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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Janos on July 22, 2009, 01:26:22 am
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020_pf.html
Premier U.S. Fighter Jet Has Major Shortcomings
F-22's Maintenance Demands Growing
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 10, 2009
The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential Pentagon test results show.
The aircraft's radar-absorbing metallic skin is the principal cause of its maintenance troubles, with unexpected shortcomings -- such as vulnerability to rain and other abrasion -- challenging Air Force and contractor technicians since the mid-1990s, according to Pentagon officials, internal documents and a former engineer.
While most aircraft fleets become easier and less costly to repair as they mature, key maintenance trends for the F-22 have been negative in recent years, and on average from October last year to this May, just 55 percent of the deployed F-22 fleet has been available to fulfill missions guarding U.S. airspace, the Defense Department acknowledged this week. The F-22 has never been flown over Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sensitive information about troubles with the nation's foremost air-defense fighter is emerging in the midst of a fight between the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress over whether the program should be halted next year at 187 planes, far short of what the Air Force and the F-22's contractors around the country had anticipated.
"It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7 hours before it gets a critical failure" that jeopardizes success of the aircraft's mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane who is not authorized to speak on the record. Other skeptics inside the Pentagon note that the planes, designed 30 years ago to combat a Cold War adversary, have cost an average of $350 million apiece and say they are not a priority in the age of small wars and terrorist threats.
But other defense officials -- reflecting sharp divisions inside the Pentagon about the wisdom of ending one of the largest arms programs in U.S. history -- emphasize the plane's unsurpassed flying abilities, express renewed optimism that the troubles will abate and say the plane is worth the unexpected costs.
Votes by the House and Senate armed services committees last month to spend $369 million to $1.75 billion more to keep the F-22 production line open were propelled by mixed messages from the Air Force -- including a quiet campaign for the plane that includes snazzy new Lockheed videos for key lawmakers -- and intense political support from states where the F-22's components are made. The full House ratified the vote on June 25, and the Senate is scheduled to begin consideration of F-22 spending Monday.
After deciding to cancel the program, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called the $65 billion fleet a "niche silver-bullet solution" to a major aerial war threat that remains distant. He described the House's decision as "a big problem" and has promised to urge President Obama to veto the military spending bill if the full Senate retains F-22 funding.
The administration's position is supported by military reform groups that have long criticized what they consider to be poor procurement practices surrounding the F-22, and by former senior Pentagon officials such as Thomas Christie, the top weapons testing expert from 2001 to 2005. Christie says that because of the plane's huge costs, the Air Force lacks money to modernize its other forces adequately and has "embarked on what we used to call unilateral disarmament."
David G. Ahern, a senior Pentagon procurement official who helps oversee the F-22 program, said in an interview that "I think we've executed very well," and attributed its troubles mostly to the challenge of meeting ambitious goals with unstable funding.
A spokeswoman for Lockheed added that the F-22 has "unmatched capabilities, sustainability and affordability" and that any problems are being resolved in close coordination with the Air Force.
'Cancellation-Proof'
Designed during the early 1980s to ensure long-term American military dominance of the skies, the F-22 was conceived to win dogfights with advanced Soviet fighters that Russia is still trying to develop.
Lt. Gen. Harry M. Wyatt III, director of the Air National Guard, said in a letter this week to Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) that he likes the F-22 because its speed and electronics enable it to handle "a full spectrum of threats" that current defensive aircraft "are not capable of addressing."
"There is really no comparison to the F-22," said Air Force Maj. David Skalicky, a 32-year-old former F-15 pilot who now shows off the F-22's impressive maneuverability at air shows. Citing the critical help provided by its computers in flying radical angles of attack and tight turns, he said "it is one of the easiest planes to fly, from the pilot's perspective."
Its troubles have been detailed in dozens of Government Accountability Office reports and Pentagon audits. But Pierre Sprey, a key designer in the 1970s and 1980s of the F-16 and A-10 warplanes, said that from the beginning, the Air Force designed it to be "too big to fail, that is, to be cancellation-proof."
Lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more than 40 states, and Sprey -- now a prominent critic of the plane -- said that by the time skeptics "could point out the failed tests, the combat flaws, and the exploding costs, most congressmen were already defending their subcontractors' " revenues.
John Hamre, the Pentagon's comptroller from 1993 to 1997, says the department approved the plane with a budget it knew was too low because projecting the real costs would have been politically unpalatable on Capitol Hill.
"We knew that the F-22 was going to cost more than the Air Force thought it was going to cost and we budgeted the lower number, and I was there," Hamre told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April. "I'm not proud of it," Hamre added in a recent interview.
When limited production began in 2001, the plane was "substantially behind its plan to achieve reliability goals," the GAO said in a report the following year. Structural problems that turned up in subsequent testing forced retrofits to the frame and changes in the fuel flow. Computer flaws, combined with defective software diagnostics, forced the frequent retesting of millions of lines of code, said two Defense officials with access to internal reports.
Skin problems -- often requiring re-gluing small surfaces that can take more than a day to dry -- helped force more frequent and time-consuming repairs, according to the confidential data drawn from tests conducted by the Pentagon's independent Office of Operational Test and Evaluation between 2004 and 2008.
Over the four-year period, the F-22's average maintenance time per hour of flight grew from 20 hours to 34, with skin repairs accounting for more than half of that time -- and more than half the hourly flying costs -- last year, according to the test and evaluation office.
The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22's predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818.
'Compromises'
Darrol Olsen, a specialist in stealth coatings who worked at Lockheed's testing laboratory in Marietta, Ga., from 1995 to 1999, said the current troubles are unsurprising. In a lawsuit filed under seal in 2007, he charged the company with violating the False Claims Act for ordering and using coatings that it knew were defective while hiding the failings from the Air Force.
He has cited a July 1998 report that said test results "yield the same problems as documented previously" in the skin's quality and durability, and another in December that year saying, "Baseline coatings failed." A Lockheed briefing that September assured the Air Force that the effort was "meeting requirements with optimized products."
"When I got into this thing . . . I could not believe the compromises" made by Lockheed to meet the Air Force's request for quick results, said Olsen, who had a top-secret clearance. "I suggested we go to the Air Force and tell them we had some difficulties . . . and they would not do that. I was squashed. I knew from the get-go that this material was bad, that this correcting it in the field was never going to work."
Olsen, who said Lockheed fired him over a medical leave, heard from colleagues as recently as 2005 that problems persisted with coatings and radar absorbing materials in the plane's skin, including what one described as vulnerability to rain. Invited to join his lawsuit, the Justice Department filed a court notice last month saying it was not doing so "at this time" -- a term that means it is still investigating the matter, according to a department spokesman.
Ahern said the Pentagon could not comment on the allegations. Lockheed spokeswoman Mary Jo Polidore said that "the issues raised in the complaint are at least 10 years old," and that the plane meets or exceeds requirements established by the Air Force. "We deny Mr. Olsen's allegations and will vigorously defend this matter."
There have been other legal complications. In late 2005, Boeing learned of defects in titanium booms connecting the wings to the plane, which the company, in a subsequent lawsuit against its supplier, said posed the risk of "catastrophic loss of the aircraft." But rather than shut down the production line -- an act that would have incurred large Air Force penalties -- Boeing reached an accord with the Air Force to resolve the problem through increased inspections over the life of the fleet, with expenses to be mostly paid by the Air Force.
Sprey said engineers who worked on it told him that because of Lockheed's use of hundreds of subcontractors, quality control was so poor that workers had to create a "shim line" at the Georgia plant where they retooled badly designed or poorly manufactured components. "Each plane wound up with all these hand-fitted parts that caused huge fits in maintenance," he said. "They were not interchangeable."
Polidore confirmed that some early parts required modifications but denied that such a shim line existed and said "our supplier base is the best in the industry."
The plane's million-dollar radar-absorbing canopy has also caused problems, with a stuck hatch imprisoning a pilot for hours in 2006 and engineers unable to extend the canopy's lifespan beyond about 18 months of flying time. It delaminates, "loses its strength and finish," said an official privy to Air Force data.
In the interview, Ahern and Air Force Gen. C.D. Moore confirmed that canopy visibility has been declining more rapidly than expected, with brown spots and peeling forcing $120,000 refurbishments at 331 hours of flying time, on average, instead of the stipulated 800 hours.
There has been some gradual progress. At the plane's first operational flight test in September 2004, it fully met two of 22 key requirements and had a total of 351 deficiencies; in 2006, it fully met five; in 2008, when squadrons were deployed at six U.S. bases, it fully met seven.
"It flunked on suitability measures -- availability, reliability, and maintenance," said Christie about the first of those tests. "There was no consequence. It did not faze anybody who was in the decision loop" for approving the plane's full production. This outcome was hardly unique, Christie adds. During his tenure in the job from 2001 to 2005, "16 or 17 major weapons systems flunked" during initial operational tests, and "not one was stopped as a result."
"I don't accept that this is still early in the program," Christie said, explaining that he does not recall a plane with such a low capability to fulfill its mission due to maintenance problems at this point in its tenure as the F-22. The Pentagon said 64 percent of the fleet is currently "mission capable." After four years of rigorous testing and operations, "the trends are not good," he added.
Pentagon officials respond that measuring hourly flying costs for aircraft fleets that have not reached 100,000 flying hours is problematic, because sorties become more frequent after that point; Ahern also said some improvements have been made since the 2008 testing, and added: "We're going to get better." He said the F-22s are on track to meet all of what the Air Force calls its KPP -- key performance parameters -- by next year.
But last Nov. 20, John J. Young Jr., who was then undersecretary of defense and Ahern's boss, said that officials continue to struggle with the F-22's skin. "There's clearly work that needs to be done there to make that airplane both capable and affordable to operate," he said.
When Gates decided this spring to spend $785 million on four more planes and then end production of the F-22, he also kept alive an $8 billion improvement effort. It will, among other things, give F-22 pilots the ability to communicate with other types of warplanes; it currently is the only such warplane to lack that capability.
The cancellation decision got public support from the Air Force's top two civilian and military leaders, who said the F-22 was not a top priority in a constrained budget. But the leaders' message was muddied in a June 9 letter from Air Combat Cmdr. John D.W. Corley to Chambliss that said halting production would put "execution of our current national military strategy at high risk in the near to mid-term." The right size for the fleet, he said, is 381.
Fatal Test Flight
One of the last four planes Gates supported buying is meant to replace an F-22 that crashed during a test flight north of Los Angeles on March 25, during his review of the program. The Air Force has declined to discuss the cause, but a classified internal accident report completed the following month states that the plane flew into the ground after poorly executing a high-speed run with its weapons-bay doors open, according to three government officials familiar with its contents. The Lockheed test pilot died.
Several sources said the flight was part of a bid to make the F-22 relevant to current conflicts by giving it a capability to conduct precision bombing raids, not just aerial dogfights. The Air Force is still probing who should be held accountable for the accident.
Staff writer Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
MIC is a great thing, rain is a bad thing, buying four more planes with 785 million dollars is AWESOME and now the aliens from Independence Day will lose when they come.
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I myself am a big fan of the F-22, but they were never meant to be mass produced like the F-15 and F-16 fighters were, despite what the AF has said. They're way to expensive and much to valuable to use in everyday missions. Not like we need them that much anyway.
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They're way to expensive and much to valuable to use in everyday missions.
Then with the exception of war with the Soviet Union (which is what it was designed for) why have them around?
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They're way to expensive and much to valuable to use in everyday missions.
Then with the exception of war with the Soviet Union (which is what it was designed for) why have them around?
Because America has a ****load of them and the DoD doesn't feel like spending billions on a bunch of new fighter planes without justification?
