hopsalotI’m not sure how you define “kid” – but yep, same person. Probably the most qualified “kid” on the forum.
I believe the quote goes:
“I used to know everything, then I grew up.”
All those companies have a damn good reason for continuing with the status quo and continuing to encourage the idea that BVR combat does work, while pretty much all evidence points to it being a marginally effective tactic at best.
Sure, you know better than the world’s defense contractors, SAM and air to air missile design firms, aircraft designers, ship designers, you know better than all of them.
You also know better than the world’s air forces, naval air forces and fighter aircraft operators of all types.
You know better than the world’s naval and ground based air defense forces.
You also know better than the pilots and SAM operators that actually use these systems.
You may indeed be the most qualified kid on this board.
😉
I don’t need any.
No I suppose you don’t since you know more than essentially everyone on earth…
:rolleyes:;):rolleyes:;):rolleyes:
hopsalotUnlike yourself, I know what I am talking about far beyond what is in a few press releases.
Aren’t you the same kid that claimed that BVR doesn’t “work” a little while ago and that “LM/BAe/Boeing/Raytheon/MBDA/Rafael/Vympel/Sukhoi/Dassault/etc” as you put it were lying? (Post #339 in this very thread) :diablo:
Lets face it, you “know what you are talking about” in much the same way that every football fan at a bar seems to think he should coach the national team.
If those releases give you a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside, by all means, you continue to quote them as gospel.
First off, they aren’t press releases, but a whole range of articles from industry publications.
Second off, you have provided -nothing- to support your argument. You claim you know what you are talking about, even as you make a fool of yourself over and over again by being proven completely wrong.
You haven’t brought one single source to this discussion.
I have had to correct you on basic facts over and over again. :p
Naturally you know what you are talking about and we should all ignore the large body of credible reports and instead listen to the kid who thought shooting missiles at manned aircraft as part of a test program was a good idea. :rolleyes:
hopsalotI agree.
It is interesting that given the choice between higher performance, and reduced operating costs, the USN went for the latter. If the SH’s performance was as bad as some on this forum would assert, that seems like a strange choice for an air combat force that’s likely to see action anywhere on the globe.
One of the biggest things that drives me crazy about messageboards is how things tend to degenerate into discussions of which plane is faster, with the obvious implication that the slower plane is inadequate.
The SH does it job. It does it very well. What else really needs to be said?
hopsalotOf course not; USN needs all its money for F-35.
Not so different, no. :rolleyes:
Not meeting India’s requirement is very different from being “too slow” in any general sense.
Like all aircraft, the SH was designed within certain constraints. The end result has proven to be an excellent aircraft for the US Navy. If the Indians are looking for a different type of aircraft to fulfill a different set of requirements that doesn’t mean the SH is suddenly a bad design.
In the end India eliminated several highly capable designs for failing to meet their requirements, leaving only the Rafale and Typhoon.
hopsalotThere is no ‘Europe’. If there was a single collective European military-industrial-financial pool the forces and investment picture would be ridiculously improved even without a net increase in spending.
The difference isn’t ‘vision’, it’s money — pure and simple.
Even if we limited ourselves to talking about only the Eurofighter program participants there was plenty of money available. We aren’t talking about small economies here. They just weren’t willing to make the commitment necessary for the Typhoon to be what it might have been.
And it should be applauded for that. Indeed, it should be doing more of that sort of thing — rather than e.g. cancelling JDRADM so as to maintain a handful of strategically useless worn-out F-16s in service for another couple of years. You won’t see me playing down the importance of R&D.
Nobody cancelled the JDRADM to fund F-16s.
For that matter the US is still actively working on the necessary technologies for a JDRADM-like missile in other programs.
See here:
The T3 program seeks to develop a supersonic, long range missile that can engage enemy aircraft, cruise missiles, and surface-to-air missiles. The speed, maneuverability, and network-centric capabilities of the Triple Target Terminator (T3) should significantly improve U.S. aircraft survivability and increase the number and variety of targets that could be destroyed on each sortie. The T3 missile should enable an aircraft to rapidly switch between air-to-air and air-to-surface capabilities, and is designed to be carried internally by 5th generation aircraft (F-22 and F-35), as well as externally on 4th generation aircraft (F-15, F-16, and F-18). The enabling technologies are: air-breathing propulsion, advanced data networking, multi-role guidance and control, and advanced thermal and power management.
The program plans to culminate in a live-fire T3 missile demonstration against the three target types in the fall of 2013.
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Triple_Target_Terminator_%28T3%29.aspx
Rafale is a carrier-capable aircraft too and yet it doesn’t need wunderbar EPE engines to meet basic performance standards for a fighter aircraft. Nor does vanilla Hornet for that matter.
