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Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

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Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#151

Post by jariel »

mrtksn wrote: post #135
jariel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not comparable. Drones are 'slow moving sitting ducks' that can be easily destroyed by an enemy with basic capabilities. You need 'some degree of air superiority' to use drones. That could mean extensive electronic warfare or whatever. But drones, in the way they are used as we see them today ... are easy targets for anyone with capability. So they are different things. Now, that said, it still may make more…

> slow moving sitting ducks I don’t think this needs to be the case. Jets don’t fly fast because they have human inside.

But it is the case though.

Jets today fly much faster than drones, even as you point out - they don't have the 'pilot limitation'.

There are many reasons for that obviously, not just 'G Force'.

Air Superiority Drones are an entirely different kind of entity, and they don't materially exist today. Also for a variety of reasons. Though they likely will in the future.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#152

Post by 0xCMP »

sandworm101 wrote: post #72
ardit33 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The F-35 as a bomb delivery platform might be already obsolete, as drones are far cheaper. You still need air defense/air superiority fighter though.

And the f-35 is neither. It is the complement to the f-22, not its replacement. There are more effective air superiority fighters out there for far less money.

Except we stopped F-22 production to focus on replacing it with the F-35

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#153

Post by Triv888 »

guscost wrote: post #11

Weird theory of mine: The DoD ultimately picks these winning planes based on which one “looks cooler” or basically has better aesthetics. I think the F-35 has better aesthetics than the Boeing X-32, just like the F-22 has better aesthetics than the YF-23. You could say I’m used to seeing the winning designs as “normal”, but I distinctly remember having this reaction before the JSF competition was over.

But when something looks cooler, a lot of times, they also put more efforts in other areas of the design.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#154

Post by euler_angles »

I'm really surprised on a forum like HN that there isn't more questioning of what the Joint Simulation Environment is really supposed to do and why the development of a simulation should hold up the full production of a tactical aircraft.

JSE is really interesting, it's meant to be a high-fidelity electronic warfare simulation with actual aircraft software in the simulation loop. The F-35 that's present in the JSE is the same code that is running on a real jet, with sensor models specifically developed by all the sensor vendors. All this is fed with the latest intelligence data on threat aircraft and emitters. The point of all this is, the US should be able to better develop the aircraft -- and other aircraft types -- in the future if it has a high tech digital testing ground that it can step through iterations with very quickly.

As far as I can tell nothing like this has been done before so it's no wonder that it's taking a while.

Here's a US Navy PDF briefing on the JSE: https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2018/te...

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#155

Post by chmod775 »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #143
waiseristy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what Lockheed-Martin has been saying, but I'm pretty sure the F-35 is still deployed along-side an AWACS. And with more and better satellite imagery & communication. I just don't see why we need this extremely capable and expensive flying network router.

AWACS can be shot down by near-peer adversaries. And satellites travel in known orbits and have no capacity to evade. It's well known at this point that nations that can make current-generation fighter jets can also shoot down satellites.

Making a fighter jet is way harder than hitting a satellite with a few grams worth of kinetic projectile (or, more accurately, letting the satellite run into a field them).

I wouldn't bet on any nation not being able to pull that off. In fact I can think of some teams of university students who could probably hit a Starlink satellite if you gave them some funding.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#156

Post by nradov »

landryraccoon wrote: post #109
sandworm101 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. There are penty of aerodynamic limitations outside of the pilot. Aircraft might be able to pull a few more gs in some very contrived circumstances, but a pilotless fighter would not be an aerodynamic superman. for instance: Stall/flow separation speeds at paticular wing loadings are often well below the pilot's physical G limitations.

How much of that is because engineers designed with those limitations in mind? Nobody has attempted to push what is possible with material science and aerodynamics because there is no point if the pilot wouldn't be able to handle the forces involved. With automation, those limitations no longer apply. For an example of what I'm thinking of, look at air to air missiles. Sidewinder air-to-air missiles achieve an accele…

Nonsense. The compressor will stall.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#157

Post by Animats »

doovd wrote: post #136
Animats wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was an issue with US guided missile cruisers when vertical launch came in. The launchers just show as little hatches in the deck. There's usually a modest gun turret, the only visible weapon. There are some Close In Weapons System units, but they just look like machine guns. The USSR built ships with much more visible armament on deck, facing outward. Partly because it looked fierce, and partly because they didn…

> they didn't quite trust their missiles not to launch straight up and come back down on the ship. This sounds like some ridiculous cold war propaganda, source?

Wikipedia has that, but it's uncited.

The USSR and Russia were late getting into vertical launch from surface ships. When they did, it was with larger missiles than the US used, but fewer of them. There were some interesting designs, such as a missile that carried a torpedo, a ramjet-powered missile, and a missile which operated in a group of other missiles with one of them in charge. The USSR built some giant nuclear-powered battlecruisers to carry all those large weapons, and put large vertical launch tubes on some aircraft carriers.

Now, like everybody else, Russia mostly uses vertical launch in new systems.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#158

Post by stretchcat »

doovd wrote: post #136
Animats wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was an issue with US guided missile cruisers when vertical launch came in. The launchers just show as little hatches in the deck. There's usually a modest gun turret, the only visible weapon. There are some Close In Weapons System units, but they just look like machine guns. The USSR built ships with much more visible armament on deck, facing outward. Partly because it looked fierce, and partly because they didn…

> they didn't quite trust their missiles not to launch straight up and come back down on the ship. This sounds like some ridiculous cold war propaganda, source?

I'm under the impression the Kirov-class battlecruisers have vertical launch tubes. On the other hand, the concern seems somewhat warranted: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V88sUJKgOsk

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#159

Post by Zigurd »

wtvanhest wrote: post #59
Judgmentality wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In any case it's also good military thinking. Or more likely enemies see it as posturing and strike full force, thinking they can pierce the superficial veil of technological supremacy. Come on, security theater is bullshit. How many people actually think the TSA does anything useful? If anything it lulls people into a false sense of safety, making us weaker. If our enemies are so easily deterred that our appearanc…

Hijackings were extremely common prior to flight security. TSA was another level, that was extremely frustrating throughout the 2000s, but at a minimum it prevents wildly unstable people from boarding with weapons Check out this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings

There are more-plausible theories of why hijackings are now rare. One of the most plausible is that armored cockpit doors and the policy that they should never be opened during a hijacking has put hijackers out of business.

TSA security checkpoints are a gift to the business models for autonomous vehicles. If you can have your car do the driving for you, an overnight car trip will be a good alternative to flights under 500 miles ad possibly all short-haul flights in the US.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#160

Post by chipsa »

doovd wrote: post #136
Animats wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was an issue with US guided missile cruisers when vertical launch came in. The launchers just show as little hatches in the deck. There's usually a modest gun turret, the only visible weapon. There are some Close In Weapons System units, but they just look like machine guns. The USSR built ships with much more visible armament on deck, facing outward. Partly because it looked fierce, and partly because they didn…

> they didn't quite trust their missiles not to launch straight up and come back down on the ship. This sounds like some ridiculous cold war propaganda, source?

It's an artifact of the technology they use. US launchers are hot launch: the motor ignites in the cell, and then leaps out under its own power. This has some disadvantages with having hot exhaust inside the ship.

Soviet launchers used a cold launcher. They pushed the missile out first, then ignited the motor after it was out of the cell. This is good for reducing exhaust impingement. But you can end up with a live missile not actually going up if the motor igniter fails. Angling the launcher ensures your live missile lands in the water, instead of on deck.

I've seen video of this, but having no luck searching for it.

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