DoD may have at last successfully spiked the GE/Rolls F136 engine variant for the Joint Strike Fighter, but that doesn’t stop the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson from mutilating the corpse:
However, the plan for low-cost, stealthy fighters is being undermined by constituencies that want to further their own agendas by attaching themselves to the program. One such constituency is the congressional faction backing an “alternate engine” that would be bought in addition to the primary engine already flying on the plane. Proponents of the alternate engine say that by developing two different engines, the government can have competition that will hold down costs while providing a hedge against a failure in the primary engine.
In reality, the alternate engine program is a subsidy for the aircraft-engine business of General Electric. GE lost a series of competitions in the early stages of the F-35 program to rival Pratt & Whitney, because Pratt was offering a more mature design based on the successful engine built for the F-22 fighter.
Aviation Weekly’s Bill Sweetman, though, is having none:
The government never conducted an engine competition for the JSF. The three primes going into the JSF prototype stage, in 1995-96, made their own engine choices for the prototypes only, but time and cost constraints effectively mandated engines based on the P&W F119. And since all three prototype proposals used the F119, engine competition was not a factor in the government’s down-select in 1996.
And if you go to the original post, you’ll find links to contemporary government statements (here and here) showing that a leader-follower dual-engine strategy for systems development and demonstration was adopted from the start of the program — and also noting that P&W itself has uttered the same mis-statements about non-existent competitions.
Why is the F135 lobby so desperate? One possibility: they need to get the alternate engine dead and buried before they stick the Pentagon with the real bill for the engine.
The nearly $3 billion that would be required to bring the F136 engine into full rate production may or may not prove a wise long term investment. It will certainly cost the F-35 program office some number of airframes under current procurement plans. But by arguing facts not in evidence – such as the repeated “competition” canard – is worrisome.
With the F-22 program terminated, and Russians having recently completed the maiden flight of their 5th generation fighter offering, all the eggs are in the JSF basket. It’s a huge investment, and without an alternative, has become “too big to fail.”
Which, we all know how that turns out.
There’s also this: from the beginning, the international partners were told they would have a choice between the two engines. Not good to go back on that promise when the aircraft’s price is still going up. I don’t think at this point even killing the F136 will save the program from a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which is one of the reasons I think certain parties are trying so hard to kill the alternate engine.
When you’ve used the F-35 as a stick to kill the F-22, I guess no holds are barred.
Look at the wing loading and thrust-to-weight ratio of the F-35 and tell me you want it A2A against a PAK-FA or even Su-35. That’s not to denigrate F-35, because it was supposed to be the low part of a high-low mix, more an attack aircraft than a fighter, but, you know, that’s not what the marketing materials say now.
And yeah, I’ve heard all the sensor fusion/BVR is the way of the future/ high off-boresight missiles make the dogfight a thing of the past/guns are useless arguments. Funny how after Vietnam all our fighters had internal guns again…
It doesn’t matter if the F-35 has BVR capabilities that reach halfway to Mars — the ROE will be the determining factor in how the weaponry is used, and the ROE have been based on *political* decisions ever since the Southeast Asian Unpleasantness. Current ROE are positive ID as hostile, either visually or electronically, *and* probable hostile intent.
And when it’s time to dance, and each F-35 in stealthy-mode pops off all four missiles and is still facing three rapidly-closing incomers, the pilot is going to wish he had more than 180 rounds for his bullet-launcher…
Question from a non-military person: What’s the real benefit of having more than one engine available? Would one perform with more power, or greater fuel economy or lower maintenance costs or something?
Seems to me, if our country buys them in both engine types, it will just add to costs for maintenance and spare parts and such.
With two manufacturers they can bid against each other to supply a run of engines. This drives the cost down. I think I’ve read in prior writings here on Lex’s blog that the F-15 program used this approach.
To help make the case, let’s pretend we all get to buy our automobiles from one manufacturer….
George V.
