Newest Stealth Fighter's Ground Attack Sensors 10 Years Behind Older Jets'

schwit1 writes with this excerpt from The Daily Beast: America's $400 billion, top-of-the-line aircraft can't see the battlefield all that well. Which means it's actually worse than its predecessors at fighting today's wars. .... The problem stems from the fact that the technology found on one of the stealth fighter's primary air-to-ground sensors—its nose-mounted Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS)—is more than a decade old and hopelessly obsolete. The EOTS, which is similar in concept to a large high-resolution infrared and television camera, is used to visually identify and monitor ground targets. The system can also mark targets for laser-guided bombs. ... Older jets currently in service with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can carry the latest generation of sensor pods, which are far more advanced than the EOTS sensor carried by the F-35. ... The end result is that when the F-35 finally becomes operational after its myriad technical problems, cost overruns, and massive delays, in some ways it will be less capable than current fighters in the Pentagon's inventory.

Comments

Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[jeffb (2.718)]

The F-35 is already a resounding success at its primary mission. I refer, of course, to pork distribution.

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[koan]

Check out this "pork distributor" (scroll down)
http://englishrussia.com/2007/...

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[korgitser]

more info on the pork: http://pando.com/2014/12/18/th...

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[ultranova]

The F-35 is already a resounding success at its primary mission. I refer, of course, to pork distribution.

US military sure takes Christmas seriously.

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[SpzToid]

Apparently alcohol played a critical part in the mission's scientific success. If only our space budget could be done on such a shoestring. No doubt our alcohol-fueled marketing lobby efforts are no where near as efficient as using alcohol for actual science.

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[Feral Nerd]

The F-35 is already a resounding success at its primary mission. I refer, of course, to pork distribution.

They should rename it to F-35 "Turkey" or maybe F-35 "Porky"?

Re: Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[jd2112]

The NSA has always been envious of Santa Claus's surveillance technology and the Air Force wants a good look at the sleigh and reindeer.

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[khallow]

Well, now we know what happens when pigs fly.

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[pigiron]

I'm not particularly in favor of the F-35 but EOTS is stealthier because it is a passive detection system that does not emit a signal. It is not always wise to do active "pinging."

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[doccus]

I'm not particularly in favor of the F-35 but EOTS is stealthier because it is a passive detection system that does not emit a signal. It is not always wise to do active "pinging."

Oh, you mean "Hello! I'm here and trying to scan your super secret base! D'ya mind?" as opposed to "ssssh.. don't wake 'em up" ;-)

Re:Doesn't matter for its primary mission.

[helsinki92]

This has very little to do with the military as a whole and everything to do with the military-industrial complex and politics. This project has made billionaires.

That's not the only way it's inferior

[Anonymous Coward]

Worse sensors, less maneuverable, requires more maintenance, extremely expensive, uses more fuel.
How is this thing an improvement exactly?

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[koan]

It allows the manufacturers to charge 3 times more for it, and sell "repair subscriptions".

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Opportunist]

It can be built far more cheaply and sold far more expensively.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Sarten-X]

The entire plane is modular, upgradeable, and works mostly the same across all three variants. The biggest benefit to the F-35 is that large portions of the training, documentation, and maintenance materials can be shared by all users of the plane, significantly reducing operating the expense to run a fleet.

TFA is really just whining about the fact that this plane took 15 years to develop, and the Pentagon's purchasing process doesn't allow revisions until after delivery. Highlighting a component that's now obsolete just makes a good headline.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Aighearach]

Disappointed how far down I had to scroll for this. In the old days, this would have been known by a high percentage of users.

They can say the sensors are "10 years behind" planes that were built 20 years ago. Because those planes were upgraded ~5 years ago, and this one has been in development for 15 years! lolol The known upgrade schedule is the only reason they can give such good numbers for how far "behind" it is. Except that it doesn't take 10 years to install the upgrade, and you don't have to wait 10 years to develop it, either. So in that sense, these new sensors are... days behind!

And when they come into service they'll have the most recent upgrades and be "ahead" of the planes they're accused here of being "behind."

So the story is true, in a meaningless pedantic way, and totally false within the context the planes exist it.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Sarten-X]

So the story is true, in a meaningless pedantic way, and totally false within the context...

Sounds perfect for Slashdot!

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[budgenator]

The problem is the aircraft totally sucks at fighting the type of wars we're most likely to be drawn into, it only kinda sorta does what an A10 does. We're much more likely to go up against jihadists than we are any modern militaries and the F22 is built for fighting modern militaries.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[plopez]

You forgot can't fly in the rain, the software will not be delivered before it officially deploys, and bursts into flames.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[plopez]

The problem is that if it takes 20 years to build an airplane that design will be obsolete by the time it gets deployed. So upgrading just increases costs. Why did it take 20 years? Isn't that a bit excessive? Why doesn't the software work? Why could it not fly in the the rain for God's sake? Why are we replacing a platform like the A-10 which is an example of a good dedicated design with a Swiss Army knife approach.

The last major attempts for a "one size fits all" muti-role fighter was the f4 which resulted in the services abandoning the approach in favor of the F18, F-15, and A-10. Like a bad penny the multi-role fighter concept just keeps coming back. We are ending up with a plane that does everything and will not be able to do any of it particularly well.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Glock27]

The last major attempts for a "one size fits all" muti-role fighter was the f4 which resulted in the services abandoning the approach in favor of the F18, F-15, and A-10. Like a bad penny the multi-role fighter concept just keeps coming back. We are ending up with a plane that does everything and will not be able to do any of it particularly well.

I see you've conveniently forgotten the F-16, which is the plane the F-35 is succeeding. The F-16 has been a resounding success. Whether that translates to the F-35 remains to be seen, but the precedent is there.

The F-15 and F-18 are also highly successful examples of multirole aircraft, FYI.

I do wish the F-22 production line hadn't been shutdown, it could have been a very successful export to Japan and Australia...plus the US could have bought a few hundred more.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[rtb61]

Because it has "Worse sensors, less maneuverable, requires more maintenance, extremely expensive, uses more fuel.", I mean like duh after all it has nothing at all to do with the defence of anything or pilot safety, it is all about psychopathic profits. As a bonus it is also getting forced upon all the US vassal states, suckers have to pay tribute for shite and they pay more tribute to vainly try to polish it. The gift 'er' graft that keeps on giving 'er' taking. Double plus bonus it will have to been replaced because it so badly under performs the opposition, real or imagined. I wonder if the US military industrial complex will actually bribe Russian and Chinese officials to make some militaristic noises in order to promote more US and US vassal state defence spending.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Sarten-X]

I have a sneaking suspicion you don't actually want answers to your questions, but I'll provide them anyway.

The problem is that if it takes 20 years to build an airplane that design will be obsolete by the time it gets deployed. So upgrading just increases costs. Why did it take 20 years? Isn't that a bit excessive?

Not really. A-10 development took 10 years, F-18 took 8, and the F-15 took 13, all measured from program start to initial production. The F-35 began its production run in 2008, 12 years after its program started. I haven't found timelines for the earlier planes' IOC milestones, but I'm under the impression that they followed similar schedules, with production running for a few years before pushing the planes out into use. Yes, the F-35's timeline is drawn out because they're trying to design three planes at once, but that was also expected from the start.

Why doesn't the software work?

Because it's not required to work until next year, at the earliest. What's in use now would be good enough to fly and work out other problems, but it's not suitable for combat use.

Why could it not fly in the the rain for God's sake?

Rain isn't the problem. It's actually lightning that the F-35 isn't currently allowed to fly near, because the initial production run did not have the lightning protection applied, as it would interfere with testing. That'd be another thing to be added for IOC.

Why are we replacing a platform like the A-10 which is an example of a good dedicated design with a Swiss Army knife approach.

Because the A-10 is an expensive one-trick pony. You call it a "Swiss Army knife", but that's really just because its one trick is very useful. The A-10 only does close air support in an area-denial situation where the most recent anti-aircraft threat was built by the Soviet Union. It takes far more training and maintenance support to operate, and that training and logistics expense is only applicable to that one aircraft.

In comparison, the bulk of the support for an F-35 is shared across the three variants, so the total cost to run the fleet is greatly reduced. A maintainer can switch variants with minimal additional training, and a single base can support any F-35 that stops by. We're also not going to be dealing with Soviet-era defenses for much longer, with China and Russia making gestures that they're willing to sell modern SAMs to anyone who opposes Western interests.

The last major attempts for a "one size fits all" muti-role fighter was the f4 which resulted in the services abandoning the approach in favor of the F18, F-15, and A-10.

...After only 36 years, for the US. The F-4 is still in service in other countries, primarily those that don't need to worry about modern SAMs. The F-4 was originally not a multi-role fighter. It was designed as a fighter-bomber, reworked to be an interceptor, and finally upgraded to do close-air support almost a decade later.

Like a bad penny the multi-role fighter concept just keeps coming back. We are ending up with a plane that does everything and will not be able to do any of it particularly well.

Just well enough to get the job done. What we've learned since the Gulf War is that fighting is expensive and complicated. To support the dozens of different single-role planes, we have to mobilize thousands of support crew to ensure that we can support any kind of mission we need. A multi-role fighter, designed to meet the potential needs, will still be able to handle lesser threats. The F-35 is being built to handle anything China or Russia might produce, but it will be perfectly capable of supporting campaigns in Africa, the Middle East, or North Korea.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[plopez]

AFAIK, the F16 and F15 never had Naval variants. Or STOL.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[plopez]

The F4 differed by being used by Air Force, Navy, and Marines. This created problems due to differing operating environments and missions. Because of that a large amount of customization occurred any way. Interchangeability soon began to degrade and retrofitting was required. The big cost savings were an illusion. Some examples were different engines and refueling systems between the Navy and Air Force. Once you change engines and fuel systems you have lost a large amount of interchangeability. The same thing will probably happen with the F35 where demands are made to customize it per service branch so that eventually only the exterior looks of the fighter will be the same but all the internals will differ. You will end up with 3 different aircraft anyway. Three different variants meeting three different requirement sets with three different test and upgrade cycles. You might as well produce three different aircraft.

