Check out these tidbits from Canada.com
For one thing, as anyone who has ever bothered to dig just a wee bit past Lockheed-Martin’s branding can attest, the F-35’s vaunted “fifth-generation” stealth capability does after all translate into its being a super-plane, on the order of an X-wing fighter out of Star Wars, with the added feature of a Klingon cloak of invisibility out of Star Trek. And forgive me for mixing universes.&
Rather, it is an advanced multi-role fighter with some stealth capability, which is quickly being eroded by global technological advances in radar, and in this respect is not all that unlike the aircraft that are its two main competitors, the Super Hornet and the Rafale. The difference between the players as regards stealth, contrary to much nonsense that has emanated from F-35 boosters over the years, is one of degree, not of kind.
It has been speculated in defence circles that the ultimate solution would be Solomonic, or so the proponents of this plan would like to think; a small purchase of F-35s to buy a seat at the Pentagon table, and a larger acquisition of less costly, more workaday craft to do the jobs that form the backbone of the RCAF’s functions.Read the whole thing here.
The idea of buying a few F-35's and then buying a second modern jet to fulfill the bulk of the work you would need from a fighter force is precisely what is being proposed for the US Navy.
I hadn't heard it even being floated in Canada.
Things are getting bad for F-35 supporters up there. I personally couldn't be happier.
Sidenote: Why am I filling the blog with F-35 news? Simple. Its the most consequential procurement that our nation has ever made. Want to know why the US Army is shrinking so much? Want to know why the USMC is shedding Infantry Battalions, cutting Tanks, shredding and combining support units? Curious why the USAF is destroying squadrons and the US Navy is laying up serviceable warships? You can point your finger at the F-35. The US Defense Dept is cutting everything to protect the airplane. Its reached a point of where its affecting national security. Mission first, people always. Unless you're talking about the F-35.
J-20 is export banned.
ReplyDeletehttps://medium.com/war-is-boring/beijing-banned-export-of-its-new-stealth-fighter-6c50124fec6a
Possibly a good news for enemies of China.
DeleteJ-31 is not a stealth aircraft, a USAF C-17 was able to pick it up on the radar.
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1101&MainCatID=11&id=20141213000024
The J-31, China's second fifth-generation stealth fighter designed by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, was detected by both Russian and American aircraft radar systems during its 10-minute performance flight at the Zhuhai Air Show last month, reports our sister newspaper, Want Daily.
Lin Zuoming, the general manager of China's Aviation Industry Corporation claimed that J-31 is capable of defeating the US' F-35 stealth fighter during an television interview on Dec. 7. However, military experts from mainland China told Want Daily that the Russian Su-35 fighter and American C-17 cargo plane participating the air show could detect the J-31 in the air during its performance.
The Korean Treasury Department officially certified the KFX development budget at $8.8 billion, up $300 million. $8.8 billion is just for airframe development, and radar/avionics integration and A2A weapons testing. AESA radar and avionics will be developed under a separate account and is not included in the $8.8 billion figure. Engines are off-the-shelf as expeted and doesn't need additional development funding at this point. The bidding for the developer of first 5 prototype will begin in 2 weeks. Boeing has teamed up with the Korean Air to provide a competition for KAI, which has an MRO/aircraft parts manufacturing business and depot maintains USAF F-15, F-16 and A-10.
ReplyDeleteok i don't understand this.
Delete1. i thought KFX was part of the F-35 program .
2. i thought Lockheed Martin was teaming for it.
3. what you describe is a totally separate airplane...is S. Korea working on its own stealth jet????
Solomon
Delete> 1. i thought KFX was part of the F-35 program .
No, it is not. Lockheed desperately wanted to kill it.
> 2. i thought Lockheed Martin was teaming for it.
Lockheed is obligated to provide 17 counts of technology transfers plus 300 man-years of engineering consulting regardless of the outcome of the developing contractor bidding.
> 3. what you describe is a totally separate airplane...is S. Korea working on its own stealth jet????
Yes. KFX is a twin engine powered jet(Either EJ230, F414, or PW9000, to be decided in a separate bidding) with an internal weapons bay provision sized for only A2A missiles. It won't have the A2G capability until 2030(As the result of the US refusal to transfer related technology during the F-35 offset negotiations and this capability was reassigned for domestic development) and will initially operate as an A2A fighter in 2025. Even then, all the A2G weapons will be carried externally by the time A2G capability is introduced. It will be able to carry a pair of domestically developed Mach 2.5 Yakhont class supersonic antiship missiles that are too heavy to be carried by the F-35 and the F-16.
Lockheed Martin Corp will buy a European-built military communications satellite for South Korea as an "offset" part of a $7 billion deal to supply Seoul with 40 F-35 fighter jets under FMS.
