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Boeing Touts Fighter Jet To Rival F-35 — At Half the Price
An anonymous reader sends this news from the CBC:
"In a dogfight of defense contractors, the hunter can quickly become the hunted. It's happening now to the F-35. The world's largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, is trying to convince wavering U.S. allies — including Canada — to stick with its high-tech, high-priced and unproven F-35 stealth fighter. But the F-35 is way behind schedule, way over budget and, now, it's grounded by a mysterious crack in a turbine fan. After years of technical problems, it's a tempting target for Lockheed Martin's rivals. It's no surprise, then, that the No. 2 defense contractor, Boeing, smells blood... The Super Hornet, it says, is a proven fighter while the F-35 is just a concept — and an expensive one at that. ... The Super Hornet currently sells for about $55 million U.S. apiece; the Pentagon expects the F-35 to cost twice as much — about $110 million."
Half the price for the piece of paper with the specs on it. But like the dreamliner, Boeing will deliver late, overbudget, and with serious issues forcing it to be grounded. Cos that's how it works. The more you pay, the less you get.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I hope they're being sold as "batteries not included"
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Boeing has also been pushing the Silent Eagle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F-15SE_Silent_Eagle Which might be an even better choice for Canada. The thing is that Defending Canada is not that high of a priority of the Canadian military. It is working as part of NATO and for that the F-35 will be better. BTW this history of problems and doubt about aircraft is not new. Happened with the F-14, F-15, F-18, B-1, C-5, C-17, Apache, and so on. New airplanes have more problems than older aircraft.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Great job Boeing and Lockheed -- between the two of you, we have had an incredible number of promising aircraft programs canceled or shelved so your multi-billion dollar mistakes could get built.
This F-18 proposal has been known as the "Growth Hornet," which highlights the appalling inefficiency of Boeing's design process in deliberately leaving unused space on the F-18 for future upgrades ($$$).
Reaper drones run about 37 million per unit, it'd be interesting to see simulations of 3 reapers vs an F-35.
Sounds expensive!
The FA-18 has always been the underdog. When it was the concept fighter YF-17 it lost out to the F-16 from General Dynamics but the twin engines and the rugged features were a hit for the Navy, so that became the FA-18 now in it's Super Hornet edition, it is a very, very capable aircraft. What amazes me is that the F-35 program for all the promises hasn't been cut or curtailed. It still goes to show that McDonnel Douglas knew how to build planes and I'm still going to be sad when all those MD80, MD83s etc. all get sent out to pasture to. It reminds me of the Monty Python scene from "The Holy Grail" I'm not dead yet. And like Lazarus it keeps getting brought back from the dead.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Sure the FA-18 has been a proven aircraft for some time, and IMHO should continue to be produced after the F-35 is flying, but it doesn't fit all the roles the F-35 is supposed to (I question that capability too). The F-18 has no vertical takeoff capability and upgrading to the same level of avionics I'm sure they are putting in the F-35 would be very costly.
Ultimately the biggest advantage of the FA-18 is it handles its role quite well but it also dosen't try to do as much as the F-35 is. Though I'd like to see either aircraft actually do the job of an A-10...
We do not need either of these jets, in fact the smart money would be spent on faster drones with improved range, optics/sensors and payload capabilities, spend the big money on launching the satellites you need to run the show.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"Batteries not included."
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
From a Canadian perspective the big advantages of going with the Super Hornet is backwards compatibility (even more-so than the lower price).
- The Super Hornet is compatible with the current RCAF in-air refuelling technology
- The Super Hornet technology is an upgrade to what we already have - our techs are compatible / familiar with it
- The Super Hornet does not require longer runways for landing - our remote arctic runways are compatible
- The Super Hornet has landing gear better suited for icy runways - our weather is compatible
It's not as stealthy but we are a defensive military.
- The Super Hornet is also half the price.
The Harper Government has a hard-on for the F35 and the Canadian public really has no idea WHY.
