Forum: F-35 Lightning II

An interesting article for anyone who hasn't read it:
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... ority.html

Basically, it amounts to the following points:

The USAF is supposedly still has a requirement to procure 1,763 F-35As over the next 20 years.
The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, however, calls for the USAF to slash its strike fighter wings to no more than 10 to 11. At 72 aircraft each, this would translate to no more than 720 to 792 combat coded jets. Assuming that the USAF requires a further 58.8% additional aircraft (Lockheed Martin's figure, not mine) to account for training, test, and attrition reserve, the total F-35A strike aircraft buy would be reduced to no more than 1,143 to 1,258 fighters.
When Lockheed Martin officials were queried on this, they responded with an internal study that speculates that the USAF will eventually replace their F-15C/D air superiority wings with F-35 fighters, bringing the total F-35 buy up to 14 to 15 wings, and potentially making the current USAF total requirement of 1,763 F-35As justifiable.

What I found most disturbing is that the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review - while it never spells it out - is essentially advocating that we slash America's strike aircraft capabilities by 29 to 35%, no doubt to make room for more drones and to reduce the national deficit. Can't say that I am surprised, but it's still a disappointment. Also, unlike Lockheed, I'm not sure that I would place the odds very high that the USAF will eventually advocate phasing out the F-15C in favor of F-35As in the air superiority role.

Food for thought. If anyone wants to see the complete 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, it's available at the link below.
http://www.defense.gov/QDR/QDR%20as%20o ... 201600.pdf

F-16.net Sponsor

They will buy more unmanned drones to fill the gap.

The USAF has for a long time intended to replace it's F15 C/D with the F-35.

Here is a graphic from a September '08 presentation.

A note of caution is in order regarding USAF wings in the QDR. Consider it also lists 96 combat coded bombers when there are now 130. The listed wings are not broken down by type or active/reserve.

That said it's difficult to believe the USAF will buy 1,763 F-35A's and the continued use of that number for long range planning and hence cost projections is troubling. It does not matter what LM says regarding the future replacement of the F-15C and F-15E. It only matters what the USAF says and so far they have said the F-35 is not an air dominance platform.

Moreover, it would be problematic replacing the F-15E with the F-35A. Every single strike related mission can not be performed by a single seat aircraft. The F-15E itself was not as good as the aircraft it replaced in some mission profiles- especially in terms of low level performance, range, and payload.

There is also no question that some number of strike platforms will be UCAS aircraft not F-35A's further reducing the total buy. Indeed the USN current plan is for it's carrier wings to have one sqdn of F-35C's and one sqdn of X-47B's or whichever aircraft fills the UCAS-D requirement. The USN will simply not be the only service operating a long strike UCAS midterm.

LM is free to make whatever forecasts is desires but as the QDR hints the USAF force structure will be reduced and thus current plans will result in fewer F-35A's. Moreover, new UCAS aircraft will further reduce the need for F-35A's. The actual cost of the F-35A will also have a direct impact on how many are purchased and this number at this point is still an unknown. Finally, however good the F-35A turns out to be air to air (and however many AAM's it can carry internally) it is not clear that the USAF views the aircraft as an air superiority fighter. It's certainly possible that one day in the future the USAF decides it's good enough in that role but we're not there yet and it's also possible the aircraft might not be quite suitable in that role for the USAF.

Current plans also show the USAF with F-X and the USN with F/A-XX. Part of the current debate is whether the next fighter will be a manned aircraft. Assuming manned aircraft are still needed in the air superiority role it is not clear the USAF plans to use the F-35A.

However wonderful the F-35 turns out to be air to air it has some inherent limitations. The future threat will include aircraft flying significantly higher and faster than the F-35 and thus able to impart greater energy to it's AAM's. The notion that no other nation will field a purpose designed air superiority fighter in the next 20 to 30 years that can challenge the F-35 air to air would appear to be a tad problematic. It is not clear manned aircraft will be doing air superiority in 25+ years nor is it clear the F-35 will not have a peer competitor.

It is clear the USAF plans to replace specific units currently flying the F-15 with the F-35. This does not equate to the USAF seeing the F-35A as an air superiority fighter. Frankly, if it can do so then great they can retire the F-22 as that aircraft costs quite a bit more to operate.

