No more F-22s for you!
Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:46 pm
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://octopusoverlords.com/forum/
The only thing they've ever gotten right on a consistant basis is the technology arms race. And that's because they didn't care about costs (often at the expense of everything else). Now that they're cost conscious, thrifty even, I fear for continued superiority in cutting edge platforms.Isgrimnur wrote: I just hope that the military PsTB know what they are doing.
I know it was a retorical question, but you know the answer: because you have to campaign to win. Campaigning as a Republican trying to win Democrat votes doesn't work. Campaigning as a Democrat to win Republican votes doesn't work. If you don't figure out a strategy to win your base and enough of the middle, you are doomed.LordMortis wrote:I don't know anything about the F-22 but from the spin of the story laying it to rest sounds like a good thing. It also sounds like McCain harbors no ill feelings toward Obama. Good for McCain. Why is he always so seem like so much of a better political lifer when he's not campaigning?
This kinda thing makes me think back to a book I read in PoliSci so many years ago. Nick Kotz's Money, Politics, and the B-1 Bomber. In it, Kotz details the politics behind the B-1, which really kinda sucks as a bomber as it tried to be too many things to too many people. (D) senators from Michigan strongly opposed it. (R) senators from Texas were strongly for it. Of course, it got made, and they had to base them somewhere. Now strategically, if you're going to base a fleet of wicked expensive bombers, where's the best place, Michigan or Texas? Texas is pretty easy to reach from the south. Michigan would of course be much harder to attack because it's much further inland. And note that the base that gets the B-1 bomber would create a ton of new jobs and be a pretty decent boost for the economy. Of course, it went to Texas.farley2k wrote:The Senate, by a vote of 58-40, approved an amendment proposed by Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to strip $1.75 billion in funding for the F-22 fighter. Levin worked hand in hand to kill the F-22 money with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Erm, if you can't win your base, they're not really your base.msduncan wrote:I know it was a retorical question, but you know the answer: because you have to campaign to win. Campaigning as a Republican trying to win Democrat votes doesn't work. Campaigning as a Democrat to win Republican votes doesn't work. If you don't figure out a strategy to win your base and enough of the middle, you are doomed.LordMortis wrote:I don't know anything about the F-22 but from the spin of the story laying it to rest sounds like a good thing. It also sounds like McCain harbors no ill feelings toward Obama. Good for McCain. Why is he always so seem like so much of a better political lifer when he's not campaigning?
Plus the A10's are fuel by pure awesome! I mean how do you replace that? The F-22's were fueled by 50% awesome. I think the only other plane fueled by 100% awesome is the SR-71 (I mean a plane that doesn't have guns because it's TOO fast to use 'em?)Arcanis wrote:the F-35 is a good plane but it lacks in focus. Like Isg. said it tries to be everything to everyone, and not just this country either, and the compromises they had to make to get it to work just weakened it.
I don't like that it is a single engine plane or that they think it can replace the A-10 and the F/A-18 as both of these planes have evolved into near perfection for their current roles. On a case by case here, will the F-35 have the loiter time of the A-10 how about the stupid level of toughness. I don't think a F-35 is going to make it home with this kind of damage:
Moving on to it trying to replace the F/A-18. Speeds and most specs. are comparable but i can't see this thing having the maneuverability of the F-18, there is a reason that is what the Blue Angels use. I also don't like that only 1 model comes with a gun standard and so few rounds for it, i thought they learned this lesson with the F-4 back in 60s.
They tried that once. An experimental SR-71 with some 50 cal machine guns. It fired then accelerated and out ran the bullets. Ever noticed how the front landing gear of the A-10 is off center? That is because the designed the plane around the huge ass gun in the nose and had to move the landing gear to make room for it. Did I mention the gun can shoot through tank armor?qp wrote:Plus the A10's are fuel by pure awesome! I mean how do you replace that? The F-22's were fueled by 50% awesome. I think the only other plane fueled by 100% awesome is the SR-71 (I mean a plane that doesn't have guns because it's TOO fast to use 'em?)
