Long, repetitive and boring, but the work’s done and maybe one reader may enjoy it.
Or not.
Now give me my “A.”
–
Abstract:Over the course of the first decade of its lifecycle, the FA-18 Hornet aircraft evolved from a troubled acquisition program designed to fulfill a limited, albeit crucial role on a few aircraft carrier decks into the most successful aircraft program in US Navy history. It did so not by exceeding expectations in any one area, but by being “good enough” in every area, by using modularity in design and by answering cultural and political issues effectively.
Introduction: After the Vietnam War, the US Air Force questioned its philosophical reliance on very high technology, very expensive fighter programs. In order to fill the level-of-effort fighter and ground attack niches for a Cold War battle over the European Fulda Gap, requests for proposal went out to industry in solicitation of concepts for a lightweight fighter program. General Dynamics eventually won the bid with the F-16, while Northrop’s YF-17, the loser in the fighter fly-off, presented an interesting acquisition opportunity for the US Navy. The YF-17′s dual engines offered redundancy – equating to operational survivability – for a Navy operating in the blue water environment, while its ability to carry medium range air to air missiles (in the form of the AIM-7 Sparrow) offered it an adequate offensive and defensive counter air capability. Another advantage was the aircraft’s physical size: The F-14 Tomcat, with its greater endurance, more complex and ostensibly more capable weapons system, was too large to operate from the flight decks of the USS Midway and USS Coral Sea. A new fighter would be required to defend these ships, while all Navy carriers needed a replacement for the light attack A-7 Corsair II.
Design: Nearly every fighter aircraft is built upon the bones of its immediate predecessor. With the lessons of Vietnam immediately in mind during the mid-1970′s, system acquisition professionals were acutely aware of the limitations of the F-4 Phantom in the overland environment, and especially of its relative disadvantages (as compared to lightweight Soviet designs like the MiG-21 Fishbed and MiG-19 Farmer) during close-in maneuvering flight. A new fighter would need a true, look-down, shoot-down radar and the ability to win in the proverbial “knife fight in a phone booth.” But the FA-18 was not only to be a fighter it was also to replace the venerable A-7 Corsair, a light attack, day, visual bomber. While the A-7 was a good bomber in Vietnam, it had operational disadvantages: As a single engine jet, every motor chug was an emergency, and flameouts almost inevitably resulted in the loss of the aircraft. Neither was it fast, especially with a full bomb load. In combat, the A-7 was too vulnerable to ground fires in the emergent threat environment of increasingly capable surface-to-air missiles and radar guided anti-aircraft artillery.
Design trade-offs are resident in every aircraft design, but an aircraft designed from the ground up to be both a fighter and an attack platform has a particularly high bar to vault: In the lightweight fighter design, premiums are placed on maneuverability and thrust to weight ratios, while the often antithetical attributes of stability and endurance are valued in bombers.
Initially designed to fill a low-end niche, the FA-18 became increasingly important when the A-12 Avenger program ran into serious weight and cost issues, ultimately resulting in program cancellation. Vietnam era A-6 Intruders were expensive to operate and maintain, while rapidly reaching the end of their service lives. Eventually, the A-6 program went into senescence, with newer models of the FA-18 taking their place. As a program in execution as the F-14 approached the end of its useful service life, the FA-18E/F once again offered “good enough” value at an acceptable cost and risk. By adhering to a few emergently apparent DoD acquisition heuristics, the FA-18 practically stumbled into naval aviation dominance by being the “last program standing.” Also, when everyone else (A-12, F-14D, e.g.) is trying to get money to support their program, it’s good to be a program that has money in execution a program, in other words, that is delivering “shadows on the ramp” rather than PowerPoint slides.
Architecting Cultural and Political: As mentioned earlier, every aircraft design is a series of trade-offs: We might like a fighter with exceptional endurance to give us operational flexibility in the maritime environment, but fighters with large fuel fractions require very large and thirsty engines and tend to be less maneuverable, especially at higher gross weights. Aircraft designed for high transonic and supersonic flight typically require delta or modified delta wing designs, but such designs tend to be very heavily wing loaded, resulting in high bleed rates a – disadvantage in a turning fight. And while these are tradeoffs in a simple fighter design, ground attack aircraft place a premium on static stability rather than dynamic agility for accurate ordnance delivery. Finally, an aircraft designed for operations aboard an aircraft carrier values a lower approach speed, while swept wing jets typically require very high nose attitudes at optimum angle-of-attack too high to adequately see the landing area and approach aids.
Design of a modern, navalised strike fighter is therefore an almost endless series of compromises. Sadly, each of these compromises will almost inevitably engender embittered opposition from on or another constituency that feels its own particular ox is being gored when a choice goes against them. At some point, honest disagreements on priorities can bubble out of the developmental cognitive bin and into the political oversight space. These eruptions can put the program on the horns of a dilemma: As stated above, “Money is life.” The obverse side of this heuristic is that “Money makes you a target.” When budgets are tight at DoD (and when aren’t they?) hungry opponents within the service, in other services, or in the political branches will look for reasons to raid a program to support their own programmatic priorities. Vociferous intramural debates are healthy, but they can also provide outsiders the ammunition they need to threaten or even kill a program. Strong leadership within the Navy succeeded – barely – in exercising cloture over the internal debate, in an attempt to ensure that the “perfect” was not the mortal enemy of the “good enough.” The vendor, doing their own part to ensure program survival, was very careful to ensure that their sub-contractors had presences in nearly every state with a senior Congressional delegation, thereby assuring that budgetary marks against the program would result in hometown pain.