DeleteAlso Lockheed Martin will provide several hundred man-years of engineering expertise to assist Korea in the KFX design and development, a joint program with Indonesia. It's a separate plane from F-35. Seoul will build 120 KFX aircraft for deployment from 2025. South Korean officials indicate the fighter will be a twin-engined design that is more capable than advanced versions of the Lockheed F-16, but less capable [??] than leading Western fighters such as the F-35.
So as ELP has pointed out FMS customers of Lockheed can get a much better financial deal than the JSF partners, like Canada, can get. To emphasize: FMS is corporation to government, which can include juicy offsets, entirely done by Lockheed (in theory) whereas F-35 is government to government in a joint framework. The FMS price itself by law must not be less than what the US pays, but the offsets counter that. The price for partners is more mysterious but Lockheed must be paid, with profit.
DeleteExcuse -- should be JSF (not FMS) F-35 is government to government...
DeleteDon Bacon
Delete> less capable [??] than leading Western fighters such as the F-35.
The ROK government does this downplaying in order not to alarm US officials and congress.
For example, Korea's 7,600 ton destroyer turned out to be bigger and more heavily armed than a US Ticonderoga class cruiser, and Korea's 3,000 ton submarine is in fact 100 ton heavier than Japan's Soryu, billed the largest conventional submarine in the world, which weigh 2900 ton when counted in a methodology used by the Koreans.
Recall that Lockheed Martin fiercely opposes the KFX program for the fear of it eating into the F-35 export sales and is lobbying intensely against it, and this is the reason why the ROK officials try to downplay it. But the end goal of the KFX block-based development is an aircraft reaching approximately 80% of the F-22, but deployed in 300 units(Minimum required) or greater to better able to deal with the numeric superiority of the PLA.
Yes, and ROK may not be happy with the tech docs they receive from LM. Lockheed has bribed buyers before, they may have to do it again.
DeleteWhat is then the alternative to F-35? With stealth, internal weapon bays(which give F-35 much better combat range than other aircarft with full weapons load), STOVL capabilities and so on?
ReplyDeleteIf "... stealth capability,..." can be "...quickly being eroded by global technological advances in radar," then Super Hornets without stealth capabilities will be sitting ducks, since without "stealth" ECM and chaffs would become useless.
What is the alternative? It's an interesting academic question, but why should we be involved in defense planning for other countries? What we need to be doing, what Solomon IS doing, is acting in the best interest of OUR country which is, in this case, to encourage other countries not to buy it, in this case Canada.
DeleteRegarding F-35 capability, none of that has been proven. The mission systems haven't been tested yet. The plane has a bum engine. The plane's software hasn't been completed, in this new-style "electric plane" with recently uncovered thermal management problems.
"since without "stealth" ECM and chaffs would become useless."
DeleteECM and chaff advertise your position - a LO aircraft, i.e "stealth" would NOT use them. The internal bays of the F-35 does not provide a full combat load - that's why they have wing hard points - and when the hard points are utilized, stealth goes out the window. Stealth aircraft are not immune from radar detection, and are not masked from optical sensors in both the visible and IR spectrums. Stealth features are nice to have, but when they drive costs to about double of a SH (SH use much of the same support equipment of Legacy Hornets, while F-35 needs all new equipment) - its easy to see why the SH makes sense. The idea that SHs will be "sitting ducks" hasn't occurred to the USN apparently - they see themselves using SH to 2040 and beyond. Why? It's cheaper to make your weapons smarter and stealthy than built perishable stealth technology into an aircraft.
Admiral Greenert: “All the stealth in the world ain’t gonna penetrate everything,” he told the audience at the 50th annual conference of the Association of Old Crows, a group named after a slang term for electronic warfare operators. . .“I doubt in the future we can just suppress everything, go rolling in until we do what we need to do and get out,” Greenert said. “But we have the means for—way out in the future—with the Next Generation Jammer and what it’ll bring, to be able to get in when we need to and get out.”
DeleteRadars that detect stealth? Jam them! Anti jam quantum spin encrypted stealth detecting radars? Destroy them with HARM!
DeleteTwo cheap EW solutions that don't require the F-35 price tag.
Aw, you just liked the "Solomonic." Which reminds me, I passed through Solomon Arizona six months ago. It was a pass-through kind of place. So much for that.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35A with a current unit procurement cost of $185 million (for a faulty unproven prototype) is unaffordable and useless in any country. The US now has a full-court press on to force particularly JSF partner countries, like Canada, to buy faulty prototypes at that ridiculous cost. The pressure is on.
We can bet that selling F-35 is at the top, or close to the top, of every US ambassador's to-do list in these countries, and that the ambassador and his embassy staff are empowered to use any lever, any threat, any inducement to get these countries on board the Lockheed gravy train. Lockheed and the American Chambers of Commerce in these countries will also be totally involved. Lockheed has done this before with F-16, it knows how to play the game.
When did Lockheed do that with the F-16?
