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ChaosSamusX posted:So, even if they fix all of the crippling defects, will the F-35 still just be an expensive bomb/missile truck? Well yes, but it's worth it because it's a fifth generation bomb truck. That means it's automatically better than everything else. The only way you could make a better plane would be by calling it a sixth generation plane. Also it has unique new features never seen before, such as in-flight refueling, link 16 integration, and the ability to be used alongside other types of planes. I know it sounds like science fiction, but these futuristic features are, according to the Australian Financial Review, one of the main reasons why the F-35 is the best choice available.
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Jul 5, 2014 15:46
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Cat Mattress posted:Well yes, but it's worth it because it's a fifth generation bomb truck. That means it's automatically better than everything else. The only way you could make a better plane would be by calling it a sixth generation plane.  The F-35 is clearly superior by virtue of having features that can easily be bolted onto any other plane design, in a package that costs more money and works more badly.
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Jul 5, 2014 15:50
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Postorder Trollet89 posted:Gripen has had about 5-10 accidents in 15 years of service. Including prototype stage before it went into service. Two of those were because the testpilot stalled the jet since he was trained to fly with analogue control. They're not directly comparable. We had three times as many Viggens, they were flown a lot more than the Gripens, they were in service for like 30 years and the safety culture was a lot more lax in the 70's and even in the 80's. Viewed in that context and considering the small fleet and low amount of flight hours, the Gripen's safety record is merely decent, not great. There were two initial two prototype crashes in the late 80's/early 90's that were partly pilot error and partly the fly-by-wire system being overly sensitive. In the subsequent almost 20 years of service there's been two definite pilot error crashes (one belly landing and one entry into a inverted superstall), one involuntary ejection (caused by a badly placed ejection handle), one voluntary ejection that was arguably unnecessary (a temporary condition caused an "eject RIGHT NOW" warning from the ground collision system; the pilot obeyed but the aircraft could probably have been kept flying), one nose wheel collapse on landing and one runaway aircraft on the ground (cause unknown). The engine's been a real workhorse though; IIRC by 2011 there hadn't been a single serious engine-related incident in something like 160k flight hours, which is probably one of the best safety records in military aviation ever. It's not a Swedish design though, it's a modded GE F404, and 160k flight hours isn't a lot considering that the F404 install base has accumulated like 12 million flight hours globally. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 16:20
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EngineerSean posted:Do you have a source for this? My time in Iraq/Afghanistan was dominated by A-10s providing support. I saw an AC-130 literally once per tour, don't think I could identify any other plane but they weren't firing if they were up there. I've seen it tossed about but apparently that's a controversial figure. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/critics-accuse-air-force-manipulating-data-support-10-retirement/
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Jul 5, 2014 18:25
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This is money well spent because it distracts everyone from the future superiority of the US military - unmanned aircraft that can perform pilot-killing high-g maneuvers and space-based weapons.
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Jul 5, 2014 18:46
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McDowell posted:This is money well spent because it distracts everyone from the future superiority of the US military - unmanned aircraft that can perform pilot-killing high-g maneuvers and space-based weapons. Pretty much this and it's hilarious how desperate fighter jockeys are to prevent it.
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Jul 5, 2014 18:49
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Postorder Trollet89 posted:If the Soviet Union had still been around the F-35 would not have made it as far as it has today. Competition does miracles to defense technology. Doesn't work in Healthcare though. Seriously this. The CIA wildly overestimating the capabilities of the Mig-25 scared the poo poo out of the pentagon so much that it transformed what would be the F-15 from something that would be a good air superiority fighter to probably one of the top 3 air superiority fighters of all time.
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Jul 5, 2014 19:38
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A Winner is Jew posted:Seriously this. So essentially, a US ally or a US carrier air wing with F-35s needs to be defeated embarrassingly by PAK-FAs or J20s to make the F-36 an expensive but totally kickass plane 
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Jul 5, 2014 19:52
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Darkman Fanpage posted:Pretty much this and it's hilarious how desperate fighter jockeys are to prevent it. Until somebody develops a decent AI for UCAVs they're going to be at a disadvantage against any piloted aircraft given the time lag for commands (if the drone pilots are still stateside) and possible signal jamming. Bombers could be replaced a bit more easily.
