LowObservableThe JPO did not decide to declare IOC at 3F because that wasn’t and isn’t their job. The service sets IOC criteria, ultimately. And from the outset the plan was for the Marine requirement to be met at Block 2 (at a point where Block 1 was supposed to carry baseline weapons) with the USAF at Block 3. And that has now been watered down, with Block 2B introducing baseline weapons and the USAF declaring IOC with 3I, which is functionally similar to 2B.
LowObservableI do see a worrisome trend in that every partner nation talking about F-35 support seems to think that they can secure more work than their proportion of order numbers would justify.
That seems to be slightly dodgy math…
LowObservableFBW – F=Ma. Regardless of WOD, the E-2 requires less A from the cat to get it to flying speed so the fact that a certain cat can launch an E-2 does not mean it will launch a Super Hornet.
Whether the Sao Paulo cats can do so, and at what WOD, I don’t know. However, it is well known that the Midway class had gone by the time the Super Hornet was flown and that even the non-nuclear CVs were on their way out, so the design case was the Nimitz class.
LowObservableThe Canadian process so far has not been bull****.
It has been moose****.
As is any process that fails to take major cost differences (and consequently major differences in force size) into account. However, most of the processes that have been used by different nations over the years to validate their choice of JSF have failed to account for cost, particularly on the operating side. The problem is that competitors can provide guarantees based on actual deliveries and operations (even Saab can extrapolate since the airframe and systems are similar to C/D and the engine cost is known) while JSF provides promises and projections.
LowObservableFD – Correct. “Competition” is not going to be open. Turkey and Korea may come through with the best prices, but the UK and Norway are unlikely to rely on them for crisis support. And the US will retain full capabilities in any event, and (by law) 50 per cent of work on US-operated aircraft is done in government depots, whether directly or under contract to the prime support contractor. Finally, the security requirements and specialized capabilities will constitute a steep barrier to entry for new competitors.
LowObservableOne piece about Rafale/EF versus other aircraft that you are missing (because it is not something we have had to worry about for a long time) is the ability to carry >4 AAMs and a diverse/large air to ground load at the same time. Otherwise, CAS capabilities depend on sensor and weapon capabilities that most aircraft have.
There are all sorts of ways to play multi-ship in the radar/EW/LO game. I would suggest that a wily adversary with wide-angle AESA, with its application as a high-power jammer, extensive experience with datalinks, a missile with a Pk-at-range margin and good IRST will give a VLO adversary a hard time, if the adversary does not have those things.
LowObservableThe E-2C, with its 140 kt approach speed? Srsly.
By the way, and thinking of the engine change: the fact that Gripen was designed from the ground up, based on considerable experience, for sustained small-unit ops with minimal support equipment is also useful for carrier ops. It’s not all about takeoff and landing.
LowObservableSorry – when I say the jet is a black box, I mean that – if what you’re saying is correct – its operators, to a large degree, do not know how it works.
Vnomad – CAS and BAI and homeland defense and the rest are what fighters are actually used for, most of the time.
As for mano a mano with the T-50 and J-20: A crucial and more or less unknowable factor is whether radar LPI/LPD works these days, in the sense of the stealth aircraft being able to detect, track and ID without being detected. What we do know is that the goalposts have moved since the F-22 was designed, in that the classic “radar-shiny” jets have reduced head-on, X-band RCS, much better passive EW and better jamming. All these make it harder to use LPI radar to gain a decisive first detect, because ceteris paribus you need more energy to do the job and the adversary is better able to detect that energy.
So you may be into a world of mutual detection with RF. In that case the key factors will be non-RF tracking (single-ship and multi-ship IRST) and more and better AAMs on the kill side, and platform kinematics, warning and jamming on the survival side. And from that, we can all draw our own conclusions without rehashing the last 38 IRST arguments.
LowObservableVnomad – Also it carries more than its predecessor in the Harrier II, and carries it further.
If you go back in this thread you will find the Navy Standard Aircraft Characteristics document which shows that to be incorrect.
Let’s make this simple. Block 3I it is.