Well, with these maintenance records, hopefully that will change. Anybody in Canada remember the Sea King chopper?
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Not to mention that in a war with Russia, one would only need one Raptor per wing of Soviet MiGs or Sukhois.
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Stealth planes are overrated anyway.
The JSF is far better than the F-22 anyway. Heck, I'd rather invest in more specialized (and easier to mantain) interceptors/space superiority fighters than F-22's.
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Stealth, as we think of it, doesn't exist in the real world. The newest generation of fighters can pick up Raptors at forty miles out. In my opinion, if they dumped the stealth coating, it would solve a ton of problems, mostly the weather and cost.
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Because America has a ****load of them and the DoD doesn't feel like spending billions on a bunch of new fighter planes without justification?
There is justification, those fat contracts keep profits high and people employed. I read somewhere when they tried to can the B2 they found it something like 10,000 jobs would be lost across 30 states. It's military kaynesianism.
The JSF is far better than the F-22 anyway
Even that is costing 50% more than the initial estimate. Contractors intentionally low-ball their estimates.
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Heck, I'd rather invest in more specialized (and easier to mantain) interceptors/space superiority fighters than F-22's.
Do you know something we don't?
Anyway, isn't the contractor liable to be sued or something?
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Anybody in Canada remember the Sea King chopper?
Remember it? They still fly over my house at least twice daily, and I'm 50k from the base. I cover my head every time.
I think that the JSF is a much better option for fleetwide deployment, it's cheaper, more countries are in on the deal thus improvingrelations as well as bringing more to the table, I say leave the F-22 for low-scale production as an elite fighter.
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Make more F-35's? So, the F-22 is a completely fine and specialized plane with pretty much crappy extremely time limited stealth. Until the skin problem gets fixed, i'd put a stop to the F-22 manufacturing also. Manufacturing is working fine, maintaining the damn planes because of crappy skin isn't. 30 hours of maintenance for 1.7 hour flight time? Sheesh.
How about have some non stealth versions of the F-22 for a little bit until the problem gets solved?
And this is a sensitive issue for america to maintain air superiority by having a whole bunch of fighters in the sky that are more advanced than other countries fighters. If not more or at least equal to other countries fighters, a lot of money was spent so you can't see the new infamous planes on radar.
My favorite plane is the F-14...that ones old reliable, sort of like the F-16.
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My favorite plane is the F-14...that ones old reliable, sort of like the F-16.
*sniff* Finally someone who understands me. Amen brother!
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I always loved the Tomcat, long before Top Gun made it famous (ironically enough, by using it entirely outside it's primary role), but I seem to recall the problem with the Tomcat wasn't the plane, it was the Phoenix missiles and the inhibitive price of them?
As for F22, the more complicated they make the plumbing...
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Hmmmm...
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With all of this problems with the stealth skin, why not just make another variant of the F-22 while at it. It'd be like the F-16, except way better and no stealth. But, why not have a no stealth variant of the F-22 right now? Having stealth only fighters in the US is still only a half realized pipe dream currently given the crappiness of the F-22 stealth skin. I say with an otherwise awesome plane, scrap the stealth skin for a bit until it gets better and keep making it.
It'd bring down maintenance costs, the planes would actually be able to fly for more than 1.7 hours, and in general have wings of planes that would actually be in use. It'd be at the price of stealth capability, but currently US fighter planes aren't stealthy and being able to fly something better than the F-16 would be a huge plus still
Now we can't forget about the F-35 as well. Is it's stealth skin also going to be crappy? Or will it be the placer fighter for the F-22 until the stealth problem gets fixed?
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It's kind of funny, since I fell in love with the Hawker Hunter when I worked at Farnborough for entirely the opposite reason, it's probably one of the easiest jets to maintain that has ever been made, there was practically nothing on the plane that couldn't be fixed easily, which is why us Apprentices were allowed to work on it ;)
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Logistics aside, how does the F-22 fly for those 1.7 hours that it actually can fly? I honestly can't see it being that bad; the only thing the article complained about was logistics and maintenance.
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I've not heard tell of it being particularly outstanding aerodynamically, I think as far as manoeuvrability went, it was about average for this generation of fighters.
Thing is, cost IS going to have to be primary concern in the current environment, in many ways the armed forces have always been about trading logistics with requirements.
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I've not heard tell of it being particularly outstanding aerodynamically, I think as far as manoeuvrability went, it was about average for this generation of fighters.
Thing is, cost IS going to have to be primary concern in the current environment, in many ways the armed forces have always been about trading logistics with requirements.
Yup. And only more so for the air force, which inherently requires high maintenance machines. It's just kind of sad to think of all of the aircraft that might've flown reasonably well, only to be disused because of logistics and maintenance problems.
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Yup. And only more so for the air force, which inherently requires high maintenance machines. It's just kind of sad to think of all of the aircraft that might've flown reasonably well, only to be disused because of logistics and maintenance problems.
Right, this is the real problem: the F-22 is turning out to be a maintenance headache. Also, it's ridiculously expensive to begin with: 5x more than the F-15.
I suspect that a lot of the "bells & whistles rule!" mentality behind the latest-gen jets is because A) we're trying to buy intimidation and B) people make more money by building expensive jets. If/when we end up fighting a major war where we need to manufacture new fighters, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the F-22 is suddenly not worth the cost (in money, time, and manpower) anymore.
Hopefully, they'll figure out the problems with the F-22 soon enough to prevent them from being made near-worthless by them. I'm hoping the F-35 turns out better, and is worth the extra cost. F-35 is $100 million per plane, F-16 is $20 million per plane. Is one F-35 really as useful as five F-16s? And that's not even considering the operational cost per flying hour...
F-16 is still my favorite, hands down. :D
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I always loved the Tomcat, long before Top Gun made it famous (ironically enough, by using it entirely outside it's primary role), but I seem to recall the problem with the Tomcat wasn't the plane, it was the Phoenix missiles and the inhibitive price of them?
As for F22, the more complicated they make the plumbing...
Nah. The molds got destroyed, so it became hard to mantain or something like that. I hear Rumesfield was involved.
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I still love those great planes of the 80's/90's :)
F-14 - Bomber killer supreme
F-15E - Strike Eagle, the most awesome assault bomber evar!
F-16 - One of the best dogfighters made.
A-10 - Infantries best friend :)
Nah. The molds got destroyed, so it became hard to mantain or something like that. I hear Rumesfield was involved.
I know there was a problem with range, they were supposed to have a range of something like 200km, but were only really effective at around 60-70km or something.
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Thing is, the Air Force is replacing the vast majority (or at least attempting to do so) of its air fleet. We're attempting to replace old airframes, some of which are 50 year old designs, with new shiny top-of-the-line aircraft of the same role...only to have this happen.
Basically, we're replacing KC-135s which are surviving off of other cannibalized tankers and F15s which are having cockpits fall off in midflight with...fighters that can't stay in the air for a respectable amount of time due to rain.
Basically, replacing old, outdated skeletons of aircraft with high maintenance problems and replacing them with new, shinier...aircraft with high maintenance problems.
The Air Force has spent the last several years (and by that I mean decades) ruled by CSAFs and senior leadership insistent on upgrading fighter aircraft above anything--the common term was Fighter Mafia. But ever since Gates took over as SecDef he's been attempting to put that to a stop, essentially firing the old Airforce Chief of Staff and AF Secretary. The new leadership is honestly a little bit more focused on the more significant problems: nukes, UAVs, and reversing the airmen-for-fighters drawdown on the last several years.
We'll just have to wait and see with this though...
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Stealth, as we think of it, doesn't exist in the real world. The newest generation of fighters can pick up Raptors at forty miles out.
Base canard. At 40 miles you're already about 10 miles within AMRAAM range. (Or mere seconds from dogfighting considering the supercruise capablity.) That part, at least, worked as advertized.
The real danger here is that the JSF is going to reuse a lot of the technology, and the Navy is not happy about the skin problems. Rain and sand abrasion is child's play compared to salt water. People have actually suggested cancelling the contract, which while thoroughly unpractical, shows how annoyed the Navy is. The Marines are only slightly less irate.
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It seems obvious that the F-22 is too cost-ineffective to be practical (even though it looks flippin' awesome). Most of that, as already stated, is the stealth skin. That could probably be fixed by just stripping the skin off of it and replacing the stealth canopy with a regular one. Honestly, has no one thought of that, previous posters aside? I would be willing to bet that the skin represents a sizeable percentage of the entire cost of the plane, even though it doesn't say anywhere how much it actually costs (nor does a google search bring up anything).
Also, quick trivia: The AMRAAM reference earlier, with it's maximum range of ~50 miles, is the AIM-120A/B, newer versions actually have a range of 65 miles.
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Well if they are dead by the time they detect the F-22, I would say the stealth skin is doing its job. All they need to do is make it more durable.
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The range figures are a bit flexible. The hit-probability brackets, as I understand it, vary pretty considerably based on the relative velocity of the launcher and the target.
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I know there was a problem with range, they were supposed to have a range of something like 200km, but were only really effective at around 60-70km or something.
Nah, the ferry range (total range) for a Tomcat without extra fuel tanks is 2960km.
I'm still pissed the Navy/Congress didn't go with the Super Tomcat 21.
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It's kind of funny, since I fell in love with the Hawker Hunter when I worked at Farnborough for entirely the opposite reason, it's probably one of the easiest jets to maintain that has ever been made, there was practically nothing on the plane that couldn't be fixed easily, which is why us Apprentices were allowed to work on it ;)
The Airfix dudes love the Hunter too, supposed to be a great kit for beginners. I think it was designed by the same chap who penned the Hurricane ? I like Buccanneer, though I've always liked Ruskie fighters too. MIG and later Sukhoi bureau fighters look awesome! Foxbat/Foxhound, Fulcrum, Flanker, Berkut etc.
American kit always looks high tec, British seemed to have a improvised, born of necessaitiy but efficent look with Russians somewhere in between.
They use to have a UK Lightening Jet outside an RAF aerodome in Clitheroe (gate guardian ?) but it got scrapped a couple of years ago :(
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The F-35? It's not scrapped, that's the Joint Strike Fighter.
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I love the MiG-29 Fulcrum. Part of it because it's basically a Russian F-15(:D).
Fun Fact: Russian pilots of the MiG-29 call it the Fulcrum too.
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They use to have a UK Lightening Jet outside an RAF aerodome in Clitheroe (gate guardian ?) but it got scrapped a couple of years ago :(
The F-35? It's not scrapped, that's the Joint Strike Fighter.
He's talking about the original English Electric Lightning, one that the F-35 is (partially) named after (along with the American P-38 Lightning).
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Oh.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/Lightning.inflight.arp.750pix.jpg/300px-Lightning.inflight.arp.750pix.jpg)
Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_Lightning)
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I know there was a problem with range, they were supposed to have a range of something like 200km, but were only really effective at around 60-70km or something.
Nah, the ferry range (total range) for a Tomcat without extra fuel tanks is 2960km.
I'm still pissed the Navy/Congress didn't go with the Super Tomcat 21.
Super Tomcat 21?
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There were two projects; one would have been the Super Tomcat, the other the Tomcat 21. One was probably evolved out of the other. Both were to create an all-around improvement of the Tomcat using new or remanufactured airframes and give it multirole capablity. Both were well along and had produced a couple well-performing prototypese.
Both were cancelled.
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I wasn't very clear in my last post, I was talking about the AIM-54 Phoenix, not the Tomcat as far as the range was concerned.
