Back in July 2011 The Economist did a piece on the uncertain future of the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. Plagued by delay after delay and spiralling costs the F35 is no eagle. Its future has long been in doubt. And yet, said The Economist, this fighter undeniably had two things going for it:
The first is that many of the current generation of fighters are approaching 30 years in service and must soon be replaced. The second is that because the F-35 was designed to replace so many types of aircraft, it has, in effect, a monopolist’s grip on the future fighter market.
No one, I suspect, feels this dilemma more acutely than the Royal Navy which, to recap, has staked its future on two not yet built (one to be mothballed) aircraft carriers which it plans to run without any aircraft (having retired the Harrier fleet already) for a few years until the naval variant of the F35 comes into service in 2020. Just a couple of problems: the plane can’t fire British missiles and, um, it CAN’T LAND ON A SHIP, probably ever!
Please make it stop. This is an ex-fighter plane, it is bereft of life, it’s not ‘pining for the fjords’, it’s gone to meet its maker etc, so on…
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I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that an aircraft, upon which the US Navy has staked its future, will be cancelled outright. Of course, in any sane world we’d have done what the US Navy is still doing and ordered F18 Super Hornets (known price, excellent delivery record, vast spares market) for immediate use, saved a pile of money and ordered the f35c (if needed) later in the production run when they’ll be cheaper and when we’d know how much they cost to operate.
Don’t panic. Hardly unknown for an aircraft in development to have problems – which are then addressed. Eg the excellent Boeing C-17 transport ac didn’t start life well but subsequently became a game-changer. Also, engineers can be very clever; the apparent problem with the planned positioning of the arrestor hook may prove less of a crisis than chicken-licken thinks at present…
The arrestor hook problem will almost certainly be solved by some sort of kludge. I say this as the son of an aerospace engineer who has been privy to design contre-temps since the F4 Phantom, which as you might recall, initially deployed to Vietnam without an autocannon. I understand the issue is the length between the aft landing gear and the point to which the hook affixes. I look forward to seeing whatever they come up with.
This represents another highlight in the UK’s long history of investing excessively heavily in weapons that either don’t work properly or suffer from major operating faults, such as in 2002 when we were stuck with SA80s that don’t work in extreme heat, Challenger 2 tanks that get clogged up in desert environments and helicopters that can’t fire their missiles and struggle in dusty conditions.
Which we are then stuck with because of the huge amount of money we have already spent on them. This quote from 2002 is instructive:
How much has the weapon cost?
A lot. This is why the government is so keen to keep it. In total the MoD has spent £394m on it development. Modifying it up to the SA80-A2 cost £92m. If it was scrapped, any replacement would be very expensive as well, even if it was bought “off the peg” and not a new design.
I think the issue is not so much why have we messed up with over investing in a specific plane that cannot land on a boat, probably ever, but more why do we keep on making the same kind of awful investment decisions and how can we make sure that in future we invest in developing or buying only those weapons that work reliably and effectively?
“It’s future has long been in doubt” — come on! “Its”!
oops… my bad. Dyslexic!
On clearing eMails over the past two days, the old In-Box has been assailed with eMails and media reports (like this one) from both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific on the QLR Report; in particular, the issues/problems with the F-35C, with much attention being placed on the tail hook installation saga.
“Outlier” was the term many used when sighting the design of this installation for the first time back in 2008, though some concerns were raised on seeing some models in an earlier briefing by Stork&Co back in 2007, following the Critical Design Review for this variant of the JSF.
So, not surprised to see Messrs David Ahearn, Ed Greer and Co use the same term in their QLR report.
But, a little surprised about the focus on the “MLG to Hook” relationship, in lieu of the “DEP to Hook” relationship (i.e. distance and angle) – DEP standing for the ‘design eye position’ of the pilot station (i.e. in the cockpit).
A cynic might say this quite important design metric is being held in reserve and comes up next to bat after the hook point has been “sharpened” to improve the probability for shredding the pendant cable more effectively while the higher damper loads should make sure the point gets even sharper with use.
Carrier operations and carrier suitability have always fascinated and intrigued me, even before I spent some time at PAX River where the Naval and Marine versions of the JSF are being tested.
Trying to do “unusual and innovatively controlled” FCLPs in the T-2C and, moreover, the TA-4J (from the back seat, mind you) gave me a healthy respect, both for those who fly ‘em and those who design ‘em – carrier based aircraft, that is; and, some insight into what is needed for an CB aircraft to not be a bolter queen, let alone be called an “outlier”.
Running the F-35C numbers, some time ago, through the multi-variate figures and tables of the MilSpec (MIL-A-8863C) did not produce a very pretty picture. In fact, it is damned ugly!
Wonder if this and the other carrier suitability specs are in the JSF SDD contract or if they got caught up in the 1998 to 2004 hiatus when MilSpec & MilStds were not approved for procurement purposes. Mmmmh?
Back on whether the F-35C meets such carrier suitability criteria, I shared my number crunching and thoughts with colleagues with the wisdom that comes from far more experience than I in these fields of endeavour.
They agree.
Surprisingly, it turns out the F-111B numbers were somewhat if not way better than the ones derived for the CV JSF; though folks with first hand access to the real (rather than derived) data on the F-35C CV JSF may likely not.
There again, it would be refreshingly transparent if not informative for folks to share and compare notes in keeping with VADM Dave Venlet’s recent directive on the need for such things.
After all, whether we like it or not, we are all in this mess, together.
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What II wonder about is why people outside the US still want the things. There are a steady stream of pro-F-35 editorials in Canadian newspapers, and Canadian aerospace and military journals, in between the reports of the latest failed test, the latest cost overrrun, and the latest study discovering that it is missing some important feature. (A number of people have pointed out that a single-engine aircraft is a bad choice in a Canadian winter, especially when you can only afford a few dozen). They can’t all come from people with a financial stake in the program, so is it partially the sunk costs fallacy?