AHC: Make the F-35 a sucess story.

[ivanotter]

All,

The F-35 has in my opinion always been a total monstrosity. Exactly as having been said "3-in-1" aircraft is not necessarily a good concept to start with.

Listening to the airforce and then "navalise" the plane will hardly work. Too many things to re-design (catapult launch does put strain on a modern fighter).

Try to go the other way (de-navalise) a design is just as hopeless. You take weight off at different points and weaken the (otherwise) heavy structure.

Just leave the version as is and sell it to the airforce, well, maybe in other countries, but maybe not in the US.

The best example of an all-round design is the F/A-18 - Super Hornet.

I have to admit I have not followed the RN debate lately, but RN building 2 carreirs where the aircrafts are not ready sounds downright not clever.

RN could buy the Rafale instead and be better off.

Wiki:

"United States is projected to spend an estimated US$323 billion for development and procurement on the F-35 program, making it the most expensive defense program ever.[98] The total lifecycle cost for the entire American fleet is estimated to be US$1.51 trillion over its 50-year life, or $618 million per plane.[99] Testifying before a Canadian parliamentary committee in 2011, Rear Admiral Arne Røksund of Norway estimated that his country's 52 F-35 fighter jets will cost $769 million each over their operational lifetime"

Maybe it is simply just too costly to make into a success.

The delay is also based in the programming. Now, I have my views on that part:

1) ADA as the programming language (ADA came with the Ark!). Despite everything, has the SW industry not moved on in some 25 years?

2) 25 million lines of code is a lot! re-look that part (in a previous life I was a programming manager)

3) take the plunge and chuck the B version. Focus on A version and get cash flow going

4) Buy-back schedule for F/A 18's of the main operators (Australia, etc)

Right now, if Norway, Canada, RN, Denmark, Japan goes, the programme is dead. I cannot see Obama signing off on the development costs (and the LM profits) to the tune of close to a $1 billion per plane.

Maybe the X-32 should be re-looked (the sailor inhalor). At least the enemy will die laughing before it can shoot at anyone.

Ivan

 

[Riain]

Some people know how good it is; the pilots over in the US doing the testing of the 63 aircraft that have been built have passed on their thoughts about the plane to their hierarchy. In many instances these reports have not led the respective air forces to demand instant cancellation in favour of 4.5 gen aircraft.

So somebody knows something and they are acting on this information.

 

[Devolved]

Cheap is a relative thing. If a Super Hornet costs say $70 million and an F35 cost $80 million but can beat the Super Hornet 4 out of 5 times does the country who cancels their F35s to buy a slight larger super hornet fleet get a better deal? And what about 20 years down the track when the world F35 fleet is 3000 strong and the Super Hornet Fleet is 700 strong and you go looking for a mid life upgrade? Which plane do you think will have the best options for upgrades?

As things are looking 3,000 F35s is never going to happen. Every country is cutting back on it's orders and most are having debates about it.

I am pretty sure the US government will make big cuts in F35 procurement now that the election is out of the way.

 

[BigWillyG]

I'm calling it as too soon to say it won't be successful. The teething issues, design and program woes aren't any worse than those with the intial F/A-18 program and better than most of the Century series aircraft.

 

[Riain]

They're cutting back on their orders now, but this thing will have a 50 year lifespan. The F15 looked like a sales dud until the F15E came along almost 15 years after the F15A entered service and gave a new lease on life. The newest F15s are just being delivered now and will last for 30 years, or 2045, some 70 years after the type first entered squadron service.

 

[Devolved]

They're cutting back on their orders now, but this thing will have a 50 year lifespan. The F15 looked like a sales dud until the F15E came along almost 15 years after the F15A entered service and gave a new lease on life. The newest F15s are just being delivered now and will last for 30 years, or 2045, some 70 years after the type first entered squadron service.

The F35 won't be around that long. Unmanned aircraft technology is developing fast and I think the Obama administration is more interested in unmanned programmes and hyper sonic weapons development.

More and more air to ground ops are being done by more capable drones. Even the Royal Navy in 2012 was talking about having Unmanned military aircraft on their carriers with the F35s. When even the RN is talking about Unmanned planes on their carriers we know the F35 will be obsolete within the lifetime of even older guys on this website.

 

[Pangur]

ADA is the programing language used for the F-35 ?? Good grief ! On the other hand seeing as I taught myself ADA years ago those hours might just come in useful

 

[BigWillyG]

The F35 won't be around that long. Unmanned aircraft technology is developing fast and I think the Obama administration is more interested in unmanned programmes and hyper sonic weapons development.

More and more air to ground ops are being done by more capable drones. Even the Royal Navy in 2012 was talking about having Unmanned military aircraft on their carriers with the F35s. When even the RN is talking about Unmanned planes on their carriers we know the F35 will be obsolete within the lifetime of even older guys on this website.

