Saturday, September 22, 2012

F-35--spend more, get less

Aviation Week reports that small-diameter bomb clearance for the F-35 will be pushed beyond Block 3 to Block 4 at the end of the decade. There are several important points to bring up about this decision.

When the Joint Strike Fighter contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin in 2001 which became today's F-35, this marked the beginning of the System Development and Demonstration phase (SDD). The end of SDD would mean a complete Block 3 aircraft would be ready so that the next phase, Full Rate Production (FRP) could happen.

The small-diameter bomb (SDB) was created not so much as to reduce collateral damage in the time of its creation of useless conterinsergecy warfare but to provide aircraft the ability to carry more precision weapons for destruction of enemy air defenses and various other ground targets. It was determined that there were vast kinds of target sets that could be killed with small warheads and that not every target needed a 2000, 1000, or 500-pound air-to-ground weapon to kill it. Today's F-15E can carry several SDBs compared to other kinds of air-to-ground weapons. The F-22 can carry 8 of these inside its small bay.

SDB also has the penetration quality of the 2000-pound steel-pointy-tip BLU-109 bomb unit which is usually mated to precision-guided kits.

The SDB has a fold out wing to provide increased range. As a low-treat-war weapon it is useless because there are so many other cheaper options available for low collateral work. That and the fact that the long time of flight of the weapon even at short range, is unacceptable for close air support work.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense released a contract (4th paragraph) that would add the SDB to the list of air-to-ground weapons cleared (for USAF) F-35A's by the end of F-35 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase. This same contract also removed the Wind Corrected Munitions Despenser (for example CBU-105 which is used to deploy BLU-108 "skeets") from the list of weapons to be cleared by the end of F-35 SDD.

Because of development trouble, this same contract removed external fuel tanks from the F-35's end of SDD requirement. In the following year, briefings to Norway showed exernal fuel tank capability with the F-35 even after the contract had been released removing them from SDD. Later, Lockheed Martin briefings hawked this as an advantage, "Look, the F-35 is so advanced, it doesn't need external fuel tanks".

The marketing crew and faithful followers--on most days it is hard to tell the difference--continue to shed light on various hopes and dreams for the program. Notional block 4, 5 and 6 efforts (post SDD) show all kinds of things. Block 4 is now the Blue-Sky-Marketing gimmick used to dump things that should have been figured out earlier. Drag-chutes for the origial Norway requirement, and now the small-diameter bomb, and a variety of software features that are in a morally flexible "plan" for Block 2 and Block 3.

The end of Block 3 SDD will be lucky to show an F-35 that can use a few select weapons in a beneign flight envelop.

Another weapon that disappeared from SDD (and Block 3) was internal carry of the air-to-air missile known as the AIM-132 ASRAAM. This was a U.K. requirement. Now, because of over-promise early in the program backed up by poor risk-assessment, that too is gone. Engineers are unable to provide this capability. Currently, AIM-132 will only see clearance on the outer wing hardpoints.

So, not only are the cost, development problems, and delay magnifiying with the troubled F-35 program, but the end of SDD (which is supposed to signify a realitively complete ....and operational...jet) shows that we are getting much less than the promise.

As more time goes on, continue to watch as less capability is delivered for what will be, an obsolete-to-the-threat and faulty aircraft.

5 comments:

Horde said...

A common thread that has been running through the JSF Program, since Day 1, can be seen in the myriad of statements of obfuscation, procrastination, and delay as well as the resulting increases in cost.

Why is that?

Put simply, it is because this program is based on 'a total indifference to what is real' a.k.a. Bullshit!

What Engineers tell the MBA project managers, they don't want to hear let alone pass on to their bosses who, in turn, are responsible for setting up this FUBAR of FUBARS, in the first place .

So, the latter groups of Dunning-Kruger Effected Individuals (DKEI's) just continue to obfuscate, procrastinate and delay.

And so it goes.

NICO said...

Interesting to note, (maybe I just missed it) but in AvWeek, it was said that all the weapons have to be tested in EACH specific version.

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_09_17_2012_p58-492718.xml&p=1

"Although the three F-35 types share some elements, each weapon model must be tested separately on each fighter version..."

Wow, there goes that whole Joint thingy again!.

Noticed also that the heat issue isn't going away, now, it's not just the fuel but it seems that keeping the internal bays closed for too long might cook the electronics inside missiles and bombs! If nothing else, one has to assume that the shelf live of said missiles/bombs will be reduced "cooking" inside the bays...

Anonymous said...

Regarding the Block IV and Norway, recall that the Block IV was originally marketed for and supposed to be the mature block F-35A delivered to RNoAF beginning in 2016!

IOC was supposed to have been achieved by then and Block V was supposed to be ready for delivery to Partners (incl RNoAF) just 2 years later by 2018!

Most likely, if Govts (including the US's) knew back in 2006-2007 that the Block IV (the minimum requirement for most Air Forces) would not be ready until 2019-2020 and that unit weapon system costs would be radically inflated compared to the estimates (not to mention likely additional upgrades and costs required for existing aircraft to fill gaps), there would have been multiple Plan B's underway today. There would be Air Forces with higher states of readiness, deterrence and capability by 2020.

Graeme said...

Anonymous said...
September 23, 2012 9:31 AM

Anon - points out the actual capability costs of the just so flawed weapons program.

With regards to buying these jets - the worse they get, the more likely Australia will buy them.

Cocidius said...

Which of course begs the underlying critical question.

How relevant to the new and emerging threats is a strike fighter that takes roughly 20 years to get through development to IOC?

20 years in aerospace technological terms is a HUGE amount of time.

Could the US have foreseen that 3 different stealth air superiority fighters would be fielded and possibly in service by China and Russia around 2020? Not to mention the recent anti-stealth radar systems in development during last 5 years.

Some critical thinking minus the obvious politics needs to happen in Australia on continued participation in the JSF Program.