F-35 Fifth Gen and new way of thinking

[steve2267]

The only thing Israel is doing is whiting their own "app" and will not be changing anything that is already in the F-35.

Right. And I'm merely suggesting that if proper software protections (via virtual machines?) are in place, opening up app writing to others, e.g. US military squadrons or groups, or dare say even pilots, could leverage the "iPhone app thing" angle of the F-35. Who knows what crazy pilot-engineers/software types might come up with.

[blindpilot]

...
If a high level language of "tactical objects" could be constructed, then the F-35 pilot (and other 5th gen operators) may be seen as moving "chess pieces" around on his flat-panel cockpit display (or in 3D space through his helmet display system with his hands moving objects) or with his voice, and constructing loops / if-then-else constructs for tactical pieces...
I know when I write a program, the debug cycle can be a PIMA. So trying to write a tactical "program" in flight may not be the time or place to do so. On the other hand, with suitable high level "tactical" objects, and with a programming AI "helping" the pilot by detecting programming "errors" ahead of time ("Sir, do you really want to do that?"), such a concept may be possible in the future.

These "concepts" go to the idea of the F-35 being the "iPhone" of fighters, and the idea that apps are what made the iPhone a game changer.

One of the challenges we had back in the 90's was escaping the "factory shutdown," character of production changes. We wrote a high level ?"tactical?" app that got around this.
I wrote a program that removed the question. The change was moved to an internal sim (AI) program running right beside the actual in production code. The architecture of production(robotic code) and sim(offline virtual) ran on the same virtual base. The sim would be given an objective (make more part A's, and less part B's). It would then run thousands of what if simulations targeting a desired result. When it got an answer (usually less than a few seconds), all you had to do was hit the button and the production switched over to the new base code, including individual robot commands.
I am not sure that the F-35 architecture allows this with good safety/reliability, but the concept and actual implementation in robotics has existed for a while.

You don't even have to wave your hands at the functional tasks. Just set the tactical objective, and let "Hal"/"Siri" whoever run the thousands of what if approaches in "Matrix" land, until it gets the best one. That can happen faster than a blink of the eye. Then you simply answer Hal's "Shall I kill the truck? (Y/N)" and you answer with a voice command, "Yes Hal, Please kill that truck.",without even knowing what missile or targeting system is being used.

That's getting to the heart of the possible future of 5th Gen conops. But the pieces are in place now on the F-35. And early "crawl before you run" apps can be implemented almost immediately. Schedule it for block 4.x.

MHO
BP

[steve2267]

... It would then run thousands of what if simulations targeting a desired result. When it got an answer (usually less than a few seconds), all you had to do was hit the button and the production switched over to the new base code, including individual robot commands...

<snip>

You don't even have to wave your hands at the functional tasks. Just set the tactical objective, and let "Hal"/"Siri" whoever run the thousands of what if approaches in "Matrix" land, until it gets the best one. That can happen faster than a blink of the eye. Then you simply answer Hal's "Shall I kill the truck? (Y/N)" and you answer with a voice command, "Yes Hal, Please kill that truck.",without even knowing what missile or targeting system is being used.

"Matrix" land is key here. Depending on how large a task you ask Hal to solve, that computing task could potentially be distributed across other F-35s (parallel processing). But because the F-35's are net-centric, and I assume are tied into the satellite network, it might be possible to task additional assets back home or back at base (think supercomputers) to help solve the problem, if it is a hard problem you have asked Hal to solve.

[blindpilot]

... Then you simply answer Hal's "Shall I kill the truck? (Y/N)" and you answer with a voice command, "Yes Hal, Please kill that truck.",without even knowing what missile or targeting system is being used.
MHO
BP

It's actually even better than that gee whiz. A scenario such as the following voice command is close to trivial in "iPhone App/Alexa/Siri," world.

"Oh Sh##! Hal, I know I said 'not yet' on the first truck but now, we really need to kill it ... like right now would be very good!"
and Hal will reply, "Already set. Making the first truck dead now."

and then the following conversation ensues. "Dang! Hal How'd you do that so fast?" and Hal says,
"Dave, PFC Jones, 2nd Platoon, Charlie company of the tenth, got him with a Javelin. It was the best 'right now' option to use. You did mean 'right now' yes/no? We could have used the SDB from the drone, but you said 'right now!'"

