F35 Ski Jump and Paveway IV

A Harrier was so much more graceful. I miss seeing them fly upwards and backwards. Many fond memories of them at airshows when I was a kid.

Is the use of a rolling landing with the QEC a recent change, I came across mention of it only recently and was wondering whether this is a new idea or was it envisaged for the project all along, I know they tested it a few years back for the Harrier on HMS Illustrious.

The earliest work was circa 2000/2001 IIRC…..

I know it’s not trendy to complement the F35 B but that’s one very short take off for such a large aircraft. Might not be as pretty at air shows as the harrier but it’s significantly more useful than the harrier ver could be. Even just 48 of these aircraft will give our carrier operations capabilities they could never have hoped for in the past.

So we wait till Brimstone is tested…meanwhile it’s the Tornadoes that will be the main workhorses.

Helps save the deck too.

Yeah it was notoriously difficult to keep in a hover I think the USMC lost a lot of pilots in the early days.

The f35b is exceptional in the hover and more importantly in the transition from wing borne flight to engine thrust flight. It’s testimony to all the people who worked on vaac over many years to get it to that point. The wonders of fly by wire in action.

The vaac program as far as I’m aware never completed a srvl on a ship nor was that expressly there aim approaches were I think flown. They did a number of circuits and vertical landings on ships.

The usmc did have issues with harrier crashes mainly because it started selected less suitably qualified pilots mainly from the helicopter world on to a platform that up to that point had a very good record due to selecting only the best fastjet pilot graduates. Harrier is also more difficult to land conventionally due to its landing gear configuration.

Which configuration Mark? If I recall correctly, there were 2. One was wheels at the wingtips, the other was wheels somewhere in mid wing.

Observer

Yes as the av8b wing got bigger the outer riggers moved inboard or at least in appearance. It’s having the main wheels in a line (avoiding jet blast) at the centre that makes harrier tricky as opposed to the conventional tricycle layout seen on f35.

Yep your right it would

The American’s ski jump looks shallower than the QE’s ramp. Or is that just me?

No. because the statement is utter b0ll0cks. Not least because the last time I looked, Lusty’s ramp is still sat happily on the flight deck.

What I suspect the dribbling halfwit from Jane’s was meant to write, was that the Pax River ramp is designed and built to the same profile as Lusty’s.

It’s looks so dam steady in a hover!

With development gathering pace, full rate production on the horizon and the price-tag falling i’m starting to think the F35 may actually turn out to be a real success instead of the barely adequate and deeply flawed program it’s so often seemed doomed to remain.

After all weren’t the Hornet and Super Hornet similarly derided before they entered service?

I suspected you might come up trumps Tom.

If I remember correctly the Illustrious was originally built with a 7 degree ski-jump which was later replaced with a 12 degree one. It might be the case that this ramp is the original.

@ Brian Black

The Ski-Jump Ramp used at the Patuxent Naval Air Station. Was a 12(deg) Angled Ramp and ~130-feet long

No. It’s not. The constituent parts of that ramp, being a collection of ships steel plates and girders, just like all the other ramps on CVS, were melted down as scrap.

Just so everyone is clear. The ramps on CVS (and on QE, Principe d’Asturias, Juan Carlos, Garibaldi, Cavour, Canberra and Adelaide for that matter – ie every ramp that’s gone to sea) are permanent structures. They are not, nor ever have been designed to be demountable and used elsewhere and usually consist of steel plating stiffened with beams and girders for the ramp, supported by bulkheads underneath.

Yet another reason to view Jane’s output with some circumspection.

Did there used to be a ramp at Yeovilton?

Fair enough. :)

Yes – and one at Wittering. The one at Heron was at least partially dismantled when the SHARs left in the noughties.

It’s nice to see the ski-jump test…from a stable land platform.

Wait till it’s out at sea with different sea states.

@ Not a Boffin

Did you bother to read the Jane’s article? It is usually good idea before declaring any author a dribbling halfwit:

‘[The F-35B] took off from Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Maryland using a ramp that shares the same dimensions as those fitted to the Royal Navy’s now-decommissioned Invincible-class carriers.’

Just in case you missed it; ‘same dimensions as’, not ‘taken from the lifeless hull of’ :)

Ah, you have me there – did not see the previous iteration.

