Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: rubixcube on May 03, 2013, 08:32:36 pm
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Unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade, you must at least have some idea as to what is going on with US government's most expensive military project, the F-35.
Here's an article for more information: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100614024 (http://www.cnbc.com/id/100614024)
As a citizen of Canada and an aviation buff, I am concerned with this countries future air combat ability after the cf-18's have been retired. After reading the specs on the new aircraft I am not too impressed.
What does everyone else think? Is this plane worth the colossal sized price tag?
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As over heard in a Conservative meeting:
"Hey guys, I got a great idea. Wonderful idea.
Let's replace these aging CF-18s with ultra-modern jets that don't have the communication equipment required to communicate with our forces, can't refuel with the planes we have now, but in the interests of saving money, lets only buy the bare minimum of what we need. They're so invincible they couldn't possibly crash or have any sort of problems.
And to slant the project into a no-bid in everything but name, lets say we can only require a plane that does stealth, has the letters 35 in it, and designation starts with an F.
Also we could leave off buying the engines for now. We'll get those on a Boxing day sale!"
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Hey, at least you guys can afford to buy this ... thing.
Is this plane worth the colossal sized price tag?
I try to pretend that everything the US military spends money on is like shoes, the more expensive the better. Otherwise its basically :banghead: all day, every day.
This project seems to be a disaster all around. Lock it in the basement and start over. (Also: refund?)
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Yeah, we can afford a billion dollar jet program. But a two million dollar globally praised lake research project (2/3rds of which gets covered by user fees anyway) was too much and was going to be shut down until Ontario said, "Whatever, we'll take it over".
(Bizzaro bonus points to that since closing the research project would have cost fifty million since the lakes needed to be returned to their original state!)
It just makes me think of Eisenhower:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
Talk about your socialist hippie, amiright?
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I watched a TV special last Friday regarding the Canadian government's relationship with the F-35, and it indicated at the end of the program that there still exists an escape clause for Canada, and that no final decisions have been made and no funds have been paid. Independent government audits also confirm the deceptive price tag per plane that was given initially, and the actual cost that would take place if its signed-off on.
In terms of what aircraft I feel Canada should choose, I was initially pleasantly surprised when the F-35 was announced as Canada's choice. Unfortunately, as time went on, delays mounted, costs ballooned, and shortcomings became evident, I began to lose my faith in it. Knowing what I know now, had it been my decision eight years ago or so, I would have steered towards the F-18E. I have heard that it has some capability shortcomings over the previous models, but the fact is that its an aircraft that technicians are already loosely familiar with, it has the 2-engine reliability, and its a far less costly alternative. I've even read that it can boast some miniscule degree of stealth capabilities, due to its main body shape and slightly radar-absorbing coverings.
I think that they should have given the F-35 a pair of lighter engines instead of the single unit, kept the wingspan of the Navy version for all variants, and downgraded the stealth requirement, allowing it to carry more weapons and fuel externally, but perform limited stealth missions in "striped-down" mode.
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Yeah, I was kind of the same way. "Oooh, F-35. Recent military hardware, in MY Canadian military?" But then all those stories about the shortcomings and added costs that kept going up came through and... yeah. Not that big of a big fan anymore. Give me something tried and tested.
What's really mind boggling is how they (as in the entire JSF program) set up manufacturing it. If everyone buys them, the cost goes down and the countries get some jobs dedicated to building parts of it. But with costs ballooning and countries bowing out, it only makes the costs go up! Which is going to make other countries rethink their plans, lower orders and costs will go- you get the idea. It's only going to get worse.
But with the Conservatives in power, its going to take some mighty huge pressure to make them back off of any proposal, especially with that majority of theirs.
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re: Hawt
bald old guy who I would totally use a time machine to go back and [redacted]* Eisenhower quote: The last lines of that speech always kills me.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
*not
I think that they should have given the F-35 a pair of lighter engines instead of the single unit, kept the wingspan of the Navy version for all variants, and downgraded the stealth requirement, allowing it to carry more weapons and fuel externally, but perform limited stealth missions in "striped-down" mode.
