Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 347 posts

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

#41

Post by jacques_chester »

runarb wrote: post #26
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.

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 |…

Those aren't necessarily 1:1. Note that the combat radius of the F16 includes 4x1,000lb bombs.

Assuming the Falcon figure is for a fully-loaded plane, it wins on thrust-to-weight ratio.

Rate of climb on the F35 is classified, so can't be compared.

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

#42

Post by caycep »

protomyth wrote: post #39

You pretty much knew it was having some serious problems when the US Navy started talking about long term F-18 upgrades. They are currently testing conformal tanks (like the F-15 has). It seemed like the F-22 folks were solving their problems while the F-35 has been doing press. Looking at it from the now, we probably should have built the full F-22 order and scrapped the F-35 for something far cheaper. I still think…

Or at least put some program in place to "upgrade" the 1990's electronics in the F-22, and make it several orders of magnitude cheaper...

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

#43

Post by sschueller »

"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."

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

#44

Post by caycep »

lmg643 wrote: post #24
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…

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…

I think there is what the Pentagon "wants" to do, and what will naturally evolve despite whatever direction they throw their money.

Drones will probably get good enough to do most air to ground, at 1/10 or 1/100th the cost or whatever figure is being thrown around. Maybe even air-air, although I don't really think anyone has seriously tried this yet.

Manned aircraft in the meanwhile will pad a a large number of Pentagon manager's retirements and kid's college educations...

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

#45

Post by jzwinck »

lmg643 wrote: post #24
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…

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 together is unmanned aircraft. Simple because no life safety systems. Tiny because no human factors (displays, radios, windscreens). Cheap because no need to get every plane home safe (mission success largely determined by delivery of sufficient quantity of planes to the theatre).

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

#46

Post by newbie12 »

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

When the carriers are sunk, it is our submarine fleet with its cruise missiles that will carry the day.

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

#47

Post by greedo »

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 the command and control of drones; that the opponent won't be able to disrupt our satcoms and other control channels. This notion is a bit naive. There will be a place for a man in the cockpit for quite a while.

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

#48

Post by caycep »

runarb wrote: post #26
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.

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 "nextgen" fighter capabilities widely touted are "supercruising" (i.e. supersonic flight without afterburner) and thrust vectoring, i.e. changing directions quickly by nozzling engine thrust off center. Amusing, the original YF-16A prototype could supercruise, and execute a "buttonhook turn" maneuver, without the fancy 21st century engines.

Imagine what the F-22's P&W F119 engine could do in a modernized F-16 airframe....

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

#49

Post by antubbs »

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."

To their credit, the F-117 also wasn't a multirole fighter, was built in low quantities, wasn't planned for export uses, and was relatively quickly retired. It's a one-trick pony designed to sneak in, drop a precision bomb, and get out.

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

#50

Post by caycep »

chiph wrote: post #20

The USAF intends to replace the A-10 with this turkey, and it's an awful idea. A-10: holds 1350 rounds of 30mm ammo. F-35: holds 180 rounds of smaller 25mm ammo internally, plus 220 rounds externally A-10: 1.8 hour loiter time. F-35: Not listed, but as a high subsonic (stall speed) fighter, it's going to be shorter A-10: Has titanium armor protecting the pilot & critical systems. F-35: Already overweight, no chance o…

Agreed...compromised designs will be compromised designs. The A-10 was made to work with the grunts in the mud. The F-35...

Of note, I think it was Pierre Sprey's (quoted in this article) baby.

Post reply on HN