No More New Fighter Aircraft Types?

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:40:18 -0700, (Harry
Andreas) wrote:

In article , Scott Ferrin
wrote:

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 12:58:05 -0700, (Harry
Andreas) wrote:

In article , Scott Ferrin
wrote:

If (and this is a very big IF), the F-22 should collapse, then a
better choice for all-wx, day/night ground attack is another buy of
F-15E

Being actively considered, with upgrades

The super eagle is as dead as Gephardt's political career, but a
transfer of
F/A-18E avionics might be possible from the other St Louis Congressional
District.


If by saying "super eagle" you mean this thing with the new wing and
various stealths mods you're right. Building a Stirke Eagle with the
latest electronics and an APG-63 (or even 77) AESA and HMS is
completely doable though and a far better choice than any Hornet. Put
in a couple of those -132s the Block 60 F-16s get and it would be even
better.

The USAF will NEVER buy Block 60s.

What I meant was if the F-22 is cancelled one of the things that could
be put into new Strike Eagles are the -132 engines *that are in* F-16
Block 60s.

Sorry. I mis-read your statement.

Even better though would be the more powerful engines both
P&W and GE have tested with 3D nozzles. Still scratching my head as
to why they were both virtually ignored by any potential customers.

Probably money (acquisition cost) and money (lots of flight test hours)
Is flight test still $1M per flight hour? Last I heard it was.



I was wondering if a 37k F100 costs that much more than a 29k one.
But you're right on the flight test thing that's for sure. An F-15
with 2 37k engines and 3D nozzles would probably handle a bit
differently :-)

The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel"
is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so
they keep those jobs and get those votes.

All aviation is politics.

Because you say so?

Aviation is too much money to be anything but politics.


If that were the case the military would never issue requirements
(because it wouldn't matter) and there would be no competitions
(because they wouldn't matter). You'd have the McNamara/TFX scenario
for every program out there.




From the choosing
of a vender all the way to operational missions, the aircraft is politics
driven. In the civilian world, every 747 crossing the Pacific is politics,
every Country allowing small GA is doing so for ploitical reasons.


Hardly. If anything could be said to be politically driven it would
be the Concorde with all of the perceived presteige it brought with it
and even then they had to take it out of service because it wasn't
cost effective (the safety thing was merely the last nail in the
coffin). It's not politics that makes the world go 'round but $$$
although politics are a close second, but when it comes to military
procurement politics play a too important part but even then it can't
be said that ALL politics are "pork barrel" politics. Even a
simpleton could see that. If program X has a better chance of
succeeding than program Y and the politicians say "nope you're going
to have Y anyway" then it could be argued that it's a "pork barrel"
decision. If X is just flat out better and they choose X then simply
because it falls in some politician's district (and he fought for the
program) doesn't make it a "pork barrel" decision. It's not THAT
difficult of a concept to understand. The ATF program wasn't so clear
cut because while many felt the YF-23 *aircraft* to be a better choice
(myself included), the YF-23 program as a whole was thought to have
less of a chance of delivering what was promised because the
confidence in Northrop and McDonnell Douglas wasn't all that hot at
the time. Thus the decision to procure the F-22. It wasn't so simple
as "some politician wanted votes so he made the airforce buy the
crappy airplane".









There are quite a few that
fit that description (V-22) but when it's the people who will be using
it who are clamoring for it it isn't "pork barrel". There is more to
the definition of "pork barrel" than simply "not loved by all". The
simplest test is who wants to buy it and who wants to cancel it.

I have to go with wether the aircraft woks, or not; but I can understand
you
being confused.

I have to go by whether the end user thinks it works or not. Not by
the opinion of a wannabe.

I hadn't really elevated you to the level of wannabe, Scott;


And I'm sure you can imagine how crushed I am.



If
the politicians had forced the Sgt. York on the Army that could be
called pork pure and simple. The USAF doing everything in their power
to buy as many F-15s as they could was not pork even though the
politicians would have preferred more cheap F-16s and fewer F-15s.

Dude, the F-15 was built in Gephardt's District; pure pork. It is the
same
as when Newt did it.

