Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Sandboxx"
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@marsmotion DoD programs are some of the only ones that are audited and often by 3-4 different agencies. For example, you have the GAO, program oversight directors, SAR, and CBO. None of these entities report relevant or timely reports to Congress because it takes them 8 months to 1yr to collect and compile their data, which is outdated before they even organize it.
They also ignore the service data, which is accurate and relevant.
For example, in this video, Alex refers to the F-35 program forecasted total cost projection at $2 Trillion, which is rounded up from $1.7T, which is an exaggeration of $1.5T, which was a false projection up from $1.3T over the entire life of the program that nobody really knows how much it will cost.
In the DOT&E reports, if you read through them, they're using assumptions from the F-16 O&M to forecast F-35 O&M.
F-35A CPFH is far lower than advertised, and is dramatically-easier to maintain than F-16C/D, so the forecasts can't be accurate. Also requires fewer people to maintain, and doesn't have hydrazine HAZMAT requirements like the F-16 does.
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@seanbailey1901 The USAF has been trying to retire the A-10 for decades because it's a single mission set platform that can't get to the fight very quickly, and isn't survivable even in a 1970s SAM/AAA threat environment.
It had to be grounded in Desert Storm because so many were shot down or hit by SAMs and AAA.
The billions we've spent on the A-10 could have gone towards more capable, survivable airframes, but guys like John McCain intervened and kept the A-10 alive.
I like the A-10, but it just is a limited asset with limited survivability and limited force projection in a timely manner, for a lot of organizational costs in training and manning that would be better served in a multirole platform.
A mix of F-16Cs and F-16XLs would have been better, with A-10 money going to F-16XLs. XL has way more station time, range, and payload for CAS, and could still swing to deep strike, hit multiple TGT sets on a single sortie, and do A2A.
The A-10 was purposely handicapped in speed so it could fly armed escort for airmobile ops. The AH-64 Apache has had that covered since the 1980s, so the A-10's niche roll was filled.
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No, JF-17 does not have GaN TRM AESA, nor do any of China’s fighters. China can’t even make legacy TRMs with the density that the US does. They don’t have the machines, engineers, technicians, experience, or tooling to do it. That’s why Chinese fighter Radomes are huge. Limited TRM density = larger TRMs and antennae arrays, more weight, bigger radome, bigger nose, and bigger aircraft as a result.
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@bigstaceinc ASTOVL started in 1983, kicked-off by UK approaching USMC and USAF, then DARPA got onboard to develop the next generation STOVL fighter that would also be capable of supersonic flight, but with much longer combat radius and heavier payload than a Harrier.
JSF-A came from CALF. JSF-C came from A/F-X. There were multiple technology paths being developed by the US and UK National laboratories, Flight Test Centers, and contractors that all existed or were in development before any JSF demonstrator design was finalized and down-selected in the 1990s. Each JSF airframe was able to be engineered and developed for each specific take off and landing scenario, and optimized for performance. The main performance requirement was combat radius, followed by kinematics to match or exceed the F-16 and F/A-18 in combat configurations, without need for any ancillary sensors to be attached, but integrated into the airframes instead.
Baselining the Naval CATOBAR variant would not have been ideal for the USAF for several reasons, and would be a non-starter for the STOVL airframe.
The way they set up the JSF program variants was ideal really. F-35C was last to enter IOC because they have the smallest orders for airframes of all the JSF variants. A and B get priority, with the B models a very distant 2nd from the As. 760 JSF airframes with engines have been delivered to-date, with most of them A models.
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@bernieeod57 F/A-18 was meant to replace the A-7E, A-4M, OA-4M, and F-4N. USN and USMC had too many airframe types with legacy turbojet engines and outdates Radars, electronics, and failure-prone systems, lack of easy access maintenance panels, and the F-4 had limited combat radius with a 2 crew pipeline that needed to be populated cyclically. Solid state electronics allowed both the A-7E and F-4N to be replaced with a single crew multirole fighter with better availability rates.
F/A-18C/D were not a whole new plane. They were structurally-upgraded F/A-18A/Bs with improvements to avionics. I agree that the A/B models were no production-ready, and resulted in many accidents and fatalities. I would describe them a dismal failure though, more like prototypes that were allowed to go into production without being even ready for safe landing. The MLG often decoupled from the alignment bars, causing them to cartwheel down the runway or collapse on the flight deck.