The F4 was supposed to work with the Navy, Air Force, and Marines. But it worked so poorly requiring so much rework that instead of ordering one aircraft in the 70's for a replacement several came on line filling different needs for the different services. The Swiss Army knife approach was abandoned for close to 30 years.

So what if the A-10 is a one trick pony? If it is what we really need then go with it. It does it well and can survive a hell of a lot of abuse, the infrastructure is in place, and it is proven. Use the right tool for the job.

I find saying that the software is not supposed to work until next year disingenuous. The deadline already slipped. You make it sound as if everything is on track.

Even adjusted for inflation cost over runs are at about 100% Bankrupting the nation will do far more damage to it than an enemy state could.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Sarten-X]

The F4 differed by being used by Air Force, Navy, and Marines. This created problems due to differing operating environments and missions. Because of that a large amount of customization occurred any way. Interchangeability soon began to degrade and retrofitting was required.

So it seems the branches have different needs, and really need three different variants of the same aircraft, so their necessary differences aren't all trying to compete. Perhaps we could have one with room for an internal cannon, one with STOVL capability, and one with folding wings and an arresting hook. I wonder where we could find such a craft?

So what if the A-10 is a one trick pony? If it is what we really need then go with it.

I'm going to have to defer to the Pentagon, who clearly believe the A-10 is not what's needed for the future, rather than an armchair commander who thinks that the 1970s were good enough.

I find saying that the software is not supposed to work until next year disingenuous. The deadline already slipped. You make it sound as if everything is on track.

I'm not privy to the discussion behind changing deadlines, but in two decades as a software developer, I've never seen a project that was at deliverable quality prior to the main testing cycle.

As planned, though, the first software version to deliver basic air-to-air and air-to-ground capability will be Block 2B in mid-2015. Full capability won't be supported until Block 3F in mid-2017. In short, software development is a difficult problem for a plane that is significantly computer-controlled. Go figure.

Even adjusted for inflation cost over runs are at about 100%[.] Bankrupting the nation will do far more damage to it than an enemy state could.

The total program cost is estimated at $400 billion. Spread that out over the 18 years it's been running, and you end up with less than 1% of the federal government's annual budget. That's hardly enough to cause noticeable disruption, let alone bankruptcy.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[currently_awake]

Also the F35 isn't designed for ground attack so this doesn't matter. Radar stealth doesn't work when everyone attacking you us using optical or IR guidance. We can assume the A10 will continue to own the ground attack market for the next thirty years.

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Kubla Kahhhn!]

Great stuff in the rest of this conversation.It's rare to scroll down and feel like it was worth my time. Thank you.

Re: That's not the only way it's inferior

[Anonymous Coward]

One percent of the entire federal budget for eighteen years isn't that big of a deal to you? That's insane.

Re: That's not the only way it's inferior

[Sarten-X]

I didn't say it wasn't a big deal. I said it isn't enough to cause noticeable disruption or bankruptcy of a government, because that's what plopez seemed so concerned about.

For what it's worth, getting the price up to 1% is also unrealistic, but it was an easy calculation to make to show that it's not a threat. Really, the $400 billion price tag is an estimate for the entire program, extending slightly past final delivery in 2037. That works out to only about $10 billion per year (not accounting for inflation), which is roughly 0.3% of a year's federal budget. That's less than the amount the government loses due to the home sale capital gains tax credit, but nobody whines about those stability-threatening home sellers, do they?

Re:That's not the only way it's inferior

[Glock27]

AFAIK, the F16 and F15 never had Naval variants. Or STOL.

The F-18 obviously did have a naval variant. We've had exactly one VTOL/STOL aircraft, the Harrier, so that's largely an unknown. Regardless, adding those capabilities to a basic airframe is far easier than designing and procuring an entirely different plane.

The F-22 would have been a great carrier plane, it would have provided both interceptor and strike roles nicely. Sadly, sanity has not prevailed.

All that said, the most basic definition of "multirole" is fighter versus bomber, and in that context what I said is entirely pertinent.

Fail. Profit!

[gestalt_n_pepper]

It's the military industrial complex way!

Re:Fail. Profit!

[0123456]

Actually, if that were the case, the predecessors wouldn't be as capable.

The predecessors actually have to do something in the real world, like bombing third-world peasants, while the F-35 sits in a hangar. Besides, who's really going to risk a $200,000,000 jet to blow up a $10,000 pickup with a couple of guys with RPGs in the back?

Re:Fail. Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we get out of the war business. Then you don't have to worry about so many people being killed.

I'm sure you'll hide behind some bullshit asshole justification for being the world's police, but thinking beings won't buy it.

Re:Fail. Profit!

[pepty]

The predecessors actually have to do something in the real world, like bombing third-world peasants, while the F-35 sits in a hangar. Besides, who's really going to risk a $200,000,000 jet to blow up a $10,000 pickup with a couple of guys with RPGs in the back?

That problem was solved over 10 years ago by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney: if the country you have a beef with doesn't have any decent targets, attack a country with bigger targets instead.

Re:Fail. Profit!

[plopez]

Why not use a drone instead?

Kill it already, PLEASE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

My God, the JSF is such a pork-rolled boondoggle. Something that does everything will do none of it well, and this is no exception.

The JSF is nothing more than a bunch of pork-barrel projects rolled up into a hopelessly useless flying piece of shit. It's years behind schedule, many times over budget, and does not do nearly what it was advertised to do.

Just kill it already. Kill it with fire.

Re:Kill it already, PLEASE!!!

[Justpin]

You will get your wish... After they've added three or four zeros to the cost of the project.

Re:Kill it already, PLEASE!!!

[fustakrakich]

It is very similar to the 'Homer'. That is what they should have named it.

Huh

[koan]

Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade? No money in that?
And why use human pilots for combat craft, a drone could accelerate and turn under massive G forces and still function where a human would black out.

1st: make a fast, sturdy air frame with a reliable engine, 2nd make all electronics and weapons modular easy to replace and upgrade, 3rd get rid of the human.

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm drones could be hacked and turned against the owner. so build a very large drone fleet and say goodbye to your country

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade? No money in that?

Modularity requires standardized interfaces that don't change rapidly. There's a lot of standardization already, in the form of things like the MIL-STD-1553 bus, but that only goes so far. And these things are so complex they take forever to develop and integrate, so those standards wind up getting locked in early. So for a project like this, you're limited to pre-iPhone tech regarding the interfaces.

And why use human pilots for combat craft, a drone could accelerate and turn under massive G forces and still function where a human would black out.

Because a human pilot still has a far larger field of view and spatial awareness, can carry out complex operations with limited or no contact with controllers, and can't be jammed. There's a whole class of problems involving protecting that communications link: you could use an omnidirectional antenna, but that makes your drone vulnerable to anti-radiation missiles, or you could use a high-gain satellite dish, but that will only have a limited field of view and require a pointing mechanism to keep it aimed at the sat at all times, which is difficult to implement in a craft pulling 10+ Gs.

Re:Huh

[ArcadeMan]

1st: make a fast, sturdy air frame with a reliable engine
2nd: make all electronics and weapons modular easy to replace and upgrade
3rd: get rid of the human

These sound like instructions for the machines, are you trying to kill us all?

Re:Huh

[Charcharodon]

They are modular and there is an insane amount of money in it. Never heard of the military industrial complex?

The reality is that good enough is good enough. Unlike in the movies the reality is that the military doesn't upgrade everything just because something new and shiny came out. The computer that you are typing on is more advanced than the computers in even the latest fighters. The difference is the ones in the aircraft are rarely fail and can operate in very harsh environments.

Combat drones don't need to dogfight, that is also Hollywood nonsense. They are small, impossible to see, and will shoot you down before you even know they are there, and they are already building them.

The JSF is the last project of the old guard who still think a man needs to be at the stick of the aircraft. Once the over 50 crowd in congress dies/retires you see a drastic move away from manned aircraft.

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but MIL-STD-1553 is already 30 years old and doesn't support industry standards like UVC, or IIDC DCAM.

Fortunately for future proofing, the sixth generation fighter due in 2030(ish) will be based on a military derivative of IEEE1394.

Re:Huh

[Assmasher]

Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade? No money in that?

They are modular, and explicitly intended for upgrades. Easy? That depends upon your definition of 'easy' - if you don't mind spending money, it's easy.

And why use human pilots for combat craft, a drone could accelerate and turn under massive G forces and still function where a human would black out.

Response time, situational awareness, the difficulty is maintaining a connection during electronic warfare, et cetera, ad nauseum. I think that there are quite a few mission profiles that would suite remote operation, but air superiority isn't one of them (not yet.)

1st: make a fast, sturdy air frame with a reliable engine, 2nd make all electronics and weapons modular easy to replace and upgrade, 3rd get rid of the human.

Like the WOPR? ;)

Re:Huh

[Assmasher]

The Air Superiority mission will retain a pilot for a long time. Recon/Air-to-Ground/Resupply - these will all be primarily remote operated (they're often automated now.)

Re:Huh

[TFAFalcon]

So why aren't the older fighters limited to the same tech? Their interfaces must be even older.

Re:Huh

[koan]

If they are modular why are the using old tech that they say is sub standard?
I think you will find that though the optics or radar could be removed, the replacement would have to come from the same company, proprietary no doubt, and the platform its self would limit what the replacement would be.

Kind of like buying an Apple computer. *smirk*

Response time, situational awareness, the difficulty is maintaining a connection during electronic warfare, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Computers respond faster than humans, computers can be more "situational aware" in a variety of environments humans couldn't even function in, and "electronic warfare" would effect a human piloted craft as well, an EMP would shut down the airplane making the human effectively useless.
All the gear the human depends on to fly the craft would be useless as well.

