Quick guide to the F-35 JSF versions.

Most don't understand that the technology hurdles unique to STOVL were
hurdled prior to downselect. This issue with the B and the C is weight.
Though they are both predicted to make the KPPs at current weight, given
historical weight growth of most TACAIR programs (3-4% a year IIRC), they
decided to deal with it now. Also, the B is the 'canary in the coal mine"
wrt weight because of the way it is more sensitive to weight than the other
two. (The C is a close second due to Vpa issues.) Because the A is
essentially the baseline, it gets some attention too. The B has the same
payload capability as the A (it was announced by Gen Hough with little
fanfare sometime in the last year).

The PVI is very simple -- even fighter guys can do it on the first try.


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 00:14:35 GMT, "Frijoles"
wrote:

Whoa, easy there Ed. First gig him on the fact that it was Guadalcanal
not
Leyte Gulf. Then you are cleared hot on bringing him into the 21st
century
.


Gimme a bit of slack please. It's before my time (even mine!) and I've
always been a bit weak in Marine Corps history.

The point, of course, is that there's nothing wrong with the
technology development of the STOVL version. I'm skeptical but have
been proven wrong before. I'm not a great believer in vertical
aircraft--AV-8 has been troublesome and we probably don't want to get
into Osprey discussions.

I've got the feeling that a useful CAS platform might be easier to
develop, less costly and more maintainable with soft field capability.
The effort to get extreme short T/O and vertical recovery seems to be
so much whiz-bang. I'd like more payload and less pilot workload.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Unit flyaway cost may be affected slightly, but the biggest benefit is that
it is no longer a Marine-unique asset in the US inventory. "Marine-only"
would make it a target for perpetual $$ starvation by the USN.

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 00:14:35 GMT, "Frijoles"
wrote:

Whoa, easy there Ed. First gig him on the fact that it was Guadalcanal
not
Leyte Gulf. Then you are cleared hot on bringing him into the 21st
century
.


Gimme a bit of slack please. It's before my time (even mine!) and I've
always been a bit weak in Marine Corps history.

The point, of course, is that there's nothing wrong with the
technology development of the STOVL version. I'm skeptical but have
been proven wrong before. I'm not a great believer in vertical
aircraft--AV-8 has been troublesome and we probably don't want to get
into Osprey discussions.

You may be surprised to know that the USAF has resurrected the concept of
buying the STOVL version as part of its F-35 force. Announced this week,
and
the marines are tickled pink because it may mean their unit cost could go
down.

Brooks


I've got the feeling that a useful CAS platform might be easier to
develop, less costly and more maintainable with soft field capability.
The effort to get extreme short T/O and vertical recovery seems to be
so much whiz-bang. I'd like more payload and less pilot workload.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

This information is incorrect. The USMC elected to go with the so-called
2000# bay for the B.

"Henry J Cobb" wrote in message
...
R. David Steele wrote:
How much payload do you lose in the STOVL version?

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf35.html
The F-35A and F-35C can carry two 900 kilogram (2,000 pound) JDAMS
internally, while the STOVL F-35B is limited to internal carriage of two
450 kilogram (1,000 pound) JDAMs.
...
Only the USAF F-35A has a built-in gun, with an "Advanced 27 Millimeter
Cannon", an improved version of the Mauser BK-27 revolver-type cannon,
in the left wingroot. The other variants do not have a built-in gun, but
can accommodate a cannon pack plugged into one of the weapons bays.

So the answer seems to be half the internal bombs and the gun.

Is a F-35B with a gun pod non-stealthy?

-HJC

Tom's comment about smaller weapons is correct. An interesting factoid is
that a 35B with two drop tanks and similar weapons load is predicted to have
nearly 200nm more combat radius than an E/F Hornet. Also, what makes the
35C numbers even more impressive is that the radius profile includes 2 Case
III looks at the ball followed by a bingo of considerable distance.

"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
ink.net...
Henry J Cobb wrote:
R. David Steele wrote:
How much payload do you lose in the STOVL version?

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf35.html
The F-35A and F-35C can carry two 900 kilogram (2,000 pound) JDAMS
internally, while the STOVL F-35B is limited to internal carriage of
two 450 kilogram (1,000 pound) JDAMs.
...
Only the USAF F-35A has a built-in gun, with an "Advanced 27
Millimeter Cannon", an improved version of the Mauser BK-27
revolver-type cannon, in the left wingroot. The other variants do not
have a built-in gun, but can accommodate a cannon pack plugged into
one of the weapons bays.

Out of date information, again.

The 27mm has been replaced by a 25mm Gatling. And the gun pack goes on a
conformal stealthy belly pod, not in the weapon bay.

Here's more up to date info.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...03/phispr03.ht
ml

So the answer seems to be half the internal bombs and the gun.