I seem to recall that the original range designated for the Phoenix was 250 NM, but it ended up at 100 NM, which, whilst still very impressive, Tico's and the like now had far cheaper weapons that could perform the same CAP functions.
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Just one more reason they should have just created an operational F-15 with thrust vectoring like the one they tested.
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I still love those great planes of the 80's/90's :)
F-14 - Bomber killer supreme
F-15E - Strike Eagle, the most awesome assault bomber evar!
F-16 - One of the best dogfighters made.
A-10 - Infantries best friend :)
F-16 is even better as a bomber.
Thing is, the Air Force is replacing the vast majority (or at least attempting to do so) of its air fleet. We're attempting to replace old airframes, some of which are 50 year old designs, with new shiny top-of-the-line aircraft of the same role...only to have this happen.
The one they aren't replacing and have no plans to ever replace? The B-52 bomber.
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Its true about the B-52...fortunately the B-52 was well designed, its been well maintained, and unlike planes like the F-14, F-15, and F-16 it doesn't have to perform extreme manoeuvres on a regular basis. The B-52 is more akin to a modern airliner than a high performance fighter and while that sounds like a bad thing I think its the reason why it persists. Apparently there is another bomber project in the works right now that will function more like the B-52 but with more modern technology and of course with stealthy features. That bomber project is considered stopgap until they can have some sort of super bomber that can fly at hypersonic speeds somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2050 or so.
Anyways the biggest problem right now is this. The the F-22 is the absolute best in the world but expensive and now apparently even more expensive to maintain. The F-15 has an amazing record but the latest Su-27 variants (Su-30MKI and MKK for instance) that are available for export are better in most respects. The F-16 is still a great aircraft and many of them are relatively new but they can't do everything. The F-18E/F is a great plane but its not good enough to win outnumbered by the latest Su-27 models. Plus all of the older models despite being quite good are ageing and there are cracks in the airframes forming and all sorts of bad things.
So take Australia which faces the real possibility that everyone else in the region is going to have something close to the latest Su-27 export model which is largely better than the F-15 and you are relying on ageing F-18C models for defense...things get interesting for the purchasing experience. The F-35 is capable but its not massively superior and isn't proven. The F-22 is not for export and has problems.
It seems like the winner of the current generation of aircraft is an upgraded Su-27 or the Typhoon which seems to be well liked and doing relatively well in exports. Its rarely a pure performance game...
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How does the Rafale M stack up?
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The the F-22 is the absolute best in the world but expensive and now apparently even more expensive to maintain.
But if only a small fraction of them can be up in the air at any time because of severe maintenance problems with the design its usefulness suddenly starts dropping off.
There were two projects; one would have been the Super Tomcat, the other the Tomcat 21. One was probably evolved out of the other. Both were to create an all-around improvement of the Tomcat using new or remanufactured airframes and give it multirole capablity. Both were well along and had produced a couple well-performing prototypese.
Both were cancelled.
Why? It seems to make more sense to base the next generation off of something we already have given future budgetary constraints as well as the kinds of conflicts we are currently in.
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Politics, I guess. Ask the british aircraft enthusiasts about TSR 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2) someday.
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How does the Rafale M stack up?
I had to look it up just to be sure but the Rafale M is the Marine (Navy) variant of the Rafale and its 500kg heavier than the Rafale C so its not going to be the best performing from what I understand. The Rafale C is a fine aircraft but in mock combat tests apparently the EF Typhoon comes out ahead.
There's one other aircraft on the table. The Saab Gripen is also an excellent aircraft...its close to its competitors in most respects and it can take off and land on a semi-prepared runway. Pretty impressive for a modern jet fighter. Unfortunately not too many of them have been built....mostly for political reasons.
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Why? It seems to make more sense to base the next generation off of something we already have given future budgetary constraints as well as the kinds of conflicts we are currently in.
Politics. The Tomcat airframes were old and most had been withdraw from service pending remanufacturing as part of the projects, which were expected to be approved. Those left in service were mainly the underpowered A model (because being underpowered, they were not capable of causing as much wear and tear on the airframe) of which there were few; towards the end there were barely six Tomcats to a carrier.
Congressional representives with stakes in the Hornet E/F program and the then-nascent JSF program combined to kill the Tomcat upgrade project on the basis of existing Tomcat flight hours being lower than that of even the E-2C (which is only assigned four to a carrier, however a carrier under weigh always has an E-2C airborne, frequently two of them). Never mind this was a totally artificial condition.
This left the Navy with just the Superbug. It was widely decried in publications of the time.
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In other words pork barrel spending....Ouch.
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What id you expect? Big businesses have their tie-ins with the politicians.
Companies and congresmen are connected. Even moreso if hte company is centered in the same state the congresmen comes from.
It's tragic given the Tomcats amazing combat performance.
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I dunno, man. The Tomcat can't engage at long range with the Phoenix because most ROEs require visual identification, and it's kind of a clunker in ACM. Pilots called it the 'silver cloud' or 'metal cloud' or something like that because of how sluggish it was in dogfights.
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Anyways the biggest problem right now is this. The the F-22 is the absolute best in the world but expensive and now apparently even more expensive to maintain.
It's best, if it flies, does not suffer a catastrophic error, USAF can maintain them, does not cross international dateline and could be present at sufficient numbers to actually make a difference. It's super hyper awesome if it happens to be fighting an enemy which has those airplanes that do not exist yet - otherwise it's redundant (many other airframes give the same performance) or useless (a grounded airplane is useless).
edit: Without AWACS, the stealth is kinda useless as well, since in order to see anything without AWACS support - remember that this thing is made to combat superpowerful nations that do not exist yet, so AWACS is not given - F-22 has to turn its radar on, and blamm, it's quite visible. And other nations also possess, and are actually quite far ahead of USA, in developing anti-stealth radars. And in case radar is completely off F-22's size and not too good fuel capacity or manuverability in combat don't work in its favour.
Without defective stealth and more emphasis on air-to-air F-22 would be a great plane. Now it's just... an expensive one.
The F-15 has an amazing record but the latest Su-27 variants (Su-30MKI and MKK for instance) that are available for export are better in most respects. The F-16 is still a great aircraft and many of them are relatively new but they can't do everything. The F-18E/F is a great plane but its not good enough to win outnumbered by the latest Su-27 models. Plus all of the older models despite being quite good are ageing and there are cracks in the airframes forming and all sorts of bad things.
You hit the nail on the head on the last paragraph. Currently, the performance of current models of Russian or Chinese fighters is not a threat to US: the training, force multipliers, numbers, electronics and all the other stuff presumably give huge advantage to US airforces, though that is of course quite speculative. However, the updates and maintenance can only keep fighter aircraft flying for so long; finally we meet a situation as with F-15s that the airframes simply break.
The complete farce of fighter developement of 1980s-2000s in West - and in Russia as well - has left many nations with dimishing choices: either the small multirole canards like Gripen, Typhoon or Rafale, older planes with limited flying time, Russ--- scratch that if you're a NATO country or something close to that - or complete reliance that the US et al can actually get the JSF program working. You can only recycle old frames for so long. And now you see what US gets for scrapping all other programs: absolutely nothing at all.
So take Australia which faces the real possibility that everyone else in the region is going to have something close to the latest Su-27 export model which is largely better than the F-15 and you are relying on ageing F-18C models for defense...things get interesting for the purchasing experience. The F-35 is capable but its not massively superior and isn't proven. The F-22 is not for export and has problems.
It seems like the winner of the current generation of aircraft is an upgraded Su-27 or the Typhoon which seems to be well liked and doing relatively well in exports. Its rarely a pure performance game...
It's always a politics game. Airframe is only one thing; it needs radars, communications, computers, spare parts, weaponry, training, numbers and someone to pay the bill to become a fully functional death machine. I would bet Australia to follow the general Western suit and go for F-35 or perhaps Typhoon.
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I dunno, man. The Tomcat can't engage at long range with the Phoenix because most ROEs require visual identification, and it's kind of a clunker in ACM. Pilots called it the 'silver cloud' or 'metal cloud' or something like that because of how sluggish it was in dogfights.
Sluggish? Tomcat? Designed to be a interceptor/dogfighter and you call it sluggish?
And as far as dogfighting goes, it could mount other, shorter range missiles.
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It's quite sluggish in a dogfight. Powerful engines, but it's a very large plane. It can't turn with something like an F-16.
It's designed as an interceptor, not as a dogfighter. The two aren't at all the same.
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For anyone who doesn't have a proper grasp of scale for the F-14:
The F-14 is 62' 8.5" (18.9 meters) from nose to tail
The B-17 Flying Fortress bomber is 74' 4" (22.6 meters)
If you put the two right next to each other, the F-14 would reach all the way to the tail of the bomber. The F-14 is gigantic.
However
It can't turn with something like an F-16.
This is true because nothing can turn with that thing.
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It can't turn with something like an F-16.
Well, no. After all, the F-16 is smaller.
But it's not sluggish. The F-14 is very manuverable. Not to mention that the F-16 is newer.
Take a look at what the Super Tomcat 21 was supposed to be like performance-wise.
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Not to mention that in a war with Russia, one would only need one Raptor per wing of Soviet MiGs or Sukhois.
Bull****. Read the last reply to find out why.
Stealth planes are overrated anyway.
The JSF is far better than the F-22 anyway. Heck, I'd rather invest in more specialized (and easier to mantain) interceptors/space superiority fighters than F-22's.
Extreme bull****. The JSF is a STRIKE-fighter. It's a CAS and attack plane first and foremost. Aerodynamically even venerable designs like the F-18 outperform it not to mention the F-16. It doesn't have all aspect stealth, so if you send it into contested airspace with bandits in the air, prepare to take severe losses.
Anybody in Canada remember the Sea King chopper?
Remember it? They still fly over my house at least twice daily, and I'm 50k from the base. I cover my head every time.
I think that the JSF is a much better option for fleetwide deployment, it's cheaper, more countries are in on the deal thus improvingrelations as well as bringing more to the table, I say leave the F-22 for low-scale production as an elite fighter.
The same as above. Simply put, the JSF doesn't cut it as an air superiority fighter. It was never intended to, it was never designed to and it simply never will. Read up on it.
Stealth, as we think of it, doesn't exist in the real world. The newest generation of fighters can pick up Raptors at forty miles out.
Base canard. At 40 miles you're already about 10 miles within AMRAAM range. (Or mere seconds from dogfighting considering the supercruise capablity.) That part, at least, worked as advertized.
The real danger here is that the JSF is going to reuse a lot of the technology, and the Navy is not happy about the skin problems. Rain and sand abrasion is child's play compared to salt water. People have actually suggested cancelling the contract, which while thoroughly unpractical, shows how annoyed the Navy is. The Marines are only slightly less irate.
More bull****. Repeat after me:
Air-to-air missiles have no such thing as a "fixed range".
What? I didn't HEAR YOU!
Air-to-air missiles have no such thing as a "fixed range".
That's better.
A2A engagements depend on a whole slew of factors, the height, airspeed and angle of the craft involved for instance.
Up high missiles go a lot further as the thinner air doesn't have as much drag. Being higher than the target also gives more range. Lower angles (so the missile doesn't have to constantly turn) ditto.
Reverse these situations, and even the AMRAAM becomes pretty "short legged". The situation is also complicated because most of the time the Russian and their buyers will have a lot of aircraft in the air as their planes are a lot cheaper and are actually meant to be used that way. Sure you can swat whole wings of Sukhois out of the skies - but the rest of them will keep fighting and eventually you will start to loose planes too.
