F-35: What The Pilots Say
airspacemag.com
airspacemag.com
To put it another way, it the F35 was really as good as the F22, as the article seems to claim, then it would not be available for export.
No kidding... it comes across more like a late night Ronco ad rather than real opinions.
And the F35 was always going to be shared with allies for cost and geopolitical reasons so not sure how that can be considered a negative.
The US structured the F35 program to specifically avoid the F22 failures.
I suppose propaganda and political articles tend to put a spin on everything after all...
But that the F-35 is planned on being a command and control centre for a fleet of drones flying alongside it.
In that context weapons capabilities and dogfighting aren't important but its key strengths in stealth and sensor unification definitely are.
You spread around the tax dollars spent on jobs between many different US states and counties, and voila, immunity from politicians. Kick that up to a nation scale, and you really have something good going.
Taking advantage of people’s interest in only their immediate future and their immediate surroundings, and people’s willingness to ignore long term and worldwide costs is a path to success and a downside of “democracy”.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26305/f-15x-will-come-...
Sounds familiar!
Just because the 737 MAX has a problem doesn't mean the underlying philosophy that directed the design was a poor one. The philosophy is basically, "keep what works, fix what doesn't." It's basic iterative design.
2. Given advancements in adversary radars and passive sensors (IRST, etc..), it's not even a given that the F-35 can operate in contested airspace.
Ask because it goes Mach 2.2 it is probably the only fighter vehicle that can launch a hypersonic glide weapon, at least from what the early generation is likely to look like.
High speed missile truck sounds awfully lot like multi track drifting!
There is no way it will be going anywhere near mach 2 with double rails carrying AIM-120s, let alone 20 of the missiles in total.
Meanwhile, the quoted cost for something like a Super Hornet includes support/maintenance and some one-time costs.
As for the F-15X order, that is to supply an Air National Guard squadron, which is currently using old F-15C/D's. They were not slated to switch to F-35's, so the idea was to just supplement with F-15X's in the meantime. IIRC none of the ANG squadrons are switching to the F-35 in the near future.
It's just common sense.
"These sandwiches are acceptable."
"Permission to speak freely?"
"Permission denied"
"These sandwiches are acceptable."
It's natural.
I'd like to see anonymous reports.
It also fills a completely different role. U.S. has such an overwhelming air superiority in any potential combat theater from Somalia to Moscow that they shouldn't be worried about someone having a better plane to bomb then.
I am skeptical about the F32. It looks to me like a one trick pony. But an individual plane is not expensive (which is different from program costs). It is on par with the Eurofighter/Thyphoon.
1. It is a one trick pony. I can't fly fast, can't carry big payload, can't dog fight and takes a shit-load of maintenance. The only advantage is that it may or may not be "invisible" to opponents. I am sure it outclasses any third world countries like Iran, Iraq, whatever. But against China or Russia this is a big if. And if not (invisible) then you are screwed big time. You bought a ton of trade-offs for one advantage that disappeared.
Take this as an example: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-s-500-f-35-or...
Or this one (dubious source) https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-24/russian-su-35-pilo...
2. The price of the two planes (Eurofighter vs. F35) is basically the same. Fact. So the price of the F35 is not really an issue. https://aviatia.net/eurofighter-vs-f35/
It’s not good enough for us by hey want to buy one ?
There seem to be a large blind spot in these pilot accounts, some elephant in the room, but not being an expert I'm unable to pinpoint what it is.
I'm not an expert either. But I suspect it might be one of the following:
1. the F-22 has a higher thrust to weight ration than the F-35, meaning the F-22 is more manouvrable.
2. the F-22 has a lower wing loading than the F-35, again making the F-22 more manouvrable.
3. the stealth on the F-35, while good against the radars of 20 years ago, might be a lot less effective against the radars of the future, for example long-wavelength radars with lots of ground-based sensors all tied together with sensor fusion. This is a big deal since the F-35 is expected to stay in service until 2070 and I'm sure the Chinese and Russians are looking at ways to counter it.
Multistatic passive radar is quite hard to do at high performance. Radio astronomy observatories have been doing it for decades; it's expensive, requires high grade equipment to synchronize time and frequency, and reliable, real-time high-bandwidth data links.
True, stealth aircraft have an extremely small radar cross-section. But I'm guessing they also have very specific and recognizable radar signatures, with the proper signal treatment, despite high noise ratios, their signatures could be isolated. And they could also be easily identified down to the variant of aircraft.
This is a pure guess, not substantiated by anything, and I'm far from an expert or even an enthusiast in the field.
(and let me be clear; I’m a pacifist... putting all the money spent on weapons into increasing interdependence is a much more effective strategy. You don’t want to level your debtors/creditors.
Lots of people want to level their creditors. Economic interdependence didn't prevent the World Wars--to some degree, it exacerbated them because some countries (e.g. Germany and Japan) had strategic reasons to secure their supply of natural resources.
Given that was nearly twenty years ago and we've since had massive advances in passive and synthetic aperture radar otherwise, I've long wondered about the worth of the massive extra cost stealth brings to Fifth Generation warplanes.
Given the Russians don't appear to be in a great rush to make all their wares stealthy, one wonders whether they've preëmpted its limited use in future?
The F-22 is out of production and there's no practical way to build more. So regardless of its comparative merits it's not an alternative.
Lockheed Martin have all the manufacturing equipment in storage and have been trying to sell the Pentagon and others on the idea of restarting the production line to build more F22s with upgraded avionics/electronics taken from the F35. To offset the cost of restarting production they propose allowing Japan to buy them too since Japan has been keen on buying them for a long time.
Yeah, you kinda do, if you want to keep the price of an individual airframe down.
As to export of the F35 vs. F22 : the F35 program was designed from the ground up as an international "cooperation program", so as not to say a "sharing costs" program, so it would be exported.
So maybe they should've published a spreadsheet instead, or an interactive, explorable chart. There are ways for effectively communicating multidimensional spaces of trade-offs, and I'm saddened that those ways are almost never used.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wnjvb9/the-us-air...
The knife is pretty good and keeps its edge, but you can get a knife that's larger and locks. The can opener works great, but it's miles behind an electric can opener. The corkscrew never failed me, but it's not as comfortable as a two-step lever corkscrew. And so on.
Anyway, I think the analogy still holds. Any system that's built for multiple purposes will lose out to another, more specialized system built for a single purpose. Of course, this more specific system cannot perform all the other tasks.
I'm saying you can't easily compare two combat aircraft. You have to be very specific when doing so.
This is the main reason this program was massively over budget and didn't meet expectations.
By trying to create one airframe for three very different sets of requirements, they significantly compromised the performance of all three variants. In particularly, the STOVL requirement for the USMC meant that the Air Force and Navy would end up with an airframe with worse aerodynamic performance and worse radar cross section than if it didn't have to accommodate the lift fan for the F-35B.
The whole idea of the JSF was to save money by featuring 80% parts commonality between the versions. Instead, it only has 25% parts commonality. This resulted in much, much higher cost than anticipated.
With further development and time to work on tactics, the F-35 will probably be fine on the battlefield. But the military could've ended up with far more capable platforms had they heeded the lessons of past procurement failures like the F-111, rather than doubling down on them.
