F35 - Bad idea made worse over time?

[bayonetbrant]

Star hated this column when it was first published back in 2008...

http://grognews.blogspot.com/2008/09/jsf-stands-for-just-stupid-fkup.html

but now it's looking downright prescient

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/5c95d45f86a5

Owing to heavy design compromises foisted on the plane mostly by the Marine Corps, the F-35 is an inferior combatant, seriously outclassed by even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and maneuver better. In a fast-moving aerial battle, the JSF “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, D.C.

And future enemy planes, designed strictly with air combat in mind, could prove even deadlier to the compromised JSF.

It doesn’t really matter how smoothly Lockheed and the government’s work on the new warplane proceeds. Even the best-manufactured JSF is a second-rate fighter where it actually matters — in the air, in life-or-death combat against a determined foe. And that could mean a death sentence for American pilots required to fly the vulnerable F-35.

[GDS_Starfury]

really...  your throwing this me before Ive finished my first cup of coffee.

thats just low.

however I still think that the article itself is grossly misleading as full weapons testing and loadout were still being developed in 2008.

Additionally, we get this report from Ares, over at Aviation Week, which notes that the standard config in which the JSF will be flown includes only 2 AAMs, so if the enemy send up 4 fighters, you get a chance to test your getaway speed...

o'rly...

right there are 4 AMRAAMs and a 2000 lb JDAM.  take out the JDAM and youve got 6 AMRAAMs carried internally.  the loadout depends on the mission and there are no absolutes that come to the top of my head at the moment.

So we think it does, in fact, carry 2 AAMs, 2 air-to-ground bombs, and bunch of rounds in a cannon, plus whatever performance-impeding weapons can be bolted on outside. Not great. After all, having a "fighter" that can't fight isn't that useful.

so you want to go for a pure air dominance role to augment F-22?  ok, how do 14 AMRAAMs work for you? 

Great. 9g, huh? Comforting to know that we can crush our pilots to death faster and more efficiently than other aircraft, while turning at the same rate.

evidently the author isnt familiar with G-suits or the face that 9 g's is pretty much the limit on any airframe due to the pilots.

I guess that's fine if we're fighting legacy aircraft. But unless the Americans are strafing Aruba and facing the Dutch fleet of F16s, we might want to worry less about legacy aircraft and more about what's coming next.

sounds pretty bad until you realize that legacy aircraft include Su-30s, F-15s, Typhoons, Mig-29s and everything 4th generation and below.  the fact that no one is building 5th generation aircraft except us nor can they due to cost and technology should be pointed out.

now having said all of that Im much much much less of a fan of this plane then I used to be.  most of my issues with it come from the development side of the project.  the US military is not letting this plane develop at a natural pace and thats loading a ton of cost on the front end of the project and leading to delay after delay.  what this means is that they want the final version first which is just stupid.  Im also not a huge fan of the VTOL version.  I think its a waste of time and money for a variant that will be used by very few people.  if the Marines want close air support then buy them lots of Longbow Apaches.

[GDS_Starfury]

now on to the new article.  I'll be using the Su-30 as my opfor aircraft and thats the top end of the spectrum for the Chinese.

Owing to heavy design compromises foisted on the plane mostly by the Marine Corps, the F-35 is an inferior combatant, seriously outclassed by even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and maneuver better.

the Marine version may perform less than a Su-30 but thats only the Marine version due to that stupid VTOL engine right behind the cockpit.  the other 2 versions may not have the top speed of a Su-30 but the F-35 can supercruise without afterburner while the Su-30 can only hit its top speed in short bursts.  so strategically and tactically the F-35 is indeed faster.  since the manuverability of the F-35 is classified I find it to be a bullshit argument that older Russian/Chinese aircraft can turn better.

In a fast-moving aerial battle, the JSF “is a dog … overweight and underpowered

  from Wiki  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_&_Whitney_F135 : The F135 has demonstrated a maximum thrust of over 50,000 lbf (220 kN) during testing;[243] making it the most powerful engine ever installed in a fighter aircraft as of 2010.
so somehow a planes whos maximum takeoff weight is 60,000 lbs is grossly underpowered by an engine that produces 50,000 lbs of thrust.  whatever...  in a air dominance role it will have a better thrust to weight ratio then an F-15.

the 'wargame' in the next part of the article is grossly flawed.  I'll skip over the nuts and bolts and point out this tidbit:

Stillion and Perdue soon left the think tank. Stillion is now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington, D.C. Perdue currently works for Northrop Grumman.

so one guy leaves for a job that basiclly bitches about how much the F-35 costs and the other guy gets a job with Lockheeds main competitor?  no axe to grind or bias there.

anyway most of the rest of the article is bitching about the Marine version which I agree should be axed.  damn uppity snake eating jarheads are ruining an otherwise decent aircraft.

[GDS_Starfury]

and all before coffee....  asshole. 

[GDS_Starfury]

none of the articles authors have any historical depth.
the F-111, arguably the best long range interdiction bomber of the Cold War had HUGE teething problems.
the F-4, ment to be a do everything aircraft for all services and was fought tooth and nail by those same services became one of the most successful aircraft of all time.
the F-16, ment to be the low budget partner to the F-15 had to fight its way through the Pentagons fighter mafia just to get to the prototype stage.  became THE MOST successful fighter of the Cold War and one of aviations biggest commercial successes.
the F-18, lost to the F-16 and is now the main fighter of the US Navy.

just sayin'

[LongBlade]

none of the articles authors have any historical depth.
the F-111, arguably the best long range interdiction bomber of the Cold War had HUGE teething problems.
the F-4, ment to be a do everything aircraft for all services and was fought tooth and nail by those same services became one of the most successful aircraft of all time.
the F-16, ment to be the low budget partner to the F-15 had to fight its way through the Pentagons fighter mafia just to get to the prototype stage.  became THE MOST successful fighter of the Cold War and one of aviations biggest commercial successes.
the F-18, lost to the F-16 and is now the main fighter of the US Navy.

just sayin'

Dance with the one who brung ya?

