Newest Stealth Fighter's Ground Attack Sensors 10 Years Behind Older Jets' 279
schwit1 writes with this excerpt from The Daily Beast: America's $400 billion, top-of-the-line aircraft can't see the battlefield all that well. Which means it's actually worse than its predecessors at fighting today's wars. .... The problem stems from the fact that the technology found on one of the stealth fighter's primary air-to-ground sensors—its nose-mounted Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS)—is more than a decade old and hopelessly obsolete. The EOTS, which is similar in concept to a large high-resolution infrared and television camera, is used to visually identify and monitor ground targets. The system can also mark targets for laser-guided bombs. ... Older jets currently in service with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can carry the latest generation of sensor pods, which are far more advanced than the EOTS sensor carried by the F-35. ... The end result is that when the F-35 finally becomes operational after its myriad technical problems, cost overruns, and massive delays, in some ways it will be less capable than current fighters in the Pentagon's inventory.
Doesn't matter for its primary mission. (Score:5, Insightful)
The F-35 is already a resounding success at its primary mission. I refer, of course, to pork distribution.
Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission. (Score:4, Interesting)
more info on the pork: http://pando.com/2014/12/18/th... [pando.com]
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US military sure takes Christmas seriously.
Re: Doesn't matter for its primary mission. (Score:3)
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The F-35 is already a resounding success at its primary mission. I refer, of course, to pork distribution.
They should rename it to F-35 "Turkey" or maybe F-35 "Porky"?
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Apparently alcohol played a critical part in the mission's scientific success. If only our space budget could be done on such a shoestring. No doubt our alcohol-fueled marketing lobby efforts are no where near as efficient as using alcohol for actual science.
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This way they can double dip.
First they get to sell off outdated hardware they already manufactured.
Then they get to sell the new kit to replace the old stuff.
That's not the only way it's inferior (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this thing an improvement exactly?
Re:That's not the only way it's inferior (Score:5, Insightful)
It allows the manufacturers to charge 3 times more for it, and sell "repair subscriptions".
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It can be built far more cheaply and sold far more expensively.
Re:That's not the only way it's inferior (Score:5, Informative)
The entire plane is modular, upgradeable, and works mostly the same across all three variants. The biggest benefit to the F-35 is that large portions of the training, documentation, and maintenance materials can be shared by all users of the plane, significantly reducing operating the expense to run a fleet.
TFA is really just whining about the fact that this plane took 15 years to develop, and the Pentagon's purchasing process doesn't allow revisions until after delivery. Highlighting a component that's now obsolete just makes a good headline.
Re:That's not the only way it's inferior (Score:5, Insightful)
Disappointed how far down I had to scroll for this. In the old days, this would have been known by a high percentage of users.
They can say the sensors are "10 years behind" planes that were built 20 years ago. Because those planes were upgraded ~5 years ago, and this one has been in development for 15 years! lolol The known upgrade schedule is the only reason they can give such good numbers for how far "behind" it is. Except that it doesn't take 10 years to install the upgrade, and you don't have to wait 10 years to develop it, either. So in that sense, these new sensors are... days behind!
And when they come into service they'll have the most recent upgrades and be "ahead" of the planes they're accused here of being "behind."
So the story is true, in a meaningless pedantic way, and totally false within the context the planes exist it.
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So the story is true, in a meaningless pedantic way, and totally false within the context...
Sounds perfect for Slashdot!
Re:That's not the only way it's inferior (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that if it takes 20 years to build an airplane that design will be obsolete by the time it gets deployed. So upgrading just increases costs. Why did it take 20 years? Isn't that a bit excessive? Why doesn't the software work? Why could it not fly in the the rain for God's sake? Why are we replacing a platform like the A-10 which is an example of a good dedicated design with a Swiss Army knife approach.
The last major attempts for a "one size fits all" muti-role fighter was the f4 which resulted in the services abandoning the approach in favor of the F18, F-15, and A-10. Like a bad penny the multi-role fighter concept just keeps coming back. We are ending up with a plane that does everything and will not be able to do any of it particularly well.