What was the original phrase, by the way? Having met Mr. Jennings a fair few times he is neither dribbling nor imbecilic (though Jane’s can be); he certainly knows the difference between a mock-up of a ramp based on a design and one physically removed from a vessel.

Ah well, my apologies then to Chris and Boffin; sounds like an editing error to me – Gareth’s stuff is normally pretty accurate.

He (or his editor) may even have been lurking here. Any commission for correction……?

I remember the elaborate bowing (for men).

Having read the updated article, have now discovered we used to have something called “through deck cruise carriers”. It won’t be long now before they start referring to CVS as Carrier Vertical Strike……..

Halfwits.

Yes.

Anti-Submarine aircraft carrier (sometimes also called “support” aircraft carrier) and Future aircraft carrier respectively.

Always have meant that. It’s only relatively recently that various halfwits have started to try and assign words to all the letters.

CVF is/was a programme name. Once in service, the ships will be referred to as QNLZ and PWLS in the RN and described as CV by NATO.

NUSHIP is simply an aussie appellation for a ship in build, much like the US use PCU (Pre-)Commissioning Unit. Both disappear once the ship is in commission.

Now the difficult one, why R for Pennant numbers?

BAE are the only ones to benefit from this madness. We would be better off with a 150 typhoons with Aesa and a fleet of 12 daring class rammed to the gills with cruise missiles , than a floating gin palace and ten or so deployable ferraris of the sky. There needs to be an independent inquiry in to UK defense spending and procurement as the current system has destroyed our defences.

What an astute analysis not. I like the fact that you examined, flexibility, basing rights, over flight rights, presence, persistence, diplomacy etc before you made you posted your little rant.
Out of interest where do you even suggest we put all these cruise missiles on a T45?

Don’t feed the troll.

My guess: A & C were taken. I looks like a one, Next man up: R.

I thought there was a CVA. A for attack. No?

Once upon a time Ron, once upon a time. Think it was in the 70s, died off after that.

Our doctrine was dependent on “dispersal of forces” due to limited land area, so there were exercises carried out to see how long it would take to recall the forces from different countries. An F-16 flight took 4 days to be recalled from the US, country hopping through Europe and India. Not exactly fast reacting. The closer countries fared much better. Now if people were to cut off the transit route with diplomatic pressure, that would be a problem.

Ironically, that would be one of the very, very few cases where a carrier would be useful to Singapore. If it wasn’t such a manpower sink. As a lilypad for returning forces immune to diplomatic interference. Unfortunately, the associated cost, manpower and money vs benefit wise, isn’t good, costs too much for too little gain, which is why the doctrine is still to use tanker refueling in mid-air instead. More limiting, but more value for money.

But APAT’s point still stands Wise. I’m not sure of the status of the SCALP-N, but that is going to be your cruise missile for the future. How is the integration for that and the silos?

Fantastic pic taken in the South Coast Exercise Areas but how do you replicate the capability expeditionary? The answer is QEC

one has to think that the French cruise missile is a bit of a lost opportunity. They have taken a stealthy missile in SCALP/ Stormshdow no turned it into a 1970’s era direct much to TLAM.

It would have been better to do some,thing more like LRASM instead. It’s also working out at 4 times the costs of TLAM.

sorry Jeremy, I was not suggesting making SCALP an anti ship missile rather make the French land attack missile stealthy like SCALP. Both weapons use the same seeker but the naval missile is cylindrical like TLAM and not stealthy. I am guessing this is to aid fire from torpedo tubes or the smaller A70 VLS system.

I guess thats the entire QRA force and naval air defense for the UK. Keep up the great work fellas !

Mate , I’m not part of the horror story that is BAE and UK defense procurement. So I guess when ever best suits BAE’s balance sheet.

Yep we build huge destroyers that are “fitted for” the US actually fit theirs with a whole range of “weapons”. As for the carriers , they are just more proof of the corrupt UK defense industry. The UK is barely able to defend its own airspace and surrounding blue water, so lets build a gin palace with a token number of fighters just in case ………. . Instead of more subs , cruise missile equipped destroyers ( beyond UK defense thinking it seems. BMD capability and enough Typhoons to actually defend UK airspace. Pensions need to be stripped from establishment MOD idiots and sanctions taken against the pork barrel entity BAE.

barely able to defend own airspace? evidence please, the problem with this site is most of us actually know what we are writing about.
Bars on the QEC are not really up to Gin palace standard :( If you actually offered a nuanced case for why and how we would use more submarines and CM armed DDs then maybe people would listen to you.
Much like you claim about UK defence thinking, submitting a balanced argument with some knowledge seems well beyond yours.