My guess is in 10 years this argument will be moot, as autonomous drones will prove they are the better choice for everything.

Re:Huh

[Zak3056]

Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade?

That's the problem with being part of the Inner Sphere.

Never understood why the omnimech was supposed to be such a big deal... The battle master carried a ppc around in its hand for centuries.

Re:Huh

[lucm]

This is not a technology problem, this is military politics. Basically the USAF brass doesn't want to do air-ground missions, they want to do air combat and stealth bombing because it's a lot cooler and less dangerous (for the pilots) since there's basically no serious opposition. So they sabotage every aspect of their capabilities that would allow them to do air-ground missions, like pillaging the A-10 supply chain or doing this kind of cheap stunt with the F-35, hoping that drone technology will be mature soon enough to do the dirty jobs.

Anyone who has worked on large IT projects has seen this kind of thing. The big cheese and the overpaid consultants focus on the cool but useless features that look good in PowerPoint presentations and during board meetings (like a fancy iPad-optimized dashboard or an accountant-customizable expense approval workflow that will never be used) while the really important parts like integration or bulk updates, which will be used on an hourly basis, are neglected and downplayed because they are not sexy and will be a nightmare to operate.

Re:Huh

[0123456]

Isn't the F-35 heavily reliant on networked sensors to detect targets, since using radar immediately tells the other guys where it is? Doesn't that have precisely the same jamming problem as drone links?

Sure, it can keep flying without those links, but that doesn't help if it can't shoot anything.

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell is everybody so in love with the "get rid of the human" philosophy around here? The ability to take g-forces isn't really all it's cracked up to be, so please quit using that as some kind of excuse for your uniformed opinions. I'd rather have humans involved for a number of reasons--the first of which is that if you have humans involved, the decision to go to war actually becomes a hard one. It should be a hard decision.

Second, humans can make decisions and use judgment. No, your artificial intelligence and sensors and all that crap can't even remotely compare outside of some carefully crafted scenarios.

Related to #2, human pilots would, as a rule, refuse illegal orders. That's very important. Look at how many civilian casualties our allegedly targeted drone strikes into countries we're not at war with have cost. You think we'd have done that with human pilots? We did do that with human pilots in taking out bin Laden, and there were even international relations problems that arose out of that--just as there should be. (While that was a mission that I personally would have authorized and felt good about having done so, essentially invading a friendly nation even for that purpose is something that's supposed to give somebody pause for a lot of thought.)

You're about to reply that drones are controlled by humans. Obviously not very well given the results to date, and I'm not referring to their ability to remote control a machine.

So how about everybody just stop trying to get rid of everybody else's job for a change? Technology and my fellow technologists really disgust me sometimes.

BTW, none of that should be considered an endorsement of the F-35 pork distribution project. This crap has been tried before (with the F-4). Didn't work then, and it won't work now. The one notion that just doesn't seem to occur to everybody is "Hey, we've got these great airframe designs in the F-15, F-16, and F-18, etc., We know how to build them, we know how to fix them, we know everything about how they fly, and we know that nothing in the world can stand up to them right now. So how about we retire the old ones and build more of those with better engines and upgraded avionics and such and save a bunch of money in the process until we need something else?"

Oh, and get rid of the drones. One of the worst ideas in the history of the human race, and considering that sorry history I know I'm saying a lot.

Re:Huh

[Sarten-X]

If they are modular why are the using old tech that they say is sub standard?

TFA answers your question:

One of the JSF officials agreed that the EOTS does not speak well for the Pentagon’s ability to buy new weapons. “EOTS is a poster child for one of the ills of the acquisition process,” the official said. “Because all of the subsystems depend on each other, requirements aren’t allowed to change after the design is ‘finalized.’ It’s not a big deal, unless it takes 20 years to field the jet then it’s a problem.”

I've worked for defense projects, and this is accurate. Once the Pentagon approves a design, the "delivery" phase has to happen before the "revise" phase. The only exception is if the government wants to change requirements, but that puts the bad PR on politicians, rather than on the contractor.

The F-35 doesn't hit initial operating capacity (IOC) until mid-2015, at which point the military will actually start flying the plane, and report back with deficiencies (like outdated avionics) to be fixed. Yes, it comes at a price, as several hundred planes have been built to the original specs, but Congress accepts that cost to keep up the charade that their IOC requirements were reasonable.

I think you will find that though the optics or radar could be removed, the replacement would have to come from the same company, proprietary no doubt, and the platform its self would limit what the replacement would be.

Not really. The F-35 airframe is mostly just a shell around the modular components, which already come from many different companies. The reason switching vendors doesn't often happen is the same as in any other manufacturing project. There's a significant retooling expense while a new supplier familiarizes themselves with the platform and interfaces, even though they are usually standardized and government-specified.

Computers respond faster than humans, computers can be more "situational aware" in a variety of environments humans couldn't even function in, and "electronic warfare" would effect a human piloted craft as well, an EMP would shut down the airplane making the human effectively useless.

None of that really matters. A computer isn't trusted to make judgement calls like a human, and the military still likes having pilots making tactical decisions while they're out in the battlefield, with a full awareness of the reality that they're raining death on other people. That's why the Air Force still wants humans in the cockpit, preferring drones only for recon and very limited air strikes.

Any concerns about an EMP are moot. All electronics are shielded, regardless of the nature of the pilot.

Re:Huh

[koan]

Good information, however:

A computer isn't trusted to make judgement calls like a human

I think that's going to change in our lifetime, maybe sooner than we think, and in air combat unleashing a bot is less of a problem than say, unleashing one in a city.

Only valid targets in the air.

Besides no one looks to a robot for judgement calls, they are looking at them for kill efficiency.

Re:Huh

[Aighearach]

Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade?

They are, you just didn't understand that the story is crap and wasn't trying to inform you.

Re:Huh

[Sarten-X]

Only valid targets in the air.

Those shot down in friendly-fire accidents would likely disagree. Even in a war zone, there's other friendly and civilian aircraft in the skies.

Modern air combat is very different from the dancing dogfights of the World Wars. Nowadays pilots first rely on electronic identification (radar and radio signatures), visual identification, and tactical analysis. That last point is something computers are terrible at, and not particularly promising for the near future. A human pilot can be told in a briefing what new tactics an enemy is using, while a computer will require a more time-costly reconfiguration, at best. While identifying a potential enemy, pilots rely heavily on the as-yet-unsurpassed signal processing capacity of a device known as a "human brain", to determine whether a particular observation is just sensor noise or actually something meaningful. When a mistake costs lives, knowing what's a useful identifier is crucial, and computers just aren't flexible enough for that yet.

Once an identification is made, the fighter can deploy weapons, adjust speed, and maneuver around, while still outside the range of enemy fighters. By the time the enemy even knows he's been spotted, missiles are locked and inbound. Countermeasures have a chance of confusing the missile, but counter-countermeasures reduce that chance, especially when paired with the fighter's sensor suite, now observing from a different angle. If a modern air fight requires extreme maneuverability or multiple attack runs, something has gone horribly wrong.

Besides no one looks to a robot for judgement calls, they are looking at them for kill efficiency.

That's why we use nukes all the time now, right?

Re:Huh

[koan]

Tell that to the others that replied with far more information and obviously a far better understanding.

Re:Huh

[koan]

I got this far...

Even in a war zone, there's other friendly and civilian aircraft in the skies.

Don't need to bother with the rest since your entire premise was wrong to start with.
In a war zone civilian traffic is routed around it, in the case of MH17, which I'm sure you either used or will use as an example.

this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Civilian aircraft are simply not allowed into designated war zones, in addition you entirely discount the ability to distinguish between friend and foe accurately, which is not working so well currently because of...anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Humans.

Re:Huh

[drinkypoo]

The F-35 airframe is mostly just a shell around the modular components, which already come from many different companies.

The airframe is a major component just like our skin is a major component. Not only does it hold the other components in, but in this case it's also responsible for the primary distinguishing feature of the aircraft. Redesigning it to fit new stuffins' would be nontrivial, though feasible.

Re:Huh

[drinkypoo]

Never understood why the omnimech was supposed to be such a big deal... The battle master carried a ppc around in its hand for centuries.

Inner sphere refits took hours to days, omnimech upgrades were supposed to be something for which you'd just roll up a big truck or walk the 'mech up to a gantry and swap weapons in minutes. So omnimechs could be customized for each loadout but not IS 'mechs. All 'mechs are limited as to their maximum carrying capacity in-hand.

Re:Huh

[Sarten-X]

You should try reading more, rather than aborting the first time something doesn't match your armchair-commander factoids.

There is always a risk of civilian air traffic in war zones, usually on a flight path to "get the hell out". Such flights are closely monitored, but they're still a concern for patrols. There's also noncombatant humanitarian aid, neutral observers, and allied flights that don't always communicate properly. Even though outside traffic is routed around combat areas, pilots still need to be aware of every friend and foe in the area.

in addition you entirely discount the ability to distinguish between friend and foe accurately, which is not working so well currently because of...Humans.

...and until humans are entirely out of the war, automatic detection will not work as flawlessly as you seem to think. Humans are responsible for maintaining and turning on the identification transponders, humans are responsible for programming the computers, and humans are responsible for all of the nuance of political situations. Even if we assume the computer's programmed correctly, that's not much help if the threat's identifier is malfunctioning. Would a computer of current technology recognize that a plane making a 120-degree turn could be trying to signal for help? It's not a common signal, but as a last-hope effort to identify yourself, it's an option. A human pilot could observe that the threat is making no aggressive motions, know the relative comparison between the two aircraft, any other threats or targets in the area, and choose to cautiously stay distant while watching to see if the pilot makes more 120-degree turns. That kind of decision requires a situational awareness that computers do not currently offer, nor have I seen any indication that upcoming technology will support it.