In the course of building a mental model which would adequately address customer needs, design choices were made which would eventually have outsize consequences. The goal of creating a nimble fighter that was also a stable bomber led to redundant flight control computers, while the single-seat design, when combined with multiple mission tasking, necessitated a simple pilot/aircraft interface and intuitive displays – although the aircraft missions and functions were complex, the user interface was designed for simplicity. The heuristic of “complexity within systems, simplicity between them” was well found in the FA-18 program. In fact, through the use of standardized data bus exchange protocols, the airframe was in a state of near-continuous evolution. In the long run, these decisions – some of which had been made as much by necessity as by virtue – had the advantage of conferring a market pleasing “high tech” panache on the FA-18 program. Finally, after the Cold War, with increasing pressure on DoD fiscal accounts, the training and life-cycle savings of a single-seat aircraft as contrasted to marginally more capable multi-seat variants proved not insignificant.
Design Evolution: Conceived as a “low end” strike fighter for legacy carrier decks, the FA-18A (the “odd” lettered aircraft, “B” and “D” were trainers, rather than front line fighters) underwent a lengthy evolutionary process. As the A-12 program slowly died, and the medium attack A-6 went into senescence, the requirement emerged for precision guided munitions capability – the AN/AAS-38 Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) pod and weapons system met that requirement for laser guided bombs, while digital data busses on the fuselage and wing weapons stations ensured future compatibility with MIL-STD 1553 weapons such as the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and the Join Stand-off Weapon (JSOW). As the F-14 and S-3 Viking programs approached sunset, the FA-18E/F design (for the first time, the two-seat “F” variant was an operational item) replaced the Tomcat in Fleet Air Defense through its larger fuel fraction, as well as taking on the residual mission of the Viking in providing air refueling support. All of these design evolutions – from the minor transition of A to C, to the major redesign from C to E/F – succeeded in holding tightly to what had worked well in the system architecture before, while remedying former deficiencies.
Airframe Design: The airframe design was chiefly architected to ensure high angle of attack maneuverability, a pointed weakness in the FA-18′s predecessors. Extensive use of composites and titanium sparring ensured light weight, which serves to increase maximum allowable instantaneous normal load factors, reduce the life-cycle stresses of repeated g-loading, while also favorably decreasing the denominator of the thrust-to-weight calculation. Given the same installed engine thrust, these architectural concepts result in greater instantaneous g-available, and enhanced sustained maneuverability over time. The initial YF-17 airframe had slotted inlets in the leading edge extension, which itself acts as a kind of lifting body. These slots were designed to minimize rudder and vertical tail blanking by the main wingform during high angle-of-attack flight, but adversely affected range specifications – in production FA-18′s they were filled in.
The aircraft was also equipped with high lift devices such as leading and trailing edge flaps. In older aircraft, these devices were deployed mechanically under a rigid airspeed schedule. The incorporation of digital flight control computers, serviced by air data computers, rate gyros and accelerometers enabled a full authority, fly-by-wire Control Augmentation System, or CAS. This permitted the aircraft to smartly deploy the high lift devices, and indeed the primary flight controls, throughout the aircraft’s operating envelope. For example, at very high airspeeds and low altitudes, normal use of aileron would ordinarily result in degraded turn performance due to torsional wing flex – a phenomenon known as “aileron reversal.” In the FA-18, the flight control computers analyze the dynamic pressures in this environment and use differential horizontal stabilator to turn the aircraft. Conversely, at medium or high altitudes and very high angle of attack, use of ailerons to turn the aircraft left or right might very well result in an adverse yaw departure, as the upward going wing in the turn goes suddenly past stall, resulting in a sudden increase in induced drag. In this situation, the computers use coordinated rudder and aileron to turn the aircraft in the direction the pilot has “voted.” These computers enable the jet to perform nimbly in air combat, and sturdily in a dive bombing run, while reducing the number of hazardous loss-of-control incidents.
Additional augmentations were in the use of the clamshell canopy, again a lesson learned from Vietnam. The F-4 Phantom, which had been designed as an over water, high speed, fleet air defense interceptor, sacrificed rearward visibility for enhanced aerodynamics and top-end speed. Employed overland in Vietnam, burdened by external bomb carriage and with onboard radar advantages neutralized by very low targets popping up behind them, this lack of rearward visibility was a significant vulnerability.
The YF-17 and FA-18 both made room for two afterburning engines. In the carrier operating environment, landing opportunities are tightly scheduled, and a single engine jet with a rough running motor can easily end up in the water rather that in the wires if things go from bad to worse. Having had the opportunity to shut down engines operating out of tolerance while many hundreds of miles from the nearest landing field, I can personally attest to the value of having a properly running engine left over after the shut down. Multi-engine reliability also proved crucial in combat, as Marine FA-18′s executing close air support missions in Iraq and Bosnia landed safely after having been hit by portable, infra-red guided, surface-to-air missiles, while their single engine AV-8B colleagues often had to eject from aircraft with similar hits.
Finally, the modular system design of the subcomponents allowed both rapid upgrades as technology emerged, and ready maintainability. These two combined to keep the overall lifecycle costs of the airplane down while keeping it abreast of the developing threat, and were a tipping point in favor of continuing the program as compared to more complex, difficult to maintain and difficult to upgrade aircraft.