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Jul 5, 2014 20:16
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Party Plane Jones posted:Until somebody develops a decent AI for UCAVs they're going to be at a disadvantage against any piloted aircraft given the time lag for commands (if the drone pilots are still stateside) and possible signal jamming. Bombers could be replaced a bit more easily. Maybe someone could invest a trillion dollars into coding that.
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Jul 5, 2014 20:22
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Even being a death trap the Bradley had almost entered mass production when it's probably enemy were Soviet tanks in Germany, I'm not 100% convinced that an F-35 wing getting massacred by J-11's would reverse the rot now.
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Jul 5, 2014 20:59
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Warbadger posted:The F-35 isn't an air-superiority plane - that would be the F-22 which actually turned out to be a good plane despite the bitching about it. Yeah, the F-22 is a fighter designed for one thing, it was designed from day 1 as an air-superiority fighter and after another decade and a couple hundred billion dollars shaking out the bugs it'll be great for the role it was designed in. I think that will be just about when we have a doctrinal shift away from manned aircraft in air-superiority roles, even moreso than at present, but it does at least hit its design criteria. The F-35 is just a piece of designed-by-commitee poo poo. So far as I can see it's the expensive modern-day equivalent of the F-4. It's designed to fit everyone's needs and now it sucks at most of its roles. Nevertheless, we lack any real competition in the air-power world, so it'll probably do just fine. It's not going to realistically come up against cutting-edge Russian interceptors so far as I can see.
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Jul 5, 2014 21:56
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McDowell posted:This is money well spent because it distracts everyone from the future superiority of the US military - unmanned aircraft that can perform pilot-killing high-g maneuvers and space-based weapons. Seriously this is the "doctrinal shift" I'm referring to above. The main engagement strategy for an aircraft like an F-22 is "fly towards enemy, at 80 miles out shoot long-range missiles before we show up on their radar" which is not exactly a complicated mission to automate. Even to the extent that classic air-to-air dogfights will actually happen, a 1-ton drone has a lot less inertia and can make maneuvers that would turn a pilot in a 24-ton fighter into a puddle of goo. Really when you get down to it, there aren't that many maneuvers to make in an aircraft, and it's possible to build game-playing algorithms for all sorts of complex games. Modern computing technology is so incredibly powerful that I can't really imagine not being able to come up with effective search algorithms even right now let alone in another 10-20 years. At present it's already possible to fly literal supercomputing clusters using off-the-shelf technology, weighing maybe 300lbs and costing <$1m in parts, and even that is way cheaper than paying to train up a pilot. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 22:21
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Paul MaudDib posted:Modern computing technology is so incredibly powerful that I can't really imagine not being able to come up with effective search algorithms even right now let alone in another 10-20 years. What the hell does a search algorithm have to do with a fighter jet?
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Jul 5, 2014 22:27
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Paul MaudDib posted:Yeah, the F-22 is a fighter designed for one thing, it was designed from day 1 as an air-superiority fighter and after another decade and a couple hundred billion dollars shaking out the bugs it'll be great for the role it was designed in. I think that will be just about when we have a doctrinal shift away from manned aircraft in air-superiority roles, even moreso than at present, but it does at least hit its design criteria. I thought the main threat for the F-35 was SAMs.