Re: Huh

[The Grim Reefer]

How low do you think their typical operational ceiling will be? These aren't bi-planes flying during WWI. While the F-35 is supposed to be able to take over for the A-10 in close air support, it's not even remotely designed for it, and will never be effective at it. The F-35 is not as robust, cannot fly as slow, nor loiter nearly as long. In the end it either won't be used in that role, or will be discontinued in that role as it will be a miserable failure at close air support. In it's typical operational altitude, smoke will not be and issue.

Re:Huh

[srmalloy]

Basically the USAF brass doesn't want to do air-ground missions...

As an illustration of this attitude, there was a slogan during the development of the F-15 Eagle -- "Not a pound for air-to-ground". And look at all of the upgrades and rework to make the Strike Eagle when it turned out that the Air Force didn't have the planes to conduct the CAS operations they had to do (because they continue to hoard non-Navy fixed-wing air assets to themselves, rather than letting the Army operate their own fixed-wing CAS units, even though the USAF doesn't want the CAS role), so they had to turn the F-15 into a mud mover.

Re:Huh

[Zak3056]

Yeah, I get the in universe explanation, what I question is why this was an issue in the first place. A mech carrying around a giant pistol should be all the inspiration you need to get from point a to point b , and it's not like it's a big engineering challenge given that you already managed to modularize the thing into a pistol form factor to begin with (especially when you civilization is keeping FTL travel going with spot and balling wire... You've got to have some seriously talented engineers).

Maybe they just had really aggressive patent attorneys in the star league era? Like "on the internet" patents turned into "on a battlemech" patents and ComStar held the IP with multi century terms, while the clans were the actual successor (no pun intended) in interest... The whole battle of Tukayyid thing was actually over who owned the omnimech rights, which is why they called it a trial. Make about as much sense as the actual storyline, I guess.

Re:Huh

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, I get the in universe explanation, what I question is why this was an issue in the first place.

Because 'mech weapons generate heat, mostly, and ammo takes up a lot of space. The omnimechs and their weapons were designed for modularity. Ask yourself whether we have any vehicles onto which you could rapidly mount a GAU-8 that aren't an A-10...

Re:Huh

[Aighearach]

Tell that to the others that replied with far more information and obviously a far better understanding.

lol and you managed to say even less. But I couldn't let that stand.

Re:Huh

[Zak3056]

Heat problem must be already solved, see the battlemaster ppc example. Also, while I can't imagine mounting an avenger cannon in a vehicle other than a warthog, I also can't imagine turning it into a giant pistol, either. I imagine that if I could do one, the other would be, if not easily achievable, at least something a good engineer skilled in the art could accomplish.

You know, I haven't had a conversation like this since rec.games.mecha died off. .. Brings back memories.

Re:Huh

[uninformedLuddite]

Any concerns about an EMP are moot. All electronics are shielded, regardless of the nature of the pilot.

EMP is scary. I read about it in a SHTF survival story. We need to be more fearful of EMP.

Re:Huh

[Hognoxious]

Dogfight? Did we get transported back to 1942?

Re:Huh

[Hognoxious]

LOL. I always said drones were like reusable cruise missiles.

I guess you could also argue that cruise missiles are disposable drones.

they'll never make a module for the only fighter

[raymorris]

Now that many different planes are being replaced with the F-35, I'm sure they'll NEVER make an upgraded camera module specifically for it. It's not like they ever upgraded the cameras on anybof the aircraft it's replacing.

Oh space. There's no room for a high res camera. Looking at the 4mm X 4mm , 8MP camera on my phone, I'm having trouble believing that they'll never be able to fit a high-res camera in the plane.

Re:This is why we need a war

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to get them off the ground before they can start dropping out of the sky.

FFS just keep the Warthog

[rossdee]

The A10 is the best ground support aircraft ever made

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[CrimsonAvenger]

The Air Force doesn't want to keep the A10.

Alas, the A10 suffers one irredeemable fault - its only function is to support the Army.

Which function the Air Force disapproves of on a visceral level.

A multi-function aircraft, while it is handicapped by being ABLE to support the Army, has the virtue of being able to NOT support the Army. Hence the F16, F35, etc.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[91degrees]

Given the variety of types of equipment and roles needed by the modern armed forces, I wonder if it makes sense to have different services rather than a combined armed forces. When a plausible mission is a sea launched ground attack with tactical air support I have to wonder why we're trying to get three services, each with historical antagonism towards the other, to work together rather than simply have a force with ships, planes and armoured cars.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[OolimPhon]

I have to wonder why we're trying to get three services, each with historical antagonism towards the other, to work together rather than simply have a force with ships, planes and armoured cars.

We do!

They are called the Marines...

Ta Da!

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[bistromath007]

The F-15 is better at CAS than the A-10. It can loiter much longer and see much better. Also, it's not an idiotic Red Scare fueled hack job that dumps all the gross bullshit from firing its gun directly into its engines. The A-10 is seriously a stupid piece of shit. It wouldn't even be particularly useful if the giant columns of Russian tanks it was supposed to fuck up suddenly materialized, because the GAU-8 isn't nearly effective enough at defeating modern armor.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[SylvesterTheCat]

Yes, that is very true. The USMC is the closest we have ever had to what you are proposing.

I think that merely changing the organization for service-oriented (i.e. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard) to one service with "specialty branches" (or whatever you want to call them) would not change anything. Sure, it may offer some small amount of consolidation, but that is what DoD was created to do. (Yeah, I know... obvious jokes will follow). Seriously, though, as long as the combined size is about the same and the respective size of the service branches (or "specialty branches") stays the same, all you will have done is to (slightly) rearrange the deck chairs.

On a positive note, having been in the Army National Guard for over 25 years (including overseas deployments), I have worked with both the Navy and the Air Force. I cannot speak specifically to the "historical antagonism" the gf mentioned, but I can say that overall, everybody I worked with generally wanted to do a good job without deference to service branch. That especially includes a USAF NCO who I knew for a short period of time and was killed by the enemy.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[Justpin]

A less efficient pork barrelling machine that's what!

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[Justpin]

Can't be kept. Many of the companies that made parts for the A-10 no longer exist. Which means you either have to cannibalise old airframes or you have to machine a part from scratch.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[Opportunist]

Without wanting to pull a Godwin here, but one of the things that brought the Third Reich down was the infighting between the various branches of the armed forces, always trying to one-up the other ones to get more funding...

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[ISoldat53]

ARE YOU KIDDING. Do you know how many generals you would have to fire if you did that? The generals, and their owners, are not going to stand for that.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[lucm]

Look at the French. They have FOUR services (the 4th one is the Gendarmerie, which is basically the police outside big cities). And in most cities the firefighters are part of the army too.

And yet, this huge military organization works smoothly, with optimally managed funds and not a single instance of inter-services snafu. It's a terrific model that any army should follow.

Just kidding.

 

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[DerekLyons]

Seriously, though, as long as the combined size is about the same and the respective size of the service branches (or "specialty branches") stays the same, all you will have done is to (slightly) rearrange the deck chairs.

Indeed. And your warfare specialists will still be specialists... an infantryman will still be an infantryman, and you'll still need differently trained techs to work on the gas turbines in a tank or on the gas turbines of a tin can or a cruiser. A land based pilot still won't be a carrier based aviator. Etc... etc... You *might* save little bit on the aviation side by only having one school for some of the subsystems on the JSF, or only one basic electronics school, but that's about it.

I don't think the great-grandparent grasps the degree of specialization the various sub-components of and individuals in the services have.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[lucm]

On a positive note, having been in the Army National Guard for over 25 years (including overseas deployments), I have worked with both the Navy and the Air Force. I cannot speak specifically to the "historical antagonism" the gf mentioned, but I can say that overall, everybody I worked with generally wanted to do a good job without deference to service branch.

It's always like that. People on the ground and people in the top slots always cooperate, it's somewhere in the middle of the food chain that backstabbing and cheap politics occur. Be it intelligence services, law enforcement agencies, or departments within a large company, people who are close to the value stream or to strategy always work together while people in middle management or execution planning positions tend to focus on their small kingdom.

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[cheesybagel]

I would like actual facts to back your claim that the F-15 has better loiter time. Plus the F-15 does not handle that well at low altitude flight which regardless of what the Air Force says is important. Sometimes it is not easy to tell the target apart from your own troops and there is a larger time lag to hit the target when you are higher up. Also I bet those cannon rounds are lot cheaper than smart bombs. An important factor to consider when your enemy is using mostly infantry and technicals rather than modern combat vehicles.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[PPH]

Which function the Air Force disapproves of on a visceral level.

Solution: Give the mission to th Army Air Corps.

If the air force doesn't want to work with the other services, we'll take their responsibilities and give them to other organizations.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[fnj]

Which is EXACTLY why the Army should operate its own ground support wing, just like the Marines do. Both the Army and Marines operate their own rotary wing aircraft, but only the Marines operate their own fixed wing aircraft too. That is one reason that when you need some ass seriously kicked, you ALWAYS call the Marines. Sea-air-land, all under unified command.

It doesn't have to be like this. Make some policy command decisions, re-legislate if you have to, and voila. This would help the Marines too. It is probably way beyond their means to retool and build more A-10's, or build a new plane like it, but you spread that cost out to the Army as well and you can do a lot more.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[dryeo]

It's not a Godwin if it's on topic which it is. I'll add the other problem that they had was focusing on expensive hi-tech instead of lots of lower tech. How much did they waste on the V2, good tanks that were vastly out numbered and so on.
America and its allies who are forced to trail along are making the same mistake.
Personally I'm pissed off as a Canadian that our government signed onto the F35 program with no bidding or such, totally lied about the costs, when what we really need is a plane that can fly in arctic conditions and keep flying if it loses an engine.

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[Anonymous Coward]

>I would like actual facts to back your claim that the F-15 has better loiter time.

It just does. It was designed for deep interdiction flights. The F-15E carries ~35Klbs of gas in a typical configuration. That's more then the A-10 weighs with gas in it. The F-15E is also way more efficient at high altitude, which is where both aircraft spend most of their time so they don't get shot and can meet up with the tanker. It doesn't really matter, since flights these days are limited by crew endurance, not fuel.

