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Inside the Joint Strike Fighter Competition
jonerik writes "The June issue of the Atlantic Monthly has this account of the history of the Joint Strike Fighter competition between Boeing and Lockheed Martin (which the latter company ended up winning this past fall, with Boeing now touting its expanding line of unmanned aircraft as the true future of tactical aviation). The article does a fine job of showing how the competitors dealt with the challenge of producing an aircraft (now dubbed the F-35) that the Air Force, Navy, Marines, RAF, and Royal Navy could all live with. Funniest part: Boeing's X-32 entry, with its enormous pelican-like jet intake, had some questioning whether the plane's bizarre appearance didn't hurt its chances more than its performance. 'Helpful as my contacts at Boeing were, no one was eager to claim credit for the design of the plane,' says the article's writer James Fallows." Fascinating article.
What's this, a new weapon in the war on drugs?
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
I still don't see the point in spending millions on drones that always seem to crash/blow up/malfunction/do nothing. There has to be a better use of our tax money than firework funds....
Hmm.. I'm glad they're pulling LLNL's funding for bigger and badder toys like this... Oh right, its for "homeland security." :-P
--
ab2650
... are no match for your superior intellect.
"And like that
bash$
I guess Boeing is making something in Renault car fashion. Originally ughly and eyes hurting.
But positive aspect is no one will take that he saw a plane, at least no one would believe him.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
For what it's worth, it's generally recognized that the design that won was better technically. Which design is actually better is usually a secondary concern when it comes to choosing defense contracts...
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Do you think stories could use fewer links so readers can just focus on the specific article instead of having to sort through every link under the sun? Most stories should have just one link (additional cool pictures excepted, of course).
Okay, so it looks like a deformed pelican, but if I were flying a military jet in combat, I'd sure as hell want one that I wouldn't be seen dead in...
Dah duh dah ka boom dah duh daaah now netlink reports an it is reporting that the web page has gone 420
I liked the article. It seems a pretty good run down of the history of the JSF program. One of the more intelligent things to come from our military.
But this whole - 'Boeing's plane was ugly' thing is sensationalistic journalism. The author throws it out there and then goes on to show that the author alone holds that opinion. It didn't make sense to me.
I've watched the whole thing closely for quite a while. (My wife works for Lockheed and my sister in law for Boeing) They were both good but the article rightly states that the VSTOL variant put together by Lockheed is exceptional. It is a daring - effective design.
Don't take away anything from either party with this 'It was about looks' nonsense. If that is what is was about we would be flying nothing but F-14s and not all these little plastic fag fighters that are out there now.
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
What are the differences? Why are there 2 new fighter planes coming out?
Gmanske.
Think "remotely piloted fighter aircraft."
Sure, such craft could be used as computer controlled drones but the real benefit is going to be when you have squadrons of these piloted by top-gun pilots sitting safely away from the action.
If you were a fighter pilot would you care to engage in a dogfight with a remotely piloted aircraft that could pull more G's than you could? That could pull off manouveres that would literally break a pilot's neck? Or that could simply be made to explode like a SAM if you got too close it?
Would you like knowing that even if you shoot one out of the air the remote pilot is simply going to say "Dammit! He got me! Lets see if he can do it again." and then he is going to select and take over control of another one of a trio of inbound RPVs under computer control heading to your location and use it to try to kill you again?
I don't think any fighter pilot would like to face such remotely piloted craft. Chances of survival against them would be slim. Especially combined with new missle technologies that allow missles to be fired at targets behind and alongside of aircraft.
Thats great but I still dont have my flying car, or the super smart robot that does all my homework that was promised back in the 50's to be here by now.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
I've read a lot about the JSF program over the last 2 years or so, and it seems they did pick the best aircraft. Lockheed Martin simply has more (recent) experience with this type of aircraft, since they also designed the F-22.
On the other hand, I thanked God they didn't pick the hideous looking Boeing contraption. No self respecting fighter pilot would want to be seen in that.
Fast Company also had an article on this recently.
the amusement is likely to come from the users here. It would be really interesting to hear more about the tech behind these machines...as whether you like the military or not - they have some amazing hardware.
Sadly...a pretty sizable chunk of the posts so far are little more than political statements (often half truths at best) and bad humor about all things military.
Or they could have just not stolen it from the people that earned it in the first place.
Why couldn't they team up together and build some awesome jets together and bill the government for twice as much money. Then everybody wins!
oh great, a trillion dollars (yes it is over the life of the program). this is just Welfare for Engineers. and Lockheed stockholders.
bleah.
In formal and informal comments to military officers, civilian analysts, politicians, consultants, reporters, and other members of the defense community, Boeing representatives were careful never to speak dismissively of the JSF.
Boy, I wish I worked in an industry where the primary competitors (while competing all-out in every other arena) deliberately avoided trying to FUD each other into the dirt at every opportunity.
And while I'm at it, I want a pony. One that can fly.
THIS ARTICLE BLATANTLY OFFENDS MY FINE LIBERAL SENSIBILITIES! For I was educated at one of the greatest colleges in the world, and therefore my intellect has far surpassed yours, and frankly, this article, this blatant grandizing of the Military Industrial Complex just makes me sick. Haven't we gotten to an era of peace and understanding in which we needn't construct these brutal weapons of mass destruction to fight a people whose belief structure and society are, granted different from ours, but no less wholesome? Sure, I campained for womyn's rights, despite my having a penis, I was called "rapist," "demagogue" and even "dildo substitute" but dammit, it was a small price to pay for equal treatment here at Berkely!
For shame, Slashdot. Your unabashed conservative leanings in this posting bring your true colors to the forefront. I was once a proud reader of this nest of liberal propaganda, but NO MORE. I'll take my reading minutes to MSNBC, thank you very much. At least they're OBJECTIVE about the news...
