that chart (p 52) just shows that the F-35 will require relatively less maintenance on the stealth coatings than the F-117, it doesn’t say anything about the absolute amount of maintenance the F-117 requires and how that compares to other legacy jets
(the chart axis are a lot less clear than they appear at first glance, for instance is that hours per flight? hours per flight hour? hours per month? and what is that about ‘Maintenance Actions’? it’s almost like they are showing hours on one side and switch to incidents on the other)
Here you go hammerhead. It’s too bad I have to do all the homework on your weak theory.
Wow. 75% of the maintenance tasks on an F-117 require some L.O. restoration.
i have provided a link showing that is not the case
do you have any documentation to backup your assertion?
as opposed to the F-111 which has neither day nor night stealth
Lockheed. Hows that? Ever look at any of their briefings? There are several that show the graph of F-117 operational cost, including the pretty, happy-face 2006 JSF one. F-117 is almost a one trick pony. Where an F-111 in that region has other non-big war uses because of it’s range and fuel. ADF btw uses JTACs just like USAF m.o. , So an F-111 with lots of gas and payload can actually show up and do on demand CAS work and not go away after dropping two bombs. Maritime recon to get a look at something real quick and at range. 2 man crew strike/nav. Payload and variety of stores including heavy stores like…lets say a future hyper-sonic that can be a PGM to hit a target a few hundred miles away as a form of very short flight time. The fact that the taxpayer put lots of money into F-111 spares that will keep it going to 2020. Etc… etc…
F-117 is getting dated in it’s usefulness and needs U.S. style IADS attack: Lots of Tomahawks, jamming, and other platforms where it is only a part of the show. Especially now for the U.S. which has no money. A fundsite pays an assload of cash to deploy an F-117 unit and once an IADS is down, great. But now with JDAM being the norm weapon where it was not in quantity in Allied Force 1999, once an IADS is down, an F-16 can do the same work and is cheaper to operate and maintain. Re: jamming resources …( where again here an F-22 with less jamming support can at least get out of a negative stealth event). And might even have to use no jamming support for lack of money in some situations mentioned below. USAF would like B-52SOJ if they can ever come up with the cash because of it’s long range jamming. This is important because it is doubtful that an EA-6/EA-18G “Growler” both being slow and draggy-tanker dependent and the fact that they are shorter range escort jammers, could be very useful to try and keep up with a high paced fast and fancy footwork F-22 SDB SEAD/DEAD super-cruise sniping effort, where the wonderful AN/ALR-94 sensor setup on F-22 picks out ground as well as air emitters and can geo-locate same. F-117 with no air to air ability to cover any other kind of goof up. Bad since every adversary is putting IRST on their new jets. Combine IRST and lower band GCI which isn’t too impressed by stealth saying “look over there someplace”, an F-117 without a lot of resources to back it up will be in trouble.
Then again, the idea that an F-117 would be useful in future SAM threats has to be examined. If someone goes out and buys an S-300 with all the trimmings, F-117 doesn’t have enough defense. Example, the super-cruise speed of an F-22 means that it’s “bow-tie” stealth… where the side aspect is the most weak stealth profile, is a little less of a big deal because with crossing aspect shots at some distance, a missile firing solution needs lots and lots of energy to hope to over-take and intercept. So in the case of the F-117, where if you go to places called libraries (yeah not all info is on the interweb yet is it?) It will show you some books where F-117 people talk about the weakness of the jet. ONE screw being out of place and showing up like a beacon on radar sets on test ranges… always pointing the nose at the strongest emitter etc… etc… An interesting historical note on aspect; when an F-117 was shot down over the former Yugoslavia, Lockheed Martin had this to say about it: “Even a standard turning maneuver could increase the aircraft’s radar cross section by a factor of 100 or more”. Even in that shoot-down, poor jamming coordination was found to be a lesser factor. Doubt it would have helped in that event but it was still mentioned as being out of place.
USAF went to the well three times and each time they picked an aircraft that had less stealth. YF-23 v YF-22… F-22 where some of it’s close-in performance was a factor. Then back in the day of that competition where the Mac Air product which was pretty stealthy was down selected. Then later the JSF competition. The ugly Boeing Delta lost to the LM JSF although here to be fair the STOVL was part of the debate. The LM JSF won out because it’s performance was considered more doable.
