UK- JSF STOVL Weapons

Can anyone confirm the following?

The UK weapons were originally threshold weapons for JSF, e.g. ASRAAM was in Block 3 (SDD), while Brimstone and Storm Shadow were in Block 4 and expected to enter service by 2022. However it was revealed in late 2005 that the MOD had cancelled or deferred the integration of UK weapons as a cost saving measure, and they now won't enter service until 2025. There is also no requirement for the Meteor air-to-air missile to be fitted to UK JSF's, despite the lobbying of industry.

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/jsf.htm

Oh great ****** great. No Meteor. Now it won't matter if the rest of the Euro customers want it, the UK had the only leverage that mattered.

Well the UK is using their Typhoons as Air Dominance Fighters, and the JSF will be purely for strike missions there, so the Meteor thing is not a surprise. But the Brimstone is... and as for the Storm Shadow, will it even fit into F-35B weapons bay ?

Meteor is a surprise as once again the Navy has to make-do with lower quality air defence weapons! It will mean the Fleet Air Arm will have to operate with ASRAAM and Aim-120 for air defence. Currently they are only using Asraam for naval air defence!!!!

Due to the bean counters I highly doubt they will purchase any more Aim-120's just for JSF use, (UK inventory currently is B and C-5 varients) so they will have to make-do

RE: Storm Shadow, it is only intended as an external carriage stand-off launch weapon. There is a chance Brimstone will be made internal however currently I believe its also external only.

There is still a chance to see Meteor being added, afterall the Italians are ordering a mixed fleet of F-35's; they are also getting Meteor so may request integration themselves.

Andy

As far as the Meteor is concerned, I don't think it is a British affair or needs to be. MBDA wants to sell into the F-35 market and has already stated that the Meteor will be compatible with F-35 internal carriage.

Yeah, I also heard that the Brits have some sort of solution to fit Meteor into the bay with some kind of reduced fin (like C5?). I’m sure I read it in Jane’s. I also heard that the Brit Minister had said that all the weapons would (eventually) be fitted to F-35. This seems to make sense to me as the UK/Europeans have spent a shed load of money on Meteor and it would seem strange not to fit it to the next aircraft they buy.

I also heard that they will put ASRAAM in the bay and on the wing (outboard station? But not certain), Brimstone in the bay and under wing and Storm Shadow under wing only. No idea of timescales.

It’s a good aircraft and with ASRAAM and Meteor fitted the F-35 would make a very respectable air defence aircraft. At least with ASRAAM integration it should keep the Australians happy. I also heard that its not just a Brit thing but that there is a demand for a next generation BVRAAM and the US don’t appear to have anything similar.

Tintin wrote:Yeah, I also heard that the Brits have some sort of solution to ...

I also heard that they will put ASRAAM in the bay and on the wing (outboard station? But not certain), Brimstone in the bay and under wing and Storm Shadow under wing only. No idea of timescales.
...

ASRAAM's could go on any station via the ARL. Initially 1 & 11 (the tips) and eventually the others, IIRC.

Ciao,
Smithsguy

Tintin wrote:Yeah, I also heard that the Brits have some sort of solution to fit Meteor into the bay with some kind of reduced fin (like C5?). I’m sure I read it in Jane’s. I also heard that the Brit Minister had said that all the weapons would (eventually) be fitted to F-35. This seems to make sense to me as the UK/Europeans have spent a shed load of money on Meteor and it would seem strange not to fit it to the next aircraft they buy.

I also heard that they will put ASRAAM in the bay and on the wing (outboard station? But not certain), Brimstone in the bay and under wing and Storm Shadow under wing only. No idea of timescales.

It’s a good aircraft and with ASRAAM and Meteor fitted the F-35 would make a very respectable air defence aircraft. At least with ASRAAM integration it should keep the Australians happy. I also heard that its not just a Brit thing but that there is a demand for a next generation BVRAAM and the US don’t appear to have anything similar.

The shortened Meteor is an MBDA development and has already been done.
Even if the Euro` JSF doesn`t get Meteor, Typhoon will, it`s already funded. It would be nice to mount them on F-35 also....

About external stores, RAF thinking is NOT to mount external stores on a stealthy jet, that could change with operational requirements. The RAF are thinking "Silver Bullet force, fully cloaked" unless pods can be developed, Typhoon will hang stores under wings, all other Tranches will be brought up to T3 standard when T3 rolls off production lines, as T1 birds are now being brought up to T2 standard as we write.

Just a small divergence! CAESAR has COMPLETED flying trials on DA5? , not sure of the development bird designation in Manching, Germany. The technology was proven to work as a retro-fit AESA for CAPTOR radar as planned and the damn thing worked as advertised according to SELEX. Euro-radar are now ready to put the set into production.

The RAF is going to have a pretty potent mix, Typhoon and F-35 complement each other well.

The shortened Meteor is an MBDA development and has already been done.
Even if the Euro` JSF doesn`t get Meteor, Typhoon will, it`s already funded. It would be nice to mount them on F-35 also....

There won't be an F-35 Meteor. There will only be one kind of Meteor and it will fit the F-35. That's the MBDA plan.

The Meteor is not being shortened. At 3.66 m it is no longer than an AMRAAM (3.65m) -- no that 1 cm doesn't matter and does not require any modifications. What they did was redesigned the fins to be shorter in span so it'll fit in the F-35's door rail without ejector modifications. ALL production Meteors will have the clipped wings. This also has the benefit of reducing drag and very slightly improving range. And, the changes have already been carried out.

The Meteor will also use existing AMRAAM ejectors (the lugs and data connectors are in the same place) so no new hardware is needed to put it on an F-35 or another aircraft already set up to launch AMRAAMs. This has nothing to do with the F-35 really, but rather that the Meteor was designed from day one to use AMRAAM launching hardware including rails and conformal ejectors like those found on the Typhoon's belly.