I have often have doubts whether these fighter planes really have any use nowadays. Especially dogfighting seems to be a bit outdated in times of cheap shoulder launched surface to air missiles. Moreover, there are drones, cruise missiles, etc. These planes look a lot like super-expensive adult toys to me. Could someone who knows more about military strategy explain to me for what purposes these kinds of planes are needed? What is the strategy behind them? What about cost/benefits? Is such a plane capable of evading the amount of modern surface to air missiles you could buy for its price?
No attempt to troll, I'm honestly interested.
We are approaching a limit here, where the cost of a single advanced fighter equals the national budget. Before we reach that limit, the price will go high enough to make it too expensive to ever actually risk an advanced fighter in actual combat - couldn't afford to lose one...
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
since when is the government concerned with the price of anything?
From the inception, the F-35 seemed to me like it was doomed to failure.
It was a massive development project which was set up in such a way as to try to convince allies to buy this plane before any existed and have them fund the development. It was supposed to have several different variants including a VTOL one.
It's been plagued with cost overruns, delays, and almost everything else. It's always struck me as an obscenely expensive plane with a lot of risks, and as countries are starting to ask "do we really want this", it could leave those still in the program with mounting costs since it's no longer being paid for by as many governments.
From the start, this was a program designed to get everybody to help pay for a pie-in-the-sky plane which was completely unproven. This is just a program to line the contractor's pockets, and for the US to try to get someone else to help pay for it.
Unfortunately, a lot of people warned about how this would happen, but they got ignored. If anybody thinks this it's a surprise that F-35 program has been ridiculously expensive with very little results, they haven't been paying attention. And unless Boeing already has a plane in the works, I'm not sure I'd believe their claims of being able to do it cheaper any more than Lockheed's.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We have zero need for advanced dogfighter and air superiority craft currently. What foreign power are we planning to dogfight against? Over what potential enemy do we not already have complete air superiority?
I can't really blame the aerospace companies though. The government said "Here's a couple billion $$ to build some war-planes," without ever putting critical thought into whether or not we actually NEED a billion dollars worth of war-planes. But Lockheed isn't really going to argue, so they start building $100m warplanes. Why not divert some of that funding to space or sea exploration. Sure, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, etc aren't exactly in that business right now. They might not have the engineering skillset for space or sea, but I guarantee if the government offered up a billion dollar contract to build a better lunar rover, those guys would become experts very quickly.
This signature is false.
Why buy either plane???? The F-35 is a dog and keeps getting grounded and has yet to see a day a service. We're talking hundreds of billions on a plane there's serious question whether we need it at all! Drones are cheaper and save pilots lives and the biggest claim against them so far is they are doing too good a job at taking out targets.
Where's the open source 3-d printed fighter jet project? Should I go ahead and start the Kickstarter project for that?
Half the price, okay, but still... I remember when the F-18 started out as the YF-17, which I read about first back when I was in junior high -- in 1975 -- and the design dates back into the 60's. Actually "half the price" for an aircraft design that is 40 years old seems kind of expensive.
Proverbs 21:19
It's welfare for the wealthy. It's yet another overblown, overbudget money pit to keep the Military Industrial Complex employed and well-funded, while Congress tries to cut every social program, including the FDA, because the country is broke.
Can someone explain to me why we have 50 million hungry in America, including 17 million children, while we lavish billions that will stretch into the trillions, for a fighter plane we don't need.
If the name of the country I was describing was "Sudan" or "Chad", where they buy weapons while the people starve, there would be outrage, concerts to raise awareness and funds for food, the UN would be making disparaging statements about the banana republic and its dictator, etc.
But because the name of the country is the USA, it's "Business as Usual". No corruption here, just because the engine for this PoS is built in Ohio, the state of the Speaker of the House (note you'll never hear that mentioned when he talks about wasteful spending).
We've got plenty of money to make war, and not a cent for caring for the citizens of this nation, nor our own infrastructure.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Is that not the exact requirements for the F35? I believe this has been the number one concern regarding them, and apparently much of the overruns are due to having to satisfy so many masters and have so many varients.