Cut the stealth capabilities and it might(how much of a downgrade are we talking about?) not be able to beat the current soviet anti-air systems. Then it would just be a useless downgrade to in service planes. (If only because of the price tag)
Hah. Derp a Derp, I do.
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We're in a very similar boat to Canada here in Aus - committed to the program, but buying a bunch of stopgap planes because it keeps getting delayed and delayed. And not even the right stopgap planes. We bought F/A 18 Super Hornets to replace our (awesome but old) F-111s. They're way too short range to be of any use in an Australian setting, and too bloody expensive for a stopgap. We should have bought F-15 Es for half the price, or upgraded variants of them like the F-15K, and then maintained a medium range strike capacity alongside the main fleet of F-35s if they ever turn up. Admittedly, there are cost issues associated with running two different aircraft, but they're not that bad, and since the government is insiting that we wont buy STOVL F-35s for our new LHDs, we lack any kind of medium-long range force projection capabilities from the air.
There are big on-paper advantages to the 35 of course - in our case, they wanted a single aircraft fleet, and the F-35 is the best option for that. But we're not even going to get them until 2020 and I don't care what anyone says, with the F-111s retired we do have an air capability gap right now.
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I would think that the age of pilotable military plans is nearing its end. Drones are more and more involved with various operations and from what I hear, militaries aren't telling even half the story how much drones have been used lately. Sooner or later F-35 and any potential successors are obsolete, replaced by drones.
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Italy bought the F-35 too, and in the last months it was an highly debated subject due to the incoming elections.
AleniaAermacchi will build the Italian fighters, with an estimated creation of 10'000 jobs (and, being an aerospace engineer student close to graduation, I'm very interested in this :D).
On the other hand, I think the F-35 is... unnecessary for Italy (for the Air Force, at least). The Italian Air Force will need to replace the Tornado IDS bombers and the flying wrecks named AMX, used for light attack. The Tornados can be replaced by building more Eurofighter Typhoons, and the AMXs can be replaced with an attack version of the Aermacchi M346 advanced trainer, a spin-off of the Yakovlev Yak-130 advanced trainer (just to give you an idea of how much sh1tty the AMX is, it is so underpowered that the hydraulic system can't feed both the flying controls and the Vulcan cannon at the same time. Choose: fire the cannon, or fly the plane?). This way there would still be new jobs created, and maybe we shouldn't have had the need to buy KC-767 tankers with the boom refueling system, since all other Italian airplanes use the hose-and-drogue system for which a pod under the wing of a C-130 is enough...
The problem would be the Italian Navy: the Harriers carried on board the Garibaldi and the Cavour carriers are getting old quickly, and the F-35 is the only airplane that could replace them.
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Same story in the Netherlands.
But after doing the maths its been concluded that stepping out of the program at this stage would cost us more money than going through with it...
They should have gone with the Gripen years ago, that would have been such a cheap deal.
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I feel like the rest of world is experiencing what it's like to be involved in a US military project. (They're nearly all like this)
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Meanwhile in
Soviet Russia, the PAK-FA is slowly shaping up (http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2013/04/pak-fa-to-start-operational-te.html).
While a lot of clueless PR flaks, so called "experts" decry the Russian designs for its sub-par stealth, other cooler heads (http://ausairpower.net/), have pointed out that the Russians are well known for taking an evolutionary process to their planes, keeping projects tight and focused on specific aims and thereby mitigating risks.
The current PAK-FA does *not* et all like what its final form might look like. The Russians decided not to employ (the very expensive) stealth features (mainly applying radar absorbent materials - RAM) on the plane, until they're satisfied with the rest of the plane's performance. It's important to note though, that they've demonstrated a mature understanding and mastery of RAM application in the past, which reinforces the notion that the lack of it on the PAK-FA prototypes was a conscious, likely cost related decision on their part.