I have to agree that the UK’s defence procurement has been a train wreck at time but this has been unavoidable due to contradictions in policy and processes that continue to plague not just the MoD but all Government departments. The last Labour Government in an example of its financial prowess integrated a policy if financial micro management that resulted in systems such as RAB being introduced. This resulted in the no one priority for all department being the balancing of the spread sheet each year. This in turn led to programmes being slowed down, put in limbo but rarely cancelled. This was or is totally at odds with long term planning and greatly increased overall cost of basically ever procurement programme on the books, as well as pushing the delivery date further and further back. To this you have the £36 bn black hole that was basically a huge number of programmes stuck in the assessment or if lucky development phase that could not be moved forward as they were not funded. This goes back to the 1997 SDR which was never accepted or funded by the Treasury but no one told the MoD who still planned 9wished) to introduced all the capabilities mentioned in the SDR, though planned equipment numbers continued to fall, as the think tanks agreed that technology could do the same with less.

Although the 2010 SDSR did come to many conclusions I disagree with, it did cut out a lot of the dead wood from the Procurement plan. That it did so without really looking at if we really needed a piece of equipment or capability has caused many of the problems we are now experiencing, and has left us with some programmes we cannot really afford either to procure or operate effectively.

The in year balancing of budgets is not by itself a bad thing, where the MoD goes wrong is that it takes its eye off the big picture and any effects fiscal expediency will have on long term programmes. Saving £10 million this year may mean that there are no spares available for that platform there. Therefore we cannot deploy that platform the following year so urgent funding is diverted from another two programmes and so on. Yes I would rather have a ship for example fitted for but not with than no ship, but the MoD has a history of not revisiting such a situation at a future date leaving platforms way below their potential and only through UORs are any made fit for purpose, at greatly increased cost to the Taxpayer.

I am hoping with this years SDSR the MoD looks to consolidate its capabilities over the next five years, rather than gain new ones. Order enough F-35Bs for a single squadron to conduct trials etc. for the Queen Elizabeth but no more. Complete the Warrior improvement programme, accelerating the timetable if necessary. Ensure the Typhoon is integrated with Brimstone and Storm Shadow. I would slow down FRES)SV) until we decide what we are actually going to use it for and what formations need it. The T-26 needs to be locked down over this period to allow industry to plan the procurement of long lead items etc. Initial work needs to be carried out into making FRES(UV) a reality. As for the need for an MPA, well yes but I would look at leasing five to six as we did with the C17 initially.

But all of the above is nothing without a change in the way we manage the finances of the MoD and other Government departments. If we are to stick to in year controls than we need to adopt the US or Japanese procurement system where a number of units are funded and purchased each year, like six Typhoons in 2016 and four in 2017 and so on. Or we plan long term but ensure the funding planned is either available or a programme is halted, not remain in limbo, costing money but getting no where.

Reality is that we can no longer afford to do everything we want to. I certainly cannot but the MoD and Government needs to wake up to this. If you have not got either the money or enough hardware to do something, all the wishing or PR in the world is going to make it happen with the results you want. Here ends the sermon.

Damn edit function has vanished again, sorry for the typos.

@John Hartley

Yep. BAE in my view has a lot to answer for and i dislike it’s dominance and practices, but so does the UK governments past and present and the vague, muddled, ‘what we can afford’ rather than ‘what we need’ culture that has permeated defence and foreign policy for too long.

A good example would be the T45, which ended up costing a billion a pop, which led to a lot of criticism of BAE, which was mostly unfair seen as the government had slashed the number from 12 to 6 and chosen a very expensive design with high-end end, gold plated systems in the first place.

To be fair to BAE in that case they built the 6 ordered vessels on time and to the specifications they were given, and if 12 vessels had been procured they would have each costed half the amount.

