"Nobody is looking for a high-end F-22, thankfully. They are looking for an F-16/F-18-class aircraft, but more survivable-and they are keeping the requirements in a box small enough to allow us to provide a family of aircraft."
This one issue alone does not make the aircraft worth building. Certainly, full-rate-production, should never be approved. The F-35 won't win any air battles against a real enemy. The program needs to be killed, with lessons learned to build the right kind of aircraft that can defend our airspace.
Anything is possible if you are willing to lower your expectations.
"Using those models, we input the attributes of legacy aircraft and look at the outcome, then input JSF with varying levels of attributes and look at the changes in outcome. We have done a tremendous amount of analysis, and we now understand the attributes that are the most leveraging" - the most effective, in other words.
Kenne cites as an example the manoeuvre load-factor capability: "From 8G to 9G there is little change in effectiveness, but below 7.5G we get problems." Another example is maximum speed, she says. "Going past Mach 1.5 is expensive. If it turns out that we need M1.2, with the ability to get to M1.5 quickly, that reduces overall cost.
"What is really different about this programme is that warfighters are worried to that level about cost-and that they now have the insight to make informed decisions to meet cost goals. This is the first time that warfighters have cost goals."
Emphasis (in red) added. Affordable?
AFFORDABLE REQUIREMENT
"There are ways to make an aircraft more affordable, but if we do not start up front with a set of requirements focused on affordability, then we can only offset the high cost of performance," says JSF programme director Maj Gen Leslie Kenne. "If you have an affordable requirement, then you can't help but make significant progress in reducing the cost of the weapon system."
The requirements definition process involves extensive modelling and simulation at the JSF programme office and the service headquarters. "We have pilots and maintainers in the programme office," says Kenne, "and we have provided the services with a suite of models and simulations which they have agreed represent true operational effectiveness at campaign, mission and engagement level.
Yet today, we see, they got it so very wrong. To date, America has spent around $115B on the program (sunk) for over 100-some aircraft that haven't even cleared, DOD, procurement milestone-C: that which states an aircraft design and production methods are stable...and...low rate initial production can proceed. All the DOD procurement milestones (laws) are "out of sequence work".
Gun?
"We think we need a gun in the aircraft, but we need the JSF first, so the programme must be successful," says a senior Air Force official, adding: "A lot of this is negotiable." It is not simply a matter of deleting the gun from the other versions, because there is a "scar weight" associated with the structural and other provisions required for an integrated gun.
Internal bomb?
A similar debate surrounds the capacity of the internal weapons bays. The Navy insists on the ability to carry two 900kg-class air-to-surface weapons internally, but the Marine Corps is concerned about the weight penalty on its STOVL variant of larger bomb bays. The debate could be overcome by developing smaller, higher yield, weapons, or improving targeting precision, but both could be expensive.
The J-1000 test, specifically for the JSF program, proved that a 1000lb. penetration bomb could do most of the work of a BLU-109 forged steel pointy tip in the 2000lb. weight class.
Again, this and the above quotes were 1998.
Lockheed Martin's Cappuccio believes that gun and bomb issues "-will bounce around for a while". The final decisions should be based on operational doctrine, he argues, and the Air Force says that, before making a decision, it will model the effectiveness of an advanced gun against the JSF target set.
Deliberations on weapon bay size, meanwhile, are likely to be influenced by requirements to accommodate future payload growth. "The reason for building a weapon system is to carry weapons," says a senior Navy official. "This is a core issue as we deal with the JIRD process - we must keep in mind why we are building the aircraft.
"The key to the trades process is lethality. We can't simply say that bigger is better; the trades process is much more sophisticated than that." Cappuccio says that the weapons bay size is "-not a technical issue, it's about commonality and dollars".
Not true about the weapons bay size: 'not a technical issue'. As the first F-35 LM test pilot stated: "holes are really heavy", in regard to aircraft weight. Later shown in the 2004, emergency weight reduction event known as "SWAT". Also, the STOVL design requirement is why weapons bays are so goofy on the F-35. More on that here.
Engine etc...
Cappuccio says design of Lockheed Martin's X-35 demonstrator is being driven by the STOVL configuration. The demonstrator will be "very representative" of the production design, he says, in the temperature and acoustic environment created by the lift system.
The STOVL requirement is what also pollutes the A and C model. 'Very representative'? Because well, the X-35...which won the bid...
(won the bid with no weapon bays)
...is so much, like what was delivered...
(built with weapon bays)
At the end of the JORD...all we had was faith.
"With the start of engine runs, Kenne believes the JSF programme '-is in very good shape.' Support from the services, allies and Congress is strong and "-we just have to deliver."
Support from Congress was "strong" because they had been briefed on a Ponzi scheme.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment