In Part 3, I looked upon the F35B with an optimistic eye, reflecting on the potential it provides to the UK armed forces.
But, I don’t think anyone is under any illusions that as a programme it is far from rosy, significantly late and over budget which will inevitably lead to a combination of few aircraft, higher unit prices, specifications compromise, cost to back fill whilst we are waiting and a painful gestation that is still not over.
One aspect of the F35B Joint Strike Fighter programme that sets it apart from many others is the degree of transparency and scrutiny this enables.
In general, I think this is brilliant because although there some downsides, the upsides massively outweigh them.
It is a model the UK would do well to emulate.
This transparency does however, result in every last minor problem being amplified, taken out of context and reported on with a negative slant.
We should not forget that the F35 Lightning II is a complex and multinational development programme that is pushing outwards against existing boundaries, the point being that in development, we should expect problems to be discovered, major and minor alike.
On the whole, better to find issues now than when in service (concurrency critics, stand fast at the back for now)
One on hand we have people that think an actuator failing in less than its expected cycle count is grounds for cancelling the whole programme and on the other we have people that think an aircraft with very little weight growth margin and a failure to meet certain key performance parameters is just a few teething problems, move along, nothing to see here.
The reality I suspect, is somewhere in between.
This part of the series is going to look at current status, warts and all, and cost issues
A nice photo before I start
1000th F35B flight
Programme Status
Following the ups and downs of the F-35 Lightning II could easily be a full time job, there seems to be a veritable army of detractors so seeing through the fog is difficult.
For a really good counter to the constant criticism I would recommend a couple of sources’
First is the Elements of Power blog written by SMSgt Mac
http://elementsofpower.blogspot.co.uk/
Second, the F16.net forum and specifically those posts from SpudmanWP and one or two others
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewforum-f-22.html
Hang around these places for any length of time and you will see sensible, well argued and credible counters to some of the hyperventilated criticism one can find all too easily elsewhere.
I am not going to wade into the older development history, weight issues for example, but just have a look at issues from the last few months.
The most recent major development in the programme was the release of the Fiscal Year 2012 Annual Report from the office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation. DOT&E is similar to the UK’s National Audit Office (although much more detailed in its technical reporting) providing independent assessments to Congress and the DoD.
Read it full by clicking the image below (it’s under the DoD section)
It makes somewhat equally depressing and encouraging reading.
- Expectations on kinematic performance have been lowered with reduced acceleration and turn rates.
- Delamination and scorching of the horizontal control surfaces
- Jitter and light leakage causing acuity problems for the helmet system
- Structural cracks on the F-35B at 7,000 hours
- The programme as a whole (to November 2012) had completed 34% of the test points despite it already being in production, or concurrency (more on that later)
- Regression testing on fixes from previous issues impacted the flight test programme
- Earlier coolant and fueldraulic protective systems that were removed as part of weight reduction activity results in a ‘25% increase in vulnerability’
- Other previous weight reductions may result in the F35 not meeting operational requirements for vulnerability
- Issues remaining with fuel tank inerting (this lead to the lurid headlines about lightning)
- A new lift fan driveshaft design is in progress and will not cut in until LRIP-7 in 2015
- Weight growth margins continue to be wafer thin
The worse part wasn’t the ‘flight sciences’ bits and pieces above but the mission systems and software. It is the knock on effects of later delivery of software that cause the most concern because it generates a bow wave of test points that can’t be completed due to software non availability.
Maintenance issues also seem to be numerous.
I would encourage you to read the sections of the report on this.
Were there any bright spots?
- Flight testing estimates were exceeded for the year
- Ballistic tests completed so far show good results
On the whole though, its 42 pages of more or less unremitting misery.
Right up to date we have the grounding of the F-35B fleet following an aborted take-off caused by a failure of a Rolls Royce supplied ‘fueldraulic’ nozzle that caused a fuel leak in the area near the bearing swivel module. The aircraft had just come out of maintenance so current investigations will focus on that in addition to all the usual engineering analysis. The last thing one needs is leaking fuel near the hot parts although the same could be said of aerospace hydraulic liquid.
But hold on a cotton picking minute
This is an aircraft in development, and aircraft programme that sits under an umbrella of unprecedented scrutiny and is blessed with a vast array of engineering talent.
Aviation Week ran a good article in response to the bad news;
The article notes that the JSF programme office has already ‘taken action’ on six of the DOT&E recommendations although the definition of ‘taken action’ remains a bit vague.
It also described how some of the issues raised in the report are well underway to resolution, that weight growth margin in the F-35B had actually increased and it tried to take some of the heat out of the situation.
Did it succeed?
No, I don’t think so.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter remains a programme that despite suffering from a tsunami of doom and gloom, recent and accelerating progress on many fronts and the simple fact that is still being developed still looks like it has several large mountains to climb.
It is fair enough to have confidence in the developers and I think most of us would believe that it will get there in the end, but will it be on time and within an ‘affordable in quantity’ envelope.
My answer to that question is I haven’t got a clue.
Which, brings me on to costs and quantities
Numbers and Costs
When I sit down and write these long posts I like to indulge in a spot of blogging nostalgia, looking back at what I have written on the subject in the dark recesses of TD towers, sometimes it is completely wrong, often it is barking, more so ill-informed and naïve but occasionally an old post seems remarkably prescient.
One of the very first TD posts from me was a question about the JCA/JSF/F35 cost.
In March 2009 I asked;
Does anyone know how much they will cost?
An extract below;
Despite what many think, the final price will dictate the in service numbers, not operational requirements. As costs escalate as they inevitably will it is likely that we will be operating with as as few as 50 airframes or some other low number, far from the 150 first mooted or as 138 currently stated
The rest of the article, reading back now, seems a bit doom laden and I think I was in my ‘Cancel the Whole Lot’ period
But, the main point was the final cost of the JCA, JSF or Lightning II will not be known, at least for the UK, until decisions are made through the gated acquisition process.
