JwcookBut you don’t see any rush to extend the F-22 buy much beyond current numbers, do you? Maybe the F-22 will soon be, if not obsolete then at least no longer unchallenged.
I think the F-22 days are numbered, It is/was unaffordable, the role it plays is a niche role, yet it is apparently require in a strength of 381 by the people who would supposedly know its full capabilities and they also require ~2000 JSF’s in addition.
Now if the JSF is as good as some here are asserting (I assume the USAF knows what its buying in the JSF), they would have canceled the F-22 several years ago..
And If I read the posts here correctly the JSF is 99% or better than the Raptor capability at only 30% of the Raptor price.. or so people here would have you believe.
Lets play devils advocate:diablo:
So who wants to be brave and say where the JSF is worse than the F-22, Situational awareness… no apparently its a generation ahead.
Price… its only a third or a quarter of the price
Performance.. its roughly parity because the test pilot says so.
stealth.. No its a generation ahead.
Supercruise.. no the USAF are hiding the JSF true capability’s with the jsf’s massive thrust and no externals it should compare well to the F-22.
IRST.. no the F-22 doesn’t have one.
So there you have it – using the same logic previously used in this thread to prove the F-22 is a dog when compared to the JSF.
end of playing devils advocate:diablo:
So what are the JSF’s weaknesses apart form terrible cost estimates??
Cheers
JwcookYou must be late to the game. As we have already provided strong evidence that the F-35 is a exceptional dogfighter with acceleration of a F-16 Block 50. With handling very close to that of the Raptor. Which, doesn’t even include its Superior Situational Awareness, Sensor Fusion, or Stealth Capabilities of the Lightning.
As for the need for more F-22’s. That is a open debate? As a matter of fact the current leadership of the US Military. (i.e. Defense Dept) Don’t believe we need more F-22’s and want to proceed with all haste to the F-35……
I think you miss the point, you are suggesting that the US has built a Raptor clone ability wise in the JSF, if the F-35 is all you say it is then the F-22 is obsolete!!.
If your not saying that then your going to try to tread a very thin line of the what the F-22 can do and the F-35 cannot do.. something the USAF has had great trouble with:D
So what is the difference??.. what makes the F-35 worse than the F-22 and by how much?.
I think you will find the truth of the matter there, horses for course etc..
Cheers
JwcookIt all really depends on what purpose you want to use the F-35 for.. the concept of over flying a double digit sam just to use cheaper bombs is franky ridiculous.
There are other ways to kill it, which would be safer, not as cheap as a dumb bomb, but not as risky for the delivery system.
If the F-35 is to be used primarily for air to air then stealth has value to get closer to the enemy and then fire first, but this depends on a number of things :-
The F-35 having better situational awareness than the opposition, the opposition having little or no ECM ability to spoof the Amraams, and the opposition being too busy to engage the F-35 before it can get out of range.
Where the F-35 may be weaker is the agility and speed to remove itself from the fight. its all very well talking about how smooth it flies but high speed turning still has a place in AtoA, and an F-35 who has announced its presences by attacking might just need a high speed dash capability to get away from any bad situations.
I liked the analogy that the F-35 is akin to a stealthy Blackburn Buccaneer and the same arguements hold true if the Buck was to ‘creep’ up on a enemy fighter by flying low in the clutter (gettting close by stealth) and pop up and launch, it had better make sure it either kills it or can get away from a now rather startled pilot of a fighter and wingmen.
Thats why the US sees a need for an F-22 to handle fighters, because the JSF isn’t designed to do that, ask yourself where they are different….
JwcookNo, that is the price the US DOD is quoting & HAS quoted to its partners (such as Australia, Canada & Norway). Every other price you see anywhere is eaither NOT fly-away cost for partner nations or not in constant (FY2008) dollars…
Actually, waiting until 2014 to sign may vary well result if Norway paying a higher price & possibly having to “go to the back of the line” & wait while nations which had previously signed get their orders filled 1st.
I think you’ll find there is a clause that states there may be an updated price when payment is due(Gasp, shock and Horror), so its not a firm price by any means, its a LM best guess at this time, and guess what! they are lousy guessers (How much was the F-22 supposed to be?:dev2:?)
At the moment there is a huge push to get partners to sign up, The sales pitch is
“Low low prices for a limited time only.. sign up today and get a substantial discount of 20% off of a unknown price but which is dead cheap, it could be as low as $58.7m providing you all sign up today and everything goes on rails..”
