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How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

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Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#51

Post by greedo »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #14
dkhenry wrote: post #3

I understand the point the article is trying to make, but its not realistic. Having worked with the Navy for a few years I know that the biggest use of airplanes is not air to air combat ( which is what this article is complaining about ) It is air to land bombing. So why are we complaining about making an air force that serves our needs rather then one that might be useful for some other task. As a note he says this…

Won't the air to ground bombing mission be done mostly by drones? Manned aircraft will be increasingly reserved for special operations and dirty little wars, which is pretty much the Marines' job description. Also, the vertical takeoff capability will be mandatory for a hypothetical future war against a major power. Once the huge, lumbering aircraft carriers are sitting on the sea floor, they will be replaced by heav…

People have been saying the demise of the carrier is upon us for 5 decades. Yet nothing offers the flexibility and power projection capabilities of a CVBG. And guess what submariners call "heavily armored battleships?" Targets...

And if you think CVNs are expensive, you should research how much retrofitting an Iowa Class with a STOVL flight deck would cost. And then factor in manning costs for a ship that needs close to 5000 sailors.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#52

Post by caycep »

jzwinck wrote: post #45
lmg643 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on drones and unmanned aircraft. Manned combat planes are going to be the cavalry of war in a few years (if not already) for the simple fact that a pilot cannot withstand the g-forces that an unmanned plane or missile can. US hasn't realized this yet because we are currently using our military might to pick on folks who are decades if not a century or more behind us technologically but would likely be a differe…

One punchline at the end of the article seems to implicitly agree on drones: > Ward said any future warplane should have clear and narrow requirements, as opposed to the F-35's broad, incompatible guidelines. Development timelines should be fast, budgets should be inexpensive, the overall concept should be simple and hardware should be as tiny as possible. The one way we have today to accomplish all those goals toget…

Also, not glamorous enough to attract the attention of Important People in the Pentagon...that's the most important requirement. Let the Designers work in peace!

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#53

Post by munin »

pliny wrote: post #18
ryoshu wrote: post #5

Why are we still building manned fighter planes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incide...

what?! that's an argument for more unmanned planes. imagine if the RQ-170 had been a manned spy plane and Iran had captured a human pilot.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#54

Post by antubbs »

caycep wrote: post #48
runarb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate a little more on which aspects of the 40 year old F-16 design you think is better than the F-35? After looking on the Wikipedia page[0][1] it looks for me that the F-35 outperforms the F-16 in all aspects: |------------------------|-----------|----------| | | F-16 | F-35 | |------------------------|-----------|----------| | Maximum speed | Mach 1.2 | Mach 1.6 | | Combat radius | 550 km | 1 080 km |…

You need to add weight, and wing loading area, and what G's the plane is rated at. These are key variables. The F-16's max speed is far greater than Mach 1.2, I thought, or at least it used to be before they added on weight to the thing. It's also well known that the designers optimized the F-16's ability to quickly lose/gain kinetic energy, what they call "dump and pump". This is hard to quantify. Some of the "nextg…

The assumption with the F-35 seems to be that technology (better sensors & automation) will overcome performance & armament disparities. This is not a new assumption in the air superiority game, but I don't think history's been kind to it to this point.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#55

Post by Daniel_Newby »

mehwoot wrote: post #29
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't the air to ground bombing mission be done mostly by drones? Manned aircraft will be increasingly reserved for special operations and dirty little wars, which is pretty much the Marines' job description. Also, the vertical takeoff capability will be mandatory for a hypothetical future war against a major power. Once the huge, lumbering aircraft carriers are sitting on the sea floor, they will be replaced by heav…

> Once the huge, lumbering aircraft carriers are sitting on the sea floor, they will be replaced by heavily armored battleships. In a major war, the only sea launched aircraft will be VTOLs. Huh... there isn't a single battleship in service in any navy in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship#Modern_times

There will be in a major war. Nothing else can stand up to nukes and lasers.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#56

Post by newbie12 »

gadders wrote: post #40

I'm surprised at the criticism the harrier gets in the article. They're popular in the UK and appeared to perform pretty well in the Falklands, for instance.

It is a UK developed plane and did do well in the Falklands-- a testament to the skill of British pilots as much as anything. In the U.S., one third of our Harrier fleet has crashed, here's the article cited in the parent:

http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6722

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#57

Post by ryusage »

greedo wrote: post #47
ryusage wrote: post #11

To be honest, I'm surprised they haven't started switching to air-to-air drones yet. They seem to be using them for everything else these days.

You won't see A2A drones for at least another decade. In a non-contested environment, dropping Hellfire missiles is easy from a slow moving drone like a Predator. But this won't occur against a peer enemy. It's too easy to shoot them down. As to A2A, there are far too many obstacles for this happening soon. Plus, there's the whole notion that in a conflict against a peer opponent, that we'll somehow be able to manage…

Those are great points. I hadn't considered the ability to jam signals at all. That seems like a pretty huge challenge to overcome actually.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#58

Post by caycep »

greedo wrote: post #33
coldcode wrote: post #2

Having worked on the F16 at one point in my career it kicks the F35 is the ass every day and twice on Sunday. Plus you can buy 20 of them for every F35. It's all about money though, the F16 is too cheap to keep Lockheed in business no matter how much you upgrade it.

Current fly away costs estimates for the F-35 are in the neighborhood of 100-150M. Current fly away costs for Block 50+ F-16 are in the 100M range depending on electronics suite. It's been a long, long time since you could buy an F-16 for $5M. Also, the F-35 is more maneuverable than the current F-16s which have to hang a ton of armament on pylons, as well as drop tanks to get range equivalent to the F-35. And try fl…

I think the F-16 over the years has suffered from mission creep, that has added weight and decreased performance.

Then again, thinking about this, the USAF really plans on logistics, and most of the plans I've seen really focus on how plans can carrying something (usually bombs) to a place, from far away, and flying around enemy radar and other badness. They really need the equivalent of a fedex truck that can't be shot down.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#59

Post by AutoCorrect »

sschueller wrote: post #43

"Lockheed’s F-117 stealth fighter was developed in a breakneck 30 months by a close-knit team of 50 engineers led by an experienced fighter designer named Alan Brown and overseen by seven government employees." vs. "The F-35, by contrast, is being designed by some 6,000 engineers led by a rotating contingent of short-tenure managers, with no fewer than 2,000 government workers providing oversight."

none of us is as stupid as all of us

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#60

Post by VLM »

ryoshu wrote: post #5

Why are we still building manned fighter planes?

Read about the early years of the F-4 and its gun pod. The wikipedia article is fairly good, although short.

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

The F-4 lesson was "everyone knew" that ever more expensive and technologically advanced munitions were the way to go, so no gun pod just drop missiles. (missiles are essentially somewhat dumb short range drones, although there's a lot of overlap in the categories...) Turned out to be a near disaster and they ended up bolting a human operated gun to the F-4. People actually died because of this design mistake. The USAF is in no hurry to kill a bunch more people with the same conceptual mistake.

I am certain that the same scenario is about to play out with drones. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not with the USAF as the victims, but "in a decade or so" the same disaster will happen again. It is, after all, the same situation, so expecting a different outcome would be insanity.

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