(NSI News Source Info) September 30, 2008: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter/ Lightning II program is reaching a critical nexus. In order to keep costs under control and justify the industrial ramp up underway, participating countries need to sign order agreements within the next year or so. The F-35 is not a proven fighter design that has demonstrated a baseline of performance in service, however; it is a developmental aircraft in the early days of its test program, which is scheduled to continue until 2013.
As one might expect, that status makes the F-35 a controversial long-term bet in many of the program’s member countries. The USA is looking at its budgets, and has concluded that it can afford about half of the annual aircraft buy it had planned during the program’s early years.
Its fellow Tier 1 partner Britain is reportedly re-evaluating its planned F-35B order in light of rising costs and problematic defense budgets. Sharp controversy has erupted in Tier 2 partner the Netherlands over long-term costs and industrial arrangements, leading to political pressure for a competitive bid. Tier 3 partners Norway and Denmark have both traveled down that same road, and are holding open competitions that pit the F-35 against Saab’s modernized JAS-39NG Gripen.
Australia hasn’t yet reached that point, but September 2008 has featured a very public set of controversies around the F-35’s performance. In the current environment, the altercation in Australia has become a controversy with implications, and responses, that have reached well beyond that continent’s shores….
*F-35: September 2008’s Australian Altercation
*F-35: Air to Air Analyses
*Additional Readings
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F-35: September 2008’s Australian Altercation
On Sept 11/08, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has asked for a full report from Australia’s DoD, in response to public reports that a classified computer simulation of an attack by Russian-built SU-30 family aircraft on a mixed fleet of F-35As, Super Hornets and F-22s, had resulted in success for the Russian aircraft. Fitzgibbon, who questioned the strategic logic behind Australia’s plans for an F-35/ F-18F fighter fleet while in opposition, asked for anAustralian Department of Defence review, and added that:
“I’m determined not to sign on the dotted line on the JSF until I am absolutely certain it’s capable of delivering the capability it promises and that capability can be delivered on time and on budget.”
On Sept 12/08, Australia’s opposition Liberal Party waded into the fray in support of its previous decision to buy the F-35A. It asked the new minister to release the results of the recent Air Combat Capability Review, and get on with his decision. On Sept 25/08, the RAND Corporation stepped in with a statement of their own concerning the August 2008 Pacific Vision simulation:
“Recently, articles have appeared in the Australian press with assertions regarding a war game in which analysts from the RAND Corporation were involved. Those reports are not accurate. RAND did not present any analysis at the war game relating to the performance of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, nor did the game attempt detailed adjudication of air-to-air combat. Neither the game nor the assessments by RAND in support of the game undertook any comparison of the fighting qualities of particular fighter aircraft”
The end result left the Australian controversy without much substance. Even so, the timing of this contretemps could not have been worse from Lockheed Martin’s perspective. Just 3 days earlier, the left-wing American Center for Defense Information had released “Joint Strike Fighter: The Latest Hotspot in the U.S. Defense Meltdown.” This analysis by Pierre M. Spey, a key member of the F-16 and A-10 design teams, cast sharp doubt on the F-35’s capabilities:
“Even without new problems, the F-35 is a ‘dog.’ If one accepts every performance promise the DoD currently makes for the aircraft, the F-35 will be: “Overweight and underpowered: at 49,500 lb (22,450kg) air-to-air take-off weight with an engine rated at 42,000 lb of thrust, it will be a significant step backward in thrust-to-weight ratio for a new fighter…. [F-35A and F-35B variants] will have a ‘wing-loading’ of 108 lb per square foot…. less manoeuvrable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105 ‘Lead Sled’ that got wiped out over North Vietnam…. payload of only two 2,000 lb bombs in its bomb bay…. With more bombs carried under its wings, the F-35 instantly becomes ‘non-stealthy’ and the DoD does not plan to seriously test it in this configuration for years. As a ‘close air support’... too fast to see the tactical targets it is shooting at; too delicate and flammable to withstand ground fire; and it lacks the payload and especially the endurance to loiter usefully over US forces for sustained periods…. What the USAF will not tell you is that ‘stealthy’ aircraft are quite detectable by radar; it is simply a question of the type of radar and its angle relative to the aircraft…. As for the highly complex electronics to attack targets in the air, the F-35, like the F-22 before it, has mortgaged its success on a hypothetical vision of ultra-long range, radar-based air-to-air combat that has fallen on its face many times in real air war. The F-35’s air-to-ground electronics promise little more than slicker command and control for the use of existing munitions.”