Then there is the embarrassing, little quoted fact that even the AMRAAM only has a real life proven PKill around 50%. Ergo you need 2 missiles for a sure kill. This "unrealiability"* is what made the Russians think and adopt a very different A2A doctrine: carry dozens of missiles, with different seekers to pile the odds for you.
Finally there's the also very little quoted "fun" fact, that most R-27 (most used Russian A2A medium range missile) variants can go a lot further than the AMRAAM under similar conditions. Granted most of these are SAHR missiles but the Russians already have active-homing variants just like the AMRAAM.
*The missile's not "faulty" - that only accounts for 0,5%-1% - it just has a darn hard job against a maneuvering target that spews flares/chaff clutters the radarbands with ECM and does its best to stay alive.
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Yeah, the degree to which missile range is affected by various factors is really pretty astounding. (I say this due to extensive flight experience in Falcon 4.0 :p)
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The F14 was, primarily, a bomber killer, it relied on ranged engagement and was, compared to many Fighters around at the time, not particularly good at Dogfighting, regardless of what Top Gun might tell you.
It was originally designed to be an Air Superiority fighter, which it was, to a degree, capable of when using a mixed loadout, but in reality, it was a Bear and Badger killer, that was what it was at heart.
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Sounds like the military is in a bit of a pickle. Even if the F-22 can dogfight God and all his angels, at the current inventory and with the apparent readiness rate/logistics issues that isn't going to cut the mustard. The JSF is an air to ground specialist with its on issues, and all the teen era fighters are feeling their age and are no longer superior to their Russian counterparts. I assume we still have an edge in training and AWACs/Electronics/Coordination in order to stay ahead with the equipment we have but still thats pretty FUMTU. I don't suppose they can update the bejesus out of some of the teen era designs and build new airframes?
It will be interesting to see what comes out of it, I don't think we can expect F-15Es and Vipers to carry the load by themselves.
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Just one more reason they should have just created an operational F-15 with thrust vectoring like the one they tested.
Weren't F15s grounded due to wings falling-off 'n' stuff ? Shame as it's my favourite US fighter.
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Sounds like the military is in a bit of a pickle. Even if the F-22 can dogfight God and all his angels, at the current inventory and with the apparent readiness rate/logistics issues that isn't going to cut the mustard.
It works in the 1% of situations where you A) have to use such an specialized craft in small numbers and B) cannot risk to lose one. Those situations are quite rare.
The JSF is an air to ground specialist with its on issues, and all the teen era fighters are feeling their age and are no longer superior to their Russian counterparts. I assume we still have an edge in training and AWACs/Electronics/Coordination in order to stay ahead with the equipment we have but still thats pretty FUMTU. I don't suppose they can update the bejesus out of some of the teen era designs and build new airframes?
JSF is not an A2G specialist; it performs well on both A2G and A2A duties, but does not excel at either of those. It's an F-16 replacement. The question is: is it so inadequate to justify F-22? Supposedly not. It's an F-16 om steroids, and on most of the cases it is quite enough.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of it, I don't think we can expect F-15Es and Vipers to carry the load by themselves.
F-22 will remain a complete niche solution for a problem that does not exist; F-35 will be a good solution for a wide array of problems that can be solved more cheaply. Nations will try to use cheaper platforms to achieve given goals; F-35 will try and become cheaper, eventually replacing F-16 but will become outdated by simpler platforms. It will perform beyond whats needeed, but will not be affordable. F-22 will do as an deterrent until proven obsolete by far cheaper radar/AA solutions. US will develop a cheaper alternative unless Europe updates the4 Typhoon. No one gives a **** about Russia or India.
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It was originally designed to be an Air Superiority fighter, which it was, to a degree, capable of when using a mixed loadout, but in reality, it was a Bear and Badger killer, that was what it was at heart.
It did have some good things going for it to make a multirole aircraft, though, including potentionally massive payload and high straight-line speed. The prototypes that came out of the 21 program included terrain-following flying gear and extensive guided weapons integration since they were expected to have to pull the duty previously carried by the A-6. They also had new engines and some rudimentary vectored thrust ability. The vectored thrust probably wouldn't have made it into the final version, though.
I don't suppose they can update the bejesus out of some of the teen era designs and build new airframes?
That option is still in theory on the table for the F-15 and F-16. Part of the problem with the modern F-15 fleet is that they haven't gone through a major fleetwide upgrade (like the sort that would warrent a model designation change) in more than a decade. The -16s are better off since the Block 52 issue went through, but most of them are still the old tired airframes rather than the new ones.
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Later versions of the F14 did a lot to alter that, I agree, I still think it's a pity they didn't continue, I think the plane had potential as a smaller, more manoeuvrable version.
If I remember correctly, the biggest threat to carrier groups at the time of the F14's conception was bombers carrying long-range torpedoes, which does, on reflection, explain a lot of the design choices.
Edit: I might split out the F14 discussion as it seems to be turning into a thread of its own ;)
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Sounds like the military is in a bit of a pickle. Even if the F-22 can dogfight God and all his angels, at the current inventory and with the apparent readiness rate/logistics issues that isn't going to cut the mustard. The JSF is an air to ground specialist with its on issues, and all the teen era fighters are feeling their age and are no longer superior to their Russian counterparts. I assume we still have an edge in training and AWACs/Electronics/Coordination in order to stay ahead with the equipment we have but still thats pretty FUMTU. I don't suppose they can update the bejesus out of some of the teen era designs and build new airframes?
It will be interesting to see what comes out of it, I don't think we can expect F-15Es and Vipers to carry the load by themselves.
They are indeed in a bit of a pickle.
The biggest problem is once again that the Su-27 variants now available for export from Russia are now better than the F-15 is 1 v 1 assuming the full package of electronics and missiles and assuming the pilot is better. But lets take the pilot out of the discussion for now.
Also Western doctrine tends to assume a disadvantage in numbers can be counter balanced by an advantage in capability (through technology mostly although tactics too). The F-15 was that advantage in capability and its still quite good but its starting to be overtaken.
The F-35 is not actually a strictly purpose built strike fighter as it was designed largely to be a F-16 replacement (with aspects of the Harrier incorporated as well). The F-16 came about because the F-15 was expensive so a cheaper model was needed too. The F-22 and the F-35 share a similar position. The trouble is the the F-35 introduces a slew of new capabilities and technologies but its performance is anticipated to be at the F-16 level and possibly not quite as good in some of the really close in dogfighting capabilities. Its stealthier, its sensors are incredible, but its also heavier with greater wing loading, and has a similar range (which is not as good as the F-15, F-22, Su-27, etc.). So the worry is that a F-35 and a Su-27 in a close in battle will see the F-35 loose most of its advantage with the more agile Su-27.
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Ground control and AWACS make all the difference, to be honest.
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Extreme bull****. The JSF is a STRIKE-fighter. It's a CAS and attack plane first and foremost. Aerodynamically even venerable designs like the F-18 outperform it not to mention the F-16. It doesn't have all aspect stealth, so if you send it into contested airspace with bandits in the air, prepare to take severe losses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbnsr2oF2gM
and also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiry7ysVA9Y
because I love it
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It did have some good things going for it to make a multirole aircraft, though, including potentionally massive payload and high straight-line speed. The prototypes that came out of the 21 program included terrain-following flying gear and extensive guided weapons integration since they were expected to have to pull the duty previously carried by the A-6. They also had new engines and some rudimentary vectored thrust ability. The vectored thrust probably wouldn't have made it into the final version, though.
Wasn't the quickstrike version a smaller, one-seated, nimbler variant of the F-14? That one also got canned IIRC.
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Extreme bull****. The JSF is a STRIKE-fighter. It's a CAS and attack plane first and foremost. Aerodynamically even venerable designs like the F-18 outperform it not to mention the F-16. It doesn't have all aspect stealth, so if you send it into contested airspace with bandits in the air, prepare to take severe losses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbnsr2oF2gM
and also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiry7ysVA9Y
because I love it
Congratulations. You've just posted videos form a "de-facto" propaganda/weapons-advert show.
Nothing factual, no studies, no credible and balanced source of information. What I said still stands.
BTW:
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2008-08.html
At least this source cites several factual bits of information with appropriate sources.
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Wasn't the quickstrike version a smaller, one-seated, nimbler variant of the F-14? That one also got canned IIRC.
As far as I am aware, no such aircraft ever progressed beyond the minds of some Beltway Bandit.
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Wasn't the quickstrike version a smaller, one-seated, nimbler variant of the F-14? That one also got canned IIRC.
As far as I am aware, no such aircraft ever progressed beyond the minds of some Beltway Bandit.
I can see the reasoning behind it though, one of the real strengths of the F-14 was it's multi-targetting system, it could independently track 6 targets and guide missiles towards them at once which, at the time, was some impressive hardware. The ability to get one of those behind enemy lines with AMRAAM or the like probably seemed quite appealing, at least up until the birth of something like the F-18 Hornet.
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The only way we progress is through trial and error..
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Congratulations. You've just posted videos form a "de-facto" propaganda/weapons-advert show.
Nothing factual, no studies, no credible and balanced source of information. What I said still stands.
BTW:
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2008-08.html
At least this source cites several factual bits of information with appropriate sources.
Of course they won't be giving data sheets. This is after all, a entertainment show. Just dumping crude data is boring.
But you kinda miss my point here.
A plane doesn't have to be the most nimble aircraft ever designed to be able to dogfigh efficiently. First of all, aiurcraft dotn' perform the same under all conditions. For example - dogfighting at high alitidues and dogfighting at low altitudes are completely different and a fighter that excells at high altitudes can become twice as sluggish at low altitude. There are a LOT of factors involved into digfighting, so you can't just take a look at 2-3 stats and claim "X is so awesome, Y is crap".
The JSF looks like a capable, heavily armed craft. And heavily armed means a lot these days. Dogfighing is a rarity in modern warfare, not the norm. Most arial combat starts and ends at a lot bigger ranges.
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Congratulations. You've just posted videos form a "de-facto" propaganda/weapons-advert show.
Nothing factual, no studies, no credible and balanced source of information. What I said still stands.
BTW:
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2008-08.html
At least this source cites several factual bits of information with appropriate sources.
Of course they won't be giving data sheets. This is after all, a entertainment show. Just dumping crude data is boring.
But you kinda miss my point here.
A plane doesn't have to be the most nimble aircraft ever designed to be able to dogfigh efficiently. First of all, aiurcraft dotn' perform the same under all conditions. For example - dogfighting at high alitidues and dogfighting at low altitudes are completely different and a fighter that excells at high altitudes can become twice as sluggish at low altitude. There are a LOT of factors involved into digfighting, so you can't just take a look at 2-3 stats and claim "X is so awesome, Y is crap".
The JSF looks like a capable, heavily armed craft. And heavily armed means a lot these days. Dogfighing is a rarity in modern warfare, not the norm. Most arial combat starts and ends at a lot bigger ranges.
Please, read the goddamn article I posted!
It primarily deals with BVR, not dogfighting.
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The JSF is meant to be heavily armed for the first few days of war, enabling it to get in and take out (by comparison to modern western powers) weak C3 systems and defensive emplacements. After thate "softening period" (remember the opening of Gulf War2?) The JSF is stripped down for CAP and escort. Read the dev brief :mad:
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: Looks at the whole discussion and is amazed :
I never thought there would be this many aviation experts in here.
Me, I only consider taking some glider flying lessons at some time in future.
Though those who really are interested might want to go to www.f-16.net
and check F-22 forum for the Air Force and Lockheed Martin comments about the Washington Post article.
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Congratulations. You've just posted videos form a "de-facto" propaganda/weapons-advert show.
Nothing factual, no studies, no credible and balanced source of information. What I said still stands.