Mission Flexibility: Especially after the incorporation of MILSTD digital weapons data busses into the weapons system architecture, the number of weapons the FA-18 can carry is enormous. This offers the Navy compelling advantages in mission flexibility, as aircraft can swiftly be reconfigured from fighter to ground attack or even sea control. It is possible in fact to re-role aircraft actually in flight, as a dedicated bomber can be “swung” into defensive counter-air, for example, should the threat dictate. This mission flexibility could create an enormous problem for single seat aviators, however if their interfaces with the weapons system are not properly architected. While there are intellectual challenges to mastering a great variety of weapons, in the FA-18 itself, complexity is highly compartmentalized within the weapons computers themselves, and display and control mechanizations – weapons computer outputs – are as standardized as is possible. Thus, the “cage/uncage” button on the left throttle serves to 1) cage or uncage the heads-up-display (HUD) velocity vector in the navigation master mode, 2) cage or uncage the AIM-9M seeker head in the air-to-air master mode, and 3) cage or uncage – the phraseology becomes inexact here, but the analogy is consistent – air-to-ground weapons systems seekers. Similarly, the radar slew button atop the right throttle “moves things” on displays, whether they be inertial waypoints in nav mode, radar cursors in air-to-air or weapons seekers in air-to-ground.
Human Systems Engineering: The US Navy has operated many single seat aircraft in its history, with the A-7 Corsair, A-4 Skyhawk and F-8 Crusader as the most recent, pre-Hornet examples. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these airplanes had significantly higher accident rates than their multi-seat contemporaries. The FA-18 program was lucky in that its predecessors existed during a transition period from an “owner’s manual” philosophy of aircraft operation, one emphasizing the machine and its operating limits, into the 1960′s NATOPS program. NATOPS stands for “Naval Aviation Training and Operations Standardization,” and incorporated an increased focus on the human element as the pilot interacted with the technology. The lessons learned from NATOPS had the salutary effect of both reducing overall numbers of mishaps while increasing the rigor of scrutiny into root causes of those that remained.
In previous single seat designs, the array of cockpit instruments, displays, controls, switches and rheostats proliferated alarmingly as new technology was incorporated. In the F-8 cockpit for example, new control consoles were installed wherever they fit. In one memorable example this resulted in a UHF radio being installed on the starboard side console so far behind the pilot’s ejection seat that its orientation was actually reversed, compared to the rest of the control boxes – had it not been, a pilot looking over his shoulder would not be able to read its dials. To change a frequency, the pilot had to release the engine throttle, fly the jet with his left hand and crane his head to look behind him on the console, all the while flying into the unseen unknown at hundreds of miles per hour. Doing so in bad weather or at night or during a carrier approach was obviously a recipe for vertigo and potential disaster.
In the FA-18 by contrast, nearly all the avionics – and all of the weapons systems – can be actuated either by the controls mounted on the stick and throttle, or else on an “Up Front Control” directly before the pilot. Additional displays beyond those needed to fly, navigate and deliver ordnance are nested as sub features within the dashboard-mounted multi-function displays, clearing the cockpit of visual clutter. Apart from the conventional location of flight and engine controls, the landing gear, tailhook and flap actuators were placed in intuitive console areas close to where the pilot’s hands would naturally be when time came to activate them. Single-time actuators such as the Emergency Jettison button was located in an easy to reach portion of the front console, but next to absolutely nothing else – a pilot blowing the external stores off the wing could never explain afterwards that he was “going for the other button.” These human systems engineering functions have the blessing of being blindingly obvious only in retrospect, which is probably a pretty good metric for true genius in architectural design.
Summary: Because of the magnitude of design trade-offs required to perform the multiplicity of required functions, the FA-18 program was almost killed before the first airplane hit fleet parking. Its survival and eventual dominance in the naval aviation tactical inventory is the result of careful architectural design intersecting with seized opportunities leavened by fortuitous circumstance. Political resistance was overcome by clever marketing and a wise use of outsourcing, while a focus on overall life-cycle costs of ownership weighed against mission flexibility proved critical to the program’s success.
Superb.
I visited the Northrop Hawthorne plant once and it was amazing the care with which the plane was assembled.
The Quality guys had flagged several bad rivets and I literally could not see the reason for rejection until it was explained to me.
lex
how do you feel about the -18F?
[...] Neptunus Lex hooks us up with his homework. His paper reminded me of the Coram biography of John Boyd. Page 307 includes this paragraph: In August 1974, a congressional delegation had ordered the Navy to accept the winner of the lightweight fighter fly-off as a Navy airplane, but in the aftermath of the Air Force acceptance of the F-16, the Navy announced it would not buy the aircraft. Instead the Navy took the aircraft that lost the competition–the YF-17–changed its name to the F-18, and said the name change meant this was a new airplane and the one the Navy wanted. The Navy loaded it with extra fuel, electronics, and hard points–the external fixtures to which missiles and bombs are attached–redesigned the air frame, and turned it into another big, beefy airplane. [...]
Very, very nice. As a technical writer, I can say this is one of the better descriptions of an aircraft as system that I’ve ever read. Very clear.
You could do this sort of thing if, say, you got tired of your Navy gig…
Lex,
Great paper. One thing which you touched on is the much enhanced maintainability of the Hornet over older platforms. The E/F builds on this further, mostly through maturation of Built-In-Test (BIT). As an “operator” you might not be aware of all the work that has gone on in this area, so the below link gives some additional background:
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/systems/Bainpaper.pdf
Enjoy.
-CJ
Lex- tough-love. Sorry. You can banish me if you want.