Various Main Gate and Decision Points will seek clarity on final costs taking into account the cost of any modification to any low rate initial production aircraft we end up buying.
Whilst we can scratch at every last piece of contract award or MoD business plan to try and gain some insight, extrapolate forward and pretend to have uncovered some great revelation it would all be wasted effort.
Despite the numerous hints, rumours and acres of print, the simple fact is the number of JCA will be determined at the Main Gate 4 decision point.
The National Audit Office Major Projects Report 2011 was quite clear.
The number of units to be procured on Joint Combat Aircraft has not yet been determined
The 2012 report confirmed continued participation in the development programme and purchase long lead items for the fourth UK aircraft in LRIP 7.
It also confirmed that the first 3 aircraft costs were fixed but subsequent ones are not, hence final numbers of UK F35-B’s will be determined by costs, I know this is obvious but it is worth saying.
The System Development Demonstration phase has a fixed cost defined by the US/UK memorandum of understanding so no matter how much the development costs of the F35 rise, the UK’s share will remain. There will of course be other costs that are not covered by this agreement, Ship Borne Rolling Landing for example was deleted after the swap with a projected saving of £31m, this will, one assumes, have to be re-costed. Reading the NAO report highlights all manner of cost profile changes, including deletion of the internal Brimstone carriage requirement to save £41m. This continual change is no doubt happening right now.
The current duty rumour is about 50 aircraft, down from the initial ‘about 150’ at the start of the project. The number of 48 was mentioned by Phillip Hammond whilst in the USA taking delivery of the UK’s first F35B in July and confirmed by the MoD
Am I alone in being wary of what politicians say on the subject?
Yes Phil Hammond said about 12 being the normal compliment and it being operated by the RAF and FAA the simple fact is things change and no future government can be bound by its successor.
It would of course be great to have a gazillion F35’s but the simple reality of UK defence economics means one always has to rob Peter to pay Paul, increases in capability in one area always means a decrease in another.
This means we come to a trade-off, x number of JCA versus y numbers of Type 26, for example. Now that might be somewhat of a simplistic view of things but the MoD has a finite budget and a new found fiscal discipline.
Are there other priorities to fund from the creaking defence budget, of course there are.
In general, I would prefer a less fast jet focussed view of air power with a greater priority given ISTAR and Air Transport. At one point the MoD had plans for 232 Typhoon, 150 Joint Combat Aircraft and a replacement for Tornado but with an air transport fleet comprising ONLY 25 A400M’s.
A rather shockingly skewed allocation of resource
Things have changed in the last few years, the move to Combat ISTAR for example, but even so, in a world of priorities there are other things to consider.
So if the expectation of around 50 are proven right that would seem a reasonable force, more than capable of operating within the constraint of UK defence planning assumptions and not likely to cause undue distortion to other priorities.
Perhaps 20 or 30 more to provide a sustainment quantity but not many more
Many people see the bare numbers, lusting after as many as possible almost for the fanboi sake of it, assuming that more is always better but blanking out the impacts on other capabilities as unimportant. The defence planning assumptions are deceptively simple but lead to all manner of complex calculations behind the scene but fundamentally, we have to accept the very low likelihood of operating alone and even if we did, we should be realistic about at what scale.
Accepting that there is a degree of uncertainty and unpredictability about the future, the likelihood of the UK having to go it alone against a competent first or second world force ‘at scale’ is low. With a future that sees European nations having to shoulder a greater burden of NATO collective defence as the US focuses elsewhere the counter is evidently for more.
Again, it would be hey ho pip and dandy to have a couple of hundred F35’s but the UK armed forces have many competing demands of the defence pound so 50 to 80 seems about right to me.
A final cost issue is that of industrial participation, the F35 supply will be supported by over 130 UK companies, each of them collecting VAT and paying Corporation Tax, to the tune of about a billion pounds per year.
This will secure 25,000 jobs, every one of them paying income tax.
It’s not just BAE either; a smaller example is Survivetec who provide all the integrated single seat life rafts for every single F35.
Our £2b investment as a Tier I partner looks to me like the deal of the century.
Most people will not see the connection between one and the other but it is still real nonetheless.
The F35B will be the most expensive variant of a very expensive programme, no doubt
So what
If the UK is to retain its technological superiority over potential enemies and fit within the operating umbrella of NATO it needs to stay with the state of the art.
Increasing costs may well mean that we sacrifice numerical overmatch but this is where we have to drag ourselves right back to reality grounded in defence planning assumptions and the simple fact that for the vast majority of operations the UK will be operating in a coalition, probably a coalition of other F35 operators.
The F35B will be expensive but I don’t think significantly more so than other modern aircraft but as I said above, the UK should not let the F35 dominate the defence equipment plan.
Summary
The reality seems to be that the JSF programme has experienced significant cost and time issues but is now back on track and catching up.
Equally, it seems it has a long way to go
Will it meet every single expectation, probably not, at least not in a short timescale
Will it be as cheap and cheerful as originally intended, unlikely
But if anyone is surprised then they have obviously never read any history about complex engineering programmes.
All that said, for many reasons it remains the only sensible choice for the UK.
It is the costs that will drive unit quantity, not sortie rate, how many missiles it carries, operational requirements tend to be moderated by how many we can afford.
The latest indication of around 50 sounds reasonable to me, maybe push that up to 60 or 70 in a later batch but I think in the absence of a significant uplift in defence spending there are other priorities for the UK.
The next post will look at operating models and how the UK can maximise its investment in the F-35B.
