The USAF variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is falling short of its specified unrefueled range requirement:
The U.S. Air Force’s F-35A Lightning II appears to be unable to fly as far as once predicted, according to a Pentagon document.
The aircraft is currently estimated to have a combat mission radius of 584 nautical miles, just short of the required 590 nautical miles, according to a Selected Acquisition Report dated Dec. 31…
The report says the shortfall is caused by increased use of engine bleed air and fuel capacity issues “that are not yet fully known…”
The report says the range estimates have also been cut for the Marine Corps’ short take-off B-model and the Navy’s carrier-base C-model. But those planes’ ranges still exceed the requirements.
The B-model has a radius of 469 nautical miles and a requirement of 450; the C-model, 615 and 600.
Options in consideration for the Alpha variant are changing the internal plumbing of the tanks, or trying to wedge a few more into voided nooks and crannies.
The option of downselecting to the Navy variant – which would save us all a lot of money – is apparently not in consideration.
When in doubt, charlie out.
“The option of downselecting to the Navy variant – which would save us all a lot of money – is apparently not in consideration.”
The USAF wants what it wants when it wants it, and it wants an airplane that says ‘UNITED STATES BY GOD AIR FORCE’ on every single piece.
Whether the airplane is usable or not.
Mike
Unlike the Navy and its ships Mike, or the Army and certain arty variants.
I’m all for the USAF going with the Navy version if it will work, and I would rather believe the experts whose lives would be, and is many cases have been or are, at risk than Flags or Generals who set at a desk. Let alone the politicians.
I do remember being at MHAFB in Idaho when the first F-111 squadron came there -was a bit of a negative opinion of the plane back then (’71 or thereabouts). Yet, at the end of the day, it seems most pilots thought rather well of the plane. Was the first variable, swept wing plane that I had seen, and it did look cool. Kind of like the 747′s doing their testing around Denver -it just looked cool, hard to believe how slow it looked during its landing.
There is nothing new under the sun. My father worked on the FB-111 acceptance team. FB, mind you, multi-role and all that. He remembers the flags in their perfect uniforms testifying before Congress.
Will it fly supersonic? Yes, Senator.
Will it carry thousands of pounds of bombs / nukes? Yes, Senator.
Can it reach the Soviet Union? Yes, Senator.
Can it fly below radar? Yes, Senator.
The Navy can use it, too? Yes, Senator (the Navy thought otherwise).
Can it do any two of these simultaneously? Well, err, hem, haw, oh my, look at the time.
How is it that the Charlie variant, which I assume has a beefed up suspension and frame, apparently gets better gas mileage? Did they stash an extra fuel tank in somewhere?
F-35C has larger wing for more 1,500lbs more fuel than F-35A, although being bigger the F-35C is 3,500lbs heavier than the A model. Then there are other factors.
http://defensetech.org/2011/05/13/f-35a-combat-radius-fails-to-meet-minimum-requirement/
“But programme officials are also debating whether to change how the range of the F-35A is calculated, the source said. The equation does not include a buffer margin of 5% of fuel capacity, which is intended to be preserved through the end of the flight test period in 2016. Eliminating the buffer margin adds another 72.4km to the aircraft’s combat radius, the source said.”
OOPS – too early to do math here without coffee – actual weight difference between A & C variants is 5,500lbs according to LM.
“How is it that the Charlie variant, which I assume has a beefed up suspension and frame, apparently gets better gas mileage?”
Wanna bet it’s got to do with having a catapult and a nuclear-powered headwind at launch?
Gotta wonder,though; if the Air Force can use nautical miles, why can’t they use nautical aircraft? Shouldn’t the Perfessors be usin’ them Klicks?
You are really trying to be difficult, aren’t you?
@SSG Jeff: Navy went without an internal gun, which, though some may dispute, weighs a bit and takes up space. Space for gas.
There used to be an old argument from the guys in the F-8 community, who later transitioned to F-4′s: “You took away all that space for gas, just to give me a 200lb. talking nav bag? Damn you, I want my gas back!”
Being gunfighters and such, I don’t how they’d feel today.
Out of morbid curiosity, what was the combat radius of an A-6E?