>Plus the F-15 does not handle that well at low altitude flight which regardless of what the Air Force says is important.

It actually does. It's a rough ride, but it was designed for a low level penetration into enemy territory. Not that it matters, because neither the A-10 or F-15E will operate at low altitudes.

>Sometimes it is not easy to tell the target apart from your own troops and there is a larger time lag to hit the target when you are higher up.

That's a funny comment. Take a look at Blue on Blue incidents by the USAF in the past couple conflicts and you might notice a theme. A-10's have shot at a lot of friendlies because they couldn't ID their target properly (and, correspondingly, they've not shot at a lot of bad guys because they couldn't PID). The F-15 with a pod at 35K feet sees way better and way more then an A-10 at 2K feet without one. Which, again, doesn't really matter because A-10's always carry a targeting pod now and hang out at 20K feet. At least the E has a WSO who's job it is to figure out who's who before they start shooting.

>Also I bet those cannon rounds are lot cheaper than smart bombs. An important factor to consider when your enemy is using mostly infantry and technicals rather than modern combat vehicles.

They're more expensive then you'd think. Depending on how you do the accounting a full magazine of 30mm CM costs between 40K and 80K dollars. There are a lot of hidden costs there to, since proficiency with the gun requires a lot more training time. And there's no gurentee that the gun rounds are going to kill your target. Experience tells that the best way to kill bad guys, regardless of what they're in or where they are, is to drop a whole pile of high explosives on them. Bombs do that quickly and efficiently.

Though it doesn't really matter; A-10's aren't doing gun runs. They drop the same JDAM's that the F-15E's do. They just do it a lot slower, and do nothing else.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[ColdWetDog]

Personally I'm pissed off as a Canadian that our government signed onto the F35 program with no bidding or such, totally lied about the costs, when what we really need is a plane that can fly in arctic conditions and keep flying if it loses an engine.

They've already got one, you see. And it's very nice.

Probably would womp an F35 in Arctic air support missions.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[CrimsonAvenger]

Both the Army and Marines operate their own rotary wing aircraft, but only the Marines operate their own fixed wing aircraft too

It should be noted that every time the Army tried to get its own fixed wing aircraft for ground support, the Air Force blocked the move.

And the only reason the Air Force doesn't do the same to the Marines is that the Marines are NAVY. And the Navy never let the Air Force camel's nose into their tent.

For those who aren't big on inter-service rivalry history, this all grew out of the squabbling between the Bomber Generals and everyone else in the WW2 Army Air Corps.

The Bomber Generals believed that the Army (and Navy) were no longer necessary, because any enemy could be defeated by just bombing him into oblivion. They didn't even see a burning need for fighters, since the massed bombers could defend themselves nicely.

After WW2, when the Army Air Corps started pushing for their own branch of service (US Air Force), they very conveniently overlooked things like the Schweinfurt Raid (bombers only, no fighter escort, since the P47 and P51 weren't ready, lots of bombers didn't come home. Not quite a majority didn't come home, but it was close), and demanded control of ALL fixed-wing aviation. The Navy told them to f**k off, but the Army was forced to give it all up.

Since then, every time something new that could fly came along, the Air Force has tried their best to make sure it was forbidden to the Army. They failed with helicopters, but they've always succeeded with armed fixed wing planes....

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[angel'o'sphere]

No idea about the F-15, but your claims about the A-10, especially its gun versus modern tank armor: is simply wrong.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[Opportunist]

Well, the US (unlike the Reich) pretty much has to go high-tech with its army, simply because high losses would quickly mean that support for any kind of war would decline sharply. Not really a problem for a dictatorship, but certainly one in a democracy. So what the US strives for is a high-tech army that reduces the risk of losing personnel and instead favors spending money. Which would be a great thing if it was done with the main goal of protecting soldier lives rather than keeping home front war support up. But not the point right now.

So in general it's not a bad idea to use better technology instead of more manpower. The problem arises when your enemy can do the opposite with impunity as we see in asymmetric warfare. The US need a huge infrastructure and logistics apparatus to keep its military going, the overhead is incredible. It boggles the mind to ponder just what is necessary to get the average US soldier in the field supplied. With this in mind it can be successful to actually wage war against such a huge military machine, simply by spending a tiny fraction of its expenses and hence weighing it down under its own weight. If putting a gun in the hands of some fanatics is all you have to do to "force" the US to field aircraft carriers and deploy field HQs in some godforsaken corner of the planet (which both needs incredibly complicated logistics and tons of resources to keep running), you can get the international warfare equivalent of a reflected DDoS running: Invest minimal resources that forces your target to waste more resources than they can afford.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[0123456]

Well, the US (unlike the Reich) pretty much has to go high-tech with its army, simply because high losses would quickly mean that support for any kind of war would decline sharply.

Only for wars that never had any popular support in the first place.

And America can't afford to lose its high-tech aircraft, because they're so expensive.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[Opportunist]

Don't worry, it won't. The very LAST thing an enemy in your asymmetric war would want is you to stop using them. They cost insane amounts of money to keep them flying. Every hour that thing is in the air is running for your enemy.

Again, the asymmetric war is not about killing Americans. It is about making them spend more money on its military than it can. Interestingly enough, exactly the same strategy the US employed against Russia in the cold war.

And we know how that ended.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[91degrees]

I don't think the great-grandparent grasps the degree of specialization the various sub-components of and individuals in the services have.

It's more that I don't see how the Army can have the level of generalisation enough to have an air corps, and an engineering corps, but somehow running their own A-10 division is suddenly out of scope. The division seems arbitrary.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[DerekLyons]

I don't think the great-grandparent grasps the degree of specialization the various sub-components of and individuals in the services have.

It's more that I don't see how the Army can have the level of generalisation enough to have an air corps, and an engineering corps, but somehow running their own A-10 division is suddenly out of scope. The division seems arbitrary.

Like I said... you don't grasp the level of specialization. Army engineers (which isn't the same thing as the Corps of Engineers) are specialists in battlefield engineering. The aviation corps (like the tank corps) is specialized to Army needs (and isn't quite the same thing as the TAC air groups of the USAF and USN).

As far as the A-10 goes, yes, the division is somewhat arbitrary and dates back to the Key West Agreement (and subsequent updates) that split the various roles and missions of the armed services up to prevent duplication. Any system is going to have edge cases, and the A-10 is one of them.

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[cheesybagel]

The F-15 has engines optimized for interdiction so long loiter times at slow speed over the same area were *not* on the design plan. I ask you for a source with actual numbers on loiter time and you give me nothing. The specific fuel consumption on the F-15 engines is a lot higher. 0.76 lb/(lbfh) vs 0.37 lb/(lbfh) on the A-10 engines. Plus the fuel load you are talking about for the F-15 seems like its with external fuel tanks which mean if the airplane gets one shot in them it will just flame up. The F-15 can't do slow low-level altitude passes at the same speeds and still hit a target with the cannon at the same level of accuracy. The plane would stall.

It actually does. It's a rough ride, but it was designed for a low level penetration into enemy territory. Not that it matters, because neither the A-10 or F-15E will operate at low altitudes.

Bullshit. The F-15 was designed as an high-altitude interceptor and only later on did they decide to add bombing capabilities to it. It was not designed with low level flight in mind at all.

That's a funny comment. Take a look at Blue on Blue incidents by the USAF in the past couple conflicts and you might notice a theme. A-10's have shot at a lot of friendlies because they couldn't ID their target properly (and, correspondingly, they've not shot at a lot of bad guys because they couldn't PID). The F-15 with a pod at 35K feet sees way better and way more then an A-10 at 2K feet without one. Which, again, doesn't really matter because A-10's always carry a targeting pod now and hang out at 20K feet. At least the E has a WSO who's job it is to figure out who's who before they start shooting.

Have you bothered looking at the number of CAS missions each plane has done on those places? The A-10 does a *lot* more missions so of course there are more events like that. In a lot of cases an F-15 won't even bother going there. As for the advantages of dual seat aircraft in a target rich environment they did develop a dual seat A-10 prototype but it was cancelled. You can guess why.

They're more expensive then you'd think. Depending on how you do the accounting a full magazine of 30mm CM costs between 40K and 80K dollars. There are a lot of hidden costs there to, since proficiency with the gun requires a lot more training time. And there's no gurentee that the gun rounds are going to kill your target. Experience tells that the best way to kill bad guys, regardless of what they're in or where they are, is to drop a whole pile of high explosives on them. Bombs do that quickly and efficiently.

So a full A-10 magazine costs tens of thousands of dollars and the USAFs much coveted Small Diameter Bomb II costs 250000 dollars *each*.

As for missing targets with a cannon being useless I guess you have never heard of fire suppression.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[Dutch Gun]

As far as I can see (not having a military background, but as a military history enthusiast), much of the "historical antagonism" between the forces is largely because of the battle for funding. The normal inter-service rivalries are probably more like fights between brothers. As soon as an outsider steps in and threatens one of them, they'll all stand together.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[ihtoit]

uh... the Army fly, among other aircraft, Beechcraft RC-12 Huron light cargo and passenger variants and the Cessna Citation V (UC-35) VIP configuration. There are around a hundred US Army aircraft batallions, probably thirty of which fly fixed wing exclusively.

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[ihtoit]

A-10 fuel capacity of 10700lbs or 1570 gallons; Three external 600 gallon or 4080lb drop tanks can also be fitted. Maximum total fuel (for long loiters) then becomes 22940lbs or 3370 gallons. Couple this with the fuel efficient TF34's SFC of 0.370 lb/h/lbs thrust at 11,000lbs thrust (each) and you get great loiter.