MHO,
BP

[archeman]

NK has invested in making their missiles mobile, including their ICBM. That said, the F-35 is equipped to hunt hem down.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nort ... SKBN19P1J3

The F-35 may be able to hunt down those mobile launchers, or maybe that code isn't finished yet?
The B-2 was DESIGNED to hunt down those mobile missile launchers and can perform that mission very well (even if not quite as well) with a bigger magazine and greater time on station.

If the two can play together (and there isn't any reason they shouldn't), even better.

[SpudmanWP]

IIRC the B-2 is not designed to "hunt" down anything. No FLIR and I am not even sure of what ESM & SAR mapping capability it has.

[bigjku]

I believe F-35 opens up the possibility of almost instant dynamic targeting and threat assessment. Eventually a group of a dozen F-35 should be able to merge their sensor picture, evaluate the threats, allocate weapons from craft best positioned to strike the particular target and effectively launch an attack on all at once in both ground and air environments. The program would be written to have certain weapons reserved for emerging threats and would allow pilots to designate priorities if they wanted but would be designed to do the vast majority of the work on its own. The pilots would be flying and the computers would do the shooting.

This would greatly simply mission planning. A flight of F-35's would evaluate threats and deal with them at a high rate, faster than any planner could put together a mission.

[SpudmanWP]

Block 3F is designed to support 25 MADL terminals (6 groups of 4xF-35s and one extra for sharing with the ROTW).

[count_to_10]

NK has invested in making their missiles mobile, including their ICBM. That said, the F-35 is equipped to hunt hem down.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nort ... SKBN19P1J3

The F-35 may be able to hunt down those mobile launchers, or maybe that code isn't finished yet?
The B-2 was DESIGNED to hunt down those mobile missile launchers and can perform that mission very well (even if not quite as well) with a bigger magazine and greater time on station.

If the two can play together (and there isn't any reason they shouldn't), even better.

Hunting down missile launchers was exactly what the F-35 was originally designed to do.

[popcorn]

I see the benefit of reviving the NCADE concept ie. an airborne interceptor optimized for chasing down ballistic missiles during boost phase. The missile would have exo-atmospheric capability for a larger intercept window, specially against more energetic solid rocket boosters. Such a missile would fit nicely with the Missile Defense Agency's initiatives to utilize persistent UAS platforms specifically for the BPI mission.

In a wartime scenario the aforementioned F-35/F-22 would extend coverage into hostile airspace.
https://m.usni.org/magazines/proceeding ... orth-korea
https://m.usni.org/magazines/proceeding ... a-part-two

[nutshell]

Is pretty much a polite way to say "i see what you're doing before you actually do it".

The potential of such a thing is hard to explain but easy to immagine; literally the "i-win" button.

100% rate of correct strategic decisions is impossible to counter, as long as the turkey stays in the air uncontested.


The response/reaction times of the US forces (plus eventual allies) would be far, far beyond the capabilities of NK.

[count_to_10]

... Then you simply answer Hal's "Shall I kill the truck? (Y/N)" and you answer with a voice command, "Yes Hal, Please kill that truck.",without even knowing what missile or targeting system is being used.
MHO
BP

It's actually even better than that gee whiz. A scenario such as the following voice command is close to trivial in "iPhone App/Alexa/Siri," world.

"Oh Sh##! Hal, I know I said 'not yet' on the first truck but now, we really need to kill it ... like right now would be very good!"
and Hal will reply, "Already set. Making the first truck dead now."

and then the following conversation ensues. "Dang! Hal How'd you do that so fast?" and Hal says,
"Dave, PFC Jones, 2nd Platoon, Charlie company of the tenth, got him with a Javelin. It was the best 'right now' option to use. You did mean 'right now' yes/no? We could have used the SDB from the drone, but you said 'right now!'"

MHO,
BP

That would be interesting from PFC Jones's perspective.