One option is optionally manned.

Gates has it all figured out. Laughing

Quote:

"In addition, new unmanned planes were accomplishing many missions previously handled by manned aircraft, Gates said, noting that eight unmanned Reapers could do the work of 36 F-16 fighters, and they were armed with the same weapons."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN031 ... arketsNews

Huh.. what???

So the Reapers were carrying 4.5 times the weapon load as a F-16?

elp wrote:

Gates has it all figured out. Laughing

Quote:

"In addition, new unmanned planes were accomplishing many missions previously handled by manned aircraft, Gates said, noting that eight unmanned Reapers could do the work of 36 F-16 fighters, and they were armed with the same weapons."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN031 ... arketsNews

I'd like to see cannon pod, AIM-120D and JASSM armed Reapers, sure. I'll give him a pass on this quote however -- write it off to him trying to articulate his conclusions drawn on ISR and mud hut engaging capabilities (via 24 hr, long-endurance enabled, armed ISR capabilities).

SpudmanWP wrote:

The USAF has for a long time intended to replace it's F15 C/D with the F-35.

Here is a graphic from a September '08 presentation.

This chart clearly requires further explanation and of course, update.

Just curious.. are these so-called combat coded, 'Primary Aircraft' as implied in the chart then, or total fleet including training et al?

Because, the chart shows around 220 +/- F-22 (Primary?). It also has about 100 F-35A by 2014 (primary?). Also questionable is to see any F-16s past say 2021, without substantial SLEP? (Assuming no surprise combat deployments and current peace-time requirement flight hrs over the next 10 yrs.). Most likely though, the F-16 numbers will probably reduce sooner than indicated on chart, due to increased old-age sustainmet/operational costs and in order to better fund changing Program cost hikes.

Tmofarrvl -

The QDR indicated 10 'Strike' and 6 'Air superiority' wings as noted, with a claimed total of about 1,120 'primary aircraft' meeting the Force Structure requirements per QDR, is structured for FY11-FY15 only. Perhaps 1 squadron, maybe 2 max, of IOC-achieved F-35A (mature block III), e.g. 48 max, will comprise this total number of required Primary strike and air superiority a/c during this specified timeframe, with the remaining coming from existing legacy and F-22 (and now double-dipping Reapers?). (note: the Majority of LRIP F-35A prior to FY15 will be immature and/or equip test and training/operational conversion squadrons).

The problem is though, crossing fingers, that following FY15... the F-15C/D, F-16 fleet will likely see accelerated declines in order to both save growing O&M budgets and divert funds to increasing demands for Program funds. IF, and this is a HUGE if... F-35A costs are not fixed during FRP within the currently 'estimated' Unit procurement price ballpark, then most likely orders will be further reduced (more than they already will), which could upset the whole 'fixed price' equation further to the upside in revisions. (note: I've proposed a JSF stimulus appropriations bill, plus strategic Program lease to get through LRIP, but short of this, USAF orders will unfortunately be significantly reduced - by default - in FRP.)

So, fast forward to say end of 2021... under accelerated F-15/16 retirement, potential early-build F-22 retirements and w/ only up to about 45 (max) F-35A procured per year starting around 2015, the USAF would operate only around: 310 combat-coded F-35A Primary Aircraft by the end of 2021, perhaps 175 combined F-15C-E (primary), no F-16s and 100 combat-coded F-22s (under retirement and peace-time attrition), plus say about 75 A-10.

Under this scenario, USAF by end of 2021 will now have only about 660 total Primary Strike and Air-superiority aircraft in mix of IOC and FOC status. (compared to required 1,120 in 2015). This radically reduced defense capability and deterrence at a timeframe when an alarming 2010 QDR forecast, going forward, states as paraphrased:

"US and allies will be facing far greater sophistication, threats and lethality than those fielded by adversaries of the 1990s... Hence, QDR priorities reflect emphasis on preparing for a complex and uncertain future."