F-16 fuel capacity of 7160lbs or 1053 gallons; Two external tanks of 370 gallon or 2516lbs, and a single 300 gallon or 2040lbs. Maximum total fuel (for long loiter) then becomes 14232lbs or 2093 gallons. Couple this with the 'more thirsty' F100/F110's SFC 0.76/0.64 lb/h/lbs thrust at ~17,000lbs thrust (just one) and you get less loiter.

The single engine of the F-16, making about 17K thrust consumes almost the same amount of fuel per pound of thrust per hour than the twin engines of the A-10 generating a combined 22K thrust. Since the A-10 carries about 8700lbs more fuel, it can fly longer.

Numbers don't lie.

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[shutdown -p now]

Who the fuck cares about the hypothetical performance of the plane in some scenario that didn't come to be? What we have is a track record of A-10 performing a stellar job in the wars that have actually happened, from Iraq in 1991 onward. And with ISIS it looks like there will be more of that kind of thing in the future. Retiring a highly successful piece of military hardware when there's clear need for it now and in the future, and no suitable replacement, is just retarded.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[Irate Engineer]

Alas, the A10 suffers one irredeemable fault - its only function is to support the Army.

Not quite, but close. Combat rescue aka "Sandy ops" - keeping bad guys away from downed airmen to effect a rescue.

But if we're not fighting against an enemy with an air force or SAM capability, this likely isn't needed

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[willy_me]

You have to use fuel consumption and required thrust "at loiter speeds" for your comparison to be accurate. Not saying you are wrong, but numbers can lie when provided without sufficient context. Different airframes, air resistance, loiter elevation. In this case the planes are so different I would want to hear it from pilots with experience flying them to know for sure.

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[ihtoit]

ok, if you want to overcomplicate things, let's compare loiter/bomb load. A10 wins with 3x the bomb load. Here's some more stats for you to chew on:

A-10 Thunderbolt II (yes, the II, not the I) versus F-16 Fighting Falcon (source: kamov.net)

CATEGORY F-16 Fighting Falcon/A-10 Thunderbolt II

Unit cost in USD millions 45-55/20-25

Fuel economy in km/l 0,87/0,31
Fuel economy in NM/g 2,04/0,72

Fuel tank capacity in litres 3980/4850
Fuel tank capacity in gallon 1051/1280

Range on internal fuel in km 3460/1500
Range on internal fuel in miles 2145,2/930
Range on internal fuel in NM 1868,4/810

Powerplant/Engines 1 × F110-GE-100/2 × General Electric TF34-GE-100A

Dry thrust in kN 1 x 76/2 x 40
Dry thrust in lbf 1 x 17000/2 x 9000

Afterburner in kN 1 x 127/NO
Afterburner in lbf 1 x 28500/NO

Max. Speed in Mach 2,00/0,70
Max. Speed in km/h 2450/858
Max. Speed in mph 1522/533

Minimal thrust/weight ratio 0,69/0,21
Normal thrust/weight ratio 1,09/0,36
Maximal thrust/weight ratio 1,60/0,58

Overall length in meters 15,05/16,26
Overall length in ft 49,36/53,33
Wingspan in meters 9,95/17,53
Wingspan in ft 32,64/57,50
Height in meters 4,88/4,47
Height in ft 16,01/14,66

Wing area in sq meters 27,90/47,00
Wing area in sq ft 300,20/505,72

Empty weight in kg 8500/11300
Empty weight in lb 18700/24860

Maximal take-off weight in kg 19200/23000
Maximal take-off weight in lb 42240/50600

Minimal wing-loading in kg/m2 300/297
Normal wing-loading in kg/m2 430/482
Maximal wing-loading in kg/m2 688/599

Rate of climb in m/sec 254/30
Rate of climb in ft/min 50013/5907

First flight 1974/1972
-
If you crunch some numbers, you'll see that even though the F16 has just over twice the range on internal fuel, it does fly nearly three times faster, hence will not fly for as long as the A10. Ergo, the A10 wins on loiter just on internal fuel, let's not go there with the additional drop tank capacity.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[CrimsonAvenger]

Notice they're not armed....

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[david_thornley]

Something I wonder: what's the real role of the Air Force? It has a valid strategic role, but its other roles on the battlefield look like they should be subordinate to the Army. The Navy has its own air forces, and that seems to work well.

Re: FFS just keep the Warthog

[dywolf]

Well thank you for so clearly displaying your ignorance on the subject.

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[strikethree]

LOL, you beat me to it... but you are forgetting the Navy. We are more than just your taxi drivers. ;)

Re:FFS just keep the Warthog

[strikethree]

Given the variety of types of equipment and roles needed by the modern armed forces, I wonder if it makes sense to have different services rather than a combined armed forces.

You fail to realize that by keeping the combatant commands separate, you avoid or reduce the Julius Caesar/Rubicon issue.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... for details.

Those who forget, or do not study history, are doomed to repeat it.

Article pretty much is off in left field.

[Charcharodon]

Duh, people are pretty ignorant of how aircraft development works. The latest and the greatest planes are nearly 30 years old. The F-22 was prototyped when I was in high school (80's) and the F-35 was in proto-typing in the 90's. You aren't just developing an airframe, but all the systems inside and outside the aircraft along with training people to operate said systems. It takes a long time to shake all that out.

Even things like cars are like that too. The models for 2015 will have parts on them that haven't been upgraded since the 80's.

Re:Article pretty much is off in left field.

[Pope Hagbard]

Yes, and doubtless the plan is to upgrade the F-35 to current avionics once its bugs are shaken out, as was done with its predecessors. Article is clickbait.

Re:Article pretty much is off in left field.

[idji]

Except for a Tesla!

Re:Article pretty much is off in left field.

[Charcharodon]

Tesla is doing some very neat stuff on a very fast timeline. They did just release a hardware and software update for the Roadster that bumps its range 40%.

Re:Article pretty much is off in left field.

[phayes]

Timothy's fans don't like it when people point out that most of what he posts is clickbait.

stealth

[v1]

Those "sensor pods" are shaped like external fuel tanks. They've got that rounded and curved shape, to make them aerodynamic. Which is horrible for stealth. The F35 has to pack all its baggage inside the fuselage, with minimal openings.

A huge part of this question then becomes a tradeoff between stealth and features. You have to gve up some stuff if you want to be stealthy. So far, on the F35, most of those drawbacks have been "bought out" by spending a crapton on working around them. Stealt VTOL for example was a major PITA.

Considering the already absurd cost of the avionics electronics developed for the F35, tacaking on a completely new ground sensor package (and finding a place to PUT it inside the airframe) would have raised the cost quite a bit. Those sensor pods have been a work in progres for the last 15 years, the R&D is already mostly done. You can't compare that to a completely new package. (and you thought the rest of the new F35 had bugs and glitches?)

Re:stealth

[0123456]

Those "sensor pods" are shaped like external fuel tanks. They've got that rounded and curved shape, to make them aerodynamic. Which is horrible for stealth. The F35 has to pack all its baggage inside the fuselage, with minimal openings.

You do realize the F-35 has to carry most if its weapons on highly non-stealthy wing pylons for air-to-ground attacks, right? If I remember correctly, it can only carry two bombs or four air-to-air missiles internally, everything else has to go under the wings... including the external fuel tanks required for a long bombing mission.

Re: stealth

[lgw]

The F35 and F22 aren't "stealth" fighters in that way - not like the B2. It's expected the enemy knows they're there. They're stealthy enough to get missile lock long before the enemy fighter does, and that's all that matters today. Dogfight indeed.

Drones will probably take over during the service life of the F35, but since we're not there yet we needed something. Sadly, we get this plane that's great at nothing but pork delivery, but it's not a complete waste of time. It's just sad that it was used as an excuse to stop building the F22, which really was great at air superiority, which is likely the last thing the drones take over.

Re:stealth

[0123456]

Incidentally, that's the same warload as a F-117, and no one ever complained that it didn't carry enough bombs.

That's because they had real bombers to do the grunt work. They'd sure have been complaining if the F-117 was the only bomber they had.

The F-35's stealth is only useful in a ground-attack role in a few tiny corner cases--which country, exactly, do you think it's going to be bombing which has good enough air defence for the stealth to make a difference, but not good enough that it makes no difference?--and, for that, you pay several times the cost of an aircraft that's just as capable the rest of the time. And, given the cost of losing one, odds are they'll just stay back out of range and launch missiles, the same way a cheaper aircraft would.

Re: stealth

[currently_awake]

Stealth is overrated. Your stealth only works on the common radar frequencies while the obscure ones still work just fine. Once the military switches to veriable frequency radar the stealth benefit will go away- leaving you with a poor aircraft.

Re: stealth

[lgw]

Do you understand the difference between "stealth", the B2's thing, which is "remaining undetected", and "stealthy", the modern thing, which is "no missile lock"?

Everyone understands that you can see F22s and F35s on radar. No one is unclear about this. What you can't do is get missile lock before they do. There are fundamental reasons that missile guidance uses short-wave radar (the original radar, from the 30s, was long wave, and military "over the horizon" and early detection radar still is).

Sure it's an arms race, a literal one in fact. That's normal for, you know, arms. But long-wave missile guidance isn't coming soon.

Re:stealth

[dywolf]

the external pods also take up a weapon station, which is another tradeoff.
besides which, the notion that the EOTS is obsolete is simply absurd.

Re:stealth

[dywolf]

-AFTER- the 117's took out all the air defenses.
which was his point.

air defense is a potential threat to ALL aircraft, and even poor nations can scrape together a few old SAM systems or GRUs.
and i dont know if you caught it or not, but we like our guys and our planes to come home.

so the point of stealth strike missions is for "first strike" or "first night" to eliminate air defenses so you can bring in the rest of the fleet.
once that's accomplished the Wild Weasel birds (which is becoming less a dedicated mission/aircraft and more an "everyone can do it") can fly air defense interdiction toe keep them supressed as everyone else carries out their sorties.

so basiaclly youre just as uninformed in this arena, as you are in the political, scientific, and envirnmental ones.