The constant changing of specifications, time-frames, numbers etc really doesn’t help when a company, whether it’s BAE or any other, is naturally trying to deliver something on time, on budget and up-to standard.

Do please elucidate on which parts of T45 are “gold-plated” and what the alternative might have been?

In what way are SAMPSON, WR21/IEP and the accommodation standards “gold-plated”? As opposed to national-specific – there is a difference.

Aster is/was a European missile available (just) OTS.

Just as a bit of history – when T45/CNGF were in gestation, those nice people in Russia who had been designing and building some very clever and rather unpleasant anti-ship missiles, were being paid in the universal currency of beetroots. Unsurprisingly, they were rather indiscriminate about selling that technology in order to get what people might describe as real currency that allows them to buy soft toilet roll, medical care, that sort of thing. Those weapons (and we’re not talking cricket balls here) are still on the market and in the inventories of a number of countries who may or may not be well-disposed to us. The entire driver behind T45 was to be able to defend a piece of sea/air space against those sorts of threat and manage all the air traffic within it. Without that capability, it is much harder to turn up and offer a credible naval force when you’re facing that sort of threat. People may debate whether AB, De Zeven P, F100, T124 and Horizon are (as) credible against that threat or not. It’s not just about the missile (or numbers) and radar combo, there’s a huge amount of performance tied up in the combat management system as well.

Couple of other things of interest wrt T45 production and delivery. The IPT leader was an army brigadier and the industrial construct was a Joint Project Office (BAES & MoD) who accepted the ship off contract from the shipbuilder (errrr BAE Surface Ships).

I suspect that you’d be looking at some very underpowered T45 if they only had one apiece…..

While bae is everyone’s favourite supplier to bash it is perhaps worth noting that less than 14% of the mod pocurentment budget is spent with bae system.

I probably should have put UK specific instead of ‘gold-plated’ in my post about the T45.

Just look where the contracts BAE doesn’t get go, mostly overseas. i.e. General Dynamics got the deal for FRES.

@ Mark

Guessing a large chunk of procurement is food, fuel, etc and the percentage of the equipment budget would be much higher.

Engineer Tom

Maybe don’t know how the equipment budget breaks down but this is where I got the figures from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/378998/20141105-DSB_Trade_Industry_Contracts_13_Nov_2014-FINAL-O.pdf

The section on defence exports also interesting

Bae systems represents a spend of less than 5% of the mods budget. The point I’m making is if you want to find route cause of the issues with the mods budget and value for money it’s probably elsewhere.

The MOD seems to be a common factor.

T45 design stage began “properly” in about 1999-2000. While some things could be taken from the previous CNGF iterations, the ship is essentially all UK – and had to be done at a relatively compressed rate to have any chance of getting in service when needed.

IIRC there was no RR test-bed per se, that was in the MoD engine establishment at Pyestock and my understanding is that that WR21 unit made it into one of the ships……

In truth, given that we were aiming to buy 12 ships, we were always going to go our own way. AB/AEGIS was already an ageing design by then and not suited to UK operating practices. The other potential partner nations all wanted small numbers, yet would most likely be unwilling to compromise on design features to suit the RN. Particularly important when comparing a navy that habitually operates globally, with some that don’t. Not a derogatory statement about other navies, just a fact.

The contract construct was less than helpful – quite how you can have a Prime Contract Office (largely BAES) accept a ship off contract from a (BAE) subsidiary on behalf of MoD without some form of conflict of interest, I don’t know.

However, all of this re-inforces the need to maintain the expertise to do naval ship design and procurement in-country. Because no-one else will do it for you.

As an example, here’s a small (and now fixed) example of how things can bite you in the @rse if you’re not thoroughly clued up. Some will have noticed the remarkably clean foredeck of the T45, with the absence of clutter from mooring and anchoring arrangements. They’re all in an enclosed compartment below – keeps the RCS down don’t you know and might reduce maintenance costs. Great idea, n’est-ce-pas? What could possibly go wrong? Low RCs, low maintenance? Where do I sign?

On her trials, Daring was bimbling along and encountered what is know as “roughers”. While shipping green water over the bows, what was not apparent was that water was also shooting up the hawse-pipe and into the enclosed mooring deck. Which didn’t have any scuppers capable of shifting the amount of water being shipped. Tens of tonnes of enclosed water are not entirely compatible with the ships stability criteria. So a relatively minor omission (the absence of compartment drainage) as part of a “good idea” (RCS reduction) ended up with a significant safety issue (since fixed). Likely lack of experience in the design (and sign-off)team the most probable cause.