…and neither does the Super Hornet for that matter. The US Navy is quite happy with the performance they are getting from their SHs. Do you see the US Navy pushing for the EPE?
The EPE is available if an export buyer wants it, but the SH certainly doesn’t need it to do its job. I know around here every discussion ultimately devolves into a largely misunderstood argument about which jet would kill which in some grossly simplified air war, and it is considered common knowledge that he SH is about as fast as and agile as a three legged dog… but the reality is quite different.
hopsalotI’ve actually read a bit on this AETD engine on the net as i was intrigued . My understanding is whatever the final product will be , it will be available in the 2020s. Even so the US air force site says it’s not intended for F-35, but for new gen fighters and bombers.
I am responding to you, but obviously others have raised the same issue.
Pratt and Whitney won the lobbying war against GE/RR. As a result the US Congress killed the F136 engine, and ordered the Pentagon to stop work on any alternative engine for the F-35. It is essentially illegal for the Pentagon to launch a new engine program for the F-35.
See here:
The committee notes the Air Force budget request for fiscal year 2013 includes $214.0 million for the Adaptive Engine Technology Development (AETD) program. The Air Force has explained that this engine technology program has the potential to achieve a 25 percent reduction in cruise specific fuel consumption compared to existing state-of-the art engines such as the F135 engine. This fuel efficiency goal was set by the National Aeronautics Research and Development Plan of 2010 that provides overarching research goals and objectives to the interagency aeronautics research and development community, of which the Department of Defense is a key member. Such aggressive fuel consumption reduction goals are driven by the need to reduce overall fuel costs in military operations, as well as to make significant improvements to unrefueled aircraft range and time-on-station.
The committee supports the Air Force Research Lab’s (AFRL) efforts to pursue increased fuel efficiency and support the military aircraft engine industrial base through science and technology (S&T) programs including AETD. The committee’s support for AETD is based on two understandings. First, the committee understands that AFRL will award up to two contracts for the AETD program through a fully open and competitive process that will not unduly advantage competitors who performed for the predecessor Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology program, nor disadvantage competitors performing for other military aircraft engine research or production programs.
Second, the committee has received assurances in testimony from the Air Force that AETD is purely a technology maturation program and is not a new `alternate engine’ program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The committee notes that further development of the alternate engine for the F-35 is prohibited under current law, and expects the Air Force to abide by the letter and the spirit of this law.
There are two key things to take away from this. First, Pratt’s friends in Congress would only allow the AETD program to go forward if Pratt was allowed in. (The ADVENT program excluded Pratt in favor of its defeated rivals, GE and RR.)
Not surprisingly, Pratt was one of two companies selected for the AETD program.
The second stipulation, that the AETD program not be a development program for an alternative engine is much more a cosmetic thing than anything else. As I mentioned before it isn’t that different from the whole Super Hornet program. The Navy was forced to pretend they were working on an upgrade project when in fact they were building a brand new jet.
See here for Aviation Week’s take on what happened:
Having succeeded in killing the GE/Rolls-Royce F136 alternative engine for the F-35, Pratt’s supporters in Congress threatened to cut funding for AETD, fearing it was a backdoor maneuver to a competitive engine. But Air Force reassurances that its goal is to mature technology and not to develop an engine—coupled with the selection of Pratt over Rolls—should defuse criticism of AETD.
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_09_24_2012_p31-497914.xml
In the case of AETD the Air Force is “researching” building a new engine that just happens to be designed to fit in an F-35… 😉
If this were merely a technology demonstration program there would be no good reason to require the bidders to produce an engine that would fit in an F-35. Why place needless restrictions on a technology program like that?
The fact is that the USAF is hoping to see these new engines, or at a minimum their key technologies, flying in the F-35 as soon as possible. The only question is how they will get there.
Given that Pratt is now a participant in the AETD program with a F135 derived engine the most obvious way to work it out would be to simply call the resulting new engine the F135-XXX, even if it shares very little with the current F135.
In the end everyone wins. The USAF/taxpayers get a more capable engine with substantial cost savings, while GE/PW get to keep advancing technology that will ultimately prove valuable throughout both the civilian and military markets.
None of the charades may prove necessary as Congress could simply change its mind. Much may have changed by the time another 4-6 years have passed. Already J. Lieberman, one of Pratt’s most powerful “friends,” has retired.
hopsalotSo its a program development in its “early stages”, right?
With a low budget by comparison with the likes of the F-135/F-136, right?
And without any garantees it will end up on the F-35?That was my point all along. :confused:
I think we are just talking past each other. I would have agreed that the ADVENT program was “early stages.”
The AETD program is intended to bridge the gap between the proof of concept work done under ADVENT and the leaping off point for a true development and production contract.
