Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

It is mediocre in all roles for which was designed to replace. It is not as good at dog-fighting as its counter parts, it is not as good at close air support as its counter parts, it does not have as good of stealth has it counter parts.

It is a 1 Trillion+ Dollar "ok" fighter jet, which is not what we were sold

The F-22 was cancelled because the military thought that they didn't needed to spend the money on air superiority fighters and wanted to use the money elsewhere (drones and bombers). I don't think the F-35 was in the discussion that much... they fired the top leaders of the Air Force at this time.

Robert Gates killed the F-22 and fired the chief of staff of the Air Force Moseley and secretary Wynne. Since then we knew it was a mistake and tried to restart the F-22 line. It didn't make sense for cost.

Gates has his own book Duty which references this quite a bit and is a great political read https://www.amazon.com/Duty-Memoirs-Secretary-at-War/dp/0307...

And there is another book that argues it was a bad idea. https://www.amazon.com/Air-Power-Abandoned-Betrayal-Americas...

Also:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20472/retired-general-...

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/05/10...

This one is funny because they talk about the increased costs of the B-2 due to cutting it early..... as they cut the F-22.

https://www.airforcemag.com/schwartz-in-memoir-says-f-22-was...

And for the space discussion, nothing is as real time as a fighter's sensors airborne, it's pretty bad how long some data can take to reach a platform that can use that data. The military has a problem right now with distributing data real time, they are working to solve that problem. You can find a lot of articles on the ABMS. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2336618/adva...

Nobody has attempted to push what is possible with material science and aerodynamics because there is no point if the pilot wouldn't be able to handle the forces involved. With automation, those limitations no longer apply.

For an example of what I'm thinking of, look at air to air missiles. Sidewinder air-to-air missiles achieve an acceleration of 20g, far more than a human pilot can withstand. Drones in the air superiority role could likewise be designed more like larger, more advanced missiles than traditional aircraft.

I suspect that if engineers design combat aircraft to be pilotless, you'll soon see them executing maneuvers that would be far too punishing if the craft had to support a human pilot.

...like the F-35? I mean, I don't have any idea at all what the exact percentage is, but that is the apropos isn't it?

>but there are other considerations. Designing an airframe that can handle a 20G turn will actually make it less maneuverable overall, as it requires a heavier structure.

Sure, but 30% heavier? Because if not seems like it would indeed be a win. I don't disagree at all that fighter design is a balancing act, that comes up in quite a few industries that push the edge particularly in aerospace. But fundamentally at least from other industries I am more familiar with there can often be disruptive gains when some single factor changes in a major way since changes so often are compounding. We seem to be on the verge of a big example of that in space with SpaceX and Starship. Far more mass and cadence for radically less money changes design considerations up and down the stack. When every single gram is expensive, it makes sense to use the most expensive materials and components, and as the overall price goes up it makes sense to try to pack in more and more functionality etc etc. When that changes all those effects go into reverse.

We're seeing that directly in fact with Starship development itself. They've got more margin to work with, so they could switch to steel, which is far cheaper and easier to work with, which helps with rapid cadence, which helps with mass manufacturing which further brings down costs, which all helps develop faster and better without bad decisions baked in, which further will help with cadence and ultimate cost, and on and on. The resulting contrast with the SLS program is just staggering. Costs and gains compound on either side for literal orders of magnitude divergence.

I don't know if drones will do the same thing for air superiority, but the potential shouldn't be ignored. And probably won't be indefinitely, because the specter of actual competitive level hostile forces seems likely to focus minds despite lobbying by incumbents. Real world results that grow big enough ultimately can't be papered over.

Jets today fly much faster than drones, even as you point out - they don't have the 'pilot limitation'.

There are many reasons for that obviously, not just 'G Force'.

Air Superiority Drones are an entirely different kind of entity, and they don't materially exist today. Also for a variety of reasons. Though they likely will in the future.

Today, an F35 would clear out a squadron of drones way beyond the horizon, before the drones were aware of the F35.

So yes 'a lot of drones' would be a problem initially, but they would still be cleared out within hours of being airborne.

Basically organized actors have the ability to down drones with impunity, they stand out on radar, and they require extensive networking.

Momar Gaddaffi was not very prepared, but Iran for example, is.

Both sides didn't even bomb each other's airfields for real.

Most drones were launched, and operated in the field.

The TSA reliably fails penetration tests; they miss between 70% and 95% of them. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa...

What's likely caused hijackings to fall off a cliff is a) reinforced cockpit doors and b) the knowledge of crew and passengers that the hijackers might be homicidal.

Pre-9/11, advice was to cooperate, get the plane on the ground, and negotiate/assault, with pretty good overall results for the passengers. That is... not the advice today.

TSA security checkpoints are a gift to the business models for autonomous vehicles. If you can have your car do the driving for you, an overnight car trip will be a good alternative to flights under 500 miles ad possibly all short-haul flights in the US.

But after a hijacker threatened to crash a plane into a nuclear reactor in 1972, the FAA introduced passenger screening and metal detectors. Before that, there was basically no security.

An interesting article: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-e...

