Posted on 09/11/2008 6:24:33 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
This is the part that worries me because it is obviously true. The F-35 doesn't 'look' like a dogfighter & the engine thrust is just insufficient for the weight (which always increases as an aircraft is developed). I also don't envision the USAF ops planners sending this plane in low to support the troops. Even the low-end cost estimates make this plane too expensive to risk in that manner. It will never replace the A-10.
“If we are not returning to dogfighting why do we need a MANNED fighter?”
Here’s hoping that we we adopt a large cheap drone fleet. 100 million a pop (and likely to double) means this aircraft will never be built in the numbers the services actually want/need.
Does that take all the extra weight into account from more internal fuel than other planes like the F16 which has too short a legs?
Does the wing loading take into account the center fuselage itself which on planes like an F22/35 plays a major role?
The F35 performs incredibly mediocre when you look at things that don't matter, like some top speed over Mach 2, service ceiling over 60,000 feet, which like jumping tank pictures impresses the kids. But..... where it matters, acceleration, sustained turns, endurance, RCS, AESA, avionics/communication, warning and ECM capabilities, sensor fusion/integration.... the plane does very very well. -IMHO
I’d rather see the F35 side talk to these seemingly weak flight characteristics before they attack the study author bias.
Seems like these "experts" have forgotten that the USAF is fighting a war at the moment, and wars are really, really expensive.
I actually agree with their comments about the inventory -- I wish we had 3x more planes than we do. But the fact remains that a huge portion of the USAF budget is being spent on military operations -- which makes that money unavailable for acquisition.
Anyway the Center for Defense Information was founded by Gene La Rocque, a retired admiral and they are gadflys to DOD.
The CDI has a publication, Defense Monitor and they rarely have anything positive to say about US Defense or Foreign Policy. Rear Admiral Eugene James Carroll, Jr was another prominent leader of CDI. Both Carroll and La Rocque appeared often on television and it is amazing to me that either rose so high in the Navy.
At one point, per the Wiki piece, La Rocque received a severe rebuke:
"In August 1983, 575 retired admirals, led by Thomas Moorer, placed an advertisement in The Washington Times criticizing La Rocque for appearing on Soviet television..."
Anything from CDI needs a big grain of salt.
The F-16 has been successful in spite of its design. It was designed to be a point defense, VFR fighter. Light, agile dogfighter. It has never been used for that in combat.
In combat, it has dropped a lot of bombs. It has a good radar - over the objections of some of the original designers - and a good data link. Current versions are heavier and less maneuverable than the original, but they do the F-16 mission better.
You omitted the two largest factors: air force arrogance and incompetence.
About 5 feet from me is a book written in the 70s. It explains why the F-15 is a piece of junk and a boondoggle. According to this respected best-seller, the F-15 will be an embarrassing failure in combat.
How's that "invisible to radar" A-12 working out for your Navy?
The unit cost death spiral is practically a law of nature. For many years the succeeding systems have had much higher unit costs and we have been constrained to buy fewer and fewer units. The same arguments were made about the F-15, 16 and 18 replacing F-4s, A-4s, A-7s, etc., etc.
The authors do not seem to accommodate in their argument the revolution in military affairs that has increased lethality and efficiency by orders of magnitude. The question is, does this increased capability compensate for the decrease in units? Here in amateur-land the answer seems to be yes. The accuracy of bombs and missiles has reduced the number of sorties required to destroy a target by several orders of magnitude. What required hundreds if not thousands of sorties to destroy in WWII now requires 1 or 2. That ought to count for something in their analysis.
Finally, unmanned systems are cheap enough to field lots of units, so we don’t see him complaining about that, do we?
By dogfighting, I refer to maneuvering to the 6 o’clock position to employ heat seeking missiles or guns. It has a different set of requirements than modern air combat, where long range radar and data links and face-shooting radar and heat missiles are used.
There is great need for a very sharp pilot in air combat and bombing. Only the stupid try to dogfight.
It’s next F/A-18. Average at a lot of things. You can draw your own opinion from that.