For the stage of work AETD is in its funding is appropriate.
Though no production contact currently exists, I view it as a virtual certainty that some or all of the features of the new engine will eventually make their way into the F-35. As already discussed elsewhere in this thread Pratt’s demo engine under the AETD program is itself a variant of the F135.
hopsalotYou’ve been told what will happen. You have chose to ignore that by reading what you want to from press releases.
Wow, you really just don’t know when to quit do you?
At some point an immature poster would just walk away, avoiding admitting that they were wrong, even though it is readily apparent to anyone who has read this thread.
A mature poster would be thanking me for taking the time to explain things to them, improving their understanding of the subject.
Lets review:
On 10 Nov you said:
You should also note that the demo engine for AETD is not close to having the same peak thrust as F-135, even if its physical size is similar.
I proved you wrong, with sources showing that the program calls for the new engines to have increased thrust, not decreased, and explained that you were confusing the AETD and ADVENT programs.
You then repeated your erroneous assertion that the AETD demo engines would be 20,000lb thrust engines too small for an F-35:
The AETD demo engine is ~20k lbf @ TRL6 – that will be the one that is tested.
The AETD digital engine (which never moves off a computer) will be that with commensurate thrust to the F-135 – that is the one Reed is talking of taking to PDR.
I proved you wrong again, with sources, again, by showing you that Pratt’s demo engine for the AETD is actually a variant of the F135, most certainly not a 20,000lb thrust sub-scale engine.
Now of course you return again to continue to make unsupported assertions that don’t even pass the common sense test.
You’ve been told what will happen. You have chose to ignore that by reading what you want to from press releases.
If any engine is tested in 2017, it will not be one capable of powering the F-35. What they will have is rig tests, validated simulations and a digital engine design based on the simulators which may be build in the future as a follow on to AETD to bring it to TRL8… it is that engine which will be fit to power F-35.
Lets review. The program calls for the full engine to be tested in 2017. I suppose that might not happen. I suppose a meteorite could hit the earth… but for the purposes of this discussion that is what the plan calls for and you certainly haven’t offered any reason to believe you over actual experts.
The requirements for the program are for an engine that will have 10% increased thrust over the F135, and be sized to fit in an F-35 with minimal modifications. Pratt’s demo engine will itself be a variant of its F135 engine.
Yet you continue to insist with childlike certainty that this engine won’t be able to power an F-35.
Don’t bother to respond if all you are going to say is that these will be test engines and that they won’t actually stick one in an F-35 and fly it. Of course they won’t actually put one of the test stand engines into a plane… but that is exactly what the design is destined for once full development is complete.
Oh, and do us all a favor, some sources would be nice.
hopsalotIt isn’t something to be criticised – or applauded – it simply ‘is’. The American circumstance of being able to solve problems by throwing money at them (a subject of direct relevance to the F-35 program ;)) becomes something to be criticised whenever someone *cough* hopsalot *cough* starts fapping about how American technology and American hardware is so much more amazing than anyone else’s.
Developing technology is expensive. You can describe the US as “throwing money” at problems. I could say that Europe can’t be bothered to fund its defense industry. What is happening today with these advanced engines is something that has unfolded over and over again.
The US is willing to make the long-term investment necessary to develop new technologies. By the time these new engines are ready for a true launch into a production program the ADVENT/AETD will have been running for a decade. (and earlier programs also existed)
This isn’t “throwing money” at a problem. It is showing some vision.
And it’s not that non-US companies can’t build such power plants – EuroJet has had an EPE-like program for EJ200 on the cards for ages now – it’s that they don’t have the funds to do so and, secondarily, that there isn’t the same impetus for further development as Typhoon fairly screams as is. That’s the point.
Oh sure they could, they just aren’t. That is the whole point.
Europe could have gotten serious about AESAs 15 years ago. If they had they would be closer to where the US is today.
Of course at the time people were saying that the Captor radar planned for the Typhoon “fairly screamed” already, and an opportunity was lost.
Typhoon would be a better point of comparison, and this is precisely the point. Typhoon’s limitations relative to Super Hornet – lack of AESA, weapons integration – are a function of money, whereas Super Hornet’s limitations relative to Typhoon are intrinsic to the airframe.
Characterizing the Typhoon’s problems as a lack of money is simplistic. They are symptomatic of a lack of vision and commitment on the part of the program participants.
Imagine what Typhoon would look like today – or in 2020 – with American money behind it.
Imagine what the Typhoon would have looked like if it had had that kind of commitment 25-30 years ago.
That is the point of all of this. The Typhoon is an excellent aircraft, I am not bashing it, but it has arrived too late to the game. It isn’t as mature as the 4th generation designs it is competing with, and 5th generation designs are now proliferating.