BTW:
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2008-08.html
At least this source cites several factual bits of information with appropriate sources.
The JSF looks like a capable, heavily armed craft. And heavily armed means a lot these days. Dogfighing is a rarity in modern warfare, not the norm. Most arial combat starts and ends at a lot bigger ranges.
Pretty much untrue. Long-range engagements have been fairly rare. Those dogfights that have occurred have been in pretty close.
However SAMs are (and will remain) a much bigger threat.
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Pretty much untrue. Long-range engagements have been fairly rare. Those dogfights that have occurred have been in pretty close.
Dogfights are pretty much close by definition.
If you take out an enemy at 30km it's not considered a dogfight, and most of the modern air combat ends like that.
There's a nice show called Dogfights on Discovery channel. It shows you that dogfights become more and more rare and that the dogfights that did happen, happened mostly because someone made an error and actually let the enemy close in.
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Only in a perfect world will you detect enemies at BVR range every time, there are a few things pilots can do to sneak in to visual range, and as such it's not really an *error*, but more a case of good piloting by the hostile pilot.
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People need to start citing evidenciary backup to nullify retorts.........
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Uncle: Mi-24 pilot, helicopters but still, flying below radar range still works and was a common practice when he flew in the 90s. And also, coming in on your target's six o'clock is good exploitation of the lacking in forward facing radar.
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Only in a perfect world will you detect enemies at BVR range every time, there are a few things pilots can do to sneak in to visual range, and as such it's not really an *error*, but more a case of good piloting by the hostile pilot.
Things like taking 10 minutes so identify contacts as hostile? Cause that's one of the examples of modern air combat that occured during Desert Storm. Another one includes a flight of 4 F-15 shooting down 3 enemy Mig-29's at long range.
There are more examples, but most dogfights scenarios were WW2 or Vietnam era ones.
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Dekker's right, we need to start citing sources other can YouTube crap and the Discovery Channel.
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I've got no beef with anyones view on this.. But opinion alone does not warrant validity... This is interesting as hell to read.... :yes:
But.....
As the world’s only operational fifth-generation fighter, the F-22 Raptor is, and will remain, unprecedented in its total integration of stealth and advanced avionics. It quite simply is a revolutionary leap in lethality and survivability over any aircraft in production or design anywhere in the world. With its built-in reliability and maintainability, this fighter will be able to rapidly deploy anywhere on the globe.
Air and ground threats that the F-15 can no longer counter will be defeated by the lethal and survivable F-22, with its balance of increased speed and range, enhanced offensive and defensive avionics and low observability or stealth. The F-22’s design also emphasizes reliability and maintainability of systems.
The F-22 provides a first-look, first-shot, first-kill capability through the use of stealth, advanced sensors and a lethal mix of advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. The F-22 also requires shorter takeoff and landing distances as compared to current frontline fighters. F-22 pilots will be able to engage the enemy over its own territory and support long-range air-to-ground assets. The F-22 also brings its own precision ground attack capability to the
I know they won't bad mouth their own product but it's pretty convincing.......
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I still think the UK should have got a batch of Sukhoi Super Flankers rather than continue to throw money at Eurofighter Typhoon... :doubt:
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And i love the SU-37, but i'm not gonna get one any time soon :blah:
I'm looking like mad in vain to put up some official figures or tech specs to aid both sides (for and against the F-22) in an effort to remain fair. But i cant find any :hopping:
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I still think the UK should have got a batch of Sukhoi Super Flankers rather than continue to throw money at Eurofighter Typhoon... :doubt:
It makes very little sense to buy a plane that your far-and-away most likely allies wont be flying in the evnt of major conflict. Better to get something either American or Euro so you can share maintenance in the event of a conflict, and while it's certainly possible to imagine a UK/Russian alliance against someone, it's not as likely as the UK allying with other NATO or Euro countries.
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and while it's certainly possible to imagine a UK/Russian alliance against someone,
Interesting concept, but we can't have Clint Eastwood nicking all our mind-controlled planes. ;)
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I still think the UK should have got a batch of Sukhoi Super Flankers rather than continue to throw money at Eurofighter Typhoon... :doubt:
It makes very little sense to buy a plane that your far-and-away most likely allies wont be flying in the evnt of major conflict. Better to get something either American or Euro so you can share maintenance in the event of a conflict, and while it's certainly possible to imagine a UK/Russian alliance against someone, it's not as likely as the UK allying with other NATO or Euro countries.
IIRC Finland had Mig29s. Plus I doubt Russian can be so picky who they flog their Floggers to nowadays.
Granted it would never happen, especially after the whole London plutonium poision thing, but it would have been fascinating to see lines of Flankers with RAF roundals.
Atleast they would have been in active service years ago.
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A lot of stuff on the F-14 in here...
Politics aside, the sad truth is the withdrawl made sense with the way things were going for the 'Cat. If you remove such a large fraction of a given fighter commodity aboard a vessel, logistical support becomes a major problem. Those F-14As were inherently flawed because of the engines. Iran still has the F-14A, but despite any upgrades to the avionics/fuselage, I believe their fighter still has the original dangerous engines. Now, politics are ultimately to be blamed for its removal from service (war and politics, is there a differance? :wtf:), but remember the 'Cat was first put into service in '72.
In terms of "which was better: the Tomcat or the Eagle," it really seems to come down to preference and experience. Pre-Revolutionary Iran had test pilots fly both of the fighters and said the Tomcat was the better of the two. Iran also supposedly pumped enough funds into the program that it was able to be a success for both the US and Grumman. Israel liked the Eagle. But look at the geography: Iran is a big area, Israel not so much. Thus, if you've got a large area you need a large fighter with a powerful, long-range weapons system (F-14). If not, a smaller high-power performer will be perfect (F-15).
In terms of maneuverability, it depends on who you talk to, the condition of the aircraft's weight and balance, etc. As a cadet, I had the opportunity to speak with a former F-14 pilot. He said the aircraft was superior to the Eagle, and I'm inclined to agree with him.
As far as other aspects go, I'd actually suggest reading Osprey's "Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat." As with all things involving sketchy governments and thus having to resort to personal interviews where the interviewee is given a pseudoname, take it with a grain of salt. It's still a good read (short, too). If you don't believe the weapons system was up to par (there was someone who was suggesting earlier that the Pheonix was not too good a weapon), this title might change your mind.
If it still had a shot at an upgrade, the F-14 would be most impressive. The D model was great as it was, but an upgrade after that would have seen an aircraft imaginably better than the F-15E, at least in the low-level role. I think this would have been a more suiting end for what might have been the most iconic fighter to see service in the last 30 years...
-Thaeris
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A buddy of mine's wife is in the USAF and several of his pals flew F-15s. All of them say that nothing in the air today can even touch an F-22. But every single one of them says that mass-production of the F-22 is idiotic - the need simply isn't there, and they would rather see mass production of the F-35 with it's true stealth technology and capability to carry a much larger armament.
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:wtf:
That's not personal, by the way.
The F-35, while demonstrating good use of modern "stealth" technology, is not what I'd call "true" stealth technology. Ever seen the engine exhaust on that thing? It's very unstealthy in comparison to the rest of the fighter and much less so than an F-22's exhaust. Little things like that make a fighter stick out on the increasingly more powerful sensory systems being placed into service.
I've been told the external load of the F-22 is potentially most incredible, exceeding 20,000lbs of ordnance. However, with the exception of the F-4 (as well as a few of the "century fighters") or the F-16 currently in service, the Air Force does not seem to employ its high-performance fighters as diversely as a branch like the Navy might. Thus, you'll probably never see an F-22 going on a heavy bombing run. To illustrate, when do you ever see F-15Cs with a bombload?
So yes, the F-35 will be useful. But I'm also not convinced it will be a world-beater either. If the Air Force would have elected to adopt the F-23 instead, I feel the Air Force could have ended up with a truly superior multirole platform (albeit expensive). But that's politics for you...
-Thaeris
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IIRC Finland had Mig29s. Plus I doubt Russian can be so picky who they flog their Floggers to nowadays.
F-18 C and D variants actually. The Hornets replaced aging Mig-21s and Drakens during mid-90s.
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As far as other aspects go, I'd actually suggest reading Osprey's "Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat."
Gave it a skim. Very interesting read, got to admit.
http://www.amazon.com/Iranian-Tomcat-Units-Combat-Aircraft/dp/1841767875#reader
page 10 is most interesting in regards to the tomcats combat performance.
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Not being a huge aircraft person, I don't really have a dog in this fight.
But if I were President, perish the thought, I would have someone design 3 separate aircraft, one for each branch that wants/needs. This much generalization is what makes the damn thing cost so much. And screw the stealth aspect, it's great, but the cost makes it questionable. I mean is one stealthed aircraft worth 2 non stealthed aircraft assuming the rest of the characteristics are similar? And no one has mentioned the cannon yet, do these hunks of tin even HAVE a cannon? The last figure I heard was that about 50% of dogfights, even after the implementation of radar guided A2A missiles, were still resolved with cannon fire.
Anyway, those're my two bits...
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The USAF learned very quickly in Vietnam that combat aircraft need a cannon when they tried deploying the F-4 without one, so yes, they do. And as for individual aircraft for each service, that's why the F-35 comes in three variants. The marines get VTOL, the Air Force get CTOL and the Navy get STOVL. The Air Force also gets the F-22 to replace the F-15 and maintain, in theory, technological superiority in the air. At least until the Russians start exporting the PAK FA, which will bring things back to parity again.
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:wtf:
That's not personal, by the way.
The F-35, while demonstrating good use of modern "stealth" technology, is not what I'd call "true" stealth technology. Ever seen the engine exhaust on that thing? It's very unstealthy in comparison to the rest of the fighter and much less so than an F-22's exhaust. Little things like that make a fighter stick out on the increasingly more powerful sensory systems being placed into service.
I've been told the external load of the F-22 is potentially most incredible, exceeding 20,000lbs of ordnance. However, with the exception of the F-4 (as well as a few of the "century fighters") or the F-16 currently in service, the Air Force does not seem to employ its high-performance fighters as diversely as a branch like the Navy might. Thus, you'll probably never see an F-22 going on a heavy bombing run. To illustrate, when do you ever see F-15Cs with a bombload?
So yes, the F-35 will be useful. But I'm also not convinced it will be a world-beater either. If the Air Force would have elected to adopt the F-23 instead, I feel the Air Force could have ended up with a truly superior multirole platform (albeit expensive). But that's politics for you...
-Thaeris
F15Cs didn't carry bombs because they had the Strike Eagle F15E.
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@ Roanoke:
I think you're missing the point I was getting at. The point I was making is that Air Force aircraft usually are not deployed as diversely in operations as they might otherwise be capable of. In short, the multirole potential of the aircraft in question is often put to the wayside. The single seat F-15 would make a rather impressive "bomb truck," if you will. Due to operational protocol however, this never happened. Also, don't forget that the Strike Eagle is a later project which served to (somewhat unsatisfactorily) replace the F-111.
Specialization is not necessarily a bad thing. One aircraft probably can't do everything and expect to do each of the given tasks well. However, given modern avionics and airframe technology, a fighter should be able to serve in multiple roles and perform well in most of those roles. Air Force doctrine, unlike Navy doctrine, does not seem to regard this concept terribly well in my opinion. This results in a potentially inflexible force - potentially lethal in a combat environment.
