"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 03:19:41 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

Scott Ferrin wrote:


Nope. The X-32 would have but not the 35. My guess is they could
have but maybe Lockhhed didn't want it competing with the F-22.

Or they didn't want to pay the weight penalty in an aircraft designed for
strike over air-to-air.

I recently suggested that if the F/A-22 were canceled, the Air Force
might
look at an air-to-air version of JSF. An axi-symetrical thrust vectoring
nozzle would be high on the list of desirable modifications for such an
aircraft, I suspect.


I'd think they'd have to make quite a few changes to make it good
enough to be the primary air to air fighter. Internal weapon load is
tiny (2 -120s), the thrust to weight leaves a lot to be desired, and
how does it fair in the manueverability dept.? Sure you can add
external weapons but then there goes your stealth. Then when the
politicians start screaming because the F-35's cost is going up and
service date is getting pushed back so the required changes can be
incorporated. . .

First, you have to accept the conditional that Tom put forward--"if the
F/A-22 were cancelled". If you do that, then what are you *left* with as a
potential air-to-air fighter to replace the F-15C? Only three options are
really open to consideration-- (a) buy newer F-15's, something along the
line of the F-15K (unlikely IMO), (b) buy offshore (i.e., Typhoon)
(unlikely, and yet to be proven significantly superior to option (a)--hold
the catcalls, please), or (c) develop a more capable version (in air-to-air
terms) of the F-35 series. Of course, you could just start a whole new
program to produce a new air superiority fighter...but that would be a
non-starter. IMO, Tom's option (c) would be the most likely outcome.
Maneuverability? Apparently it will be a quite nimble aircraft; very similar
layout to the F-22, and with the thrust vectopring postulated here...
Internal weapons load? Yeah, two AIM-120's would be marginal, but if you are
going to make versions primarily AAW oriented, there is lots of room in each
bay to accomodate another AIM-120 in lieu of the bomb that would also be
carried in the current versions) if they developed a new internal bay
configuration, and four AIM-120's would be nothing to sneeze at. That
thrust-to-weight ratio also looks a bit better with the deletion of 4000
pounds of internal bomb carriage in the air-to-air role--it should be around
the 1:1 ratio in that scenario. It already will have a pretty good AESA
radar, and presumably the required LINK 16 capabilities. So why do you think
optimizing the weapons bays to carry four AIM-120's vice two AIM-120's and a
couple of big bombs would require such significant rework as to be delayed
at much greater cost?

Personally, I don't see any of this happening--the F/A-22 will be purchased,
albeit probably only in the 200 aircraft figure in its current guise, with a
decent possibility of more production in the form of a strike optimized
version.

Brooks