Don’t be so impressed with stealth for stealths sake. Without some F-22 like insane performance to back it up, your risk where you can go around some stiff IADS will be a problem. F-117 doesn’t have performance and gas to do anything in a negative stealth event. This is also why USAF pukes have come out before and saying F-22 can go places in IADS work JSF shouldn’t go.
An F-117 in RAAF service in your scenario wouldn’t be able to do very much. And giving all the billions in dollars Defence is loading up on in a variety of programs, it just wouldn’t happen.
Doug Richardson, Stealth, Deception, Evasion and concealment in the air, 1989, First Edition, ISBN 0-517-57343-1
AFA Conf – JSF Program Brief – 26 Sept 06.ppt Adobe Acrobat file (5.88 MB) , http://www.jsf.mil
Tirpak, John, Where Next With Electronic Attack?, Air Force Magazine Online, October 2006, Vol. 89, No. 10
Lambeth, Benjamin, Kosovo and the Continuing SEAD Challenge , Aerospace Power Journal – Summer 2002
Flachsbart, Brian M., A Robust Methodology to Evaluate Aircraft Survivability Enhancement Due to Combined Signature Reduction and Onboard Electronic Attack, Adobe Acrobat file, June 1997,Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA
Kopp Carlo, Why Australia Should Retain Its F-111 Fleet, APA
-Bill Sweetman, Just How Super is the F/A-18E/F?, Interavia Business & Technology, April 1, 2000-
The Navy and Boeing have intensified a propaganda campaign. Unfortunately, the campaign is likely to damage their credibility in the long term, because it focuses on a few basic statements which don’t mean anything like as much as the casual reader is meant to think.
For example: “The airplane meets all its key performance parameters.” This is true. In 1998 — as it became clear that the Super Hornet was slower, and less agile at transonic speeds than the C/D — the Navy issued an “administrative clarification” which declared that speed, acceleration and sustained turn rate were not, and had never been, Key Performance Parameters (KPP) for the Super Hornet. Apparently, some misguided people thought that those were important attributes for a fighter.
-Bill Sweetman, Super Hornet gathers speed, but critics keep pressure on, Interavia Business & Technology, March 1, 1999-
The Pentagon has conceded that the MiG-29 and Su-27 can out-accelerate and out-turn all variants of the F/A-18 in most operating regimes, and that the E/F in turn cannot stay up with the older C/D through much of the envelope.
Navy data from early 1996 (published in a General Accounting Office report) showed that the new aircraft was expected to have a lower thrust-to-weight ratio than the late-production (Lot XIX) F/A-18C/D with the General Electric F404-GE-402 engine. Its maximum speed in a typical air-to-air configuration would be Mach 1.6, versus Mach 1.8 for the smaller aircraft. In the heart of the air-combat envelope, between 15,000 and 20,000 feet and at transonic speed, the Lot XIX aircraft would hold a specific excess power (Ps) of 300 ft/sec out to Mach 1.2, while its larger descendant could not hold the same Ps above Mach 1.0.-
David A. Fulghum, Navy Details New Super Hornet Capabilities, Aviation-Week, Feb. 25,2007, Has some good whiz-bang stuff about the Block II Super and other electronic attack issues.
Andrew Fowler, Flying Blind, Four Corners-ABC, Oct 29, 2007, Windows web video. 40’25”
Haven’t checked some of those links lately so I hope they are still good.
I have heard stories of how in mock battles the USN set up vs the F-16 boys has virtually gone in for missions out of missions without even a single F-18E/F kill , against all sort of situations (Attack , defend , attack a protected target etc etc) .
Red air USN Navy F-16 peeps out of Key West is a different animal than a big Su with a larger radar aperture ( and power output ) that will have no problem picking out something over 1m2RCS. Then of course there is the new centerline droptank IRST that the USN is getting and hawking it as an air domination weapon. That has to be the height of desperation. “See we have IRST too!” Where you can get a nose job on a Blk 60 F-16, JSF, Eurofighter, RuTech etc being stock.
Point to the chart where the Super Hornet is on an RCS scale.
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