Forum: General F-35 Forum

New Plan: NGJ To Go Unmanned Jan 24, 2012 By David Fulghum
NAS Patuxent River, Md.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... amp;next=0

"The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, long touted as the follow-on to the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, is no longer heir-apparent as the king of nonkinetic warfare.

The often-delayed Lockheed Martin JSF program is being more narrowly focused on its conventional attack role. Jamming is no longer a priority for the stealthy fighter. The airframes expected to carry the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) are conventional-signature unmanned aerial systems and will be followed by stealthy unmanned designs.

NGJ is one of the U.S. Navy’s prized new programs...."

Long article - best read at the jump.

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I disagree with that article. I think in the future low cost swarms of smart cruise missiles will be the weapon of choice to neutralize first day of war targerts. After that will the F-35's taking out secondary targets.

For nearly a decade, I've known that we've known an unmanned aircraft can fulfill nearly every tasking. (An outsider only needed to monitor CMU faculty roster and see which key folks had been placed on extended leave from teaching and office hours.) It's been pipe dream for more than half a century but we now know how to make it work, mathematically demonstrably (the math got demonstrated in the 90's). Aerial combat decisionals are essentially tree-like. If you can present this information to a human pilot, a machine can work that data better and faster than a human can from the same data presented. The total cost of ownership for unmanned systems renders it all a no-brainer. Human pilots may ultimately have some justification for being from a political viewpoint but that's about it. The human intuition crap is toast. 0.02

velocityvector wrote:

The total cost of ownership for unmanned systems renders it all a no-brainer. Human pilots may ultimately have some justification for being from a political viewpoint but that's about it. The human intuition crap is toast. 0.02

Cost effective? Really? Rolling Eyes

http://defense.aol.com/2012/01/24/penta ... obal-hawk/

And after that thing with Iran and the RQ-170, I think it's time to reevaluate the usefulness of UAVs against upper-tier adversaries who don't ride donkeys.

“The F-35 has other tasks to do, and the Defense Department has invested a lot in making a low-observable aircraft,” Green says. “There are other platforms we could put NGJ on that would be lower risk and a better use of resources. That’s not to say putting NGJ on F-35 will never happen. But the Defense Department is going to be looking at other solutions.”

The initial plan of making the F-35 (probably the Marine Corps B-model) an early user of the NGJ is being de-emphasized in favor of a more intense focus on the EA-18G Prowler as the initial platform for a fully funded AEA program. In turn, the JSF program will concentrate on more immediate production and development problems
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IMO a pragmatic approach and efficient asset utilization. Sending a robot into the teeth of the enemy's IADS seems preferable to risking a manned platform to do the same job.

Last edited by handyman on Jan 25, 2012 - 10:03 AM; edited 1 time in total

In other words the F35 is so far behind schedule that they're trading capability for timely delivery.

velocityvector wrote:

For nearly a decade, I've known that we've known an unmanned aircraft can fulfill nearly every tasking. (An outsider only needed to monitor CMU faculty roster and see which key folks had been placed on extended leave from teaching and office hours.) It's been pipe dream for more than half a century but we now know how to make it work, mathematically demonstrably (the math got demonstrated in the 90's). Aerial combat decisionals are essentially tree-like. If you can present this information to a human pilot, a machine can work that data better and faster than a human can from the same data presented. The total cost of ownership for unmanned systems renders it all a no-brainer. Human pilots may ultimately have some justification for being from a political viewpoint but that's about it. The human intuition crap is toast. 0.02

Wow...don't know where to begin with this one. First, the sensors needed to track and process an airborne target, compute it's velocity, acceleration, and game plan, and maneuver in relation to that object are nowhere near reality. Radars capable of high fidelity information are required to even get close, and no aircraft in production or planned has 360 degree radar coverage...more like +/- 70 degrees. Now add in multiple targets, and the need to track friendlies as well, and the problem grows exponentially. Finally, being reliant on radar means being very susceptable to jamming...one EA program from some crappy 3rd world scientist and the whole plane becomes useless.