Super Hornets were maybe 66% new airframes compared to the C/D.
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@pogo1140 Your math will be way off when basing strike and armed reconnaissance taskings on AV-8 payload, which is anemic. JSF payload even on the B model is world-class. You can keep an F-35B slick if you want to and still take 8 precision-guided Air-to-surface weapons into the fight, along with 4 AAMs. The AV-8B typically only has 2-3 hard points available for Air-to-Surface weapons, though it can be configured a number of ways. Because it is so small with little wings, and has significant maximum weight restrictions for vertical landing, it has a very limited operational payload.
Additionally, the average weapon weight is significantly higher for the A2S munitions carried by F-35Bs, as is the count. F-35B can also carry the 1000lb JDAM internally, which opens up the mission set taskings for the MEU. There are massive cultural changes going on within USMC and because they are a smaller force, they have adapted to and harnessed JSF faster than most other operators.
1 F-35B can configure several ways:
2x AIM-9X
2x AIM-120
8x SDB
or
2x AIM-9X
2xAIM-120
4x SDB
1x GBU-12 or GBU-32, or GBU-35
or any of the above plus
4x GBU-12
or 4x APKWS rocket pods
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@xyzaero The terminology gets confused by people in the absence of a baseline understanding of the applied physics and math.
VLO/Stealth = Very Low Observables, extremely hard to detect in RF and IR spectrums
LO = Reduced signature to take some of the edge off, but is still easily detected after that. Su-35 departs from the Su-27 and Su-30 by using more composites in the airframe, as composites are RF permeable, like all fighter radomes. The problem for the Su-35 is what’s underneath those composites is highly-reflective, and it has no IR signature reduction around the engine cowlings, which are Titanium in the white.
Typhoon, Rafale, and Super Hornet use some LO features, mainly the serpentine duct paths from the intakes to the engines, to help reduce or prevent RF NCTR Radar PID modes by hiding the cold fan stage of the motors from direct RF Line of Sight.
SH also uses quite a bit of RAM in strategic locations to help reducer signature and evade NCTR features.
B-1B has a lot of LO features incorporated into it, with a frontal RCS that is smaller than an F-16’s.
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@edthompson9569 The differences in the jet fighter generations are very clear and easy to contrast if you study the technologies.
Propulsion, structures, avionics, sensors, man-machine interface, weapons employment, FLCS, and performance all show how different they are.
Sit in the cockpit of an F-86, F-100, F-4, F-16, and F-35 and then say generations are just marketing terms.
Look at the specs of the propulsion for each of those aircraft and talk about marketing.
Look at the structures, manufacturing processes, flight control systems, sensors, and weapons.
There are demonstrable differences in each that represent collective generational technology sets that only a fool would ignore.
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@chrislong3938 The costs we have sunk into Late Block Vipers via CCIP I & II are far more than initial acquisition/unit flyaway costs. Total sunk costs in acquisition and CCIP for Block 40s, 50s, & 52s puts the unit cost well above $100m for each jet. CCIP takes at least 90 days, lots of man hours, millions in new systems, overhauled engine, new Radar, new cockpit, new wiring harnesses, AIFF, JHMCS sensors and wiring, cold-working any bulkheads that need it, new landing gear, new canopy, etc.
Making them into an F-16CM+ with full HARM Targeting and position locator antennae is a very involved process.
Totally different birds than how they rolled off the line from 1987-2005.
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@seantu1496 F-16XL was not as maneuverable and had a significantly reduced T/W ratio. Its level flight performance and handling was excellent though, and it had a superior combat radius to the F-15 even with CFTs. I was there for the development of the F-16 from the 1970s-early 1990s at Edwards. F-16XL really needed a step up in propulsion at a time when they were decreasing the max thrust of the P&W F100 motors, along with some major improvements to cut down on flame-outs, compressor stalls, and catastrophic failures. Original F100-PW-200 in the Viper had 23,900lb of thrust in burner, but suffered from many stalls, hard starts, and failures so they really needed an Improved engine and got it in the late 1980s. Even with the F110 GE motor in the F-16XL, it needed more power, but was better. All that internal fuel capacity added a lot of weight, which was more useful for how the USAF actually employed the F-16 as a strike aircraft.
