Article

2010-03-12 Home Front: WoT

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve White 2010-03-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 Whats the incremental cost per jet? Not the R&D rolled into it, but the actual cost to produce one more of these, now that the R&D is done?

The money is already spent on the R&D and setting up the production lines. Its pretty stupid to cut it off at this point.

And same goes for the F22 - very stupid to cut aircraft off the end of the production run, especially when the Chinese (and somewhat less, the Russians) are gearing up to produce more modern aircraft.

Posted by OldSpook 2010-03-12 00:11|| 2010-03-12 00:11|| Front Page Top

#2 Noone ever wants to talk about the incremental cost of additional airframes. They always want to include sunk costs because that facilitates their agenda of unilateral disarmament.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-03-12 00:15|| 2010-03-12 00:15|| Front Page Top

#3 The United States alone is scheduled to buy more than 2,400 F-35s

WTF? At $90 million each? I'm all for a strong defense, but could we also have a SMART defense procurement strategy along with it?

There's a [many trillion-dollar] deficit war on, y'know...

Posted by lex 2010-03-12 01:20|| 2010-03-12 01:20|| Front Page Top

#4 A novel idea is to let the Air force decide, you know? Those idiots who fly planes decide their own death traps. Tell congress to FOAD.

Posted by newc 2010-03-12 02:13|| 2010-03-12 02:13|| Front Page Top

#5 Oi vey, oi vey. First it was cars....

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2010-03-12 03:37|| 2010-03-12 03:37|| Front Page Top

#6 Rantburg Aviation Branch:

How does the F-35 stack up against the SU30? Any of the data below accurate?

Link

Russia now has #1 fighter plane in the world... SU-30 Vectored Thrust with Canards...
As you watch this airplane, look at the canards moving along side of, and just below the canopy rail. The "canards" are the small wings forward of the main wings? The smoke and contrails provide a sense of the actual flight path, sometimes in reverse direction.

This video is of an in-flight demonstration flown by the Russian's 30MK fighter aircraft. You will not believe what you are about to see. The fighter can stall from high speed, stopping forward motion in seconds. (full stall).. Then it demonstrates an ability to descend tail first without causing a compressor stall. It can also recover from a flat spin in less than a minute.. These maneuver capabilities don't exist in any other aircraft in the world today.. Take a look at the video with the sound up. This aircraft is of concern to U.S and NATO planners. We don't know which nations will soon be flying the SU-30MK. Hopefully North Korea isn't one of them.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Note:

Friends worked with advanced aircraft flight control systems and concepts for many years as an extension of stability control and means of control. Canards and vectored thrust were among many concepts examined to extend our fighter aircraft performance. Neither our current or next generation aircraft now poised for funding & production can in any way match the performance of this Russian aircraft, NOW FLYING, in any near combat situation. Somehow the bankrupt Russian aircraft industry has out produced our complex politically tainted aerospace industry with this technology marvel. Scratch any ideas of close in air-to-air combat with this aircraft in the future.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-03-12 04:11|| 2010-03-12 04:11|| Front Page Top

#7 Given the SU30's shape, I doubt it has the stealth capabilities the 22 0r 35 have. Ether way there is no excuse for this kind of cost overrun.

Posted by Icerigger 2010-03-12 06:34|| http://coonlakebeach.com 2010-03-12 06:34|| Front Page Top

#8 The SU-30 may be a sweet flying machine but it has a problem.

It can't see an F-22.

The F-22 can see it.

That's all it takes in aerial combat.

Posted by Steve White 2010-03-12 08:48|| 2010-03-12 08:48|| Front Page Top

#9 Do not be fooled. The US$90 millions figure includes all the research, development and set up costs divided by the number of aircraft on the initial contract.

adding 13 months and $2.8 billion to the development phase

Additional aircraft are considerably cheaper than US$90 millions. If you use Congressional math, canceling half the aircraft will come close to doubling the cost per aircraft. That is how the B2 became a billion dollar aircraft.

Once the production line is set up, the cost to produce additional aircraft of the same type and mark is far smaller than the cited "price".

The over runs are on the R&D part of the contract.

These things should be separate items.

The real concern is that we are depending on these aircraft instead of the F-22 in the face of the SU-30MK. The F-22 can take on an aerobatic superior fighter because it is stealthy and the Russian fighter will not detect it before it is detected and targeted. The F-22 has better weapons and electronics. The F-35 does not have those stealth advantages nor many of the electronic advantages, and will be vulnerable.

The US should restart the F-22 production line.

Posted by Beldar Threreling9726 2010-03-12 08:58|| 2010-03-12 08:58|| Front Page Top

#10 we don't need more planes, we can talk about our problems and find a common ground with our enemies.

/Liberal Dickweed

Posted by Hupose Hapsburg2632 2010-03-12 14:43|| 2010-03-12 14:43|| Front Page Top

#11 More planes? All for it, as long as they're worth the price tag. Doesn't sound like the F-22's replacement is worth it.

Can we restart the F-22 production lines and scale back the # of production F-35s?

Posted by lex 2010-03-12 14:49|| 2010-03-12 14:49|| Front Page Top

#12 Beoserker: the guys in that article may be very mistaken. The F-22 does have thrust-vectoring, and is capable of significant post-stall maneuvering well past the point at which any canard would cease to operate.

I've seen the video footage of one doing cartwheels in the air... in a controlled fashion.

(Which, IMHO, is kinda a waste of money, since in order to use all those fancy post-stall maneuvering, in either an F-22 or an SU-27/30/35, you basically have to lose ALL of the energy that's keeping you alive in the dogfight to begin with.)

Anyway, you might want to look at 1:30 through 1:50 in this video.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-03-12 18:44|| 2010-03-12 18:44|| Front Page Top

#13 Now the F-35 doesn't have that sort of thrust vectoring... BUT... it does have a basically 360 degree passive optical/IR sensor system, capable of providing missile guidance. Meaning it should be able to lock onto an aircraft behind it.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-03-12 18:48|| 2010-03-12 18:48|| Front Page Top

#14 Oh, just flush the f-35 back into the tech base. Buy upgraded stealthy f-15s for air-ground missions and the current f-18 for naval missions for the next 20 years.

You, me and the DoD will get a 50% discount over the f-35. In 20 years, when Russia or China actually have a decent plane (S-30 is vaporware demo crap) then we can start spending money on the follow-on to the f-35.

Posted by rammer 2010-03-12 22:19|| 2010-03-12 22:19|| Front Page Top

#15 Does the SU30 have supercruise? How about the F35? When these things are used in war, things seem to start out with long-distance attacks. I'll bet doing acrobatics sucks up all kinds of fuel.

Posted by gorb 2010-03-12 23:01|| 2010-03-12 23:01|| Front Page Top

23:03 gorb
23:01 gorb
22:52 Omoluque Hapsburg8162
22:19 rammer
22:16 Beldar Threreling9726
22:09 Barbara Skolaut
22:08 Glenmore
22:08 trailing wife
22:01 SteveS
21:35 Tom--Pa
21:30 trailing wife
20:34 Old Patriot
20:26 Old Patriot
20:20 Barbara Skolaut
20:19 GORT
20:18 Barbara Skolaut
20:09 ed
19:56 Barbara Skolaut
19:52 Besoeker
19:50 eLarson
19:46 eLarson
19:38 Frank G
19:37 Frank G
19:36 Rambler in Virginia