Forget what year dollars its in, just concentrate on which planet there on! they are betting on fighter development going smoothly without any problems or price rises..
Cheers
JwcookFantastic pictures there Kovy.
Can I ask what has happened to the potential Rafale sales to North Africa?, there was a lot of interest at one point, is there anything recent?.
Cheers
JwcookThe NAO quoted a current unit production cost of over 60 million pounds for a Typhoon.
Fifty seven million dollars for a Typhoon! Ha ha ha where did you pull that one from?
This forum really is good for a laugh whenever you or some of the other more rabid fan boys post.
You are quite correct the NAO does indeed quote a UPC price of £60m, your mistake is to assume the UPC is a flyaway cost, it is not, the UPC cost contains so much more than a flyaway price.(about £22.24m of extras per airframe)
These UPC cost include production costs for all contracted aircraft, that means the UPC is more comparable to the LRIP price of the JSF.
The £37.76m comes from the contracts signed.
the Tranche Two global contract was was “worth €13 Bn” for all 236 Tranche 2 aircraft. That’s €55.08 m each. On 17 December 2004, when that contract was signed, the €/£ rate was 0.68545, so €55.08 = £37.76 m.
Now you could possibly argue that that price could be 7% higher due to them being exports, but that would be a little pedantic (about 7% pedantic to be precise).
Even at today’s €/£ exchange rate that is equal to £46m or US$68m, the US dollar figure has hardly moved since 2004, but the £ has move a bit against the Euro, so quoting in now £ is wrong, so it should be costed in euros.
Cheers
JwcookThe F-22 figures are plainly unit flyaway.
Is that fly away cost with engines (glide away)? ;), the Lockheed Martin F-22 team have been a bit evasive with cost issues and have never really given a plain and simple costing that makes sense..
Which makes you wonder if the ‘totally different and dripping with fiscal rectitude’ Lockheed Martin F-35 team have made some slight errors or mistakes in their costings.
JwcookYes your right, the sarcasm was a over the top. My apologies, but the US is struggling a bit and Bush’s military programs were going to cause a blowout before the present $ difficulties around 2010, Wall street just brought it on a little sooner.
IMHO there are going to be cuts, how deep they go is the real question.
At the moment I think the F-22 will not get passed 190 units, of which there are 60-70 that are out of spec and would need large amounts of cash to get them into some kind of order.
New build jets may be ordered to cover the JSF gap, and JSF delivery will be draw out mainly due to the slowing of the test program.
I’m hugely skeptical of the JSF’s promises on cost and delivery, Capability I’m ok with for now, but its going to be bumpy for the next 5 years and the capability may suffer due to costs (i.e. Like the F-22’s IRST was cut).
I think the UK will reduce its order from 150 to under 100 units, 66 has been mentioned as that’s all the serial number that have been allocated for UK JSF’s and that’s usually a good measure. (it may struggle to 85 but that’s about all.)
The cost issue is amazing, with all but those trying to flog the JSF saying the cost is around $100m (Remember the cost for the F-22 quoted at $100m? didn’t have engines when pressed for clarification!!).
You have Eurofighter Tranche 2 at less than US$57m flyaway, Gripens NG are even less expensive and they still insist that the (~$80m/insert your guess here) JSF is cheaper, despite the fact that only one real one has flown a handful of hours, plus the systems have yet to be developed and flown in a real F-35, why do I disbelieve? because previous cost estimates F-22/C-130J/C-17 have proved to be wildly optimistic, development time is always extended and entry to service is always delayed, what makes the JSF immune?
If you graph the cost rises of the F-22 and at what point of the testing the costs started to really rise, then its just about now in the JSF program that the unforseen/hidden cost get revealed. even if they learned the lessons from the F-22 I do not see them applying those fixes now.
The JSF is planned to be at IOC before testing is complete! Why do that?, that’s exactly how you get 70 odd Raptors at god knows what build standard and a huge bill to rectify.
But this torturous route may be necessary for the JSF because if they knew the true cost right now it would get canned quicksmart.
Remember also the JSF isn’t one fighter its three, there’s a large overhead right there.
There are common parts, and that’s a design compromise.
Both contribute to costs, so forgive me my skepticism.
Cheers
JwcookAh I see… so no need of Super Hornets, new F-15’s or F-16’s then?.
The JSf looks right on target to be in limited service by 2018:rolleyes:.
