Forum: F-35 Lightning II

That_Engine_Guy wrote:

Prinz_Eugn wrote:

Okay, assuming the F-35 cancellation is inevitable, what are the alternatives?

It's not 'inevitable'.

Oh, I completely agree. I was just pointing that all the alternatives are pretty bad.

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jeffb wrote:

Maybe it'll be easier to fix the program than we think. What if you drop the F-35B from the program right now? Tell the marines sorry, you'll have to use either the CTOL or CV variants. The increased buy of the simpler variants, assuming that the Marines go for it, combined with the reduced development costs might bring the simpler versions in at less than the $110 million mark. Anyone with a better idea than me like to run the numbers?

*** Oops, except that the UK Government is expecting a whole bunch of them. Oh well, guess we are screwed Very Happy

***

Guess they'll just have to shut down marine corps aviation because they have such a long history as a STOVL only force. Oh wait, that's only a third of the squadrons. The other 2/3rds are flying hornets from airfield and carriers. Guess they'd have to train them all to fly off of carriers or something they've never done before. Oh wait, they already do that, even the ones going to harriers. They'd be perfectly fine without the B.

Quote:

Guess they'll just have to shut down marine corps aviation because they have such a long history as a STOVL only force. Oh wait, that's only a third of the squadrons. The other 2/3rds are flying hornets from airfield and carriers. Guess they'd have to train them all to fly off of carriers or something they've never done before. Oh wait, they already do that, even the ones going to harriers. They'd be perfectly fine without the B.

That's something I really don't understand: the insistance of shoving the F-35 "the way it is" down our throats because of Marine "requirements". I can understand the value of having VSTOL, but if we would've had a VSTOL specific design instead of a three-way compromise, maybe it wouldn't be such a hard road to production. I understand the "savings" from having a common airframe, but this is nothing like the F-4. We are talking totally different modes of operation between the VSTOL 'B' version and the other two. Maybe if there would have been two different a/c instead of three versions of the same, they would have been faster to field and only marginally more expensive.

I think we should focus more on Navy Aviation as opposed to VSTOL because even if all our airbases have been bombed, VSTOL a/c won't have enough range at the weights they can vertically take off to be a true strategic asset. And worse still, if we don't have land bases near the target, that sort of defeats the purpose of having VSTOL; you might as well bring in a carrier.

You could take it even further and say, why not have modified the F-22 to be carrier-capable, and let the F-35 in its intended role - VSTOL jet for the Marines? But then again, that idea was shot down as the true costs of the F-22 were seen (and before the true costs of the F-35 were seen)...

I say what I say about building two a/c vs. one doing different things because of an analogy that I have been taught when working with software. I know this analogy might be a stretch and even completely wrong, but it's how I personally reasoned about this issue:

When building software, you might be tasked with building a system that does alot of very different things. Some people try to build a monolithic system that does everything using just that one gigantic part. Unfortunately, this often leads to the system becoming unreliable and makes bugs hard to fix, because unless the error is very specific you don't know where it's coming from - and you've got alot of code to sift through. This makes testing and debugging a PITA.

So instead of doing this for very big projects that have alot of different requirements, what we try to do is break it up into manageable pieces which we can then build faster, to then join together and form the large program. This makes testing much faster. Bear in mind, the different pieces are each doing their own thing within the program (for the most part). So in a way they are independent, and if something goes wrong it is much easier to isolate the problem. You would think that taking this route would lengthen the time it takes to build the software, but since most of the time is spent testing and debugging, you actually save time.

I know a flight test program is very different as you have to test everything all over again in every new aircraft, but with the F-35 I have to wonder if the requirements were so vastly different (VSTOL, Supersonic, bombing AND air superiority) as to make the testing program a real PITA and raise the cost to the point we see today. Maybe if two aircraft would have been designed and tested, we would've seen the cost upfront (as is the case with my software example, where it might take slightly more time to make all the pieces), but it would have been much faster to production and therefore overall it would have represented only a marginal increase in cost - and this for not one but TWO aircraft which are even more apt for their particular missions.

I know there are some people that say, with todays tech we should be able to make planes that do everything. But the real question (given the last few procurement messes) is can we get the plane(s) on time and on budget and have them be extremely effective in their intended mission? I think we are seeing more and more that the more stuff you want a jet to do, the more you're going to have to pay for it, and the more you're going to have to wait for it, regardless of what you paid.