Aside from a boomer in the Gulf, which is a real risk, Michigan was much easier and faster for the Soviets to hit than Texas. They'd simply fly over the Arctic.cheeba wrote:Now strategically, if you're going to base a fleet of wicked expensive bombers, where's the best place, Michigan or Texas? Texas is pretty easy to reach from the south. Michigan would of course be much harder to attack because it's much further inland.
Wolverines!The Preacher wrote:Aside from a boomer in the Gulf, which is a real risk, Michigan was much easier and faster for the Soviets to hit than Texas. They'd simply fly over the Arctic.
Yea what would the Canadian's do? If they tried to come in from the Gulf then the Mexicans would leave them with nothing but a frame sitting on some old oil barrels floating in the Gulf (imagine car on blocks for a ship at sea)The Preacher wrote:Aside from a boomer in the Gulf, which is a real risk, Michigan was much easier and faster for the Soviets to hit than Texas. They'd simply fly over the Arctic.cheeba wrote:Now strategically, if you're going to base a fleet of wicked expensive bombers, where's the best place, Michigan or Texas? Texas is pretty easy to reach from the south. Michigan would of course be much harder to attack because it's much further inland.
It's not a "gun." It is the Hand of God, aka the GAU-8 Avenger cannon.Arcanis wrote: That is because the designed the plane around the huge ass gun in the nose and had to move the landing gear to make room for it. Did I mention the gun can shoot through tank armor?
Yes and no. I think we did end up with some good stuff out of it, but the planes themselves aren't it. I think the new or refined technologies required to make it will serve us well in the years to come. As to the drone armies i doubt that will happen for the simple fact that I like many others don't want a computer with that authority, i want a person at the trigger. I think that RC craft are the way we are headed and that is fine, it does take some away from effectiveness in combat but i'm ok with that because we don't loose a person if a RC drone gets shot down due to slow reaction time.Little Raven wrote:I don't really see any reason to keep making planes that carry pilots. The future is autonomous drones. As long as our current air force can guarantee us air superiority for another 10 or 15 years while we perfect the AI we need to really run a drone fleet, we're fine. The F-22 was an enormous waste of money that desperately needed to be scrapped.
Won't work. People are HIDEOUSLY slow. They simply won't be able to compete in the battlefields of the future, where decisions will have be made in milliseconds.Arcanis wrote:As to the drone armies i doubt that will happen for the simple fact that I like many others don't want a computer with that authority, i want a person at the trigger.
Still won't work. A remote control craft can have it's control cut, or worse, subverted. The craft has to be able to function autonomously in order to be really viable. And frankly, human reaction time just won't cut it going forward.I think that RC craft are the way we are headed and that is fine, it does take some away from effectiveness in combat but i'm ok with that because we don't loose a person if a RC drone gets shot down due to slow reaction time.
Show me the UAV that's going to replace the air superiority fighter. Every UAV we have currently operational is tasked with recon and ground attack. Even the ones that are autonomous for most of their operation bring a human into the loop to pull the trigger.Little Raven wrote:I don't really see any reason to keep making planes that carry pilots. The future is autonomous drones. As long as our current air force can guarantee us air superiority for another 10 or 15 years while we perfect the AI we need to really run a drone fleet, we're fine. The F-22 was an enormous waste of money that desperately needed to be scrapped.
Thank you Kimberley Duncan.Little Raven wrote: I wouldn't worry too much about a machine abusing it's authority. There's just no way a computer could be any worse about abusing authority than people already are, in fact it's likely to be far, far better.
Yeah, because it's all safe...Little Raven wrote:I wouldn't worry too much about a machine abusing it's authority. There's just no way a computer could be any worse about abusing authority than people already are, in fact it's likely to be far, far better.
Two years ago, a military robot used in the South African army killed nine soldiers after a malfunction.
"It appears as though the gun, which is computerised, jammed before there was some sort of explosion, and then it opened fire uncontrollably, killing and injuring the soldiers."