In an often debated subject of military acquisition disasters Boeing won't do anything unless there is a check in it for them. This is a sour grapes in many ways since Boeing lost out on the contract for the F35, but Boeing hasn't forgotten what happened to Northrop with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-20_Tigershark#FX_stumbles_and_F-20_emerges program.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Want to make fighter jet more effective and orders of magnitude less expensive? Remove the pilot! Manned fighters are soon to be a thing of the past. (Long range bombers probably still need to be manned.) Sure, communications and control can be cut off... but a manned fighter can't take any action without checking with control first either!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The main problem I have with the F35, besides the ridiculous cost, is that it's another idiotic single engine fighter like the F16 (lawn dart) which is so wrong for a combat aircraft. Redundancy is everything in a combat aircraft and when you lose an engine in a single seater the only option is to grab the eject handles. The number of F16's that could have survived if they had just had that extra powerplant I don't know but I do know that they crash at an unhealthy rate, over 342 according to an article I read back in 2011. I see no reason to believe the F35 with one engine will do any better. Especially if they can't figure what's up with the tubine blade problem. I think the F35 is just Lawn Dart 2.0
Can they actually deliver it for that price.
Nothing the DOD buys costs what they say it will.
We need the F-22 for when we enter World War III. Until then, we need to be paranoid about secrecy. Every time you fly over enemy territory, you risk that the plane will fall into enemy hands. They may get a lucky shot, perhaps the pilot suffers a stroke, perhaps birds get sucked into the engines...
Life is faster than it was 70 years ago. You can't expect to design and build many thousands of fighters in the middle of the conflict. You also can't rely on drones, because the first thing that happens in World War III is the loss of all satellites. Building 5000 of the F-22 would be a good start; note that the price plunges as production goes up.
For mundane conflicts, the Super Hornet and the Silent Eagle are excellent choices. They get the job done without risking exposure of the most important secrets.
Canada will be invaded by Siberians and Mongolians looking for a more hospitable climate :D
The "declaration of war" is made by blowing satellites to bits. Without any satellites, the Reaper can't fly very far from the runway before running out of signal. (if even that... will it even fully power up without GPS lock and a verified long-range communications link?)
World War III will not be fought with drones.
So you want an airplane that's twice as expensive, twice as heavy, and twice as likely to fail? Maybe there's a difference between the F-35 and F-22 designs for the same reason that there's a difference between the F-16 and F-15 designs. Perhaps, stupid fuck, aircraft are designed for the mission.
The first thing to happen in World War III will be satallite destruction on a grand scale. The drones will be without normal communication and navigation. Do they even have HF radios and star navigation? HF radios are too damn low bandwidth to support video feeds.
The drone will be in fail-safe mode due to loss of communication link. The satellites go bye-bye the instant World War II starts. The drone might not even come home successfully without GPS.
I always thought that the X32B was much interesting because of it's new design and overall simplicity.
Since the F-35 has already cost so much money to develop and apparently performs so bad compared to existing and older designs that it should be reconsidered.
Boeing's X32B should be a lot cheaper to manufacture and operate because of the simpler design and thus a much better candidate as a JSF jet.
Let Boeing have it, if they also promise to throw in the Delta Clipper program.
About 15 years ago, Grumman made a similar proposal; to build F-14s for half the cost of the F/A-18s. In that case, like this one, the F-14 was a faster, more capable platform than the F/A-18. The DOD response was to order Grumman to destroy all the F-14 jigs, so that they could never possibly build another one. I suspect the same will happen now.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Ask any mechanic about tools. Why does he need all those wrenches? He'll tell you to use the right tool for the job, and he'll say multi-purpose tools are junk for use by amateurs, because they have too many compromises. That's what the F-35 is. The Marines need ground-support planes for assisting their troops on the ground. You don't put troops on the ground without first getting air superiority. Who has air-to air fighters superior to the SuperHornet? Nobody! So the best plane for ground support is still the slow A-10, because 1)it's slow 2)it's armored, and 3)high payload.
