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| Report: Pentagon Plans Cuts to Fighter Jet Program |
| 2004-12-29 |
| The Pentagon is planning sharp cuts in the Air Force's program for its new F/A-22 fighter jet in a move budget analysts said was intended to offset mounting U.S. deficits and the growing costs of the Iraq war, Wednesday's New York Times reported... I suspect that several technologies are making manned fighter aircraft obsolete in a hurry. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #16 Remember the ramjet? A simple design that provided potential speeds in excess of what people and the aircraft structure of the time could handle. But with modern advanced materiels and remote guidance, you could produce thousands of inexpensive drones that wouldn't need expensive cruise technology, flying so fast that shoot downs would be almost impossible. Make them modular, so a five man team could assemble, fuel, and launch it in just a few minutes from a ramp, leaving a satellite to direct it to target. A rocket or turbo booster gets the ramjet to supersonic speeds, then it covers most of its travel distance at about Mach 2, its optimum fuel efficiency, accelerating to Mach 6 when entering hostile airspace. Featherweight with a 2000lb bomb and airframe, all the rest being fuel. Think of it as a cruise missile at a tenth of the cost. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-12-29 8:53:57 PM |
| #15 Remember the ramjet? A simple design that provided potential speeds in excess of what people and the aircraft structure of the time could handle. But with modern advanced materiels and remote guidance, you could produce thousands of inexpensive drones that wouldn't need expensive cruise technology, flying so fast that shoot downs would be almost impossible. Make them modular, so a five man team could assemble, fuel, and launch it in just a few minutes from a ramp, leaving a satellite to direct it to target. A rocket or turbo booster gets the ramjet to supersonic speeds, then it covers most of its travel distance at about Mach 2, its optimum fuel efficiency, accelerating to Mach 6 when entering hostile airspace. Featherweight with a 2000lb bomb and airframe, all the rest being fuel. Think of it as a cruise missile at a tenth of the cost. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-12-29 8:53:57 PM |
| #14 Remember the ramjet? A simple design that provided potential speeds in excess of what people and the aircraft structure of the time could handle. But with modern advanced materiels and remote guidance, you could produce thousands of inexpensive drones that wouldn't need expensive cruise technology, flying so fast that shoot downs would be almost impossible. Make them modular, so a five man team could assemble, fuel, and launch it in just a few minutes from a ramp, leaving a satellite to direct it to target. A rocket or turbo booster gets the ramjet to supersonic speeds, then it covers most of its travel distance at about Mach 2, its optimum fuel efficiency, accelerating to Mach 6 when entering hostile airspace. Featherweight with a 2000lb bomb and airframe, all the rest being fuel. Think of it as a cruise missile at a tenth of the cost. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-12-29 8:52:50 PM |
| #13 Remember the ramjet? A simple design that provided potential speeds in excess of what people and the aircraft structure of the time could handle. But with modern advanced materiels and remote guidance, you could produce thousands of inexpensive drones that wouldn't need expensive cruise technology, flying so fast that shoot downs would be almost impossible. Make them modular, so a five man team could assemble, fuel, and launch it in just a few minutes from a ramp, leaving a satellite to direct it to target. A rocket or turbo booster gets the ramjet to supersonic speeds, then it covers most of its travel distance at about Mach 2, its optimum fuel efficiency, accelerating to Mach 6 when entering hostile airspace. Featherweight with a 2000lb bomb and airframe, all the rest being fuel. Think of it as a cruise missile at a tenth of the cost. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-12-29 8:52:50 PM |
| #12 This is huge mistake. The JSF should be canceled instead. The electronics revolution means we no longer need an expensive delivery systems as the bombs themselves have become so accurate. However not having a topline air-to -air fighter could be disastrous. Someone will figure out that ground-based air defences don't stop bombing campaigns and they will invest heavily in air defense fighters(China seems to be doing this). Then our B-2s and all the rest of the US strike a/c will be in a world of hurt.(The JSF is inferior to the F-16 air-to-air). And I hate to burst the bubble of the UAV crowd,but they are new,and the defenses for them haven't been fielded yet-but they will. For an air-to-air UAV to find aerial targets is going to be hard to do w/out using radar. So I imagine someone is going to develope an aerial Harm and start launching them at the UAVs. The UAVs are going to be a mass of electronic signals,radar,IFF,commands from the remote pilot,etc. And they won't be cheap as it's the electronics that cost. No matter how agile they are,if the UAV doesn't know it's under attack,it can't manuevere. Strike UAVs could be preprogrammed for most of their route,but Fighter UAVs will have to actively search for targets. Cutting back on the F-22 is a perfect example of deciding to fight the last war. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2004-12-29 8:52:25 PM |