I'd say the speed of drone development depends on how international politics go in the future. If you have Cold War scenarios or major interstate wars than drones, hypersonic weapons, etc will develop extremely rapidly. If things remain relatively low intensity like they have been then there will be less push for weapons like that and more interest in cheap bomb trucks like current drones or legacy aircraft like the F-35 will be in 15 years.

 

[gaijin]

Actually I think that especially in low intensity conflicts drones will be more popular. Less air defenses mean less requirements. Not to mention that it is easier to maintain a fleet of drones since they don't need non stop flight training unlike human pilotes

 

[BigWillyG]

Actually I think that especially in low intensity conflicts drones will be more popular. Less air defenses mean less requirements. Not to mention that it is easier to maintain a fleet of drones since they don't need non stop flight training unlike human pilotes

I'm thinking somewhat the same thing but I think there's a difference between cheap bomb truck UCAVs where existing recon drones have simple weapons added on them like current Predator drones and expensive, advanced UCAV which would replace manned aircraft in high intensity roles. The former develop a lot if low intensity conflict remains popular while the later develop if you have Cold War or high intensity war scenarios.
I think manned aircraft would remain more common with low intensity conflict just because they already exist so development is already sunk while high capability UCAVs are only just developing. I think that especially matters on the potential lifespan of the F-22 and F-35. In a low intensity environment there would be little push to replace them while high intensity conflict would see them replaced by newer and better things very quickly compared to the decades of service expected of them.

 

[gaijin]

What is also interesting is how this will change the balance of power. At the moment the US Air Force is supreme. Not only because its planes are better and superior numbers, but also because its pilots are the most experienced and often better than the opposition. With unmanned drones this will change. More important than flying skills will be programming skills and things like ground crew turn around time. These skills are much easier to acquire than flying skills (I think at least).

 

[BigWillyG]

What is also interesting is how this will change the balance of power. At the moment the US Air Force is supreme. Not only because its planes are better and superior numbers, but also because its pilots are the most experienced and often better than the opposition. With unmanned drones this will change. More important than flying skills will be programming skills and things like ground crew turn around time. These skills are much easier to acquire than flying skills (I think at least).

Yeah what widespread air combat with drones will look like is an interesting question. I'm wondering what air to air would look like between drones.

 

[ivanotter]

ADA is the programming language for all aircraft development. The newer ADA compilers are powerful and take care of a lot of declared variables, etc.

HOWEVER, and this is scary: it is also the programming language used for nuclear bombs! (like the triggers and those great things).

Now, I am not saying that we should go for Windows 8. Blue screen in the middle of air combat must be boring to say the least.

But is there something else out there? Maybe even Fortran or Algol 60? LISP?

Hell, 25 million lines of code sounds like Cobol

The other thing with the F-35 programme is the very long development cycle.

I think we see more of these things now, especially in the aircraft industry. But the risk is that we build according to an obsolete spec. And the end product will be even more obsolete when it finally gets there.

If we look at an initial development cycle of 5-7 years, with less initial functionality, will it be a better product than the 1) current fighters? 2) meet the demands now.

Aim for perfection is great, but if the market has gone away in the mean time, it is a bit wasted.

Ivan

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Actually I think that especially in low intensity conflicts drones will be more popular. Less air defenses mean less requirements. Not to mention that it is easier to maintain a fleet of drones since they don't need non stop flight training unlike human pilotes

The question is really how fast are drones that are effective in high intensity conventional conflicts coming. IMO without something changing in a big way damn near everyone is going to feel the need to retain crewed systems for conventional operations. Too me that hints that, if anything, the current gen aircraft will hang around longer than expected, as no one wants to lose the crewed option but can't face the cost of new, arguably obsolete platforms.

 

[MUC]

Build it in China. It will cost 1/3 of its current costs.

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

I have to admit I have not followed the RN debate lately, but RN building 2 carreirs where the aircrafts are not ready sounds downright not clever.

RN could buy the Rafale instead and be better off.

That was the big mistake we had, by going STOVL it effectively tied the F-35 together with CVF, if you're going to build a 65,000 tonne flattop you might as well spend a bit more and make it CATOBAR. By deciding this in around 2000 the RN could have had over a decade to build up the skills needed by seconding personnel to the USN and even leasing some Legacy Hornets for pilot training. Instead when we tried switching in 2010 we discovered that most of the features needed to make the ship suitable had been cut in the design phase to save costs and the propulsion system wasn't capable of driving the ship fast enough for take offs with steam cats or of even producing enough steam necessitating the use of EMALS, causing another rise in cost.

Rant over.

 

[ivanotter]

Has RN dusted off the Harriers again to be used as a stop-gap measure?