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The last major attempts for a "one size fits all" muti-role fighter was the f4 which resulted in the services abandoning the approach in favor of the F18, F-15, and A-10. Like a bad penny the multi-role fighter concept just keeps coming back. We are ending up with a plane that does everything and will not be able to do any of it particularly well.
I see you've conveniently forgotten the F-16, which is the plane the F-35 is succeeding. The F-16 has been a resounding success. Whether that translates to the F-35 remains to be seen, but the precedent is there.
The F-15 and F-18 are also highly successful examples of multirole aircraft, FYI.
I do wish the F-22 production line hadn't been shutdown, it could have been a very successful export to Japan and Australia...plus the US could have bought a few hundred more.
Re:That's not the only way it's inferior (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a sneaking suspicion you don't actually want answers to your questions, but I'll provide them anyway.
The problem is that if it takes 20 years to build an airplane that design will be obsolete by the time it gets deployed. So upgrading just increases costs. Why did it take 20 years? Isn't that a bit excessive?
Not really. A-10 development took 10 years, F-18 took 8, and the F-15 took 13, all measured from program start to initial production. The F-35 began its production run in 2008, 12 years after its program started. I haven't found timelines for the earlier planes' IOC milestones, but I'm under the impression that they followed similar schedules, with production running for a few years before pushing the planes out into use. Yes, the F-35's timeline is drawn out because they're trying to design three planes at once, but that was also expected from the start.
Why doesn't the software work?
Because it's not required to work until next year, at the earliest. What's in use now would be good enough to fly and work out other problems, but it's not suitable for combat use.
Why could it not fly in the the rain for God's sake?
Rain isn't the problem. It's actually lightning that the F-35 isn't currently allowed to fly near, because the initial production run did not have the lightning protection applied, as it would interfere with testing. That'd be another thing to be added for IOC.
Why are we replacing a platform like the A-10 which is an example of a good dedicated design with a Swiss Army knife approach.
Because the A-10 is an expensive one-trick pony. You call it a "Swiss Army knife", but that's really just because its one trick is very useful. The A-10 only does close air support in an area-denial situation where the most recent anti-aircraft threat was built by the Soviet Union. It takes far more training and maintenance support to operate, and that training and logistics expense is only applicable to that one aircraft.
In comparison, the bulk of the support for an F-35 is shared across the three variants, so the total cost to run the fleet is greatly reduced. A maintainer can switch variants with minimal additional training, and a single base can support any F-35 that stops by. We're also not going to be dealing with Soviet-era defenses for much longer, with China and Russia making gestures that they're willing to sell modern SAMs to anyone who opposes Western interests.
The last major attempts for a "one size fits all" muti-role fighter was the f4 which resulted in the services abandoning the approach in favor of the F18, F-15, and A-10.
...After only 36 years, for the US. The F-4 is still in service in other countries, primarily those that don't need to worry about modern SAMs. The F-4 was originally not a multi-role fighter. It was designed as a fighter-bomber, reworked to be an interceptor, and finally upgraded to do close-air support almost a decade later.
Like a bad penny the multi-role fighter concept just keeps coming back. We are ending up with a plane that does everything and will not be able to do any of it particularly well.
Just well enough to get the job done. What we've learned since the Gulf War is that fighting is expensive and complicated. To support the dozens of different single-role planes, we have to mobilize thousands of support crew to ensure that we can support any kind of mission we need. A multi-role fighter, designed to meet the potential needs, will still be able to handle lesser threats. The F-35 is being built to handle anything China or Russia might produce, but it will be perfectly capable of supporting campaigns in Africa, the Middle East, or North Korea.
Fail. Profit! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the military industrial complex way!
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Actually, if that were the case, the predecessors wouldn't be as capable.
The predecessors actually have to do something in the real world, like bombing third-world peasants, while the F-35 sits in a hangar. Besides, who's really going to risk a $200,000,000 jet to blow up a $10,000 pickup with a couple of guys with RPGs in the back?
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The predecessors actually have to do something in the real world, like bombing third-world peasants, while the F-35 sits in a hangar. Besides, who's really going to risk a $200,000,000 jet to blow up a $10,000 pickup with a couple of guys with RPGs in the back?