If on only one example, in the recent Belgian Tender (which led to adoption of the F35) appeared a wholly new operational requirement for the Air Force to do stealth-requiring missions, such as SEAD (suppression of enemy air defense) [1]. Up to then, the Belgian Air force was not trained nor expected to do such aggressive undertakings. It seems this requirement came from NATO.
[1] https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeron...
PS : Apologies for my source being in french, there might be some english versions of the story somewhere. The guy reporting the story is Stavros Kelepouris.
Since the 1950s the Belgian military policy has been that it will do whatever is required of it as a NATO member.
Doing their part does include purchasing modern aircraft that are capable of participating in missions in support of an overall strategy of air superiority.
I don’t think it is fair to blame NATO. They did their best so far and they deserve the support.
I'm not saying it's the primary purpose of it. But I think one should not be overly naive towards NATO.
EDIT - I mean via direct military purchases. Obviously the stability protected by NATO enables tremendous trade between Europe and the U.S.
The Belgian military policy has never been an aggressive one (modest-sized country and army)
Ask Ukraine and Georgia about what can happen to non-aggressive, modest countries with modest armies.
NATO is some sort of US military policy deployed
in european countries, and can serve (as in this
case) US commercial interests.
But the solution to that is MORE engagement, responsibility, and contribution by European NATO allies, not less.
The greater Europe's role in NATO, the smaller the US's role can be...
And face it the NATO was formed to confront a nuclear armed superpower, don't act surprised as if you just learned this today.
> U.S. forces first took these capabilities into combat last September, when Marine F-35Bs struck the Taliban in Afghanistan
against disorganized rebel forces less well armed than the average suburban American, with no air force and no surface to air missiles. and the U.S. still can't win that war.
The only way to win is to convince the patient's immune system (the host country's civilians) to kill its own cancer.
I mean, why not? There is no current or planned plane as capable or as survivable as the A-10. F-35? Single engine, inline. Take that out and instant eject. Warthog was designed to lose an engine, even let it burn off and make it home. Control surfaces have mechanical backups. Not to mention the titanium tub protecting the pilot. And the cannon? Oh, the cannon. Can an F-35 take out a T-72 or T-80 on cannons alone? Doubtful.
A-10 is one of my favorite warplanes. Design was basically: here's this cannon, build a plane around it.
If we're actually trying to prepare for a near-peer adversary, I'm much more concerned with the vast suite of electronics on this platform than I am with it's ability to dog fight. What use is dog fighting in a early/mid 21st century war? If you're trying to dog fight I think you've already lost. As the US has dominated the sky (and the sea) for the last half century our near-peers have optimized on that they are good at, and what we are not. The Russians with more and more advanced missile technology, and the Chinese their cyber weapons - neither of which the F-35 has anything to do with countering, at least explicitly, and with the latter seems uniquely vulnerable to.
But yes, I agree, "take this huge cannon and weld a cockpit, two engines, and some wings to it" made for a pretty cool aircraft.
Re:survivability....The A-10 survives being hit. The F-35 avoids being hit in the first place. Modern SAMs like the S-400 will spot and engage the A-10 are farther ranges than they can even detect an F-35. The A-10 can survive ground cannon fire (say from a Pantsir-S1's cannons) better than the F-35...but the F-35 doesn't need to get "low and slow" to deliver ordnance on target in the first place.
If F-35s are tasked with doing gun runs on T-80s, then in your AOC (Air Force operations center) or DASC (Marine equivalent, roughly) somebody sucks at either weaponeering, building an Air Tasking Order, or both.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/05/a-10-j...
That's why we are moving to digitally-aided CAS and precision munitions. Of course, if we get in fight with the Chinese or Russians GPS will be jammed to Hell, so that needs to be taken into account too...
The A-10 does a lot of things well but it only works if you already have air superiority.
If you control the skies? Cool, bring it in for the BRRRT. Great for chasing down those insurgents in pickup trucks.
Against a modern and capable foe (Russia, China, or -- perhaps more realistically -- countries equipped by them) that is far less likely to be the case.
It's helpless against fighters and missiles. It might survive some damage, which is great for the pilot, but it still means the plane's been neutralized and hey, you still need to figure out how to get that air support.
Also, my understanding is that modern Russian tanks (reactive armor, etc) can survive the A-10's gun. The A-10 has been around as a feared tank killer for decades and hasn't really evolved. You don't think Russia has spent the last few decades figuring out how to deal with it?
1. Modern jets need long runways (aircraft carrier slingshot notwithstanding) so anytime troops were calling in air support, a supersonic f16 would fly for an hour, have enough fuel for a couple of bombing runs before having to fly back to the closest large airport, compared to what the troops really wanted, a super tucano turboprop, which can take off from the dirt airstrips available anywhere in the country.
2. Modern jets, with their stunning array of passive and active sensors, encourage an eyes-off approach to dropping bombs : pilots can only trust their data, they are not close enough to the ground to recognize who's friendly and who's not.
Alluded in my sibling comment, A10 warthogs would have been perfect for these missions -- I don't know where the unwillingness to fund them comes from. Googling now reveals that Super Tucano turboprops are now being delivered to the afghan airfoce, since that's what you actually need to fight small arms battles in the remote regions of the country.
Closest thing I found was 2015, detailing why modern technology doesn't win the war, 'low and slow' can be a better game plan:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8qxzyv/low-and-sl...
That day, no less than six MiG-31s “intercepted” an SR-71 over the Barents Sea by performing a coordinated interception that subjected the Blackbird to a possible all angle air-to-air missiles attack.
Apparently, after this interception, no SR-71 flew a reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union and few years later the Blackbird was retired to be replaced with the satellites."
That being said, the Space Shuttle didn't really make sense on it's face either and we built it, so I could def be wrong.
What's really fascinating is the x-37b https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 we have an autonomous space craft in orbit for years, yet I never head anything about it. It's part DARPA project so, it's probably some sort reconnaissance experiment.
I could go on and on, I just find this all fascinating.
I’m sorry, what?
As in can fly to proxima centuri?
The company that built them shuttered 16 years ago.
* https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17236/a-10-replacement...
An older article talking about the current Warthog limitations and what a "Warthog 2.0" should have:
* https://warisboring.com/what-will-the-next-a-10-warthog-look... * https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/mcsallys-case-let...
The data from the war in Afghanistan paints a pretty good picture of capability versus perception. The vast majority of the responses to troops-in-contact came in the form of precision munitions from F-16s or F-15s. What the "troops" want is not a good variable in understanding what the best method of providing CAS is. Everyone wants the A-10, it's sexy. The reality on the ground is that even in a low threat environment such as Afghanistan the A-10 doesn't nearly do the job as good as an F-16 for a number of reasons which I won't get into in a public forum.
The Airforce vision of CAS is precision munitions from both manned and un-manned platforms that present very little risk to both the operators of the platform and the infrastructure that support them. It would be a significant de-evolution of our capability as a military to continue to operate the A-10 purley on nostalgia and public perception of its' capabilities. I don't expect the public at large to look at this situation with nuisance or data, but let's use common sense if anything. The reason why the Afghan Airforce is operating A-29s and armed C-208Bs has much more to do with cost and sustainability than it does to do with effectiveness. In fact you can find multiple articles of Afghan brass complaining about how what we are giving them isn't particularly well suited to the mission they are expected to sustain. A couple of tool boxes and spare PT6 parts will keep that fleet flying for a couple of years. I don't see them really providing a meaningful impact on the battlefield however.
