Unmanned F-16s Declared IOC | Hacker News Reader

Unmanned F-16s Declared IOC

c4isrnet.com

57 pointsclouddrover56 comments

"Initial operating capability or Initial operational capability (IOC) is the state achieved when a capability is available in its minimum usefully deployable form. The term is often used in government or military procurement."

Military MVP?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_operating_capability

IOC = Initial Operating Capability FOC = Full Operating Capability

Most contracts have tranches of payment released with each phase: concept, IOC, FOC. IOC has also come to mean, "This works, but we aren't sure enough we got all the bugs." So... I suppose it's more like a military Beta.

just went through the ACQ training this week, IOC means the plane has passed operational testing (IOT&E). Meaning there should be very few, if any, bugs left. The Full Rate Production (FRP) decision milestone was already passed and the contract should already be awarded for production - within the lifecycle of the product we are now in the Operations and Support phase, meaning fielding.

FOC just means all unit lots are fielded.

The transition from IOC to FOC is outlined as part of the DoD acquisition contract, but under statute it means, "We've got at least one unit with associated services being run by the customer at at least one location."

That's not a very high bar.

Today, the deployment of a weapons system involves a lot of integration with the existing information technology stack, for "network centric warfare" or whatever the new buzzword is for "using high speed data links for over-the-horizon kills."

In addition to the systems integration, you're usually debugging the human processes such as training and maintenance throughout.

That's where the bugs shake out in the transition from IOC->FOC.

This is nothing new. The USAF has had unmanned F-4 phantoms for decades that are used for target practice and live fire weapons testing. The F-4 fleet is being replaced with surplus F-16s.

You are right for sure. But they have never had a 4th gen (fly by wire / designed to be aerodynamically unstable;) fighter with this capability.

In my (potentially uninformed) opinion, It is definitely a big milestone because it opens the door to 5th gen fighters becoming UCAVs - almost like making the GPS guided JDAM weapon out of a 1960s dumb bomb by "bolting on" the JDAM module as a cheap aftermarket kit.

That's one of the current proposals for the A-10, since there are plenty of people in the armed forces that want to keep it for CAS, the air force doesn't like it as much since it's not "sexy" but the marines, infantry, and armor troops that are saved by CAS love the old ugly thing.

They don't like it because it isn't a ticket to a cushy lobbyist position in the industry since Fairchild is gone and isn't a source of new contracts to siphon of tax dollars.

They cook up all sorts of BS excuses about the costs of special support equipment for A-10 (already paid for) while blissfully ignoring the massive waste blown away on JSF and F=22.

Likely A-10 replacement, imho.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textron_AirLand_Scorpion

Strait-winged, turbofan, six wing hardpoints and an internal bay, extended loiter time, only $20mil+$3k/hour operating costs ... this thing has serious potential.

Might as well go with an F-35 then, it can carry more stuff.

The A-10 can't be replaced by effectively a trainer with a light ground attack option.

The A-10 is a flying tank, it's main gun is very useful for CAS and it can carry a lot of armaments and more importantly take a lot of punishment.

The A-10 is simply not sexy, the air force doesn't want it, it might not even want to provide CAS roles in general.

The USAF offered the US army to take the A-10 fleet in house the Army doesn't want it since logistically it can't really support fixed wing aircraft at this point, maybe the marines would take it in.

The A-10 isn't expensive, it's probably the most cost efficient aircraft the US has produced since WW2, it's simply not a sexy Gen 5 FBW doodad.

Might as well go with an F-35 then, it can carry more stuff.

But is too expensive to ever risk danger-close. Whereas A-10's have had mortars fired over them in certain circumstances...

The USAF is going to have plenty of F-35's to spare, and it it can carry standoff munitions for CAS, not unlike light attack aircraft which you aren't going to be placing into direct line also.

The A-10 was designed to take a beating, it has redundancies on top of redundancies, and armored cabin and fuel tanks, you can blow half of it's tail and it will still land (tho an F-15 has landed with 1 wing ;)).

Light attack/trainers are OK but they aren't in the same league.

It's not clear to me how tough this plane would be (especially relative to the A-10).