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@ericpotter4657 The Navy was faced with several different paths moving forward after the failure of the A-12 program (almost $2 billion thrown down the drain with that). The A-6E had already proven to not be survivable in ODS and airframes were timing out anyway, so A-6E would be last of the subsonic medium attack capability in the Carrier Air Wing. That created a big void in strike capability looking at payload and range, plus the various mission sets A-6Es could perform including SEAD with the HARM.
The more expanded multirole versions of the F-14 like ASF-14 and ST-21 were one path to consider. Pros were the possibilities in payload, range, improved avionics, and multi-mission set wing-role options with more clean sheet structural/propulsion/electronics evolutions of the Tomcat. Cons were 1) risks associated with an airframe design whose complexity never allowed it to realize a consistent mission readiness rate much above 60% throughout its career, 2) Costs spiraling away from any initial projections, which were already high, 3) Continual discoveries of systemic problems with F-14 structures even into the late 1990s/early 2000s, 4) The discovery that the AIM-120 required a new solution to the wing glove pylons due to aerodynamic problems with separation and roll, 5) Requirement for a 2 crew platform demand on the training pipeline, and 6) the incompatibility with the design yielding to application of Low Observables.
Another option for NAVAIR was to adopt an enlarged Hornet with bigger motors, taking advantage of the development of the A-12 engines and making them afterburning, increasing the combat radius to match the F-14’s, adding 2 more weapons stations for a total of 13, acquiring a force mix of mostly single seat E models, but with enough 2-seat F models to handle the A-FAC mission and some other more involved strike and SEAD mission sets where a WSO would be helpful, and incorporating some low observables into the airframe design, specifically with the intakes and serpentine airflow geometry to hide the inlet guide vanes and fans from line of sight RF reflectivity.
While the maintainability of the Baby Hornet fleet was overstated initially, it was still quite superior to the Tomcat, which helped increase readiness rates of the air wing while afloat, with far less MMHPFH exerted by Hornet wrenchers. It also had a more reliable avionics suite that used solid state/digital revolution along with the moving map display, and could genuinely flip from A2G to A2A while headed to prosecute strike missions, and had Non Cooperative Target Recognition capability that the F-14 didn’t have. Especially after Desert Storm, the tables flipped from all the ridicule that Hornets had received from the Tomcat community for "not being real fighter pilots", etc., to Tomcat guys eating crow for not getting any fighter kills in the most target rick environment since Vietnam (far more fighters than Vietnam has or ever will have).
From the big picture, NAVAIR looked at these 2 paths and saw a lot of risks and challenges with the ASF-14/ST-21/Super Dooper Tomcat, vs less risk with the Super Hornet, and went with the Super Hornet. The acquisition costs alone for any Super Duper Cat were a known larger quantity than Super Hornet for sure, as was the training pipeline for an all 2-man crew platform. In secret, the US Navy had already been working with Royal Navy, USAF, DARPA, and USMC on a next generation stealth platform anyway, which would benefit from all the RDT&E spent on A-12 and ATF, so AST-14/ST-21 might have threatened that program as well. Imagine trying to acquire JSF-C right now while also supporting a Super Duper Tomcat fleet. The Navy is going to be talking more about how they wish they had more F-35Cs than Super Hornets after this current deployment, and they already announced a 20% reduction in upgrades from Block II Super Hornets into Block IIIs.
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@garydobbs5159 F-35 pilots refer to F-22s as "legacy 5th Gen" because the F-35 AESA, Stealth, engine, cockpit, MADL data link, IR sensors, central brain, FLCS, are better than what's in the F-22. The combat-coded Raptors are getting upgrades to get them more on par with F-35s in those spaces, but there are some things that will just never be as good.
Modern fighter designs dating back generations even have used lifting bodies combined with wings for total lift. A single engine F-35A will take off faster than a twin-engine F-15C, and the F-15 has all kinds of low wing loading plus lifting body.
Most of what you hear from amateurs running their mouths about aviation can be ignored. They simply don't know what they're talking about.
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