It was claimed as too expensive, excessive waste, not performing in some areas..........
33 years and a 104:0 kill ratio later, with a projected life out too 2025 and serving highly capably in rolls never originally conceived, this plane did kinda turn out to be anything but the waste CBS reported about decades ago.
:)
While you wrote that I wrote my post below. LOL
I remember all the experts and of course media jumping all over the F15 too.
Interesting,,, 49,500 takeoff weight, with a 42,000 thrust engine is bad in an F-35,,,
The F-16 is known for maneuvering, but it’s max takeoff weight is 42,300 lb. Depending on the options (v6 vs v8?)it’s thrust is 23,770 lbf or 28,600 lbf. How is this a smaller thrust to weight ratio?
Also, a 4000 lb bomb is nothing to sneeze at. Also this “internationally recognized fighter designer” needs to be told about precision munitions. (google is strangely devoid of his skysweeping masterpieces)
The Vietnam-era A-4s, F-4s, A-6s, A-7s, etc,,all practically had sagging wings from their loads of bombs. AND we literally sent swarms of them against things like, A SINGLE BRIDGE,,,A POWER PLANT,, etc,,. Why? To drop 40, 50, or 100 bombs, or more, to do what a single JDAM bomb does today. This is a “fighter designer”?. Maybe he would like a fleet of B-24s, they carry LOTS more bombs.
And to assess it as more vulnerable and less maneuverable than an F-105? Insane. Back it up. Has this man ever heard of vectored thrust?
To say that the F-111 failed, so this will too? It doesnt logically follow. The failure there was trying to make that behemoth into a carrier bomber, and not just to accept it as a magnificent aircraft for the USAF.
I was especially tickled at the assertion of an “internationally recognized fighter designer”, that now that flight testing is beginning we will likely find all kinds of horrible serious problems. See, we invented these fun machines called computers. If the P-38 and P-47 were designed today, compressibility, the proper counter rotating prop set up, the need for dive recovery flaps, the proper setup to run a bubble canopy, etc,, allllll would have been seen and completely understood in virtual testing befor the first one was built.
The days of throwing a bubble canopy on a razorback Thunderbolt, then realizing you lost some lateral stability, so we better throw on a small tail fin extension,,etc,,, are pretty much over.
New fighter designs basically fly right from the beginning. If he’s waiting for major airframe concept teething problems, he’s going to be really dissapointed Sure, there are a lot of things to tweak, systems to better coordinate, and other minor things to fix, but they all pretty much understand it on its first takeoff. It’s already had *thousands* of flights in a simulator that probably cost more than the plane itself, we aren’t talking home computer fighter plane games. The only exceptions are completely new concepts like the V-22, but in truth, the machine still was basically correct, it was just that our wonderful and brave pilots initally tried to fly it like it was a Ch-53.
I hope the F-35 is a success. No, I’m honestly not certain it’s needed. A-10s and F-16s and F-22s seem able to take care of anything looming on the horizon. And I would listen to an argument that its not needed, that the finances in buying it are corrupted,,,etc. But PLEASE, dont pass off this sophomoric drivel as the analysis of a “internationally recognized fighter designer”. This guy isnt a Kelly Johnson. For all i know, a british fabian society meeting clapped for him for trying to stop land mines. I wasnt to know a bit more about his “international recognition”.
It’s a good plane, the only true question is if its needed. This designers skill set seems very dated to me.
They oppose any defense spending and have zero credibility.
The upper military echelons are dominated by very ambitious men. All have advanced degrees. The most common degree in this group is the MBA.
This makes these men, as a group, incompetent. Certainly most experienced men and women will agree, at least privately, that MBAs are a disaster once they take control of any operation. They simply refuse to accept that they are incompetent, refuse to see the actual situation, and refuse to admit to themselves that they are lying to themselves.
There are many individual exceptions to this generalization, of course. They lead frustrating lives. Personal experience talking, here.
It also seem that this will be the last fighter of this type due to cost - so it will reign superior as a manned jet. Resources will be shifted to cheaper, specialized units - leaving the F35 as king.
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