[rheonomic]

I believe I have read that the F-35 avionics (i.e. computers) are compartmentalized and in addition to running a commercial OS (Windriver Realtime OS? or something related) are running virtual machines.

INTEGRITY-178B, actually. It's a commercial RTOS used for a lot of aircraft, including F-22 and F-35. You can isolate processes, e.g.


For more info: https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_cri ... -178b.html

On the other hand, with suitable high level "tactical" objects, and with a programming AI "helping" the pilot by detecting programming "errors" ahead of time ("Sir, do you really want to do that?"), such a concept may be possible in the future.

These "concepts" go to the idea of the F-35 being the "iPhone" of fighters, and the idea that apps are what made the iPhone a game changer.

A better option is probably to have an intelligent decision support tool. Operational pilots have enough to deal with without needing to become full time software engineers as well.

As far as the "app" concept, I'd see that being done more by contractors and the service research labs (e.g. AFRL, NRL, etc.) rather than the operational end.

[blindpilot]

...and Hal says,
"Dave, PFC Jones, 2nd Platoon, Charlie company of the tenth, got him with a Javelin. It was the best 'right now' option to use. You did mean 'right now' yes/no? We could have used the SDB from the drone, but you said 'right now!'"

MHO,
BP

That would be interesting from PFC Jones's perspective.

Indeed. Probably some icon on his iPad suddenly started blinking bright Red - "Immediate Danger Engage now!"

but it does bring up the question of how do you implement such concepts of operations, that doesn't end up with the high level decisions being usurped by robots (or malfunctioning bugs in the software, or worse cyber), or does a 1Lt. pilot have the authority, even tempered by checks and balance, to tell a Colonel to move his battalion west 3 miles, or something more kinetic.

I would simply say that with the F-35, we actually need to be discussing this very thing ... because it's here now ... This is a serious discussion to begin now. Putting together the radically new CONOPs is not a trivial matter. Massive amounts of distributed decisions and actions across the web of networks is not exactly "in Kansas any more, Toto." We'll need to have a controlled manner of pushing information into the cloud, and managing the responses pulling data from it, that will not be a direct chain of command direction.

Something along the lines of the Colonel tells his troops, "We're going in. Monitor the Sit A display and coordinate your actions with the other platoons." The F-35 in this case is an unknown source in the Sit A cloud, with pertinent data for Jones. He's just following the Colonel's orders ... sort of ... I think ... yeah we need to look at this a bit.

MHO
BP

[count_to_10]

Indeed. Probably some icon on his iPad suddenly started blinking bright Red - "Immediate Danger Engage now!"

but it does bring up the question of how do you implement such concepts of operations, that doesn't end up with the high level decisions being usurped by robots (or malfunctioning bugs in the software, or worse cyber), or does a 1Lt. pilot have the authority, even tempered by checks and balance, to tell a Colonel to move his battalion west 3 miles, or something more kinetic.

I would simply say that with the F-35, we actually need to be discussing this very thing ... because it's here now ... This is a serious discussion to begin now. Putting together the radically new CONOPs is not a trivial matter. Massive amounts of distributed decisions and actions across the web of networks is not exactly "in Kansas any more, Toto." We'll need to have a controlled manner of pushing information into the cloud, and managing the responses pulling data from it, that will not be a direct chain of command direction.

Something along the lines of the Colonel tells his troops, "We're going in. Monitor the Sit A display and coordinate your actions with the other platoons." The F-35 in this case is an unknown source in the Sit A cloud, with pertinent data for Jones. He's just following the Colonel's orders ... sort of ... I think ... yeah we need to look at this a bit.

MHO
BP

That's something like an attribution problem. Specifically, who is taking responsibility for the order to kill? Who gets the blame when something goes wrong? Given that artiary already does a lot of firing blind, that kind of thing has probably been worked out before.
However, I'm thinking that this kind of situation will have the shooter responsible, just with all the information in front of him. Chances are, it will look a bit like Uber, with a priority target signal going out to potential shooters, one (or more) of which will accept responsibility for shooting at it.