You could claim that no matter *where* it was built because it was
bound to be built in *somebody's* disctrict. The fact is you don't
know what the term "pork barrel politics" means plain and simple.

Pork barrel politics means reelection and perhaps a speakership.


"Pork Barrel" means feeding the masses under your own jurisdiction to
the detriment of the greater good. That's why the term "pork
barrel" has all of those negative connotations.






The C-130J is another example of pork. Is it good? Yep.

Define good?

Good as is better than what it replaced. Good as in cost effective.
How do you define good? Whether you like the paint job or not?

I'd say the new engines are a disapointment without the new wing and the
derating provides little bang for the buck. The warbird eliminates a crew
member, which is at best a questionable tactic. The incompatability with
the fleet adds to the question of why anyone would replace their already
good C-130H.

That's pork barrel in action. It's better than what they currently
have but not so much better to warrant it's purchase. Now if I were
an air force who had NO C-130s and I wanted some, then J's would be me
best choice. Where all it adds in the case of the USAF is another
maintanance chain and marginal benefit in the big picture. . .





Did the Air Force want it? Nope.

The C-130J was a risk management driven design based on the possibility
of a
failed C-17 program.

The USAF didn't want it. Period.

What you want and what you get are sometimes different things.


Exactly. Pork Barrel.





Which part of that don't you understand? The C-17 is an obvious success
yet the USAF was still forced by politics to buy the J.

There was no obvious success when the C-17's wing broke well below
specification, exactly as predicted by the Nyquist shake.

When did that happen and when did they start delivering Js? The C-17
is so successful that the USAF has a good chance of getting up to 222
yet they're still getting those J's stuffed down their throats.

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:39:55 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:16:41 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
. ..

There are going to be politicians out there who are going to fight the
cancelation of ANY weapon system because it's being built in their
domain.

Non-sequitur.

No, brush up on your Latin. That's a truism, but it definitely is not
a non-sequitur.

The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel"
is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so
they keep those jobs and get those votes.

All aviation is politics.

That would be called a baseless assertion. One could as easily say
that "all aviation is business". Or, maybe "all aviation is Freudian
penis-envy...."


Puts a whole new light on submariners.

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:47:08 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:16:41 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
.. .

There are going to be politicians out there who are going to fight the
cancelation of ANY weapon system because it's being built in their
domain.

Non-sequitur.

No, brush up on your Latin. That's a truism, but it definitely is not
a non-sequitur.

It was non responsive to what I wrote.

The topic in general was pork barrel politics.

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...

The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel"
is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so
they keep those jobs and get those votes.

All aviation is politics.

Because you say so?

Aviation is too much money to be anything but politics.


If that were the case the military would never issue requirements
(because it wouldn't matter) and there would be no competitions
(because they wouldn't matter).

That would seem to be the nature of Lockheed unflyable entry in the
competition to build a prototype ATF, none of it mattered. From there we
have seen a demonstration of the Peter Principal for profit. USAF did an
excellent job of driving off any Kelly types and tieing the hands of the
rest of the engineers.

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:45:16 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
.. .

The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel"
is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so
they keep those jobs and get those votes.

All aviation is politics.

Because you say so?

Aviation is too much money to be anything but politics.


If that were the case the military would never issue requirements
(because it wouldn't matter) and there would be no competitions
(because they wouldn't matter).

That would seem to be the nature of Lockheed unflyable entry in the
competition to build a prototype ATF, none of it mattered.


The best explanation I've heard is that the USAF chose the F-22
because it was the more manueverable of the two (no idea how they
decided that since Northrop apparently never flew their's to the edge)
and that they had more faith that Lockheed could deliver what they
promised albeit in PC jargon. If that were the case why have them
build prototypes at all? They could have saved everybody a lot of
time and money and just looked the proposals over and picked the one
they wanted to give the contract to. For all I know it could have
been something as simple as "whoa, that F-23 looks a little too
radical for us. Let's stick with a tried and proven configuration"
but they could hardly say *that*.

Ed Rasimus wrote:

And, when the F-16 was bought, lo and behold--same builder, same
plant, same district---but no longer pork because now the production
out of Ft. Worth was something we wanted and needed.