Fucking liberals. Hey, dicklickers, QUIT FAGGING UP MY SLASHDOT. Last time I checked, I was reading this site long before this place became a haven of liberal, military technology bashing hippies. Every time that there's a post regarding (way fucking cool, BTW) military tech, there's always a slew, a slurry, if you will, of posts that GET MODDED UP FOR SOME UNKNOWN FUCKING REASON that simultaneously decry the act of building newer and better technologies (that, SOO-PRIZE SOO-PRIZE! benefit the Civilian Sector every time) and the fact that someone out there has a bit more than one-hunnert eye kyoo points and finds these things intriguing.
Bah, Socia^H^H^H^H^H Liberals have fagged this once Great Website up almost beyond the point of repair.
Why is it when I hit ^R that ZSH calls me a cocksucker?
As an LMCO employee, I have to mention that, while the mid-body STOVL fan is quite cool, it's the onboard avionics/computers that are really cool. From those that have flown it, it appears to be easier than flying the F-22 (which, it was said, is as easy to fly as the Novalogic computer game of the same name). In fact, the F-22 project is considering dumping their flight controls and using the ones developed for the JSF (or so rumor has it).
Sweet.
wasn't there a lot of question as to the stability / feasability of lockeed's design?
2 things come to mind:
1) the shaft that goes to the vertical rotor carries a massive horsepower, on the order of a small cruiser (ship). so if the shaft ever blows... don't remember the #s but around 300k?
2) the opening for the rotor is very precisely engineered for radar detection (or the lack thereof) -- but if anything goes wrong and it, say, does not close properly, or chip an edge from whatever (you know, it IS a war plane), the entire stealth-ness is compromised.
so... yes... daring indeed
My life in the land of the rising sun.
.. is no match for our puny weapons.
The Boeing design was known as "Monica" after Lewinsky. The Air Force was not to happy with the way it looked. The better design, in my opinion, won the competition.
The Lockheed plane can fly nose down at speeds as low as 20 Knots (for strafing) - while being able to run away from an F-15 on the top end. It has the radar profile of a bird. The plane is unlike anything that has ever flown before. It can cruise at supersonic speeds without afterburners. The Marine Corps version can take off vertically - go supersonic - then land vertically at the end of the mission. It is a better air superiority fighter than anything we have in service now - while being a better ground support plane than an A-10 Warthog. Computerized control is what makes all of that possible.
This will probably be the last manned fighter that the U.S. builds. Drones are cheaper, don't put a pilot at risk, and can make more violent maneuvers than any manned airplane - eventually they'll take over the air.
The series of unmanned fighting aircraft that Boeing is developing can be thought of as reusable cruise missiles; instead of crashing into their targets they drop bombs and return for another mission.
If this project was done according to the New Economy model, each competitor would have created a separate startup to develop their prototypes, hired engineers by promising them stock options, and run them separately from their main companies. The winning company would have been "acquired" by its sponsor, and the losing one would have gone away. This seems to be the main contribution of the New Economy IMHO, that companies are created not to endure for decades, but to bring products to market. After that, the exit strategies are well known: aquisition, IPO, or bankruptcy court.
Two companies in competition build a better plane on their own than one megacorporation with a lump sum thrown at them with no consequences if they do a shitty job.
--
...are no match for our puny intellect.
we called it "Vogon Poetry in motion"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
in Goodyear AZ.
Sounds like exciting stuff!
Put in for a transfer to TX so I can have your job.
Really.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
... the WW II P-47 and F4U wouldn't have won any beauty contests, and neither would the F-4 from the 60s. Yet their pilots swore by them, and the stats proved them to be world beaters. You don't know what you're talking about.
Infuriate left and right
Has anyone else noticed that some of the ads appear to be stretched, bigger than the advertiser designed them to be?
I have to admit, I have something of an emotional attachment to the F-15 design - not just in its concept of being (or having been) the epitome of air superiority, bar none, but even the aesthetics of the plane.
:-)
So, a question to the experts out there - the fact that successive generations of fighters do not seem retaining the same maximum or cruising airspeed as the F-15, be it F-14, -16, -22 or -35:
is this because such speed, past a certain point, is tactically irrelevant for a fighter, or is this a cost issue (not necessarily exclusive points)?
:-)
But, I'd like to ask a question of those more in the know when it comes to military avionics - is it just me, or has overall airspeed become less important in military designs? I appreciate the advantages in both range and agility that the F-22 design provides... But the fact that an F-15 could pull Mach 2.5 (if memory serves) seems to me to be of value in the ability to cover several areas in the same theater...
I do not proclaim to be anything near an expert in these issues, nor have I really followed them in the last five years or so (though I do subscribe to the Jane's mailing lists
Hope the question makes some sense, seeing as it owes a lot to my memory of the specs on the designs mentioned
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
1st a little background. When LM 1st decided to tender for the JSF they put forward plans for a smaller cunard foreplane aircraft (a la the Israeli Lavi, the Eurofighter, the Dassault Rafale etc). They even developed a Large Scale Powered Model (LSPM) to demonstrate their JAST concept. A number of Small Scale Powered Models (SSPMs) were also tested to develop a basic understanding of the hover and transition regions. But pretty quicky they realised they could not get the design sorted out within the timeframe, so they went & knocked on the door of the Yakovlev OKB in Russia. In 1992, Lockheed Martin signed an agreement with the Russian Yakovlev Design Bureau & Pratt & Whitney signed one with the Soyuz Aero Engine Company for information on the supersonic Yak-141 STOVL fighter and its three bearing swivel duct nozzle, etc. Yakovlev was paid 'several dozen million dollars', P&W also spent some small change on a license from the Soyuz Aero Engine Company . Its no big secret outside of the US.
..In 1992/93 Lockheed contracted Yakovlev on some work pertaining to short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft studies in reference to the JAST (JSF) project. Yakovlev shared its STOVL technologies with the US company for several dozen million dollars.
...Lockheed Martin is also cooperating with the Yakovlev Design Bureau to build an advanced fighter/attack jet for Air Force and Navy use. The deal is still pending Russian government approval, but plans call for a prototype to be ready by 2000 and operational plane by 2010. The plane could end up replacing the F-14, 15E, 16, 111, 117, and AV-8B. Yakovlev's contribution will be based on its
... Lockheed Martin also turned to Russia for technical expertise, purchasing design data from Yakovlev...