That problem was solved over 10 years ago by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney: if the country you have a beef with doesn't have any decent targets, attack a country with bigger targets instead.
Kill it already, PLEASE!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
My God, the JSF is such a pork-rolled boondoggle. Something that does everything will do none of it well, and this is no exception.
The JSF is nothing more than a bunch of pork-barrel projects rolled up into a hopelessly useless flying piece of shit. It's years behind schedule, many times over budget, and does not do nearly what it was advertised to do.
Just kill it already. Kill it with fire.
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Huh (Score:3, Interesting)
Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade? No money in that?
And why use human pilots for combat craft, a drone could accelerate and turn under massive G forces and still function where a human would black out.
1st: make a fast, sturdy air frame with a reliable engine, 2nd make all electronics and weapons modular easy to replace and upgrade, 3rd get rid of the human.
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Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade? No money in that?
Modularity requires standardized interfaces that don't change rapidly. There's a lot of standardization already, in the form of things like the MIL-STD-1553 [wikipedia.org] bus, but that only goes so far. And these things are so complex they take forever to develop and integrate, so those standards wind up getting locked in early. So for a project like this, you're limited to pre-iPhone tech regarding the interfaces.
And why use human pilots for combat craft, a drone could accelerate and turn under massive G forces and still function where a human would black out.
Because a human pilot still has a far larger field of view and spatial awareness, can carry out complex oper
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Yeah, but MIL-STD-1553 is already 30 years old and doesn't support industry standards like UVC, or IIDC DCAM.
Fortunately for future proofing, the sixth generation fighter due in 2030(ish) will be based on a military derivative of IEEE1394.
1394 is a horrible thing (Score:3, Interesting)
I worked on this. It is horrible. It was sold on the "we can use off the shelf gear for testing and prototyping" kind of model (since 1553 is expensive in dollars, size, mass, and power, for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which is it is used only in things that cost millions of dollars and are in small volumes).
Anyway, why 1394 and not Ethernet? Because back in the 90s, when they were choosing this kind of thing, there was the perceived need to have isochronous interconnects to do hard real t
Re:Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
So why aren't the older fighters limited to the same tech? Their interfaces must be even older.
Re:Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not a technology problem, this is military politics. Basically the USAF brass doesn't want to do air-ground missions, they want to do air combat and stealth bombing because it's a lot cooler and less dangerous (for the pilots) since there's basically no serious opposition. So they sabotage every aspect of their capabilities that would allow them to do air-ground missions, like pillaging the A-10 supply chain or doing this kind of cheap stunt with the F-35, hoping that drone technology will be mature soon enough to do the dirty jobs.
Anyone who has worked on large IT projects has seen this kind of thing. The big cheese and the overpaid consultants focus on the cool but useless features that look good in PowerPoint presentations and during board meetings (like a fancy iPad-optimized dashboard or an accountant-customizable expense approval workflow that will never be used) while the really important parts like integration or bulk updates, which will be used on an hourly basis, are neglected and downplayed because they are not sexy and will be a nightmare to operate.
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1st: make a fast, sturdy air frame with a reliable engine
2nd: make all electronics and weapons modular easy to replace and upgrade
3rd: get rid of the human
These sound like instructions for the machines, are you trying to kill us all?
Re:Huh (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is that good enough is good enough. Unlike in the movies the reality is that the military doesn't upgrade everything just because something new and shiny came out. The computer that you are typing on is more advanced than the computers in even the latest fighters. The difference is the ones in the aircraft are rarely fail and can operate in very harsh environments.
Combat drones don't need to dogfight, that is also Hollywood nonsense. They are small, impossible to see, and will shoot you down before you even know they are there, and they are already building them.
The JSF is the last project of the old guard who still think a man needs to be at the stick of the aircraft. Once the over 50 crowd in congress dies/retires you see a drastic move away from manned aircraft.
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The Air Superiority mission will retain a pilot for a long time. Recon/Air-to-Ground/Resupply - these will all be primarily remote operated (they're often automated now.)
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Isn't the F-35 heavily reliant on networked sensors to detect targets, since using radar immediately tells the other guys where it is? Doesn't that have precisely the same jamming problem as drone links?