Fights on.
re- “into the most successful aircraft program in US Navy history”
Quatify. Metric? Last man left standing is all…
“The F-14 Tomcat, with its greater endurance, more complex and ostensibly more capable weapons system, was too large to operate from the flight decks of the USS Midway and USS Coral Sea”
Let it rest in peace. Did a Tomcat dude cuckold ya?. Ostensibly? It was a fighter. Re Midway & Coral Sea. Not a strong argument. Just a little truth there. Don’t forget we had (14) other deployable CV/CVN’s then with fully capable 95 aircraft airwing. Mid & CS were niches in the CVBG plan. More intellectual veracity required here.
re- “the number of weapons the FA-18 can carry is enormous”
How about “the selection” vice “the number”. Did you add more hard points? 1553 is a nav bus. 1760 is a weapos bus..
AAAAAAAh! (pulls gray hair out!) No more picking. Too much of a challenge. I submit. You flame everything that came before or even is still out there. Thank God our active enemies can only tote AK-47′s and IEDs. You are a product of the corporate Hornet mindspeak. Man in the cave seeing flickering sahadows as reality…
Where is “performance” in all this? My problem has always been range and endurance.
I like your human factors para. A lot. Build on it….
True data points-
“..a tradeoff…”
“…made as much by necessity as by virtue”
“…the FA-18E/F once again offered ?
Lex- tough-love. Sorry. You can banish me if you want.
Fights on.
re- “into the most successful aircraft program in US Navy history”
Quatify. Metric? Last man left standing is all…
“The F-14 Tomcat, with its greater endurance, more complex and ostensibly more capable weapons system, was too large to operate from the flight decks of the USS Midway and USS Coral Sea”
Let it rest in peace. Did a Tomcat dude cuckold ya?. Ostensibly? It was a fighter. Re Midway & Coral Sea. Not a strong argument. Just a little truth there. Don’t forget we had (14) other deployable CV/CVN’s then with fully capable 95 aircraft airwing. Mid & CS were niches in the CVBG plan. More intellectual veracity required here.
re- “the number of weapons the FA-18 can carry is enormous”
How about “the selection” vice “the number”. Did you add more hard points? 1553 is a nav bus. 1760 is a weapos bus..
AAAAAAAh! (pulls gray hair out!) No more picking. Too much of a challenge. I submit. You flame everything that came before or even is still out there. Thank God our active enemies can only tote AK-47′s and IEDs. You are a product of the corporate Hornet mindspeak. Man in the cave seeing flickering sahadows as reality…
Where is “performance” in all this? My problem has always been range and endurance.
I like your human factors para. A lot. Build on it….
True data points-
“..a tradeoff…”
“…made as much by necessity as by virtue”
“…the FA-18E/F once again offered “good enough” value..”
What I take from this is that the Hornet and all it’s variants are the result of the lesser of all evils (ills?), lack of money/mission being the predominant. “Last loser left on a losing team.” Not my Navy, I hope. Why the chip? Hornets rule. Do you want to go on the record for that?
The writing is superb and it is convincing, albeit winning, worthy of a high grade… for literature! On the other hand, too much P.T. Barnum.
B2
Ah, B2 – and it was your admiration I’d yearned for most of all *sniff*
Success I guess should probably be defined, but we’re moving into the fourth decade of production now, with over a thousand jets delivered just to USN/USMC before we even get to FMS (~350 items). When and if the Growler comes to fruition, carrier decks are going to look pretty homogenous, dontcha think? Throw in an F-35 here or there. I’d call that successful, others might have room to quibble.
As for the Tomcat, I have never to my knowledge been cuckolded by anyone – I think there’s a better than even chance that my Systems Architecture prof is not a reader of my blog, so there might be a bit of redundant overlap for those who see both. I did rather get fed up with stories about how wonderful a weapons system it was, when getting the whole train off the deck and kilo was a series of consecutive miracles. If a crew managed to get a full-up system into the fight, the odds were right about 2 out of three that either the pilot or RO was too junior to support the other crew member, with a very small sweet spot wherein two high performers could make her sing. Concept to execution was built to perfection, and that’s a goal we rarely achieve.
Good points on the number of carriers, but that makes my point even more important I think – remember that there was an initial plan to build F-18′s and A-18′s before the differences were shelved. Nevertheless, the A-7 community would have been thrilled with a faster, two-engine A-7. The “F” was needed for the smaller decks. A niche need became in time the dominant player, and circumstance certainly played a role. But you’ve got to be present to play, nu?
Another good point on selection rather than number, but you’ll concede the fact that a four-ship of JDAM carrying FA-18′s has more destructive, hit-to-kill capacity than an entire air wing only twenty years ago. Sure it’s simpler when the bomb finds the target for the pilot rather than the other way ’round, but the point is DMPI serviced per unit cost – and cost rules, dunnit?
I should have bounced this off you for the data bus nomenclature before I sent it forward – or else, not relied on memory
Range performance and endurance are important limfacs – what the Hornet’s critics always missed it seems to me is that fuel is one of those few things you can actually change for the better once airborne, given proper support levels. An airplane that’s too slow, or too “big” – there are many measurements for that, as you know – isn’t going to get any much faster or smaller once you launch it. And with the addition of the E/F, we’ve got the longer range and endurance at precisely the moment when it became critical to us.
Aircrew love their machines, you yours, and I mine. I think that shows no matter what we write. But the first air boss I ever met – he was from the Connie, as it turned out, asked me what FRS I was going to on a trip to San Diego for SERE. When I told him the Hornet RAG, he asked me how it felt to be flying an airplane that wasn’t going to be around in five years. That was 1986.