What'dya mean "we", Kimosabe?
US pickle-suit pukes despised that little piece of
pilot wet-dream residue from day one!!

;-)

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Tarver Engineering" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Tarver Engineering" wrote:

That is the theory behind UCAVs. One pilot can fly until he/she is
tired and then someone else can fly.

Reliability-Availability-Revenue

...except that UAVs, for at least the next couple of decades, are
going
to be missing the first and second parts of that chain.

That will be true for perhaps another ten years, but not beyond that.

Nope. Some of the more-optimistic folks have claimed that, but all of
the current UAVs out there are showing just how weak that prediction is.
Heck, we had two of the current models crash in the same area, in the
same afternoon. Add in enemy jamming and other countermeasures (or even
a couple of guys in a light plane with shotguns), and UAVs stop looking
quite so nice.

They're great for loafing around in unchallenged airspace, but none of
the ones even in *development* are going to be anything near what we
need.

"Reliability," in modern terms, means "all weather, day and night,"
as a bare minimum. We have enough trouble keeping most of them in
the air in *good* weather. Until they get a decent
self-piloting/return/defense mode for when they lose their uplink,
they're just big model airplanes.

The satellite sensors are in the que.

They're already using satellite-based uplinks. As anyone with any
satellite receiving experience can tell you, that's not exactly a
guarantee of 100% uptime. If someone figures out where your ground
station is and knocks it offline for more than a few minutes, it can
kill the whole mission.

*Then*, you have to come up with software and hardware that will let
that same UAV fly in heavy weather, when the rain is so heavy the
uplinks fail right after launch, with 30 knot crosswinds. We are
nowhere *near* that sort of capability right now, and nobody is even
attempting to predict when that's going to happen in the near future.

On top of all that, you have to start considering in-flight failures of
UAVs in heavy use. If you lose a few of the important instruments on a
manned fighter, the pilot has a chance of bringing it in by hand. If
you lose that with a Predator, it crashes.

"Availability" implies "can do all of the jobs we need them to do."

Availability means they will fly at all.

Nope. If it flies, but can't do the job, it's not available for actual
use. Instead of "availability," use the term "mission capable."


Heck, long ago and far away...
We used to use UAVs of sorts just to tow targets around
for target practice and when they ran out of fuel they would
just pop the parachute and head out to retrieve it with a
motor whaleboat. We had a new XO on board and he
decided we would just boogey right up with our cruiser
and grapple the thing right up over the side. Guess he didn't
realize that the parachute might get sucked right up our
water intake forcing them to shut down the engines!
We were DIW for a couple hours while some SCUBA
divers labored to get the thing out. I heard we were only
45 min. from drifting aground on Sardinia before they finally
got the rag out. Didn't even need no enemy.

JK

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 23:14:03 -0600, Scott Ferrin
wrote:

The best explanation I've heard is that the USAF chose the F-22
because it was the more manueverable of the two (no idea how they
decided that since Northrop apparently never flew their's to the edge)
and that they had more faith that Lockheed could deliver what they
promised albeit in PC jargon. If that were the case why have them
build prototypes at all? They could have saved everybody a lot of
time and money and just looked the proposals over and picked the one
they wanted to give the contract to. For all I know it could have
been something as simple as "whoa, that F-23 looks a little too
radical for us. Let's stick with a tried and proven configuration"
but they could hardly say *that*.

The maneuverability aspect is probably quite valid. The -23 was
definitely slanted toward more stealth with F-15 equivalent agility.
The -22 seemed to recognize that the airplane wouldn't live in the
F-117 hidden world and therefore would be agile first and stealthy
second--the 2-D thrust vectoring for example.

The -23 employed a lot of high-tech multiple compound curved surfaces
which Northrop argued they had the machine tool expertise to build
(witness B-2). The Lockheed airplane was arguably more faceted
technology and the recent experience (in 1989) with that company's
production of F-117 made them a less risky choice.


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

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 08:35:39 -0700, Harry Andreas wrote:

Could be wrong, but I think his point is that threatening USAF with the
F/A-18 would insult them sufficiently that they would force the
F-22 to conclusion.

What's wrong with the F/A-18?

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