem is the F35 has only reached many of its program goals by LockMart and the program managers moving the goal posts on range, manoeuvrability and payload whilst simultaneously reducing safety (no fire suppression system on the B to meet weight reduction requirements for example). The recent lift fan fire points to a significant error in the design of the system which at best will require modifications to several components or at worst will need a partial redesign and changes to the production line at massive cost.
This program is urgently needed as many countries are now flying very old and increasingly hard to maintain airframes which should have been replaced several years ago, the USAF has many front line fighters which are 30 years old.
At root the problem was this was really a bit too far for the industry. A better solution would have been to evolve stealthier variants of existing aircraft matched with longer ranged stand off missiles.
When I think of the F35 program I just think it epitomises the phrase the better is the enemy of the good.