Sure, it can keep flying without those links, but that doesn't help if it can't shoot anything.
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Input mission: Take off, goto Spot A do an action, goto Spot B do an action, turn around and fly home, land, turn off engines/shut down systems.
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Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade? No money in that?
They are modular, and explicitly intended for upgrades. Easy? That depends upon your definition of 'easy' - if you don't mind spending money, it's easy.
And why use human pilots for combat craft, a drone could accelerate and turn under massive G forces and still function where a human would black out.
Response time, situational awareness, the difficulty is maintaining a connection during electronic warfare, et cetera, ad nauseum. I think that there are quite a few mission profiles that would suite remote operation, but air superiority isn't one of them (not yet.)
1st: make a fast, sturdy air frame with a reliable engine, 2nd make all electronics and weapons modular easy to replace and upgrade, 3rd get rid of the human.
Like the WOPR? ;)
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If they are modular why are the using old tech that they say is sub standard?
TFA answers your question:
One of the JSF officials agreed that the EOTS does not speak well for the Pentagon’s ability to buy new weapons. “EOTS is a poster child for one of the ills of the acquisition process,” the official said. “Because all of the subsystems depend on each other, requirements aren’t allowed to change after the design is ‘finalized.’ It’s not a big deal, unless it takes 20 years to field the jet then it’s a problem.”
I've worked for defense projects, and this is accurate. Once the Pentagon approves a design, the "delivery" phase has to happen before the "revise" phase. The only exception is if the government wants to change requirements, but that puts the bad PR on politicians, rather than on the contractor.
The F-35 doesn't hit initial operating capacity (IOC) until mid-2015, at which point the military will actually start flying the plane, and report back with deficiencies (like outdated avion
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The F-35 airframe is mostly just a shell around the modular components, which already come from many different companies.
The airframe is a major component just like our skin is a major component. Not only does it hold the other components in, but in this case it's also responsible for the primary distinguishing feature of the aircraft. Redesigning it to fit new stuffins' would be nontrivial, though feasible.
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Only valid targets in the air.
Those shot down in friendly-fire accidents would likely disagree. Even in a war zone, there's other friendly and civilian aircraft in the skies.
Modern air combat is very different from the dancing dogfights of the World Wars. Nowadays pilots first rely on electronic identification (radar and radio signatures), visual identification, and tactical analysis. That last point is something computers are terrible at, and not particularly promising for the near future. A human pilot can be told in a briefing what
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You should try reading more, rather than aborting the first time something doesn't match your armchair-commander factoids.
There is always a risk of civilian air traffic in war zones, usually on a flight path to "get the hell out". Such flights are closely monitored, but they're still a concern for patrols. There's also noncombatant humanitarian aid, neutral observers, and allied flights that don't always communicate properly [wikipedia.org]. Even though outside traffic is routed around combat areas, pilots still need to be
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Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade?
They are, you just didn't understand that the story is crap and wasn't trying to inform you.
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Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade?
That's the problem with being part of the Inner Sphere.
Never understood why the omnimech was supposed to be such a big deal... The battle master carried a ppc around in its hand for centuries.
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Never understood why the omnimech was supposed to be such a big deal... The battle master carried a ppc around in its hand for centuries.
Inner sphere refits took hours to days, omnimech upgrades were supposed to be something for which you'd just roll up a big truck or walk the 'mech up to a gantry and swap weapons in minutes. So omnimechs could be customized for each loadout but not IS 'mechs. All 'mechs are limited as to their maximum carrying capacity in-hand.
they'll never make a module for the only fighter (Score:2)
Now that many different planes are being replaced with the F-35, I'm sure they'll NEVER make an upgraded camera module specifically for it. It's not like they ever upgraded the cameras on anybof the aircraft it's replacing.
Oh space. There's no room for a high res camera. Looking at the 4mm X 4mm , 8MP camera on my phone, I'm having trouble believing that they'll never be able to fit a high-res camera in the plane.
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They expect the pilot to use his iPhone... Can't wait to see that insurgent instagram feed.