“Out of morbid curiosity, what was the combat radius of an A-6E?”
A bit over a thousand miles, full combat load…and oh, can it haul the mail.
Grumman propaganda. It could go long, or it could go (sorta) fast, but it couldn’t do both.
No offense.
It was open source, no real-world data there, but thanks for the correction.
I am not an attack puke but the difference in legs between an A-6 verse an F/A-18 is significant. Factor in a bomb load comparison, well I’d guess you’d have some arguements. But I seem to remember shortening the deck cycle ’cause of Hornets, but then what do I know. I was a Phantom guy where men were men and sheep were scared!
The Hornet started off as an A-7 replacement with air-to-air teeth. Had about the same deck multiple and specific range/endurance as the Phantom. The intruder could haul a lot of trash a fairly long way, but it was slow when fully loaded, and speed is life. Nothing like as accurate as an FA-18 in visual deliveries, so they tended to use all those bombs in one sprinkling pass and hope for the best.
The legacy Hornets needed to tank for anything much above a few hundred miles, but I always felt it was better to go and get more gas when you needed it than be saddled with all that drag over the target, when seconds count.
During the first Gulf War, the A-6 had a laser designator on the FLIR, and the FA-18 did not. They also took some hits going in low, in trail at night – like they’d always trained. The Hornets cruised with their bomb loads in the high 20s and low 30s at 0.9+ IMN, and we only lost one to a MiG-25 that leaked through the USAF BARCAP. A visual bomber in those days, but pretty precise for all that.
When the Intruder went away, we mourned the loss of the KA-6B, but got our own laser pod and LGBs. JDAMS have made the whole issue of bomb load mostly moot, at least for TACAIR. Instead of talking bombs per DMPI these days, the kids talk DMPIs per sortie. And now we’ve got the Super Hornet, which I’m told can fly from Lemoore to Norfolk on one leg, so long as he has the jet stream at his back and has brought a bunch of piddle packs.
If I recall, the Phantom was a thirsty beast that needed a lot of tanking support.
Howgozit for the F-4J read something like: full bag w/ centerline (600gal) and two LAU-17′s (inboard wing pylons) at 30K ft would get you ~1500nm.
What about the A-6F? Would it have been worthwhile?
Gen Odierno made the comment that we had to start reducing redundancy within the services as he “reduces” JFCOM. So why don’t we just have “Armed Services”? If aircraft can land on a CVN AND land on a 10,000 ft runway why don’t the pilots that fly those A/C have the skills to do both? Seriously. What does the USAF do that the Navy can’t? They fly big. We fly big. They fly small. We fly small. They fly drones. We do too, including rotary. They drop bombs. We drop bombs. They airlift. We airlift. given a level equipment playing field I really see no need for a Navy blue vs a “nice shade of sky blue shirt with a deep blue tunic” service. And plenty of Naval Aviators are qualified OODs underway and actually drive ships (altho they don’t brag about it unless yer driving one of 11). And now that officer clubs have gone the T Rex route, the only thing the pale blue suiters got going for them is better golf courses.
Altho no gun IS a bad thing.
Sea service, G-man. Sea service. There’s that thing about ‘Haze gray and underway’ that some will do anything to avoid. Lamentably, that’s why a lot of TAR Sailors join the Reserve program, for the Sea Duty that ain’t innit.
I did more sea duty as a TAR than otherwise.
Man, I have a screwed up career path. Screwed right into a wall.
What does TAR mean?
“Training and administration of reserves.” Basically a reservist on full-time duty, keeping the seats warm for the part-time warriors.
They call ‘em something other these days, but the name escapes me. “SELRES” (selected reserves) maybe?
FTS- Full Time Support
SelRes–>Selected Reservist–>The Reservists doing the weekend a month gig. Interchangeable with SAR–>Selected Air Reservist.
TAR was the term when I became one, FTS became fashionable later, but we were all really AGRs under Title X, Active duty Guard and Reserve. Each service manages them differently. The Navy, in turn, had different programs to manage different designators. In simplest terms, AGRs are reservists on career-long orders intended to manage the reserve programs.
