Forum: Program and politics

Lawman wrote:

elp wrote:

guppygoshawk wrote:

Good points by Lawman and 2sblind, more complaining by elp and duncan that I've seen over the last year. Why are you guys so bitter about the SH? It may not be perfect, but its the best that NAVAIR has right now. Get over it.

(I was on here under a different username and can't retreive the lost password for it. Lawman, I think you know.)

SH is an outstanding PGM dropper and has great sensors. And has proven itself as such. Add to that the flightline level maintenance is claimed by maintainers to be great. . My main b!tch about it is how it was procured ( show me some jail time ) and they went to all that effort to make a carrier air wing reshape with poor air to air ability.( Do I really need to remind you all that a carrier is it's own backup? Hello... McFly... ) ALL water under the bridge, now. But certainly a good reminder that our procurment system is seriously broken. ( F-22 finally being fielded as a result of dumb luck ).

BTW... you want more proof? V-22 production was given the go-ahead today ( dumb x2 ). So lets all cheer as JSF mutates out of this process. Good luck. Laughing

Good move Elp, tell Guppy all about the Rhino's Air to Air capabilities. This should be funny to watch. Rolling Eyes

Well, I am a big fan of carrier air and believe in it very much. I don't want it to be just good or even outstanding. I just think we can do waaay better. Smile

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Ok, I'll try to make this point again, and please: if you have a viable alternative, I honestly want to hear it.

What other choice did the Navy have? It's requirements were to field an airplane capable of replacing both the Tomcat and Intruder in one. It was obviously not going to be better than both in all aspects. It is however, better in many aspects to both airplanes, and to other fighters in the world. It's probably not going to be the best at any one thing, but it was never meant to be. The Navy tried to make the best fleet defense fighter in the world and ended up with the bungled A-12 (I think that's what it was, their attempt at a stealthy jet) and as a consequence had to look for a jet that they could have quickly with some intermediate capabilities - better than the Hornet, and able to do most of what the Tomcat and Intruder could - until the next generation (the JSF) was available.

2sBlind wrote:

Ok, I'll try to make this point again, and please: if you have a viable alternative, I honestly want to hear it.

What other choice did the Navy have? It's requirements were to field an airplane capable of replacing both the Tomcat and Intruder in one. It was obviously not going to be better than both in all aspects. It is however, better in many aspects to both airplanes, and to other fighters in the world. It's probably not going to be the best at any one thing, but it was never meant to be. The Navy tried to make the best fleet defense fighter in the world and ended up with the bungled A-12 (I think that's what it was, their attempt at a stealthy jet) and as a consequence had to look for a jet that they could have quickly with some intermediate capabilities - better than the Hornet, and able to do most of what the Tomcat and Intruder could - until the next generation (the JSF) was available.

Well for me.... and this is only my opinion..... ( = limited value or mission impact Laughing

) ..... Navy leadership needs a serious overhaul. Using the cold war downsizing as an excuse really doesn't wash anymore, that has been going on for a long time. F-18E has some range, but not that much. F-14 in the 90's became a nice long range striker.... first with LGBs and later at the turn of the century with JDAM. Really good range and penetration survivability ( speed / gas ). Anyway the mind boggles to leave such gaps in capacity. FACT - F-18E/F is going to have a hard row to hoe on doing air space domination missions. Yes most ops are all service things, but for quick unplanned threat/events....that don't fit in with some nice PowerPoint planning brief in the State Department/Pentagon etc.... a carrier is like a Texas Ranger going into a town. There are times when it is flat alone and is the only big stick within reach, yet it is tasked to do something. SH is not an air domination fighter. If it was a perfect world and we didn't have SU-27 SU-3x users out there that could dish out some pain, I wouldn't worry. ( Example MiG-29 is gas/range limited so big deal. A MiG-29 going up against a SH with JHMCS doesn't bother me. ). SU-27, SU-3x has reach, gas, speed etc in the class of F-14 , F-15. The "no problem.... SAMs on the task group will handle extra threats".... IS NOT A GAME PLAN in proper use of carriers. They don't want a carrier to be anywhere near that kind of threat scenario. The big plan of carrier use is for everything to be at very long reach ..... away from the carrier. Most of our past ops prove this. This is how they are used. Great.... we have plenty of tankers to put SH jets out there. Fine. But you still have the weezing performance issue of a SH vs a SU-27, SU-3x that is a serious issue. If a SU-27, 3x doesn't want to engage a SH.... it doesn't have to... The reverse isn't true. If for what ever reason a SH doesn't want to engage a SU-27,... 3x ..... it doesn't have the option of speed to drive away or around or whatever. THIS is a serious problem.

We do not need to be drawing out long range sustainment plans of what goes in to the carrier air wing tool bag... that have such long gaps.

JSF doesn't offer that much more range but at least it has some better defensive ability. I don't see it chasing down a SU-27 or 3x though. We need to have ..... NOW..... a plan in the works that puts a fast mover twin engine jet on to the carrier deck in the future..... there is NO PLAN for this. THAT is a large problem. Crying about spilled milk now by bringing up SH weakness doesn't do much good. The only reason I brought it up before is to wake up clueless types that thought it was a great airplane. It is not. We need to put a plan into effect that puts a long range twin engine multi-role jet onto the carrier deck. This has to be done. I'm not greedy. One squadron per air wing would put carrier air wing health back to where it rightly deserves to be. Yet another reason I don't like JSF. It bleeds dollars away from R&D to do a project like I just mentioned. It also bleeds dollars away from FB-22 R&D and B3 R&D and a few other important things. If JSF is to be fielded at all, it needs to be the C model on the carrier deck. This is where it is MOST needed. We need to buff up the carrier air wing. A and B can be trashed for all I care.