Tough is open to debate. In some ways the A-10 is a very delicate plane. It's radar profile and low speed make it a bit of a sitting duck in certain situations. It can survive ground fire, but not from modern radar-guided AAA.

The scoprion is interesting, once you get past the new look. It's got roughly the same capacity, size and costs of the A-10. But it's a little faster, flies higher, and of course lacks the legendary 30mm. The second seat (either flown or removed for space) adds lots of EW potential that would make it more likely to not be shot down than the A-10. And there might be room for a fancy big gun in that internal bay. I;m most impressed by it's 5-hour loiter/CAS time. Like I said, the concept has potential.

Low speed is not a problem. Compared to missiles, all publicly known manned aircraft are really really slow. Even the SR-71 was kind of slow, and it no longer flies.

Radar profile is a minor issue. Normally, the A-10 would be facing unguided and perhaps IR-guided threats. The A-10 has flares and chaff.

I don't think modern radar-guided AAA is much of an issue given the use case. The radar gets taken out, either by the A-10 itself or by something high and stealthy or even by a cruise missile. The larger systems are not easy to move and hide. For the smaller systems, the A-10 can withstand 50mm shells hitting the cockpit armor.

>> the A-10 can withstand 50mm shells hitting the cockpit armor.

No. Wherever you read that is dead wrong. 0.50 caliber glancing rounds yes, the sort of thing from a machine gun. And it is meant to survive nearby air bursts from 37mm AA shells, their shrapnel, but not direct hits. A hit from a 50mm exploding shell would rip the plane into pieces no matter where it impacted.

0.50 caliber sounds more like the canopy.

Minor correction, from Wikipedia, with references: The armor has been tested to withstand strikes from 23 mm cannon fire and some strikes from 57 mm rounds.

References:

Donald and March 2004, p. 18

Jenkins 1998, pp. 47, 49

Note "strikes", not shrapnel. The armor thickness varies. From some angles, the cockpit can take a 57mm shell. From other angles, it's only good for 23mm.

I wouldn't describe it as delicate - these things are meant to make it home after taking multiple direct hits from 23mm+ or a hit from a man-portable AA missile - and they have tested that durability:

http://warthognews.blogspot.com/2011/07/from-archives-oif-st...

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s314/Lethal_014/EMLandv1a...

Nobody would debate that the A-10 is a beast. If you are going to be raked with ground fire it's where you want to be. But we have to look at the entire mission profile. The A-10 is slow, making it more susceptible to shoulder-fired missiles, causing it to have to fly higher on the way to and from the mission. Higher means greater exposure to radar-directed weapons, not the A-10's strong game. Or it can fly lower, reducing its range and requiring airfields closer to the fight, airfields which are more difficult to protect. Flying low also reduces tanker options. There are a hundred factors. The evaluation of weapon systems really does require a committee.

The speed of the A-10 wouldn't matter against MANPADs, sub/transonic light-attack/trainers wouldn't fare any better. A block-2 stinger missile travels at mach 2.5, the SA-18 Igla can do almost Mach 3, and the 9K333 "Pussy Willow" (no, I didn't made it up but GJ NATO) is presumed to be even faster, tho it's very new and still not a lot of operational information about it. If they get a lock on you within their interception range even a fighter aircraft would not outrun them.

Yes, but even a moderate increase in target speed dramatically reduces the range of the missile, along with increasing the time for the pilot to react. Small missiles do not travel at a constant speed. They hit top speed the moment their motor burns out and then coast. By the time they are near their effective range they may be moving slower than the target. If the missile has to chase the aircraft (all shoulder-fired/IR sams) a faster aircraft will be able to remain lower and still out of effective range despite being slower than the missile's max speed.

Yes and no, a lock-on within the visual range of the seeker is not going to give an aircraft too much time to outrun it, aircraft at low altitudes aren't going to be able to go supersonic very well anyhow, even if it's a fighter.

Also modern MANPADs have sustained supersonic speed which is why they are only good for 4-5KM, but within that they'll splash you at max speed. A SA-18 traveling at 800M/S+ has only a range of 5000M so there isn't any "coasting" this isn't a movie they fly for 5-6 seconds and either hit something or drop like a rock.

fly by wire (necessary for aerodynamically unstable aircraft) shouldn't really make autonomous/unmanned flight harder, should it? the computer _already_ knows how to translate "pilot intent" into stable flight.