...The rise and rise of western dominance since the end of the cold war has given many in countries like India the impression that the former ``eastern bloc'', and particularly Russia, has nothing left of any scientific or technological value. It will therefore surprise many that Lockheed Martin went ahead with development of its successful JSF bid only after getting the design cleared by Russia's Yakovlev aeronautical bureau because they were so impressed by the latter's short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) prototype, the Yak 41. This naval fighter was flying a dozen years ago (!) and only an explosion on board the aircraft carrier `Sergei Gorshkov' (which the Indian Navy is in the process of purchasing) and the economic travails of the disintegrating Soviet Union stopped further development.
...In a postCold War irony, Lockheed Martin consulted with the Yakovlev design bureau of Russia early in the JSF design process because the Yak-141 used a similar approach, though that airplane never made it to series production...
...The swiveling rear exhaust is a licensed design from the Yakovlev design bureau in Russia, which triedit out on the Yak-141 STOVL fighter...
...The exhaust from the engine flows through the 3 Bearing Swivel Nozzle (3BSN). The 3BSN nozzle, developed by Rolls-Royce, was patterned along the lines of the exhaust system on the Yakovlev Yak-141 STOVL prototype that flew at the 1992 Farnborough air show....
Now lets see what AeroWorld Net has to say:
Former Yakovlev employees accuse Yakovlev heads of taking personal interest out of the deal with Lockheed, because the official sum of the contract did not correspond with the value of the information presented to the US company. The data was on the Yak-141 test program, aerodynamics and design features, including the design of the R-79 engine nozzles.
After a careful study of those materials, Lockheed - without much noise - changed its initial JSF proposal, including a design of the engine nozzles that is now very similar to those of the Yak-141...
H'mm I wonder what the Russian Aerospace guide has to say, more specifically the archived July/August 95 issue of Cosmonautics
recent experience with the Yak-141 VTOL fighter.
...
Now that website may have a Russian slant so lets see what Jane's has to say:
I wonder what is says in Aviation Week & Space Technology 1995, v142n25, Jun 19, p. 74-77
Lockheed Martin is turning to Russia's Yakovlev Design Bureau for help in designing short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft for the US Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) competition.
Maybe even The Hindu , 'India's National Newspaper' has something to say on the subject.
Now I wonder what the Google cached pages of the Airforce Magazine have on the subject
I wonder what they say on the actual JSF page:
I'd suggest you also check out the French Prototypes.com website . In partuclar their (Googlised into English) pages that explain the whole process on & the evolution from the Yak-36 to the Yak-38 to the Yak-141 & finally the Yak-41 & the stillborn Yak-43, which so heavily influenced the winning JSF design that LM terminated their double diamond canard foreplane CALF/JAST program to & started all over again using the Yak-43 design they got in their technolgy tranfer agreement with Yakovlev as their new starting point.
& Too finish off, whats say we look at some profile pics
The Yak-141
The stillborn Yak-43 circa 1993
The LM X-35
It seems the LM X-35 looks a lot more like the Yak-43 than the LM's canard foreplane CALF/JAST prototype. Basically the differances are a more stealthy body, uncanted wings & a lift fan rather than a lift jet. Funny thing is back then in the early 90's the Soyuz Engine Company was right in the process of designing a shafted lift fan to replace the old Rybinsk lift jet setup. I won't even start on the vectored rear nozzle setup on the P$W 135 engine which appears to be an exact copy of the Soyuz R79 (ie I'll save the nozzle pics for another day).
While there are many cost advantages, the one airplace for all services is not a good idea. If Boeing wins some, and Lockheed wins some, then each time some branch wants a new plane they can get bids. If only one plane is used, it is cheaper, but next time Boeing says "Guess what, we didn't make any money last time, so we had to get rid of our military designers, at which point Lockheed has a monopoly. If each branch was different, then both would win a few contracts, so both would keep designing planes.
I'm also not sure that one size fits all is a good idea anyway. The air force doesn't care about carrier landings, or even the ability to make them. They would much prefer a plane that they can afford the fuel to send anywhere in the world from one of two desert air strips. (if you fly commercially you will notice the ex-navy pilots hit the breaks as soon as they land, and throw you against the belts, the air force pilots barely hit the last turn off. I prefer air force from a comfort standpoint, and it really doesn't matter most of the time)
Like everything else, it is more complex then the above. As a tax payer, anything to get costs down without cutting defense too much is a good thing. (the definition of too much is one penny over whatever it takes to maintain my way of life, which doens't even begin to show how complex that is)
This seems a little weird to me. The companies should damn-well know that there aren't any guarantees (especially because of the aforementioned B-2 and F-22 programs), they shouldn't be forced to limit their own spending. And so what is Boeing outspends the others? I would think that taxpayers should be trying to get the most for their bucks, and if Boeing stockholders want to subsidize us taxpayers, that's fine with me.
Were the people in charge of spending my money, really thinking in terms of "we don't want Boeing to develop too good/affordable of a product at their expense, because that wouldn't be fair to the other companies"?
(BTW, good submission, jonerik.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Speculation that the design might have been won based on how ugly Boeing's plane might have been are probably not very accurate. I worked intimately on Lockheed's X-35 during development and flight test and performance-wise, it clearly was a better plane. Boeing's JSF was never able to take-off vertically, even with almost no fuel and at sea-level, without making modifications to the plane. Lockheed's model took off vertically at 2500 ft (approx altitude at Palmdale, CA) with a considerable amount of fuel. Lockheed's model was also the only of the two planes that perform a short take-off, supersonic cruise, and vertical landing on one flight. The lift concept is truly a better way to produce lift.
With that being said, Boeing plane really was butt ugly. We at Lockheed got scolded for making fun of it (wasn't politically correct), but I read a good quote in a Yahoo News article once from an Air Force personnel:
It looks like a frog with it's mouth wide open. That's why we nicked name it Monica.
