If the Military's Future Stealth Jet Fails, the Navy's Got a Backup Plan | Danger Room | Wired.com

 

Conformal tanks and EPE motors would take it from a great airplane, to a fantastic airplane. For substantially less money (and with two motors). The new E's rolling off the line are excellent jets, but you feel like there's just a little something that could turn it into a real monster.

 

We should just scrap the 35 now and go with these and Block 60 or greater F-16s.

 

Ive made this basic comment before, but every time I read about the latest snafu re: F-35/22 etc, it just continually disappoints me that we no longer seem to be able to create combat aircraft like we used to.

I know a lot has a changed since the days where we were producing a new (and successful) jet every couple of years, but why can't we do that now?

We seem so insistent on trying to make our new tactical jets capable of doing every job under the sun and making it impervious to all threats thinking that the govt would save money by having fewer aircraft types to acquire for the services. So far it seems we haven't been able to build such a jack of all trades. Would it really be that much more costly to build a couple of different single role aircraft that really excel in their jobs like we used to vs an aircraft like the F-35?

As a multi-role aircraft, the Super Hornet seems to be quite capable despite not being a 5th gen aircraft. It can dogfight, it can drop bombs, and it can provide EW. Does the Navy stand to gain that much from the F-35? If there was ever to be an aircraft that would be suitable to all the branches and not cost $100M/ea, why not the Super Hornet?

Civilian (who is a fan of our military) rant over.

 

But when was it ever not a royal cluster ****?

F111-F14? No, that ended badly. WTH were they thinking landing an aircraft that heavy on a carrier (F111), then the F14 engine problems?

B1? Seemed to be more about spending more money so all the money spent on the first version wasn't "wasted".

B2? 500 million a copy is what I remember back when it was unveiled. Today's numbers are probably a lot bigger. And if we were designing this, what was the B1 for and what could it do that the B52 wasnt?

F102, had to be completely designed because it couldn't go fast enough.

F101 was originally designed to launch nuclear air-to-air rockets...lol...the lack of practicality of some of these things just blows the mind.

Just a few that come to mind.

Yes, there are some that seemed to have been designed relatively efficiency and successfully, but it seems more like blind luck rather than good planning, given how many have been close to total screwups. I'm sure we could list more.

I think there is more to the story though, as in the "actual cost" of these things, and how it's essentially using the government to "create jobs", so there's a feedback loop that's created that attempts to feed itself, even if that's not the outright goal of the defense contractors and all the jobs that are created. You either want the best stuff possible or you take a calculated risk and reduction in capability. Having "it all" is pretty expensive...

 

The Navy is smart.

Specialization is critical to aircraft design. If I was king for a day I would kill the 35, reroll the technology into fourth gen + designs as able and keep the F-22 / B-2 alive with upgrades for day one of major wars with other advanced air powers.

It makes about zero sense to me that we are not getting more out of the F-16 / F-15 / A-10. That was and will be the backbone of American airpower for the foreseeable future.

Stealth / fifth gen is nice but not if you can't afford to fly it or buy them. Right now the pendulum has swung so far in the direction of advanced technology over proficiency and flight hours / number of aircraft that it is ridiculous.

 

^^^^ bingo.

Just like the F-16 'not a pound for air to ground' morphed into the current capability the F-22 could evolve. Seems like the F-22/F-18F and perhaps updates to the F-16/F-15 would be the way to go.

 

The B1-B was resurrected for the Reagan defense buildup. It was quicker than a clean-slate design.

Both the B1 and B2 were designed to survive and maintain a credible bomber deterrent where the B-52 could not...the high-end (for the day) AD environment over important Soviet targets.

The B1 would come in low and fast (tree-top level) and the B2 would fly high and invisible (presumably at night).

In hind-sight maybe the AF should have given the contract to Cessna, with Mathias Rust as a consultant.

 

The jets of yesterday (F-4/F-100/F-105/A-7/etc...) we're not exactly that advanced. Once you had a fuselage that was flyable, slap a motor in it, hang some bombs and maybe some missiles and go. Pilots could transition from airframe to airframe with relative ease, because there wasn't much to them...find a wire and your good! The systems we have today, are not exactly cheap and easy to develop (or learn). We'll never be able to roll out jets like we used to...but the 35 program has gotten ridiculous.

I don't think we stop developing new aircraft. But I do think the 35 is a lost cause and we would be better off by putting our money into newer 4th Gen aircraft. Then we need to fix our acquisitions process, and try again at a new 5th gen fighter.

 

Seems like the F-22 still needs some time to morph into all it can be in the fighter role, IMO.

BTW, that "Not a pound....." was the slogan of the original design team for the F-15 and had nothing to do with the F-16.

The F-16 was the winner of design/fly-off competition with the YF-17 (which eventually morphed in the F-18) in what started as the Lightweight Fighter (LWF) program. The LWF was supposed to be a day/VFR visual fighter supplementing the all-wx/BVR capability of the new F-15.

Early on in the development, the LWF concept was changed to a fighter/bomber replacement for the Thud and F-4 as well as NATO countries older aircraft. By the time the production began, there was no doubt the F-16 was a fighter/bomber replacement and the rest is history.