I wonder where he is now?
Hey, Vic – I actually like the F-concept, and will like it even better when it comes with AESA radar and a decoupled cockpit. There are a number of missions, FAC-A comes to mind, which are simply too much work for one guy to handle, especially in a threat environment. When the task loading goes over the threshold of 1.0 pilots to 1.1 or higher, it’s always better to round up to the next whole number. And the good news is that it’s got enough gas to support the extra seat – as B2 could tell you, the one thing the A or C models could not afford in combat was to lose 800 pound of gas before getting airborne.
Lex – I’m assuming you have already submitted this, on the off chance you haven’t there’s a nice diagram around showing the materials that compose the F/A-18A I got from a professor a couple of years ago.
Color coded drawing of the plane with total percentage next to the legend.
It’s slot in nicely with the airframe design subtitle
Ugh, make that it’d
Lex,
Let me preface. You, no-shoot, have my admiration. Personally and professionally. You’re a better aviator and officer than I ever was I’ll state that outright. I just want to put that out there before I am pilloried by your fans.
I was hoping this wouldn’t happen but you challenged me by nicely putting me in that ol’box my friend.
Regarding the generic airwing: As long as the mission can be met by Naval Air I don’t care. However, I will simply say that we both know it is physically impossible to be in two places at one time and it is still not possible to levitate…. yet. IMO and professional judgement that’s what it would REALLY take to do all that you postulate. When you talk weapons above you talk about evolutionary changes in systems, not the Hornet specifically. The folks need to understand that. The proof is that even you have admitted in past entries, is that the Tomcat actually led the way in certain aspects of improving the kill-chain. Sensors, hi speed data buses, GPS nav and improveed sensors. The Hornet is just the platform still standing with the capability.
That being said I love all aircraft. The ones I flew and all the others I didn’t. They all had their time and their place. Most were successful. I even appreciate the Hornet in all it’s variants. I see them everyday, all variants flying and testing. I love ‘em. This has been my bidness all my adult life, just like yours. I am not jealous nor stuck in the “past”. I have no agenda for drumsticks, turkeys, hoovers or slufs. I just cannot abide spin when it comes to our core missions in Naval Aviation. It’s too important.
We are not two ROs fighting for bucks here Lex in the e-ring. Taxpaying citizens who depend on us for their defense read your blog. They need the story, warts and all. You make the decision tree to our present airwing “scheme” appear Darwinian when it was, simply, just “a tradeoff” more driven by money not mission requirement, OOB or even capability. When is “Good enough” not enough?
B2
CAPT Lex,
If you haven?
CAPT Lex,
If you haven’t turned it in yet, it needs one more typo-check pass – the “on” in the below sentence should be “one” I believe:
“Sadly, each of these compromises will almost inevitably engender embittered opposition from on or another constituency…”
Well B2, I seem to have made you agitated and unhappy, and I honestly regret that. You have my admiration too. Shoot, I was even going to send you a resume here in a year or two
But on to the rest: The F-14 (the D-model especially) with a LANTIRN pod was a wonderful machine, but hideously expensive to own/operate and with reliability issues we can’t just wave away. In a perfect world, costs wouldn’t matter, but in ours they do. The conditional “if” in front of the sentence, “If money was no object,” renders moot everything that follows after. Especially when the naval aviation enterprise (sshh! don’t tell the shoes!) is only one pillar in the naval warfighting arena.
I used to get pissed at the USAF because they spent their money so profligately. It wasn’t enough that they had better gear, they also had to have better O’Clubs. They’d always tell me that, “Well, we just fly airplanes. You guys have to also buy ships.” And subs, and SEALs and a SeaBees, etc. And the thing that pissed me was, well: They were right. We did have to buy all of those things, and unlike airfields, we weren’t done paying for them once we’d brought them home. They have hugely significant operating costs – you know all of this of course, but it’s for the other folks who might stumble into the room.
Like you, I’m a little bit uncomfortable with armchair acq cutting “risk checks” that warfighters may have to cash. I can say that and also repeat that when it comes to owning and operating a twelve (or ten, or eleven) carrier strike group fighting force in which each strike group has sufficiently credible combat power all by its lonesome, cost doesn’t just count, it rules. Whether that’s Darwinian or whether it’s a trade-off begs the real question: “Is it good enough?” and, “Can we afford it?”
The answer – thus far – has been: Yes.
What? You want to live forever?
Lex,
I give. I’ll keep it simple.
I am not saying that 30 year old aircraft designed for a service life of 15 at most, and kept online on life support don’t have to go, eventually. No. I am simply saying that the F-18 design is not optimum for every purpose. Regardless, of how often you add systems, build bigger external fuel tanks or plumb it.
We should have capitalized CSA. We deserve a worthy, long range BHR (Beyond Hornet Range)organic ISR, ELINT, tanker, outer zone ASW and anti-surface warfare capability but we never will again. That is the airwings weakness. The opportunity to “share” was squandered back in the late 90′s…Sort of the same way big Navy has cashiered mine warfare and pays lip service to ASW.
The Hornet is a fine fighter and great attack plane. The SuperHornet alleviates some of my concerns despite it’s 75 million price tag. There. I’ve said it again for the record. Please don’t make it the holy grail is all.
I won’t go into the 40 year old design and physical design limitations of the E-2 leaving us with a plane with limited endurance, short range and a ceiling limited by propellers… Nor will I discuss the jack of all trades helo which five years later has still not made it’s appearance….
