F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

[MarkOttawa]

US Naval Institute News:

F-35B Begins New ‘Operational Readiness Inspection’ This Week Before IOC Decision

The Marine Corps added one final test before deciding whether to declare initial operational capability for the Lockheed Martin F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (JSF): a first-ever Operational Readiness Inspection.

The ORI for the first F-35B squadron, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121, is scheduled to begin today and will last four or five days. An inspection team – with members from Headquarters Marine Corps, the Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One (MAWTS-1) school and the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron (VMFA-T) 501 – will “assess them from a maintenance perspective, a sustainment perspective and an operations perspective,” deputy commandant for aviation Lt. Gen. Jon Davis told USNI News on July 8.

“We have a team of about 12 people going out to assess everything from maintenance to NATOPS (Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization) knowledge,” he said.

“There’s 10 items on a Commander of Naval Air Forces inspection, maintenance inspection; we’re going to go out and out of those 10 say, give us these five. And then we’ll look and if there’s problems with those five we’ll go deeper.”

In addition to that maintenance test, the ORI will also include assessments of five areas of flight operations with live ordnance at up to a division-level context. The last day will be a “surge day,” during which every person in the squadron will be involved in a mission set either on actual planes or in a simulator.

At the end of the week, Davis will meet with the assessment team in person to go over the results...
http://news.usni.org/2015/07/13/f-35b-begins-new-operational-readiness-inspection-this-week-before-ioc-decision

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

F-35B again:

Software Flaws on Marine F-35s No Bar to Combat, Pentagon Says

Five years after the first F-35s were supposed to be declared combat-ready, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer says the fighter jet’s operating software is ready to go “with some minor workarounds” that need to be remedied later.

“All but eight” of the 243 software capabilities anticipated for the declaration of “initial operational capability” are “on track to be completed and verified” before the Marine Corps announces the milestone for its version of the plane, Frank Kendall, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for acquisition, wrote in a report to Congress obtained by Bloomberg News...

Shortcomings, previously reported and cited by Kendall as among the eight issues still unresolved, involve software used in the fusion of data gathered from air and ground sensors, electronic warfare and air-to-air and air-to-ground data links.

Kendall’s previously undisclosed report, dated June 22, said the Pentagon’s F-35 program office plans to resolve these issues during the testing of more capable software planned for deployment in late 2017.

“These shortcomings do not interfere with” the Marines’ intended missions, Kendall wrote in the report. The service “will still be able to meet” its declaration date “with requisite weapons and mission systems,” he wrote...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-16/software-flaws-on-marine-f-35s-no-bar-to-combat-pentagon-says

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Marines' IOC close:

U.S. Marines Complete F-35B Readiness Inspection
http://aviationweek.com/defense/us-marines-complete-f-35b-readiness-inspection

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting look at how the F-35 works in a highly detailed commercial simulation. Because it is a commercial simulation, there are a lot of caveats, which the author admits, but the key take away here is if you use the F-35 the way it is designed to be used, then things will work out well for you.

I suspect many of the issues in previous tests/simulation involve trying to use the F-35 like you would use an F-16 or F-18. This does not work well since the F-35 is designed to be used in a totally different manner. (If you want to engage in air to air combat, you really should be using the F-22 instead).

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/don-t-think-the-f-35-can-fight-it-does-in-this-realistic-war-game-fc10706ba9f4

 

[tomahawk6]

F-35 static gun test.Weird placement of the gun.I wonder how the test would go in flight ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFoJ93Kb5z0

 

[Good2Golf]

Very interesting assessment of F-35's place in the expanded integrated weaponized battlespace of 5th generation warfare.

Vladislav Shurygin, respected Russian military expert, provides assessment of F-35 and general American development of 5th Generation warfare capability.

 

[Harrigan]

An interesting look at how the F-35 works in a highly detailed commercial simulation. Because it is a commercial simulation, there are a lot of caveats, which the author admits, but the key take away here is if you use the F-35 the way it is designed to be used, then things will work out well for you.

I suspect many of the issues in previous tests/simulation involve trying to use the F-35 like you would use an F-16 or F-18. This does not work well since the F-35 is designed to be used in a totally different manner. (If you want to engage in air to air combat, you really should be using the F-22 instead).

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/don-t-think-the-f-35-can-fight-it-does-in-this-realistic-war-game-fc10706ba9f4

And is that not the main problem for those countries not called the United States?  The F-35 will eventually turn out OK, and it will be able to conduct some roles amongst an Air Force with hundreds of aircraft and many different specialized assets.  However, for countries that need it to do everything, it might be a problem.

