The F-35 Lightning II program, better known as the JSF, is on the table down unda:
THE national security committee of cabinet will consider this week whether to go ahead with Australia’s biggest defence contract – spending at least $16 billion on 100 Joint Strike Fighters – or to delay the purchase because of the economic crisis.
Even if the Government does sign the contract early next year, the first squadron of 24 aircraft will not be operational until about 2017.
The Defence Minister, John Faulkner, the Minister for Defence Materiel, Greg Combet, the Industry Minister, Kim Carr, and senior defence and industry officials received extensive briefings last week from Lockheed Martin Corporation, which is building the multi-role jet, on the progress of the project.
Also under scrutiny is the idea of buying a remotely piloted version of the machine, an “expendable wingman” if you will, that a manned F-35 could send forward into very high threat envelopes:
While development of an unmanned Lightning was possible, it was likely the Lightning could take with it on operations unmanned fighter jets that the Lightning’s pilot would control and send into dangerous situations. ”I fully expect to see F-35s flying with unmanned aircraft on their wing,” (Lockheed program manager Tom) Burbage said.
Keeping your bomb truck as similar in fit and form – manned or unmanned – could save out-year dollars in life cycle costs, since it reduces the amount of unique auxilliary equipment and spare parts to a minimum.
Hmmm.. wonder if you could make it happen in one version. Flip the switch and configure into unmanned mode for special events.
Easy deal. We did it with the QF-4 Full-Scale Aerial Targets all the time. For unmanned flight just have the seat mechs yank the elevator, get the tweets to pull their non-mission related higher value items, and you’re off to the races. Put a warm body in the cockpit for start and pre-launch checks, In today’s digital world, about all the system would need is the applicable software.
And even longer ago, F6F pilots would mothership Regulus I cruise missiles, via a set of controls in the cockpit, before kissing them off for the final portion of their mission.
- SJS
What about pilot workload? Driving your own bomb truck as well as a wingman’s?
More software routines and some gal/guy drinking coffee back at Nellis…or wherever…
hmmm.. who gets the shiny little pointy medal with the death-from-above eagle and the little blue and gold ribbon? The piloted or the robo-bomber? Not like having a real talkie in the back.
Years ago we flew remote controlled quarter scale aircraft (with a chain saw engine up front) down at Parris Island. had bombing derbies and some of those guys were just outstanding. As one of told me “I get real brave when I’m flying a machine that ain’t mine”. Don’t see much difference.
Keeping an aircraft that is both man-rated and remotely piloted is too expensive. A pure unmanned vehicle with no cockpit would be cheaper to both buy and maintain. The lifecycle costs of keeping the same fit form and function won’t make up the difference. Since we are running out of QF-4s for full sized aerial targets, Navy and Air Force did an AoA looking for a replacement. Burt Rutan and BAE proposed a sweet purpose built airframe that would use the engine from an F-16 in the boneyard, and would cost almost $1M less than converting the F-16 to a man-rated QF-16. It could also be flown either side up, with the upper surface presenting a 5th generation radar cross section.
Call it mental inertia, but the decision makers were not ready for Burt’s out-of-the-box solution and sunk the bucks into the QF-16. Small comfort for the warfighters, knowing that we always test the newest weapons against the oldest threat targets. The first guy to face a state of the art enemy will be the de facto operational tester.
NavigBr is on tgt here. Besides the points he makes, people forget the fact that when one depends on an aircraft to do two distinctly different jobs and it is shot down, one loses not one, but the functional equivalent of TWO aircraft in one fell swoop. Worse, as time goes by and dual use/configure ac come into the inventory, war/oplans will be built around the concept of a “virtual” force twice the size of the physical one totally dependent on missions using both configurations. The belated recognition that the loss of one ac cuts their force in half and that losing 25 is like losing 50 will unfortunately come too late if the actual big balloon goes up. I saw a similar but slightly different mindset in USAFE where the same assets were tasked by war plans for both Scandinavia and the Turkey/N. Africa part of the ME under the belief that events that would require them would never happen simultaneously. That’s a helluva gamble–but it satisfies the budget office bean-counters and politicians who are only too gland to take the $ freed up that a doubling of the force would require to really meet contingencies and feed it to outfits like ACORN, etc., instead.