Now, let's say you do have the capability to track the targets, how are you fulfilling PEI, PID, and the rest of the ROE required to fire a missile? Are you going to allow a computer to make the decision to fire live ordnance in a dynamic environment? This is not like asking a UAV to go and bomb a preplanned target that you know is hostile...in air combat you would need to trust the UAV with JUDGEMENT...sorry, but I'm not buying it. Add the fact that datalink is easy to jam and may not be available in a wartime scenario, and you force UAVs to operate and make these decisions completely autonomous.

Finally, if you make any "tree-like" decision process, as a human I'll find a way to beat it 100% of the time. The reason being, you will become predictable. If I know your game plan going into every fight, or exactly how you will react to every maneuver, it won't be long before loopholes are developed to lead you down a "bunny-trail" to put you in the exact positition I want. 100% predictability leads to 100% defeat over time, all else being equal.

just my $1.02

Code3 wrote:

Wow...don't know where to begin with this one. First, the sensors needed to track and process an airborne target, compute it's velocity, acceleration, and game plan, and maneuver in relation to that object are nowhere near reality. Radars capable of high fidelity information are required to even get close, and no aircraft in production or planned has 360 degree radar coverage...more like +/- 70 degrees. Now add in multiple targets, and the need to track friendlies as well, and the problem grows exponentially. Finally, being reliant on radar means being very susceptable to jamming...one EA program from some crappy 3rd world scientist and the whole plane becomes useless.

If you say so...

$0.02

handyman wrote:

Code3 wrote:

Wow...don't know where to begin with this one. First, the sensors needed to track and process an airborne target, compute it's velocity, acceleration, and game plan, and maneuver in relation to that object are nowhere near reality. Radars capable of high fidelity information are required to even get close, and no aircraft in production or planned has 360 degree radar coverage...more like +/- 70 degrees. Now add in multiple targets, and the need to track friendlies as well, and the problem grows exponentially. Finally, being reliant on radar means being very susceptable to jamming...one EA program from some crappy 3rd world scientist and the whole plane becomes useless.

If you say so...

$0.02

this radar isn't 360..... so what are you talkin about?

He's noting that it's about twice the 70deg 'maximum' stated earlier.

My take on this? If it's a standoff jammer, no problem. A FSM (Flying SnowMobile) should be able to handle buzzing around 50 miles away. If it's a support/SEAD jammer, someone's not thinking straight. No way can a FSM match a Growler.

First off the article is wrong. The original plan was always to get NGJ on the EA-18G first and foremost. The implication that the NGJ on an F-35 would make an EA-35 is entirely false. Two crew are significantly challenged doing the mission and there's no way we're going to see a single crew EA aircraft. NGJ on the F-35 would not be doing the full spectrum of missions as the EA-18G. Next the idea that putting NGJ on a UAV transforms it into an EA aircraft is again false. Certainly it could do stand off jamming and that's an entirely good idea. Escort jamming is another matter. We're not anywhere near that point.

It's also false that UCAS are somehow cheaper to operate than manned aircraft. Sure an MQ-9 is cheap to operate compared to an F-16 but we're talking about a 1,000 hp prop plane. When we start getting to fighter sized UCAS there is no evidence of significant cost savings. Indeed there's a higher loss rate resulting in buying more airframes and long range UCAS require even more operators than manned aircraft. These sized UCAS are just as complex as manned aircraft and they are just as difficult to develop as the rumors around the USAF cutting Global Hawk indicate.

As for UCAS being tasked with a primary air superiority mission that's quite a few decades away. There's been discussion about NGAD being optionally manned but they'll have to experiment with that. It's not clear if that capability will be initial, will involve the full spectrum of aerial combat, and whether when doing anti air it will be controlled by another manned aircraft. We haven't seen the baby steps for this yet. The first thing would be a manned aircraft operating a UCAS as an extension of it's weapons and/or sensor envelope. Going from that to a UCAS flying even semi autonomous air superiority is a big leap and there are very significant communications issues to deal with. Doing it autonomously is still science fiction. Someday sure but however well you script an AI at this point we're not there yet.

