Posted on 10/04/2011 8:46:41 PM PDT by Jeff Head
We disagree.
What successful new aircraft design, especially ones that reinvent/advance the cutting edge, has not had the same ill informed complaint made against them?
Of those currently flying, other than the F-22, which designs if not the aircraft themselves are younger than the pilots who fly them?
What is the cost benefit to flying new designs that render all opposition obsolete and/or force the competition to develop new tech and tactics to deal with them?
Sort of like Hitler did with his panzer/tiger tanks? They were better than our Shermans but we had them way outnumbered.
“Of those currently flying, other than the F-22, which designs if not the aircraft themselves are younger than the pilots who fly them?”
This kind of proves my point, the AF isn’t interested in developing cheap low cost solutions that would be operationally suitable but want the sexy “multi-role” fighter that does nothing really well. If the F-22 is supposed to be an air superiority fighter then why are you also trying to make it a ground support attack aircraft as well? You can build a hell of a lot of A-10’a for the price of one of these F-22’s and they’ll be a hell of a lot better at it than the F-22 will be. Right now the F-35 is around $200M ($300M if R&D is included) per copy and we bought a grand total of 32 of them for FY12. We lost around 2200 aircraft in Vietnam, 1400 in Korea and 45,000 in WW2. If we got into a shooting match with China how many F-35’s would we lose? Most likely all 32, then what?
Do we need high tech fighters? Hell yes we will need A LOT of them in a real war, plus a lot of attack and close air support, transport/cargo and what have you. But buy $200M fighters when a $25M attack aircraft will do a better job and we can build 8 of them per multi-role fighter just seems stupid. Modern warfare is a war of attrition and if you don’t have the hardware you’ll be out of the game before it’s even started.
Your point about the high cost of designing and fielding clean sheet designs is not new. In fact, it's deja vu all over again. Go back and look at any design since the mid-50s and you'll find the exact same complaints with the only difference being the numbers themselves.
Do you like the F-14, the F-15, the F-16, the F-18? Have we been safer because we put them into service? But they were too expensive! the critics told us over and over again. We'd have none of them if we felt as you do about the F-35 or the V-22.
It has always been extremely costly and time consuming to field an aircraft that can survive and be victorious in the current battlefield and whatever future battlefield we can only guess about. Hence the need for multirole weapon systems.
Other than the A-10 or the now retired SR-71, there aren't many successful single role aircraft. They are simply too expensive to buy and field when a multirole machine can do the same job and do other roles as well.
Your opinion rests upon the opposition not making any changes, not improving or introducing something new. It doesn't work that way. Look any pilot in the eye and tell them an obsolete design is good enough for them and be sure to wish them luck when YOU send them into combat. I hope you enjoy writing condolences. The attrition you speak about will not be survivable with this game plan.
If you want to talk about ways to streamline the procurement process and about the cost effectiveness of buying in volume, those are conversations we should have.
The reality is, we will have long forgotten their initial cost after a decade or two of service, especially if they prove their worth in combat...like the way too expensive F-15 has done.
You missed my point entirely, these system are way more expensive than they should be because the fighter jocks that run the AF don’t want to buy anything unless it looks like a fighter! you know how many times they’ve tried to kill the A-10? I can’t count them but the A-10 has survived all attempts to kill it exactly because it is a single role aircraft that does it’s job better than anything else out there flying today. We can’t afford these single role aircraft because we sink all of our money into these “multi-role” fighters and there is no money left over to build what we really need. Also, name one fighter since the F-14 that has actually had the numbers delivered that the AF said they needed, all of them had their production runs cut down because the AF couldn’t afford to build the actual number of them that they said they needed to support the various conflict scenarios developed by the planners.
I’m not against upgrading our inventory (don’t know how you got that out of what I’ve written) I’m just against wasting money on gold plated weapon systems (trust me I’ve worked on a few of them so I know what gold plating is all about in the AF acquisition system) when a much cheaper single role solution would allow for purchasing all the airplanes required rather than just a few of them (B-2 and B-1 bombers are another good example and one of the reasons that we’re still flying B-52’s where most of the original pilots for them are dead of old age!).
However, to me, your opinions demonstrate at best a first year accountant's sort of ignorance of R&D, an outsider's ignorance of military operational needs and requirements and an uniformed misunderstanding of air power since WWII.
However, you are very much in earnest about your opinions and my sense of deja vu is palpable.
I think you and people who share your thinking will be very happy with the progress and cost of UAVs.
I predict that the F-35 will no doubt be fielded in all variations.
Virtually all of its teething problems will be resolved.
Time and experience will improve the breed and it, like the aircraft that came before, it will be in service for decades.
There will come a time when we will be grateful to have it in the inventory and its unique capabilities at our disposal.
Along the way, we will have forgotten the price we paid to those who created it and will be equally grateful that we didn't listen to the naysayers and built it anyway.
In fact, we'll be wishing we bought more.
http://www.flyingmag.com/sites/all/files/imagecache/enlarged_image/_images/201110/6211337357_c08440ac12_b.jpg
Here's another, with the aircraft in the hangar bay:
The Wasp or the new America in particular, could hold a whole slew of 'em! LOL! Now, if they get these aircraft procurred and deployed and will just develop that SV-22 Osprey (ASW Variant) and the EV-22 Osprey (AEW Variant) and place about 2-4 of each on the Wasp and America vessels, we would be talking about a very capable carrier in its own right...probably as powerful as any other carrier out there short of the US Nuclear carriers.
Yes, I think an LHA America with 24 F-35Bs, 4 SV-22s, 4 EV-22s, and some SAR helos, escorted by a Tico, a couple of Burke's and a Virginia SSN, would be the match for almost any other carrier out there outside of the US CVNs.
...and if not, then close enough.
Thanks. My SIL is an engineer on the lift fan part of the engine program. Impressive stuff.
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