FFS just keep the Warthog (Score:5, Insightful)
The A10 is the best ground support aircraft ever made
Re:FFS just keep the Warthog (Score:5, Insightful)
The Air Force doesn't want to keep the A10.
Alas, the A10 suffers one irredeemable fault - its only function is to support the Army.
Which function the Air Force disapproves of on a visceral level.
A multi-function aircraft, while it is handicapped by being ABLE to support the Army, has the virtue of being able to NOT support the Army. Hence the F16, F35, etc.
Re:FFS just keep the Warthog (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FFS just keep the Warthog (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to wonder why we're trying to get three services, each with historical antagonism towards the other, to work together rather than simply have a force with ships, planes and armoured cars.
We do!
They are called the Marines...
Ta Da!
Re:FFS just keep the Warthog (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, that is very true. The USMC is the closest we have ever had to what you are proposing.
I think that merely changing the organization for service-oriented (i.e. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard) to one service with "specialty branches" (or whatever you want to call them) would not change anything. Sure, it may offer some small amount of consolidation, but that is what DoD was created to do. (Yeah, I know... obvious jokes will follow). Seriously, though, as long as the combined size is about the same and the respective size of the service branches (or "specialty branches") stays the same, all you will have done is to (slightly) rearrange the deck chairs.
On a positive note, having been in the Army National Guard for over 25 years (including overseas deployments), I have worked with both the Navy and the Air Force. I cannot speak specifically to the "historical antagonism" the gf mentioned, but I can say that overall, everybody I worked with generally wanted to do a good job without deference to service branch. That especially includes a USAF NCO who I knew for a short period of time and was killed by the enemy.
Re:FFS just keep the Warthog (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. And your warfare specialists will still be specialists... an infantryman will still be an infantryman, and you'll still need differently trained techs to work on the gas turbines in a tank or on the gas turbines of a tin can or a cruiser. A land based pilot still won't be a carrier based aviator. Etc... etc... You *might* save little bit on the aviation side by only having one school for some of the subsystems on the JSF, or only one basic electronics school, but that's about it.
I don't think the great-grandparent grasps the degree of specialization the various sub-components of and individuals in the services have.
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On a positive note, having been in the Army National Guard for over 25 years (including overseas deployments), I have worked with both the Navy and the Air Force. I cannot speak specifically to the "historical antagonism" the gf mentioned, but I can say that overall, everybody I worked with generally wanted to do a good job without deference to service branch.
It's always like that. People on the ground and people in the top slots always cooperate, it's somewhere in the middle of the food chain that backstabbing and cheap politics occur. Be it intelligence services, law enforcement agencies, or departments within a large company, people who are close to the value stream or to strategy always work together while people in middle management or execution planning positions tend to focus on their small kingdom.
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Look at the French. They have FOUR services (the 4th one is the Gendarmerie, which is basically the police outside big cities). And in most cities the firefighters are part of the army too.
And yet, this huge military organization works smoothly, with optimally managed funds and not a single instance of inter-services snafu. It's a terrific model that any army should follow.
Just kidding.
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Without wanting to pull a Godwin here, but one of the things that brought the Third Reich down was the infighting between the various branches of the armed forces, always trying to one-up the other ones to get more funding...
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It's not a Godwin if it's on topic which it is. I'll add the other problem that they had was focusing on expensive hi-tech instead of lots of lower tech. How much did they waste on the V2, good tanks that were vastly out numbered and so on.
America and its allies who are forced to trail along are making the same mistake.
Personally I'm pissed off as a Canadian that our government signed onto the F35 program with no bidding or such, totally lied about the costs, when what we really need is a plane that can fly
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Personally I'm pissed off as a Canadian that our government signed onto the F35 program with no bidding or such, totally lied about the costs, when what we really need is a plane that can fly in arctic conditions and keep flying if it loses an engine.
They've already got one, you see. And it's very nice [wikipedia.org].
Probably would womp an F35 in Arctic air support missions.