Being close to the ground is the Army's mission and they do it really well. Adding a couple gunned turboprops won't change anything on the ground today or tomorrow. We are training and developing doctrine for a near-peer threat. We've been focused on COIN too long, and developing budgets and technology for yesterday's conflicts is exactly what set us back in the early days of the GWOT. So consider for a moment that the F-35, despite it's many setbacks and runaway budget might actually do the CAS mission quite well. I'll take the laser guided 500LB bomb over a spray of Hyrda rockets when some asshole starts throwing IDF my way. By the time we procure, field, and properly employ something like the A-29 it's basically going to be limited to a low threat environment scout attack role. Hey doesn't the Army do that??!!
So I told you what this soldier wants, and what the Airforce is doing. Hopefully that's good enough.
there is no aircraft on the planet that provides close air support as well as the A10. not even most military brass that want to get rid of the A10 will admit otherwise.
troops want the a10 because they dont want a friggen bomb dropped on their head, not because of nostalgia.
"there is no aircraft on the planet that provides close air support as well as the A10"
Apache drivers love their guns, don't say that too loudly. Those Marine AH-1 guys hate their lives so they might not care so much you have that opinion. Those Air Force F-15, F-16, F-22 and B-2 drivers might however be a tad salty that despite the fact they are the ones present at those troop in contact missions most of the time they don't get any love because of LUL BRRRRT.
Troops if anything don't want the A-10 because they don't want a friggen strafe ran over them when they could've had a JDAM. But hey, BRRRRRT
CAS is more than just "staying", if anything it has a lot more to do with "getting there". We're very good at getting a lot of shit down range, what gets there QUICKLY makes the difference to those on the ground.
What's really interesting is looking at the data; the majority of CAS missions in Afghanistan were performed by the B-1, hardly what comes to mind when you picture that aircraft. But it has high speed, packs a ton of munitions, and has the ability to persist for a long time over the battlespace.
Loiter time isn't as big of a variable as people make it out to be. We'll just throw more assets into the mix. What matters is getting there fast to be able to actually impact the fight in a meaningful way.
(I mean, that's a source of lots of the problems with the program)
A plane different than the F-35 doing CAS doesn't have to be the aging A-10.
For someone like the Army, it seems like a drone version of the A-10, which drops a lot of the pilot armor for increased munitions and dwell time, would be a decisive factor in CAS.
If you look at say, the ambush on American forces in Syria by the Wagner group, substantial amounts of fire were provided by helicopters and AC-130s.
So I'm just lost at how a plane which can reach target faster than a helicopter, but provide similar close in support doesn't have a role in such engagements.
That's not to say that stealth penetration, ECW, and targeted strikes aren't important -- eg, providing openings in IAD, hitting fortified targets quickly, etc. Just that given how things with Wagner went, it seems like long-dwell, high munition count CAS is useful.
The issue right now isn't with loiter time or payload. Range is the enemy more than anything right now. We fight a global conflict and providing resources anywhere at anytime is alot harder than it sounds. Making A-10s into drones doesn't solve any particular problem. Once the Army fully realizes future vertical lift we'll have a better picture of what "local" CAS will look like moving forward. Right now we team 64s with UAVs all wholly owned and operated by the Army to project force locally.
Response time is key. An F-16 hauling ass from Al Udeid will give me more than an A-10 hauling ass from Al Udeid. Low risk precision is key. A UCAV at altitude raining hate in the from of hellfires presents very low risk to the asset and a great deal of precision for the troops on the ground. The A-10 can act great as a delivery platform, but it is slow and incredibly vulnerable. Time matters for those troops in contact, and providing fast precision is the key ingredient in CAS right now. Sustainment comes in the form of larger platforms such as the B-1 and the B-52. In a low to moderate risk environment you can start throwing in Army assets and special mission stuff like the AC-130. Air power is built as a stack, and the idea to to provide quick reaction to troops in contact with precision munitions. Bring in ISR platforms (or already have them in place) at altitude to develop the battlefield. Finally, sustain air power with larger platforms or locally employed assets (think short range long loiter) such as AH-64s, AH-6s, DAPS, etc.
The reason why the A-10 doesn't have a KEY role in all of this is because after decades at war, lessons were learned. Now the A-10 isn't SUPER BAD at CAS, we've just evolved. An F-35 will do the job just well in that it provides that critical speed, range, payload, precision and all with an amazing capability set. If we ever need to destroy battalions of tanks en-mass with zero risk of effective counter air or anti-air, I'm sure we'll see the A-10 again.
In terms of Khasham, you're also ignoring the dozen or so sorties flown that day by F-22s, F-15s, and B-52s that provided probably more than 80% of the total payload. Not to mention the many un-named ISR and UCAV platforms that probably stayed in the stack for the better part of that week. Going back to the "stack" mentioned above.
Edit:
> Making A-10s into drones doesn't solve any particular problem.
Just wanted to call out -- it actually does solve one problem, and one I've heard expressed as a concern, which is the potential loss of pilots involved with low-flying, slow CAS aircraft, such as the A-10. It also substantially changes the performance requirements when you're not trying to safely house a pilot -- fuel capacity, electronics, lighter or smaller craft (if we're talking future planes), etc.
Hence the reason for my suggestion: it shifts the risk envelope in terms of sending them as CAS, while offering a distinct platform from say, Predator style drones, with relatively lighter armaments.
Let me just conclude by saying my information on military hardware largely comes from Wikipedia, may not include various platforms that haven't been widely publicized, and certainly doesn't include accurate information on combat.
Again, I appreciate you taking the time to talk.
Aircraft peashooters aren't strong enough to shoot down tanks nowadays.
Why would the A-10 (Or a light attack aircraft) be hauling ass from there instead of already being in the air near the AO since it has a lot more fuel and loiter time (and lower cost per flight hour)? Or being closer since they can launch from more austere airfields.
Also, I have read articles:
* Quoting JTACs saying dialling in the fast movers afer their arrival takes a lot longer than a slow-mover in a near-contact situation which can be a serious issue (and large removes the "haul ass" 8-minute rule advantage)
* Quoting army captains saying the loiter time is so low after the fast movers have arrived that enemy forces basically learned to stop the attack for 30 minutes then resume after the fast-mover has had to go to the nearest tanker to refuel.
I can maybe see the F-35's sensor suite helping with the first one but not the second (Unless it is so good that it can reliably find targets on the ground even when the JTAC cannot be sure).
Or when I read about Special forces literally having to do end-runs around official policy to get some A-29s to support them because the existing kit wasn't doing the job.
I am not an "A-10 forever" type but I find the "F-35 solves EVERYTHING" crowd to be a bit over-zealous and I have read enough about issues with the Airforce (brass especially) and its relationship with the CAS/COIN role to make me wonder about their ability to evaulate without bias.
> Why would the A-10 (Or a light attack aircraft) be hauling ass from there instead of already being in the air near the AO since it has a lot more fuel and loiter time (and lower cost per flight hour)? Or being closer since they can launch from more austere airfields.