On Sept 18/08, Lockheed Martin fired back in “F-35: Setting the Record Straight.” It takes direct aim at both the Australian press reports, and the CDI article, noting that external weapons clearance is part of the F-35’s current test program. Lockheed Martin added that:
”....The Air Force’s standard air-to-air engagement analysis model, also used by allied air forces to assess air-combat performance, pitted the 5th generation F-35 against all advanced 4th generation fighters in a variety of simulated scenarios…. In all F-35 Program Office and U.S. Air Force air-to-air combat effectiveness analysis to date, the F-35 enjoys a significant Combat Loss Exchange Ratio advantage over the current and future air-to-air threats, to include Sukhois…. In stealth combat configuration, the F-35 aerodynamically outperforms all other combat-configured 4th generation aircraft in top-end speed, loiter, subsonic acceleration and combat radius. This allows unprecedented “see/shoot first” and combat radius advantages.
The high thrust-to-weight ratios of the lightweight fighter program Wheeler/Sprey recall from 30 years ago did not take into consideration combat-range fuel, sensors or armament… We do consider all of this in today’s fighters….
....Simply put, advanced stealth and sensor fusion allow the F-35 pilot to see, target and destroy the adversary and strategic targets in a very high surface-to-air threat scenario, and deal with air threats intent on denying access—all before the F-35 is ever detected, then return safely to do it again.”
Note that Lockheed Martin’s release does not address infared stealth against modern IRST (infa-red scan and track) air to air systems, which are present on advanced European and Russian designs and have ranges up to 70km. Nor does it make any claims concerning superior maneuverability against thrust-vectoring opponents like Russia’s MiG-29OVT and the most modern members of the SU-30 family, or canard-equipped “4.5 generation” aircraft like the Dassault Rafale, EADS Eurofighter, or Saab’s Gripen.
F-35: Air to Air Analyses
Both the CDI’s analysis, and Lockheed Martin’s reply, are incomplete.
Spey has undertaken a similar analysis of the F-22A Raptor for CDI, but aircraft pilots have said that his analysis in key areas like maneuverability is poorly done, and does not match provable reality. This justifies strong caution in accepting Spey’s analysis, and Lockheed Martin’s reply offers additional reasons for doubt. In fairness to Spey, it should also be said that combat experience with his A-10 aircraft in Afghanistan et. al. does back up his contentions concerning the limitations of fast jets, and the capabilities required for close air support.
In the F-22’s case, reasons could be advanced to explain why Spey’s F-22 analysis parameters were wrong, such as the F-22’s thrust vectoring and controllable tail surfaces to offset Spey’s unidimensional wing loading analysis, the tactical implications of having the ability to cruise above Mach 1 without afterburners, and stealth that has defeated AWACS aircraft and worked against international fighter pilots even at relatively short ranges. F-22 pilots have also racked up incredibly lopsided kill ratios in American and international exercises, far in excess of “normal” performance for new aircraft, that back up their pilots’ performance claims.
This is all much harder to do for the F-35, which remains a developmental aircraft and lacks key aerodynamic features like combat thrust vectoring (Harrier, SU-30 family, MiG-29OVT, F-22A), canards for fast “point and shoot” manevers with high off-boresight short-range missiles (some SU-30 family, Rafale, Eurofighter, Gripen), or loaded supersonic cruise (F-22A). The F-35 has also been designed from the outset to feature less stealth than the F-22A, though it will be stealthier than contemporary 4.5 generation European and Russian aircraft. Aircraft intake size and hence volume are set unless the aircraft is redesigned, and wing size, angle and loading can all be observed.
The F-35’s explicit design goal has been stated as being the F-16’s equal in in air to air combat, at a time when the F-16’s future ability to survive in that arena is questioned. The question naturally arises: what special features give the F-35 a unique ability to prevail against the kind of advanced, upgraded 4.5 generation and better fighters that it can be expected to face between its induction, and a likely out of service date around 2050 or later?
Classified simulations whose assumptions are shielded from the public may indeed demonstrate the attested results, but their foundations are outside any public scrutiny, and amount to a claim that must be taken on faith. That may not be very convincing in the political sphere. Especially since models of this type have been wrong before, due to the well-known phenomenon of incorrect or missing assumptions producing results that don’t match the test of battle.