I was more trying to say that - to my knowledge - they had never done this with a fly-by-wire fighter. The QF-4 (previous aerial target system) was all hydraulic / analog systems.

"Where Have All the Phantoms Gone?" (2008) is a good personal story about the QF-4's:

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/where-have-all-...

I thought the aside in the article about unmanned "missile trucks" controlled by a latest gen manned fighter was interesting.

It's part of a rarely-discussed issue with beyond-visual range (BVR) missiles. For all the hype about technology, they have a horrifically low kill rate against live and aware target. If you look at stats against maneuvering opponents actually beyond visual range, ones with the senors to detect the radar-guided missile approaching, the kill rate is on the order of 15%. Doing the math, the fancy new fighters don't have the missile capacity to confidently down any BVR target, hence the need for a "truck".

This article is where those quotes come from:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pentagon-touts-lo...

The hard part is developing a strong enough AI to do what they want. Current uncrewed vehicles all have a remote human pilot. Air Force brass wants to do away with that bit. Maybe it's six years out but I would be extremely surprised.

Sort of puts our defense spending and progress in perspective when the USAF takes a $21M 4th gen fighter - when most of the world's air forces still have 4th gen fighters in development, mind you - and basically uses it like the cheap clay target shooting skeet you can buy at Walmart.

As I understand it most of these airframes aren't fit to fly with a crew anymore because they've aged out. Airframes that don't get into this program get scrapped.

Indeed, the F16 was originally designed for about 8 000 hours of service time. And most airframes appear to have lasted about 20 years.

Once your aircraft gets to the point it will start to fail, why not use it as a few as a target?

They are still pushing the airframe through 12k hours.

And already tested through 15k+ hours I think.

They are shot at with missiles, but are rarely every 'shot down'. They can use fully capable missiles without warheads. A "kill" is getting the missile to a point that it would detonate, which likely means flying very close but not actually touching the target. You don't use manned craft, but you still expect the target to survive most encounters.

Probably used not for shooting at, but rather for detection, tracking and such. Being on par or a little better than upcoming adversary systems works best for this.

I'd rather have the military test their capabilities in production, than have them wait for a war to see if everything works.

Note that QF-16's, not F-16's, are the unmanned/drone version of the F-16.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...

PS- I'd be worried about these being controlled by an AI or hacked. MQ-9's are small and go 300 MPH, so, while they're deadly, I wasn't worried about them as much. F-16's can go 1,350 MPH and can be "well-armed".

USAF just bought 30 more QF-16's bring the fleet to 106. Then "Air Force leaders are expected to buy a total of 120 QF-16 target drones through 2019. Optionally Air Force leaders are considering buying a total of 210 QF-16 through 2022. The fleet should last until 2025."

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2016/03/qf-16-targ...

These are target drones, and unlikely to be armed with anything or operated near high-value infrastructure susceptible to the relatively minor impact damage of which a QF-16 might be capable.

F-16's can carry nukes.

And why would you have a small very expensive fleet of fast moving drones that can carry bombs? Targets/training only? Wouldn't that be wasteful? Wouldn't those be expensive to just send in for recon or shooting down a plane or even a bombing run that they could use other manned aircraft for? What would they be best suited for?

"...the Pentagon is also modifying Turkey’s current fleet of F-16s to carry the bomb.":

http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22037

I'm not against the USAF trying to improve its defense.

But, if a remote-controlled nuclear-armed jet were controlled by an AI, or by a terrorist, that would be a big problem.

I understand that it's expensive to find and train good pilots, and it takes a long time. They are a limited resource. So, I can see why you'd want to replace them with drones- you save a lot of money, could expand the fleet more quickly and with less expense, eventually.

But, that expense is a safeguard. It keeps really bad things from being able to happen. We shouldn't be making anything nuclear-capable more easily remotely-controllable. And if the US does it, others will. Even if the US were to be completely safe about it, other states might not be.

from the article "The decision by ACC certifies 15 QF-16s ready and available for target operations, according to an ACC release."

As throwanem said these are target drone which we have been doing with the F-4 and other planes for a long time. They have gone beyond their service hours for the airframes.