But don't pat Boeing on the back. They want to replace P-3 antisub planes with 737s. That's great for Boeing, but dumb. Use the right tool for the job.
The Super Hornet was a great plane in it's day, and should continue to be sold to other countries, but today, the Air Superiority fighters are being replaced by the Air Dominance fighters like the F-22 and F-35. Another fully developed plane that could be put on the market would be the F-23
Fact is, these may very well be the last manned fighters. Drones are proven to be very reliable, and less expensive.
Thanks to Google, and Boston Dynamics, automation of such equipment is humanlike and more reliable. I have no doubt within my lifetime, we will seen an almost entire robotic and/or cybernetic military.
Even the aircraft carrier is at it's end. A next generation drone launching dreadnaught will be out soon.
The reaper will probably become a drone.
"Probably"? It already is. Or did you mean that the F-35 will probably become a drone?
I think an air attack drone might be interesting to see. The current generation are all biased towards ground attack - Much like how the A-10 would make for a rather lousy anti-air asset, they're just not equipped to do the task.
I don't read AC A human right
Had the Spitfire not been a newer design that the German equivalent, this post might be in German (well, actually it wouldn't because my father would have gone to a concentration camp, but you know what I mean).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Oh that's cynical. Meanwhile in the UK, the Labour Party has just announced that if it wins the next election it will replace the Trident nuclear submarines, which has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the Labour votes from the Scottish shipyards, and sabotaging the campaign for Scottish independence. $40 billion for a useless piece of kit that cannot influence any foreseeable wars, but keeps the Scots onside. Perhaps that's it: it's called a strategic deterrent because it strategically deters the Scots from becoming independent and losing the work.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
In WW2, after the Battle of Britain the most successful British aircraft was probably the twin-engined Mosquito, an early stealth fighter/bomber. I was taught at school by the former wing commander of a Mosquito wing, and he told us that flying Mosquitos was considered a real privilege because you expected to survive the War. Mosquitos could fly to Germany, pathfind for heavy bombers, do a little precision bombing themselves and be back in time for breakfast, even if someone put a shell in an engine while over the target. Single engined fighters and 4 engined bombers had far higher loss rates.
The significant point is the kind of opposition you could expect. Bombing Third World countries is a bit different from bombing First World countries.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
For everyone who has "drone" and "unmanned" in their minds ... great idea for the future. I'm sure Boeing and LM and others will be on it as quick as possible.
But right now -- drones are slow dumb craft with EASILY subvertible suppressable communication channels, and this is how well they do in air combat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BypnhFI7HGY&t=33s
Drones as they exist right now are for monitoring and strikes in an area whose airspace you already completely control.
This whole purchase is what we need now (now in military terms meaning within the next 5-7 years), and there's no choosing planes that don't exist** at all.
(**) Yes yes, the F-35 just barely exists -- wait, no, that's not true, currently there are 63 of them in active use, although acceptance testing and staged development are still ongoing, and costs are still a little in dispute and could change... but the American's are committed to buying near 2000 of them. Whether or not some other country or three buys 50 or 100 of them isn't going to affect the final cost all that much...
What a nice piece of MIC $hill you are.
Denmark (!!!) is going to invade Canada. Yeah, and the Vatican will invade Germany by means of his mighty swiss guards forces on mules, I guess.
Then, the nasty Russkies fly their two remaining operational bombers (build in 1950 or so) up to 300 miles to the ACTUAL Canadian borders. After having scavenged 150 rusting other bombers for spares to get these two flying. What they actually do is to send a message that the Anglosaxons should not do too much shit all over the globe (Iraq, Crackistan, Yemen, Somalia and 75 other shit places) without ever consulting the Russians. They certainly DO NOT want to actually "invade" any Canadian territory. Russia is the largest nation by geography and that means they have the most raw materials of all nations.