Actually the whole USMC austere basing with V/STOL is extremely problematic with the F-35B given the heat issue and that it destroys non reinforced surfaces.

Some of the reason the USMC wants an all V/STOL is political in that they want their aircraft on "their" ships, the amphibs, not on USN carriers.

V/STOL as a niche capability is useful. It's another matter to replace all of USMC tactical aviation with the F-35B. Especially when we do not know what it's going to cost to purchase and it has higher operating costs than the aircraft it replaces- see USN Jan 4 2010 slide posted on this site.

When the F-35 was an affordable aircraft with low operating costs it did actually make sense for the USMC to plan on a single aircraft type for the fleet.

Tinito_16 wrote:

Quote:

Guess they'll just have to shut down marine corps aviation because they have such a long history as a STOVL only force. Oh wait, that's only a third of the squadrons. The other 2/3rds are flying hornets from airfield and carriers. Guess they'd have to train them all to fly off of carriers or something they've never done before. Oh wait, they already do that, even the ones going to harriers. They'd be perfectly fine without the B.

That's something I really don't understand: the insistance of shoving the F-35 "the way it is" down our throats because of Marine "requirements". I can understand the value of having VSTOL, but if we would've had a VSTOL specific design instead of a three-way compromise, maybe it wouldn't be such a hard road to production. I understand the "savings" from having a common airframe, but this is nothing like the F-4. We are talking totally different modes of operation between the VSTOL 'B' version and the other two. Maybe if there would have been two different a/c instead of three versions of the same, they would have been faster to field and only marginally more expensive.

I think we should focus more on Navy Aviation as opposed to VSTOL because even if all our airbases have been bombed, VSTOL a/c won't have enough range at the weights they can vertically take off to be a true strategic asset. And worse still, if we don't have land bases near the target, that sort of defeats the purpose of having VSTOL; you might as well bring in a carrier.

You could take it even further and say, why not have modified the F-22 to be carrier-capable, and let the F-35 in its intended role - VSTOL jet for the Marines? But then again, that idea was shot down as the true costs of the F-22 were seen (and before the true costs of the F-35 were seen)...

The thing to bear in mind is that the F-35B isn't VSTOL, it's STOVL. I know it's a semantics issue, but an important distinction nevertheless.

In my educated estimation, the USAF is the modern analogy to the Spanish navy.

At one time, Spain ruled the seas with an extremely powerfull navy. But over time, their navy aged itself out of existence.

The height of the USAF's might was during Gulf War I, otherwise known as 'Desert Storm.' We (if you're a US citizen) had the most powerful air force the world had ever seen, even when in comparison to the USSR's air force.

We had F-4 Wild Weasles, F-16C's, F-15C's, F-14's (both designations), F-111's, F-117's, B-52's, U-2's, F-15E's, B-1's, A-6's F-18's, E-2's, A-10's, AWACS, Harrier's, and a few others I'm leaving out for brevity.

The US was poised to continue the domination of the skies for the next 35 years with the then funded ATF, and ATB programs; not to mention the A-12 Avenger.

But alas, the ATF has been reduced to a token force of maybe 100 operational airframes, the ATB is not even 1/6 of what it was supposed to have been. The F-111s are all out to pasture, as are the F-14s, SR-71s, F-117s, and another host of platforms I'm leaving out for brevity's sake.

The remaining F-15s are old, and are showing their age about as well as is Robert Plant. The F-16's are in better shape, but are aging at an accelleratin rate.

All we have left is a couple of B-2s, about what will amount to about 100 oprational F-22s, decrepit F-15s of a couple hundred airframes, aging Falcons, Buffs that are LONG overdue for retirement and are difficult to maintain in operational readiness, and about 60+ B-1B's. Our tankers are at best being held together by rubber bands and duct tape. And we've got actually got a decent "new" airplane otherwise known as the Super Hornet.

The F-35A/B/C is going to be the biggest blunder (financially) our DoD has ever had the honor of managing. And it doesn't make me happy to know this, and to point this out.

Our air force is the modern day analogy of the Spanish armada. We're scrapping the best fighter the USAF has ever boought, and we're fielding (or trying to field) a piece of junk that's supposed to do everything from chewing apart armored vehicles, to CAP missions, to air superiority, to being able to operate from a cow pasture, to overwhelming an enemies defensive and offensive A2A and S2A capabilities. And it's going to be invisible and operate off the deck of a USN carrier to a Marine ac carrier.