A fully mature Typhoon in 2020 would be compared against production J-20s, PAK FA, F-35, fully modernized F-22s, and now potentially J-31s.
hopsalothopsalot
1º Thats 10% of the development costs (nevermind the production) for the F-135 and roughly equivalent to one year and a half of R&D money used by RR and GE for the F-136. Mind you the money for ADVENT and AETD is divided by two teams (actualy three, RR had a ADVENT contract, but lost AETD). If the objective was to field a new engine for the F-35 by the beggining of the next decade its massively underfunded by comparison with “legacy” programs.
Again, you are confusing later stages of design and production with early stages. The AETD program is designed to bring these engines to the leaping off point for the type of contract you are describing… this puts the overall effort much much farther along than pure research or experimentation–a production engine is the goal–but that contract won’t be awarded until AETD is completed.
2º There is no contract for a prodution variant and sure has hell is not funded (look at the F-135 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) contract signed in 2001 and you will see what i mean).
Exactly yes, and exactly no. There is not yet a production contract, nor should there be at this stage. The goal is to bring these engines to production readiness. An additional program will take over in the ~2017 timeframe.
3º The AETD might very well be a massive sucess and dont deliver one single engine for the F-35, this without being cancelled. Because this program is an R&D effort. When its over (read Industry delivering a pair of semi mature designs), depending on its sucess and the operational needs, then the DOD will decide what they are going to do with the end result, it might be a new F-35 engine, something entirely diferent (NLRB, N-UCAS, F/A-XX), technology improvements for the F-135 and F-414, these three options, or if it entirely fails it might be “forgoten”.
Cheers
It is true that the AETD program could succeed without delivering an engine for the F-35. It is quite likely to end up forming the basis for the engines of both the next generation bomber and USAF and USN 6th generation fighter programs.
That said, the likelihood is high that one of these engines will find their way into the F-35 is high. The fuel saving aspects of the program would provide a substantial economic motivation by themselves…
hopsalotNo, it really doesn’t. It is needlessly derogatory and frankly ignorant.
The F-16 may not be the technological marvel that it once was, but by any standards it remains a maneuverable jet and is very much in front line service in a huge number of first-rate forces.
hopsalotAlmost sounds like a trolling attempt.. 😎
Anyone that calls the F-16 a “flying brick” is trolling.
hopsalotExactly my point, its a baby program intended to build a technology demonstrator, and undoutebly it has “sufficient funding for the stage of the process it is in”, that means, right at the beggining.
Oh right…
Yeah, a “baby program” with $750,000,000 of government funding, with the participants picking up another chunk of the costs.
I know everyone around here gets used to hearing huge numbers thrown around, but $750 million is still a lot of money, especially for a development program with no production ordered yet.
The technologies being targeted for development under ADVENT and AETD are considered among the primary enablers of the next generation bomber program, 6th generation fighters, future variants of the F-35, and future UAV applications.
The only way AETD gets cancelled is if the USAF essentially gives up on its primarily future procurement priorities.
hopsalotThe issue is a lack of understanding (and also ambiguity in the press releases).
The AETD demo engine is ~20k lbf @ TRL6 – that will be the one that is tested.
The AETD digital engine (which never moves off a computer) will be that with commensurate thrust to the F-135 – that is the one Reed is talking of taking to PDR.
Wrong again. :rolleyes:
What you are confusing is ADVENT and AETD.
The ADVENT program has been running since 2007 and is developing variable cycle engine technologies for future application. The test engines being built under the ADVENT program are indeed ~20,000lb engines.
AETD is a new program that is kicking off this year. It is intended to take technologies developed under ADVENT, combine them with other cutting edge technologies, culminating in a production ready engine sized to fit in an F-35, with increased thrust, reduced drag, reduced IR signature, and dramatically increased fuel efficiency.
Pratt & Whitney hopes to test a new adaptive fan variant of its F135 afterburning turbofan in the first quarter of 2013, company officials say.
“We think that’ll be a game-changer going forward,” says Bill Gostic, P&W vice-president for advanced programmes and technology. Combined with a new very high pressure ratio core, the prototype forms the basis of P&W’s entrant into the US Air Force Research Laboratory’s adaptive engine technology development (AETD) programme.
Is that sufficiently clear for you?
hopsalot??? Do they have any authorization for this ”job”?
The US needs no authorization to exercise its rights.
Freedom of navigation in international waters is one of the oldest and best defined areas of international law, predating the UN and for that matter essentially every other modern multinational body by centuries.
Whether you like the idea or not is irrelevant.
In the end keeping sea lanes open benefits the USA, and the whole of the global economy.
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