I work with the people that would write the code for your hypothetical flying death machine. I'm wary.Little Raven wrote:I wouldn't worry too much about a machine abusing it's authority. There's just no way a computer could be any worse about abusing authority than people already are, in fact it's likely to be far, far better.
"Show me the UAV that's going to replace the air superiority fighter." One current line of thinking is that it won't one UAV that replaces one fighter. It will be 50 or a hundred that replace one fighter. Because UAVs are so much cheaper, it will be numbers that give them strength. Because they will be smaller and pilotless, a UAV will be able to out maneuver a piloted fighter at 1/50th the cost. Show me an air superiority figher that has enough ammunition and fuel to take out 50 drones, let alone enough counter measures to defend against them, and I'll show you a nation that will quickly go bankrupt sending human pilots off into the WBY.Isgrimnur wrote:
Show me the UAV that's going to replace the air superiority fighter. Every UAV we have currently operational is tasked with recon and ground attack. Even the ones that are autonomous for most of their operation bring a human into the loop to pull the trigger.
Identification and interception of hostile aircraft is not anywhere near the option to be replaced by an automated drone. This environment is still too fast of an engagement envelope to be readily replaced by drones at thsi time frame. Give it another couple of decades, maybe, but you still need piloted aircraft for sustained air operations against any sort of technologically advanced opponent.
You couldn't re-fight Desert Storm today and replace even all the strike aircraft with drones, much less the air to air interdiction, strike package coverage, and CAS roles.
It doesn't exist yet. But we don't need it to exist yet. We HAVE air superiority with our current fleet. We'll have air superiority for the next 10 or 15 using just what we have. The F-22 was meant to extend that timeframe, but it's unnecessary. By the time we need a fighter like the F-22, we'll be able to replace the human entirely, which will open up whole NEW capabilities.Isgrimnur wrote:Show me the UAV that's going to replace the air superiority fighter. Every UAV we have currently operational is tasked with recon and ground attack. Even the ones that are autonomous for most of their operation bring a human into the loop to pull the trigger.
But we don't fight that kind of opponent any more, and we never will again. We're only going to fight people we could beat up on without breaking a sweat. All the big boys are interconnected and armed with nuclear weapons, so war is quite literally unthinkable, or at least unwinnable. Why bother spending hundreds of millions of dollars a plane for a situation in which we're all dead anyway?Give it another couple of decades, maybe, but you still need piloted aircraft for sustained air operations against any sort of technologically advanced opponent.
So what are tomorrow's Lotto numbers?Little Raven wrote:We'll have air superiority for the next 10 or 15 using just what we have. The F-22 was meant to extend that timeframe, but it's unnecessary. By the time we need a fighter like the F-22, we'll be able to replace the human entirely, which will open up whole NEW capabilities.
...But we don't fight that kind of opponent any more, and we never will again.Give it another couple of decades, maybe, but you still need piloted aircraft for sustained air operations against any sort of technologically advanced opponent.
Planning to fight yesterday's conflicts tomorrow is an even less intelligent strategy. I think the F-22 is a great plane if you are planning to fight a conventional war in the late 80's. We may even find a use for the platform in a conflict 10 to 20 years down the road, but it won't be in the role that it was designed for.Isgrimnur wrote:While that isn't a factor that is needed in today's conflicts, planning to fight today's conflicts tomorrow is not an intelligent strategy. I hope that there are enough F-22s to fill the role that they need to in anything approaching a foreign nation's level air force will require planes to fill that role.
Right now, zero. There is not a drone that can fill that role. If there was a program that was ready to go to replace them, I would remove myself from this battlefield.How many unmanned air superiority fighters can you build for the cost of one F22?
I would want a primarily manned package of Apaches and Warthogs, as each is capable of multiple kills per sortie, what with multiple rockets, missiles, and cannons. Each Predator has one missile. The current technology is much more suited for hunter/killer type missions than being the weapon of choice for a set-piece battle. You want to take out a single C&C vehicle behind the lines? I'll take the Predator. You want to stop an armored column? I'll take the manned vehicles with lots of firepower.If you have to prepare a force to repel a large armored assault, would you rather have dozens of AH-64's and A-10's, or hundreds (maybe thousands) of "Hellfire-Predators"?