Directly following their first flight (which was before Lockheed's), the head pilot presented a video tape during an experimental pilot convention. When a picture of the plane came up, the enitre room made the "Ewwwwww" sound.
"Dammit! He got me! Lets see if he can do it again."
Reading your post, I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
Imagine a press conference after a fierce battle, where the spokesperson for the losing side has to admit that the battle was lost because "our pilots ran out of quarters"...
Back on the Secret Ranch, RMS perfects his GPL'ed ultralight, which (for some bizarre reason) has all the features of the bigger planes at none of the cost. However, due to licensing constraints, whenever the plane is brought into battle a copy of all the blueprints and materials must be given to the opponent. Additionally, they occasionally explode due to forgetful pilots leaving out a couple of right parentheses, as the only interface to the flight computer is through M-x and M-;.
- undoware.ca
How the hell can I read an article with so many links?
A friend of mine is a pilot, and he and I have talked about the JSF competition. I was hoping Boeing would win, since that would be good for the economy in my area, but the LockMart plane was better.
The Boeing plane was a fairly traditional design. The LockMart plane was a radical new design. My pilot friend said that LockMart bet everything on the radical design; either the new design would fail and they would lose hugely, or else the new design would work and they would win hugely.
In particular, the Boeing design uses conventional hydraulics for actuating its various parts, but the LockMart plane uses an electrical bus to distribute power to motors that actuate the various parts. It turns out that while the two systems weigh about the same and perform about the same, there are second and third order effects that favor the electrical bus:
While a hydraulic system is constantly under pressure, which means pump motors run constantly and heat must be constantly dissipated, the electrical bus just sits there while you aren't using it. So the power systems and cooling systems for the LockMart plane don't have to be as heavy-duty as the Boeing plane. And you can make an electrical bus redundant more easily, just by running extra cables, much easier than making hydraulics redundant. And think how much easier it will be to repair and service an electrical bus compared to a bunch of heavy-duty hoses and pipes full of hydraulic fluid!
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I thought that the Boeing plane should have won the competition, mostly because it fulfilled the specification better; while being smaller, lighter, and immeasurably simpler. The Boeing plane didn't take off vertically, it's true, but that is also not in the specification -- it's not what was asked for. Similarly, there was no line-item for aesthetics. The Boeing direct-lift concept is the same that powers the Harrier, and is the only demonstrated successful direct lift formula. The clutch-driven lift fan is an Osprey-scale debacle waiting to happen -- mechanically clutching in 40,000 HP in a few seconds with an extremely lightweight gearbox is, I believe, untenable. They finally got it to work for a few tests, but there were a number of fairly spectacular failures along the way. The Boeing design lets the pilot shift from forward to vertical thrust and back again in a few seconds, at will, and they did it more than 100 times during the flight test program -- the Lockheed one was only clutched a handful of times.
The very wide-chord wing of the Boeing design is good for a number of structural, aerodynamic, and stealth reasons. Unfortunately, Boeing elected to change the design for the actual plane to a separate tail, rather than the delta wing -- Lockheed partisans claimed (rightly, IMHO) that this meant that the demonstrator that Boeing flew wasn't really representative of the final plane.
The one terrific thing that the Lockheed design has, the one true aerodynamic innovation, is the bump intake. There's a big bump right in front of the intakes on the Lockheed plane; it performs all of the functions of the typical intake splitter plate, purging the boundary layer, with a far more elegant, lighter, simpler, stealthier, easier-to-maintain design. Hats off to the engineers that came up with that.
I think that the Boeing design is prettier, too, but that's just me -- I'm a low-aspect ratio kind of guy.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
For the prototyping. Now that LM has the contract, they can burn as much cash as they like. And will.
we don't use those pilots anymore really. The US has been moving steadily towards long range engagement where the combatants don't even see their enemy, rather they fire when the enemy is spotted on radar.
think fully automated.
Photos.
besides, if you saw a 2 ton pelican bearing down on you at 800mph, you'd be screaming
You're confusing some of the performance characteristics of the ATF (which turned into the F-22 Raptor) with the JSF (the now F-35).
The F-22 is a high-performance, air-superiority fighter intended to superceed the F-15. It has a 2nd-gen stealth (very low radar cross-section and low observability infrared/visible features) design, coupled with a high speed (~ Mach 1.4 without afterburners, ~2.2 full burner), and is primarily a missile-platform (ie, no bombs). It is the premier air-superiority fighter in the world.
The F-35 is a ground-attack AKA strike fighter (NOT a close-support aircraft). It tops out at about Mach 1.5 or so at altitude, and is not anywhere near as stealthy as the F-22 (though much, much better than the F-16, F-15, or F-18). One version will have VSTOL cabilities. It carries laser designators and other ground-attack sensors, and has a modest bomb-load (though smart weapons will be it's primary payload).
All things said, the F-35 is a good design, and a reasonable compromise on cost, performance, and advanced technology. HOWEVER, it is NOT an air-superiority fighter (though the Royal Navy will use it as such off their carriers), neither is it a dedicated close-support aircraft (though the US Marines will use is in such a roll). It is primarily a multi-role strike craft. It's really a blend of the features of the F-18, Harrier, F-16, and F-22, with some compromises.
The A-10 will probably remain the best close-support aircraft around for general use (the Harrier and similar craft are superior, but only in specific uses), and the F-15 and F-14 (and of course the F-22, plus the MiG-29) are better air-superiority fighers.
My major concern with the F-35 is the low payload cability compared to the F-16/18 (though it's superior to the Harrier). It's probably OK, since it looks like the "bomb dumptruck" role of massive dumb firepower is being relegated to the B-52 bomber and AC-130 gunships these days.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Sorry, it annoys me every time someone says they're going to replace the A-10 with some fragile supersonic fighter. Close air support requires serious armor and armament, which no fighter aircraft is ever going to have
Ground battles are for the police: real wars are fought with aircraft and missiles.
Seriuosly, fighting on the ground is passe. The army has been irrelevant since their failure in the island hopping campaign of WW2. (credit the marines for most of the irrelevant ground fighting anyway)
Even then, an air/naval blockade and nukes was more than enough to eliminate japan. The army's main role was as a peacekeeper. This has become moreso ever since.