| #11 According to a friend of mine in the business, the JSF will be the last mass produced manned fighter aircraft. So yeah my take is that the F-22 is not worth the cost. He also mentioned that in twenty years tradtional aircraft gun systems will be replaced with directed energy weapons. A recent article on UAV prgress... http://www.spacedaily.com/news/uav-04zzzp.html |
| Posted by: Domingo 2004-12-29 7:48:08 PM |
| #10 Design an F-22 capability UCAV without all the pilot paraphanalia and call it the F-22 Plus. Faster, cheaper, better. Should keep the USAF happy. If the Air Force won't do it, let the Army or Marines. We are going to need something to tangle with the Chinese in 15 years, and the F-15 won't cut it. The JSF won't cut it for much after that. F-22 looks like a manned fighter too far. An executive named Norm Augustine wrote a book mo9destly titled Augustine's Laws. I hyaven't unpacked it, so the following is approximate and I ask anyone who can to correct it. In it he charted the cost per unit of US fighters by date and the number built. Based on the curve, he estimated that by 2050 we would build a fighter that cost $200,000,000 in quantity one. The F-22 seems to be on track. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-12-29 5:43:34 PM |
| #9 Hee hee, never forget the L in LH. :) |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-12-29 5:35:23 PM |
| #8 does this mean they'll be money to expand the end strength of the Army? was intended to offset mounting U.S. deficits No I guess not. Just another sacrifice to those wonderful revenue expanding tax cuts. at least it was (apparently) an inessential program. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-12-29 5:22:58 PM |
| #7 It always was a white elephant. Albeit a cool looking one. Indeed the future is in remote piloted vehicles. |
| Posted by: Mark E. 2004-12-29 5:04:20 PM |
| #6 Gotta keep the JSF going if just to keep the Brits happy.... they're building carriers with them in mind. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-12-29 3:44:10 PM |
| #5 The Raptor is far and away the best fighter in the world, but the problem is that the second best is, depending how it's equipped and who's doing the flying, the Eagle, the Falcon or the Super Hornet. There just isn't anybody out there who can keep anything flying that would justify more than a squadron of F-22s. And quite frankly, the only reason for a squadron is to keep the ranks of AF generals from being depleted by apoplexy. For that matter, it's probably not a good thing to talk about the JSF either. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-12-29 3:30:57 PM |
| #4 A concern, and I'm certainly no expert: the F15/16/18 programs are long in the tooth. These planes were designed in the early 70's. They great, they've been upgraded, and we can get them to do all sorts of great stuff. But at some point somebody out there is going to generate a new, modern airframe with state of the art avionics, and we're going to have a problem. It might be the Russians, it might be someone else. I don't advocate keeping a bad airplane just because it's newer, but I do worry a little if/when the day comes that an Air Force general won't commit a wing of F-15's to a job because "they won't be able to penetrate and get the job done with the opposition that's out there." Again, I don't know if the F/A-22 is the answer. Maybe we need a new plane, perhaps from some skunk works program. Maybe Anonymoose is right and manned fighters will be ancient history in a few years. But I'd be concerned about continuing to depend on currently great aircraft in the belief that nothing better will ever come along. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-12-29 3:25:44 PM |
| #3 Considering the cost of these flyboy toys, we need to cancel the program. Each F-22 costs about the same as a battalion (44) of M1-A2 tanks. |
| Posted by: Brett_the_Quarkian 2004-12-29 2:57:34 PM |
| #2 The avionics haven't met any of their milestones, either. MTBF sucks. Guess it "networks" nicely, whatever that means, but it doesn't shoot down anything or blow anything up that can't be done just as effectively using current assets. The Air Force has met its tarbaby. |
| Posted by: longtime lurker 2004-12-29 1:57:24 PM |
| #1 F-22 is out of date already. Planning cycle for these planes renders them nearly obsolete by the time the first wing is in operation. It shouldn't take a decade or more to do this. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2004-12-29 1:17:58 PM |