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Well, the US (unlike the Reich) pretty much has to go high-tech with its army, simply because high losses would quickly mean that support for any kind of war would decline sharply. Not really a problem for a dictatorship, but certainly one in a democracy. So what the US strives for is a high-tech army that reduces the risk of losing personnel and instead favors spending money. Which would be a great thing if it was done with the main goal of protecting soldier lives rather than keeping home front war suppor
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Well, the US (unlike the Reich) pretty much has to go high-tech with its army, simply because high losses would quickly mean that support for any kind of war would decline sharply.
Only for wars that never had any popular support in the first place.
And America can't afford to lose its high-tech aircraft, because they're so expensive.
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Don't worry, it won't. The very LAST thing an enemy in your asymmetric war would want is you to stop using them. They cost insane amounts of money to keep them flying. Every hour that thing is in the air is running for your enemy.
Again, the asymmetric war is not about killing Americans. It is about making them spend more money on its military than it can. Interestingly enough, exactly the same strategy the US employed against Russia in the cold war.
And we know how that ended.
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Which function the Air Force disapproves of on a visceral level.
Solution: Give the mission to th Army Air Corps.
If the air force doesn't want to work with the other services, we'll take their responsibilities and give them to other organizations.
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Which is EXACTLY why the Army should operate its own ground support wing, just like the Marines do. Both the Army and Marines operate their own rotary wing aircraft, but only the Marines operate their own fixed wing aircraft too. That is one reason that when you need some ass seriously kicked, you ALWAYS call the Marines. Sea-air-land, all under unified command.
It doesn't have to be like this. Make some policy command decisions, re-legislate if you have to, and voila. This would help the Marines too. It is
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It should be noted that every time the Army tried to get its own fixed wing aircraft for ground support, the Air Force blocked the move.
And the only reason the Air Force doesn't do the same to the Marines is that the Marines are NAVY. And the Navy never let the Air Force camel's nose into their tent.
For those who aren't big on inter-service rivalry history, this all grew out of
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Re: FFS just keep the Warthog (Score:2)
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I would like actual facts to back your claim that the F-15 has better loiter time. Plus the F-15 does not handle that well at low altitude flight which regardless of what the Air Force says is important. Sometimes it is not easy to tell the target apart from your own troops and there is a larger time lag to hit the target when you are higher up. Also I bet those cannon rounds are lot cheaper than smart bombs. An important factor to consider when your enemy is using mostly infantry and technicals rather than
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No idea about the F-15, but your claims about the A-10, especially its gun versus modern tank armor: is simply wrong.
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Article pretty much is off in left field. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even things like cars are like that too. The models for 2015 will have parts on them that haven't been upgraded since the 80's.
Re:Article pretty much is off in left field. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and doubtless the plan is to upgrade the F-35 to current avionics once its bugs are shaken out, as was done with its predecessors. Article is clickbait.
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stealth (Score:5, Insightful)
Those "sensor pods" are shaped like external fuel tanks. They've got that rounded and curved shape, to make them aerodynamic. Which is horrible for stealth. The F35 has to pack all its baggage inside the fuselage, with minimal openings.
A huge part of this question then becomes a tradeoff between stealth and features. You have to gve up some stuff if you want to be stealthy. So far, on the F35, most of those drawbacks have been "bought out" by spending a crapton on working around them. Stealt VTOL for example was a major PITA.
Considering the already absurd cost of the avionics electronics developed for the F35, tacaking on a completely new ground sensor package (and finding a place to PUT it inside the airframe) would have raised the cost quite a bit. Those sensor pods have been a work in progres for the last 15 years, the R&D is already mostly done. You can't compare that to a completely new package. (and you thought the rest of the new F35 had bugs and glitches?)
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Those "sensor pods" are shaped like external fuel tanks. They've got that rounded and curved shape, to make them aerodynamic. Which is horrible for stealth. The F35 has to pack all its baggage inside the fuselage, with minimal openings.
You do realize the F-35 has to carry most if its weapons on highly non-stealthy wing pylons for air-to-ground attacks, right? If I remember correctly, it can only carry two bombs or four air-to-air missiles internally, everything else has to go under the wings... including the external fuel tanks required for a long bombing mission.
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Incidentally, that's the same warload as a F-117, and no one ever complained that it didn't carry enough bombs.
That's because they had real bombers to do the grunt work. They'd sure have been complaining if the F-117 was the only bomber they had.