Did anybody else read that headline as
some sort of gaming in prison?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
maybe someone else with a bit of power will.
The journey is better then the end.
The bizarre appearance of the fighter's enormous single air intake, coupled with an understanding of the inherent dangers for flight-deck personnel in carrier operations, caused one US Navy officer to dub the X-32 with the sobriquet of "the Sailor Inhaler."
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Actually, ground battles are unpopular but necessary. What you fail to remember is that we've pretty much taken on small, disorganized, underfunded governments and their armies. That's fairly easy to do with quick strikes and cruise missiles, but if you ever need to take out a major target you just plain have to land ground troops.
Besides, there is no way to occupy territory from the air. What, do you want to sit out on a boat 30 miles off shore and broadcast, "HEY, YOU ALL BEHAVE IN THERE!!!" without anything on the ground to back it up? Sorry, but ground force becomes inevitable, regardless of how the American public seems to forget that not only do people die in war, but it's a lot scarier in real life than on CNN.
jamming a specific frequency isn't hard
If you know what it is
and you have the right equipment
and that equipment is in the right place.
and you can crank out more power than the signal you are trying to jam
and you STILL are basically fucked if, like search radars used by the military, the command/control link is set to shift freqs on some complex algorithm.
or even a simple one really.
although movies may have you believe that you can push a button in front of you on your Star Wars (tm) land speeder and "jam" the entire electromagnetic spectrum, in practice it takes a wee little bit more than that.
The US can conceivably do it but often we don't really bother. The infrastructure would be a nuisance. Jamming radar is easy and useful. Jamming comms is a real pain in the ass. Even if some magic antenna were created that would radiate immense power to jam all possible frequencies the enemy might use, then you have the slight problem of 1. microwaved technicians and 2. you just screwed yourself out of any chance of communicating with your own people.
In order to be effective, you have to have a signals exploitation system/team/whatever. They have to find and identify the frequency you need to target. And they need to do so in time to have it actually do any good. Then you need to have the jamming equipment to deal with that frequency band. And you have to be able to broadcast towards the target with more power than the base station you are trying to block is capable of reaching the target with. Sending a puny signal to block a strong one obviously wouldn't work. You also need to have your jamming antenna last longer than 2 or 3 seconds. And the US Military has electronics warfare people who take almost child-like delight in smashing other peoples antennas with Anti-Radiation Missiles. Just ask any Iraqi who pushed the "send" button on anything larger than a walkie-talkie back in the Persian Gulf Ass Kicking Festival. The reason he won't answer you is because he's dead. And that was over 10 years ago. Our missiles haven't been sitting around getting arthritis, they're faster, more accurate, blah blah blah. You could even have a nice big fat UCAV with a halfassed AI and a whole pile of HARM missiles, doing nothing but flying circles and transmitting on the same frequency, just to get someone to turn on the jammer. A transmitting antenna is screaming its own position to a HARM missile, they really don't even need a targetting system.
They actually decided that the best color was some sort of pastel. However, the pilots assured them that "real men don't fly pastel planes".
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
This short series dealt with all kinds of drama surrounding a group of old friends involved in a contest between two fighter designs competing for official adoption by the armed forces. Really great stuff.
our written thoughts are gifts to our future selves
Subcontracting. All the defense bigshots do it. Boeing's design wasn't chosen but there is always a chance they will get to build sonme under contract if lockheed finds itself swamped with deadlines and orders from the military and EU
Through a variety of means, drones took down five MiGs.
It amazes me when people talk about how amazing this new technology is, when, in reality, it is simply a refinement of something that dates back quite some time. I suppose it helps pad defence budgets.
(How was I exposed to this? This web page helped., though I know a man who flew the CH-3 part of the equation.
the F-111 is also noted as a product of a TFX program. has the TFX designation been given to more than one competition? becuase i am certain that the F-4 and F-111 were never tested against one another before production.
Although, the page has been removed from the Boeing site, this google cache provides good links to several video feeds of Boeing JSF flights and testing.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
The A-10 can carry most likely 3 times the payload of this plane and do so with (for aircraft) some serious armor.
And as far as being a better air superiority fighter than anything in service, There still has been nothing come up with yet to replace the F-14. They're still incredible, and can still sweep the sky of (insert enemy air force name here) from farther away than they can even be detected. Mach 2.4 with the ability to simultaneously attack 6 targets over 110 miles away (technically the range of the missile depends on the speed of the enemy aircraft, as they can be expected to fly closer while the missile is en route, and they are unaware of the launch) is nothing to ignore.
The JSF is a good plane, yes, but it isn't the best plane in the sky at every single function of military aircraft. Or even any of them. It just has greater versatility, which can make missions a lot easier. Once a carrier full of these flying en masse has wiped out your entire air force, they can all land and come back as bombers.
It's the stealth that sets them apart. Yes an F-14 may be able to do damn near everything the JSF does, and better, but if we ever need to fight someone with any military capapbilities worth not laughing at (which is actually a pretty damn short list anymore....umm...maaaaaybe china?) that is going to help keep things in the right balance.
The right balance of course, being everything on our side
... and Lockheed JSF videos may be found here.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Fun Fact: The Stealth design built into aircraft can be negated to some degree by syncronizing several radars spread over a wide area. Since a stealth fighter's design reflects radar waves away from the point of origin to decrease it's cross section, the theory is that multiple radar sites working in unison will see "enough" of the fighter at once to accurately track.
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is no match for an intelligent thought.
You're calling the YF23 ugly?
Here at Boeing, everything old is new again! You want a Sailor Inhaler? Suck on this; The A-7 Corsair strike fighter and it's cousin, the F-8 Crusader fighter. Both were slowly fazed out in favor of dual engine aircraft (over-water redundancy).
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YF-12A not A-11. The A-11 was the original name for the SR-71 airframe. The SR-71 BTW was supposed to be called the SR-17, but LBJ screwed up the public announcement, and thenceforth, SR-71 it was.