I will say this again. I often do. How much longer can Naval Aviation go on before someone says: Hey what about bluewater and Naval Aviation’s core missions (remember Midway)? What are we doing with only 65 aircraft on a Nimitz class carrier designed to handle 95? I know the argument well that Black sells with that brief from China Like on the efficiency and lethality of the modern weapons (ask Zarqawi-:-) ), but I ain’t buying the “promotion” (IMO) that we can actually do more things AT ONCE with more. That’s just spin. You can’t be in two places at once. Come on.
Re mad & agitated. Not at you. I’m just glad you’re not! Let us celebrate the “evil Z’s” demise! Let’s drink to the USAF and that unnamed JTAC that made it happen!
B2
So…the UCAV is going to replace the F-18 now? I heard it catches the third wire 100%.
-
This kind of argument you see over at Phibian’s with regard to surface ships. I would love to see a meta-discussion about this kind of acquisition decision; it seems to me one could pull out some thumbrules about how to think about decisions about weapons systems. (I posted a commentary on the good captain’s homework that put a few ideas up in that direction.)
It seems to me that this kind of decision is the most painful mud wrestling a staffer or OPNAV guy can do. It would be interesting to figure out how to recognize where the fighting will never stop and bypass it for a set decision.
On the other hand, a final decision is merely an opening for negotiation, and we have 525 board members wanting to vote on our decisions…
Never forget how frustrating this process can become. The final Thumbs UP/DOWN made by some elected person from Iowa or New Hampshire who is really thinking about his cows.
Why were the MIDWAY class ships unable to embark the F-14 yet they handled a big beast like the A-3 Whale?
That’s a good question, Paul. I didn’t know that the Midway landed Whales, but I guess the reason was because there were only one or two of them, rather than the 10-12 a fighter squadron required.
Actually, the Midways carried *TEN* A-3s during the SIOP days. You can see seven of the embarked 10 aboard the Coral Maru here:
http://www.usscoralsea.net/images/cva431960s.jpg
…Which brings up a couple of points.
I still find it a bit odd to hear contemporary aviators call the Forrestals “Small” decks[Caveat: The only carrier ops I have ever attempted were some ersatz approaches to the Lex in a 152 when she was the P'cola port pier some years back and I would "shoot the gap" between the NPA and PNS approaches" from the beach corridor to 82J and line up on her angle-It looked REAL SMALL too]. Anyway, old Whale (an affectation that really post-dates the A-3 attack days BTW) drivers who spent time in the North Pacific on the 27 Charlies find that perception a real hoot.
The issue with the Turkey was the lack of available space/systems to suppor the avionics. Ditto for the S-3. Catapult end speed was an issue as well IIRC. The S-3 was acutally desinged to fit on the 27 Charlies and it was the same issue; no room for the support.
According to George Spangenberg…
http://www.georgespangenberg.com/index.htm
…the S-3 would have been a more A-3 sized aircraft if it had been know the CVS’s were going to go away and the Hoovers would live out their lives on the big boats.
“Catapult end speed was an issue as well IIRC.”
This was true for the F-14 I believe. It was just a matter of support space for the S-3.
And on the merits of the Hornet…
One troublesome thought is that the fighter/attack component of the CVW of 2020 will be comprised entirely of aircraft originally conceived as “low end”. By then too the built in 1970′s legacy technologies of the Super Hornet (not to mention the E-2) will be long in the tooth indeed.
On a more fundamental level, the “Strike Fighter” concept’s inherently short legs pretty much guts the whole idea of carriers “operating without a calling card”. No land based support and carrier air can’t get to the fight (or at least stay in it for very long).
Those same short legs obligates the carriers to operate in waters they would be better standing off from as well. Its been a long while since carriers have been shot at and this has given rise to an all too pervasive-and very dangerous-notion they are invulnerable.
In 1964 it was apparent the money spent on the A-5′s attack capabilities was misdirected. Good thing there were different aircraft types that were much better suited for the war-du-jour.
The all eggs in one basket tack taken with the Hornet is not going to allow that flexibility when it may be sorely needed.
Sid is entirely correct re why no S-3/F-14 on CVA. Specifically, the investment in HATS/VAST benches (forerunners of CASS) for both platforms was cost prohibitive. Also a major real estate problem….
Basically, they couldn’t handle what was considered “new” at that time…
Sid, remember the all eggs in one basket schemes REJECTED by the Navy in late ’60′s..it was called the F-111…well…..what goes around comes around.
B2
Lex- give this a read. Typical advice “we” pay for but don’t use:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG448/
esp page 66
Not to quibble – OK, I will – but the Midway and Coral Sea weren’t Forrestal class – that group started with CV-59 and ran up to Kitty Hawk, including Sara, Ranger, and Indy,. The small decks referred to in the paper were Midway class, instead. And I think it’s fair to call them small decks, even if they weren’t 27C’s. IIRC, Forrestal class and higher were the first of the “Supercarriers.”
As far as “low end” vs. “high end,” I suspect we could carry this convo on for a very long time and maybe generate more heat than light. The C’s and E/F’s are far different airplanes than the YF-17 or even FA-18A’s that I cut my teeth on. But “high end” came to be (in many minds anyway_ synonomous with “complex,” which you might as well lump in there with “expensive,” not to mention bringing in issues to do with reliability and, often, maintainability.
Which takes us right back to the “cost rules” heuristic.