Re:Put this same government in charge of healthcar

[MacTO]

First of all, those older jets are upgraded while the F-35 is being delivered according to a contract. That's not government incompetence. That's contract law, and no respectable contractor is going to write an agreement where the specifications can change at the last minute. In all probability, the military has already accounted for this and has planned upgrades.

Second, very few people are saying that government should control healthcare. They are saying that the government should control health insurance. Other countries already do this and have had very positive outcomes.

Typical

[p51d007]

F-35, as with the V-22 Osprey should have never been built, but due to well placed people in Congress, are forced onto the military because it brings home the bacon and jobs, which translates into VOTES. The A-10 costs tons less & is a proven ground attack platform, not to mention more survivable.

Facebook F35 pages

[plopez]

But... it has its own Facebook pages. It *must* be good.

https://www.facebook.com/thef3...

https://www.facebook.com/Suppo...

Re:They could've done even better

[Adriax]

This way they can double dip.
First they get to sell off outdated hardware they already manufactured.
Then they get to sell the new kit to replace the old stuff.

Re: This is why we need a war

[Pope Hagbard]

The F-15 wasn't even in operational service until 1976, and the MiG-31 entered service in 1981. You're /both/ wrong.

the problem with stealth technology

[ihtoit]

is that it is fucking useless.

We have RADAR now so sensitive it can pick up turbulence generated by the flapping of a sparrow's wing. THEY HAVE TO DIAL IT DOWN for most practical applications, including tracking air displacements due to exhaust-baffled (AKA "thermal" stealth) aircraft.

If you want, you can build your own K-Band for around $70, not including the two coffee cans. In fact with the same kit and a laptop you can build a synthetic aperture RADAR imaging system capable of not only locking and tracking targets, but also capable of passing that data in realtime to an external guidance system.

Gugol it yourself, it's all on the MIT public website.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[NeutronCowboy]

Wrong. You said it yourself: radar technology is so sensitive that they have to dial it down, otherwise they're swamped by false positives. If a giant bomb-dropping machine traveling at Mach 2 can pretend to be a sparrow flying over some forest, it's already a win. So it's a huge positive when fighting someone even with that kind of technology. When fighting someone whose AA system is a guy holding an AK-47, it is 100% useless. Until we get to active camouflage.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[SlayerofGods]

You know nothing.
Camouflage doesn't make you invisible but every military still uses it. Why? Because it makes you harder to see.
The stealth on the F-22/F-35 is not designed so they can fly at 35,000 feet over Beijing undetected; it is so they can lock their missiles on their target at 50 miles while the enemy has to be 20 miles away to lock it's missiles. Which is pretty damn useful despite your arm chair general's opinion.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[3.14159265]

Well, pretending to be a sparrow flying at *Mach 2* doesn't seem to be a win :)
code excerpt:
if (target.is(sparrow) && target.speed()>45 Km/h) {
shoot_it_down(target);
}

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[angel'o'sphere]

Would it not be more OO like and a better design, not to mention scaling, if the target had simply an 'explode()' method?

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually the missile lock is close to 200miles.
And for that you don't need any stealth at all as the few 'dog fights' over Iraq showed. Plenty of Iraq pilots got shot down by missiles far beyond the 100miles range without even ever noticing the F-15 or F-16 that shot the missiles.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[mister_playboy]

Plenty of Iraq pilots got shot down by missiles far beyond the 100miles range without even ever noticing the F-15 or F-16 that shot the missiles.

Bullshit.

The only operational US missile to have sort of range was the Phoenix, which was carried by neither the F-15 nor the F-16.

It was launched exactly twice in its service history on the F-14 with no hits scored.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[angel'o'sphere]

Bullshit youself.

You don't need a 150 miles range missile to shoot down a plane that flies with more than mach 1 straight at you and is 150 miles away. http://www.x-plane.org/home/ur...

But perhaps I mixed up miles witk km ... does not change the fact that third worlds countries planes even if they have F-15s or F-16s, too, have far inferior targeting systems and usually no AWACS like support anyway. So you don't need stealth to pick them up without them noticing you.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[ihtoit]

ok. The SECOND you break the sound barrier, you show on civilian RADAR anyway. At 24.1GHz K-Band (the most common civilian frequency used in Doppler and SARI systems), all this system does is show differences in density. Clouds and bow shocks (one is fuzzy the other is sharply defined) are easy to tell apart.

The idea of Stealth is to reduce the RADAR profile to make it more difficult for BVR/OTH systems to lock on. Nice idea, but when you compress the air in front of you to something approaching concrete, no amount of stipple-finished RCC composite is going to help you. Your enemy doesn't need to lock on to YOU (he doesn't even need to *hit* you), all he needs to do is lock on to your bow shock and disturb the air violently enough that his missile literally knocks you out of the sky, like firing an air cannon at a moth.

WHICH IS WHY aircraft designed to be RADAR INVISIBLE are a: subsonic, b: quiet (as in, don't disturb the air with engine howl - which is also detectable on K-Band RADAR) and c: designed with airfoils that disturb the air as little as possible - the underside is basically flat, all the hard work is done on the top surface.

Anti-RADAR paint is by necessity black (to absorb RADAR energy rather than reflect it) which makes tour 90-foot wing pretty fucking easy to spot by eye on a low and slow. For some reason it's also pretty easy for even semi-skilled operators to tell a Nighthawk from a house sparrow on an SA-3 "Goa" SAM system from 60km away.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[angel'o'sphere]

It is well known since decades that weather radar does pick up the air turbulences behind stealth planes.
Nevertheless to aid a missile to hit such a plane, you need a 'lock'. Or you need a very primitive missile, which we don't operate right now (a missile that simply goes for the 'blip' without any lock)
I doubt you can lock on the bow shockwave of a plane ... and I also doubt you can pick up, a sparrow over more than a few yards with radar (even as several ppl proclaimed thatbnow in this thread)
And the link you provided has nothing to do with 'Sparrows' ... perhaps you should read what you link?

Regarding that shot down plane: the Yugos got information from the launch in the UK via mobile phone. Around the ETA of the planes they saturated the sky with ammunition ... it is much more likely the plane got a random hit (as the pilot claimed when he was interviewed) then that an aimed missile tracked and hit it.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[ihtoit]

perhaps you should read the official report, which is linked from that page: two missiles were fired at the Nighthawk, one passed overhead, the other detonated nearby and airbombed the plane out of the sky. The two missiles were following the RADAR track which was a ground lock on the open bomb bay of the aircraft at something like 16 miles, initial *detection* was at 48 miles. RADAR guided missiles are ground guided using ground based RADAR, their onboard RADAR (for those equipped with onboard independent terminal guidance, which AFAIK the GOA *is not*) simply goes for the largest solid signature within a narrow cone in front of the missile. This could be an aircraft or it could be a wall of compressed air.

Hate to tell you this, but tracking aircraft for a missile lock doesn't depend on some fucking boy scout standing at the service entrance of Lakenheath Air Station with a smartphone.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[ihtoit]

what a fascinating insight you have.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[ihtoit]

I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[angel'o'sphere]

But it requires utter luck to have a still working radar station in the flight path of the plane ...
And I don't care what the official report is now as there where plenty of reports around the time when the incident happend and at thst time the general conclusion was: it was a lucki hit.
Even with report out ... which you btw did mot link, so I have no clue about what report you are talking, does not change that: it was a lucky hit.

And now you want to tell me a wall of compressed air in fromt of an airplane can reflect the radar frequencies an on missile radar uses?

Wow ... perhaps you should read a little bit, at least a very little bit about how radar actually works.

Re:the problem with stealth technology

[dywolf]

those kinds of missles are controlled fromt he gruond, including detonation.
that particular system isnt as much radar controlled as it is Controller controlled, ie, Human operator, who is trained in proximity engagement techniques.

its a missle the size of a telephone pole, with a warhead ~2k lbs in size, with an effective radius of >500meters.
they make up for their lack of accuracy with size, power, and numbers.

get enough of them in the right area, blow em, and the shrapnel and concusision do the rest; a direct hit isnt required.
THATS how they got that Nighthawk.

One word. Jamming!

[lamer01]

Until a Jam Proof Drone cane be made, manned fighters will be around.

Re:One word. Jamming!

[Charcharodon]

All the new drones aren't actually flown by pilots. Sure they have a manual mode, but 99% of the time they are simply told where to go. You don't even need a radio link unless you need to update parameters.

Input mission: Take off, goto Spot A do an action, goto Spot B do an action, turn around and fly home, land, turn off engines/shut down systems.

Re:One word. Jamming!

[pepty]

Until a Jam Proof Drone cane be made, manned fighters will be around.

by ~2020, the manned fighters will need to be drone proof a lot more than the drones will need to be jam-proof.

Re:One word. Jamming!

[Pinky's Brain]

Directional antennas ...

Re:One word. Jamming!

[NatasRevol]

How do guided missiles get around this?

Re:they'll never make a module for the only fighte

[lucm]

They expect the pilot to use his iPhone... Can't wait to see that insurgent instagram feed.

Re:This is why we need a war

[fustakrakich]

Yes, I know they stole quite a bit of tech...

Ah, but that is the key. If they stole this tech, we'll have no problem.

Re:Put this same government in charge of healthcar

[Wonko the Sane]

It's a great point: people who don't have an emotional investment in the Department of X can easily see that the people who make up the Department only care only for improving their own power and financial position, and are making X even worse both by getting in the way and also by consuming valuable resources that could be used to actually provide X instead.

The difficult part is realizing this is true for all X, even the ones which are your personal favorites.

War Nerd on the F-35

[dcollins]

"More proof the US defense industry has nothing to do with defending America"

http://pando.com/2014/12/18/the-war-nerd-more-proof-the-us-defense-industry-has-nothing-to-do-with-defending-america/

Re:War Nerd on the F-35

[mister_playboy]

Decent rant, but he contradicts his own argument about how the USAF only likes sleek, fast air-to-air planes when he rambles on about how they loved the ugly, slow, air-to-ground F-117.