The only response that I have to this is:Isgrimnur wrote:One of the limiting factors for air ops has always been the supply of munitions. In a sustained battle, we start getting low on missiles and bombs. Replacing a sustainable loadout of 200 raptors with 20,000 drones just defers the cost of ownership to a different line item, especially if you are losing more weapons because your "disposable" aircraft are getting shot down much mre quickly without ever getting their weapons off.
Right now, zero. There is not a drone that can fill that role. If there was a program that was ready to go to replace them, I would remove myself from this battlefield.How many unmanned air superiority fighters can you build for the cost of one F22?
One of the other factors that's turning into a interservice fight is command and control of the airspace. The Army likes being able to wing it, but this puts other air assets in danger when other aircraft aren't aware that somebody just pulled a pocket recon drone out and sent it into your strike package's airspace.
Again, that might change as the tech gets better, but it's not there yet.
I would want a primarily manned package of Apaches and Warthogs, as each is capable of multiple kills per sortie, what with multiple rockets, missiles, and cannons. Each Predator has one missile. The current technology is much more suited for hunter/killer type missions than being the weapon of choice for a set-piece battle. You want to take out a single C&C vehicle behind the lines? I'll take the Predator. You want to stop an armored column? I'll take the manned vehicles with lots of firepower.If you have to prepare a force to repel a large armored assault, would you rather have dozens of AH-64's and A-10's, or hundreds (maybe thousands) of "Hellfire-Predators"?
This is exactly what you are doing in defending the future role of aircraft that require the pilot to actually be *IN* the aircraft. There are hundreds of reasons that a remote-controlled airforce of drones won't work in today's battlfield... most notably the fact that we don't actually *have* an airforce of remote-controlled drones. Don't tell me why unmanned remote aircraft aren't feasible today, tell me why they aren't feasible tomorrow. Telling me today that RC fighters won't be feasible in tomorrow's war is like going back to 1985 and telling me that JDAMs are not feasible 15 years out because we don't have a GPS system, and if we did the satellites would just get shot down anyway.Isgrimnur wrote:planning to fight today's conflicts tomorrow is not an intelligent strategy.
They aren't feasible tomorrow because there's nothing being tested today. There's nothing that's made it off the drawing board that is even being tested to provide these capabilities. My primary concern is a repeat of the space program, in that we have a large time gap between killing the current option and having to do without because there's not a replacement ready for five years after we've retired the old craft. If there's a project that I'm not aware of, please let me know.Don't tell me why unmanned remote aircraft aren't feasible today, tell me why they aren't feasible tomorrow.
Handing off these aircraft is going to put a big hole in the combat pilot's situational awareness, one of the major factors on why we still use real pilots. The ramp up time to get therse pilots up to speed in terms of intel and force locations is going to take time, time that may result in a target getting away, misidentification of forces, and possible blue-on-blue losses.You only need as many "combat pilots" controlling aircraft as you want craft actually fighting. The remaining craft will be controlled by "logistics pilots", and I'd imagine that with advanced autopilot features you can get a 10 to 1, maybe a 20 to 1 ratio of craft per logistics pilot.