Many, many bold and blue sailors lament the lack of a “long range” strike asset on the carrier decks, and maybe some of them equate “long range” with “how far my jet used to go.” Deep strike is a mission the Navy turned over to TLAM (for the USN) and B-1′s/B-2′s for the USAF.
In today’s fiscal and political environment, it doesn’t make much sense for the Navy to directly compete with other services or intentionally generate redundancies. We don’t go to war alone anymore, and if the USAF has tankers, why shouldn’t we use them? Instead we focus on what we uniquely bring to the fight: Rapid kill chain execution and persistency anywhere that has a coast line.
Worked pretty well in Afghanistan.
Lex,
I take it you read the Rand report. came in the email this AM. Personally, I take exception with a lot. Particularly a lot of the “soft missions”.
I agree with you on the high-end- low-end comparison re those ‘ilities. I always have, despite our discourse. Newer is better when it comes to that which costs OM&N dollars every year. No argument. Like I said I may be a dinosaur but I have never been an advocate for keeping Intruders or Tomcats out there for any longer than we needed them
re- “the Navy to directly compete with other services or intentionally GENRATE redundancies.”
I agree. Inner-mid zone ASW, ASuW in all it’s forms, and recovery&overhead tanking aren’t redundancies, if organic, to any other service. mainly they have been relegated to other platforms as secondary missions. A redundancy mission is the AWACS or Fighter/Attack mission.
re- “….and if the USAF has tankers, why shouldn?
Lex,
I take it you read the Rand report. came in the email this AM. Personally, I take exception with a lot. Particularly a lot of the “soft missions”.
I agree with you on the high-end- low-end comparison re those ‘ilities. I always have, despite our discourse. Newer is better when it comes to that which costs OM&N dollars every year. No argument. Like I said I may be a dinosaur but I have never been an advocate for keeping Intruders or Tomcats out there for any longer than we needed them
re- “the Navy to directly compete with other services or intentionally GENRATE redundancies.”
I agree. Inner-mid zone ASW, ASuW in all it’s forms, and recovery&overhead tanking aren’t redundancies, if organic, to any other service. mainly they have been relegated to other platforms as secondary missions. A redundancy mission is the AWACS or Fighter/Attack mission.
re- “….and if the USAF has tankers, why shouldn’t we use them?”
No problem with that and obviously we couldn’t have done Afghanistan without ‘em but we both know the AF tanker dilemma not enough and a politicized pipeline to get more.
B2
“Not to quibble – OK, I will – but the Midway and Coral Sea weren?
“Not to quibble – OK, I will – but the Midway and Coral Sea weren’t Forrestal class – that group started with CV-59 and ran up to Kitty Hawk, including Sara, Ranger, and Indy,. The small decks referred to in the paper were Midway class, instead.”
I agree entirely. I wasn’t referring to the term in context to your paper, but more in light in how I’ve heard it used in recent years by those who have never known anything smaller than the FID.
Sorry for any confusion there. And, they ALL are small when one really has to go out there and do it for reaal I’m sure. Its just a matter of minor degree.
Yes, you guys did a wonderful job in Afghanistan. It may sound trite, but let me extend a hearty “Bravo Zulu”.
Let me hasten to add, my admittedly meager opinions are not intended in any way to denigrate your excellent paper. Also, like B2, I believe that A-6s, F-14s, etc, are now best left in memories and museums. They stood a good watch, but their day is done (hmm, kinda like me).
“In today?
Yes, you guys did a wonderful job in Afghanistan. It may sound trite, but let me extend a hearty “Bravo Zulu”.
Let me hasten to add, my admittedly meager opinions are not intended in any way to denigrate your excellent paper. Also, like B2, I believe that A-6s, F-14s, etc, are now best left in memories and museums. They stood a good watch, but their day is done (hmm, kinda like me).
“In today’s fiscal and political environment, it doesn’t make much sense for the Navy to directly compete with other services or intentionally mgenerate redundancies. We don’t go to war alone anymore, and if the USAF has tankers, why shouldn’t we use them?”
We should absolutely use all assets to the maximum extent possible and squeeze all possible synergies from them.
Gone are the halcyon days of late WWII when warstuff was plenty and attrition was no issue. Lost 20 aircraft in a deck fire? No issues, just call up the CVE and get some more, was how it was done in 1945. In any scraps ahead we need to heed the hard lessons learned by the Japanese and Germans. We will likely not be able to count on much more than what we start with. That means get it right the first time…Or Else.
But back to the point. Point is what about 15 years down the road as A2/AD threats mature and political alliances shift, the ability of getting those tankers (and USAF assets in general) to where they need to be may be rendered well nigh impossible?
Sure, TLAMS have taken on a huge part of the mission now, but they are certainly not cheap, they are certainly not persistent, and they are certainly not particularly cerebral. No matter how many TLAMS there are, there is still an essential need for manned assets on the scene.
And if the only ones capable of getting there in the first phases of a conflict can’t…?
Even in the best of times, the sea stories are replete with “troubles at the tanker”….and that is if they showed up in the first place. Even you lamented about the problem of being beholden to big wing tanking (or more correctly, about the lack of tanking ability by the P-8)recently.