Mark my words, the F-35 will not live up to its selling features, and is going to cost so much we will wish we HAD actually produced at least 3-400 F-22s.

Never thought I would see this day come, ever.

We should totally trash the F-35B. I see it as too technically complex to maintain when operating close to the front lines. If the British and a few other countries want to still have it, then let them pay for it. If it works really well for them, the USMC can always get it later like they did with the Harrier. I say stick with the F-35C for both the USN/USMC. If the USMC takes up too much deck space then we can take some carriers out of mothballs for them.

Actually the number of aircraft operated on USN has fallen significantly over the years and USMC sqdn's are normally deployed aboard carriers. I believe currently 3 USMC sqdn are assigned to carrier air wings.

Once upon a time a CVW had 2 fighter, 2 strike fighter, 1 medium attack, 1 patrol/asw sqdn and detachments of tanker and elint aircraft. Today a CVW is merely 4 strike fighter squadrons and no dedicated tankers or elint birds. The problem is not room for aircraft but rather aircraft for all the vast empty space aboard our carriers.

Retiring all the long range carrier aircraft without replacement was a significant mistake. Losing the S-3 lost the longest ranged aircraft in the CVW, additional tankers, as well as the ES-3A. This aside from the small fact that asw is again seen as a compelling mission.

1.

Quote:

Our air force is the modern day analogy of the Spanish armada.

I don't see how this can be. F-22 and F-35 are 2 new a/c and the rest of the world doesn't bring anything new. (When the "rest" of the world will, then US will do too.) So "Armada" is getting newer while "rest" of the world doesn't.

2. F-22 is THE a/c that give air supremacy. Of course for the time being and with the "bad" characteristics known (multi-mission, NetCentric, price='what ever will cost'). The thinks "good" bought by closing the production are bigger then "bad" ones.

3. F-35 seem OK from the performance and requirements. Problem is the expected (7 years a go) price.

4. F-35B IS the one that will open a new path for the Navy. Even with it's limitation it is a necessary step.

5. For both F-22 and F-35, common problem is the price. Industry adapted to make money on SDD and need to learn a different behavior.

6. The world changed in the last 20 years more then in 300 previous. Of course the world have similarities with past 50-100 years a go, but IT CHANGE. And will continue to change faster that in the last 300 years. 20 years a go F-22 start it's life. It is a different world then 20 years a go. It is not the moment to "trash the F-35" when the only (big) problem is the price. Open up your eyes, people.

The only problem of the F-35 being the price, its already a big one considering the state of the economy. Theres simply not money to go arround, even for the partner countries much less for any other. Military expenses are getting axed bad everywhere but on asia. Lockheed screwed up big time with the budget control, the rest of the tehcnincal problems can be eventualy surpased and are of minor concern IMHO, the price is the one thing capable of spelling success of failiure of the program by simply, avoiding or not attracting too much atention on the military bills.

What DOD representative, politician, or public official thinks they can buy a fighter for the same price today as what it was 7 or 8 years ago, even trying to 'project' inflation or cost changes won't be accurate?

For example, in 2002 a Honda Civic Sedan's MSRP was $12,810 -$20,550 depending on capabilities (options) Today, in 2010 that same Civic Sedan MSRP is $15,655 - $23,805.

Look at the price of the F-16A in 1978 then of an F-16C Block 52+ in 2010.

You can't ask Honda to build you a Civic in 2002 and expect a fixed cost 10-15 years in the future, especially when you can't tell them how many you'll buy, or even how many per year they can expect to build? (Don't forget your new Civic needs AESA parking radar and 360* IR sensors so you can see in dark and fog.) If you told Honda they could only sell them to specific countries, and at a lower quantity each time you talk of contracts, I assure you they'd cost even more per unit as time goes on.

Now you can't expect Lockheed (or Honda for that matter) to come out and say, "for every year you put this off the price is going to rise about 8.5% due to simple economic and financial reasons" but people 'in the know' about this program seem to be aghast when the government or some other third party 'discovers' or 'uncovers' that the price has gone up over last year, or the year before that, or it may go up next year!?!

Doh

The media / press / speculation / hear-say about the F-35 will be it's first, most lethal foe.

The best thing to do, IMHO, is to buy as many jets as fast as possible to drive the cost down, and quit trying to 'defer' costs for R&D or over-runs by putting off deliveries or shifting production to later years. The longer it takes to get into full-rate production the longer it will take for the price to stabilize and/or fall over the program life.