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Jul 5, 2014 22:28
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^^^ I just mean that we're not likely to fight anyone with anything tougher than 70s-80s soviet gear and the F-35 will do fine at that role.Skeesix posted:What the hell does a search algorithm have to do with a fighter jet? That's currently the problem with fighter drones - we can build a small unmanned aircraft, sure, but how do you control it? Radio links can be jammed, so you want something onboard the aircraft that can autonomously fight the aircraft in the event you lose your control links. Right now no one has (so far as I know) come up with a computer program that can compete with a trained pilot in combat. It's without question not an easy problem. But there's a theoretical basis in military science for viewing combat tactics and specifically dogfighting as a game (the OODA loop), and at the end of the day we come up with algorithms to play all sorts of games, some of which are really abstract and difficult. It's mostly just a problem of generating possible moves from your search space and trying to maximize some "goodness" value for yourself and minimize the "goodness" of your opponents movements for as many possible rounds/plies. With the way supercomputing has absolutely leaped forward over the past decade I think it's going to be totally feasible to throw enough computational power into a drone to compete with live pilots in the very near future, if it isn't already. At the end of the day it's like a chess-playing computer, maybe a chessmaster can beat Big Blue half the time, but your average player/pilot is going to be smacked around by high-level computer algorithms. Plus all the other advantages of drones - they can cheaply swarm manned targets, they can make maneuvers that larger manned fighters simply cannot, employ high-risk/suicidal strategies to eliminate high-value targets, etc. SAMs are obviously going to be the first line threat, but air-superiority is still a role and nations still purchase fighters to fill that role. I just think in 20 years those air-superiority fighters are going to be drones. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 22:36
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hobbesmaster posted:The US has one of those too. ahahahah between the F-35 and the F-22 the USA has spent almost a trillion dollars developing two weapons where if they're ever used against a nation that can fight back we'd just use nukes since we can't afford to operate them for long periods of time.
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Jul 5, 2014 23:02
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Paul MaudDib posted:^^^ I just mean that we're not likely to fight anyone with anything tougher than 70s-80s soviet gear and the F-35 will do fine at that role. And these drones would end up costing like 500 million each.
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Jul 5, 2014 23:04
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The F-22 is a 70 billion dollar supersonic stealth fighter/bomber program costing 150 mil apiece just to ship off the factory floor that would primarily be fielded against dubiously well trained non state actors with rifles and bazookas. It represents the sane and logical end of the air force R&D continuum.
Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 23:06
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Willie Tomg posted:The F-22 is a 300 billion dollar supersonic stealth fighter/bomber that would primarily be fielded against dubiously well trained non state actors with rifles and bazookas. It represents the sane and logical end of the air force R&D continuum. We will probably end up seeing what happens with the USAF's A-29 procurement. That would be a proper and awesome LAS aircraft.
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Jul 5, 2014 23:22
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Willie Tomg posted:The F-22 is a 70 billion dollar supersonic stealth fighter/bomber program costing 150 mil apiece just to ship off the factory floor that would primarily be fielded against dubiously well trained non state actors with rifles and bazookas. It represents the sane and logical end of the air force R&D continuum. These several generations of great power peace have been an aberration to world history. Part of it is global trade, part of it is multinational organizations, part of it is nuclear weapons, and part of it is America's ludicrous power imbalance making even military parity seem insane.
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Jul 5, 2014 23:54
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Best Friends posted:These several generations of great power peace have been an aberration to world history. Part of it is global trade, part of it is multinational organizations, part of it is nuclear weapons, and part of it is America's ludicrous power imbalance making even military parity seem insane. Agreed, if you ignore the politics, economics, current and future military strengths, and nukes, all of which combine to make these boondoggles obsolete before they're even off the drawing board, stealth fighters are pretty cool! 
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Jul 6, 2014 00:09
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"Except for all of these developments since the last world war that, at every turn, limit the ability to wage a world war as well as providing strong incentives against starting one the next world war could be right around the corner! These generations of peace are fleeting" *has tactically elected to not ask an iraqi lately what they think of the last few generations of peace*
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Jul 6, 2014 00:14
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People were saying the exact same thing before WWI, when global trade between great powers was of nearly the same proportion as now. Lines on maps have moved remarkably little and few of the involved nations have fear of American nuclear weapons. Pretending a militarily unipolar world has had zero effect outside the U.S. arms budget outlay is pretty stupid. We've seen armed conflict between nuclear nations and armed conflict between trading partners. There are clearly factors beyond these things in account.