Dogfighting and shoulder launched SAMs are pretty much two completely different subjects.
Even the expensive shoulder-launched missiles lack the range to attack a plane at altitude. Today they're pretty much only threats during take off and landing.
Cruise missiles are extremely expensive and have the disadvantage that you need to determine the target before launch(normally). With a fighter you can launch and finalize the target during the mission. I agree that drones will eventually be everywhere, because they have most of the same capabilities. One capability that a drone might not have is absolute ability to operate through jamming. A manned plane will still be able to hit targets despite having communications jammed, that's a little more problematic with drones. Of course, military communications are already extremely hard to jam. Oh, and stealth - while there are ways to transmit 'stealthily', it's still subject to detection if the enemy is good enough. A manned plane can more realistically go radio silent than a drone.
Other questions:
Purpose: Hitting high value/mobile targets in high threat environments where you need the ability to dynamically adjust depending on changing conditions
Strategy: Get in fast, hit hard, leave fast. Be hard to see/hit even while you're there.
Cost/benefits: Debatable, but on average I'll fall back to an old statement: "The biggest waste of military spending is a military that loses"
Evasion: Not if you put $XM worth of missile systems right in it's path. However, fighters are highly mobile, so odds are 90% of the SAMs won't be in range of the plane if the mission is properly planned(the US puts a LOT of effort into this). You have to distribute your sites carefully otherwise you'll suffer from a mixture of them being avoided, hit first, distracted, decoyed, or otherwise neutralized while a plane hits the high value targets that they were protecting.
I don't read AC A human right
Before we reach that limit, the price will go high enough to make it too expensive to ever actually risk an advanced fighter in actual combat
Sounds like a great defensive strategy. It's too expensive to risk on offensive operations, yet you need advanced fighters to fight advanced fighters, so unless you can somehow afford to risk them, you aren't going to be attacking somebody with them.
I say this because it'll be too expensive to risk on offensive operations long before it's too expensive to risk on defensive ones.
I don't read AC A human right
Keep what we have; there is no cold war but we keep up a pace as if we had somebody we had to keep pace with. The "old" stuff is good enough and in high enough numbers. Work on AI drones and forget this stop gap next gen. Dumping that kind of money into AI could benefit mankind, putting it into these things is a waste.
Not that I'm for AI/remote control killer robots so cowards can rule the world, but there are plenty of rich cowards besides those in the USA who will build robot armies so they can take the diminishing resources. Yes, it is cowardly to fight by remote; war needs a high price or it becomes a game. To the psychopaths it already is a game and we have plenty of them already but when you lower the bar more people pass the threshold.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
They should bring in Patrick McLanahan at Sky Masters as a consultant.
Word is, he could provide fighters and fighter/bombers more capable than the F35 for about seventy-five dollars apiece :-)
The RIAA and MPAA, that's who.
And this is a force that defines itself by technical superiority.
You see that makes a bit of a difference. Per dollar earned, the poorer people pay more.
Therefore to raise taxes, you need to make the 5% poorer.
Idiot.
While I feel that the cost of the F-35 has become outrageous, I have a hard time believing that Boeing could do a better job of it. The F-35 is one of the most complex systems ever, and the complexity extends beyond just production, but to operations and support as well.
Sounds like a repeat of the TFX scandal back in the 60's. See: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/30/the-on-going-scandal-of-the-f-35/
Step1: Take off
Step2: Spend a minute spotting the reapers
Step3: Shoot them down (they cannot even see what's behind them and have no air-to-air capabilities)
Step4: Do some aerobatics, do a little sight-seeing, (anything to enjoy the time in the air and burn-off a little fuel so you don't have to land with full tanks and so you feel like it was worth the time to suit-up for the otherwise spectacularly short and easy flight
Step5: Land and plan a trip to the local mini-golf facility for something challenging
First, the F-17 Cobra was not the same plane as the F-18. There are actual significant differences that actually matter.