Has there been a solution identified as to how we would use the F-35 with no compatible AAR capability?

 

[SupersonicMax]

Hardly an issue.  I tanked more on US assets than Canadian assets in my career.

T6:  the F-16 and F-15 both have guns mounted in a similar spot.

 

[a_majoor]

And is that not the main problem for those countries not called the United States?  The F-35 will eventually turn out OK, and it will be able to conduct some roles amongst an Air Force with hundreds of aircraft and many different specialized assets.  However, for countries that need it to do everything, it might be a problem.

Has there been a solution identified as to how we would use the F-35 with no compatible AAR capability?

Since the vast majority of the world's air forces generally have a limited selection of warcraft, and even then, only a limited number (a US Navy carrier wing has more airplanes than a lot of the world's air forces), they will all have to find a solution to this issue. Most of them already have adopted the practice of using multi-role aircraft and implicitly emphasizing one role over all the others.

And there was an interesting article a while ago from NextBigFuture which totalled up the numbers of Gen 4 and 5 aircraft in the various fleets. The West has a commanding lead, with something like 2.5X the number of aircraft of Russia and China combined, so even if *we* can only get a 1:1 ratio of kills to shot down, we can essentially roll over any enemy airforce by sheer, if totally inelegant, brute force. I obviously hope it never comes to that, but it gives an idea of how broad our options really are.

 

[tomahawk6]

Interesting article on how our primary adversaries might fight the F-35.The approach is BVR or dogfighting.The F-35 with its stealth characteristics might be better off with BVR engagements.IMO the USAF would place the F-35 in a package of aircraft.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/revealed-how-china-russia-could-destroy-americas-f-35-battle-13429

The underlying basis for current assumptions about the ascendance of long-range air-to-air combat and the demise of the dogfight is that U.S. and allied forces will always have a clear and sustainable ‘knowledge edge’ over any adversary in a manner that bestows superior situational awareness to permit unrestricted use of BVRAAMs. In this regard, the true success of the F-35 in tactical air-to-air warfare may in fact depend on an ability to preserve a knowledge edge at the strategic level in the face of determined efforts by future adversaries to decisively win an information battle at the outset of any future conflict.

 

[Baz]

Hardly an issue.  I tanked more on US assets than Canadian assets in my career.

T6:  the F-16 and F-15 both have guns mounted in a similar spot.

Then why was it such a big deal that we needed to get the Airbus converted?  It wasn't free either...

Edited to add: of course, I can answer my own question.  If we get the F-35 (and I honestly have no opinion whether we should), then a natural progression would be to update or replace our Airbus aircraft (which may or may not be a bad thing, as they would be interoperable with more of our allies).  However, there is no way in h@!! we would have that conversation in public right now!

 

[quadrapiper]

Interesting article on how our primary adversaries might fight the F-35.The approach is BVR or dogfighting.The F-35 with its stealth characteristics might be better off with BVR engagements.IMO the USAF would place the F-35 in a package of aircraft.

What're the training and other planning implications of what would seem to be the more expensive option? Or are the weapons used for BVR and closer-range engagements (barring guns) more or less comparable as far as per-item cost and maintenance requirements?

 

[tomahawk6]

Not a zoomie,but I think the F-35 based on the excellant youtube interview with a Russian expert and my reading,would indicate that the F-35's  sensors would win a long range engagement.Close in many of the advantages are negated.Then it would seem to be which aircraft was flown by the better pilot.There may lie another advatage- training.How much air time does a Russian,Chinese or North Korean pilot get ? Certainly not as much as a US or Canadian pilot ?

 

[a_majoor]

For close in dogfighting, the current go to weapon is the dogfighting missile, and many (especially the Russian ones) are explicitly designed for high "off foresight" launch (i.e. you do't have to point the airplane at the target, so long as the missile "knows" roughly where to go).

This sort of negates the arguments for dogfighting, since a missile can easily pull far more "G" than any human pilot and most man rated airframes, and since dogfighting missiles are launched relatively close to the target, they retain much more energy (older missiles essentially coasted towards the target once the rocket motors burnt out, so at extreme range the missile had much less energy than the airplane, and the pilot *could* out turn the missile there).