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Jul 6, 2014 00:36
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"Stealth" technology is the largest crock of poo poo.
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Jul 6, 2014 00:46
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karthun posted:We will probably end up seeing what happens with the USAF's A-29 procurement. That would be a proper and awesome LAS aircraft. Honestly, I was designing a COIN/CAS plane I'd probably take a P-38 and modernize the hell out of it. In it's day it was stupidly maneuverable and fast but with a slow stall speed, ridiculous range, quiet for what it is, twin engine, and center mounted main armaments for strafing.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:06
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Here's an interesting document: A-10 Case Study. It provides a history of US CAS aircraft developement, a history of the army/airforce rivalry that gave us the A-10, and an assessment of the aircraft. If you want something shorter, here's something written in 2009 by a German: Fuchs posted:It takes a lot of background to understand the whole COIN aircraft (let's think of the OV-10D+ Bronco as an example) discussion.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:12
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Best Friends posted:These several generations of great power peace have been an aberration to world history. Part of it is global trade, part of it is multinational organizations, part of it is nuclear weapons, and part of it is America's ludicrous power imbalance making even military parity seem insane. Best Friends posted:before WWI, when global trade between great powers was of nearly the same proportion as now.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:13
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A Winner is Jew posted:Honestly, I was designing a COIN/CAS plane I'd probably take a P-38 and modernize the hell out of it. In it's day it was stupidly maneuverable and fast but with a slow stall speed, ridiculous range, quiet for what it is, twin engine, and center mounted main armaments for strafing. The super tucano is very similar in size and weight to a P-51 which actually had a very long history in central and south america with COIN/CAS work.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:14
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hobbesmaster posted:The super tucano is very similar in size and weight to a P-51 which actually had a very long history in central and south america with COIN/CAS work. I almost laughed off the comparison at first what with the 60 years between them, but they really do seem to be similar in a lot of ways. If anything, the P-38 has a substantial advantage on range and can carry a little more weight. What's the advantage of something like a Super Tucano over a P-38 with modern materials and avionics?
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Jul 6, 2014 02:18
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:I almost laughed off the comparison at first what with the 60 years between them, but they really do seem to be similar in a lot of ways. If anything, the P-38 has a substantial advantage on range and can carry a little more weight. What's the advantage of something like a Super Tucano over a P-38 with modern materials and avionics? Probably cost, both in per unit and per hour since two engines are instantly more expensive and will suck way more fuel than a single engine airplane. The obvious advantage though is survivability, max speed, climb rate, and max takeoff weight.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:21
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:I almost laughed off the comparison at first what with the 60 years between them, but they really do seem to be similar in a lot of ways. If anything, the P-38 has a substantial advantage on range and can carry a little more weight. What's the advantage of something like a Super Tucano over a P-38 with modern materials and avionics? You're just asking the advantage of a larger twin engine aircraft over a single engine aircraft. One thing to remember, a modern turboprop is going to be a very different beast from a 1940s gasoline V12. A smaller aircraft would likely have the advantage of shorter take off and landing runs and would overall be lighter.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:25
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A Winner is Jew posted:Honestly, I was designing a COIN/CAS plane I'd probably take a P-38 and modernize the hell out of it. In it's day it was stupidly maneuverable and fast but with a slow stall speed, ridiculous range, quiet for what it is, twin engine, and center mounted main armaments for strafing. That's more or less what an A-10 is. I really don't know anyone who thinks getting rid of that aircraft is a good idea. There has never been a serious replacement or even competitor in the low-and-slow CAS role. And it sure as hell isn't going to be the F-35 as planned. One other nice thing about the P-38 was the potential for twin-seat variants. There's lots of mission roles that either require or just work vastly better with two people in the crew. Having a spotter or forward-air-control type person onboard seems like it would be pretty nice in CAS operations. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 02:34