One area that has been admittedly lagging was the development of the super cruising engine, albeit even current Saturn designs would make the plane a formidable combatant, especially for interception and air-defense roles where sustained supercuirse is not as great an asset as in offensive roles.
Even if the PAK-FA turns out to be a sub-par fighter compared to the F-22 (something that's debatable, but will only be decided by time... especially since both planes' actual characteristics are highly classified), the fact that it has massively lower per unit cost (and development cost so far), could mean that Asian and Russian forces could field them in a significantly greater number than could NATO its own stealth designs.
PAK-FA: ~$50-60 million/unit
F-22: ~$150 million/unit
F-35: ~$100-240 million/unit
When compared to the F-35, the PAK-FA blows the later out of the water... in several ways (flight range, radar performance, dogfighting capability), not the least being a bigger platform with massive growth potential, if its predecessor the Su-27 family is anything to go by.
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
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We're in a very similar boat to Canada here in Aus - committed to the program, but buying a bunch of stopgap planes because it keeps getting delayed and delayed. And not even the right stopgap planes. We bought F/A 18 Super Hornets to replace our (awesome but old) F-111s. They're way too short range to be of any use in an Australian setting, and too bloody expensive for a stopgap. We should have bought F-15 Es for half the price, or upgraded variants of them like the F-15K, and then maintained a medium range strike capacity alongside the main fleet of F-35s if they ever turn up. Admittedly, there are cost issues associated with running two different aircraft, but they're not that bad, and since the government is insiting that we wont buy STOVL F-35s for our new LHDs, we lack any kind of medium-long range force projection capabilities from the air.
There are big on-paper advantages to the 35 of course - in our case, they wanted a single aircraft fleet, and the F-35 is the best option for that. But we're not even going to get them until 2020 and I don't care what anyone says, with the F-111s retired we do have an air capability gap right now.
Perhaps you should have chosen the F-22... despite its rumored control difficulties... and cost.
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F-22: ~$150 million/unit
F-35: ~$100-240 million/unit
Wasn't the JSF supposed to be cheaper than Raptor? It is somewhat less capable than F-22 and might end up costing... nearly twice as much? Epic fail, anyone?
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Literally every time (I am making this up but I'm pretty sure it's true) the military has set out to make a system that Will Do Everything it has turned into a preposterously expensive and underperforming cluster****.
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From my very very very limited experience with military hardware, the best planes and systems in general are designed to counter a very specific problem. The F-15, for example, was build to counter the (inaccurate assessments of the) Mig-25 Foxbat, and is really really good. The JSF, on the other hand, has been created in a time where all the enemies we have are vastly inferior technology wise then we are, and simply sets out to be the best fighter ever. Which sucks.
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So you could say it sets out to be the worst fighter then? :P
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Literally every time (I am making this up but I'm pretty sure it's true) the military has set out to make a system that Will Do Everything it has turned into a preposterously expensive and underperforming cluster****.
That reminds me of the Eurofighter Typhoon: During the 80s it started with the codename "Jäger90" and was planned to replace the ageing Phantoms of the German Airforce during the 90s.
Because it was a joint venture between different European nations the plane should fill different roles and was designed to do them all...
Well, it didn't went well, the project became more and more expensive and took much longer than expected.
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Perhaps you should have chosen the F-22... despite its rumored control difficulties... and cost.
I believe that they looked into just exactly that, but that the F-22 was never made available for export.
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The control difficulties were a defect in the F-22's oxygen system. It wasn't calibrated properly or something and it gave pilots hypoxia, so for a while it was restricted to low-altitude flights. Some have also reported developing respiratory problems, and so there's suspicion that noxious fumes have been leaking into the air supply. The USAF did look into it, but has concluded that pollutants in the air supply is not the problem. I'm not sure if they've resolved the issues, but all altitude limits on F-22 flights have been removed.