That's a bad way to frame it, I could just argue that a bunch of B-1s should have been at altitude already as well. I guess we'll prop up multiple airfields in Syria because .... well we don't have to, we'll just use other equally as good assets that can be rapidly fielded from regional bases. It simplifies cost, provides quick and effective fire all at a much lower risk. Ultimately the ground force commander builds their own stack and helps arrange and field assets before any major operation. In a low threat environment, hell yes have a bunch of A-10s in the stack ready to rock. But what about some ODA in Nigeria that randomly gets ambushed? That's how we need to be talking about CAS.
> Quoting JTACs saying dialling in the fast movers afer their arrival takes a lot longer than a slow-mover in a near-contact situation which can be a serious issue (and large removes the "haul ass" 8-minute rule advantage).
"Quoting JTACs" is like quoting the private news network in my eyes.
> Quoting army captains saying the loiter time is so low after the fast movers have arrived that enemy forces basically learned to stop the attack for 30 minutes then resume after the fast-mover has had to go to the nearest tanker to refuel.
I wouldn't say that the loiter time is what led to that outcome. Being all holed up in a COP on a mountain side isn't the best place to be in the first place. That's why local CAS must also come into the picture somewhere if you plan to sustain operations.
> Or when I read about Special forces literally having to do end-runs around official policy to get some A-29s to support them because the existing kit wasn't doing the job.
Special mission stuff will always be special mission stuff. We still have OV-10s doing high speed shit in Iraq. That doesn't mean we should build more OV-10s. Tailored solutions are just that.
Everyone, you need to drive the Ford 35 Mustang. It's not the fastest car but it's pretty fast. If you strap a trailer on the back then sure it now loses all it's maneuverability but it's now a truck, right? So we don't need trucks any more.
Since it's invisible you don't need any combat capability, unless you load it out with 8 pylons and now it's not invisible any more, so now it does need to outfly the enemy. But it can't because it needs to carry all this load.
It needs to take off and land vertically which means it needs a small cross section but it needs to be able to have a high wing load to turn so it needs a large cross section.
It needs to do close air support but it can't get close. It needs to be slow but it also needs to be fast.
It needs to be a bomber and have long range, but needs to be a fighter and have high performance (or energy maneuverability).
It's what Boyd warned everyone about during the last generation, you need to avoid mutli role aircraft as they're not good at anything.
Like the F-16 or the F-15E? Hillaker said he'd have designed the F-16 differently(more akin to the F-16XL) if he had known it was going to be multi-role.
Eh, if it went into production as they had envisioned, it would have been built only to F-104 kind of numbers. By compromising a little on the air to air aspect, they gained enormously in the air to ground aspect and overall utility. Most of the sorties have been air to ground for a good awhile now.
These are the design constraints. Really it should be 2 or 3 different, almost certainly cheaper, aircraft.
http://jockopodcast.com/2017/04/05/69-the-real-top-gun-battl...
That reminds of a talk I heard by a historian who pointed out that the Sherman tank was actually a better tank than its reputation suggests. While a bigger gun and more armor could have helped, the tank commands actually turned down bigger guns (because they hadn't yet seen tanks that needed them) and providing sufficient armor to actually stop the weapon fire being trained on them may not have been possible with the logistical constraints of the US Army.
If you're defining CAS as dropping overkill PGMs from 30,000ft in clear skies.
But that form of CAS is unique to the 'last war'. How will the F-35 fare in Central Europe where 90% of days are overcast and media coverage means you can't just throw a 500lber into a block of flats to suppress a sniper.
> So I told you what this soldier wants, and what the Airforce is doing.
The soldier wants the target suppressed ASAP, in any weather and with minimal risk to friendly force. The Air Force is following its usual tactic of appearing to do just enough to fulfil the soldier's needs so that it can keep the Army away from armed fixed-wing.
Unique like how the A-10 has been operating in such uncontested airspace of the 'last war'? An SU-25 was downed by a MANPADS last year in Syria. The A-10 is tough and highly survivable, but the case of not being hit in the first place has some merit.
Even on an overcast day you could still throw a munition through a window of a building, I don't know why you think that cloud coverage diminishes our capability.
In your opinion, does this article accurately reflect the current limitations of the A-10, and list useful enhancements of what a "Warthog 2.0" should have? For example:
> Because CAS missions often take place at very low altitudes and low airspeeds — anywhere from 150 knots to 300 knots — the aircraft must be able to perform a two-G sustained turn at a rate of five degrees per second with a turn radius of no more than 2,000 feet.
> The instantaneous turn rate — that is, how quickly a plane can wheel around in the first few seconds of a maneuver — would have to be better than 20 degrees per second while pulling six Gs. The aircraft must also be able to remain less than one mile from a target between attacks while pulling no more than two Gs — except for the roll-in to the attack and the time it’s leaving the area.
[...]
> The A-10 cannot take off at its maximum weight in places like Afghanistan and must either off-load weapons or fuel. The next-generation aircraft must be able climb out of a runway at maximum gross weight at a rate of the 4,000 feet per minute at a density altitude of 20,000 feet. Further, it must be able to operate out of a 3,000-foot runway at sea-level with a full fuel load and an internal gun. Ideally, it should be able to operate out of austere 1,500-foot runways.
> A cruise speed of at least 360 knots is desirable, the pilots said. Initially, the group believed that it would be best for a next-gen aircraft to cruise at 480 knots with a dash speed of 540 knots. However, with Sprey’s input, the team came to the conclusion that such a requirement would be aerodynamically incompatible with a tight turn radius at low airspeed.
[...]
> The prospective next-generation Warthog replacement needs to have a minimum combat radius of 150 nautical miles with at least four hours on station time with internal fuel, the pilot explains.
* https://warisboring.com/what-will-the-next-a-10-warthog-look...
* https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/mcsallys-case-let...
The Air Force. Air Force brass has less than zero interest in maintaining the A-10 fleet. Just a few months ago a friend of mine recounted a conversation he had with a base commander. Basically, the Air Force believes the F-35 and UAVs provide superior capabilities than the A-10 for every conceivable mission.
I asked him why the Army doesn't offer to takeover the A-10, but I just got a big shrug. I don't think that possibility is on anybody's radar, by which I infer not even the Army is particularly keen on the A-10.
What all the evidence suggests to me is that there's overwhelming consensus at the Pentagon to scrap the A-10. Congress, the defense media, and anecdotally every ground trooper from Iraq and Afghanistan disagree, but there you have it.
Grunts love firepower. Back when the M16 was new everyone got full auto. Then the powers that be decided it was overkill and gave them three round burst. Now the marines are fielding the M27....
Just because they eat crayons doesn't mean they don't know what works and what doesn't.
That said, having your CAS system be capable of showing up at mach 1.8 is worth something.
Disclaimer: I flew the Shadow 200 TUAV in OIF II and did targeting for several A10 missions. Nothing quite like a BRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT cutting the thing you’ve put a laser on in half! I still don’t think it would do well against a modern Russian armor division.
There's some interesting counter-arguments to that view in this thread; I'm not knowledgeable enough in the domain to have a strong opinion.
There were plans for light attack propeller aircraft. The US actually bought a bunch of them for the Iraqi airforce and were falling over themselves saying how good they were for the job. The US airforce then trialled their own light attack aircraft (apparently grudgingly) but...