-Thaeris
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@ Roanoke:
I think you're missing the point I was getting at. The point I was making is that Air Force aircraft usually are not deployed as diversely in operations as they might otherwise be capable of. In short, the multirole potential of the aircraft in question is often put to the wayside. The single seat F-15 would make a rather impressive "bomb truck," if you will. Due to operational protocol however, this never happened. Also, don't forget that the Strike Eagle is a later project which served to (somewhat unsatisfactorily) replace the F-111.
Specialization is not necessarily a bad thing. One aircraft probably can't do everything and expect to do each of the given tasks well. However, given modern avionics and airframe technology, a fighter should be able to serve in multiple roles and perform well in most of those roles. Air Force doctrine, unlike Navy doctrine, does not seem to regard this concept terribly well in my opinion. This results in a potentially inflexible force - potentially lethal in a combat environment.
-Thaeris
I was under the impression the F15E had served quite well, especially during Desert Storm ?
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<Thaeris smacks forehead in frustration>
No, that's still not what I mean. I was referring primarily to the old single-seat F-15s in the last post. Those aircraft have a potentially great multi-role capability. This capability is not really used.
The Strike Eagles did do well in the Gulf War. These aircraft also represent a multirole aircraft. With the current restrictions on the old single-seater fleet being an issue, the F-15Es might truly become a multirole aircraft for the Air Force (rather than an aircraft restricted to one field of operation - mostly...).
The bit about the "somewhat unsatisfactory" replacement of the F-111 is this: The Aardvark was a fast, low level, long range intredictor/bomber with a truly exceptional "skill set." The F-111 represents a specialized type, yes, but it fit the bill exceptionally (much like the A-10 does in its role(s)). The unique combination of its abilities meant that its replacement, the F-15E, does not do what the F-111 did any better.
(a.) The F-111 flew a longer-ranged mission than the F-15E.
(b.) The F-111 carried a heavier payload with specialized (albeit old) avionics to get the job done, again arguably better than the Eagle.
(c.) The F-111 was a superior performer at sea level/low-level in general. The variable geometry wings allowed for this. The F-15E is a nasty ride low to the earth, those HUGE wings (originally designed for dogfights and flying around at over 50,000 feet) have a rather low wing loading in an environment which does not need that sort of thing...
Thus, you see why I don't think the Eagle was a truly satisfactory replacement for the F-111 (and I'm not the only one...). Similar arguments have probably been made for why Australia can't just get rid of its F-111 fleet. (By the way, have they done that yet?)
-Thaeris
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No. In their infinite wisom, our government decided to replace them in 2010 with... Super Hornets. :doubt:
This despite the fact that, not only are we losing all the force projection capability that F-111s give us, but that the F-111s actually have the lowest maintenance time:flight time ratio that they've ever had.
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Odd... I always considered the Hornet an Offensive fighter, Ozzies are usually smart enough to keep out of world conflicts, so, I would have thought, their real concern would have been defensive in nature. I suppose if you replaced the AMRAAM mounts with sensor pods, that could help, but it's still not going to match up to having an AWACS up there. I suppose you could throw a couple of Sparrows on there, but even they are getting just a bit long in the tooth now.
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It really is quite odd. The older-generation fighters which are currently being replaced (or have been replaced) have not necessarily been replaced by aircraft that can do what they did - better. Obviously, everyone seems to doubt the F-35. I'm actually quite apathetic about it. I will say that it'll be no F-16: the wing loading on the A and B variants is going to be pretty high if my assumption is right. I think the Navy will actually get the best one-the F-35C. The wing loading on that version should be the lowest due the greater span (even if you factor in naval gear). This means greater maneuverability and a superior payload (at least when flying from land).
The Super Hornet isn't bad, but it's not the best, either. Certainly, it did not fill in all the gaps left by when they pulled the Tomcats. The factors lost by the fleet should be fairly obvious to anyone (who is interested, at least) reading this thread.
AND I really hope that when they finally decide to get rid of my beloved A-10 they get an aircraft that can do its job better than the A-10 did it!
Even today, I can think of potentailly useful aircraft which are long gone. A HUGE stretch would be in advocating the RA-5 Vigilate: now that's a sexy aeroplane! It looks a little dated now, possibly, but roll back 10 years and it would fit in with the rest of the fleet. The Tomcat was a worthy repacement for the plane (in the reconnaissance role): it was fast and had a long range. Still, it did not have the same capabilities of the Vigi. And despite the fact that external weapons tests were conducted when the aircraft was still in service (The aircraft was originally designed as a supersonic, long range, carrier-based nuclear bomber ;7. Weapons would have been internal. Here's the weird part: the bomb was ejected through the plane's tailcone! It didn't work too well...), given the condition that you get rid of that rediculous "ejector" bomb-bay and add more pylons on the wings, you might just get yourself a good long-range strike bomber. The age and somewhat limited capability of the craft might nullify the argument (I said it would be a stretch...), but you can make that point for a good many aircraft that went out before their time was actually over.
-Thaeris
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How about we get some really low-maintenance, high-loiter-time ground support and observation aircraft? Possibly aircraft without jet engines? Crazy as it might sound, these things (like the old Bronco) would probably be more useful for some components of today's warfare than any number of high-tech jets.
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Somebody say Skyraider? Though to be honest, I'd wager a big honking UAV would probably fit the bill.
(http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Chino2004/Sampler/Ad4Skyraider.jpg)
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Good ol' Spad...
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That damn plane got the first gun kill vs a MiG-17 in Vietnam if I remember correctly.
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really low-maintenance, high-loiter-time ground support and observation aircraft?
Predator and Reaper planes fit that bill probably better than anything else.
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If you want a manned plane you might check these guys out:
http://www.stavatti.com/INDEX.html
If you've got a copy of X-Plane 9 you might even try out how the aircraft is intended to feel in real life:
http://www.stavatti.com/MACHETE_XPLANE.html
I would personally advocate the Rutan ARES, though. At the time of its testing, the aircraft was estimated to cost only about 1 million USD per production unit. One F-16 or 20 'O these? :drevil:
-Thaeris
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MMmmmm Propellers....
There's something about propellers that is just.... 'Chocs away! Tally Ho!' and all ;) I love them :D
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Yeah, but you'd never get Jet Jockies to load up in a prop driven plane, no matter how good it is.
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How about we get some really low-maintenance, high-loiter-time ground support and observation aircraft? Possibly aircraft without jet engines? Crazy as it might sound, these things (like the old Bronco) would probably be more useful for some components of today's warfare than any number of high-tech jets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3989159
The U.S. Navy's new Irregular Warfare office has been looking at an agile Brazilian observation and ground-attack turboprop to provide an "organic" close air support aircraft for special operations forces.
Under the classified "Imminent Fury" program, the Navy has already leased, tested and armed at least one Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano, according to Capt. Mark Mullins, a naval special warfare officer serving as the deputy director of the Navy Irregular Warfare Office at the Pentagon]
Plus the aforementioned UAVs, also.Yeah, but you'd never get Jet Jockies to load up in a prop driven plane, no matter how good it is.
AF fighter pilots have been one of the reasons why US suddenly faces huge difficulties.
"WE REALLY NEED THIS FLYING RAILGUN. SRSLY GUYS, THEY ONLY COST 3 BILLION EACH."
"No you don't get that seriously"
"WE'RE SCRAPPING EEEEVERYTHING also CAP sucks LOOK I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PLANES WHY DO YOU DENY US FLYING RAILGUNS"
"No you're not getting flying railguns, shut up."
"YOU HAVE DESTROYED OUR AIR DEFENCE"
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Props = :yes: You'd never get a jet in the Red Bull Air race....
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How about we get some really low-maintenance, high-loiter-time ground support and observation aircraft? Possibly aircraft without jet engines? Crazy as it might sound, these things (like the old Bronco) would probably be more useful for some components of today's warfare than any number of high-tech jets.
You mean something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130 ?
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No. The AC-130 is a gunship, a heavy, valuable asset. I'm thinking more like the Bronco (as cited in the passage you quoted.)
That said, a lot more AC-130s would be great too.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Typhoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_G.55
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-20_Havoc <<this ones a bit big
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_Whirlwind_(fighter) <<this ones ugly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F7F_Tigercat << So's this one....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire << The King of em all...
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Your list is flawed
Achtung Jabos!
(http://www.aviation-history.com/republic/p47-11.jpg)
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Your list is flawed
Achtung Jabos!
(http://www.aviation-history.com/republic/p47-11.jpg)
Bombers: "We need a fighter capable of escorting our bombers"
Fighters: "Have we got a tool for you! The P-47!"
B: "what this does not work at all as we wanted this machine sucks at what we need it to excel in it cannot even escort anything to germany what the **** is this ****"
F: "It's a great plane! we want it!"
Politicians: "**** you fighters you get the P-51."
F: "bwaaaaaa"
*P-51 fulfills the mission, becomes idolized, P-47 works in other roles*
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That just makes me want to go and watch the P-47 guncam footage I downloaded from Google...
-Thaeris
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How about we get some really low-maintenance, high-loiter-time ground support and observation aircraft? Possibly aircraft without jet engines? Crazy as it might sound, these things (like the old Bronco) would probably be more useful for some components of today's warfare than any number of high-tech jets.
But that's not flashy and high tech! Air Force can't have that.
AND IF THEY CAN'T HAVE IT, NEITHER CAN ANYONE ELSE!
Except the Marines. Those guys are scary.
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Bombers: "We need a fighter capable of escorting our bombers"
Fighters: "Have we got a tool for you! The P-47!"
B: "what this does not work at all as we wanted this machine sucks at what we need it to excel in it cannot even escort anything to germany what the **** is this ****"
F: "It's a great plane! we want it!"
Politicians: "**** you fighters you get the P-51."
F: "bwaaaaaa"
*P-51 fulfills the mission, becomes idolized, P-47 works in other roles*
This is, of course, completely wrong. The P-47 was the best piston-engine fighter of the war above 20,000 feet and hence one of the best bomber escorts. It was also capable of escort to Germany once the correct drop tanks were fitted; the terrible mistake the prewar Army Air Corp made was actually forbidding their development in a bout of bomber-mania.
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If the Air Force doesn't want it, we'll be happy to give to the Marines. They'll just crash it anyway. :p
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So what type of pilot are you training as Nuclear? Fighter? Chopper?
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He might be Air Force but not be a pilot.
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IIRC he said he was a pilot.
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This is, of course, completely wrong. The P-47 was the best piston-engine fighter of the war above 20,000 feet and hence one of the best bomber escorts. It was also capable of escort to Germany once the correct drop tanks were fitted; the terrible mistake the prewar Army Air Corp made was actually forbidding their development in a bout of bomber-mania.
P-47 cost twice as much as P-51, weighed twice as much, couldn't originally perform the wanted duty as a bomber escort and couldn't climb fast above said 20 000 feet. It could dive, though!
What a great tool for bomber escorts, right. This is of course besides the point: the subsequent modifications that made P-47 somewhat glorified cannot be used to justify the original model that didn't fill the role it was supposed to fill, and more importantly: if the military proposes something, it's not always what the politicans want the military to do, it's sometimes just what the military wants to do. In times where US army is bloated and routinely proposes outrageous stuff it would do well to remember this.
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Not being a huge aircraft person, I don't really have a dog in this fight.
But if I were President, perish the thought, I would have someone design 3 separate aircraft, one for each branch that wants/needs. This much generalization is what makes the damn thing cost so much. And screw the stealth aspect, it's great, but the cost makes it questionable. I mean is one stealthed aircraft worth 2 non stealthed aircraft assuming the rest of the characteristics are similar? And no one has mentioned the cannon yet, do these hunks of tin even HAVE a cannon? The last figure I heard was that about 50% of dogfights, even after the implementation of radar guided A2A missiles, were still resolved with cannon fire.