That's where the entire F-35 programme becomes a ightmare.

Now with LM retrenching workers, we just need to see LM go bust and the disasters are complete (nearly, probably more to come).

The horrible thing is that Rafale is the only viable alternative for RN, as I see it.

Trying to navalise the Typhoon is not an option.

Buying F/A 18 requires catapults.

Maybe going for Sukhoi's? That could be a novel idea. Keeping it European, sort of.

Which could be another good subject:

What if RN, Germany, RAF, Holland, Belgium, Spain, etc should decide on Sukhoi's and Mil's ?

Standardise on Russian aircraft, etc? combine Typhoon with Sukhoi knowledge and so on?

Could be interesting.

Ivan

 

[James G]

Make the F-35 a success?

The only way to do this is to remove Lockheed Martin from the whole thing.
To have a successful military project in the 21st Century, private companies need to be shut out of everything. A nationalised aerospace company would have to be created. Yes, I know this is very un-American, but its the only way to do it.
I'll explain my point: Defence contractors state a price for their products that they get the politicans to agree too. Politicians agree because pay-offs are made and job are assured to bring them votes. Costs are then slowly but surely inflated again and again. The company knows that the military, and the politicians, want their goods. Cutbacks are made to the number of aircraft due to rising costs in an effort to keep it all on budget. The company then again increases the cost via fraud so that they make the money that they always planned to long before construction started. More cutbacks are made and the military complain, but they have made all other related preparations for the aircraft entering service.
*repeat stages several times*
A much lower number of aircraft enter service than first planned, but the company still makes more money than initially set aside - which was their plan all along.
Companies such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing don't give a fig about their aircraft after they've handed them over to the military. They have shareholders and bonuses, as well as politicans long bought off to help this charade along.
If a non profit-making organisation was contracted to build the aircraft all along then the aircraft would come in on-time, on-budget and as asked for because their would be no incentive to cheat and deliver an inferior product.

 

[deathscompanion1]

The only way to do this is to remove Lockheed Martin from the whole thing.
To have a successful military project in the 21st Century, private companies need to be shut out of everything. A nationalised aerospace company would have to be created. Yes, I know this is very un-American, but its the only way to do it.
I'll explain my point: Defence contractors state a price for their products that they get the politicans to agree too. Politicians agree because pay-offs are made and job are assured to bring them votes. Costs are then slowly but surely inflated again and again. The company knows that the military, and the politicians, want their goods. Cutbacks are made to the number of aircraft due to rising costs in an effort to keep it all on budget. The company then again increases the cost via fraud so that they make the money that they always planned to long before construction started. More cutbacks are made and the military complain, but they have made all other related preparations for the aircraft entering service.
*repeat stages several times*
A much lower number of aircraft enter service than first planned, but the company still makes more money than initially set aside - which was their plan all along.
Companies such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing don't give a fig about their aircraft after they've handed them over to the military. They have shareholders and bonuses, as well as politicans long bought off to help this charade along.
If a non profit-making organisation was contracted to build the aircraft all along then the aircraft would come in on-time, on-budget and as asked for because their would be no incentive to cheat and deliver an inferior product.

That sounds wonderful but state companies are not exactly known for efficiency or being immune to corruption.

 

[anotherlurker]

The only way to do this is to remove Lockheed Martin from the whole thing.
To have a successful military project in the 21st Century, private companies need to be shut out of everything. A nationalised aerospace company would have to be created. Yes, I know this is very un-American, but its the only way to do it.
I'll explain my point: Defence contractors state a price for their products that they get the politicans to agree too. Politicians agree because pay-offs are made and job are assured to bring them votes. Costs are then slowly but surely inflated again and again. The company knows that the military, and the politicians, want their goods. Cutbacks are made to the number of aircraft due to rising costs in an effort to keep it all on budget. The company then again increases the cost via fraud so that they make the money that they always planned to long before construction started. More cutbacks are made and the military complain, but they have made all other related preparations for the aircraft entering service.
*repeat stages several times*
A much lower number of aircraft enter service than first planned, but the company still makes more money than initially set aside - which was their plan all along.
Companies such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing don't give a fig about their aircraft after they've handed them over to the military. They have shareholders and bonuses, as well as politicans long bought off to help this charade along.
If a non profit-making organisation was contracted to build the aircraft all along then the aircraft would come in on-time, on-budget and as asked for because their would be no incentive to cheat and deliver an inferior product.

that's true for all contractors building something for the government.

berlin is buying an airport with 2 airstrips, experts by now calculated the final cost at somewhere around 10 billion €. it started with 2.8 billion € budget.

the government is the ultimate cash cow - those making the decision to build it have no responsibility or accountability for all the funds and carry no personal risk.