What REALLY, REALLY sticks in my craw is that way back when, before the 35 was used to kill the 22 program, it was originally sold to justify it’s existence as a way to EXTEND the life of the 22 program, claiming that there would be so much commonality, etc., that the fly-away unit costs of the 22 would be in orders of magnitude VASTLY lower than otherwise would be the case, and therefore the 35 program would, in fact, GUARANTEE the continued existence and long production run of the 22!
It’s early in the am, but every time I’m reminded of the demise of the 22 or the “problems” of the 35 I grow seriously murderous, and passing strangers and the neighbors aren’t safe–better pour some more Barbancourt in the coffee.
We can take up a collection for concrete and razor wire. The neighbors suffered enough from Katrina. They don’t need H-Bomb VX.
There are some people in DC I’d really rather have behind razor wire and concrete.
Ay-up. And the F-22 and the F-35 were touted as the Batman and Robin of the Air War Against the Future Peer Adversary™.
Now, between training squadron and CONUS air defense requirements, it’s beginning to look like our forward deployability will be able to fit on two Nimitz-class carriers…
DoD may have its desires, but Congress makes the laws and provides the funding. The F135 has added a substantial cost overrun to the F35 for a so called “derivitive” engine. As far as Loren Thompson goes, he is not credible and he has been called on the carpet time and time again for false/misleading information because he’s on P&W payroll (I had this confirmed). The F35 Program is being restructured and in-service dates are being slipped to the right. What a perfect opportunity for our government to make the alternate engine a program of record so this out-of-control cost overrun associated with the primary propulsion system can be stopped.
In the interests of full disclosure, I think it’s worth pointing out that the preceding comment’s IP address resolved to a GE server. Not that that in any sense invalidates the comment. Just adding context.
My take has always been that arguing the F135 vs F136 is *almost* nearly irrelevant given our ridiculous force structure single point of failure in the F-35 airframe. It’s like arguing whether there should be four stacks or five on the Titanic while she’s sinking.
It’s a ground attack bomb truck, with minimal A2A capability, and is really two different versions of the F-35B as the STOVL requirement drives it to a complete dog of a configuration. I’m not buying the hi-lo comparison to the F-15 and F-16, because the F-16 was an amazing A2A platform, whereas the F-35 is a baby seal waiting to be clubbed. The politically motivated killing of the F-22 at a force level far below even “high risk” minimums is unfortunately forcing this JFX redux into the A2A role. It’s also not comforting that it’s the heaviest single engine fighter since the F-105.
We’ve backed ourselves into a very, very painful corner. F-35 will be gang-busters against a single digit SAM environment without any significant A2A threat with nearby basing, read Iran and North Korea, threats we can basically already take on but with slightly less confidence than the F-35 would bring. But imagine fighting the F-35 from Andersen AFB against a double digit, Su-35 based IADS. Not a chance.
F-35 should be re-programmed as a few hundred (i.e. ~300 total force) purchased attack aircraft. Let the Marines get enough B’s to replace the Harrier and give enough A’s to the Air Force to take on N. Korea and Iran. Navy should opt out. But kill this POS afterwards. Let the allies buy what they want. I don’t see any point in throwing good money on the F136 (even though it appears to be clearly the superior engine and two manufacturers does provide some competition) after all the bad spent on this program, especially when the F136 does nothing to cure the real issues of the JSF. Of course no one will have the balls to cancel the program for the foreseeable future.
Pretending someone did though, with the savings Navy needs to get hot on UCAS-N to have a survivable first day of the war strike platform it lacks in Super Hornet. Air Force should develop an FB-22 or FB-23 for the NGB, and buy F-15SE for a stop-gap. The Navy will need something with better A2A competence than the SH and fast, although Blk II SH’s will have to be their stop-gap for the time being. I’d crash start a 10 year program to make a fifth gen lightweight fighter for the Navy with the following requirements/constraints (call it LWF-X)
- 2 x F414 Enhanced Performance as offered to India on Boeing’s SH Tender. Fixing the engine early on saves a lot of money and time.