Other posts in this series
Looking Forward to an F35 Future – Part 1 (Introduction)
Looking Forward to an F35 Future – Part 2 (Dredging Up the Past)
Looking Forward to an F35 Future – Part 3 (The Promise)
Looking Forward to an F35 Future – Part 4 (Down to Earth with a Bump)
Looking Forward to an F35 Future – Part 5 (By Sea By Land)
Looking Forward to an F35 Future – Part 6 (Summary)
I tend to agree with your overall assessment. The F-35 is a program moving forward with the fits and starts you would expect to see in such a complicated undertaking.
The part I don’t agree with is your overall take on what the force structure of the RAF should be. I honestly think that, presuming the F-35 enters squadron service before a huge pile of money is spent on Typhoon updates, the decision will eventually be to soldier on with the Typhoon largely as is and replace them over time with F-35A’s.
Great article! It has however got me thinking..a dangerous thing..
“Our £2b investment as a Tier I partner looks to me like the deal of the century.”
I agree. But to maintain all the benefits from being so closely involved in cutting edge programmes like this for the long term surely we MUST buy a reasonable number of aircraft? 50 or so is very likely not to cut it, and it has been made clear (I thought?) by Mr Spreadsheet that this was only an initial order for the time being.
Maybe I am misinterpreting your comments on this TD, but the ability to negotiate decent work share in future for any complex project would be wiped away if we only buy in tiny numbers, and other countries would be very happy to take up the slack if we don’t invest/contribute to “earn” our share back and keep it that way.
As a serious aim, we should push hard to grow our involvement/share of these kind of programmes, because if we are not going forwards we are going backwards. This means we need to make sure there are solid reasons to stay as preferred partner on any similar project. On another note, it also means making sure that we push on seriously and quicker with our own developments such as Taranis, so that we have our own expertise to offer, and keep a sovereign capability in key technologies.
The JSF program is not just about the aircraft but about growing and sustaining our technological base – this is actually more important than exactly how good the F-35 is as just an aircraft (or even how much we spend on it). If it does not turn out to be so great, well lets learn the lessons and keep the industry improving. As long we maintain the technology and industry to produce improved machines to deal with potential aggressors in the long run that is our best security.
This relates directly to numbers today and tomorrow. Over time (maybe a long period), I am fairly sure that we must buy at least 100+ airframes, arguably quite a few more. You correctly say we don’t know the costs yet – and therefore we dont know what the full count should be. This is definitely true but only up to point Lord Cooper!
Is it not that the key issue is that there is another parameter? Unless all non-US countries buy absolutely tiny numbers, because the programme basically fails and then we are admittedly perhaps in different territory, then over the course of the JSF programme we simply should be the biggest non-US purchaser (even if only by a small margin). We can afford to do that over a long time period, its not like we have too many jets. We have more money than the Israelis/Turks/Australians/Canadians and we have more to lose. The only way out of this I can see, without risking our aviation industry’s future, is if we instead for some reason end up spending on another US programme probably also run by Lockheed.
I suspect you might then say that that is well and good, but there are still finite resources..I agree this is also true. But the technologies we sustain with the JSF programme are so important I would argue they must be sustained.
So what then if that means cuts to another critical programme? If things were so very bad (remember I mean this in the longer run only) that investing would mean giving up a genuinely critical ability (most likely in relation to the related technologies rather than the actual plane/spaceship/gun/tank) forever, so worse than the Nimrod/MPA “holiday”, well that really is the time when we finally do know that more money must be spent. If one day that was the grim reality, it would be time to man up and win the battle for extra spending. If it was really right, meaning in our long term interests, it can be done.
Sorry for the overlong length! Do you generally agree with that?
@ Tom C
Given the massive industrial benefits to the UK of F35 I think hammond is dreaming with his talk of 50 or so aircraft. The major share one by British companies this far is a real testament to the quality of British R&D in this area be it from the ejections seets to the targetting lasers the rubber dingy or the stealth coating. I even understand BAE spent a lot of time fixing the helmet problems which benefit from previous R&D on the Typhoon helmet. However as per usual now we have invented the dam things we are going to face stiff competition from the Danes, Israelis South Koreans and others who will no doubt expect a piece of the pie when they fully commit. The only reason we have so far not lost work share I believe is the fact that many of the R&D elements could only be done by British companies and everyone else has thus far failed to commit to the program. There is zero chance of the USA allowing us a 15% work share with around 1-2% of total orders. No matter what colour the government of the day there is no way that they or the treasury will jepordise 25,000 high tech export jobs in the UK. So quite simply the MOD is going to be forced to go above 100 aircraft well before the 2030 date that we might look to retire Typhoon. THe question will be what is going to be cut in order to pay for it because we can be dambed sure that while the treasury and the government will insist on the order they will not put up the cash. Ofcourse it could be that the miliary know this and they are using the bare number of 50 orders as a barganing tool to try and possibly force the treasury to take up trident successor funding or soemthing else. It may be that we have to go all F35 and ditch the Typhoon long before we expected. It might not be the worst thing though. If I was to choose a single aircraft to fit our needs then it would be the F35B.
Welcome to TD Tom, I agree that the F35 is critically important to the UK for a number of reasons and its hard not to agree with your main point but then we aren’t deciding what to cut to fund that extra 30 or 40 aircraft!
I think the Tier 1 thing was a result of cash upfront for the development programme, nothing at all to do with numbers purchased. The JSF/LM team were pretty cute in that respect, instead of doing a Eurofighter, where committed quantities change over time and thus screw up the development costs what they did was say partners have to be in right at the beginning, with cash. This cash dictates the share, not how many you buy
@Martin
Its not necessarily mutually exclusive. I can see us ending up with a fleet of around 100 F35B and 100 upgraed Typhoon.
For me Typoon development is not about numbers. Its about AESA, conformals, and continued weapons integration. If we sacrifice some hours expired airframes to acheive this development then so be it. There’s no shame in a scrap-and-build policy if it allows us to support both our R&D and a single production line ticking over in low rate mostly for export.