My community, Intel, was supposed to alternate reserve management tours with operational tours, but there were never enough of us to pull that off, so once you went TAR you did reserve management from that point on. The DNI and CNO did away with Intel TARs following a series of bizarre promotion boards, including my O5 board in which three females with no operational time since they were JGs beat out a truckload of candidates, including myself, who had nothing but operational time as O4s. Then the O5 select who was picked for sea duty (guaranteeing O6) put in a change of designator for GURL to get out of sea duty. In 2008 we were forcibly augmented to regular Navy commissions.
Aviation ran a very tight TAR program, with more TOPGUN/TOP DOME graduates than you could shake a stick at. They got to pick from hundreds of aviators leaving active duty every year, they could afford to pick only the best for TAR and for the reserve billets. When VFA-201 was mobilized in 2003 they quickly became the sea daddies for CVW-8, averaging 3,000 or more flight hours per pilot while 2/3 of the active duty wing were nuggets.
Just so, Mongo. Not to mention that that arguement can be made for any service versus the Marine Corps as well, if you exclude the strategic weapons.
No gun is a tolerable thing, if you remember the “F”-35 isn’t. A fighter, that is. It’s an attack aircraft with secondary air-to-air capabilities. The gun selected, a 27mm Mauser, is optimized for strafing.
Don’t get in a phone booth with anyone. Hope that crystal ball comes with a reciept.
If memory serves, they did the same thing with the Phantom…and then wished to hell they hadn’t. Little thing about Visual ID ROE, if’n I remember.
exactly. The Phantom ended up with gun pods on the centerline. The F-4E had a M-61 in the nose. I worked with several vets of the USAF 8th Tac Fighter wing in the first job out of college. To a man, they claimed lost kills on migs in ’66 and ’67 due to no gun. Some idiot in the pentagon looked into a crystal ball and said Missiles will do it all, dog fights are dead. We never learn. Its hard to strafe with missiles also.
A gun pod that jammed, AB. A buddy was telling me that if the pilot powered it up and left it hot, it was okay. If the pilot powered it down and back up again, the guns would each double stack a round in the chamber; no self clearing cycle. I think they also suffered the same problem as the F-8 guns, where the actions would jam under high G loads.
I think the Mauser BK-27 was the original plan, but they ended up changing it the GAU-22 25mm (4-barreled) Gatling. The Mauser shells seem to weigh about 50% more than the 25mm (they must be significantly longer?) and are fired at about the same velocity, so they would pack quite a punch.
Nominally, the BK-27′s rate of fire is half that of the GAU-22, but I’ve read that for a short burst it’s less of a difference than the (sustained) ROF would suggest because of the spin-up time of the Gatling. I know it’s smaller and lighter, and the Gatling takes external power which would add more weight, I think.
I would happily take either one in a turret to defend Toad Hall. If I took on a second job, maybe I could even afford to fire it once a year.
If you had one to defend Toad Hall, Ratty, Moley, and I would rest easier.
I can just imagine telling the professor to buy new dies for the RCBS. “Yeah Dad, after all it is a mauser and you just love mausers..” I think the 27mm bullet mold from Lee would also be a bit much. Can I get Nosler ballistic tips in 27mm?
Not to mention the effort to turn that bolt at high rites of fire. The handle will probably get pretty hot too.
The thought of the current Navy acquisition people being combined with the current Air Force acquisition people gives me the screaming heebee geebees. We’d be seeing inflight refueling modules for the LCS…
I would not want an AF zoomie anywhere near the break for the carrier, seriously.
There used to be a regular exchange program between the Navy and AF. So if youse has been on a Carrier at any time, there were probably Zoomies in the groove from time to time.
Sounds typical of a Lockheed project. And I’m certain that they’ve got guys giving power point presentations everywhere saying with a straight face, “But it does meet the requirement”…
The Navy variant also has longer-span wings, which they insisted on specifically for better range performance. What the tradeoff is and why the Air Force went with the shorter wingspan, I don’t know.