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/01/18/the-air-forces-pl...
and to be honest, ths reasons given are pretty suspect to me anyway.
The A10 is a lot less vulnerable to ground-fire and MANPADS than helicopters, can carry more and loiter longer. It's like a AC130 but cheaper to operate and with more missiles.
While the gun isn't going to be effective against a modern armored division having a high capacity missile truck is worthwhile as evidenced in desert storm.
That said, time to get on scene is very important and the A10 is very poor at that compared to other fixed wing aircraft.
Have you ever been in combat with an A10? I have. I was literally the guy putting a laser (from my Shadow 200 TUAV) onto a weapons cache building in Tal'Afar, Iraq and watched an A10 BRRRRRTTTTTT cut the building in 1/2 before it ignited from all of the ordinance inside.
As to showing the A10's effectiveness in Desert Storm, that was what, 1991? The Soviet T90-A was designed to specifically be fine against 30mm GAU8 rounds, and it was released in 1993. Soviet armor divisions also have serious business anti-aircraft like the Pantsir system, which would obliterate an A10 no question. All recent Soviet weaponry, up to and including the most recent T14 Armata would survive strafing from an A10 just fine, and in the meantime provide targetting data to anti-air platforms to take it out.
TL;DNR: Using the weapons from the early 1990s to fight a war now is a great way to lose. The A10 is an amazing machine, but so was the P51 Mustang in its heyday.
:-)
If you get a combat patch and combat pay, it is combat. If your operational flight record says you have 482 combat flight hours, what would you call it (that is the number of hours I got in OIF II 2003-2004). You don’t have to kick down doors and drop bodies with your hands to be in combat. It was the RQ-7A in specific I flew as the RQ-7B is a bigger airframe with better endurance.
Also, a tank without optics and sensors is pretty damn useless.
https://www.quora.com/Can-an-A-10-Warthog-airplane-take-down...
Again, a hellfire missile from an Apache is a much better way to kill a modern tank.
It is clear that a single GAU-8 shell to undamaged frontal armor will not cause serious damage. Everything else points to the A-10 being highly effective.
Since we don't get to fire at the T-90 for testing purposes, note that smaller and slower shells from the Bradley have taken out the M1A2 Abrams.
Nothing says you can't hit the same location 100 times. For increased accuracy, improving the ammunition is possible. A few years back, DARPA got 50 caliber (12.7 mm) bullets to have active steering. If we can do that in 50 caliber, 30 mm should be easy.
As for the Hellfire, the A-10 has that beat too, with the Maverick. It goes 3 times as far, carrying 7 to 15 times as much explosive. The A-10 can also carry Paveway, JSOW, and various other precision bombs.
I don't think the psychological effect should be ignored either. Having an A-10 visibly loitering over the battlefield will have an effect on the morale and behavior of both sites of the conflict.
The A-10 is still effective against light cavalry and mounted cavalry using low-armored ground vehicles, which are the units of choice for highly mobile hit-and-run guerilla combatants. Shooting pennies to destroy dollars is a viable strategy, and the A-10 spews nickels instead of launching quarters.
That is 100% false. The 160th SOAR flies some CASA-212s, the MC-12 and the regular army flies a variety of SEMA and transport fixed wing aircraft. The Army doesn’t fly fighters, but air superiority isn’t their mission, that’s the Air Force’s job. Naval Aviation is really just a weapons system for ships; it’s for force projection rather than air superiority; Marine Aviation is strictly close air support for Marine operations: not force projection or air superiority.
The Army isn’t more than satisfied with Apaches: they’re not going to be buying any more as the FVL program comes online. That program is taking over from the Blackhawks and Apaches. The Apache was designed to fight tanks in Western European Cold War scenarios.
However, the Army actually wants F-35s rather than the Warthog for CAS. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said as much at a symposium last year. However, he wants the Air Force flying those planes as that has been the traditional division of labor for the Army: the Air Force generally provides CAS. But it doesn’t really matter what anyone says, there is a contingent of people that hate the military and everything the F-35 represents, regardless of the actual quality of the airplane. The critics have never flown the plane and many of those critics have never spent any time in combat situations where an F-35 would be relevant. There are plenty of ridiculous weapons systems that we don’t need (the Crusader artillery system for example,) but the F-35 isn’t one of them. It’s an incredible plane that allows missions that just wouldn’t be possible in a Super Hornet or a Raptor — at least not without unacceptable losses.
Is this desire based on technical merits or political/practical realities? What criteria could be used to evaluate which aircraft is "better" for CAS?
Seems that the F-35 has higher operating costs, is less maneuverable, is more fragile, etc. Does stealth have an advantage when one is strafing at less that 10K feet in a (generally) low-threat and low-intensity environment?
Given all the combat engagements the A-10 has had over the decades, wouldn't it be prudent to at least have the F-35 run some "live" CAS missions to see how it does first? IIRC, the F-35 can't even fire its gun yet (until there's a future software update).
Close aerial ground support is 100% a different mission profile than for air superiority fighters and air defense batteries.
If I were commander in chief, I would move most of the military to a new Logistics Corps, and put it in charge of all unit and cargo transport, aerial refueling, airdrops, at-sea resupply, construction and fortifications, vehicles maintenance, and permanent base buildings and facilities. Next, the nuclear triangle of long-range bombers, ballistic missile silos, and missile submarines would go into the Strategic Deterrents Corps, along with ballistic missile defenses, launch detection satellites, strategic-threat tracking radars, and hypersonic cruise missiles. The rest can go into Offense, Defense, and Special Teams, or any other arrangement they please. Once logistics, diplomacy, and strategic advantage are already taken care of, the tactics should be adaptable to the conditions of the conflict at hand.
Air Force officers manage people. They don't do things. Specifically, they don't risk their own lives. The Air Force is built around NORAD and SAC and ICBMs. Being the organization owning nuclear missiles is their dream state. They recently added space and cyber to that, both of which also don't involve getting shot at. The A-10 is the ultimate in "not our job" to the USAF. UAVs could not get here fast enough.
Unfortunately, they also don't want anyone else to have the whole aircraft thing. So the Army doesn't get to fly fixed wings and the Navy only has that "aircraft carrier" excuse.
The A-10 is a flying anti-tank machine gun from the 1970's.
1. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=super%20tacano&sort=byPopulari...
2. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/470769.The_Future_of_War
https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2018/07/what-cyber-war-w...
What proportion of chips used in American computers come from the far east?
In what fantasy world does anyone actually posit it not devolving quickly into nuclear war with these nations?
We've had MAD for half a century and yet today so many people seem to spruik this idea that conventional direct warfare is possible between nuclear armed states. It's simply not going to happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credible_minimum_deterrence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_deterrence
Basically, it's not "I can glass your whole country" but more "I can nuke a few of your main cities, you will survive but it will hurt".
Mostly, only the USA and Russia can follow MAD, the other nuclear powers with a few hundreds warheads, follow Minimal Deterrence.
The point isn't necessarily to be able to wage a conventional war against Russia or China. Other countries, like Iran or Syria, potentially have access to the same weapons systems.
[1]: "Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975", pp. 261-263. https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/decla...