The numbers above would give us enough for QRA, an expeditonary Fighter/Bomber mix, and the ability in very exceptional circumstances to send 80 plans to sea aboard 2 carriers, enough to spoil anyone’s day.
Industially it keeps both our workshare with F35 and it keeps Typoon as a player in the export market. Its a fine balance – but I see it as achievable.
@TD, I might take umbrage with the “deal of the century”. I think we’ll make back our 2B in orders for parts, but since we don’t have access to the source code for any of the control systems, the programme hasn’t made much of a contribution to our ability to design and develop fighter aircraft…which was kind of the point of said 10% share
Great article TD. It does seem to be the F35s turn to be the bad apple in the MOD procurement programme not that people have forgotten about the Carriers… However, when they do arrive the F35Bs will give the UK a truly effective, multi purpose and above all first class capability.
With all this said though I do agree that the capability is provides should be to benwfit of a balanced force rather than to the detriment of it. Upgrading the Typhoon (especially the Tranche 1 versions), MPA, ISTAR and UAVs must all get equal priority.
The MOD should look at the F35B in the way it could be used to it’s main strengths – which are operating from our carriers and where runway facilities cannot support Typhoons (like early in the Afghanistan conflict). This in my view hardly warrants 100+ airframes.
I would argue that an optimal number would be 68 a/c in the long term based on:
- 2 FAA sqdns of 16 a/c each. One permanently based on the active carrier.
- 3 RAF squadrons of 8 a/c. One attached to the active rapid reaction JEF brigade.
- 1 joint OCU / reserve / training sqd of 12 a/c.
Buying F35As in the future to replace the Typhoon could be an option but that decision can be deferred many years and the world / technology may be very different then.
I still think optimal numbers will be irrelevant in the face of industrial pressure to get over the 100 mark and stay the number two buyer. CAnada and Denmark are finding out that paying into the JSF R&D budget means very little in terms of work share. At present our unique industry skill sets are keeping us in the 15% region but I wonder how long that can last in the face of significant future competition from the likes of Israel and South Korea. 50 more JSF airframes will cost a hell of alot of money to buy and operate and if it comes out of the defence budget in the early 2020′s along with Trident then we are seriously screwed.
I’d still go for two squadrons of 12 F35B and a further 12-16 for OCU and sustainment at the moment. It’s the most sensible minimum to avoid excessive risk and financial exposure.
I’d then start saving for a CATOBAR conversion and a couple of LHDs. However, I really am starting to understand this is just a dream as the reality is more likely that should F35B be binned (or be useless) we’ll simply have two 65000t LPHs, which hopefully we can use Observer’s oxy torch to cut a well deck into.
I agree with you TD that whilst as many as possible would be lovely, in the real world and on a tight budget something like 80 airframes would be sufficient to meet our needs. Although of course a lot hangs on the size and development of the Typhoon fleet post 2020.
How much do we reckon could be squeezed from 80 airframes? Id like to see perhaps 3 RAF squadrons, 1 large FAA squadron of 16 (12 seems too low, but 24 is probably a bit excessive) plus of course the OCU and some in reserve.
Can I just verify something?
I received a FOI response from the MoD regarding Typhoon numbers. The long-and-short of it was that at the time there were about 72 jets of which 2/3 were active (four squadrons of twelve if memory serves) and 1/3 was “sustainment”.
Is this a normal skew ratio?
TD,
You haven’t really got to the heart of the matter. We need to know how serious the ongoing development issues are.
It has been suggested on other forums that the performance of the F-35A is likely to be inferior to that of the F-16, while the F-35C will be inferior to the F-18. In particular, the Rand report stated it can’t climb, it can’t turn, it can’t run and can’t hide – so is likely to get a pasting from anything the Russians have in their arsenal in a dogfight.
The parameters that were used to model F-35 performance by the Rand Corporation have obviously changed, but further weight increases are likely to blunt performance further. The constant defence is that the sensors and radar systems attached to the F-35 will enable it to engage and destroy most fourth generation targets before they even realise that there is an allied warbird with hostile intent anywhere near them. in other words, it doesn’t need to be fast or agile in combat.
This may be true, by fielding a jet that is inferior to those it is intended to replace at such a massive cost, makes me wonder whether such advanced avionics shouldn’t be fitted to legacy aircraft?
My real point is this: like the banks, the F-35 program has been labelled ‘ too big to fail’. Really? At what point do we, could we, should we pull the plug? There has to be a view on this. All the transparency in the world is useless if there is no accountability.
Don’t get me wrong, I want the F-35 to succeed. But there comes a point when you have to say: this aircraft in its current format doesn’t make sense. Let’s can it, develop a more focused alternative design that uses as many of the component technologies as it can, and get that into service.
It may be that the F-35 A and C versions need to radically diverge from the B. Maybe the US should give the B to BAE and let them assume responsibility for getting it right?
I think when everything is said and done, Lockheed Martin’s lack of PM skills will mean that it never gets another major military program. This could well be its swansong.
I find so much uncertainty deeply worrying.
@ Monty
Interesting to note than both the F16 and especially the F18 suffered from all the same criticisim that is leveled against the F35 today.
Also I suspect that with a blank drawing board and no STOVL or CATOBAR requirment anyone today designing a 5th gen fighter with a single engine (remember this was the USAF requirment) would come out with something very similar to the F35A.
TD, thanks for such an excellent blog.
I am interested to understand the financial return of the 10% work share for the UK and the Govt.
Companies typically don’t pay VAT and Corporation tax is pretty low.
A rough calculation of sustaining 25,000 jobs at an avg salary of 40K would give an annual figure of £1bn to the UK.
Assuming a net avg tax rate of 25% means an annual tax revenue to the Govt of £250m. The F35 programme will probably run for 25 years so total income for the UK would be £25bn and tax for the Govt. would be £6.25bn. Coincidentally at an average unit price of £125m for the F-35B then buying about 50 would cost £6.25bn.