For a moment there I thought the US was in recession, and was finding it difficult to find spare cash to throw around? silly me…
Phew! I’m glad there have been absolutley no price rises/delays/cuts in the JSF program like the F-22 suffered from.
cheers
JwcookThe point is the F-35 will not even be close to such a limited production model in cost. The Raptor for example will be lucky to hit 200 aircraft.
Ah but the ‘Plan’ is to produce thousands of JSF…
The point is the ‘Plan’ was to produce 750 Raptors @ $50m a pop.
If the JSF follows the same curve(death spiral) the production run will be <600 and the cost >$150m.
Thats the funny thing about plans.
JwcookThe costs attached to the Gripen bid due to ‘perceived’ risk are horrendous.
by some accounts 3 x the total purchase price….
That’s a lot of risk by any standard, and far far more than the JSF’s.?
JwcookThe competition was bias because the Norwegain Goverment and Air Force selected the more capable aircraft. One that is better suited to the defense of Norway. So, even if the Gripen was cheaper (doubtful)…………..How is that a better deal for the Norwegain people???
That would be like saying let’s purchase T-55’s vs Leopard Tanks because the former is cheaper and has more Norwegain content! We are talking about defense not automobiles…….;)
No were actually talking about tailoring a competition to get a result that was preordained..
I’d like to see what the costs were, and how they were evaluated and weighted, and why the Gripen’s costs could not be fully measured but the JSF’s could be?
plus if the Gripen’s cost could not be fully measured how was it judged more expensive?.
The JSF may well be more capable and cheaper, but it just seems very strange the Norwegians are getting their JSF’s at a lower price than the USAF :confused:
Cheers
JwcookIsn’t that hypocritical?:cool:
So it’s okay for you to criticize the cost; but it’s not okay for Primate to voice his opinion that the JSF is the best candidate for Norway’s needs?
Primate may well think that, his opinion isn’t the issue, the real issue is the Norwegians have stated the same thing after an ‘evaluation’ and the fact that the cost may have been massaged to fit the JSF choice then there is the possibility that the capability benifit may also have been massaged to get the ‘correct’ result.
But saying “regardless of the cost” misses the point entirely, it it the astonishingly low cost model for the JSF or High cost model for the Gripen (take your pick) that puts in doubt the ‘fair and impartial’ evaluation criteria that Eurofighter GmbH bitterly complained about before it left the competition and subsequently when Norway asked Eurofighter to reenter they still didn’t want to touch it with a barge pole.
Things like one of the Norwegian mission profiles being lifted straight from the LM brief,:eek: and little details like changing the original request from a defensive fighter to an offensive strike aircraft.
I think there may be some truth in the “it was a biased competition” rumour.
Cheers
JwcookReally, so the technology exists for that does it?:rolleyes:
OK I’m curios – What technology doesn’t exist now?
JwcookYup! first impressions do seem to point to a massaging of figures in this evaluation, but lets wait for some of the assumptions to be made public before we cry foul.
Here are some environmental conditions that make me feel less sure of the JSF’s future.
A point of interest is the JSF has the F-22 linage to help it during development and operation.
This is interesting only in the fact that you should really only use the F-22 as a bad example of development and production, what lessons they have learned remains to be seen.
A quick recap of what went wrong with the F-22:-
Numbers ordered cut.
Price rise.
Production started before development had made significant progress.
Not meeting Key Performance Indicators.
Now which ones are they successfully avoiding with the JSF…??
Numbers ordered cut, so far have avoided major cuts, 2009 will be decisive.
Price rise? Well according to Norway they come free with cornflake packets.:D
Production started before development had made significant progress? Apparently its all going to be alright:confused:, as the lessons learned from the F-22 have been applied and the answer is to shorten the development test times and start the production sooner??? which would seem stupid to all us laymen but apparently it is sensible*..
Not meeting Key Performance Indicators.
This is not a concern as the production will already have started, so as to be too late and expensive to stop, *told you it would be sensible.:D
NOTE:- the F-22 has a appalling mission capability (62%) rate and it seems to be getting worse. Source F-22 woes
IMHO unlikely – But if the number of JSF actually produced mirrors the F-22 decline (183 from a original 750)then your looking at sub 800 numbers…:eek:
Quick straw poll – What number would you say the JSF’s make or break point is?
I think anything below 2000 would be bad and sub 1500 a disaster.
Cheers
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