The F-35's stealth is only useful in a ground-attack role in a few tiny corner cases--which country, exactly, do you think it's going to be bombing which has good enough air defence for the stealth to make a difference, but not good enough that it makes no difference?--and, for that, you pay several times the cost of an aircraft that's just as capable the rest of the time. A
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The F35 and F22 aren't "stealth" fighters in that way - not like the B2. It's expected the enemy knows they're there. They're stealthy enough to get missile lock long before the enemy fighter does, and that's all that matters today. Dogfight indeed.
Drones will probably take over during the service life of the F35, but since we're not there yet we needed something. Sadly, we get this plane that's great at nothing but pork delivery, but it's not a complete waste of time. It's just sad that it was used as
Facebook F35 pages (Score:2)
But... it has its own Facebook pages. It *must* be good.
https://www.facebook.com/thef3... [facebook.com]
https://www.facebook.com/Suppo... [facebook.com]
the problem with stealth technology (Score:4, Insightful)
is that it is fucking useless.
We have RADAR now so sensitive it can pick up turbulence generated by the flapping of a sparrow's wing. THEY HAVE TO DIAL IT DOWN for most practical applications, including tracking air displacements due to exhaust-baffled (AKA "thermal" stealth) aircraft.
If you want, you can build your own K-Band for around $70, not including the two coffee cans. In fact with the same kit and a laptop you can build a synthetic aperture RADAR imaging system capable of not only locking and tracking targets, but also capable of passing that data in realtime to an external guidance system.
Gugol it yourself, it's all on the MIT public website.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. You said it yourself: radar technology is so sensitive that they have to dial it down, otherwise they're swamped by false positives. If a giant bomb-dropping machine traveling at Mach 2 can pretend to be a sparrow flying over some forest, it's already a win. So it's a huge positive when fighting someone even with that kind of technology. When fighting someone whose AA system is a guy holding an AK-47, it is 100% useless. Until we get to active camouflage.
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code excerpt:
if (target.is(sparrow) && target.speed()>45 Km/h) {
shoot_it_down(target);
}
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Would it not be more OO like and a better design, not to mention scaling, if the target had simply an 'explode()' method?
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You know nothing.
Camouflage doesn't make you invisible but every military still uses it. Why? Because it makes you harder to see.
The stealth on the F-22/F-35 is not designed so they can fly at 35,000 feet over Beijing undetected; it is so they can lock their missiles on their target at 50 miles while the enemy has to be 20 miles away to lock it's missiles. Which is pretty damn useful despite your arm chair general's opinion.
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Actually the missile lock is close to 200miles.
And for that you don't need any stealth at all as the few 'dog fights' over Iraq showed. Plenty of Iraq pilots got shot down by missiles far beyond the 100miles range without even ever noticing the F-15 or F-16 that shot the missiles.
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Plenty of Iraq pilots got shot down by missiles far beyond the 100miles range without even ever noticing the F-15 or F-16 that shot the missiles.
Bullshit.
The only operational US missile to have sort of range was the Phoenix, which was carried by neither the F-15 nor the F-16.
It was launched exactly twice in its service history on the F-14 with no hits scored.
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Bullshit youself.
You don't need a 150 miles range missile to shoot down a plane that flies with more than mach 1 straight at you and is 150 miles away. http://www.x-plane.org/home/ur... [x-plane.org]
But perhaps I mixed up miles witk km ... does not change the fact that third worlds countries planes even if they have F-15s or F-16s, too, have far inferior targeting systems and usually no AWACS like support anyway. So you don't need stealth to pick them up without them noticing you.
War Nerd on the F-35 (Score:4, Informative)
"More proof the US defense industry has nothing to do with defending America"
http://pando.com/2014/12/18/the-war-nerd-more-proof-the-us-defense-industry-has-nothing-to-do-with-defending-america/ [pando.com]
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Decent rant, but he contradicts his own argument about how the USAF only likes sleek, fast air-to-air planes when he rambles on about how they loved the ugly, slow, air-to-ground F-117.
Obviously, if it's located in the nose... (Score:2)
Obviously, if it's located in the nose... then they need to replace EOTS with the Super New Optical Targeting System, or SNOTS.