- 1 x APG-81. Leverage all the money and time spent to already develop it from F-35. F-35 is a dog of an airframe with pathetic T/W and W/S but it DOES have great systems.
- Forward quarter stealth only since that’s all you need for some A2A advantage. Let B-2, F-22 and UCAS-N penetrate and loiter in the IADS. F-35 and LWF-X can make dash attacks from the outside.
- Integral jammer (NGJ is a major acquisition need right now)
- Minimum internal payload for first day of war ops. One centerline bay big enough for 1 x AARGM, or 3 x AIM-120 with a pair of sidewinders tucked in or in tiny shoulder bays or more preferably conformal blisters. Once air superiority is achieved fill the internal bay with a fuel tank, remove the sidewinder blisters and carry everything externally. This’ll keep the structure simple and efficient, holes are heavy in aerospace.
- 600 mile range with the above first day of war internal payload
- 9g goal airframe, 7.5g threshold
- 2D thust vectoring
- JHMCS with HOBS and LOAL
- IRST and a good RWR
- 20mm internal vulcan
- Supercruise so that the pilot can fly out to Taiwan Straits outside of DF-21 range (likely with a tanker stop) without being completely fatigued by the time he (or she) arrives
- ~25,000 lbs max empty weight goal, preferably lower. (Same size as legacy hornet basically. Might be tough with such a long range requirement, but it’s only carrying ~1200 to 1400 lbs of payload given the above loadout assuming 800lbs for AARGM, 200lbs for AIM-9X and 335lbs for AMRAAM, and doing so internally so it should have good L/D.)
- Internally configure the wings to be able to hang a d^(kload of AMRAAMs, SDBs, JASSM, drop tanks, etc. off of them.
LWF-X would give the Navy an A2A ability competitive with Su-35 (F-22 would probably still need to take on PAK-FA) while UCAS-N is its primary strike first day of war. Afterwards LWF-X would be a strike fighter that can drop some ground ordnance. Idea would be to make it cheap (little stealth, OTS engine, radar and avionics, tied to a highly composite high performance new airframe) and in numbers. If it works it would make a good lo to the F-22′s high, with the idea being that swarms of numerous highly manueverable and cheap LWF-X would mix it up in WVR sparing the very precious F-22′s the ignominity of being killed in the furball with glancing shots/bad luck, and the AF could start buying it.
Know this is a broken record for me, and that politically a new start fighter (at all, let alone my specifications) to compete with F-35 has about a snowball’s chance in hell, but what the hey, talking about fighter design is one of my favorite things.
Oh, and stop buying V-22′s for the Marines and get a navalized Chinook instead, to save money. Less than half the cost, nearly a third the cost.
Concur with the navalized Chit-Hook idea. The V-22 weighs as much as the CH-47, but the ‘Hook has the advantage in internal *and* external payload capabilities, and is almost as fast.
It will also outperform the V-22 in getting troops into and out of restricted LZs. I watched a V-22 coming into our Medevac pad last year — it took four minutes to descend to the pad from 200 feet.
the problem with what you list is that it makes sense. Theres nothing in your list that I can see that is outside of current technology, unproven or otherwise. Just have to assemble the parts in such a way that it doesn’t cost 200 mil
Being neither pilot nor military, I fear this is a dumb question, but suppose war were to break out between the US and Russia (or perhaps China), how would we handle air to air if pushed with existing inventory + what we could make in a hurry? I get the impression the F-22 can handle anything out there, but remembering how the Russians used to overcome the Germans by numbers, I wonder the same whether a couple F-22s could handle say 20 Su-35s? And in such a situation, how long would it take to ramp up F-22 production to get more fighters on the line?
Quite a few number of people even on our side have come to the conclusion that there is a certain quality in quantity. the longer we go from the end of f-22 prodution the longer will take to get it ramped up. Theres been a few studies done recently re how to maintain it, store it or do minimim production. I’ll see if I find it.