Forum Veteran Joined: Apr 16, 2005 - 03:16 PM Posts: 800

Like I said, the F-18E could probably have been a good "low mix" for the Navy, together with a navalized F-22.

The AF could have had F-22As/FB-22s/UCAVs/improved F-16s/F-15E, and the Navy F-22Ns/F-18Es/UCAVs/improved F-18Cs.

That would have increased the F-22 production and reduced the unit price.

Actually,
F/A-18E/F was meant as low-risk supplement to A/F-X, Navy equivalent to F/A-22. However, Clinton´s administration axed A/F-X and consequently initiated JAST, since 1996 under acronym JSF program. As the JSF is going to be anything but cheap ("affordable" in the marketing language), there is question about the sense of JSF for NAVY. As the estimated price including R n´D is with current exaggerated production numbers now about 100 mio per one F-35, fighter with significantly lower performance than F/A-22, it is likely that USAF would kill JSF if meant more dollars for really meaningful programs like F/A-22 or FB-22. With 100 mio per copy, roughly equal to F/A-22 fly-away cost, there is no reason to buy F-35 for USAF. So the JSF is clearly following another model nonsense joint ("commonality in the 60ies english) program: F-111. Then and only then would Super Hornet make sense: as interim supplement (CAS role) to something REAL: 2 Mach two-engined stealth jet capable of carrying two 2000lb class bombs internally, with excellent kynematic performance andrance, excellent wing loading, powered by pair of F-136 thrust vectored engines. It would not be so costly: Northrop Grumman might help Lockheed Martin to build it, taking radar, part of avionics including electronic warfare suit from F/A-22, GE F-136 engines, and all the know-how form F/A-22 and F-35 programs.
Call it F-24 or whatever, it is the only solution (with UAV taking part of SEAD and recon role) for naval aviation that is now becoming a 2nd class citizen in aerial warfare. Anything else (like F-35) is waste of money.

A navalized F-22 would be all but impossible.

The 'FB-22' is a load of bull that the AF is trying to pass off to congress as another use for the F/'a'-22 that is skyrocketing in cost. The only problem is that the AF estimates that it will cost at least 10 billion dollars to develop the F/'a'-22 into the FB-22. Not exactly a bargain there.

guppygoshawk wrote:

A navalized F-22 would be all but impossible.

Lockheed martin did design one (i have posted the artists impression on here in the past)... the program was put in deep freeze as it was decided to be too expensive.

Forum Veteran Joined: Apr 16, 2005 - 03:16 PM Posts: 800

The development of the F-35 is now expected to reach 40 billion. How much of that will be financed by the navy, I don't really know, but it's probably 10+ billion. It would have been much less expansive to design a navalized F-22.

Of course it's probably too late now..

Viperalltheway wrote:

The development of the F-35 is now expected to reach 40 billion. How much of that will be financed by the navy, I don't really know, but it's probably 10+ billion. It would have been much less expansive to design a navalized F-22.

Do you have any figures to back up your 10+ billion claim, or is that just wild speculation. How do you know that a navalized F-22 would have been cheaper to develop?!?! Do you have any idea at all?? The AF wants 10 billion (from AW&ST) just to add the 'B' capability to the F-22. Do you realize how difficult it would be to transform it to a navalized A/C???? Its not just putting on stronger landing gear and a tailhook. The entire airframe would have to be redesigned to deal with the stresses of the CV environment. This would add large amounts of weight which would significantly compromise the performance of the F-22. Its just not that easy to do. It would essentially be an entirely new aircraft.

Forum Veteran Joined: Apr 16, 2005 - 03:16 PM Posts: 800

Like I said, the F-35 development is expected to cost 40 billion. Most of that will come from the US, probably 35 billion or so. The AF will certainly be the biggest contributor, but the navy will also put a lot of cash into it. 10 billion is very possible.

Concerning the F-22N, well, of course it's too late now. But look at the rafale. The navy version is about 5% heavier than the land version.

And the navalized F-35 will have the same kind of weight penalty too vs the F-35A.. so..

BTW the F-14 with F-110 is one of the heaviest out there but with its sweep wings it has one of the best accelerations in the word.

Apples and oranges. The orignial rafale was also designed with a 115 knot approach speed and the ability to land in about 1200 feet. Think that the F-22 comes close to those? Like I said, it would be too big of a design change.

Just so it can be seen save searching around....

The A/F-22X Navalised F-22 that was designed and developed by LM...

oh and to complete the group, the proposed navalised F-117 that was scrapped in favour of the SH...

Yes, those are proposals. However, they are far from 'designed and developed'. Those are essentially designs in their infancy that never came to fruition. There was never any definitive proof that these proposals would work. I'm sure if they did, however, there would be just as many on here decrying why they got built instead of the SH and quoting all sorts of amazing capabilites of the SH that they'd seen in a magazine somewhere. Some people are just never happy unless they're complaining.

Guppygoshawk makes a really good point there. It's kind of funny how people complain about everything. From my poin tof view, I don't the the F-35 JSF would do everything they say it would when it enters service. Maybe it will have a lead in avionics but I doubt it would be as good of a fighter as magazines or articles say it would. Besides, I like the SH more than any other plane right now and it's ashame how people criticize it over the Tomcat. The Tomcat and Super hornet are two entire different planes. As someone said before in this topic, the SH was meant to replace the Tomcat and later the Prowler. You can't expect it to be able to go to Mach 2+ with a conventional wing that's suppose to hold basically every armament in the inventory.

Well I think they could have had it go mach 2 if they had more time and money to work on the airframe. But, like others have said, it was a compromise I-need-planes-ASAP platform.

Forum: Program and politics

JSF for Navy?