Obviously, if it's located in the nose...

[tlambert]

Obviously, if it's located in the nose... then they need to replace EOTS with the Super New Optical Targeting System, or SNOTS.

Re:Obviously, if it's located in the nose...

[ihtoit]

saw what you did there. :) lulz.

Is the premise serious?

[fnj]

Seems to me the state of the art in sensors 10 years ago was far more than adequate for any conceivable mission even now. There have been no magic advances by any potential adversaries since then. Hell, even 23 years ago the state of the art in Desert Storm was shooting fish in a barrel, and zero susceptibility to enemy aircraft.

Yeah, the F-35 is essentially a piece of gold plated crap, but I don't see anything that savages trapped 1000 years in the past are going to do to challenge its air supremacy, given the numbers, and given its more rational sister planes. Of countries which in the wildest imagination could be envisaged as adversaries, only Russia and China are even in the same universe. But when you show me evidence that their training and experience level is within 1/10 of the US, I might get concerned.

Israel is probably close in technology, training and experience. Good thing as far as fantasy matchups go that they are not raving, frothing maniacs and have no industrial manufacturing base. They don't even have enough ammunition for more than HOURS of real combat, and no possible way of replenishing it domestically on real time.

Re:Is the premise serious?

[JeffAtl]

Isn't the $337 million figure an accounting artifact of rolling up all of the R&D and initial production costs into the first batch of planes?

I'm not saying the this plane will ever be a good value for the cost, but if it ever gets produced in large numbers, the per-unit cost should come down significantly.

Re:Is the premise serious?

[drinkypoo]

Israel is probably close in technology, training and experience. Good thing as far as fantasy matchups go that they are not raving, frothing maniacs

Ethnic cleansing.

and have no industrial manufacturing base.

Yep, they're not dangerous to anyone without our help.

Re:Is the premise serious?

[rahvin112]

The F-35 isn't significantly more expensive than a F-18 to build if all you look at is direct construction cost and stop rolling in all the R&D and tooling costs that have already been paid.

will be awsome

[confused one]

If the plane makes it to mass production and get widely implemented, which it seems destined to do thanks to inertia and politics... I predict the F-35 will be awesome... in about 15 or 20 years, once they've worked all the bugs out and upgraded the systems.

Re:This is why we need a war

[Cederic]

Don't underestimate the F-35 with a US pilot. The airframe may or may not be competitive against the opposition but I suspect the training will be.

It's the combination that counts. It's why I'm not terribly concerned by the UK selling our top arms to other countries: we'll just be so much better at actually using them.

Re:This is why we need a war

[fnj]

Russia beat America into space, how can Russia, with the obvious space spinoffs, need to steal technology?

Well, it's a documented historical fact that they stole the technology for the atomic bomb.

Just like the fact that Stalin personally commanded that interned B-29s be copied whole and mass produced, engines and all, to make the first Soviet nuclear capable bomber; the Tu-4.

As far as space technology, both the US and USSR just put captured Germans to work to get that off the ground.

Re:This is why we need a war

[NatasRevol]

They might be smart enough to use what works, and target what doesn't.

1394 is a horrible thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked on this. It is horrible. It was sold on the "we can use off the shelf gear for testing and prototyping" kind of model (since 1553 is expensive in dollars, size, mass, and power, for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which is it is used only in things that cost millions of dollars and are in small volumes).

Anyway, why 1394 and not Ethernet? Because back in the 90s, when they were choosing this kind of thing, there was the perceived need to have isochronous interconnects to do hard real time functions. I think this was largely because people were used to 1553, which has "bus schedules" with major and minor loops: remember that 1553 was designed for fairly dumb peripherals (position encoder like a pot, actuators like motors and hydraulics, or cockpit instrument displays) and so, flight control software (which is tough to update) was developed based on the assumption that you could get deterministic timing with a time sequenced bus (like 1553).

Not so strangely, 1394 provides this on 8 kHz time slots: because that's what the phone system used as its sampling rate, so for multimedia applications, 125 microseconds is considered "adequate", assuming you have buffers, etc.

Ethernet, in the 90s, was perceived has having significant non-determinism (remember, this is back in the days of the vampire tap 10Base5, or maybe 10Base2 thin-net days, with modern twisted pair just coming into play). Two solutions: "just have lots of excess capacity, and there's an almost bounded maximum latency" and "design your algorithms to tolerate missing/late packets" both were perceived as incredibly risky, and potentially resource intensive. Remember, this is "fly-by-wire" software we're talking about here, and moving from a "gear train, fixed timing" model of software to something a bit "softer real time-ish" makes people real nervous (justly so).

However, 1394 also has stuff like hot-plug and automatic distributed network inventory and reconfiguration, which add an element of non-determinism. There you are in your 10G turn, having just done your lob-toss maneuver, and oops, an upset causes you to renegotiate the entire flight network configuration. Renegotiation is fine when watching a DVD, not so fine when doing active flight control management at 1kHz update rates.
1394 does not lend itself to simple redundancy schemes (channel bonding in Ethernet, A and B bus for 1553). It also has weird handling of a mix of high and low speed devices, when doing a pass through. And, 1394 PHY and MAC devices are complex and expensive. So as soon as you start to "customize" it to overcome all these peculiarities that make 1394 unsuitable for fly by wire, you lost the thing that originally sold it: "It's cheap mass produced COTS".

You'll note that no cars use 1394 for engine control. CAN bus is really the modern 1553 replacement (similar 1 Mbps sorts of data rates). But CAN bus is, of course, European in original and "not invented in america". It also can't handle the putative data bandwidth requirements for JSF (because the "one true bus" must handle everything from gunsight video to radar data to cuing to stores management to pilot monitoring to, well, you name it).

The sooner 1394 fades into oblivion, the better.

Why is Australia buying MORE of these crap heaps?

[jonwil]

I can understand the initial purchase (in that we needed something to replace the obsolete F-111 Aardvark and at the time it wasn't known how bad F-35 would turn out to be. But now our government wants to buy MORE of these things despite no evidence that they are actually any good as an airplane? Why?

Does Australia actually need that many airplanes? (its not like there are any countries in our region that are likely to decide to attack us so the only real mission for the F-35 is going to be sending a few to help in some foreign war and we dont need anywhere near as many aircraft to be able to do that)
Is Abbot just following through on a commitment originally made by Howard when he placed the first order of F-35s?
Is Abbot deliberately doing this to make the budget look worse so he can justify his unpopular budget cuts?

Re:This is why we need a war

[dunkelfalke]

Not exactly. USA has grabbed all the top German scientists to design their space technology, USSR had only what was left - some engineers and skilled workers, also some prototype blueprints. This is why Soviet missile designs were very much native after R-2. German engineers have helped with the material sciences, though - an area where USSR was very much lacking.

The thing with the nuclear bomb was Stalin's paranoia. They had a design themselves, but Stalin insisted in building a copy of the American bomb because it was proven to work.

You are completely wrong about the B-29 engine, though. Tu-4 used a heavily modified licensed build of an earlier Wright engine (the one that was used in B-17, not B-29) so the engines of Tu-4 and B-29 share a common ancestor, but are not the same. The engine was, in fact, the largest difference between Tu-4 and B-29.

Re:They could've done even better

[plopez]

"This way they can double *penetrate*."

Fixed that for you

HAH

[meglon]

And here less than a month ago i got modded as a troll for saying how much of a piece of crap the F-35 was, and pointing out it's massive overruns in budget bullshit. This has been in the news for years now. I can't believe there are still idiots who think this program is worth a shit.

Re:Put this same government in charge of healthcar

[dj245]

First of all, those older jets are upgraded while the F-35 is being delivered according to a contract. That's not government incompetence. That's contract law, and no respectable contractor is going to write an agreement where the specifications can change at the last minute. In all probability, the military has already accounted for this and has planned upgrades.

I doubt it. Airframes develop very slowly but electronics is quickly obsolete. The prudent thing to do in the spec would be to say "we will have a sensor pod X by Y by Z inches with attachment points T,U,and V. The sensor pod (yet to be developed) will require # amps of power at #volts using a HIJ connector, and please run a ABC connector to that area with specification EFG connecting to the main bus." They didn't do that. They settled on the sensor knowing it would be obsolete before the aircraft flew.

Re:Elon Musk

[ihtoit]

that'd be great for them, to have planes with 400 mile ferry range (until the second generation batteries are unleashed)

The Air Force doesn't like 'unattractive'

[fygment]

The Air Force deems the Warthog unacceptably 'unattractive'. The plane does its job outstandingly well, offers its pilot exceptional protection, but ... it's ugly. The Air Force doesn't like "ugly". "Ugly" pilots get screened out during training, only T. Cruise types need apply. Same with ugly planes.

Re: This is why we need a war

[Assmasher]

Sorry, the radar was in operational service, and was also fitted to the F-15 which was flying, but not deployed to combat units yet.

Re:This is why we need a war

[uninformedLuddite]

Well, it's a documented historical fact that they stole the technology for the atomic bomb.

That's total bullshit. The US gave the technology and the materials to the Soviets.

Download and read the PDF that is available here

Spend money on preventing wars

[MoarSauce123]

Governments are better advised to spend money on preventing wars. Train diplomats and come to better solutions than wasting money on weapons. Even if they are top of the line today they will be hopelessly outdated within a few years, way before the end of the operation span. Besides that, the modern wars are not fought with fighter planes and tanks. Look at the fight against IS, the bombing campaigns are basically without any effect other than destroying important infrastructure that eventually needs to be rebuild at high cost. Places like Iraq or Afghanistan are no better off than they were 10 years ago, in many cases it got even worse. How about spending money on figuring out how to prevent that?

Re:Put this same government in charge of healthcar

[Mikkeles]

Check out MIL-STD-1760. Part of the reason for its development is the high cost of F35 proprietary weapon and sensor systems' communications and interactions.