So the true cost to the Govt for the first 50 planes is effectively zero! (Albeit ignoring the sunk cost of £2bn to signup.)
A 10% work share for a much larger (2400 planes) F35 Programme is more valuable than the 37.5% share we have in the Typhoon (472 planes).
Perhaps we will be able to buy an additional 40 in the 2025-2030 period to get 4 full squadrons from a fleet of 90 aircraft after all.
The fact is though that the program is too big too fail. That is what the US military in particular is worried about: That if the F-35 fails then what will they do before the current generation of aircraft runs out of air hours or becomes ineffective?
The US Navy would be probably be ok with sticking with Super Hornets and whatever comes out of their UCAV programme; but what are the USMC going to do? Try and build Harrier III’s?
The USAF was banking on being able to replace all of their F-15s with F-22s; the F-35 was only meant to be their low cost fighter to supplement the F-22, not the backbone of the combat fleet, which is the position they find themselves in now. The can’t afford a new lightweight fighter programme now – they have a bomber and new tankers to buy.
The rest of the world can always pick another aircraft, be it Typhoon/Rafale/Gripen/Super Hornet/Silent Eagle/etc and have be perfectly acceptable for their needs. We would have to convert the PoW to CATOBAR and buy Rafales or Super Hornets but would not be completely stuffed if the F-35 failed.
Captain Hindsight would say that the actual approach to take would of been to focus on developing common technologies (engine, sensors, stealth materials, etc) for 3 different aircraft: a little cheaper brother for the F-22; a STOVL CAS optimised aircraft; and a 5th Gen Carrier Fighter.
The F-35 is a good aircraft but it is not the best aircraft for the disparate requirements.
@Monty
F-35 turning and speed performance parameters are being measured against clean F-16′s in that case with the F-35 doing the same with a full internal load (around 4,700 pounds of bombs and missiles). Start throwing fuel tanks and bombs on external hard points on other fighters and things change pretty rapidly.
I think the fairest way to compare the aircraft would be in an Air to Air configuration with a comparable fuel fraction vs empty weight. The US government hasn’t done it yet (probably because they don’t care about internet arguments) but using basic numbers you get something like this.
F-35A
Empty Weight: 13,300kg
Fuel (Fraction): 8,280kg (62%)
Weapons (6 AMRAMM): 912kg
Total Weight: 22,492
Thrust to Weight (Wet)Full up: .56 (.86)
Wing Loading: 526kg/m2
F-35C
Empty Weight: 15,800kg
Fuel (Fraction): 8,860kg (56%)
Weapons (6 AMRAMM): 912kg
Total Weight: 25,572
Thrust to Weight (Wet)Full up: .49 (.76)
Wing Loading: 411kg/m2
F-18E
Empty Weight: 14,552kg
Fuel (Fraction): 6,780kg (46%)
External Fuel to match fraction: 1,369kg*
Weapons (6 AMRAMM): 912kg
Total Weight: 23,631
Thrust to Weight (Wet)Full up: .49 (.84)
Wing Loading: 508kg/m2
*Realistically this is two 330 gallon tanks but we will just gift the fuel to other aircraft as it is simpler in this case.
Comments on F-18E: Basically you have an aircraft here that in a like for like configuration (ie an operationally realistic amount of gas and with the same weapons load as the F-35 will have for air to air) that has a very slight thrust to weight advantage over the C and has higher wing loading. It will also be draggier due to having external fuel tanks and weapons that the F-35 does not have.
F-16C
Empty Weight: 8,570kg
Fuel (Fraction): 3,175kg (37%)
External Fuel to match fraction: 2,138kg*
Weapons (6 AMRAMM): 912kg
Total Weight: 14,795
Thrust to Weight (Wet)Full up: .52 (.87)
Wing Loading: 532kg/m2
*Realistically two 330 gallon drop tanks if not three.
Comments on F-16C: Again we see much the same issue. Everything looks great until we take a look at a comparably loaded F-16 operating under realistic combat conditions (particularly in a theater any larger than European Cold War scenario it was really designed for. We again have a couple of nice, draggy tanks on the wings and missiles hanging around to slow us down even more.
Eurofighter
Empty Weight: 11,150kg
Fuel (Fraction): 4,672kg* (41%)
External Fuel to match fraction: 2,241kg*
Weapons (6 AMRAMM): 912kg
Total Weight: 18,975
Thrust to Weight (Wet)Full up: .62 (.95)
Wing Loading: 370kg/m2
*My best estimate based on a few sources that tried to figure this out, it is stupidly classified which makes no sense except for marketing the thing. Realistically we are looking at 2 or 3 external tanks depending on their size.
Comments: The Eurofighter is clearly a kinematically superior platform, as it should be being a 2 engine air-superiority focused fighter. But it probably would lose a fair amount of that performance if it had to carry external gas to match the F-35′s fuel fraction in a realistic combat scenario. How the extra drag would play off against the higher wing-loadings and slightly lower thrust to weight of the F-35′s is a pretty complicated thing but I hardly expect it would eat F-35A’s up easily.
SU-35
Empty Weight: 18,400kg
Fuel (Fraction): 11,500kg (62%)
External Fuel to match fraction: 0kg
Weapons (6 AMRAMM equiv): 912kg
Total Weight: 30,812
Thrust to Weight (Wet)Full up: .57 (.94)
Wing Loading: 496kg/m2
Comments on SU-35: There are some advantages here from a kinematic perspective but again they are not that great. The F-35 is hardly going to be a wallowing duck in flight.