Keep 'em flyin' Thumb

TEG

PS, what if the shoe was on the other foot and LM decided tomorrow that the GOV is going to screw this up and kill them financially. By the way US DOD, here is what you've paid for so far, find someone else to take this bet, we're done.
Shocked

Is there a price quote floating around by LM for the USAF to buy say 300 new F-16's? We do not know what a multi year buy of new F-15/16 aircraft might cost. Extrapolating from specific foreign orders is problematic.

In any case your your price rise of roughly 25% for a Honda Civic does not compare well to the 60% to 90% as cited by DOD to Senate Armed Services a few days ago- that rise in price was also over 9 years not 10.

It's also worth noting that throwing money at LM to get them to build the aircraft is not a solution. One major part of the problem right now is the inability of LM to actually build the aircraft.

As an aside to whoever mentioned the aircraft are all flying the F-35C has not. CF-1 has not made a single test flight. The flight test program is roughly 3% complete. With all due respect I would submit that much of the problem in JSF was the concurrency of flight testing and production was far too close. That is exactly what everyone concerned with oversight has now concluded.

Even after restructuring the program Dr Carter says the remaining concurrency is "worrying". It's actually not the best idea to order hundreds of aircraft prior to the completion of flight testing as you really do not entirely know what you are ordering.

In any case stand by for Director Fox (DOD CAPE) when she presents the promised numbers on F-35 operating cost estimates.

Prinz_Eugn wrote:

Okay, assuming the F-35 cancellation is inevitable, what are the alternatives?

1) Buy new-build Legacy fighters.

2) Build more F-22's.

3) Start over with a new design.

4) Do the UAS thing...

Let me think about that:

1) Buy new-build Legacy fighters.
This would work from a maintenance and operation cost perspective, though as TEG stated, stuffing all the F-35 capability into an F-16 would give you something that costs almost as much as a whole F-35. But purchase cost isn't as big a deal as people think (you will always pay more for operating an aircraft in the end than what you bought it for), and the biggest problem is capability.
The teen series is simply not as capable, there are real airframe limitations to what you can do- you can tack on internal bays as on the F-15 Silent Eagle, but it's never going to be as efficient as an aircraft that was designed that way, for example. You cannot make an F-16 as stealthy as an F-35 without essentially making a new aircraft, which would defeat the cost argument. You can either have them cheap, or you can make survivable.

Note: Purchasing legacy aircraft as a gap filler until anything from 2)-4) is accomplished has it's own problems. You're going to end up with a small number of obsolete airframes (lost economies of scale) by the end of their service career, unless you foreshorten it (which would also be a waste). You can either be the Italians with an F-104 into the 2000's, or get new airplanes that you're only going to operate for a few years before boneyarding them.

2) Build more F-22's.
This would be pretty sweet from a capability standpoint for the most part, but this would be prohibitively expensive unless you decided that a vastly smaller manned air force was acceptable. Deciding to build more right now would get you F-22's that cost substantially more than ones coming off the line currently (they've already stopped purchasing long-lead items, IIRC). They also don't have a lot of the F-35's more specialized equipment. No DAS, EOTS, etc. Installing them would only drive up the cost more, and you still couldn't carry 2000lb. munitions.
Ahhh, but the FB-22 could! But wait, you have to account for the fact that making any substantial changes to the airframe would mean you must have a totally new flight test program, and redesign large parts of the production line, which would add on significant cost, similar to that of a totally new aircraft. That's not even accounting for the difficulty of making the design pan out in the first place. Aerodynamics and RCS would be hindered by sticking with stuff designed in the early 90's, when DooM was still cutting edge graphically.

3) Start over with a new design.
Let Boeing have a crack at it, they've got a good thing going with the SHornet, maybe they could do a better job. Eventually, you'd end up with something probably better than the F-35... eventually. You can't guarantee that it wouldn't suffer hiccups or problems, or even adhere to the initial requirements. Plus it's not like starting from scratch is going to save you money, since you're going to have to do everything over again. Design, flight test, probably another damn flyoff...
And the timeline! oh God, the timeline!