Where are you getting your imformation? I am by no means well informed, but you're the only person I've heard write off UAV R&D levels and the F35. I recently saw the documentary on the initial developement of the f35. The Lockheed pilots and engineers talked about how it had many of the same capabilities as the F22; that the flight feel was actually improved from the, at this point, old F22 design, It was much more versatile and the cheapness actually made it a realistic option. The introduction to the show was all four armed forces discussing how the F22 was flat out dead, because full production would cost more that the entire current defense budget. Then at the end when Boeing lost the contract for the JSF they just talked about their list of developement contracts for UCAV's for which the already had in development. Both companies are gearing up for manned fighters being somewhat obsolete. Plus I can't imagine the US gov being so willing to readily distribute the current top of the line fighters to so many other countries without having some ridiculous technology behind locked doors above the F-35. The F-22 is a great air to air fighter, but it is not the cure all. And although the F-35 is still in testing everything I've read and seen about it says that it's just as far ahead of the curve as the F-22, just in some different ways. And assuming global conditions change, and we decide to produce more F-22's or in particular manned air superiority fighters, the adaption of the F-22's frame and design into the JSF demonstrates the strength of the core design to be quickly altered to suit a new role.Isgrimnur wrote:They aren't feasible tomorrow because there's nothing being tested today. There's nothing that's made it off the drawing board that is even being tested to provide these capabilities. My primary concern is a repeat of the space program, in that we have a large time gap between killing the current option and having to do without because there's not a replacement ready for five years after we've retired the old craft. If there's a project that I'm not aware of, please let me know.Don't tell me why unmanned remote aircraft aren't feasible today, tell me why they aren't feasible tomorrow.
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On May 3, 2007, during the 19th test flight of the prototype of the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), a serious electrical malfunction occurred in the control of the plane. After an emergency landing the malfunction could be identified as a crucial problem, and it became clear that redesign of critical electronic components was necessary.
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After several weeks of evaluations, the engineers learn that there are serious design problems in this new electrical system. Expensive redesign will be necessary.
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The F-35C naval variant’s Hamilton Sundstrand power generator was mistakenly designed to only 65% of the required electric output. To accommodate the required increase, it will also be necessary to redesign the gearbox for the standard Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, which will be fitted into the conventional F-35A version as well as the naval F-35C. The contract announced by the US Department of Defense in August 2007 says that this engine update won’t be ready for use until the end of 2009, which is almost the beginning of low-rate initial production.
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The F-35C naval variant’s Hamilton Sundstrand power generator was mistakenly designed to only 65% of the required electric output. To accommodate the required increase, it will also be necessary to redesign the gearbox for the standard Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, which will be fitted into the conventional F-35A version as well as the naval F-35C. The contract announced by the US Department of Defense in August 2007 says that this engine update won’t be ready for use until the end of 2009, which is almost the beginning of low-rate initial production.
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In an article that Bloomberg News publishes on August 31, 2007, it is announced that Lockheed Martin is exceeding the budget on the first phase of the Joint Strike Fighter program. The manufacturer warns that the reserves will be spent by the end of 2008, unless cuts are made. Lockheed Martin is seeking US Defense Department approval to lessen the number of test aircraft and personal plus hundreds of test flights to save money, and replenish a reserve fund.
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Australia has decided to buy the more traditional, but advanced and reliable F/A-18F Block II Super Hornet, in order to avoid any risks to their air defense stemming from F-35 schedule slips. Some NATO countries, including JSF partner nations Norway and Denmark, are considering other options entirely, instead of the JSF. One European candidate is the advanced but expensive twin-engined Eurofighter, already in service with the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Another European candidate is the new Saab JAS-39 Gripen Demo, an advanced version of the proven Saab Gripen already operational with Sweden with NATO members the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Wiki wrote:Furthermore, F-35 export competitiveness has been hurt by international buyers finding either its export variant too costly per unit or "watered down". While the F-16E/F costs $50 million per export copy, the F-35 is likely to cost between $65-120 million.[73]
Mind you, they do build both of them.With supersonic speed, the most powerful engine ever flown in a fighter, the ability to carry weapons internally and avoid the aerodynamic drag of external stores, and turning agility of up to 9 g’s, the F-35 will provide close-in or long-range air-to-air combat capability second only to the F-22 Raptor, and superior to all other fighters.
At air to air combat. Is the f22, a better strike fighter, bomber, vtol?Isgrimnur wrote:Oh, and even Lockheed Martin admits that the Raptor is better.
Mind you, they do build both of them.With supersonic speed, the most powerful engine ever flown in a fighter, the ability to carry weapons internally and avoid the aerodynamic drag of external stores, and turning agility of up to 9 g’s, the F-35 will provide close-in or long-range air-to-air combat capability second only to the F-22 Raptor, and superior to all other fighters.