What this QDR assessment is saying unfortunately, in so many words... is that the 'X' units of US conventional deterrence capability which were deployed to counter the 'X' units of threat capability fielded by adversaries in the 1990s, needs to be both qualitatively and quantitatively increased! That is... while a reduced number of F-35A/tacair fleet could indeed deter and counter a static, potential adversary in the future (given F-35A's increased capability over the F-16), a far greater threatening and increasingly lethal potential adversary however, will now require in part GREATER deterrence enabled than previously expected rather said 'lower number of tactical aircraft/F-35s' required!

Something alerted by QDR for which should be contemplated and comprehended. (...or restructure the strateigc requirements).

But the current 'stay the course' Tacair recapitalization strategy, however, will fail to meet requirements, create loss of influence w/ allies/partners, and thus cause potential increase in risk of conflicts, per QDR.

Geogen,

The chart was from Sep'08, so I believe they were still hoping to continue the F-22 production run at that time.

Since the F-35s do not appear on the chart till 2013, I would assume they are talking about total OPERATIONAL fighters since 2013 is the USAF IOC date.

And capping at 45 is not only absurd, but would guarantee a NM breech as unit prices would be artificially kept high.

I think we need to recognize that the very assumption that 1700+ F-35As is likely to be flawed regardless of the numeric requirement of the USAF. Just like with the F-15 or F016, what happens with any fighter over the course of 20~30 years is that they'll go through several generations of significant changes. F-15A became F-15C and later an F-15E was added. The F-18A became F-18C then an completely redone F-18E. We can expect the F-35 to undergo similar transformations.

Regardless of whether the USAF buys 800 or 1200 or 1700 CTOL JSFs, it is likely to be broke up into 2 or 3 distinctly different generations... Maybe a few hundred F-35A, then a few hundred F-35E then perhaps even a few hundred F-35Gs, or whatever. An engine uprate is almost a given at some point as will a complete replacement of the radar. Things like a new wing or a new nozzle or substantial changes to the airframe are also not out of the question. What is unlikely is the procurement of the A model over 30 years with nothing but software changes.

Very nice answer, dwighlooi, similar to that which I've given elsewhere. It is ridiculous to expect that we would know at this point what final production for the US will be of the F-35. The real answer is, who the hell knows??? I remember that at first, the USAF was supposed to get some 600 or 700 F-16s. That number later changed to more than 1,300. Finally above 2,000 and at one point, nearly 3,000. So it wound up being slightly more than 2,000, although not all at one time, since by the time the last F-16 was delivered to the USAF, hundreds had already been retired. So, could the US get as few as, say, 700 F-35s? Maybe, maybe even less if they can't work out the kinks. Could the final number actually exceed 1,700+? Not so far-fetched, given that the USAF got a hell of a lot more F-16s than originally planned. So, who knows and, at this point, who really cares?

dwightlooi wrote:

I think we need to recognize that the very assumption that 1700+ F-35As is likely to be flawed...Maybe a few hundred F-35Gs...

Many folks would be looking forward to an artists impression of your F-35G Smile

Your F-35E was ahead of its time.

But unfortunately Spudman, regarding maximum buy AF procurement numbers... the Unit procurement Costs will simply not be as advertised even under FRP let alone FY12-FY15, I'm sorry. UPC final costs and estimates have already come in higher 3 yrs in a row higher (incl FY11 now @ $200m ea vs $148m per, as originally estimated) from FY08 estimates.

The fixed FRP prices will not be as advertised as well, but more importantly, Congress will simply not afford, nor accept the proposed MYB 80-90 aircraft/yr plans under FRP. As has been stated, by around FY16 alone, Mandatory spending obligations and interest on debt explosions will be astronomical and assuming even a humming economy by then, budgets and debt ceilings will be severely affected. Short of an all out WWIII, Congress will not be buying 80+ F-35A/yr for USAF alone plus legacy O&M and upgrades, plus NGB, plus tankers and UCAS, etc etc..

45 should be an optimistic figure for maximal yr buys, and most likely around 35 max, IMHO, given around a $140-150m unit procurement price (FY10 dollars) for block III (even under an 80/yr buy scenario), plus the long-term additional R&D for block V development, etc.

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

2010 QDR and F-35 Production Numbers