Even with an ever contracting RN there SHOULD be just enough demand to keep the current baseline of shipbuilding going.

Up next will be the T26, and around the same time MARS SSS and Argus/Diligence replacements will be required, then after all of them some sort of MHC vessel, then new LSD/LPD replacements and by that time (probably the mid 2030’s) the T45’s will be getting a bit long in the tooth.

If Barrow got a minimum drumbeat of 12 subs that would provide a steady level of work and avoid any stretching out of orders or contraction in capacity on that front as well.

I think the bigger issue that may well cause problems won’t be so much the level of work it will be the fact that a shipbuilding capability now predominantly focused on the 2 Clyde yards with little more than (we hope) Appledore and Cammell Laird limping on will mean that we can only have 1 major project running at a time.

The T26 for instance will in all likelihood so dominate all availability during peak production that MARS SSS will probably end up being built abroad and only fitted out here like the Tide’s because construction won’t be able to be deferred much past the mid 2020’s.

I don’t think commissioning little more than the 6 T45’s between 2003-2004 when the Rivers, Echo’s and Albion’s arrived and the upcoming completion of QE in 2016 has helped matters in putting off broader fleet renewal for so long that we are now facing this bottleneck where the rest of the fleet is simultaneously and rapidly ageing, becoming harder and more expensive to keep going.

Not at all. For all its issues, T45 is a capable ship. It shows that when you lose experience (and we’ve regained some of that since), it costs you more money in rectifying mistakes.

On MHC – don’t forget that all this offboard systems tomfoolery is not a done deal. It has to work and be better and/or cheaper than the traditional approach. Otherwise, its not a runner.

@ NAB
i was under the impression there was a 13th that had been decommissioned and left in a shed for a few years and they had them dig it out and refurbish it when they realised RR weren’t going to be able to build a full replacement if anything went horribly wrong.

The problem with building so few vessels and more specifically so few different vessels, is that there will be a 10 year gap between the end of T26 design and MHC design ramping up. Yes there will be two small teams, one working on T26 defects found in build and one on the MHC concept, but the majority of the design team won’t be needed between 2018 and 2028 for UK designs. So unless BAE can sell it’s design abroad all of these engineers and designers will head off into the civilian market and then when they need to ramp up to MHC the majority of the team won’t have the experience or know how.

I think that shed is probably the one in Pyestock – I don’t think Rolly’s did another test bed. My understanding is that it went aboard one of the ships as a programme cost-reduction measure, but could be wrong.

SSS was supposed to bridge the gap twixt T26 and MHC originally, but depends how they contract it. It could conceivably be a UK design and then send out as EPC to Korea or similar, which would have some impact on design skill retention, albeit not in the “difficult” region, which is DD/FF type ships.

“Or MOD could restart the Establishments and pull the clever design bit in-house using its own scientists and engineers like it once did”

Except that certainly for Maritime and probably for Air, the design bit was not done by “the Establishments”. I’m willing to take on faith that Chertsey may have once done, but not the others.

Not to say that they didn’t have a lot of very skilled analysts and people who knew all the minutiae of a particular specialism and RAE certainly had access to some stand-out pilots.

However, there is a difference between analysis and design. Creating a ministry of military design sounds good, until you realise that it will work like all civil service departments. Dead mens shoes……

The thing about IP is fairly specious anyway – all UK contracts quote Defcon 705 which gives MOD free use for UK defence purposes of what it has paid for.

As it’s posted on the WiBbler, give it a stiff ignoring.

Simple fact is that no-one outside the F35 community actually knows how good or bad it is, one way or the other.

So nothing to worry about because the enemy will “never” be able to detect it nor shoot it down. Great I just hope all those airforces currently equipped with thousands of actual fighters are happy in the knowledge its just a bomb truck.

The Sea Harrier’s maneouverability was much touted, but what made it such an effective fleet air defence asset was the FA2’s Blue Vixen radar and AMRAAM. AN/APG-81 and Meteor will still make it a pretty lethal air defence asset.

