As someone from Capitol Hill recently pointed out to me, much of the discussion about UCAVs is purely theoretical because realistically, in 2030, the only stealth aircraft on the flight deck will be the Lockheed Martin F-35C—there simply isn’t enough time or money to field anything else.
F-35 LRIP-9 (note F-35 low-rate-initial-production (LRIP) is illegal because of no DOD procurement milestone-C in place) shows only 2 F-35Cs. How many squadrons of F-35Cs will be in place by 2030? When it will be a "young" aircraft on deck. What value will it be considering its JSF Joint Operational Requirement Document (itself crafted for a very weak interdiction requirement) was created in the 1990's and signed off on at the beginning of the last decade (circa early 2000's)?
As Bill Sweetman point out some months back, the U.S. Navy is so impressed with the F-35C that the latest budget effectively takes money away from that program and invests it in stand-off weapons like the advanced HARM and LRASSM.
Confidence!
The best way to protect the carrier is not to engage it with threats it is unable to take on. We do not have a carrier air wing roadmap that will address emerging threats when the prime answer keeps pointing back to the weak F-35.
Are there fixed targets (interdiction and deep strike) which are against a first team player? The answer is: shoot enough.
Certify the 1000-mile-range Tomahawk Block IV to be carried by the B-52. The B-52 won't be around forever and we will need new aircraft for that mission. Against a first-team player, a new, stealth, long-range bomber is probably unsurvivable against a defense system that is in-depth. Reasons? All the wide variety of sensors including, the visual. Building a $600M+ each manned stealth bomber to then, drop stand-off weapons is also a waste.
Any long-range bomber should depend on long-range stand-off weapons to engage high-end threats. Including this concept (starting at 1m25s in the video).
The author is right in that currently the bat-wing unmanned stealth aircraft off of the aircraft carrier has a lot of work to do. Yet, investing money into that instead of the defective F-35 is a better play for now.
Then it comes back to all the other threats that are not high-end.
Here, the Super Hornet beats the F-35C in giving a joint operational commander everything they need from an aircraft carrier in regard to manned air, for a lot less money and safety around the carrier deck.
Summary. The best things the U.S. can do for the carrier air wing and joint air ops at this time are:
1. Invest in stand-off weapons for the Super Hornet.
2. Keep the Super Hornet as its manned, tac-air part of the carrier air wing.
3. Push UCAS-N as far as it will go.
4. Keep healthy investments in submarine-launched land strike missiles.
5. For the joint-look: invest in long-range bombers that are made not to penetrate advanced integrated air defenses.
6. Get aircraft programs going which address a new F-22 mission requirement and FB-22 mission requirement.
Yet again, the idea that "there are no alternatives to the F-35" is nothing more than a bad Internet meme.
A final word of warning, keep aware that doing something like long-range deep strike missions against China invites watching sinking ships in-sight of our West Coast, Hawaii and Guam, shores. All on the nightly news. China isn't all that tremendous "combat experience" we "gained" fighting...Libya.
-DOT&E Report: The F-35 Is Not Ready for IOC and Won't Be Any Time Soon
-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding
-F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour
-More indications that the F-35 is a failed program
-From the year 2000. Very insightful. The JSF: One More Card In The House (PDF)
“It will affordable because already there are 3,000 aircraft on the order books.”
—27 June 2002, Air Marshal Houston, Defence press announcement, Australia joins the F-35 program—
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