KPP [Key Performance Parameter] for F-35C is 145 knots IAS maximum approach speed at max. landing weight with 15 knots of WOD [Wind Over Deck]. Achieving this KPP drove some of the design, including adding the ailerons.
http://www.hrana.org/documents/PaddlesMonthlySeptember2010.pdf [1.5Mb]
“The F-35C is 51.5 ft long and has a wingspan of 43 ft and 668 ft2 of wing area (7 ft longer wingspan and 208ft2 more wing area than the Air force or Marine versions.)…The max trap weight will be around 46k lbs, with an empty weight of about 35k lbs. It will fly an on-speed AOA of 12.3° at 135-140 KCAS [Optimum AofA or Donut]. Due to the fact that flap scheduling is completely automatic, the cockpit was designed without a flaps switch. Additionally, the tail hook retracts into the fuselage and is covered by hook doors that have an as-yet-to-be-determined airspeed limitation…” LT. Dan “Butters” Radocaj VX-23 Ship Suitability
Hey!!!
I gotta bunch o’ stuff I need from Amazon-
Where’s your affiliate link???
As Halsey once said,
“The world wonders…”
Haha
Halsey didn’t say it.
That’s what I get for trying to be erudite…
DAve, after Halsey received “The world wonders…” message, I’d wager he did say it a few times, with a few choice words added.
To think that an innocuous remark solely used for purposes of encryption would become so significant.
It was a Comms Ensign that added the padding. He got transferred straightaway when Nimitz found who had done teh deed. Halsey was a just a little upset about it.
The story behind that is in Potter’s biography of Nimitz.
May not have the best of sources for this, but I heard somewhere that the A model maxes out at 9G, while the B and C are limited to 7.5G. If this is true, seems like a pretty big deal.
F-35A 9G; F-35B 7G; F-35C 7.5G – USMC claim that don’t need extra G to save weight for STOVL Ops, same same USN for carrier landings. ‘Extra G’ means more weight.
Mutters, also means higher rate of turn, as you birdmen say, which translates into what?
Angular advantage over time, played against bleed rate.
Hey, you asked.
So the extra G would be nice to have?
I flew the F-16N, a true nine-g jet – and occasionally a little bit more than that – and it was nice to have the extra g when you really needed it. In a “oh my god this hurts” kind of a way, and anyway, with external stores and ordnance on her there was a limit switch you had to invoke, she was only good for 9g clean, and what use is a clean attack jet?
But any airplane will bleed airspeed like a stuck pig at that g-loading, so pretty quickly you’re too slow to get 9 gs out of her. We always took our fights with F-16s vertical to get them slow quicker, which is where the Hornet really lived. We had to watch them carefully for the first 90 degrees or so, but once AoA and turn radius became the driving factor in the fight, it was ours to win or lose.
I think the 9g thing is more of an ego thing than otherwise, maybe a dash of marketing. After all, the F-35A is replacing the F-16, and the Viper jocks still want their 9g jet.
Funny, I sure the AF will put a limiter switch just like the F-16 so they won’t really operate at 9g on a routine basis.
Wow…..the parochialism running rampant today, huh? Just a couple of points to consider….
1. Given the three variants being built, why not bash the one that really caused a lot of the limitations both aerodynamically and performance wise….the Marine VSTOL version. Not only is it more expensive, but it’s forward fan drove both an increase in cost AND aero limitations that BOTH the USAF and Navy versions will have to live with over their lifespans.
2. No gun is a BIG mistake. I thought we had learned that on the LAST Navy a/c that we shared across service lines. The F-4 was so helpless without a gun in some circumstances, that first they hung a pretty worthless one externally (even that was better than no gun), and finally redesigned in order to include an internal gun in later versions. You’d think we’d remember that. How long before the Navy version of the F-35 loses some of that slightly extended range in order to begin carrying an internal gun in later models?
3. The way things are turning out, the AF should have just built more F-22s, and the Navy should have gone with ONE version (non-VSTOL) of the F-35, if that was the way they wanted to go….or just bought more Super Bugs.
4. Too many compromises all the way around, IMHO.
All that being said, I offer one fundamental rule.
Specification compliance does not constitute satisfactory performance.
Does if you’re a contractor. If you wish me to gold plate the last deposit my dog laid on the back lawn then I’m totally willing, you’re just an idiot for asking for it. Or you have some really strange things going on in the bedroom.