Anyway, those're my two bits...
Actually thats sort of what happened. The Navy squeaked the mostly new Super Hornet design in under the radar without a lot of hullabaloo because its "the same plane" which its not. The Super Hornet is a much more capable fighter and multi-role platform. With the latest AMRAAM missiles available its almost as capable as the Tomcat ...and theoretically cheaper to maintain...so they went with that. AEGIS Destroyers/Cruisers make up the rest of the new defence.
The USAF wanted a super fighter that could beat everything else the Russians had in development or otherwise at a ratio of 10:1 (not completely off on this either) or somewhere like that. They got that.
The Marines, USAF, and Navy (sort of) said we want something to be the F-16, the A-10, and the Harrier at the same time and thus the F-35 was born. So that was three. Except...the A-10 is being upgraded to the A-10C because nothing is better than the A-10 in its specific role and the F-35 is almost as good as the two it replaces, plus some stealth, plus sensors. Its a weird compromise.
I still think the Europeans got it right. The Typhoon is an excellent aircraft.
Also the F-22, F-35A, and F/A-18E/F models all have integrated 20mm or 25mm cannons. The F-35B and C have optional stealthed 25mm gun pods as optional armament.
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P-47 cost twice as much as P-51, weighed twice as much, couldn't originally perform the wanted duty as a bomber escort and couldn't climb fast above said 20 000 feet. It could dive, though!
What a great tool for bomber escorts, right. This is of course besides the point: the subsequent modifications that made P-47 somewhat glorified cannot be used to justify the original model that didn't fill the role it was supposed to fill, and more importantly: if the military proposes something, it's not always what the politicans want the military to do, it's sometimes just what the military wants to do. In times where US army is bloated and routinely proposes outrageous stuff it would do well to remember this.
Your history is fail. The P-51 was originally an Allison-engine-powered piece of **** relegated to photo recon and BDA duties over France because it just wasn't any good. Selective memory now?
But more to the point, dear Ally is absolutely correct. This is not a "subsequent modification"; the designers included the capablity for use of drop tanks from the original model. It was the actual tanks themselves that were missing, though they were in development at the time the aircraft entered service. Rate of climb is an irrevelant attribute for escort duty. The cost is also irrevelant, and almost certainly wrong; in any case the P-47 was a significantly more manuverable aircraft above 20,000 feet and it was also multirole, as it use in ground support demonstrates, so it was worth additional cost. P-47 groups served in bomber escort to the end of the war. They were the first aircraft to provide escort to Germany and were doing so for six months before the P-51.
Now I know you're just not a good historian and all. But seriously. At least do some basic research.
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Rate of climb is an irrevelant attribute for escort duty.
:wtf:
Please clarify.
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Well, in NGT's defence, most Bombers will hit ceiling within friendly airspace, since fuel consumption is lower at high altitudes, and you want to enter enemy airspace with as much warning of incoming as possible, and bombers aren't exactly the fastest climbers in the world, so the escort only needs to climb as fast as the Bombers.
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:wtf:
Please clarify.
Escorts would typically climb higher than bombers so that they can dive on any force attacking the bombers. However both reach operating altitude for the mission before any real possiblity of interception. Once in place as high cover or close escort, minimal altitude changes are necessary. Rate of climb is irrevelant; rate of dive is useful only to prevent destruction of the aircraft, as a last resort; if you dive out you're not covering the bombers while they're being intercepted.
High-altitude performance rewards raw power over aerodynamics, as most modern jet aircraft and the P-47 know. Once it reaches operating altitude, fast rate of climb is no longer a useful attribute to the mission, and no WW2 fighter save the Me163 was even remotely capable of vertical-plane manuvering like a modern jet aircraft, so the vertical plane was an unused element at the time. Straightline or shallow dive/shallow climb speed and turning circle were the attritubes of decision.
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P-47 cost twice as much as P-51, weighed twice as much, couldn't originally perform the wanted duty as a bomber escort and couldn't climb fast above said 20 000 feet. It could dive, though!
What a great tool for bomber escorts, right. This is of course besides the point: the subsequent modifications that made P-47 somewhat glorified cannot be used to justify the original model that didn't fill the role it was supposed to fill, and more importantly: if the military proposes something, it's not always what the politicans want the military to do, it's sometimes just what the military wants to do. In times where US army is bloated and routinely proposes outrageous stuff it would do well to remember this.
Your history is fail. The P-51 was originally an Allison-engine-powered piece of **** relegated to photo recon and BDA duties over France because it just wasn't any good. Selective memory now?
But more to the point, dear Ally is absolutely correct. This is not a "subsequent modification"; the designers included the capablity for use of drop tanks from the original model. It was the actual tanks themselves that were missing, though they were in development at the time the aircraft entered service. Rate of climb is an irrevelant attribute for escort duty. The cost is also irrevelant, and almost certainly wrong; in any case the P-47 was a significantly more manuverable aircraft above 20,000 feet and it was also multirole, as it use in ground support demonstrates, so it was worth additional cost. P-47 groups served in bomber escort to the end of the war. They were the first aircraft to provide escort to Germany and were doing so for six months before the P-51.
Now I know you're just not a good historian and all. But seriously. At least do some basic research.
http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/stevenson%20f-22%20brief.pdf
James P. Stevenson is the former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Topgun Journal and author of The Pentagon Paradox and The $5 Billion Misunderstanding. He is also an adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C.
Now I know you're not much of a historian either, so I rather take a source that I know than internet username "NGTM-1R"
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I'm actually not a pilot. I'm aircrew however on the Rivet Joint.
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Not being a huge aircraft person, I don't really have a dog in this fight.
But if I were President, perish the thought
Here I was thinking you didn't like the President overstepping his authority. :p
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Escorts would typically climb higher than bombers so that they can dive on any force attacking the bombers. However both reach operating altitude for the mission before any real possiblity of interception. Once in place as high cover or close escort, minimal altitude changes are necessary. Rate of climb is irrevelant; rate of dive is useful only to prevent destruction of the aircraft, as a last resort; if you dive out you're not covering the bombers while they're being intercepted.
High-altitude performance rewards raw power over aerodynamics, as most modern jet aircraft and the P-47 know. Once it reaches operating altitude, fast rate of climb is no longer a useful attribute to the mission, and no WW2 fighter save the Me163 was even remotely capable of vertical-plane manuvering like a modern jet aircraft, so the vertical plane was an unused element at the time. Straightline or shallow dive/shallow climb speed and turning circle were the attritubes of decision.
So what happens halfway through the mission, when the first wave of interceptors hits, and you've dogfighted and bled your altitude so that you're now significantly lower than the bombers? Wouldn't climb rate be important for getting back in place quickly before another wave hit? Or was that never an issue?
I honestly don't know here: all I know is from playing flight sims, dogfights tended to spiral downward and everyone involved tended to lose a lot of altitude.
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Actually, that would have been a genuine problem back then, nowadays though, not so much, because interceptors could be detected further away and escorts will dive down to meet them before they can get among the bombers anyway.
Of course, having an interceptor that could climb faster than the escort could cause big problems.
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Excellent. WWII aviation is my specialty...
Note some things first: I don't like the P-51. It's a plane with a bloated ego/reputation. It deserves a lot of credit, but probably not in the magnitude it gets to date.
The P-47 was a great aeroplane. But, just like the Mustang, was more suited to some roles than others. At certain high altitudes, the P-47 would outrun the Mustang with little problem due to the massive turbo-supercharger that filled in a lot of the fuselage. The exhaust from the thing made it almost like a turboprop because of residual thrust being vented. Keep in mind the P-47 was the heaviest operational single-seat fighter of the war. Being over 20,000lbs gave the plane a massive wing loading. If it was going to maneuver, it was going to do it at speed. Even in the thin air at high altitude, a "Jug" at speed was a dangerous foe. Because the fuselage was so densly packed with the mechanisms of the plane, as well as the redundancy/reliability of the radial engine, the P-47 was immensely survivable. It had a great deal of power, meaning it (despite its weight) could lift a great deal of ordnance. So, it could perform either role, escort or attack. In my opinion, it was a better attack platform.
It would have been great if it would have stayed that way for thee rest of the war. Here's why (most likely) it got replaced by the P-51: (a.) economy. The P-47 used huge amounts of fuel. The engine was thirst, and the airplane was BIG. Thus, you've got a large aircraft which has a big, blunt frontal area. Drag. (b.) logistics. Good things get replaced if there's not a lot of them. An example is already in the thread: the F-14. Now, the P-47 did see service until the end of the war, but in limited numbers. Primarily this was the P-47M in Europe and the N in the Pacific. The M and N were basically the same, but the N had longer wings with fuel tanks therein. Both had uprated engines (2,800 hp I think?).
Like all aircraft, the P-47 and '51 were good in their respective roles (even the early models), but that did not make them great at everything. The P-51 is a great example. Sure, it had a good payload in the ground-attack role, but it could not take a hit to the radiator. Which was located in the center of the plane, on the bottom of the plane. Which, made it hard to miss... Still, I will concede that the P-51 was better for the aerial superiority mission.
On maneuvering... I'll get to that later. This post is long as is...
-Thaeris
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James P. Stevenson is the former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Topgun Journal and author of The Pentagon Paradox and The $5 Billion Misunderstanding. He is also an adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C.
Fine. You want to play name the source, I'll bite.
Eric M. Brown, Royal Navy Captain and test pilot, who was contemporary to the aircraft in question and flew both of them.
Eric Bergerud (http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Sky-Air-South-Pacific/dp/0813338697/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248819110&sr=1-1), who I was fortunate enough to have attented a couple of lectures by once, historian and professor of history.
Both of whom have considerably less of an axe to grind or a dog in the fight then your source, to boot.
So what happens halfway through the mission, when the first wave of interceptors hits, and you've dogfighted and bled your altitude so that you're now significantly lower than the bombers? Wouldn't climb rate be important for getting back in place quickly before another wave hit? Or was that never an issue?
Dives and climbs were very shallow in these sorts of tactics. You did not lose altitude like you really want to, you were merely trying to gain a few extra MPH. Perhaps a thousand feet at most, more likely, five hundred, would be the variation. Interceptors avoided turning fights because of the loss of altitude.
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Eric Bergerud (http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Sky-Air-South-Pacific/dp/0813338697/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248819110&sr=1-1), who I was fortunate enough to have attented a couple of lectures by once, historian and professor of history.
I envy you...
Fire in the Sky must be my favorite history to date. The time to read its almost 700 pages was well worth it.
-Thaeris
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P-47 cost twice as much as P-51, weighed twice as much, couldn't originally perform the wanted duty as a bomber escort and couldn't climb fast above said 20 000 feet. It could dive, though!
What a great tool for bomber escorts, right. This is of course besides the point: the subsequent modifications that made P-47 somewhat glorified cannot be used to justify the original model that didn't fill the role it was supposed to fill, and more importantly: if the military proposes something, it's not always what the politicans want the military to do, it's sometimes just what the military wants to do. In times where US army is bloated and routinely proposes outrageous stuff it would do well to remember this.
Your history is fail. The P-51 was originally an Allison-engine-powered piece of **** relegated to photo recon and BDA duties over France because it just wasn't any good. Selective memory now?
But more to the point, dear Ally is absolutely correct. This is not a "subsequent modification"; the designers included the capablity for use of drop tanks from the original model. It was the actual tanks themselves that were missing, though they were in development at the time the aircraft entered service. Rate of climb is an irrevelant attribute for escort duty. The cost is also irrevelant, and almost certainly wrong; in any case the P-47 was a significantly more manuverable aircraft above 20,000 feet and it was also multirole, as it use in ground support demonstrates, so it was worth additional cost. P-47 groups served in bomber escort to the end of the war. They were the first aircraft to provide escort to Germany and were doing so for six months before the P-51.