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
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Literally every time (I am making this up but I'm pretty sure it's true) the military has set out to make a system that Will Do Everything it has turned into a preposterously expensive and underperforming cluster****.
Ironically, one of the most widespread and successful "Will Do Everything" fighter in service today, the F-16, was originally designed as a very cheap fighter with limited capabilities...
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
I don't know why exactly, but generally I find myself admiring the looks of 4th and 5th-generation Russian jets more than the Western ones. It's probably due to the more rounded (maybe slightly "organic?") shapes they have (compare the F-15 to the MiG-29 and Su-27, the LERX-like leading edges on the latter two in particular). However, I like the shape of the F-14, for the same reasons. It's true that there's a lot of resemblance between the PAK FA and F-22, but I find myself preferring the former slightly more.
I'm not very knowledgeable about such things, but rounded surfaces aren't as stealth-inducing as faceted ones, because they're more likely to reflect incident radar energy back to the radar receiver. Future fighter designs with stealthy airframes are likely going to be more faceted as a result (fly-by-wire enables such designs to be made flyable). A "compromise" design, in this sense, would be the Silent Eagle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F-15SE_Silent_Eagle) upgrade for the F-15E (which incidentally has also been offered for export).
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Canada should bring back the Arvo Arrow. ;)
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That, and maybe the TSR-2. That looked seriously ahead of its time back in the '60s.
Speaking of aircraft that seemed to have great potential but were cancelled for one reason or another....I was reading up on the development of the Harrier a few months ago, and learned that following the Kestrel demonstrator, Hawker Siddeley planned to make a supersonic version originally named the P.1154 - this was actually eventually going to be given the name "Harrier". However, due to the incoming Labour government in 1965 (and a few other reasons) it was cancelled, and the RAF proceeded with development of the subsonic P.1127, which ended up becoming the Harrier we know of today.
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
I'm not very knowledgeable about such things, but rounded surfaces aren't as stealth-inducing as faceted ones, because they're more likely to reflect incident radar energy back to the radar receiver.
Uh, my understanding of it is that the faceted designs were because working out radar scattering on curved surfaces was beyond the abilities of early computers. Certainly I don't think the B-2 or the SR-71 were less stealthy than a faceted design.
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That, and maybe the TSR-2. That looked seriously ahead of its time back in the '60s.
Speaking of aircraft that seemed to have great potential but were cancelled for one reason or another....I was reading up on the development of the Harrier a few months ago, and learned that following the Kestrel demonstrator, Hawker Siddeley planned to make a supersonic version originally named the P.1154 - this was actually eventually going to be given the name "Harrier". However, due to the incoming Labour government in 1965 (and a few other reasons) it was cancelled, and the RAF proceeded with development of the subsonic P.1127, which ended up becoming the Harrier we know of today.
I'm fairly certain Harriers are fully capable of supersonic flight. Regardless of what the "official" maximum speed is.
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Uh, my understanding of it is that the faceted designs were because working out radar scattering on curved surfaces was beyond the abilities of early computers. Certainly I don't think the B-2 or the SR-71 were less stealthy than a faceted design.
To be accurate, despite its appearance, the SR-71 isn't operationally stealthy, because the massive exhaust plumes behind the engines actually give off a greater radar return than the airframe, nullifying any potential stealth advantages. Besides, going that high and that fast they were never in any real danger.
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welp, that's what i get for relying on skimming wikipedia
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Uh, my understanding of it is that the faceted designs were because working out radar scattering on curved surfaces was beyond the abilities of early computers. Certainly I don't think the B-2 or the SR-71 were less stealthy than a faceted design.
External geometry is not internal geometry. The B-2 is faceted on most of its internal structures to reduce their return, which is the real reason you end up with faceted shapes anyways.
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
im gonna have to agree with the e here. russians have some badass designs, they have a few blatant ripoffs too, but when they design something from scratch it really looks badass.