Is the premise serious? (Score:2)
Seems to me the state of the art in sensors 10 years ago was far more than adequate for any conceivable mission even now. There have been no magic advances by any potential adversaries since then. Hell, even 23 years ago the state of the art in Desert Storm was shooting fish in a barrel, and zero susceptibility to enemy aircraft.
Yeah, the F-35 is essentially a piece of gold plated crap, but I don't see anything that savages trapped 1000 years in the past are going to do to challenge its air supremacy, given
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Israel is probably close in technology, training and experience. Good thing as far as fantasy matchups go that they are not raving, frothing maniacs
Ethnic cleansing.
and have no industrial manufacturing base.
Yep, they're not dangerous to anyone without our help.
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Isn't the $337 million figure an accounting artifact of rolling up all of the R&D and initial production costs into the first batch of planes?
I'm not saying the this plane will ever be a good value for the cost, but if it ever gets produced in large numbers, the per-unit cost should come down significantly.
will be awsome (Score:2)
Why is Australia buying MORE of these crap heaps? (Score:2)
I can understand the initial purchase (in that we needed something to replace the obsolete F-111 Aardvark and at the time it wasn't known how bad F-35 would turn out to be. But now our government wants to buy MORE of these things despite no evidence that they are actually any good as an airplane? Why?
Does Australia actually need that many airplanes? (its not like there are any countries in our region that are likely to decide to attack us so the only real mission for the F-35 is going to be sending a few to
Re:This is why we need a war (Score:4, Funny)
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Don't underestimate the F-35 with a US pilot. The airframe may or may not be competitive against the opposition but I suspect the training will be.
It's the combination that counts. It's why I'm not terribly concerned by the UK selling our top arms to other countries: we'll just be so much better at actually using them.
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The F-15 wasn't even in operational service until 1976, and the MiG-31 entered service in 1981. You're /both/ wrong.
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Well, it's a documented historical fact that they stole the technology for the atomic bomb.
Just like the fact that Stalin personally commanded that interned B-29s be copied whole and mass produced, engines and all, to make the first Soviet nuclear capable bomber; the Tu-4.
As far as space technology, both the US and USSR just put captured Germans to work to get that off the ground.
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Not exactly. USA has grabbed all the top German scientists to design their space technology, USSR had only what was left - some engineers and skilled workers, also some prototype blueprints. This is why Soviet missile designs were very much native after R-2. German engineers have helped with the material sciences, though - an area where USSR was very much lacking.
The thing with the nuclear bomb was Stalin's paranoia. They had a design themselves, but Stalin insisted in building a copy of the American bomb b
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They might be smart enough to use what works, and target what doesn't.
Re:Put this same government in charge of healthcar (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, those older jets are upgraded while the F-35 is being delivered according to a contract. That's not government incompetence. That's contract law, and no respectable contractor is going to write an agreement where the specifications can change at the last minute. In all probability, the military has already accounted for this and has planned upgrades.
Second, very few people are saying that government should control healthcare. They are saying that the government should control health insurance. Other countries already do this and have had very positive outcomes.
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First of all, those older jets are upgraded while the F-35 is being delivered according to a contract. That's not government incompetence. That's contract law, and no respectable contractor is going to write an agreement where the specifications can change at the last minute. In all probability, the military has already accounted for this and has planned upgrades.
I doubt it. Airframes develop very slowly but electronics is quickly obsolete. The prudent thing to do in the spec would be to say "we will have a sensor pod X by Y by Z inches with attachment points T,U,and V. The sensor pod (yet to be developed) will require # amps of power at #volts using a HIJ connector, and please run a ABC connector to that area with specification EFG connecting to the main bus." They didn't do that. They settled on the sensor knowing it would be obsolete before the aircraft fle
Re: (Score:2)
It's a great point: people who don't have an emotional investment in the Department of X can easily see that the people who make up the Department only care only for improving their own power and financial position, and are making X even worse both by getting in the way and also by consuming valuable resources that could be used to actually provide X instead.
The difficult part is realizing this is true for all X, even the ones which are your personal favorites.