Suppose Russia invades Poland. With a conventional deterrent, NATO can deploy ground and air forces to a defensive front and hold Russia to a stalemate. Eventually it would escalate to a nuclear exchange, but only through a stepwise process. Most importantly, this is why Russia doesn't invade Poland.
Without a conventional deterrent, Russian tanks could reach Brussels and the only countermeasure would be a nuclear first strike against Russia. That wouldn't happen. Which means there's no reason for Russia not to invade every non-nuclear-armed country it wants to. Which means every single country in the vicinity of Russia is going to want their own nuclear deterrent, because that will be the only effective defense.
(Also, missile defense is getting good enough that MAD might not survive the 21st century, and then we'll feel silly for not having any other military options.)
The 70s called and want their cruise missiles back.
The type of weapon you're describing already exist and are widely used. They are commonly launched by missile destroyers, submarines or large bomber aircraft behind the front lines. You still need a manned fighter at the front lines to find targets to shoot at.
Why a manned fighter? Why not remotely-human-piloted drones?
That pilot can also be replaced by, say, 200 kilograms of extra sensors and communication equipment and two or three people in a container in the nearest airbase.
The sane choice for the USA would be a new A10, redone mostly to avoid components that are getting difficult to source. Minor other changes are fine (geared turbofans, modernized armor, no bleed air...) but one shouldn't let Second System Syndrome make a monster.
The Paladin is based on a chassi from like the early 1960s and can only do three rounds per minute or one round per minute sustained up to 22km. In comparison the Panzerhaubitze 2000 that can fire 10-13 rounds a minute continuously up to 30km. The 2016 Russian 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV can do 16 rounds per minute up to 40km, even the older 2S19 "Msta-S" manages 6-8 rounds per minute up to 24km. Not to mention the modern wheeled based systems like the Archer or the CAESAR which would be ideal for rapid redeployment against threats in a low intensity conflict.
And then we have rocket artillery systems, here the USA actually have a modern piece that is good in low intensity warfare, the M142 HIMARS. But compared to the Russians the US basically doesn't have any long range rocket artillery systems available for fire support.
But if you insist on having a CAS platform then forget about the A-10. Ask the Russians if you can buy some SU-25 Frogfoots. It's the best CAS in the world.
\laughs in CIA supplied MANPADS\
And you're also ignoring ATACMS. HIMARS is nice for the Marines, but ATACMS is great for high intensity warfare.
And the SU-25? Junk. It wouldn't survive 30 minutes against anyone with a decent AD (though neither would the A-10). Everyone underestimates how lethal modern combat will be against any and all aircraft.
Please provide robust examples to back up your premise. The last large conflict between US weapons and another competitor, resulted in absolute humiliation on the part of Russia/USSR in the Gulf War.
Russia can't globally project its military and neither can China. Russia can barely leave its borders and can barely afford to even in a limited fashion. Neither comes close to having the logistics, bases, comprehensive weapons systems and information systems necessary to fight a war outside their borders against the US. They simply can't do it under any circumstances. China will need 30 more years to get to that level at the rate they're going; they still haven't properly modernized their military, much less figured out how to use that modernization effectively.
Russia's entire military is rotting top to bottom. Putin has shifted Russia's focus to a narrow selection of propaganda heavy 'super' weapons, because they can no longer afford to maintain their military to keep up with the US broadly. They can't afford the SU-57, it'll never be constructed in meaningful numbers. They can't properly maintain or sustain their one aircraft carrier. Russia is no longer a broad military rival to the US, they're a narrow weapons systems rival (eg the excellent S missile systems).
Things are not going to get better for Russia on the military front, they're going to keep getting worse in line with their permanently stagnate economy. They'll have to make a choice on cutting the size of their military (further limiting their capabilities to mostly defense of Russian territory), or allowing the average quality of their forces to continue to erode. A $1.6 trillion economy - smaller than Canada's economy - simply isn't going to enable them to keep up over the coming decades with the US and Chinese economies.
China is the sole military rival to the US going forward. As of today, they're still solidly behind the US in nearly every weapon system. Maybe in a couple decades the story will be very different (one assumes), today it's not.
Yeah, we can count tanks and planes and bases, mobile or otherwise, and declare that the US would win in an overwhelming fashion in a WWIII scenario. But I think that assumes we'd be fighting based on our terms - which never happens in war. I don't think it's consequential, at all, that Russia and China struggle with the carrier vessel concept. These "super weapons" that are supposedly just Russian propaganda would render these things obsolete. Chinese cyber weapons knocking out US military communications systems would be catastrophic. Let's also not forget the very regrettable state the US Navy itself is in[1]. This is simply to say that I think you're overstating the primacy of the US military today for fighting a "conventional" style war. Actually, between the three countries only Russia has done so, fight a "conventional war", in the last decade or so when they annexed Crimea. The US has been engaged in a forever-war of "Counter Insurgency" that most assuredly has atrophied both experience and technical skill for fighting great land wars. I'm not saying it's an even playing field, but I would not underestimate Russian or Chinese ingenuity to exploit weaknesses here.
I also figure that a WWIII scenario would be much more like WWI than WWII, since there will be a myriad of new technologies all clashing together for the first time. I don't think anyone can say for certain today what trumps what. Do hunter-seaker drones take out infantry platoons faster than they can be replenished, or do EW units - something that's never actually been tested against these adversaries - knock out the drones first?
[1]https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgeral...
The US was the vastly more powerful and technologically advanced contender but got whooped by some rice farmers with second hand AK-47s.
The Taliban also at one point did have surface-to-air missiles (specifically MANPADS) but most references to that are old enough that they might have run out by now unless someone's been resupplying them.
Not a California-spec AR-15 mind you, but a full bore, Screamin Eagle, Texas-spec AR-15, with a high capacity magazine and all the other bells and whistles.
There might be a chance of ending the war during a lame duck presidency, but that President will be thinking of Legacy at that point.
Thus the only politically-viable course of action is to keep the war going. As a sibling comment mentioned: war serves more than one purpose.
Unless of course the culture of America shifts to an anti-war or non-interventionist stance and sees peace as more important than "winning" or "losing" in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.
f35 can achieve air supremacy against men with ak47 on Toyota pickups
You'd be surprised, they have access to a lot of old and not so old russian tech + captured weapons. Definitely not as effective as modern tech but much better than what a civilian can get anywhere in the world.
Afaik talibans shot down multiple military planes and helicopters. Americans are fighting in Afghanistan for 17+ years, clearly they have more than spears and stones.
Obviously, it's not a perfect analogy. One difference is that, in this case, everyone involved is a grown-up.
Denmark is buying 27 F-35. That not nearly enough to do anything meaningful against an enemy like Russia. Buying a plane, like the SAAB JAS 39 Gripen, would have allowed the Danish Airforce to do basically the same operations, for much much less money. The Danish airforce isn't going to intercept Russian fighters. The missions are patrol and bombings for NATO.
For a country like the US, sure, maybe the F-35 is something they need for the type of missions they fly. I just can see any country do anything with 27 planes. 27 is less planes than an aircraft carrier has.
In a war with Russia, there is no amount of fighter planes that would keep Denmark safe. Russia has nuclear weapons. Denmark is just too small to do it without the rest of NATO. Buying the F-35 maybe helps coordination with other NATO countries?