SR stands for Strategic Reconaissance. YF stands for Service Test Fighter. A full explanation of the codes is available here. Data comparing YF-12A and SR-71 is available here and on many other websites. For some strange reason, it's a popular subject for air freaks :-)
All you never wanted to know about the A-12, YF-12A, D-21 Drone, and other SR-71 "Blackbird"-related variants is available here, and the YF-12A section of the same site here. It's an auto-translation from the original French, but pretty darn good - quiet progress in this area has been significant over the last few years, though it's still got a a way to go.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
I work in an aviation acquisition role for the US Navy. I help evaluate aviation products. I think I can speak to this with some background knowledge.
Actually despite the performance compromises, we find our country (the US) in a position where budget takes a front seat to absolute function.
In this arena, a plane that minimizes the huge complexity of a support infrastructure is a good thing. The one thing this design will do, and do very well, is to create a multi-service purchasing and support system advantage. The majority of the cost of an aviation weapon is the pieces-parts that keep it flying. Those fees get paid LONG after the initial investment. With one highly common set of parts, all three services (Air Force, Navy, Marines) get to all buy the same parts - making it cheaper by far to maintain and operate many years into the future. Furthermore, with some exceptions, doing the testing and development on upgrades and parts replacements will also be cheaper for the life of the plane.
Sure, you give up performance. But for the forseeable future, we are not going to really need (for example) a Mach 3 fighter. So why pay for one, that can't do anything else?
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Makers of the P-38 Lightning (the first all-aluminum skinned fighter, flown by the top 2 aces in the Pacific Theater during WW2), the P-80 Shooting Star (first operational US jet fighter), the SR-71 Blackbird (fastest aircraft in the world, high speed, high altitude photo recon) and the new F-22 Raptor. Wonder if Lockheed will be putting the same powerplant that's in the F-22 into their JSF bird. It'd be nice since the thing can produce Mach 1 without afterburner/reheat.
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I agreed with you up until you said the words A-10 Warthog. To say the JSF is better than an A-10 is like comparing apples and oranges. you will not find a close air support fighter that can carry more ordinance or has a heavier cannon or is more survivable in the environment a Warthog is designed to operate in than the A-10. The best I could see a Lockheed JSF doing is operating similar to a Harrier in that roll. Sure, it sounds like this thing can crawl on the deck, but I seriously doubt the JSF can take the punishment the Hog was designed for. Remember, the A-10 was designed at the height of the cold war to severly maul any Soviet heavy armour that crossed the line in Germany and engage them in an intensive AAA/SAM environment. I'm sure the Lockheed JSF can do it's job, and do it well, but it's job is not floating around and chewing up tank after tank after tank after tank while taking 20/30mm shells in the gut at close range and continue to fly. Ever see "Flight of the Intruder"? That's a far more realistic role for the JSF.
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"They're still incredible, and can still sweep the sky of (insert enemy air force name here) from farther away than they can even be detected"
Of course, if the JSF could carry the AIM-54 Phoenix missile, then just maybe... What? Oh yeah, NO other fighter besides the 14 can carry that thing?? Damn. I have to agree with you on the China comment. Sure, we can whoop on 3rd world countries all day long with 20 year old hardware because it's still danm good, but against somebody who can afford a decent military? It's about damn time we began pushing the F-22 and JSF.
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Sure Boeing lost because of a really, really stupid looking aircraft.
Look at the B-2. I don't think anyone could say (with any amount of seriousness) that it is ugly. The plane serves its purpose even while sitting on the ground. We only have 19, not really enough for a full-scale war, yet they still work as a deterent. You don't have to know what it is to be scared of it, if you know it's gonna come after you.
Being 'scared' of military technology is all part of the game. Boeing could not produce a scary looking aircraft, so they lost.
-twb
Fun Fact: The Stealth design built into aircraft can be negated to some degree by syncronizing several radars spread over a wide area. Since a stealth fighter's design reflects radar waves away from the point of origin to decrease it's cross section, the theory is that multiple radar sites working in unison will see "enough" of the fighter at once to accurately track.
Fun Fact: Stealth doesn't work quite the way you think it does. This approach would (did, in our tests) probably work against 1970s designs (F117), but would fail miserably against later stealth platforms.
It is true that several nations are deploying such ground radar systems in an attempt to defeat stealthy aircraft. They don't work, for reasons that will become obvious when you think about the problem domain for a while (giving you the benefit of the doubt that you understand RF propagation and can figure out the missing ingredient of the stealth equation).
"The army has been irrelevant since their failure"
You must have missed the entire Cold War. You know, the one where the old Soviet Union had hundreds of tanks waiting to rush into West Germany? Or the massive, one-sided land engagement in "that desert war" in 97? It wasn't all air power, though it went a long way in the outcome. Think of it this way; Somebody with heavy weapons on the ground has to actually claim the land from other people with heavy weapons. I guess you could theoretically carpet bomb every fox hole and bunker, but it's not realistic.
"Even then, an air/naval blockade and nukes was more than enough to eliminate japan."
Make no mistake, without those bombs, the cost of invading Japan would have been astronomical in lives, probably more than dropping the bombs themselves. Refer to planned operations Cornet and Olympic as to the scope of this undertaking. This article describes it as well as anything could. Yeah, we had the fleets and airforce, but the Imperial Japanese didn't care. It was going to be to the last man, woman and child with a conventional war. Think Vietnam, only a thousand times worse.
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a great read... but I don't feel any safer.
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
They are wasting money on these stupid aeroplanes, they should be investing in mechas, which fly *and* have space combat capabilties.
You know the asians will have a huge fleet of them in the next 10 or so, so why don't we get them first?
You could even have a nice big fat UCAV with a halfassed AI and a whole pile of HARM missiles, doing nothing but flying circles and transmitting on the same frequency, just to get someone to turn on the jammer.
Then even the 3rd world flunky in an old F-4 or Mirage can shoot it down. THe AI for a fighter is DEFINATELY not there yet, and the remote piloting is only 'getting there'.