No-one is saying there will be a "special" F-35 Meteor. "Shortened" was a generalisation, we know the fins have been clipped...AFAIK, the clipping was done specifically to enable fitment in the smaller F-35 STOVL weapons bay Air to Air stations, there was even a mention of missile intake modification to enable fit to A2A stations. .....don`t know if that was done.

The original Meteor design was to enable fit to the under fuselage bays on Typhoon, which dictated fin configuration. A fit test had already been carried out on the A2G (Bay) stations on F-35 STOVL and an unmodified Meteor fitted just fine.

snypa777 wrote:No-one is saying there will be a "special" F-35 Meteor. "Shortened" was a generalisation, we know the fins have been clipped...AFAIK, the clipping was done specifically to enable fitment in the smaller F-35 STOVL weapons bay Air to Air stations, there was even a mention of missile intake modification to enable fit to A2A stations. .....don`t know if that was done.

The original Meteor design was to enable fit to the under fuselage bays on Typhoon, which dictated fin configuration. A fit test had already been carried out on the A2G (Bay) stations on F-35 STOVL and an unmodified Meteor fitted just fine.

I don't think the F-35B (STOVL) A2A internal station is any different than that of the F-35A or F-35C. The weapons bay is not any narrower either it is simply shorter. The #4 and #8 stations (so called A2G stations) are the only things affected and they were trimmed in length from ~4.2m to ~3.8m in length. There are plenty of room for 4 meteors in either the B or the A/C versions of the aircraft with or without intake changes. However, it may not be possible to stagger fit two missiles on the "A2G" as is currently being studied with the AMRAAM for a total of six. The intakes on the Meteor being as wide as the fins and being as long as they are will prevent staggering of the missiles ala F-22A.

That`s interesting...the stagger fitment may not be possible, could be the thinking behind any intake change, but that could be a pretty big re-design path to take, not as simple as trimming fins by a few millimeters as was originally envisaged. That would also change dynamics and there would have to be a whole new raft of testing, wind tunnel, flight dynamics etc...

The difficulty was with the A2A stations, if you are suggesting that the A2A stations are no different in dimension from F-35 model to model, then the clipped fin effort obviously covered all models originally. When you check MBDA`s site, they specifically mention the F-35 STOVL model and the A2A stations as the reason for the fin changes...That was on the site news archive, I don`t know if it is still online...

snypa777 wrote:That`s interesting...the stagger fitment may not be possible, could be the thinking behind any intake change, but that could be a pretty big re-design path to take, not as simple as trimming fins by a few millimeters as was originally envisaged. That would also change dynamics and there would have to be a whole new raft of testing, wind tunnel, flight dynamics etc...

The difficulty was with the A2A stations, if you are suggesting that the A2A stations are no different in dimension from F-35 model to model, then the clipped fin effort obviously covered all models originally. When you check MBDA`s site, they specifically mention the F-35 STOVL model and the A2A stations as the reason for the fin changes...That was on the site news archive, I don`t know if it is still online...

The original Meteor has fins that are wider in span than the AIM-120C (17.60"), AIM-9X (17.50") or the ASRAAM (17.72"). From the mock ups they look to be in the 22~24" bracket (I estimated it by taking the fuselage as a reference for 7"). This is only a little bit shorter than the AIM-120A/B (25") and it is too long for the door ejector on all F-35s. The F-35B ejector is no different from the F-35A/C ejectors. So I suppose I MBDA clipped the wings or resigned the wings to have a shorter span and perhaps a wider chord.

In any case, the following shows the differences between the weapons that can be carried on the CTOL/CV F-35s and the STOVL F-35s. They also show the differences in the weapon bays -- note that the STOVL bays are NOT narrower, they are simply shorter. My guess is that it has something to do with the roll posts on the STOVL variant and the ducts connecting them to the engine (note the position of the dotted rectangles with a small cross in the middle).

Well the current design testing Meteor looks like this, taken at recent trial firings in Wales. The Tornado F3 has just been selected for the next stage of firings so I guess any redesigned missile will make an appearance then.

Note, there are no front fins on the missile anymore. The rear fins look the same size as a C-5's.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafvalley/gallery ... iewmedia=6

RE: Stagger stacked in the supposed 6 missile config. If the missile software is configured correctly and mounting lugs are placed on the underside (there is a large enough gap between intakes), there should be no problem with mounting two Meteor upside down for the staggering, the software (and more than likely the mass distribution) would "right" the missile on dropping before the rocket motor fires. Although thats pure idea work on my part.

Andy

boff180 wrote:Well the current design testing Meteor looks like this, taken at recent trial firings in Wales. The Tornado F3 has just been selected for the next stage of firings so I guess any redesigned missile will make an appearance then.

Note, there are no front fins on the missile anymore. The rear fins look the same size as a C-5's.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafvalley/gallery ... iewmedia=6

RE: Stagger stacked in the supposed 6 missile config. If the missile software is configured correctly and mounting lugs are placed on the underside (there is a large enough gap between intakes), there should be no problem with mounting two Meteor upside down for the staggering, the software (and more than likely the mass distribution) would "right" the missile on dropping before the rocket motor fires. Although thats pure idea work on my part.

Andy

It certainly looks like they did eliminated the fixed front fins, but the rear fins appear to not have been clipped (yet). Looks AIM-120A/B in size, and in fact in design as well.

Old Meteor


vs

Current Test Meteor


The "new" redesigned Meteor will probably have even smaller rear fins. It may or may not have redesigned intakes. But the stuff being shot in Sweden is similar to that in the second picture and does not reflect the redesign which has already been carried out in CAD.

AIM-120C


vs

AIM-120A