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
im gonna have to agree with the e here. russians have some badass designs, they have a few blatant ripoffs too, but when they design something from scratch it really looks badass.
To elaborate: Here's the SU-47 Berkut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-47).
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
im gonna have to agree with the e here. russians have some badass designs, they have a few blatant ripoffs too, but when they design something from scratch it really looks badass.
To elaborate: Here's the SU-47 Berkut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-47).
pure jet porn
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And heres the X-29 - and only 13 years earlier than the su-47 (i used to fly this in janes atf)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_X-29
and the daddy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_287
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yea, but its not painted black.
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Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
im gonna have to agree with the e here. russians have some badass designs, they have a few blatant ripoffs too, but when they design something from scratch it really looks badass.
Like the Aeroprogress T-752 Shtyk (http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/these-airplanes-real-9946.html#post283710), or the Rutan-esque T-720 (http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,28594.msg526970.html#msg526970)? The former was only a concept but it looks incredible.
That, and maybe the TSR-2. That looked seriously ahead of its time back in the '60s.
Speaking of aircraft that seemed to have great potential but were cancelled for one reason or another....I was reading up on the development of the Harrier a few months ago, and learned that following the Kestrel demonstrator, Hawker Siddeley planned to make a supersonic version originally named the P.1154 - this was actually eventually going to be given the name "Harrier". However, due to the incoming Labour government in 1965 (and a few other reasons) it was cancelled, and the RAF proceeded with development of the subsonic P.1127, which ended up becoming the Harrier we know of today.
I'm fairly certain Harriers are fully capable of supersonic flight. Regardless of what the "official" maximum speed is.
I'm not too clued up on the subject but there are something like 40 odd variants in the Harrier family. I've read that the early FRS.1 Sea Harrier is faster than the more modern FA2, and I think that's the case when compared with the AV-8B branch of models too. Under certain circumstances I think any Harrier variant can approach transonic flight conditions, but such circumstances would probably entail a clean (or near-clean) configuration and possibly a diving attitude. I'm not sure if Mach 1 could be reached in level flight with a clean config.
I wonder what a Mach 2-capable Harrier would have been like, both from a pilot's perspective and in terms of combat role. It would have probably seemed like the ultimate in combat aircraft versatility for its time.
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Well, except for the minor thing where "A supersonic Harrier" is much like the STOVL variant of the F35 :P
There's a lot of complexity involved in making a fighter that can do STOVL magic AND go supersonic AND fill the combat role the Harrier was built for.
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That's correct, but AFAIK the original P.1154 project wasn't part of a trinity of closely-related designs like the F-35 project is. I've read that one of the reasons that the project has dragged on and cost more than originally estimated is that changes in one design have resulted in knock-on changes to the other two. I'm not sure if this is a direct result of the specification which requires 80% parts commonality between all three variants (which was going to be a factor in keeping costs down). Meeting all the STOVL, supersonic and armament specs in a single package is a huge, complex job, but as the P.1154 was a singular project I wonder how it would've turned out. Then again, the history of the Yak-141 is perhaps a sign of where it likely could've ended up (the design of the Yak-141 is what the F-35 is to some extent based on).
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Planes of that generation cant go supersonic without afterburner
there is no way you could have an afterburner with the harriers nozzle system
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Why my country (Australia) is wasting time and money on F-35s and F/A-18Es and not going for later model Flankers from the Russians is entirely beyond me.
We should never have mothballed the F-111s.
EDIT: Figured out why. The government won't bother paying to have everything in each plane translated from Russian. Sure, there's probably heaps more reasons but that seems like the excuse they'd use.
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Why my country (Australia) is wasting time and money on F-35s and F/A-18Es and not going for later model Flankers from the Russians is entirely beyond me.
We should never have mothballed the F-111s.
EDIT: Figured out why. The government won't bother paying to have everything in each plane translated from Russian. Sure, there's probably heaps more reasons but that seems like the excuse they'd use.