What part of "negated to some degree" don't you understand? Stealth fighters use aspect control, RAM (assuming you know what that is) and ECM to achieve their goals of radar invisibility. There is no "missing ingredient". Fuselage is specifically designed to either direct or diminish the radar being reflected from it. Additionally, the material of the aircraft plays a roll in how stealthy a fighter is. When I say "to some degree" it means it isn't the cure all 100% stealth detecting solution you seem to think I'm implying. Jeez.
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One factor was that Boeing was going after a more well-rounded entry that would be of use to all branches of the military, so they put a lot more emphasis on the VTOL capability than they should have.
The LockMart JSF, on the other hand, was designed more as a conventional fighter with the VTOL added on.
Only the Marine Corps were really interested in VTOL, and given that they would have only bought tens of aircraft (as opposed to the thousands the Air Force was looking for), the Air Force had much more sway. So LockMart correctly wooed the Air Force with fighter performance as the priority.
Never understood that. I mean, they're cool, right. But Why transform into a humanoid robot to begin with? To boost ratings? I mean it's got to cost structually in one mode or the other. But seriously, everybody needs a Mobile Suit.
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Of course if I was making decisions in the Pentagon, I wouldn't have awarded either of them the deal, since sure, Lockheed might have developed an excellent vertical lift system, but neither company successfully fulfilled the 'flying into space and changing into a giant robot' criteria.
Wait, what are we talking about again?
The drive system that interconnects the V-22 engines is the mechanical linkage from hell. It runs at 6500 RPM, has many flexible couplings, five gearboxes, and a clutch in the middle. Plus, the whole thing is a transformer; the wings and props fold. It's amazing that they can get it to hold together.
that's why missin planning is still so important and the ops guys are still around... in even conceptual design, the ops guys get consulted early...
Something like this on a smaller scale. An AMRAAM missile frame, maybe? No direct or shrapnel hits required. Heck, you don't even have to destroy the fighter outright to keep it from it's target...
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LockMart's design was supposed to be technically superior, but look at the past.
YF-23 vs YF-22
The 23 had much smaller radar cross-section and was regarded as the better of the two designs...
I'm sure that LockMart lobbyists had nothing to do with it...
26 October 2001 Lockheed Martin X-35 wins the JSF competition.
So, no, Lockheed Martin did not, in fact, win the JSF as posted. Boeing did. Not only can that X-35 carry around a larger payload, it HOVERS. It's freaking cool regardless what it looks like.
If any, considering those doors.
VIFF (Vectoring in Forward Flight) was the Harrier's ace in the hole during the Falklands war. A Harrier pilot can use his plane's VSTOL capability to instantly alter the pitch of a turn or cause a pursuer to overshoot. The XF-32 seemed capable of that, considering it's heritage, while that doesn't seem likely with the XF-35, making it not as good a dogfighter as the plane it lost to.
Of course, the extra power=extra energy in a dogfight, making up for that special trick somewhat.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
which performed so poorly at first over Vietnam it was quickly reworked. A few F-111's were configured for carrier landing tryouts for the Navy (IIRC they were F-111B's, but don't quote me). The Navy realized they were turkeys incapable of carrier landings (whups), pulled out of the project, and ran straight to Grumman to get the plane they wanted/needed, the F-14.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
The F-111 was in service into the 90s. I believe the EF-111 jamming plane is still in service. In fact, the F-111 proved itself a pretty good plane in Desert Storm.
i havent personally worked on the pane, but many fellow INCOSE members of mine are directly involved. i have learned many things about the plane, and i am about to give my 2 cents worth. for starters, it will have in its first production run over 10 times the amount of planes produced than the F-22. One reason for the name JSF is that it is a joint venture between aumy, navy, royal navy, etc...this is the first plane that all military divisions have agreed on the specifications and will train on and use. if im not mistaken, it is also the only plane to perform STOVL (short take off and vertical landing) in the same test flight. its computer systems are much more advanced require less maintanence, and more reliability through redundant systems. it also uses hardware that is not-so-proprietary so the electrical systems can be repaired quickly if necessary. also because of technological advances, and the amazing force produced by the engines, it is able to carry a larger payload than any previous fighter jet. one way it produces so much force and is able to to vertical takeoff is by a clutch mechanism that was previously thought impossible with the engines rotating at 20000-30000 rpm. they accomplished this by taking the brake pads directly from a commercial airplane and modifying them to implement a clutch in the actual engine so that the force can be directed from straight back to directly down. thats all the information i can think of to dish to the slashdot crowd now.
Boeing and Lockheed are both stupid. The obvious design is to shape the plane like, and paint it like, a shark. That way, when other pilots see the plane, they won't try to shoot it down. They'll just be like "Oh, air shark." and go about their business.
Remember those SUV's drivin through a desert in afghanistan, guy gets out to take a piss. they shoot a missile at em an kill evyerybody on suspicion of being a terrorist. couldn't even ID the people, shoot first ask questions later. Thats what those UAV's are for.
You don't occupy ground until you stick an 18-year old kid with a rifle on it.
Is not a pelican a bird, how friggin odd that a plane design would endup looking somewhat like a bird. Although I know alot of people argue that it would look better shaped more like a hawk, or eagle, or a penguin at least(joke laugh). Personally I don't give a crap, as long as its faster and more manuverable than the other guys.
LinuxWorx
Spelling errors are intentional as are gramatical error
*cough* - Check your quote again.
And Lockheed did indeed win; Boeing's unusual design was rather cool, but Lockheed Martin came up with the nifty lift-fan design that let their 'standard'-looking plane win out. Now, anyone want to explain to me how the efficiency of that works out- you capture power from the jet engine (which is, itself, a big fan) and use it to drive a bigger fan on top of regular exhaust ducting... apparently that recovers more power than just running the jets, but I'm not sure I get how?
....and yes, it's a bit of a joykiller to realize the Kewl Flying Death Machine your tax dollars are paying for will likely see actual service...