OTOH, for Marine Corps targets, a 1000-lb bomb is usually as good as a
2000-lb bomb. In fact, the Marines often want 500-lb bombs instead, due
to
their smaller danger space.

The real loss is not weapon load but range. The STOVL version has a
combat
radius of roughly 450 nm, compared to more than 600nm for the CTOL model
and
750nm for the carrier version.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

"John Keeney" wrote in message
...

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
news

capability (what the heck is "S/VTOL"?) to allow them to both provide
air

An olden days description of a plane that could do
Short take-offs or landings
or
Vertical take-offs or landings.

It does seem to have fallen out of use some time in the last
thirty years.

Damn, I'm old enough now that new fangled terms have
reached the forgotten obsolescent state...

Uhmmm..that would have been "V/STOL", wouldn't it? Not to be picky, but ol'
Henry can be a royal pain in the ass and correcting his mistakes helps in
keeping his rants in perspective.

Brooks

In article , R. David Steele
wrote:


|The 27mm has been replaced by a 25mm Gatling. And the gun pack goes on a
|conformal stealthy belly pod, not in the weapon bay.

The 25mm makes sense. What we need to do is covert other 20mm
Gatling guns, such as those on the F/A-18 or the MK 15 20mm
Phalanx CIWS Close-In Weapons Systems, over to the 25mm. It is
just a matter of long term logistics and costs. I believe that
some ships are using the 25mm Bushmaster as surface defense
weapons (against small attack boats).

"just a matter of logistics and cost"? I guess whether the larger gun fits
or not doesn't count. And of course, the higher muzzle blast, acoustic
noise levels, random vibration, greater volume of gun gasses, higher weight,
aircraft CG issues, etc. all don't matter much either.
Not to mention the larger ammo in a fixed space will mean fewer rounds.


It is the same as converting the 5-Inch 54 Cal. MK 45 Guns over
to the 155mm (~6 inch) shell. That would save money plus mean
that ships could offload shells to the Marines.

It's not at all like that. Not even similar.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

In article . net, "Thomas
Schoene" wrote:

Henry J Cobb wrote:
R. David Steele wrote:
How much payload do you lose in the STOVL version?

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf35.html
The F-35A and F-35C can carry two 900 kilogram (2,000 pound) JDAMS
internally, while the STOVL F-35B is limited to internal carriage of
two 450 kilogram (1,000 pound) JDAMs.
...
Only the USAF F-35A has a built-in gun, with an "Advanced 27
Millimeter Cannon", an improved version of the Mauser BK-27
revolver-type cannon, in the left wingroot. The other variants do not
have a built-in gun, but can accommodate a cannon pack plugged into
one of the weapons bays.

Out of date information, again.

The 27mm has been replaced by a 25mm Gatling. And the gun pack goes on a
conformal stealthy belly pod, not in the weapon bay.

The gun stays in the right wing root for the A model.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

In article , John Cook
wrote:

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:35:19 -0700, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 14:57:33 -0800, Hobo wrote:

In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:


While air superiority is always nice for bomb droppers, the F-35
itself is inherently stealthy and quite maneuverable.

BVR the JSF should be good,but WVR it would suffer if it didn't have
an high off boresite missle and an helmet to cue the missile.

It may lack in areas of the flight envelope that is useful for post
missile launch maneauvre to deny the opposition a shot, but its
stealth should make up for it.

Comanche found out that when you're WVR stealth is problematic.


Thats my take on it, it all depends on how good the avionics are!
consider the price, lots of stuff may get left off due to weight and
costs...

The avionics suite is currently common across all three platforms.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

In article ,
Mike Marron wrote:

Chad Irby wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:

You're not alone. Very few aviators (military or civilian) have shown
much interest in obtaining the FAA's new "Powered Lift" rating since
the V-22 seems to crash with distressing regularity.

For extremely loose definitions of "regular." Less often than the big
helicopters we're currently using, during their development, and none at
all in what, three years? Four crashes of an experimental aircraft type
in over a decade of development is actually pretty darned impressive.

Extremely loose definition of "development," too.

Then you're going to have to start screaming about that horrible "F-14
deathtrap," which had about the same number of crashes per flight hour
in development, and was, by no means, anything like the first swing-wing
plane.

The V-22 is hardly a new concept as tilt-rotors have been under
"development" since what...1951?!

Oddly enough, none of the crashes in the F-22 program have been caused
by design problems with the tilt-rotor system. One gyro wired
backwards, some hydraulics issues, and the discovery that you could get
it into vortex ring state if you flew it downwards faster than any big
helos are allowed to fly...

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...

Oddly enough, none of the crashes in the F-22 program have been caused
by design problems with the tilt-rotor system.

Fascinating, tell us more.