Slashdot Mirror
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
Right now, the world of Combat Aviation is at a crossroads, the first crossroads since the end of World War Two.
1. Build aircraft that support a fragile and expensive pilot and be limited from a design and performance stand-point
2. Build UCAVs that have the same level of reliability as 1950s and early 60s jet fighters, and leave the pilots out of the loop and safe at home.
While the remote aircraft idea isn't new, the technologies involved are at the point where it is a do-able product. And right now, the UCAVs in the United States have about the same level of reliability as the single engine jet fighters the Navy and Air Force had up to the Phantom came into service.
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.
.
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 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.
It's in the taxpayer's interest for there to be multiple companies capable of designing and building weapons systems. A competition that kills the losing companies would be bad for future procurement. There has already been an amazing amount of consolidation in the military aircraft industry. We will be in deep trouble if LockMart is the only company capable of bidding on military contracts.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
"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.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
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.
Hmmm, sounds like a prime target for an EMP type weapon. Of course, I suppose any aircraft built in the last 50 years would probably succumb to an EMP pulse too.