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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.
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).
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?
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.
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 F-22A is a replacement for the high hour F-15 A/B and C/D models of single seat interceptor and the two seat trainer versions of those aircraft which are in service with the United States Air Force, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserver, Israeli Defence Forces, Saudi Arabian Air Force.
The F-35 is a replacement for the F-16, Sea Harrier, Harrier GR, Harrier II, F-104, FA-18 A/B and other older single-seat fighters in service with the United States Air Force, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Dutch, Belgan, Israeli militaries and possibly the Turkish and Italian, as well as others.
The F-35 is a single seat, single engined aircraft with a top speed of about Mach 1.3. The F-22 is a single seat, twin engined aircraft that can go Mach 1.4 without turning on it's afterburners and has a higher celling than the 35.
In short, there are 2 new fighter planes coming out because there are different roles that need filling.
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.
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 is much more stable and feasible than Boeing's version. In fact the fact that Boeing built it off the Harrier should be a dead give away that there had to be a better way.
The stealth issues are genuine but this would be the case w/any VSTOL variant. They are going to be landing in places that are not as clear of FOD as the AirForce/Navy versions. And when those Marine pilots are providing close ground support the stealth thing will not be as big an issue.
Is it perfect? No. Will it kick a lot of ass? You bet.
And getting to the main point- even the lockheed model is ugly. (all stealth anything are in my opinion)
You could argue back and forth about who had the better aircraft. I'm a bit biased to begin with - but you can't argue that aesthetics were the deciding factor.
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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?
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.
we called it "Vogon Poetry in motion"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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).
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
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.
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
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.
Did anybody else read that headline as
some sort of gaming in prison?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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-->
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.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
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
The RAF recently did a visibility survey to decide what colour to paint their training aircraft to avoid 'near misses'.
They found that an all-black aircraft was more easily seen than any other colour.
"Information wants to be paid"
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