Once economies of scale kick in, it doesn't seem that much more expensive. There was supposed to be a more comprehensive review of the F35 vs older platforms, I'd love for someone more knowledgeable to chime in with an apples to apples comparison.
[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-updated-f18-comparabl...
[1]: https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2017/feb/07/do...
Among other things, this question seems like a simple misunderstanding of prices.
The unit cost of the F-35A is $80M, while a top-end Gripen costs a fairly similar $60M. When Denmark did look at buying the Gripen, it requested upgrades to power and payload (already satisfied by the F-35) that could easily have made up the remaining price gap. Maintenance and flight costs are substantially higher for the F-35 also, but that's relatively manageable for a country that doesn't expect regular deployments and a large supply of spares for their fleet.
It's the development cost where the F-35 comes in at more than 10x the price of the Gripen, which is largely irrelevant to small buyers ordering a finished product. Denmark did end up contributing to the F-35 development costs, but only about the cost of another plane, $110M. And in return, they stand to compete for parts-development contracts which wouldn't have been available for the Gripen.
The innovation shouldn't be around stealth and maneuverability, but rather production cost/rate and AI automation. It is really hard to train a fighter pilot, this means you have very few of them, and the one with the best jet wins.
In the new world of AI the jets themselves are trivial, it's the AI that matters and the VOLUME you can produce them at. In this case someone like China is way better positioned -- just steal the IP for the physical airframe (or develop one that is just good enough) then innovate on the assembly line and AI aspects.
The AI fighter jet problem feels much easier than the self driving car problem.
Plus, the AI can be augmented by a human on the ground.
A lot of the resistance against this comes from the fact robots don't get medals.
What if you used AI to design the airframe itself, optimising for the simplest and least expensive way?
My thought is that there is just ZERO innovation in this area at a big picture level. Sure the person designing the radar has a PhD from Caltech -- but it's mostly incremental optimization of individual components.
Someone is going to figure out how to be the Elon Musk of fighter jets and we better hope it's going to be someone from the USA.
But again -- it doesn't matter how good your tech is if the next person can do it 85% as good for 20% the price.
My last major point is this: Fighter jets are limited in their maneuverability when they have humans on-board -- they can't pull more G's than the body can withstand. AI fighters don't have this limitation.
Not just expensive, that money is going to the US. We (the Netherlands) will also buy a bunch of F35's, but we can't afford enough of them to be useful. We could have bought Eurofighters, the money would have remained in Europe's economy and we would have an actually finished plane.
Then where does your opinion on this subject come from?
All else aside, the Danish Air Force has 30 active fighters, all F-16s. Their fighter force doesn't ever seem to have exceeded 50 planes in service. So the role for 27 F-35s is "everything F-16s are doing now, but newer and better". That doesn't guarantee it's a useful role, but it means that the small order size isn't a new consideration.
Just imagine how many humans you can bring out of poverty with that kind of money? I understand the world we live in but if you spend one tenth the amount they spent on this educating/helping the very people this plane would be eventually targeted at, I think it would cause more of an impact.
I was reading a book by Steven Pinker and in it he lays out the case for how modern society has essentially made war illegal.
And in Sapiens the author (Yuval Harari) makes the case that modern society is no longer based on static wealth that can be conquered and consumed like Gold, Silver etc., Its made of human skill and mind that create wealth that does not exist. So say China occupies the US it sure can take all the wealth that is static but it cannot force people to use their minds to create a Google or an Apple or FB(i know..i know..)..
If you believe the above you have to ask yourself:- "So then what is the benefit of spending so much money?"
I'm not saying that tips the argument one way or another. But you can't not talk about it.
The reason this plane was built was: to spend so much money. It was to support a high-tech industry that needs a guaranteed buyer to develop expensive sensors, joysticks, and so on. You might ask yourself: but why this use? Surely all of that engineering talent can be put to good use building more useful, non-destructive technologies?
The answer, I think, is only a historical accident: after World War II the military became a money faucet to industry, and that tap proved difficult to control or turn off. The Department of Defense has been resisting an audit for the last 30 years; it is a paragon of profligacy. It pumps half a trillion dollars into the economy every year, and for the most part Americans are oblivious or approving. There is no great public outcry to reduce the military budget; but there are a great number of industries eager to keep the money flowing. Thus, we get this kind of pointless waste of everyone's time.
The F35 is a recruiting tool, not only to the armed services, but to the very nationalism that is used to persuade people to keep working toward an "American" dream.
I'm not saying this to portray these in a sparkling light, but because I think they are real "benefits" of the $406B that my be hard to measure.
I have my own pet causes and beneficiaries I'd direct even a fraction of those expenses but they would not make very good HD videos.
Resources like fossil fuels and raw materials are critical for the real function of economies. Global wealth inequality between countries can be extreme and quite obviously reflects resource distribution inequality.
Its the same as all of history. Usually one or a few powers dominate the earth. The US has the most most wealth and resource control globally by far. This is not because the US has Facebook or because "war is illegal" (LOL). Its because the US and proxies/allies have the most massive and dominant military ever seen and use that actively to maintain the advantages.
I can understand how people do not realize this since the media does a very good job of distributing propaganda about the numerous wars, suggesting that each military action is isolated and motivated by some mythical moral cause.
Everything humans create is subjective reality. Shared fictions are commonly held beliefs in fictional entities. For example, belief in the power of money is a shared fiction.
>> Usually one or a few powers dominate the earth
Depends on how you measure "dominate"? What time period? Do they have more wealth than others at time period dT? Do they think they have more power to direct the wheel of the history at that time dT? History teaches all civilizations fail soon or late.
All you have to do is reduce the project cost by 0.25%. That's a little over $1bn saved.
Yeah, the government should give that money back to the people instead! Bring them out of poverty!
Except it already does, right? When we spend money on our military (or NASA, or other things) that money goes right back into the economy and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. And then those people spend money and create other jobs, etc etc etc.
I don't necessarily think that building killing machines is the best way to bring vast numbers of people out of poverty, but it does do that to an extent by creating those jobs.
No matter what economic system you favor, things always ultimately come down to job creation in some form or another.
$406 billion divided by 7 billion humans = $58 per human. A lunch for two in a rich country, or a monthly pay in a poor country. Hardly a way out of poverty.
In the real world, some countries need to stop invading others on false pretenses, stop overthrowing democratically elected governments, stop helping would-be terrorist organisations, etc.
Spending 406 billion on a program like this largely _is_ giving it back to the people: productive people who are designing and manufacturing parts, building technological know-how and innovating to meet the ambitious goals of the program. Spending money like this is the luxury we have earned by becoming a civilization - the more money we have to spare, the more we can re-invest it into learning new things instead of spending it on subsistence, making life for future generations better in an exponential sort of way. This type of spending is a huge component of how we build that human skill and expertise you're talking about.
> When it comes to true departure resistance, we allowed the system to be 100 percent engaged, and we would [fly like] a very badly trained pilot. So everything that I have been taught not to do as a pilot since the age of—crikey, when did I first start flying? Maybe 13—I was being asked to do.
I would love to read about the people who code these sort of controls systems.
I feel like Falcon 9's control systems (for example) would be a weekend hobby project for them.