A year ago I discussed the looks of the X-32 with some Boeing employees. They agreed that the intake was indeed "ugly", and they told me there were plans to change it to a more conventional look (i.e. a traditional, backward going intake) IF the aircraft would win the contest.
Unfortunately for them, they didn't.
There was some discussion last summer of how this technique might be used in conjuction with mobile phone transmitters to detect stealth aircraft.
The reason it is built so blocky is that the computer program they used to simulate the radar cross-section of the proposed designs could only handle flat planes, and not that many of them, apparently. So when they finally got a design that fit the requirements, they built the mock-up exactly to the computer model. That was the least risky move to make at that stage. So they did the testing, found that the shape did as the computer model suggested, and then they showed it to the Air Force.
"We can round out those angles between the faces, you know," they told the generals, "They aren't exactly aerodynamic."
But the generals wouldn't hear anything of it. The plane was nearly invisile to radar, it looked blocky... therefore there must be something magical about blocky shapes! (Typical fighter pilot attitude, really.)
Naturally, when the entertainment industry got a glimpse of the F-117, we were subjected to a decade of movies where, if something was supposed to be high-tech and stealthy, it was 1) black and 2) blocky.
In the article it is stated that the TFX program in the 1960's became the F-4, in fact the TFX program became the F-111.
Just wanted to set the record straight.
No one got beat up more often than the mimes of the old west!
OTOH, there is some speculation that Boeing doesn't care too much about losing JSF, as it is possible the action will switch to unmanned vehicles over the next 10 years. And they are way ahead of Lockheed in that area.
sPh
I work for Boeing and they were questioned about the look by the military. Boeing had this to say, "The JSF was made to fight battles not go to prom"
"It is true that several nations are deploying such ground radar systems in an attempt to defeat stealthy aircraft."
Good for them. The more money the spend trying to see our planes, the less money they are spending on other defense expenditures. As long as their efforts cost more (in %GNP) than building low observable features into the plane cost us, we come out ahead.
And BTW, it is "low observable" not "unobservable". Even the B-2 isn't invisible; it is just difficult to find. But the media likes to sensationalize stuff, and "invisible airplane" obviously sounds too cool for them to pass up.
Actually, third gen stealth technology can defeat that... it uses passive stealth (angles and absorption) alongside active stealth technologies (retransmission and sideband redirection) to become a hole in the sky. The issue then is that it is so good that software can be set up to track the perfect hole as it moves at 800mph... :)
Umm what about General Dynamics, or Northrop Grumman.. we will allways have more then one corp that can build fighters.
I will bend your mind with my spoon
sPh
sPh
The EF-111's got phased out after the gulf war, leaving the EA-6B prowler the only dedicated tactical jamming aircraft in the US inventory.
This presents big problems, because these aircraft have been used quite a bit, are wearing out, and really need to be replaced. Even missions with stealth aircraft are planned using jamming support.
I'd find links to everything I just wrote, but I'm too lazy today.
Good stuff. My memory jogged, I seem to recall that the A-11 designation was an attempt to hide the nature of the beast. Attack rather than recon.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
My dad works for Lockheed, so he tells me some funny jokes about the Boeing JSF all the time.
My favorites:
The only reason that thing flies is b/c it is so ugly the earth repels it
Lockheed guys gave the X-32 a nickname: Monica (guess why?)
A wise man once said: "Do not drink the lemonade given to you from a hobo"
Fast Company also had a very good article about the JSF Competition in print a couple months ago. They have an excellent online archive; see it @ http://www.fastcompany.com/online/57/lockheed.html
TrT
Actually, I've seen it happen with an F-16. I was on my way to my workcenter in 1984, walking past the hanger, when I saw the crew chief go to duck under the aircraft to get to the other side. He was too far forward, and the intake draft sucked him in by his field jacket, folded him in half, and then the engine chewed him up and blew half-burnt pieces of him all over the inside of the hanger.
I still have nightmares.
Chip H.
In the late '80's, I programmed some support machinery that was a part of the A-6 re-wing project... performed by Beoing.
I think Grumman is out of consideration and G-D mostly sticks to their engines.
All things in moderation.
Plus, I don't think the government would like the fact that you're demeaning their judgement capabilities when you still have billions of dollars of contracts with them (and are in the midst of trying to win billions more).
Plus, government contracting is so over-regulated that I wouldn't be surprised if you just plain _aren't_ allowed to talk badly about your competitors.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
That's the whole point of using UCAV's. if someone shoots them down, it isn't a very big deal. And given the way we tend to do war upon people, there won't be very many 3rd world flunkies with anything to fly larger than a kite after the first day or 2. And if someone did decide to take off and fly after something like this, then a human fighter pilot or a surface to air missile would ask them to please stop bothering us.
As for the AI, what i described requires nothing of the sort. An autopilot and an if/then routine. This isn't anything new, the Aegis weapons system has been designed with the capability to automatically fire weapons since the 70's. When armed it can attack anti-ship cruis missiles incoming without asking for human intervention, which could take too long to be useful, with the soviet mach 4+ Shipwreck missiles.
A dumb target like this just needs to have a radar/radio detector set to report certain frequencies, if that frequency is reported, then hit the fire button.
Even the B-2 isn't invisible;
:-)
You're telling me. As someone who's watched one land and take off (from about 50m away), as well as seen it on static display, I'm pleased to confirm that it's big, black and (roughly) triangular
PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
Ummm...GD was sold to Lockheed. NG is now part of Boeing. The point stands.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Not if the UCAV can pull 20G's, he can't. Taking the pilot out of the bird makes the handling envelope a lot wider.
You say that AI for fighters isn't there yet, but air to air missiles do pretty damn good. Running an intercept autonomously is just an extension of the geometry that AAMs do.
Remote piloting is a Bad Idea. Having a datalink with enough bandwidth to give the pilot proper situational awareness is just not very practical IMO. Remote direction and targeting is VERY feasible, and then you can hand off the targets to the on-board intercept computer to fly the attack.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I've also heard that LBJ transposed RS to SR. Seems like he was bad at reading.
Don't care what you call it...it's an amazing bird.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!