Army Kills Comanche Helicopter Program

FOX NEWS ^ | Monday, February 23, 2004 | AP

[BulletBobCo]

WASHINGTON

[Rokke]

Again, it isn't the F-22 that will guarantee our air superiority. It is our capability to identify the enemy and destroy him before he can shoot at us that guarantees our air superiority. We're talking satillites, AWACS etc. Our current fighters can all see the enemy long before they can shoot it. The F-22 will be armed with the very same missile that is carried by the F-14/15/16/18. The capabilities the F-22 brings to the table are way beyond its ability to maneuver. But those same capabilities are transferable to the F-35.
The F-35 is not analogous to the F-111. It is more similar to the F-4, but even that isn't a good analogy. There really hasn't even been a weapons program like it with regard to the international and multi-service support it has generated before it even reaches production. But it seems to be making its goals so far. We'll see as the program matures.

[lepton]

Like I said, when passive radar is fully developed, current stealth technology will be obsolete and it will be dared hard to justify the $250 million per copy price tag.

I agree with the later issue of not neccessarily being able to justify the pricetag, but still dissent with the comment that the F-22 would be without a mission. The F117 loses its mission if stealth is unmasked, but the F-22 is still viable for use, even if not for further production.

[Blood of Tyrants]

It is nothing new. All the services gripe about having old machinery (except the prima donna Air Force zoomies). Many of the front line Marines rode to Baghdad in M113's that were older thean them.

The Army has no F/A-18's because they made an agreement with the Air Force that the Air Force would field all the fixed wing aircraft.

BTW, for the $8 billion spent on the Comanche, the Army could have had over 200 F/A-18's and the spare parts to keep them flying. But I suspect that they would rather have something like the A-10.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Didn't I read that they stretched the airframe on the newer F-16s by a few feet? Or am I cofusing aviation articles?

[CasearianDaoist]

The radar of the F22 does not have a signature - each node in the array spectrum shifts, so this criticism does not apply in the least (I worked for Rockwell-Collins avionics so I might know at least as much as you about it, thank you very much.) Odds are the the enemy will never see the f22's radar even when he is beamed from a very long range. That is a central part of the the idea behind the f22, it would not make much sense to make a stealth plane that gave itself away when it lit up a plane, particularly if it was designed to launch in a BVR mode. You are clearly misinformed about the f22 avionics package. This criticism certainly does apply to the F35 - that was just my point. It limits its range both in terms if BVR and in terms of the processing power of the array thus "making it a target." THere is some notion of going to some sort of signature mask, but at present it cannot support the computer needed for the spectrum shifting. The F35 was not really designed as a BVR platform or even a leading edge fighter. It is really a bomb trcuk that can be a passable fighter against a limited adversary.

On the business of "fighting alone" as you say: The F22 is set up to fight in 5 man squadrons and has quite revolutionary on squadron attack management management capabilities - it is actually reminicent of the Abrams or apache framework in this regard. In addition it can fight with f35 and or UAVs ihere they are performing in a electronic warfare capacity, and can have real time data fusion with any attack management infrastructure we have - satellite, AWACs, JSTARS, you name it. And the data fusion works both ways - it can update the larger attack mamagement framework in real time. Infact, the F22 reinvents squadron tactics. So here again you are misinformed.

Lastly the sort of plane that Russia is selling India and China can match our front line fighters right now in some areas and will certainly surpass them them in the future. If the Eu starts selling the Euro fighter to the Chinese we will certainly be outclassed.

I do not mean to sound disrepectful but you really are not up on either the capacities of the F22, current tactical doctrine or the competing threats. You are just echoing back the liberal critique of the F22. Talk to some fighter pilots that regularly fly with the competition and you might get a different story (the last exercise with the Indians flying "frontline" Russian fighter against f15s had some pretty dicey results, and that was against indian pilots.) We are at the end of the envelope for designs that are 20+ years old. We need a new plane.

[hattend]

Nah, Airwolf was all hype. Remember at the beginning of the series only one man could safely fly it? Three years later, everbody was flying the darn thing. And it wasn't due to factory upgrades as Ernest Borgnine was the only maintenance dude. (Borg? Nine? Seven of Nine, Borg? ...ahhh, that's another thread)

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I guess Paul Tuetel Jr. will be bummed out after building that beautiful Commanche chopper on "American Chopper".

[Tribune7]

Curt's losing clout

[TADSLOS]

BTW, for the $8 billion spent on the Comanche, the Army could have had over 200 F/A-18's and the spare parts to keep them flying. But I suspect that they would rather have something like the A-10.

As I recall he Army considered acquiring the A-10 fleet from the USAF in the early 90s, but wanted to absorb the qualified manpower from the USAF as well, which the USAF declined to do, thus killing the proposal.