DeleteA postcard from Canada, via HuffPost:
ReplyDeleteI am a retired military officer and fighter pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force. I am a business leader. I am a Christian. I was born in Tory-blue Alberta and grew up in the B.C. Interior. I have never smoked a joint in my life, and I always voted Conservative. You could say I'm not your typical candidate to be a Liberal Member of Parliament. Given the conduct of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, however, the choice was clear.
Here's how I got here.
My journey "out of the blue" began in 2010 with the Harper government's decision to purchase 65 F-35 fighter jets for Canada's air force. Stephen Harper said these planes would replace our aging CF-18s and provide great benefits to Canadian industry. Plus, they would only cost $14.7 billion.
What he said was also completely untrue. I was floored that our government could be so irresponsible with our tax dollars.
The F-35 is technically risky, ill-suited to Canada's priorities and comes with no guarantees. Its real price will be far greater than what Harper claims. The F-35 fiasco awakened me to the ugly truth that I had supported a government that has completely lost sight of everything it said it stood for. The deeper I looked the more disappointed I became....
Not only is Canada having some second thoughts about F35, with the economy doing SO GREAT in Europe and the Germans and Merkel being pretty much in charge, look how their defense spending has gone and general readiness of GAF, Italy order already has gone from 131 to 90, I don't think it's stopping there.....
ReplyDeletehttp://rt.com/news/214043-italy-mass-general-strike/
Also as I commented previously the loonie (Canadian dollar) is drooping vs. US dollar.
DeleteRegarding Italy, DOD has just rewarded Italy with future heavy aircraft maintenance (i.e. that affecting the airframe) work at the Cameri FACO that Italy invested a billion dollars in. Will it be enough? There are some active anti-F35 people in Italy, for example here. (currently down)
There's been a long-running F-35 blog in Canada with pro- and anti-F35 comments. Here is the most recent page you could scroll back from.
ReplyDeleteWorse for me was finally digging in to the whys and wherefors of this gilded porker and concluding that the USMC requirement to go VSTOL with an upgrade to the AV-8 role/mission was what transformed this POS into the newest iteration of the F-111, ruined the plane, and broke the bank. And Lockheed and then project mgrs. keep on pimping it even though everyone knows the circle can't be squared.
ReplyDeleteThat it's too expensive for the Corp and does all of its missions for everyone worse because some history-challenged Pentagon dweeb decided "we'll just roll all this $#!^ into one do-it-all dumpling of a plane" is the ultimate irony: the Marines - whose requirements coupled with the "joint" idiocy, sabotaged what could have been a far simpler and less costly a/c - are now the ones who should most want to cancel the plane. But the Navy and Air Farce having been goat-roped into this nonsense is now dragging everyone to the bottom of the pool.
It's like the penultimate scene at the end of Point Break, but Keanu won't drop the gun to pull the ripcord.
Because we wanted to make the MAGTF and Gator Navy a go alone force. We needed our own stealthy air superiority fighter and strike fighter, that flew off a bid deck amphi, that could destroy and conduct CAS against the best enemy air to air fighters and surface to air missile systems. The F-35B is the result of that desire.
Deleteamphib not amphi
Deletetotally agree gents. i've been searching for the breaking point and we have it....but when did this happen? when did the thinking evolve into a go it alone buying spree?
DeleteThe purchase of the Harrier. Everyone we asked said pound sand but we insisted on it even though it was a break from the USMC approach of flying Navy equipment. Eventually we got our way and replaced cheap, reliable, and easy to maintain A-4s with a cantankerous one off. And fell in love with it.
DeleteNext was the doctrine of "WE ARE NOT THE ARMY!" So once the Army came up with a good idea we needed to come up with something different.
You combine the purchase of our first big piece of unique equipment along with our "not the army" doctrine and this is where you end up.
The Brits played a game of harriers vs. A-4s in the Falklands.
DeleteThe Air Wing made the right choice going with the AV-8.
trying to make the follow-on so kind of Ultimate Death Machine, rather than the next step, cobined with shoving the same plane in three versions on all three services' platter, is what ultimately doomed the entire idea.
You can't replace three completely separate aircraft with one.
Ever.
Any time in history.
It was asinine with the F-111, and it's asinine now.
We got lucky, once, with the F-4 Phantom.
The only way to repeat that, IMHO, would be to make a second version of an F-15E, which would be carrier-capable, for the Navy and Marines. And shock of shocks, the F-15 is the exact plane the exact maker of the F-4 designed to upgrade the Phantom in every way, and it was a world-beater.
The F-35, OTOH, is not an improvement on the -15A/C/E in any way, nor any of the other planes it supposedly will replace, and "stealth" has proven to be a transient and relative concept with a short military lifespan, as anyone who saw Star TrekTOS knew when we stole the Romulans' cloaking device. Life imitates art: "military secrets the most fleeting of all."
When Gene Rodenberry is smarter in 1968 than the Pentagon is in 2008, let alone now, somebody there's got their heads collarbone-deep up their fourth point of contact.