Posted on 09/04/2014 8:17:53 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Fighter jets, like the Lockheed F-35, are becoming increasingly expensive. Is it possible to make something much cheaper? Angus Batey reports on a new breed of plane poised to take to the skies.
At this summer's Farnborough Air Show in England, the talk was dominated by the mishaps of one plane: the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter. Due to be adopted by major air forces in the decades to come, it was supposed to be the star of the show. But in the end, the $100m-a-unit jet failed to turn up to its coming-out party after an engine fire in one of the production models grounded the fleet.
But another new jet fighter, which had taken less than two years to design, build and fly, did make it to Farnborough. The Textron Scorpion costs $20m, still not exactly a bargain by most people's standards, but a fifth of the cost of the F-35. It suggests that not every advanced defence project has to necessarily come in years late and billions over budget – and points to a new twist in not only the future of fighter-jet design, but also in more humanitarian roles that a budget jet could carry out.
As Textron AirLand president Bill Anderson has said, the majority of work devoted to designing and developing fighters over the last several decades has focused on creating expensive, sophisticated machines. Whether it's Lockheed’s F-35 and F-22 Raptor, the Eurofighter Typhoon or the Boeing F/A-18, the designs have reflected the desire for advanced performance over affordability. Yet in today's economic environment, cost is becoming an unavoidably compelling issue for even the richest western nations.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
A37s and F5s would serve 98% of the world’s air force needs today.
Sorry, no silk scarves needed in the future airspace.
No guns, bummer.
Agree.
They will also have autonomous intercommunication and use “swarm” programs.
Bogus cost listed anyway: The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin have agreed to a handshake deal for the latest two lots of F-35 airframes, and based on cost projections the program for the first time is targeting a unit price under $100 million, excluding engines and retrofits. (July 2013 agreement)
Price has jumped by nearly 70% since the Pentagon signed a deal to buy nearly 2,500 of the stealthy, single-engine, single-seat planes for the Air Force, Marines and Navy in 2001... which puts it at $160m based on these numbers.
Government Accountability Office — says the plane’s $159 million purported per copy price in that latest Pentagon SAR — continues to rise, and is actually well north of that sum.
“...but also in more humanitarian roles that a budget jet could carry out...”
More humanitarian - because an air delivered bomb is more humanitarian than third world countries armies beheading the opposition?
Anyone remember the F-20? Inexpensive, easy to maintain. It was produced after a challenge from Jimmy Carter (it was not asked for by the services). There was no domestic interest and then there were some international bribery allegations, so that was the end.
I think that air superiority will be achieved by swarms of very small unmanned aircraft in the future. An F-35 won’t have the firepower to take out 200 swarming attackers. Or 2000.
The F-35 B and C models need an external gun pod too..
I’d certainly like to be seen in one.
All I have to do is complete the runway outside my home.
It’s a very good looking machine.
Sure, you can design a plane that will pull 12-15 Gs and be sensor and weapon laden but so will the other guys. That aerial battle will be one where the best programmer wins, not the best hardware.
With a pilot in the cockpit, the best programmer is onboard when the fight goes beyond "nominal".
And it STILL won’t perform as well as it was supposed to.
"The missionized gun system designed for the F-35B and F-35C will be hard-mounted to the centerline station of the aircraft. This gun system will include the CTOL-common GAU-22/A derivative gun, a gun system control unit and drive assembly, and a helical linear linkless ammunition feed system contained in a conformal pod."
Never put so much faith in technology.
It will never be “all”. And there will be reasons for that, possibly unfortunately discovered if they go all-in for such a Pollyanna view.
At best you can hope for 50% of a “fighting force”.
I read this story in the 1970’s.
Kinda the same arc too as the F-111 was to be all and we ended up needing the F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 and A10
I would, however, substitute the A-10 for the A-37. The Tweet was never designed to do much more than teach second lieutenants about the ratio of lift to gravity.
Reminds me of the F-20 Tigershark debate of the 1980s.
Exploding ordnance won’t be enough?
the sherman was no match for the panzer, let alone the tiger, but we all know the result of that little conflict...
sometimes quantity overwhelms quality
And the Pilot Mafia is going to fight that ALL the way. . .
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