Which makes me wonder, when Mullen goes to bed does he think of the LCS?
Yeah, I went there, enjoy that mental picture, I’m off to watch the FA Cup final.
This is not an AF/Navy/USMC problem, this is a Lockheed problem specifically, and a requirements/ contracting/acquisitions problem in general. Frankly, all of the services and DOD in general have a MAJOR problem with acquisition programs. Not sure how the acquisitions process works, and what is or is not linked together between the services, but the theme that seems to keep coming up over the past few years is that we can’t buy a GD thing that meets does what it says on the box for an agreed upon price.
+10
Well said Sh1fty.
And it is apolitical in that the entire political system, military and civilian, have dirty hands. Career over duty seems to be the byword in those august halls of power- five sides, stadium or oval.
Part of the issue, from the contractor side (disclaimer: I basically am one) is that the order book keeps changing. First you want a plane that does X, then a half year later it is X+10, then Y, which is mutually incompatible with X or X+10 and then finally you get the request to do X and Y and then yelled at because it can’t do both. So you’ve burned up whole piles of money on changing of specifications to get to a point where it just can’t work. Never mind that the sales guys told the Congress-critters that it can.
The other issue is the overall build qty. Case in point, the F-22. That’s one of the many reasons I’m not working at Lock*Mart. Helps to know how many widgets you need to make in advance. Pricing shoots up if you come back 5-10-30 years later asking us to drag out the tooling, re-train people, and possibly re-engineer parts to fulfill a new need.
Whilst he who was panting out of breath in the F-5E was where? “Bad form, brutha, lettin’ yer lead git shot like that.”
he he he he I can just see Maint. Control’s eyes when the accelerometer numbers came in. That must have been a Kodak moment.
The F-5 was pretty fast, give her enough time. But at 800 kts, you tend to leave pretty much everyone behind.
Lex, I take friendly umbrage (oxymoron?) with the A6 comment, “The intruder could haul a lot of trash a fairly long way, but it was slow when fully loaded, and speed is life. Nothing like as accurate as an FA-18 in visual deliveries, so they tended to use all those bombs in one sprinkling pass and hope for the best.”
I can remember A7′s asking for a few % power, they were having difficulty keeping up with a load. And how accurate is the FA-18? My last experience was in the A6E Cains before the turret appeared with the laser and all that, but even then the bombing system had made a leap from the older systems. My first 12 vis dives at night as a sweaty newbie yielded a 20′ CEP, and it dang sure wasn’t my lofty skills that made that happen. Put the pipper on the target, pull the trigger and leave. Mongo can do that….
Oh, I should have known better than to open up the McDonnell-Douglass/Grumman wars again. I don’t have a copy of the JMEMS laying about here at home – confidential, dontcha know? – but did a fair amount of strike planning in my long past, oft lamented youth. I seem to recall a significant difference in SSPD and predicted mils in both training and combat conditions. If the Hornet was an “X” mil bomber, the Intruder was – and my memory fades – more like an X x 1.5 or 1.6.
The Intruder crews were single mission, attack only, and had that mission focus that we single-seat, multi-mission guys lacked. They were well motivated, and well trained. They could certainly go a long way and carry a heap of ordnance. Perhaps the guys I associated with just didn’t get that special love from their IWT folks. Mileages vary, but for day, visual bombing I was just never personally impressed.
I took no personal credit for bombing accuracy in the Hornet either. Put her on the wire and let the system do the math.
Mongo resemble remark.
Lex- You had a youth? I thought that got deleted years ago in case SNO read your blog. Or your lovely Hobbit.
I’d never fly fixed wing but I must admit to an affinity for those guys that exist only to dump stuff that goes bang on people I don’t like while flying fast and low.
Of course maybe I’m just jealous, the guy I knew that rang me from his cell to let me know he was currently the other side of Mach in his F-111. Yeah, I’d like to try that.
He wasn’t torching anyone at the moment, was he?
You youth is what you hide from your wife to prevent embarrassment, and your son in hopes he won’t be as stupid as you were.
Alas, our sons don’t need our example to be young and stupid. They are quite capable of being just as stupid, or worse, without or inestimable guidance. Or so my son has demonstrated quite well.