Read this article from 2006 and his comments.
--"As usual, complete and utter waste has a pretty face and nobody bothers to check for cloven hoofs beneath the lipstick."--
A bit deceptive to say the least.
Given that stroke symbology based jet-HMDS have been around since the early 1980's with McDonnell/Kaiser's Agile Eye system (and the unabashed Israeli copies known as DASH) having served through multiple generations (DASH is now up to 4 or 5).
And various (AAR-47 goes back to the late 70s and the AAR-34 on the F-111 as a 'tail warner' even further) optical MAWS installations are now available for not only the F-22 (AAR-56) but ALL jets.
OTOH, making the system display raster data _usefully_ (FOV bigger than a monacle ala IHADSS) is usually about sacrificing infinity projection to give a faceplate display with all the spatial warping and imagery tearing that that implies from a micro-CRT.
And no one has bothered to fill the 'bio channel bandwidth' with multiple /layered/ (subliminal biofeedback loop training required) display levels, effectively mimicking the MMD/SAD/DDD level displays as well as those of outside vision using direct retinal projection with the much lighter laser diodes that are now available. Diodes which, conveniently, can also track EYE movements rather than head based ones (doubling your tracker rate hz requirement but halving your directional axis measurement problems using magnetic element or LED helmet tracking).
All of which could theoretically offer /incredible/ improvements in both G-saturated maneuvering combat (face forward global displays that track an enemy without helmet-fatigue such as JHMCS imposes) and in task/data saturated equivalents (the best way to duck _multiple_ missiles as are likely under HOBS conditions is to see them as a PPD vector on a one display with triggered auto-evasion and expendables bloom. Another consideration being truly effective single-seat, 'multirole' missioning where pilot interpretation of several stacks of EOTS imagery did not interfere with his general flying/scanning discipline).
Speaking of the latter 'boat rower' mode, it is also generally a DUMB thing to do to put not merely sensors but _viewing perspectives_ around the jet circumference without a constant reference for (airframe masking) features as you are continually inducing vertigonous as well as spatial cognition errors by having the nose sensor cluster transition to the equivalent tail group over a 50ft displacement of airframe.
Something we discovered with Falcon Eye in front of the canopy vs. Pathfinder under the inlet (a mere 6ft difference) way the heck back in 1987-88 I think it was.
I also have a VERY hard time believing that these IIR imagers are going to provide framing sufficiently fast to give non-latented image artifacts while meeting decision loop minimums on things like STOVL or CVTOL landings.
Since basically you are looking at doped detectors designed to pick up missile plumes at distances where 4-10 frames per second, in binocular overlap (effective 8-20fps 'dual channel'), is more than sufficient to rangefind.
I know that a similar design on the AAS-42, while it would show images easily sufficient to judge a 'good approach' had such a slow framerate that you could literally see the scanline progress. And thus to trust it to make corrections on a bad one was suicide (i.e. the real difference between visionic aid and surveillance system is detail-at-rate in the near field rather than range-resolution at distance).
In general, the only pertinent data is therefore this-
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The F-35A1 should fly in the fall of 2006, the first STOVL aircraft (F-35B) should fly in late 2007, and the F-35B2 is expected to fly early in 2008.The first Navy JSF (F-35C) is scheduled to fly in 2009.
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Which, while nothing really new, at least confirms to the stock owners and 'other interested parties' that the future of JSF will be decided, as a function of production ramp commit, SOLELY by the CTOL version in 2006 which means that export orders (and early production lot commitments) will be secure LONG before any of the 'other services must have LO too!' (original justification for the whole damn program) variants can muddy the waters with continued weight and cost vs. complexity problems related to their peculiar operating or landing requirements.
As usual, complete and utter waste has a pretty face and nobody bothers to check for cloven hoofs beneath the lipstick.
KPl.
Keep in mind folks-
1. Nobody needs visionics if they are landing via JPALS with a 19" scatter error.
2. Nobody needs MAWS sensors if they are not being shot at by threat weapons apt to still be burning on terminal approach (RF LO in action).
3. 1+2 defeat the notion that you would 'have to have it on any modern airframe so the cost makes the pilot a might as well' condition. BUT.
If you put the same DAS-as-MAWS+SAIRST+BDA flash on a UCAV, purely for 'just in case' reasoning, along with EOTS and XTRA, the above rules would still apply but the tacair communities training, both UPT and Currency which now runs about EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS PER ANNUM would still be removed from the equation. Which means a 1,500 airframe robot force could pay for itself in about 6 years.
4. An airframe which cannot loiter cannot see _squat_. Presence is everything. Because targeting the terrorist on donkeyback is like targeting the submarine in a blue void of ocean. Hours and hours of sanitizing great-wide-nothin'. Followed by a fleeting instant of acquistion and recognition and tasking with perversely NO TIME LEFT before Poncho Bin Laden rides right on out the otherside of your surv picture. Supersonics and hogs nose radars and a bubble canopy all add WEIGHT AND DRAG. Which is why a jet with almost 20,000lbs of fuel has a combat radius of 700nm and 20 minutes in the target area. While a robot has a combat radius of 1,100nm and TWO HOURS on station.
5. Performance costs. A decent UCAV should run about 10-15 million each. A systems-bloated and 'scaled up' UCAV should run about 25 million each. The current JSF planning within the Five Walled Asylum is for a jet which runs 95 million each. This effectively means there will be fewer pilots anyway. Which means if you are flying over not just one but ten sense-CAPs and each pilot can only stay for mere minutes, you will have about 16 percent of the total force structure (inventory) /by time/ you need to meet your commitments. And less than 1/10 of a percent of that needed by cost (95 million divided by fifty billion dollars) compared to a predominantly UCAV centric 'reconnaissance strike' capability.
THINK before you admire your favorite fighter pilot for the 256 BILLION dollars that are destined to be wasted on that damn piece of junk is your future. Your Social Security. Your medicare. Your kids college. All being mortgaged on a weapons system that can only make a profit (it's sole design superiority over all other options). If we export VLO worldwide and thus proliferate the threat of stealth, globally.
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