[CasearianDaoist]

The F-22 will be armed with the very same missile that is carried by the F-14/15/16/18.

Yes but they cannot use the missile in the same way. It is the aircrafts radar that controls this missile, not the attack management radar. The greater the power of the radar the longer the range. That was the whole point behind the Euro fighter and its advantage over everything else out there besides the f22. The F16s radar is quite weak compared with even the f35s, and the newest upgrade is still not a phased radar.

When these shorter range radars use these missile it is not in a BVR capacity. I should also point out that there are counter measures in the works for these missiles that may seriously degrade their effectiveness in a decade or so (laser destruction of flight control, that sort of thing.)

SO we could we be back to dogfighting soon enough. Also, you seem to thick that we are the only ones with large-scale attack management capabilities. The Russians and the Chinese have them. With the new Israeli technologies, India has better AWACS the we have. Besides, in a defensive scenario, one does not necessarily have to have air-based attack management assets - it can be done quite well from ground based radar. In any even, UAVs will certainly make air based attack magament and tracking much cheaper in the future.

[Dog]

Imagine all the Special Ops troops we could outfit and train with this money.

We need troops on the ground..

[GOP Jedi]

TADS... you at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control? Not a lot of happy campers around here today, that's for sure.

Good luck to you! A lot of good folks have just had their world yanked out from under them.

[TADSLOS]

he=the

[Rokke]

"I worked for Rockwell-Collins avionics so I might know at least as much as you about it, thank you very much."

Let's just say I know enough to know I won't talk about them.

"The F22 is set up to fight in 5 man squadrons and has quite revolutionary on squadron attack management management capabilities..."

With all due respect, it appears to me that you are not very familiar with current fighter tactics. In fact, all of the capabilities you list for the F-22 are currently in use today in even the oldest F-16's.
I've been flying fighters continuously since 1990. I have "some" familiarity with our current tactics and capabilities and have flown against many different fighter types flown by many different countries. I agree that we need new jets. The F-22 has been a great research and development platform that has generated substantial technological breakthroughs...which are finding their way into our current platforms and the F-35. Unfortunately, the F-22 is also absorbing vast and disproportionate amounts of money and brainpower that are slowing down the improvements to almost every other platform. I'm not sure it is worth the cost.

[TADSLOS]

TADS... you at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control? Not a lot of happy campers around here today, that's for sure.

Good luck to you! A lot of good folks have just had their world yanked out from under them.

No, I'm not tied that close to the program, fortunately. Yes, alot of people are going through cancellation shock. We've had our fair share of discussions and phone calls, but at least we have other work to fall back on. The nature of the beast.

[Psalm 73]

I say let the geriatrics buy their own Viagra and double the defense budget.......

[Dead Dog]

I'm personally for re-integrating the AF back into the Army. They have a culture that is too far from tents, boots, and rifles.

That's so far as aircraft, however, ICBMs and ABM could easily be it's own service.

[rmlew]

They are going into production.
Without them, we do not have guaranteed air superiority.

[Dead Dog]

Interesting how GW1 had people thinking we could win by "airpower alone". GW2 and Afgahnistan has brought us back to the reality. The Rifle is King.

[Rokke]

"It is the aircrafts radar that controls this missile, not the attack management radar."

The AMRAAM is an active radar missile. The shooting aircraft provides an initial cue for the missile, but the missile guides itself to the target.

"The greater the power of the radar the longer the range."

An aircraft's radar has no impact on the range of its missiles. If that were true, than an AWACS would be the world's most effective missile launch platform.

"The F16s radar is quite weak compared with even the f35s, and the newest upgrade is still not a phased radar."

Yes, the F-16's radar is weaker than an F-35, but the newest version is actually a derivative of the F-35 radar and almost matches its capability.

"When these shorter range radars use these missile it is not in a BVR capacity."

Baloney.

Finally, the Indian and Chinese military's are light years behind our capability. We could send them all our equipment tomorrow, and they'd still be lightyears behind. Their capabilities are limited by cultural differences as much as anything else. As an anecdote, when flying against Japanese F-15 pilots, one of the first things you notice is their lack of ability to accept criticism. Their debriefs rarely include discussions of weakness, because they don't want to offend each other. As a result, their debriefs are very short. The same is true with the Saudis and Egyptians. Similarly, the Chinese and Indian Air Forces are not trained to operate autonomously or to debrief weaknesses. That is why they can operate some of the newest Russian equipment available, but never exploit its capabilities beyond the level of a second generation fighter. The Indian/U.S. exercise you mentioned earlier is currently underway (so I'm not sure where you heard of any results). The Indian's intent is to learn and duplicate how we train. I don't think they are capable.