What the F-35 is not going to do is thrill people at airshows. It will basically come out of the box in a combat configuration and it has no ultra-light configuration that would let it race about and be a stunt fighter. Those extra fuel tanks that you almost always see on fighters in combat are built into the F-35 and this was by design. Yes, if it gets jumped by cleanly configured 50% fuel fighters in opposition territory it is probably going to get out turned. But then again so is a Eurofighter or F-16 of F-18 or F-15 or SU-35 operating in an offensive role. In that sort of scenario the F-35 is going to rely on its low observability and its 360 degree sensor and engagement capabilities to get out.
I think that the aircraft is clearly going to be competitive kinematically in realistic combat configurations. The numbers in regards to that are pretty clear.
I know practically nothing about this, but I vaguely recall that many years ago people who (apparently) did were confident that the (then) amazing stuff the early Harriers did would prove to be a red herring in the face of fast Soviet Jets; are the levels of innovation in the F35B sufficient that the same may prove to be true when it is actually in service?
@ Jeremy M H
excellent bit of analysis. Its amazing how many people forget that F35 will have all this internally and one only has to look at the fact that the two engine F18 toils to beat the single engine F35C to realise some of the great achievments of the program. And this is before you fit the LO and sensors far superior to even the F22.
Much the same argument can be made on cost as many comparisons are for bare F18′s and F16′s with out the ubber expensive targetting pods which are already built in to F35. Give that the chinese are now desperatly trying to get the Russians to sell them SU 35 I think its fair to say that builing a fith gen fighter is no easy task. LM have deffinatley cocked much of it up but I feel fairly confident we will get the right plane out of it its just five years late and way over budget but at this stage performance is the least of my worries.
I have said it before but imagine what woud have happened if the early version’s of the Hurricane or Spitfire were put through the same media and internet scrutiny the F35 has recieved. We would probably have fought the Battle of Britain with Gladiators or Cammels.
@ GNB
Can’t imagine anyone switching the lift fan at Mach 1.5 on the F35B to take a shot at the bad guys but you never know
@Martin
I would take issue with the idea that LM really “cocked much of it up” so much as they played the same game everyone in the industry plays. I am not sure anyone could win a bid for a major program like this (or Eurofighter or A400M or F-22′s and so on) without just flat lying and saying “sure, we can build it in that time frame and for that cost”. If they are honest then Boeing (or whomever) will lie and you will lose. When every major development program is going long I tend to think the issue lies as much with unrealistic government expectations as anything.
The only way around it for the government in my view would be to say we are going to pay X for a new fighter in Y number of years. Build it and the best fighter wins. The problem with that is you would get very little innovation in my view. No one would want to risk much money not knowing if they would win. This kind of thing has worked with relatively simple systems (SDB ended up costing a good deal less than the government had figured I believe because of competition and price pressure) but does not seem ideal to major systems.
Don’t like the idea of the lift-fan top door opening at Mach 1.5 – it’ll go straight through the rear fins!
This F35, F16, F18 comparison is true but you can remove the external tanks from an F16 and F18 to lighten it up for A2A.
This “too big to fail” is rubbish. Any government of a commercially oriented nation knows that what they need to do is commission another company to create market competition. That’ll kick LM into touch.
The UK is absolutely best placed to do this with sneaky US DoD backing.
@Simon
While it is true you could ditch the gas what is your resulting range at that point? How does it impact loiter time? I have conceded that in a hypothetical point intercept the F-35 (or any loaded down aircraft operating over a distance) is going to be at a disadvantage. But those are pretty infrequent operations. The reality is if you are intercepting an F-35 anywhere near your base of operations you probably already died on the ground or your airbase is disabled to begin with.
There is a reason that the vast majority of operation photos of aircraft have them carrying drop tanks after all.
“This “too big to fail” is rubbish. Any government of a commercially oriented nation knows that what they need to do is commission another company to create market competition. That’ll kick LM into touch”
It will be interesting to see which companies respond to the USN RFI for F/A XX. It will be even more interesting to see what experience in airframe & propulsion design from scratch the senior engineers in each bid team actually posses (not that it’ll be publicly available).
Unfortunately, when the US went winner takes-all on JSF, it did become too big to fail. Every year since then has only consolidated this fact.
@NAB
I really think the F/A XX will end up getting rolled into an F-15E, F-22 replacement program as well. I think what it should be is basically a 2 engined F-35. Knock down the speed requirements that were part of the F-22 to something a bit more reasonable and ditch the “not a pound for air to ground” mentality. Put internal bays on it that let it be a heavy strike aircraft or a long-range air dominance fighter. Speed and agility somewhere between an F-22 and F-35 will be more than fine. The main thing I want is range and payload capability.
@Martin – a “definite maybe” then!
Jeremy M H,
Well ditching the “gas” certainly reduces range or loiter, but I guess it depends what you’re doing.
Long range interception? Strike with sprint? Drop the tanks just before you get to the “target” – still gives you higher T/W and lower W/S.
I just get the impression no one expects a A2A engagement any more. I mean, when was the last proper fighter versus fighter air war? Falklands??? Were the SHARs in the Falklands that intercepted the Daggers wearing tanks? I just don’t know, but if there was ever a Deck Launched Intercept for these I’d guess not.
As an aside I saw this today. Does this refer to the 100th RAF Typhoon? Or 100th delivery? The former seems too many the latter too few
http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive/100th-typhoon-delivered-28012013
Back to earth with a Thwack indeed TD! Grand read, will revisit this in more depth. Good comments too.
@Simon – all the images of SHARs in the Falklands show them wearing tanks. Probably the desire to keep carriers out if harms way meant longer transits.
However there are reports of the Daggers dropping their tanks and running for home.
It would be a shame (although entirely understandable) if F/A XX did end up as a joint programme. Agree wrt payload / endurance, but would emphasise agility – you may need to match a peer adversary in a non-BVR constrained RoE environment. Might be a bit sticky if the oppo has good kit. The interesting thing will be whether a re-emergence of a heavy, numerous, long range ASM threat (Tu22M + Sunburn anyone?) in Chinese colours reminds folk that air defence is both killing stuff at long range as well as close-in ACM. And that’s before you get to BMD and MEZ.