One can only wonder how the tables will turn once high energy laser weapons become compact enough to fit aboard fighter aircraft, although that argument would seem to a bit moot as well, a 747 sized aircraft could carry a megawatt class laser weapon, with far more power than anything a fighter sized aircraft could carry. Other futuristic weapons that might appear aboard large aircraft might include hypersonic boost-glide weapons, and scaled down versions of railguns. I suspect these weapons will be "all purpose", capable of striking targets on land, at sea and in the air (and trying to out turn a weapon coming at you at Mach 7 should be...interesting). Indeed the next generation of warplane might be more comparable to an airborne artillery platform capable of reaching everything from the ground to low earth orbit, surrounded by a cloud of drones to provide sensor input, confuse enemy sensors and even provide a layer of defense.

 

[HB_Pencil]

Then why was it such a big deal that we needed to get the Airbus converted?  It wasn't free either...

The CC-150Ts are primarily used for foreign ops: getting our fighters to locations abroad and adding to the tanker pool in theatre (if required). It provides a fair bit of flexibility for the RCAF, as during those times allies may not have excess capacity to assist Canada.

However since there are only two converted tankers, its impossible to have them operate in an alert role for continental defence. Thus we are reliant on the USAF for assisting us in certain scenarios, like deploying our aircraft into FOLs under certain weather conditions.

Edited to add: of course, I can answer my own question.  If we get the F-35 (and I honestly have no opinion whether we should), then a natural progression would be to update or replace our Airbus aircraft (which may or may not be a bad thing, as they would be interoperable with more of our allies).  However, there is no way in h@!! we would have that conversation in public right now!

Well that decision will have to occur anyways. By 2025 its likely that the RCAF will need to replace the Polaris as the aircraft will have reached its service life.

 

[Harrigan]

Hardly an issue.  I tanked more on US assets than Canadian assets in my career.

T6:  the F-16 and F-15 both have guns mounted in a similar spot.

AAR is an issue - if it is not, why do we maintain not one but two fleets of organic AAR assets?  Yes, I know the Hornets need them, but they can (and do) use the US too, as you have just pointed out.  If the F-35, which uses an incompatible AAR system to our AAR assets, will simply use the US all the time to get around, why aren't we doing that now?  I am sure the Air Force would love to use the budget for the CC130T and CC150 fleets for other purposes.

Harrigan

 

[PuckChaser]

The US contracts AAR from civilian companies, why can't we until we get a Polaris replacement on the go?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

First of all, Canadian fast air (CF-18's) uses the US Navy refuelling method (probe and drogue). Which means that when Supersonicmax refuels from the Americans, he is refuelling either from a US Navy refuelling plane or from one of the (not all) USAF AAR asset that has been modified by their Air Force to refuel the Navy, something which is relatively recent (post 9/11) and was done by the USAF to become more relevant in oversea deployment.

As for the "Canadian" AAR assets, they all do the probe and drogue method. None of them  to my knowledge is equipped with the boom system of the USAF. That is why my understanding was that the "canadianized" F-35's were to be "hybrids": They were to be the Air Force model (A), but modified to carry the USN style probe for refuelling. 

 

[Baz]

According to Max, it is no big deal if we don't have AAR.  Fine, retire a couple of the modified Hercs and or make them do something more useful.

We bought the C-17, so get rid of the Airbus.  Used the save O&M to get any white tail 17s that are left.

But we run into the argument of needing them to support coalitions.  Hmm, but isn't that why we want the F-35, to be better coalition partners.  Seems to me that is the investment for that purpose.

However, I would bet that isn't what will happen.  As soon as the RCAF is sure that the F-35 is secured, they'll start talking about a Polaris replacement, probably all fitted as boom tankers.

Don't get me wrong; I would love to see us get the expeditionary wing the Australians have: 737 based Wedgetails, 737 based Poseidans, 330 KC-30 Tankers (maybe 767 based KC-46As, or could a 737 based tanker be enough?), F-35s, Superhornets, Growlers, Tritons, Herons... but we can't afford it, by a long shot.  We need to make smart, affordable decisions; and I think the fact that the groundwork is being laid to replace the Polaris before some of the other capabilities is scary.

 

[Harrigan]

OGBD,

Yes, but my understanding is that hybridization project for the F-35A was cancelled, unless Canada paid for all the R&D, as we were the only ones who wanted it.  If we bought B or C models, it wouldn't be a problem.  But we are supposed to be buying the A model (if at all). 

There's also the not inconsequential problem of the lack of suitable northern airfields of sufficient length for anything bigger than a Herc - if you are imagining using AAR assets in the region.

Harrigan