Tornado provided perfectly adequate air defence capability especially with jtids. Phantom was gd as was f14 even for maverick. F16 is considered really very gd by those that have flown it in a turning fight.

F35 flight test aircraft af2 in being the envelope expansion aircraft that’s been way way into the aoa business doesn’t haven restriction. It’s the aircraft in the training fleet which aren’t instrumented that have restrictions.

Toc the typhoon f15 story was the other way round.

Media report has been answered by the f35 jpo and is indeed genuine

The media report on the F-35 and F-16 flight does not tell the entire story. The F-35 involved was AF-2, which is an F-35 designed for flight sciences testing, or flying qualities, of the aircraft. It is not equipped with a number of items that make today’s production F-35s 5th Generation fighters.

Aircraft AF-2 did not have the mission systems software to use the sensors that allow the F-35 to see its enemy long before it knows the F-35 is in the area. Second, AF-2 does not have the special stealth coating that operational F-35s have that make them virtually invisible to radar. And third, it is not equipped with the weapons or software that allow the F-35 pilot to turn, aim a weapon with the helmet, and fire at an enemy without having to point the airplane at its target.

The tests cited in the article were done earlier this year to test the flying qualities of the F-35 using visual combat maneuvers to stress the system, and the F-16 involved was used as a visual reference to maneuver against. While the dogfighting scenario was successful in showing the ability of the F-35 to maneuver to the edge of its limits without exceeding them, and handle in a positive and predictable manner, the interpretation of the scenario results could be misleading. The F-35’s technology is designed to engage, shoot, and kill its enemy from long distances, not necessarily in visual “dogfighting” situations. There have been numerous occasions where a four-ship of F-35s has engaged a four-ship of F-16s in simulated combat scenarios and the F-35s won each of those encounters because of its sensors, weapons, and stealth technology.

The release of this FOUO report is being investigated. The candid feedback provided by our test community is welcomed because it makes what we do better.

https://www.f35.com/news/detail/joint-program-office-response-to-war-is-boring-blog?sf10503378=1

Mark,

I’m in the happy to wait and see camp on the f35 and am taking everything the haters and fanboys say with a rather large pinch of salt. Besides anything else from a uk p.o.v. It’s still gonna be a good bomb truck which it will be doing a lot more of than dogfighting in raf colours I’d imagine.

Something you quoted caught my eye though – that the f35 in question didn’t have its stealth coat applied. I thought I remembered them saying the f35 wouldn’t be relying on expensive and maintenance intensive stealth coatings and most of its stealth features were built Into the shape of the aircraft? Perhaps they’ve now changed their minds on this?! Apologies for typos, was posting from my iPad :)

Cky7

Yes very much so the RAF has been built around a strike orientated aircraft in tornado for 30 years and we’ve ain’t done half bad.

The general planform shape is important for low observable performance that’s not what there referring to however. The first few f35s were built using standard composite materials and finishes. Later variant of the test fleet and all production aircraft used the production standard composites and finishes.

Note the difference in this test fleet line up
http://files.air-attack.com/MIL/jsf/f35a_lineup_edwards_20110901.jpg

For the Brits here, question from America…

What will the British response be if the F-16 v F-35 story proves the F-35’s total incapability for any air defense other than BVR? Given the improvement in ECM technology, is there any plan B for this contingency?

Also, if you want to have fun, read the full report and Bill Sweetman’s article in Aviation week. It appears that the F-35 lost even though the conditions were as favorable as possible.

http://fightersweep.com/2548/f-35-v-f-16-article-garbage/
Basically you have to understand that F-35 is operating in very restricted criteria. As they clear up , they wil have more things coming online and clear the restriction.
The story’s headline is sensationalist, attention grabing more than anything. It is written by David axe. He is the next pierre sprey (F-16,F-15,F-18 didn’t work according to him). F-16 debuted as daylight aircraft as well as eurofighter typhoon & rafaels with minimal strike capabilities. The F-35 will arive with strike and fighter integration on the first day.The typhoons bomb integration is still not done after all these years. the new F-35 will have those integratio but people seemed to sight of that.

Aviation week have published the actual report

http://aviationweek.com/site-files/aviationweek.com/files/uploads/2015/06/F-35%20High%20AoA%20Maneuvers.pdf