On the whole issue of range-or lack thereof-I will defer to Anthony Cordesman’s view here in the Summer 2002 NWC Review:
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/review/2002/summer/art3-su2.htm
“At the same time, however, U.S. forces need to look toward the future. Presence should not be forced on reluctant friends and allies, and it should be made clear to friends and foes alike that the United States is strengthening both its over-the-horizon options and its ability to shift forces rapidly and yet operate effectively. In this regard, the Navy needs to engineer future ships for greater endurance and less dependence on local facilities and support. Naval and Marine aviation need to take very careful looks indeed at their decades-long tendency to emphasize aspects of aircraft performance other than range. All four services need to examine the range, payload, and endurance of all future fixed and rotary-wing aircraft to emphasize ability to operate at long ranges…
The Navy and Marine Corps need to examine closely the anticipated performance of the Joint Strike Fighter in the light of this history, the mission requirements in the Middle East, and the possible reductions in the ability of the Air Force to base tankers and other support aircraft forward in the Middle East in their present numbers. Such a study is not likely to not cause radical changes in the role of the aircraft carrier per se, but it will mean rethinking how these aspects of sea-based strike capabilities can be improved over time.”
Beyond whatever limitations there are about the Super Hornet, the entire process of how such systems are conceived, designed, and bought needs some serious scrutiny.
Today, that process is all too personality driven. One need only look at the various incarnations of the DDG-1000 since its inception as the Arsenal ship, or the dramatic morphing the LCS has undergone since Hughes first conceived of the Streetfighter, or the folding of MIW into an extension of ASW.
…And who in the world signed off on the ACS anyway?
I hope you read the Rand report above Sid. It’s informative for what it doesn’t say.
Big wing tankers are the only way to mission tank. If you have to. They always were.
I’m troubled when a 75 million dollar strike fighter, loaded with the latest AESA radars, smart weapons and ATFLIR is used as a mission, recovery or overhead tanker..
The math shows that for every three SuperHornets airborne on a strike mission one is dedicated to ovhed/recovery tanking. Making a SuperHornet a mission tanker only increases the pain.
It’s what they don’t tell you that affects capability…meanwhile, as they go over the horizon to strike targets who’s doing the SSC armed with something that can take out a ship sized target. Not the SuperHornet anchored overhead.
Nobody.
B2
B2
I see the NWC Press link is inop. I sure hope that such discourse does not fall behind the “SBU” -Sensitive But Uncalssified-Wall.
While I understand such precautions in a time of war and am happy NOT to know the latest ins and outs of the latest APG or whatever, it is a concept that seems quite prone to abuse unless rigorous ethics are applied.
I could see a case where some 4 star has no truck for some upstart 03 penning an article to a staid public forum that is inimical to his pet projects and slams down the SBU stamp in the name of God, Country, and FITREPs…
Yes I did read the Rand report B2. And note that one of its central observations is this:
“The great distances that carrier-based aircraft would have to ?ج
I see the NWC Press link is inop. I sure hope that such discourse does not fall behind the “SBU” -Sensitive But Uncalssified-Wall.
While I understand such precautions in a time of war and am happy NOT to know the latest ins and outs of the latest APG or whatever, it is a concept that seems quite prone to abuse unless rigorous ethics are applied.
I could see a case where some 4 star has no truck for some upstart 03 penning an article to a staid public forum that is inimical to his pet projects and slams down the SBU stamp in the name of God, Country, and FITREPs…
Yes I did read the Rand report B2. And note that one of its central observations is this:
“The great distances that carrier-based aircraft would have to fly complicate the need for persistent coverage in the operational area.
Being able to fly a long distance,drop ordnance, and return after spending only a short time in the target area may be appropriate in some situations.In others,being able to loiter over the area is highly desirable,either for ISR or strike purposes.Today ’s carrier air wing would have considerable difficulty maintaining more than a handful of platforms at distances of 500 nmi or more from the ship.”
Sounds not unlike what Cordesman had to say four years ago.
My beef with range is not a case of waxing nostalgic about past aircraft. It is a significant operational attribute that is heavily diminished with a Strike Fighter centric CVW.
In “Homework, Part II”, posted by lex under Military, you state:
“…as the upward going wing in the turn goes suddenly past stall…”
Wrong. The opposite is true. As the aircraft rolls, the angle of attack of the DOWN-going wing INCREASES and the angle of attack of the UP-going wing DECREASES.
This is the very mechanism that makes fixed-wing aircraft spin. “Typical” spins in fixed-wing, swept-wing aircraft involve both wings at stall AOA, yet the up-going wing being LESS stalled than the down-going wing causes the roll. And, yes, swept wings DO produce lift at and past stall AOA. Hence, rotation/roll in the direction of the “most stalled wing” whilst in a spin.
—Flush Garden
Former A-7 Attack Puke
In “Homework, Part II”, posted by lex under Military, you state:
?
In “Homework, Part II”, posted by lex under Military, you state:
“…the venerable A-7 Corsair, a light attack, DAY, VISUAL bomber…”
Wrong. The A-7 delivered an astonishing array of weapons at night and in poor weather. More importantly, some of these were not “visual” and included precursors to today’s “fire and forget” standoff weapons.
-Flush Garden
Former A-7 Attack Puke
The Tomcat was a beautiful airplane, when it worked, but was far too labor intensive towards the end of it’s service life.
The Hornet had problems that were overcome by one method or another, the biggest advantage to them were that they could do a little bit of everything, and do them acceptably well. In some cases (such as self-escort roles) exceptionally well.
And the B/D models were, and are, operationally deployed. By Marines. VMFA(AW) squadrons fly two-seaters, the backseater is the WSO.
I didn’t fly them, I fixed them. Tomcats and Hornets, all variants of each, including a few that never saw operations. I was the guy you yelled at when your missiles didn’t leave the rails (and the guy you ignored when they did – great job AO’s).