The last proper fighter vs fighter air war was Granby. It didn’t last very long because it rapidly became clear that if you can trash the key nodes of an IADS then that nation is largely limited to DCA and if the training and organisation isn’t there, then it’s clubbing baby-seal time, particularly when faced with a major disadvantage in numbers. The Serbian AF largely stayed out of the way later that decade, having digested that lesson.
The one before that was probably the Red Sea Pedestrians vs Syria in 82. That too was a very one-sided affair because adequate tactics, equipment and training were available and had been thought about very carefully following the carnage of Yom Kippur.
Corporate is remembered, because the absence of critical parts of equipment and therefore tactics made it a closer run thing than it need have been. A decent AEW capability coupled with a reliable BVR capability for SHAR (think F/A2 with 4 AIM120) and it might have been an easier op (relatively speaking).
All potential A2A scenarios since Bekaa in 82 have pretty much been dictated by the existence of a force equipped and trained to fight high-performance soviet kit in a dense high-threat environment in the inventories of the West, versus various relatively small AFs with nominally capable kit, but lower levels of C2 resilience and training. They’ve all been fairly rational tacticians and have decided against the kamikaze option. Doesn’t mean we won’t meet that threat one day though…..
@Simon
If all you are doing is punching off an empty fuel tank you won’t gain much in T/W, your main improvement will be on drag as the tanks once empty don’t weight much. Looked at more mathematically…
If the EF punches its tanks after burning the additional fuel that gives it an equal fuel fraction to the F-35 it would weigh at that point 16,734 KG’s and would have burned 32% of its gas. An F-35A that has burned 32% of its gas would weigh in at 19,842 KG’s. The T/W of the EF is at that point .70 on dry thrust. The F-35 is .64. On burner the numbers are .98 for the F-35 and 1.08. The margins are basically identical to what they were before you dumped your tanks.
The point being, the F-35 is really not at a huge disadvantage even against “clean” aircraft. It is not going to over match anyone like an F-22 will do with a lot of people and it probably won’t out-turn a clean or very lightly loaded Eurocanard or SU-27 derivative. But it was not designed to do that.
It was designed to maximize its ability in the flight envelope that aircraft spend the majority of their combat lives in which is a loaded configuration. If they wanted to uprate these raw performance traits it would be pretty easy to cut down the amount of fuel the thing can carry and shrink it, then hang fuel tanks on it all the time like every other aircraft out there. That would have made it nice and pretty for airshows.
George think that was the 100th single seat typhoon delivered to the RAF. Wartons is delivering about 20 a/c per year at present mainly for Saudi Arabia. At present about 600a/c are on firm order with all the nations and about 370 have been delivered.
Jets usually take fuel from the external tanks first for that reason. Tanks will give you a performance penalty which can involve a big drag penalty. That’s why conformals are sometimes seen as the better option.
Before everyone goes into meltdown follow TDs dot&e link hit navy program’s and have a read at the f18 report to see even in service aircraft have issues.
Numbers of jet bought will quite simply be down to the number the government wishes to deploy and sustain deployed you will prob not have a sustained capability with sub 50 jets. We do often hear about fighting as coalitions and planning assumptions when discussing jets and destroyers ect much less when the army’s love affair with armoured brigades and there sustainment is mention.
@NAB
I am not saying I would not have agility requirements I just would not accept massive cost overruns to get pure raw speed and agility over-match as the F-22 shot for. That means if sustained Mach 1.5-1.7 plus is going to cost me $20-$40 million per unit vs accepting 1.2-1.4 I am probably not signing up for the higher speed. I would probably pass on thrust vectoring as well due to the added cost of writing the flight control software and building the hardware.
@ Mark thanks, makes sense when I think about it. We have 6 squadrons (inc ocu) of 12 aircraft giving 72 live and 28 for rotation, more or less.
I’d love to see a post called something like “Why Do We Still Need Jets?” What do jets do that modern missiles/UAvs can’t?
Jeremy M H,
“If all you are doing is punching off an empty fuel tank you won’t gain much in T/W, your main improvement will be on drag as the tanks once empty don’t weight much”
Yes, you increase net thrust because you’ve decreased drag and you lower your weight a bit which decreases the wing loading making you more agile. The F35 is still a fattie!
That’s the reason the Typhoon will do M=2 in that configuration and the F35 will do M=1.6 (well, added to the fact that the turbofan is tuned differently for more subsonic/transonic thrust). It will quite simply run rings around it… assuming it gets close enough
Perhaps I need to explain my position here. I see the “airframe” and “systems” completely separately. So the differences in the airframe (the bit that’s actually clever to me being an ex software engineer that could write the F35 code in a weekend – useless pillocks!) is L.O. vs agility. I don’t really value the systems as you can fit them to any airframe, which I’d put money on will actually happen. For example, do you really think the V.R. helmet will not be rolled out onto other aircraft once it’s proven? Do you not think a little circuit board with a few CPUs cannot integrate all incoming data streams to generate a cohesive picture of the battlespace? It’s childs play and I honestly do not understand why it does not already exist on all NATO assets. Jesus, it’s just the flamin’ internet for war lords!
Rant over, sorry
TD, forgive me, I can no longer resist this rant.
F-35B was buggered from the start. F-35A & C made sense, even a STOVL F-35 makes sense, but this god awful lift fan solution, means limited payload/range/agility for all time. A better solution would have been the pegasus style solution from the Boeing X-32. Shame the X-32 was pig ugly, but the STOVL system should have been nicked for the STOVL F-35.
The laclustre F-35B wing should have been replaced with the Northrop outboard control surface wing. Much more agile & versatile.(page 15,Flight International, 1 July 1992).