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Skeesix posted:What the hell does a search algorithm have to do with a fighter jet? If you have a relatively defined moveset, it is piss easy to create a learning heuristic without any advances in AI or computing whatsoever. If contact with the remote pilot is lost, the drone can take over and at least stand a chance. And if it gets shot down, all the other drones will know not to make the same mistake against that enemy(just like taking beads out of a box). Talking about the line between truly autonomous drones and remotely piloted ones is way too black and white. Pilots will pilot when they can and the drones won't be helpless if they get jammed. Flip side is there's no reason to ever totally remove humans from the decision making process. DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 03:14
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A Winner is Jew posted:Honestly, I was designing a COIN/CAS plane I'd probably take a P-38 and modernize the hell out of it. In it's day it was stupidly maneuverable and fast but with a slow stall speed, ridiculous range, quiet for what it is, twin engine, and center mounted main armaments for strafing. It is the modernize the hell out of it that is the problem. You need to add in modern avionics, comms and weapons. You would end up having to design a brand new aircraft that would look like the P-38. That worked fine for the Super Hornet, but I don't see the need to design a brand new aircraft when there are several like the A-29 and the AT-6B that are really close to fulfilling the LAS role. Paul MaudDib posted:That's more or less what an A-10 is. I really don't know anyone who thinks getting rid of that aircraft is a good idea. There has never been a serious replacement or even competitor in the low-and-slow CAS role. And it sure as hell isn't going to be the F-35 as planned. Thats because the F-35 isn't going to be replacing the A-10, the USAF is planning to bring back the LAS role on a light turboprop like the A-29 and AT-6B. quote:One other nice thing about the P-38 was the potential for twin-seat variants. There's lots of mission roles that either require or just work vastly better with two people in the crew. Having a spotter or forward-air-control type person onboard seems like it would be pretty nice in CAS operations. Both the A-29 and AT-6B come in two seat variants and both have 6+ hour loiter time, unlike the A-10 with its 2 hour loiter time.
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Jul 6, 2014 03:21
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Darkman Fanpage posted:Pretty much this and it's hilarious how desperate fighter jockeys are to prevent it. More desperate to prove their relevance at all. There hasn't been a serious fighter-on-fighter dogfighting conflict since the Gulf War, and even then it was our jets shooting monkeys in a barrel.
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Jul 6, 2014 04:35
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Liquid Communism posted:More desperate to prove their relevance at all. There hasn't been a serious fighter-on-fighter dogfighting conflict since the Gulf War, and even then it was our jets shooting monkeys in a barrel. Eritean-Ethiopian war had dogfights between jets in 2002. But Africa doesn't count I assume.
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Jul 6, 2014 04:41
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Even if we lived in some alternate universe where air-to-air superiority is worth spending more than the GDP of the 16th wealthiest nation on earth it's irrelevant in this case. We aren't talking about the F-22 here, which is an insanely expensive but working plane that does air combat well and will for the foreseeable future, we're talking the F-35. Did we really need another plane that would win an air war against MIGs? It's difficult for humans to conceive how much this project costs. This plane has cost more money then World War I, Korea or Vietnam when adjusted for inflation. Hell, even adjusted for inflation we could have fought WWI, Korea and every 19th century war combined on the tab of this project and had money to spare. We could build 10,000 Iowa class battleships for the same price. We could have funded the Manhattan project 43 times over with the cost of this thing. How the hell are people not rioting in the streets over this?
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Jul 6, 2014 07:04
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hobbesmaster posted:Eritean-Ethiopian war had dogfights between jets in 2002. So that's it? The US needs to invest in fighter tech for the sake of economic export?
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Jul 6, 2014 07:11
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Barlow posted:
Because they can't conceive of how much money that is. Neil Degrasse Tyson did this best by explaining that it's like how a person decides whats the smallest denomination they will pick up off the street and do a comparison. He said that if he (worth around 1 million) decided that he would only pick up quarters and larger, that would be like Bill Gates (50 Billion) walking past 45,000 and less. Anyone who realizes that understands we have gone so far past what is acceptable wealth you could consider some people to be wealth addicts.
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Jul 6, 2014 07:15
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