Large fighter sized UCAS are both expensive and complicated, just like manned fighters. Consider UCAS-D (X-47B). It's powered by an F100 and weighs around the same as an F-16. It's going to be doing primarily ISR and strike. RQ-170 and Global Hawk just do ISR and they've got significant issues. Communications are never going to be perfect and UCAS crash. The UCAS-D is going to be more semi autonomous. Hopefully the program is a great success. It's still a long way from this near term future to designing a larger one, with all the required aerial sensors, the required performance, etc., and even remote operating it to do anti air. NGAD might demonstrate some of this capability in a couple decades. Moreover, it's probably NGAD that will replace the EA-18G.

handyman wrote:

Code3 wrote:

Wow...don't know where to begin with this one. First, the sensors needed to track and process an airborne target, compute it's velocity, acceleration, and game plan, and maneuver in relation to that object are nowhere near reality. Radars capable of high fidelity information are required to even get close, and no aircraft in production or planned has 360 degree radar coverage...more like +/- 70 degrees. Now add in multiple targets, and the need to track friendlies as well, and the problem grows exponentially. Finally, being reliant on radar means being very susceptable to jamming...one EA program from some crappy 3rd world scientist and the whole plane becomes useless.

If you say so...

$0.02

I do say so.

If the radar is looking up and to the right, it can't see down and to the left...the point being because it can search +/- 140 degrees total, it's only capable of about +/- 70 degrees at a time. Another thing to consider, the closer the aircraft being tracked is to the host radar, the fewer number of aircraft the radar will be able to track simultaneously while producing high-fidelity data. In a truly dynamic environment with multiple aircraft, the radar has no chance of keeping up.

Beyond the radar/sensor limitations though, you still failed to address the other facets that make unmanned fighter aircraft impossible in anything but the very distant future.
$1.02

deadseal wrote:

handyman wrote:

Code3 wrote:

Wow...don't know where to begin with this one. First, the sensors needed to track and process an airborne target, compute it's velocity, acceleration, and game plan, and maneuver in relation to that object are nowhere near reality. Radars capable of high fidelity information are required to even get close, and no aircraft in production or planned has 360 degree radar coverage...more like +/- 70 degrees. Now add in multiple targets, and the need to track friendlies as well, and the problem grows exponentially. Finally, being reliant on radar means being very susceptable to jamming...one EA program from some crappy 3rd world scientist and the whole plane becomes useless.

If you say so...

$0.02

this radar isn't 360..... so what are you talkin about?

This radar isn't 70 degrees either... so what are you talking about?

Code3 wrote:

I do say so.

If the radar is looking up and to the right, it can't see down and to the left...the point being because it can search +/- 140 degrees total, it's only capable of about +/- 70 degrees at a time. Another thing to consider, the closer the aircraft being tracked is to the host radar, the fewer number of aircraft the radar will be able to track simultaneously while producing high-fidelity data. In a truly dynamic environment with multiple aircraft, the radar has no chance of keeping up.

Beyond the radar/sensor limitations though, you still failed to address the other facets that make unmanned fighter aircraft impossible in anything but the very distant future.
$1.02

OH at a time... right right. Because you know, by the time it re orients itself the targets on the other side will be a million miles a away. I'm sure it only moves 3 degrees/sec... maybe less.

According to that pic it's 60° to each side.

handyman wrote:

OH at a time... right right. Because you know, by the time it re orients itself the targets on the other side will be a million miles a away. I'm sure it only moves 3 degrees/sec... maybe less.

Fly a BFM or ACM sortie first, then talk to me. Until then, STUFR.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

New Plan: NGJ To Go Unmanned (No F-35)