[GDS_Starfury]

to an extent.  all planes have teething problems.  my opinion is that its better to work them out operationally then in testing.  operational use really lets the ground crews and pilots figure things out.  the eggheads with 7 Phd's are going to write 'the book' and the airmen are going to rewrite it so it actually works anyway.
the big problem with the F-35 is how much the Pentagon has tried to cram in the initial version.  the first F-16s are nothing like the todays F-16s.  somewhere along the line we switched from lettered variants to block variants.  so while one might think that an F-16C is top notch there are actually 10 or so progressive versions of an F-16C.  IIRC theyre up to Block 70.  all glass cockpit displays, AESA radar, conformal fuel tanks etc.  a basic Block 10 has none of that stuff.  if the Pentagon had stopped dicking around and adding everything it could the F-35 would have been in operational service years ago and cost a lot less.

[endfire79]

to an extent.  all planes have teething problems.  my opinion is that its better to work them out operationally then in testing.  operational use really lets the ground crews and pilots figure things out.  the eggheads with 7 Phd's are going to write 'the book' and the airmen are going to rewrite it so it actually works anyway.

Could not agree more, well said. 

I'm baffled how it's dragged on for so long - all this due to the VTOL requirement touted by the Marine Corps?  I wonder why existing Harrier II's or Apache's could not satisfy the top brass.  Is it because these platforms are seen as too 'old' by them?

[GDS_Starfury]

I'm baffled how it's dragged on for so long - all this due to the VTOL requirement touted by the Marine Corps?  I wonder why existing Harrier II's or Apache's could not satisfy the top brass.  Is it because these platforms are seen as too 'old' by them?

mostly.  the other big hang up is that whenever a new electronic gadget has come up the brass has wanted it installed in the initial production run.  theres been a LOT of new gadgets over the last 10 years.  every time they add something all the code and intergration has to be redone as well as some engineering to actually fit it in.  personally I think the Marines would be far better serviced by Apaches then fixed wing air.  they can operate closer to ground troops with much less chance of friendly fire.  theyre also cheaper and easier to maintain.  its not like US Marines are going ashore without a carrier battle group operating somewhere in the area backed up by USAF units.

[GDS_Starfury]

heres a perfect case in point.

all of that testing and development time spent on the F-22 never spotted the oxygen systems problems.  it was only spotted and solved after a few years into operational service.

[endfire79]

ah development and requirement hell, been there - not fun! 

Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be jet equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever or Carmack's Daikatana.

[GDS_Starfury]

its not.  I guess at some point that have frozen design changes as the first Navy and Marine squadrons are now working up with deployment expected in 2015 or so.

[bayonetbrant]

all this due to the VTOL requirement touted by the Marine Corps?

from the 2d article

In August 1942 a force of U.S. Marines stormed ashore on Guadalcanal, part of the Solomons island chain in the South Pacific. Less than a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. and its allies were still fighting a defensive action against Japanese forces. The Guadalcanal landing was meant to blunt Tokyo’s advance.

But the lightly-equipped Marines ended up surrounded and all but abandoned after Japanese ships wiped out a portion of the Allied fleet. The Navy withdrew its precious aircraft carriers, and for months the Japanese planes, opposed by only a handful of Marine fighters flying from a crude beachhead airstrip, pounded the hapless Americans.

Robert Leckie, a Marine rifleman on Guadalcanal, described one of his squadmates breaking under the strain. The rattled Marine grabbed a light machine gun — a totally ineffective weapon against airplanes — and charged against a strafing Japanese Zero fighter. “He could not bear huddling in the pit while the Jap [sic] made sport of us,” Leckie wrote in his memoir Helmet for my Pillow.

Luckily, the Marine survived his nearly suicidal confrontation with the Zero. But as an organization, the Marine Corps was forever changed by its exposure on Guadalcanal. “The lesson learned was that the U.S. Marine Corps needed to be able to bring its air power with it over the beach because the large-deck Navy aircraft carriers might not always be there,” said Ben Kristy, an official Marine historian.

In the 1950s and ‘60s the Corps bought hundreds of helicopters, a new invention at the time. But what it really wanted was a fighter plane that could launch from the same amphibious assault ships that hauled Marine ground troops. These big assault ships had flat helicopter flight deck areas, but with neither the catapults nor the runway length to support the big, high-performance planes favored by the Navy.

[bayonetbrant]

Stillion and Perdue soon left the think tank. Stillion is now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington, D.C. Perdue currently works for Northrop Grumman.

so one guy leaves for a job that basiclly bitches about how much the F-35 costs and the other guy gets a job with Lockheeds main competitor?  no axe to grind or bias there.

Or, they were forced out w/ the USAF threatening not to use RAND for anything else if these unfavorable analyses continue.

[GDS_Starfury]

and heres a little bit on the F-35s costs:

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_01_24_2014_p0-657750.xml&p=1