I think the real crime is the ridiculous cost, and putting all our eggs in the F35 basket.
The end result is just PR piece. It's OK to enjoy military porn from glossy magazines, but HN should not be place for it. It has no information.
Even when I do this, it's for the kid in me. Show me big guns, fast jets, and give me some astounding numbers. This article has none of that!
For me, the overall message is so flattering for the airplane that it sounds more as the result of lots of press training or at least as pilots being very careful in what they say because publicly critiquing this airplane is not good for one’s career prospects.
And my experience with the journalism at Air & Space has been positive, I have read both highly critical and very insightful articles from their journalists over the years. That experience gives me some trust in them which I could understand would not come on first exposure.
I think it would also be useful for them to find 8 pilots who have both flown the new plane and are critical of it versus other aircraft designed for a similar role. That will have to wait I think until there are more flight hours on it in more situations.
What I find most interesting about these types of systems are the differences between the AA-1 version (first article) and the one they consider 'first release.' In new systems there are lots of things that change during the initial testing and evaluation. This is true of software just as much as it is hardware, although hardware takes a lot more documentation.
"In the two years since [the 388th’s] last Red Flag exercise, the airplane itself has had some pretty significant advancements. A couple of months before the 2017 Red Flag, the Air Force declared that the squadron was what we call “initial operational capable.” So the jet still had some operating limitations—altitude, airspeed, Gs, things like that. The software on the aircraft, though very capable, still had some limitations in terms of some of the systems and some of the weapons it could control. Fast forward two years, and we’re operating with what’s referred to as full warfighting capability software. It’s a more advanced F-35 than it was two years ago."
But it's entirely possible that the plane is fine. Keep in mind that a lot of the criticism of the F-35 is also PR from competing defense contractors.
[0] https://airandspace.si.edu/theater-type/lockheed-martin-imax...
Sadly the F-35 is failing in this latter role. At a recent air show in the UK it was the elderly Ukrainian Sukhoi machines that got the gasps of oohs and aahs from the crowd. The crowd were not what you might call communist, they just know what planes put on the best show.
There are no figures bandied around regarding the PR value of the F-35. Facts don't come into it when emotions are involved and the F-35 is fundamentally not loved or held in awe. Plenty of times the USAF have had planes that amaze everyone's inner 9 year old, the F-35 just doesn't cut it.
Meanwhile, in Russia, lots of people take pride in their war planes and believe them to be the best in the world. It could be argued with fact things that their planes are rubbish but facts have nothing to do with belief.
Ultimately it comes down to the air show, not what the pilots say, whether they are paid shills or not. And nope, there is no use for a 'Cobra manoeuvre' but the crowds lap it up, think their pilots are aces and let their kids join the armed forces on that basis.
This is the first time I've heard that Russian war planes are rubbish. Please share some of these fact things.
Not a definitive combat record of all modern jets by any means and one could argue that many of the losses of MiGs from export client states were due to poor training, poor maintenance, outdated/inferior export models or having to fight Israelis constantly ;) But then again, when Russian and Israeli pilots went head to head [1] the Russian fighter planes did not really hold their own there either.
The US isn't spending hundreds of billions just to make the people think their country is the best. I doubt most people even know what an F-18, F-22 or F-35 are.
They can't possibly know what they're talking about, so this must just be a PR piece to cover up how horrible this aircraft is.
It would be so much more credible if they just interviewed a non-pilot/non-engineer tech journalist who can tell us the truth.
/sarcasm
> “Yeah, Test, you didn’t put the right rudder in.” I said, “Yeah, I know. I couldn’t lift my leg up.”
> [...]
> Legalized hooliganism! All in the pursuit of data and good test points, of course.
> [...]
> I did, for a moment, stare through the windows of the bridge. And you think to yourself, “This is a view that no one really gets.”
This news article supports that: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2018/12/28/f-35-ligh...
Hard to justify a drive to Melbourne to JUST watch an F-35.
F-35 is neither.
Because of design decision of marrying three different military branches requirements (air force, navy, marines) with three different fighter roles (intercept, ground support, reconnaissance) a lot of the extendability is already gone.
Cost of flying F-35 is one of the highest yet for a fighter aircraft (except maybe for F-22), this means that the pilots will not get sufficient training. Sure, with modern on the ground simulation you can get quite far, but you need the real deal, especially when training in formation & against real adversaries, like other countries.
Which fighter aircraft will win the dogfight? The one in the air with a skilled pilot and not the empty one on the ground for maintenance.
And of course, future development of highly advanced UAV:s & future radar & missile technology will make the case for expensive fighter aircraft even tougher.
What happens when one gets shot down (as it inevitably will), and the enemy reverse-engineers the stealth tech to either copy or find weaknesses in its capabilities?
If they can reverse-engineer faster than we can improve our stealth tech, which seems reasonable, whatever claimed advantages this plane has will be temporary.
Or is there another way of looking at this?
The J-31 is basically a twin-engine F-35, minus the sensor fusion capabilities. The Chinese are still very poor at making fighter jet engines, so they went with 2 smaller engines probably for redundancy and because they can't build one gigantic reliable engine anyway. The jet is probably still underpowered.
https://twitter.com/GenChuckYeager/status/111111144983590912...
The two things that really stood out to me:
1. The F-35s top feature is situational awareness, essentially the way in which it processes and displays information to a pilot. Information is becoming a critical piece of war, and the advances made here will trickle down to us civilians in the years to come. Imagine what their HUDs are capable of? Add to that its ability to essentially fly itself, I have to imagine there are some features of autonomy that will be useful to us down the line.
2. Speaking of information, from a metatextual perspective, this article is also a great application of the human domain of warfare (1) this article itself being a weapon. The anti-F35 articles used to concern me from this perspective, but I wonder if even those were part of a larger information campaign (The enemy thinks the jet is bad, thus under estimating it).
The first 2019 Redflag was just a few weeks ago, I wish I would have made the drive out to the desert to watch.
1)https://mailchi.mp/digitalfuture/dff4-316401 (scroll down to the animated gif of a machine gun)
Anyone have the details on how it does that?
A while back, I read a report about an experimental aircraft that would attempt to determine the effectiveness of its control surfaces by moving all of them in a short period of time. The impression I got was that it would have a few seconds of rough flight, after which it would return to flying normally even if it had lost the use of a major control surface.
On the low end, the f35 costs about as much as 5 f16s, which also have twice the range over an f35. the f35 is the bf109 of the modern era.
military brass keeps wanting all purpose aircraft, and 100 years of military aircraft experience has shown that never works.
(b) F35 at this point in its lifecycle is always going to be much more expensive more than a last generation model.
Other than the p51, the f18, the f15...
"Obeying my boss" is what is most likely happening here. I get the sense that they are literally instructed not to give bad PR about the plane. Or even worse, this entire article is scripted.
Except that military pilots have one single possible employer.
For those who don’t know, about 3.5 hours from Los Angeles you can go see a ton of amazing jet fighters coming back or going to training exercises. There’s no way to know when you’ll see something, or what you’ll see, but the area is a scene of jet geeks. I keep meaning to go (Should have gone after the recent Redflag).
There should be an alternative military group that tries to leverage the existing supply chain to build robust defensive weapons.
The spacex approach.