Now I know you're just not a good historian and all. But seriously. At least do some basic research.
Actually the early Mustangs were also quite good. But only under 10,000 feet. At that altitude they put in some solid tactical fighter efforts during 1942 and 1943 and also well into 1944 in China/Burma/India. The RAF used the Mustang Mark I to launch the first tactical strikes into Germany. But in terms of a world class fighter...not as much. At that point the Allison was not up to the task without a supercharger better suited to high altitude.
The Thunderbolt was also developed into quite a good aircraft although that took some time as well. The thing is that WWII has plenty of very impressive aircraft all doing different things which means that the arguments can go on for ages.
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James P. Stevenson is the former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Topgun Journal and author of The Pentagon Paradox and The $5 Billion Misunderstanding. He is also an adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C.
Fine. You want to play name the source, I'll bite.
Eric M. Brown, Royal Navy Captain and test pilot, who was contemporary to the aircraft in question and flew both of them.
Eric Bergerud (http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Sky-Air-South-Pacific/dp/0813338697/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248819110&sr=1-1), who I was fortunate enough to have attented a couple of lectures by once, historian and professor of history.
Both of whom have considerably less of an axe to grind or a dog in the fight then your source, to boot.
So what happens halfway through the mission, when the first wave of interceptors hits, and you've dogfighted and bled your altitude so that you're now significantly lower than the bombers? Wouldn't climb rate be important for getting back in place quickly before another wave hit? Or was that never an issue?
Dives and climbs were very shallow in these sorts of tactics. You did not lose altitude like you really want to, you were merely trying to gain a few extra MPH. Perhaps a thousand feet at most, more likely, five hundred, would be the variation. Interceptors avoided turning fights because of the loss of altitude.
Fine.
So what did these sources of you say, exactly? That P-47, the fighter that the AF originally proposed for bomber escort duty, was adequate from the beginning and that the decision to prioritize P-51 was useless - or the decision didn't exist? I didn't question the performance of P-47 in all the cases, I simply put forward the point that P-51 was selected for a reason for the VLR bomber escort duties to Germany!
That's besides the point, of course, which originally was that the tools military proposes for a mission are not always the best for that, but the tools military want to use. See the Crusader farce, for example.
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Fine.
So what did these sources of you say, exactly? That P-47, the fighter that the AF originally proposed for bomber escort duty, was adequate from the beginning and that the decision to prioritize P-51 was useless - or the decision didn't exist? I didn't question the performance of P-47 in all the cases, I simply put forward the point that P-51 was selected for a reason for the VLR bomber escort duties to Germany!
That's besides the point, of course, which originally was that the tools military proposes for a mission are not always the best for that, but the tools military want to use. See the Crusader farce, for example.
The P-47 was totally adequate for the job. It was intially unable to make the range requirement for escort to Germany, but this was anticipated; the aircraft was designed and entered service with the knowledge that larger and better drop tanks were in the pipeline to extend its range. The P-47 was going to win the air war. Arguably, it did.
The P-51 was essentially a lucky break that the Air Force ended up with by accident, a marvelous fighter and certainly superior in many aspects from the B model on, but it was not required. The original weapon would have completed the job. Once the AAF got a good look at it, however, the Merlin-engined Mustang became the only tool they wanted, subverting your point.
Your argument would have been vastly more interesting and valid if you had gone with, say, the entire existence of RAF Bomber Command, USN torpedo development prior to and during WW2, German failure to design and implement new technologies for their submarines until it was much too late...
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German failure to design and implement new technologies for their submarines until it was much too late...
Yeah the Type 21 (like the ME-262, it's Luftwaffe counterpart) would have had a major influence on things if it was introduced earlier and in sufficient numbers. Shame for them.
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Yeah the Type 21 (like the ME-262, it's Luftwaffe counterpart) would have had a major influence on things if it was introduced earlier and in sufficient numbers. Shame for them.
That's not even the tip of the iceburg. They never introduced a submarine-use radar during the war. It took them nearly eight months, after they realized about 10cm wavelength radar, to get a simple warning system for detecting it out to the fleet. When it became obvious submarines needed better antiaircraft armament because of Coastal Command's Bay Offensive, it took a similar amount of time to get the fleet fitted with the quad 20mm mount to replace their older twin 20s; by then it was much too late. Submarine sonar was never improved during the war; torpedo development was so poor that the Allies had an acoustic homing torpedo (an air-dropped homing torpedo, no less) nearly a year before the T-V antiescort homing torpedo entered service. The schnorkel did not enter service until mid-1944, when all the preliminary work had been accomplished before the war by the Dutch; the result was that by the time it did 3cm airborne radar neutralized its advantage by being able to detect the pipes.
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Fine.
So what did these sources of you say, exactly? That P-47, the fighter that the AF originally proposed for bomber escort duty, was adequate from the beginning and that the decision to prioritize P-51 was useless - or the decision didn't exist? I didn't question the performance of P-47 in all the cases, I simply put forward the point that P-51 was selected for a reason for the VLR bomber escort duties to Germany!
That's besides the point, of course, which originally was that the tools military proposes for a mission are not always the best for that, but the tools military want to use. See the Crusader farce, for example.
Want to use? What do you mean? The military usually wants to use the best of what's available! Rather, politicans of often want what they want for whatever reason it suits them. Why do we have that foolish F-22 instead of the YF-23? A fully developed F-23 would have been far better for a good list of reasons I will be happy to heap upon your head should you be curious! High-end generals often are no better than politicians either; that's the only reasonable part fo the want to use argument you've got! :hopping:
The P-47 was good at a lot of things, including escort. The Merlin Mustang was better in the escort role. That in no sense makes the Thunderbolt a fluke. If you think it does, than you aren't too familiar with the exploits of the fighter in the field. And what do you mean by "Crusader"? Not the F-8 I hope, because that was an exceptional aeroplane by all accounts. Perhaps this only shows that history is as accurate as according to the writer's vendettas. If that's the case for everything we're probably about as brainwashed as the North Koreans...
-Thaeris
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I think janos has a point. The military as riddled with lobbying and special interests as anyone else.
To say that the military is somehow better at selecting aircraft is to treat the military as a monolithic entity without its own internal politics.
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Yes, this is true. But also recall that the military is responsible for carrying out the operation when the time comes. That being said, I feel I've made a point as well. Of course, this is a subject which can go round many times over and still yield no agreement.
If I will make a statement for the support of the opposing camp: note the earlier-mentioned "drop-tank absence" on fighters. In the early days of the USAAC, the "Mitchell bomber-cult" made every effort to supress the development of fighters. US fighters at the time were thus mostly contemporary of many European designs, thus being (a.) small, nimble planes with an emphasis on WWI-type aerial engagements and/or (b.) tactical in nature: small, short-range combat craft designed to support ground forces. Most 1920's-30's designs reflect this philosophy. Of course, the USAAC of the day had fairly little experience with actual combat (combat aircraft were still wearing "diapers," if you will...) and the doctrine of high-ranking officers was very backwards in light of today's standards. Any competant commander observes the full spectrum of the situation at hand while also precieving the situation to come. This means he/she also works with superiors/subordinates to determine the best possible solution.
This brings me to another statement, this time in support BUT ALSO in contrast to the one made above. One of my heroes, Claire Chennault (only a Captain at the time), was strongly against the "Mitchell doctrine." Chennault was able to effectively demonstrate that the strategic bombing doctrine of the time was terribly flawed. Due to the military politics of the time, his efforts were not well accepted. This illustrates Battuta's point (and Janos') well. However, his eventual exploits, due to his insight, have significantly shaped modern understanding of aerial combat.
This is where the contrast sets in: the warfighter (Chennault-at the time) is often better able to see the conditions and needs required to endure in combat than generals off the field. Modern doctrine (at least USAF doctrine) is shaped to deal with this effectively. The best leaders lead through cooperating with their respective subordinates. Communication is key: he who knows the most fights the best. I cannot think of any exceptions to this rule. This is how I can justly state that the military tends to want to use the best of what's available. However, you still are right: war and politics are no different in the end (when the bashing of tongues end the bashing of heads begins!).
I just hope the condition is that you're not completely right and I'm completely wrong. If that's true then the national defense is going to hell in a handbasket...
-Thaeris
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Want to use? What do you mean? The military usually wants to use the best of what's available! Rather, politicans of often want what they want for whatever reason it suits them.
I don't see it as a bad thing, since army should be under the political command lest they've been give too much power. I don't see whats so controversial about it?
Why do we have that foolish F-22 instead of the YF-23? A fully developed F-23 would have been far better for a good list of reasons I will be happy to heap upon your head should you be curious! High-end generals often are no better than politicians either; that's the only reasonable part fo the want to use argument you've got! :hopping:
Armies are not independent entries? They often propose stuff that suits their needs quite well but don't actually suit the needs of the nation? You know, the meat of my argument?
The P-47 was good at a lot of things, including escort. The Merlin Mustang was better in the escort role. That in no sense makes the Thunderbolt a fluke. If you think it does, than you aren't too familiar with the exploits of the fighter in the field.
I have never argued that, if you think so please go ahead and point where I did. I dare you.
And what do you mean by "Crusader"? Not the F-8 I hope, because that was an exceptional aeroplane by all accounts.
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No, I did not mean that. I was referring to SPA platform that was put forward during the later stages of Cold War, then cancelled. The platform the Army was so defiant to defend when there was absolutely no reason to replace perfectly working platform with much more expensive platform.
Perhaps this only shows that history is as accurate as according to the writer's vendettas. If that's the case for everything we're probably about as brainwashed as the North Koreans...
-Thaeris
edit2: removed some offensive language
edit: The technical expertise NGTM-1R shows in the thread is still sidestepping the issue: why was the Air Force so adversely reacting to P-51, which showed itself to be well suited for the task the politicans wanted, and instead proposed an airplane that, even according to sources at the time, was good for many tasks but not as well suited for the task proposed as an another, already existing, airplane?
The reason, of course, being armies trying to glorfy themselves and selecting tools that work for selected duties (duties that fit the ambitions of the army): an all-out air superiority platform is not what a nation needs, it's actually detrimental to the nation itself. It's not like this is an unique concept.
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edit: The technical expertise NGTM-1R shows in the thread is still sidestepping the issue: why was the Air Force so adversely reacting to P-51, which showed itself to be well suited for the task the politicans wanted, and instead proposed an airplane that, even according to sources at the time, was good for many tasks but not as well suited for the task proposed as an another, already existing, airplane?
This. Did. Not. Happen.
The P-47 was ready a good year before the P-51A. When the P-51A rolled around, it was not suited to the task and thus was naturally rejected for it. Despite its very advanced design (laminar-flow wings, jetted exhaust), the Allison engine simply could not deliever high-altitude performance and it was thus not a capable escort. The P-38 and P-47 were expected to carry the bomber escort role because they had the high-altitude performance.
Then the B model rolls out. Field-tests show it to be capable in the escort role and superior in many respects to the P-47. The AAF immediately comes on board with this new version because...well actually that's ugly and an argument for your point. It was an in-line engine, not a radial. Air Force fighter officers viewed the inline as the future of warfare because of its aerodynamics. They were behind the times. The radial's superior power/weight ratio and durablity meant it lasted longer on military aircraft.
So you actually got it reversed. They chose the weapon they chose because it fit their preconceptions. That weapon, as it happened, was the P-51, not the P-47.