We're talking about a fighter jet, not a security guard.

The USSR and Russia were late getting into vertical launch from surface ships. When they did, it was with larger missiles than the US used, but fewer of them. There were some interesting designs, such as a missile that carried a torpedo, a ramjet-powered missile, and a missile which operated in a group of other missiles with one of them in charge. The USSR built some giant nuclear-powered battlecruisers to carry all those large weapons, and put large vertical launch tubes on some aircraft carriers.

Now, like everybody else, Russia mostly uses vertical launch in new systems.

Soviet launchers used a cold launcher. They pushed the missile out first, then ignited the motor after it was out of the cell. This is good for reducing exhaust impingement. But you can end up with a live missile not actually going up if the motor igniter fails. Angling the launcher ensures your live missile lands in the water, instead of on deck.

I've seen video of this, but having no luck searching for it.

Firstly its a misconception that that VLS has anything to do with this. VLS has only really been mounted on ships from the 80s onwards. The first US ship with VLS was the Ticonderoga class cruiser launched first in 1980, however the VLS was only used for anti aircraft missiles and the Harpoon anti ship missiles were positioned in quad launchers at the rear of the ship. The Soviets did in fact deploy VLS earlier than NATO on the Azov class cruiser, but kept external anti ship / submarine missiles on many designs. Indeed throughout NATO it was common to mount anti ship weapons externally just as the Soviets did right up until the mid 80s. If you think about it, anti ship missiles want to go sideways rather than upwards so it makes sense to point them at where the enemy will be.

Given that the majority of anti ship missiles were external on both sides I suspect the difference in prominence and perception comes from two linked points.

1: The majority of NATO ships were not designed as surface combatants, rather as escorts for carriers

2: Soviet anti ship missiles tended to be bigger with higher speeds and larger warheads.

On the first point the main priority of the US navy is power projection. As such it is generally reliant on carriers to provide strike capability through sorties. This is suplemented by submarines for anti shipping capbilities. THe majority of NATO surface combatants are geared towards allowing those carriers to be deployed unimpeded, as such they have a lot of anti air and anti missile capbility which by nature fires upwards.

The Soviet navy was more focused on area denial as they did not develop a significant carrier force. As strike capbility was not provided by naval aircraft (at least to the same extent) a greater emphasis was put on sinking enemny combatants. As such their ships were designed for surface to surface roles to contest the baltic and black sea. This required them to be able to sink NATO carrier groups themselves which in turn required more powerful missiles with higher speeds and bigger warheads. These therefore which appear far more prominently on their ships. I'd also note that the Soviets tended to put large missiles on smaller ships such as corvettes which made them appear even more prominent.

Russian missile systems were during the cold war (and perhaps still are) superior in many ways to NATO counterparts. The USSR had no problem devloping reliable rocket motors and had some pretty fearsome weapons. I think the idea that they put their missiles on the side to prevent self damage is a little far fetched.

That said, I think it's more propaganda than a rule. Especially since plenty of Russian vessels utilize vertical launch systems. I believe the necessity of the angled launch systems like what you'd find on the Kirov, Slava, and Kara classes were more due to the immense size of those missiles. Look at the U.S. Talos and UK "Sea Slug" missiles for western examples. As missile technology became better and more miniaturized, you start seeing more vertical launch systems where it makes sense.

The one area I've seen consistent arguments for horizontal launch are in places where a missile failure (see above) would be much more dangerous, such as on a carrier deck. This is why I believe you still see Sea Sparrow and SeaRAM systems placed on the wings and below the deckline, so that a failed launch won't land back on a deck full of fuel and ordinance. The ranges that point defense systems are working at can't allow for a missile body to "tip over" and still hit the target at range.

Deciding to ignore them is 'forum hostile'

Other factors also reduce vulnerability. MANPADS are essentially never radar-seeking for reasons of physics; they do not have a large enough diameter to carry a proper forward-looking antenna at radio frequencies. The A-10 has some redundancy and armor, and the MANPADS have very small payloads, so hitting a single engine isn't going to doom the aircraft. The A-10 is normally flown in a way that avoids dangerous exposure, with complicated undulating movement that would break an IR seeker lock. (now you see the engines... and now you don't) The A-10 doesn't have to fly alone against an enemy. Pairing it with the EA-18G Growler would be a decent idea.

Once you consider the enemy to be an advanced country, the standards for acceptable losses change. You're speaking of World War III. Look back to the bomber pilots of World War II to see what is accepted. At times, typical survival for a pilot was a month. In war with an advanced country, 1:1 loss ratios are to be expected.

It could easily be something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002#Exer... where the contest was tweaked until the correct outcome happened.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratos_XQ-58_Valkyrie

I agree that dogfighting is irrelevant and unrealistic.

If anyone else is wondering, they used a 3000 foot cone with point at the nose of the simulated aircraft, any time the enemy got within 3000 feet and 1 degree of the boresight of the plane, a certain number of hits per simulated frame were counted as hitting. Get X number of hits, that's a kill. For the livestreams they wonderfully represented this as a health bar.

It has nothing to do with hanging stuff from the wings.