Of course its too late now, but do we really want the only UK combat jet to be an overpriced, short legged, under armed, fragile, one trick pony?
The UK needs a minimum 200 combat jets( 100 Typhoon/F-35A for QRA/COIN, 50 F-35B for FAA, 50 F-35C or E for medium range strike).
Can we afford this? Well if we have to pay benefits to another 300,000 to 500,000 Bulgarians/Romanians then a single Cessna might be out of our reach.
JS
With a missile, how do you go up, have a look, wave to the Russian bomber pilots & gently steer them away from going near UK airspace?
JS,
Make a judgement call without comms to abort because the target was actually a school, not a weapons plant?
@Simon
The problem is you really can’t just slap all that technology onto other airframes. They don’t have the computing power for it. They don’t have the avionics bays for it. They don’t have the openings for the distributed sensor system. They don’t have the space for a built in target designation pod.
You can’t just retrofit what is on (or in this case inside) the F-35 onto legacy aircraft. It simply won’t be possible with very costly redesigns. It is just not practical.
There is a reason the F-35 is as thick as it is. You are not going to cram all that stuff onto a Eurofighter or F-16. You might get it on a highly redesigned F-15 with its higher MTOW but then again there is a reason exactly no one has signed up for the F-15 Silent Eagle at this point either. No one really believes you can do it, at least not without associated R&D cost that make the F-35 much cheaper to get your hands on.
Jeremy M H,
Err, really don’t agree, sorry. Anyway, maybe we will see (or not) when F35 gets canned and the systems are migrated to the F15
I think I would have to tend toward Simons point of view on the systems. Most of f35s internals are for fuel and weapons bays.
F35 has very gd touch screen cockpit but not everyone agrees with it, you could retrofit that to another jet if there was sufficient power available. Likewise f35 has by all account a very gd aesa radar but that’s not unique to f35. It has effectively a sniper XR targeting pods other jets have very gd targeting pods also. F35 has its helmet but then the helmet on typhoon/gripen is very gd also. Perhaps the hardest thing to put on another jet would be barracuda it’s supposed to be very gd indeed. But again spectra on rafale and praetorian on typhoon are pretty gd to by all account. The comparisons in these only the few who have access can judge with any accuracy.
What f35 does do is rap it all in a low observable skin with very gd data links with probably a better fused picture which you can’t really incorporate in a legacy jet, how much store you put in these last bits will depend if your prepared to pay the f35 price.
Think you can really get AN/AAQ-37 onto a legacy jet? I don’t see it. Each of those camera’s has a housing that does not exist in the legacy aircraft and it absorbs a tremendous amount of computing power to fuze that picture together. Your point about the targeting pod is well taken but to hang the thing on your aircraft means accepting the loss of a pylon and some speed and agility restrictions, plus it adds in more weight which makes the kinematic margins all that much closer. I never disputed that it “could” be done. The question is if you can do it in a cost effective manner when you have to start ripping out existing computers and upgrading them as well as upgrading electrical transmission and data transmission cables in the design to make it all work properly.
If you start putting all this stuff inside of (or even hanging onto) a legacy fighter its cost will quickly start to approach that of an F-35 but without the low-observable benefit. As that happens you have to ask yourself…what is the point?
Simon, have Boeing not already had the EOTS mock up on the F-18E?
Jeremy
It’s also a doubled edged sword though. Some countries may not want or require all those capabilities. Some countries may not want all those capabilities up front. Another consideration in difficult budget times is if I buy 40 f35 they all come with targeting systems ect. On the jets where stuff is podded I may buy 40 jets all fitted to accept the pods but only 20 pods and fit them to the deploying a/c saving some cash. There is growth margin in some of the legacy designs but you accept increased risks in some missions not everyone has the same requirements as the us military.
@Jeremy MH and Simon
It’s not often on TD that the comments provide greater analysis than the article itself, but your input certainly achieves that. Congratulations and thank you! Very interesting. I find myself warming to the F-35 by the day. Most encouraging when people who appear to know what they’re talking about provide such compelling perspectives. Carry on like this and you could end up getting David Cameron re-elected! (Only kidding.)
@Mark
I agree with that 100%. It makes sense for the US which has to buy targeting pods and what not on such a scale that you might as well just put them in the damn airplane and be done with it.
For others I actually think it is a positive in as much as it gives your politicians far less options to do things like that. It takes away the “fitted for but not with” aspect of things and because the vast majority of the upgrades (at least until there is a new engine for the thing) will be software pushes you are in good shape for staying on the cutting edge for quite some time regardless of what your politicians think about the issue. To me that is the best part of F-35 as an export customer but I am admittedly looking at it from a capability side rather than a cost side.
@ mark
One of the advantages of the F35 system is that its suppose to be able to deliver more usable aircraft and need less attritional spares I.e. no two seat trainers. This is good given its uber cost. I would have to say that only buying 20 pods for 40 planes seems like a false economy ( just the kind we tend to make). In terms of performance we need a slightly over weight stealthy bomb truck to replace harrier. The us had the same requirement until it f**ked up the F 22 as the aircraft was designed for the US and UK req that’s why it looks the way it does. I agree that this is not what many nations like Japan and Canada need but its not really our problem. Unlike Typhoon which probably is the aircraft they need F35 seems to have little in the way of problems getting export orders.
I would also have to suggest that given modern SAM threats both ours and Russians having clean aircraft like F16 doing a2a seems unlikely.
I think what Mark is getting at is the fact that it could be advantageous to be able to remove parts of the F35 systems to create a cheaper product.
It’s like buying the “Elite” version of a car and not having the “Sport”, “Club” or “Life” versions available for those that don’t want integrated satnav, phone, alloys and Xenon headlights… all things that you can fit at a later date when finances dictate.
I guess there maybe some systems that are dependent on the platform to “fit” (in a logical and physical perspective) but I don’t think there are that many.