Second, The F-18 Super Hornet is not the same as the F-18 Hornet. Calling them both the "F-18" and the "Hornet" was a marketing breakthrough that let [a] the Navy buy a new more-Tomcat-like plane without drawing too much anger from certain parts of the government and [b] the same vendor provide a new plane without the usual competition. This is not as bad as it sounds: the vendor had a good product and the experience base, supply chains, manufacturing lines etc and the Navy was experienced with the similar plane, and the taxpayer avoided the extra costs and delays to get a plane to fill some of the capability voids left by retiring the Tomcats and the Intruders.
You need to find a photo of a Hornet sitting next to a Super Hornet to see just how different they are. They look superficially the same (the one being derived from the other and sharing all the aerodynamics) but the Super is a physically larger plane and there are two-seat variants for certain missions. Note to the casual observer, you can easily identify the two (when they are not sitting next to each other and size is not obvious) by looking at the shape of the intakes. The intakes of the Hornet are round and tucked-in close to the belly; the engine intakes of the Super are rectangular and seem not so tightly-nestled under the plane.
... never had an engine-out over the middle of the Pacific. Air Force guys who spend lots of time flying over land tend to like the sort of plane you listed. Naval aviators (Navy and Marine Fliers) are acutely aware that they are in a much more severe survival environment if they have to punch-out (bobbing like a cork in the tropical waters of the Pacific might seem good to you, but it's not so great if you have injuries from ejecting, or if there are Sharks about, or if you are further north and it's winter, etc. You cannot just hike to a nearby town or stretch-out under a tree for a nap). Naval aviators also need to have a very reliable bunch of jet thrust when they land (You land on a carrier with a lot of power so you have the speed and power to avoid a swim if you miss the cable... A carrier deck is very short and jet engines take too long to spool-up so you cannot land at low power setting and then jam the throttles if you miss the cable). One other thing you seem to have missed: Naval Aircraft have to have much heavier structures to handle cat shots (being thrown into the air by a mechanism shoving on the nose gear (this is an entirely different mechanical load-path from that of the engines) and slamming down onto heaving and pitching carrier decks at full throttle.
gosgog: What bother's me is, that despite the various things that have come along to keep grounding the F-35, it, according to articles I have read in Business Inquirer, is the fact that thus far, even if flying, it wont come close to doing all the things it is designed to do, and now costs 3, yes three times as much money to produce! Other items, that bother me, is its ONE COMPANY that is the producer! YEAH I KNOW as the Astronauts, always said "Here we are in Outer Space and and everything's on LOWEST BID!" Well it seems to me there are a number of things wrong here, This Giant Corporation is so deep into the pockets of those "Wunnerful Politicians", plus Military authorities assigned to work with the supplier, are then hired on retirement by said corporation...so each assignment becomes a career! And also the history of so many items that are designed to do everything...are seldom as good as those things designed to do a specific function!
Interesting article, and while I'm not exactly the biggest F-35 fan, in the article Traven leaves the reader with a false impression.
Australia hasn't "given up waiting" for the F-35. It's being hotly debated here, whether we buy more super hornets or wait for the F-35.
The Super Hornets were bought to tide us over until the F-35 is finished, and was chosen because we have existing F-18 Hornets which there is some part compatibility (though not as much as you'd think for two "hornet" "models", it's a bit misleading to link the two). But we are far from "giving up" on the F-35.
Australia may end up purchasing more Super Hornets, but just like Canada it's a short term sale. For these countries (IE, not the US) an airframe is expected to last 40 or so years (We recently retired our F-111s). The US will halt production and use of the super-hornet before Canada and Australia do. We won't be buying Super Hornets next decade, so if we purchase more now, we'll have to pay the extra costs of running mixed air wings (bigger issue for Canada/Australia than the US).
The F-35 is a safer purchase. Buying a super hornet is buying a product that will be obsolete and EOL in half the time (20 years) we want. Given the 5th gen planes China and Russia are madly working on, the super hornets may not be the deterrent we need in the near future.
Unfortunately, theres no cheap and safe solution.