4) Do the UAS thing...
They just aren't advanced enough, and won't be for quite a while. Autonomous strike missions, they could maybe do if you had really good intelligence as to targets and air defense gaps, but be prepared to lose a whole lot due to lack of flexibility. You could remote control them, but to get a reasonably-sized force together at one would require huuuuuge amounts of bandwidth, which would mean more satellites, which would mean more money (and really easy targets for any high-end adversary). You could try to control them with a human mission commander in an aircraft up front, but what do you give him to fly?
Plus, you know, the whole development and flight test thing all over again. Can't forget that.

Any combination of the above is simply going to sum the disadvantages.

So basically, when looking at the downsides of building the F-35:
Damned if you do < Damned if you don't

"Inevitable" LOL

The US is on the verge of cornering the fighter market for the next two or three decades. Why would it think about giving it away.... Rolling Eyes

Corsair1963 wrote:

Prinz_Eugn wrote:

Okay, assuming the F-35 cancellation is inevitable, what are the alternatives?

1) Buy new-build Legacy fighters.

2) Build more F-22's.

3) Start over with a new design.

4) Do the UAS thing...

Let me think about that:

1) Buy new-build Legacy fighters.
This would work from a maintenance and operation cost perspective, though as TEG stated, stuffing all the F-35 capability into an F-16 would give you something that costs almost as much as a whole F-35. But purchase cost isn't as big a deal as people think (you will always pay more for operating an aircraft in the end than what you bought it for), and the biggest problem is capability.
The teen series is simply not as capable, there are real airframe limitations to what you can do- you can tack on internal bays as on the F-15 Silent Eagle, but it's never going to be as efficient as an aircraft that was designed that way, for example. You cannot make an F-16 as stealthy as an F-35 without essentially making a new aircraft, which would defeat the cost argument. You can either have them cheap, or you can make survivable.

Note: Purchasing legacy aircraft as a gap filler until anything from 2)-4) is accomplished has it's own problems. You're going to end up with a small number of obsolete airframes (lost economies of scale) by the end of their service career, unless you foreshorten it (which would also be a waste). You can either be the Italians with an F-104 into the 2000's, or get new airplanes that you're only going to operate for a few years before boneyarding them.

2) Build more F-22's.
This would be pretty sweet from a capability standpoint for the most part, but this would be prohibitively expensive unless you decided that a vastly smaller manned air force was acceptable. Deciding to build more right now would get you F-22's that cost substantially more than ones coming off the line currently (they've already stopped purchasing long-lead items, IIRC). They also don't have a lot of the F-35's more specialized equipment. No DAS, EOTS, etc. Installing them would only drive up the cost more, and you still couldn't carry 2000lb. munitions.
Ahhh, but the FB-22 could! But wait, you have to account for the fact that making any substantial changes to the airframe would mean you must have a totally new flight test program, and redesign large parts of the production line, which would add on significant cost, similar to that of a totally new aircraft. That's not even accounting for the difficulty of making the design pan out in the first place. Aerodynamics and RCS would be hindered by sticking with stuff designed in the early 90's, when DooM was still cutting edge graphically.

3) Start over with a new design.
Let Boeing have a crack at it, they've got a good thing going with the SHornet, maybe they could do a better job. Eventually, you'd end up with something probably better than the F-35... eventually. You can't guarantee that it wouldn't suffer hiccups or problems, or even adhere to the initial requirements. Plus it's not like starting from scratch is going to save you money, since you're going to have to do everything over again. Design, flight test, probably another damn flyoff...
And the timeline! oh God, the timeline!

4) Do the UAS thing...
They just aren't advanced enough, and won't be for quite a while. Autonomous strike missions, they could maybe do if you had really good intelligence as to targets and air defense gaps, but be prepared to lose a whole lot due to lack of flexibility. You could remote control them, but to get a reasonably-sized force together at one would require huuuuuge amounts of bandwidth, which would mean more satellites, which would mean more money (and really easy targets for any high-end adversary). You could try to control them with a human mission commander in an aircraft up front, but what do you give him to fly?
Plus, you know, the whole development and flight test thing all over again. Can't forget that.

Any combination of the above is simply going to sum the disadvantages.

So basically, when looking at the downsides of building the F-35:
Damned if you do < Damned if you don't

"Inevitable" LOL

The US is on the verge of cornering the fighter market for the next two or three decades. Why would it think about giving it away.... Rolling Eyes

You're right! Building crap products and selling them for way too much is the answer (why didn't I see it?). After all, it worked for your auto industry! Laughing

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

Is the F-35 dream over?