We were never, ever going to go Russian or European even. The ANZUS alliance means that in the event of any serious conflict, we'd be operating hand in glove with the US. Using the same equipment as them means we can utilize each others supplies of spare parts, armaments etc. not to mention expertise of the people working on the machines.
Seamless integration of our air fleet with the USAF/USN is worth more than slight performance/value increases we may (or may not) get from going Russian.
That said, I do kind of agree about the F-111s. They had their very best flight time to maintenance time ratio at the end of their service life (including vs. American records) - I would have liked to have seen at least one more upgrade cycle when it became apparent that the F-35s would have been delayed - or, as I mentioned before - at least replacing them with something of comparable capabilities ala the F-15E/K.
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Looks like the competing recquirements produced a catastrophic compromise.
Out of curiosity, how many Magic Do Everything ambitious multirole military assets have succesfully been developped in, say the past 50 years, and deemed worth the cost over existing stuff? (This is a genuine question)
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Uh, my understanding of it is that the faceted designs were because working out radar scattering on curved surfaces was beyond the abilities of early computers. Certainly I don't think the B-2 or the SR-71 were less stealthy than a faceted design.
To be accurate, despite its appearance, the SR-71 isn't operationally stealthy, because the massive exhaust plumes behind the engines actually give off a greater radar return than the airframe, nullifying any potential stealth advantages. Besides, going that high and that fast they were never in any real danger.
Actually that's wrong and a belief I also shared for quite a time. Turns out the Mig-25 and Mig-31, along with the more mature SAM systems *did* pose a threat to the plane, hence why the SR-71 never overflew the Soviet Union and instead relied on its impressive arsenal of side-looking radars and cameras.
Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.
you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing
Actually, the PAK-FA is more like an interesting hybrid between the F-22 and the YF-23 then a mere copy-cat... reminds me of what the Russians did with the Buran shuttle.
(http://i.imgur.com/diMg70S.jpg)
(http://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/3/2044/PAKFA_YF23_F22_F35.jpg)
What's kinda bothersome is that the YF-23 "looks" the most modern after all these years. Granted, given all the headache even the F-22 has been giving the air-force I can totally understand their decision to go with a less complex design... however their rationale of awarding the ATF project to Lockheed instead Northrop because the other company didn't lock financially stable is pure bullcrap. Northrop was already reeling from having the no. of B-2 ordered drastically reduced... now this.
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We should never have mothballed the F-111s.
I'm somewhat surprised that 23 of them ended up in a landfill (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/australia-saves-six-f-111s-offers-seven-buries-23-365321/). They were probably stripped of their engines and avionics beforehand but it's a shame that the airframes weren't at least recycled in some way. Or placed in an above-ground aircraft graveyard of some kind.
On a side note, apparently a couple of Japanese anime studios found a use for the TSR-2 as a "Meteor Sweeper" in Stratos 4 (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1969). Better than using it to toss nukes at people I guess.
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Call me a heretic but I always preferred the Soviet/Russian doctrines of aircraft design, and not only in looks. U.S. fighter jets have (had?) the best performance money can buy, but the sacrifice was in practicality. Take out our runways and we have very few aircraft with short-field capability, much less aircraft capable of operating from grass or natural-material strips, or imperfect surface streets. In general, the landing gear of U.S. aircraft isn't sturdy enough and the tires fitted are relatively small and highly pressurized. We also don't make a habit of having intake filters or screens. Though these problems could be ameliorated fairly easily, it would take a crisis to catalyze. Would it be too late then?
The Russians still operated aircraft with vacuum-tube electronics well after silicon chips became common, because they're easier to work on in the field. Rugged landing gear, large, low-pressure tires, intake screens...and much lower costs per airframe. I can't help but think their doctrines would work out better in a slugfest between world powers. I doubt the PAK-FA will be as rugged as their usual fare, of course, but the SU-27 line has been fantastically versatile and doesn't really need replacing so much as supplementing.