Nobody loads nukes on a target drone. Nobody uses target drones near civilians.

"Next up, live fire testing moves to Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. The military will ultimately use QF-16s for weapons testing and other aerial training."

http://www.boeing.com/features/2013/09/bds-qf16-09-23-13.pag...

When you shot at a drone its called "weapons testing".

You are correct. It seems like they don't plan to use them intentionally to carry nukes. They could perhaps be fitted with one and possibly wire it into the self-destruct mechanism, but that would take a lot of work, I'd think.

They do carry a bomb, though- it's not meant for combat, but could be abused for such to make the entire plane a bomb carrying device, if it were taken over:

"Granted it is removable, but they also carry, as it was described to me, a 2000 lb class (or maybe more reasonably it was 500#, but the 2k figure seems to stick out in my memory for some reason) HE warhead in the spine for range control/destruction purposes if anything goes awry. Long story short, it would take a lot more money and a lot more testing to ever make them combat capable."

http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27741

Those are absurdly high figures for a range safety package - it's a self-destruct system, meant to terminate out-of-control flight by making the platform no longer airworthy. You don't need a Mark 82 to do that.

Indeed, a firsthand source [1] describes the QF-16's range safety package thus:

> A small ball of flames burst from the middle of the aircraft, followed by thick black smoke, but no sound. The sound followed soon after with a deep reverberating boom.

> The extent of the damage went undetected at first, due to the amount of smoke billowing from the wreck. Once it cleared, it revealed the F-16 had been split in half between the cockpit and the wings.

Something on the scale of a 500- or 2000-pound bomb, as this random forum commenter suggests, would've scattered pieces of aircraft all over the hardstand, in which it would also have left a hole.

[1] http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?pr...

Look, the Air Force has plenty of real combat drones with actual remote weapon controls. This is simply a target drone program to follow up of QF-4 program since we are running out of old F-4s. No sane actor would do anything you suggest since there are purpose built drones that have actually been used to do weapons release. We have enough existing ability to drop weapons that the new Navy drone will actually be used for refueling missions to keep the hours off the F-18 airframes.

It's also worth considering that, if Skynet decides she wants a squadron of B61-armed F-16s to play with, there are easier ways to get one. Like, oh, lying to people.

Why do people get so hung up on the idea that a superhuman AI can't gain access to weapons if there are no weapons equipped for direct remote control? Why expect a superhuman AI to have difficulty suborning humans through deceit? I mean, don't get me wrong - I tend to think that whole avenue of existential threat analysis owes much more to science fiction and the seductive nature of apocalypticism than to anything in reality. But if those are your priors, this seems a very odd oversight.

I've heard of a situation where a disgruntled military contractor who was recently terminated stole a helicopter from base by flying it away. In this case the cause was inadequate physical security procedures. But this is something that happens, and something that people consider defending against.

I kind of understand why they want to develop the capability, but also am dubious of its value for a plane designed around a human pilot.

So, if the plane is going to do anything useful, it needs to get to its target intact and ready, and to be honest that's more about logistics and geography than human or not pilots. Maybe it can stay on-station longer but that sounds more like a duty roster benefit than a tactical advantage

The real benefit of pilotless craft I assume will come from designing it to do things that would kill a human inside it - presumably speed, manoeuvres etc. But then that means rebuilding a whole aircraft with new wings and weapons that can withstand such strain. And is that actually a win?

So, I am not sure where inammgoing with this except it feels that a lot of military spend is not tied to political aims or military benefit. Air craft carriers sit in that weird zone for me too (the UK is without one right now and I am dubious it's worth getting another)

The use of manned target drones is somewhat frowned upon in the military aviation community.

This is for war gaming and practice.

OT but F-16s look great even after all these years. Did it have a principle airframe designer?

Harry Hillaker. He was part of the 'fighter mafia'. It's fascinating history.

Thanks! Will look him up.

It doesn't say how they are flown, is it remote pilots or some kind of AI? The latter would seem a scary concept at this point. Imagine it being hackable...

http://www.boeing.com/defense/support/qf-16/index.page

http://www.boeing.com/features/2013/09/bds-qf16-09-23-13.pag...

Are we expecting an alien invasion? (and by alien, I mean little green men)

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