Ultimately, solid proof comes from use in combat against peer opponents. Israel’s nuclear program removed that perennial testing ground, by ending the consistent string of conventional wars that used to be the globe’s top source for that kind of information. Nor has any other source for that kind of peer conflict data emerged since the 1990s. If the F-35 lacks that kind of backing, well, so do all of its competitors.
These days, an imperfect but acceptable substitute may be available via performance in multinational exercises like Red Flag or Indra Dhanush, where some of the opponents will have less institutional incentive to soft-pedal comparative performance claims in the name of a united organizational front.
The F-35 does have the equivalent of a Sniper ATP reconnaissance and targeting pod built in, and experience on the front lines indicates that its presence goes significantly beyond just “slicker command and control for the use of existing munitions.” That addresses an important component of the F-35’s overall rationale – but it does not address the air to air dimension.
As it happens, that air to air dimension will not be a priority for every customer.
Some customers may be quite satisfied with a manned fighter that offers good international/NATO commonality, the ability to perform basic airspace sovereignty duties, good survivability against medium to advanced air defenses if encountered, off the shelf surveillance and targeting capabilities that exceed all other contemporary fighters, and the ability to carry enough weapons to support international missions against opponents up to the level of Serbia or al-Qaeda and the Taliban. For those countries, even an F-35 that matched Spey’s characterization might well suffice.
Questions of industrial benefits and costs, rather than air to air capabilities, will dominate fighter replacement discussions in those countries. The F-35 program has already seen a 54.4% increase in overall program costs per aircraft delivered from 2001 to the present day, and the US GAO believes that another 14.5% rise to about $327 billion for 2,456 American fighters could still lie ahead. If the GAO is correct, it would place the fully-loaded program cost of each F-35 at $137 million . That price is not at all the same as the “flyway cost” of buying an individual aircraft, but it does affect program partners if the USA isn’t prepared to bear those additional program costs alone. Or if rising costs force the USA to slash its own procurement numbers yet again, a move that would affect the aircraft’s production economies of scale and learning curves.
Budgetary and industrial concerns will always be part of the debate, but some customers may also have stricter performance requirements to deal with.
If a country needs aircraft to operate from small aircraft carriers or amphibious assault LHDs, the AV-8 Harrier’s age and projected phase-out plans will make the F-35B STOVL (Short Take Off, Vertical Landing) their only non-Russian option. Customers in this category include the US Marine Corps, Italy, Spain, Thailand, and others. Very large LHDs, or small carriers equipped with ski-jumps, may also allow some competition from the less flexible STOBAR (Short Take Off But Assisted Recovery) MiG-29K, which India’s navy plans to induct by 2011 or so. For those customers, the choice boils down to having fighter jet launch capability from those platforms – or not.
On the flip side, if maintaining regional or local air superiority is a priority mission for any replacement fighter, then air to air performance against enemy aircraft becomes extremely important. This is certainly true for the US Navy’s carrier fleet, for Australia’s RAAF, and to a lesser extent for the future British Navy. With these customers, Lockheed Martin must either depend on political inertia, or advance plausible, non-classified rationales that explain why its F-35s will perform as an air superiority fighter. Australia may have been the first potential customer to raise the issue this openly in the political sphere; it is unlikely to be the last.
What’s common to every potential F-35 customer, of course, is the time factor. Competitively tested performance, and firm costs, are still some years away. Even so, many defense departments around the world will need to make decisions before that evidence becomes available.
Hence the current political conundrums in country after country, and the tension that inevitably surrounds any program of this size before key commitments are made. As Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman puts it:
Russia, Kazakhstan to conduct joint war games on Oct. 3
(NSI News Source Info) ASTANA - October 1, 2008: Troops from Russia and Kazakhstan will conduct joint maneuvers near the Kazakh city of Almaty on October 3, the Central Asian country's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
The drills, named Aldaspan-2008, will include command-and-staff exercises and tactical maneuvers. They will engage Kazakh staff officers and airmobile troops, as well as Russian Air Force officers and aircraft, and a special-purpose group of the General Staff.
The two countries, both members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), are set to conduct joint naval anti-terrorism exercises in the Caspian Sea in 2009.
The CSTO is a security grouping also comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Russia has recently been strengthening military ties with Eurasian allies amid growing tensions over NATO expansion and U.S. missile shield plans for Central Europe.
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