All of the proposals we are talking about here are technically doable and in many respects tactically needed, but we should be talking “both and” here rather than the “either or” so beloved of those politicians casting covetous eyes on defense dollars for use for domestic pet projects.
Good points from Nav & VX, with the drift of the whole discussion reminding me of McNamara’s brain…uh…child…the F-111. RE. Congress and ACORN:
From my standpoint, the recycling of expended war assets seems to be a cost effective method for fighting any war. Back in the day (late 80′s/early 90′s), the Navy QF-4 Inspect and Repair As Necessary (IRAN) plus Drone conversion came out to about $750K. Not knowing what the cost would be in today’s dollars, perhaps it wouldn’t be so cost prohibitive as to preclude use of a later generation Drone as a force multiplier.
I always thought the legacy Alpha model Hornets would be a good choice to replace the Navy QF-4, given the digital nature of the beast. Pull the gun, drop in an Aircraft Interface Unit (AIU), and do the deed. I’d also have picked the Hornet over the Falcon for its ability to better endure a hard landing, which full scale Drones are not unknown for making; dual engines and multiple system fallback modes don’t hurt either.
The untouched question is:
“What if Oz decides NOT to go with the F-35?”
That will drive up unit cost for the U.S. buy, resulting in fewer aircraft than now planned.
Bad scenario!
From: SENATOR JOHN FAULKNER Minister for Defence Wednesday, 25 November 2009 [b]F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER AUSTRALIAS NEXT GENERATION AIR POWER[/b]
The Minister for Defence, Senator John Faulkner, today announced that the Australian Government had approved acquisition of the first batch of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft as foreshadowed in the 2009 Defence White Paper. There has been considerable public interest in the potential acquisition of the F-35 JSF. The Government examined the JSFs capabilities very carefully in the context of the Air Combat Capability Review and 2009 Defence White Paper deliberations, and remains confident that the JSFs combination of stealth, advanced sensors, networking and data fusion capabilities, when integrated into the networked Australian Defence Force (ADF), will ensure Australia maintains its strategic capability advantage out to 2030. The Government has approved acquisition of the first [b]14 Conventional Take-Off and Landing (CTOL) Joint Strike Fighters[/b] and infrastructure and support required for initial training and testing, at an estimated cost of $3.2 billion. Approval of this first batch of JSF aircraft is evidence of the Rudd Governments strong commitment to defence and our commitment to implementing the Defence White Paper, Senator Faulkner said. Approval of the next batch of aircraft and all necessary support and enabling capabilities, sufficient to establish three operational squadrons and a training squadron of CTOL JSF, will be considered in 2012. This will fulfil our White Paper commitment to acquire three operational squadrons comprising not fewer than 72 aircraft. By 2012, Defence will have much firmer cost estimates for the remaining aircraft and necessary support and enabling capabilities as part of the planned first multi-year buy that is expected to comprise over 1000 aircraft for the US, Australia and other partners. This will allow for much more effective planning of the final JSF acquisition in the context of the overall Defence Capability Plan, Senator Faulkner said. Acquisition of an additional operational squadron bringing the total number of JSF aircraft to around 100 will be considered at a later date in conjunction with a decision on the withdrawal of the F/A-18F Super Hornet. Australias first JSF aircraft will be delivered in the United States in 2014 to commence initial training and test activities. Australias first operational squadron will be based at Royal Australian Air Force Base Williamtown, and is planned to be ready for operations in 2018. All three operational squadrons are planned to be in service in 2021.
Another bad decision put on the backs of the Australian taxpayer.