CAS – No Rover. No gun. No low-CD weapon. No capability.
Air dominance – 2 x AIM-120C only, 7g limit. Rivals will have 4 Meteor + SRAAM + IRST.
Air policing/homeland defense – No gun, no SRAAM. Little or no capability.
Moving surface targets – No gun, GBU-12/JDAM only. Little capability. Rival weapons include Brimstone, Maverick and AASM.
Precision strike against fixed-defended targets: F-35 has JDAM, rivals all have stealth cruise missiles. Draw.
Reconnaissance: No high-bandwidth datalink. spot SAR only, midwave-IR-only EOTS, uncertain ability to record imagery. Rafale and Gripen both available with recce pods, all will have latest TDPs for NTISR.
ASuW: No capability.
Source, p15 – http://www.scribd.com/doc/76973783/August-2011-JSF-brief
LowObservableThe Dutch study… that would be the one supervised by the minister who was subsequently caught s[no]gging his secretary and went to work for Lockheed Martin’s PR and lobbying firm?
More materially, the study was bull**** because it evaluated the aircraft on a one-for-one basis.
After it became clear that the Cloggies could afford only 37 JSFs for the money that Saab wanted for 85 Gripens, and after the JAS 39E spec and schedule had firmed up and improved (with the repositioner and GaN-based EW, to name but two items that were added after 2008), Saab asked for a re-run using real money. The Netherlands’ response was “go away, we know all we need to about alternatives from reading the papers.”
http://www.eenvandaag.nl/uploads/doc/Brief%20Saab%20Gripen.pdf
So I will hand it to you, Flex – the Gripen will never be selected for the Dutch air force.
LowObservableHops – Show me where others have made blanket claims such as “400% better in air combat” or “8X better at air-to-ground” along with lower maintenance stats and “Gen 4 price”. Or projected 5000 or 6000 sales.
Spud – I know about anti-tamper (although unless your tamper-detection codes are 100% good you just introduced a whole new clutch of failure modes) and replacement-versus-repair (GLWT on a carrier, LHA/D or FARP). But it makes the jet a bit of a black box to its non-US operators.
FBW – A 2009 report. Two years later one of its signatories approved the selection of the Gripen as it was then defined.
LowObservableSo the avionics make it special – and the discussion is not about SA, but stealth, for the moment – but have been designed to be exportable?
Given that avionics are a high-maintenance item on any aircraft, and there is no sign at all that the F-35 is low-maintenance, this seems to raise some interesting issues as to how exported aircraft will be maintained in service.
LowObservableQuestion remains, of the gamut of missions that a fighter aircraft may be called onto perform, which competing aircraft outperforms the F-35, in what role and against which adversary?
Today, all of them do (including Gripen C/D) because the JSF cannot perform any operational missions at all.
And are we talking about 2B/3I, or 3F? Or 4A/B? If so, are the others allowed to take credit for another 8-10 years and $$billion in development? By that time, T-50 and J-20 will be operational?
Which version of the JSF? Everyone is faster and more agile than the F-35C and everyone can carry more, farther, than the F-35B.
LowObservableFBW – The CSBA is NOT PART OF THE DoD!
Maybe if you would stop yelling at people, you would actually read the bit that says
The CSBA report carries far more weight than usual because it was drafted under the leadership of deputy defense secretary Robert Work and his senior advisers, according to a source directly involved in its production. It is intended to launch a detailed discussion of a major change in national strategy, inside and outside the Pentagon. Author Robert Martinage, a former senior Pentagon official, “can neither confirm nor deny” the extent of Work’s involvement, he tells Aviation Week.
VNomad – The report calls the F-35 “semi-stealthy”, calls for cutbacks in the program and raises the possibility of whacking the F-35C.
LowObservableWhy single out the F-35 for being a compromise?
The F-35 and the Coasters’ Charlie Brown…. Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?
The F-35 is singled out because its fans and its business plan don’t accept that it’s a compromise. It’s sold and planned as the answer to every need, everywhere, and marketed as being better than everything at every mission, except the F-22 in air-to-air, and cheaper too.
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