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I bet that if powers that be decided not to unify F35, we’d end up with 3 specialized stealth fighter projects costing $1T each, and without the ability to stoc

I bet that if powers that be decided not to unify F35, we’d end up with 3 specialized stealth fighter projects costing $1T each, and without the ability to stockpile just one set of parts for sustained maintenance.

philwelch 9y ago
The Air Force and Navy both need (or want) a light, stealthy fighter-bomber. Historically, there's no good reason not to just make the Air Force use the same planes the Navy does. They just never actually agree on which plane they want and it's easier to let both services have their own way. The only tricky part is that the Marines need a STOVL close-air-support bomber to replace the Harrier, and the Royal Navy needs a STOVL fighter-bomber to replace the Harrier since they don't have full-sized carriers. There's some commonality between those requirements and the Navy/Air Force requirements--there's some rationale for stealthy CAS planes, and your STOVL plane needs to be a full-featured fighter-bomber for the Brits to want it anyway--but STOVL is a lot more complex than normal horizontal flight.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > there's no good reason not to just make the Air Force use the same planes the Navy does Perhaps the Navy plane is designed to fly from carriers; to operate in a wet, salty marine environment; and to operate where resources (fuel, parts, etc.) can be limited? Why would the Air Force want to make all those trade-offs in a $100 million plane? Remember that any trade-off will result in a certain number of additional dead pilots, failed missions, and lost expensive capital in a war. Perhaps the services need different ranges, have different refueling capabilities, have different functional needs (hunting subs, for example). They do different jobs, despite the fact that they both use small planes.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    Tons of air forces use the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet--just not ours.
- paulmd 9y ago
  > The Air Force and Navy both need (or want) a light, stealthy fighter-bomber. Historically, there's no good reason not to just make the Air Force use the same planes the Navy does. This is not actually true. The Navy needs a heavy chassis that can withstand repeated 4G+ carrier takeoffs and landings, the Air Force wants a lighter chassis that leaves more room for payload and allows more maneuverability. The Navy wants dual-engine configurations for reliability for over-water flight, the Air Force prefers single-engine for greater simplicity and weight efficiency. You can make something like the Tomcat or Hornet work, but it's not as agile as a dedicated interceptor, can't carry as much weight as a dedicated strike aircraft, and is heavier than a dedicated light-multirole aircraft. It's also more maintenance-intensive and has higher fuel consumption/shorter range than all of these. Money is no object for the US military, we get the best aircraft for the role, period. You can disagree about whether that should be the policy, but it is. The Marines' STOVL requirement is a third set of requirements that is totally disjoint to the other services, agreed. I don't know enough about it other than a general sense that it's possibly the complex task to engineer out of all of these. Airplanes go forward, not up and down. From a financial perspective, we might be better off just telling the Marines to fly helos instead and operate light strike aircraft off improved strips once we have a beachhead, but again, money is noobject, so they get a rube-goldberg airplane that can go up and down and land on their pipsqueak carriers.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    That’s the theory, but are the differences between, for instance, the F-16 and F/A-18 really enough to make any difference in any conceivable threat environment? It’s already a hard sell having dedicated fighters in the first place, since the US military hasn’t operated without air supremacy since the first weeks of the Gulf War. Is there a realistic threat model where the increased maneuverability of a single-engine light fighter provides any benefit whatsoever?
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      The U.S. military publicly agreed with your argument until a few years ago. To bomb primitive foes like ISIL or the Taliban, they don't even need F-16s; low-end planes or drones can do the job. Sec Def Bob Gates canceled several high-end weapons programs planned in the Cold War for that reason. But now the U.S. military expects to compete with 'near-peer' enemies such as China and Russia, and that is what they are preparing for. In that threat environment, any advantage or disadvantage can be significant.
- gaius 9y ago
  the Royal Navy needs a STOVL fighter-bomber to replace the Harrier since they don't have full-sized carriers The QE class carriers are 50% larger than the French carrier that has cats’n’traps and can happily operate any navalized aircraft. It’s not that they’re too small. It’s that they were designed by idiots. Then more idiots signed the cheques for them.
pg_bot 9y ago
I think you've learned the wrong lesson from the F35's development. It likely would've been more cost efficient to build three different planes that are specialized to the needs of each branch of the military. One reason that the plane has been such a boondoggle (1.5 trillion in development cost) is that it is trying to be everything for everyone. Optimizing a fighter jet for replacement parts is monumentally stupid. It should be optimized for its ability to perform its job in the field and it turns out each branch needs a different type of plane. Stockpiling several sets of parts is of least concern and is unlikely to cost more money.

philwelch 9y ago

The Air Force and Navy both need (or want) a light, stealthy fighter-bomber. Historically, there's no good reason not to just make the Air Force use the same planes the Navy does. They just never actually agree on which plane they want and it's easier to let both services have their own way. The only tricky part is that the Marines need a STOVL close-air-support bomber to replace the Harrier, and the Royal Navy needs a STOVL fighter-bomber to replace the Harrier since they don't have full-sized carriers. There's some commonality between those requirements and the Navy/Air Force requirements--there's some rationale for stealthy CAS planes, and your STOVL plane needs to be a full-featured fighter-bomber for the Brits to want it anyway--but STOVL is a lot more complex than normal horizontal flight.

forapurpose 9y ago
> there's no good reason not to just make the Air Force use the same planes the Navy does Perhaps the Navy plane is designed to fly from carriers; to operate in a wet, salty marine environment; and to operate where resources (fuel, parts, etc.) can be limited? Why would the Air Force want to make all those trade-offs in a $100 million plane? Remember that any trade-off will result in a certain number of additional dead pilots, failed missions, and lost expensive capital in a war. Perhaps the services need different ranges, have different refueling capabilities, have different functional needs (hunting subs, for example). They do different jobs, despite the fact that they both use small planes.
- philwelch 9y ago
  Tons of air forces use the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet--just not ours.
paulmd 9y ago
> The Air Force and Navy both need (or want) a light, stealthy fighter-bomber. Historically, there's no good reason not to just make the Air Force use the same planes the Navy does. This is not actually true. The Navy needs a heavy chassis that can withstand repeated 4G+ carrier takeoffs and landings, the Air Force wants a lighter chassis that leaves more room for payload and allows more maneuverability. The Navy wants dual-engine configurations for reliability for over-water flight, the Air Force prefers single-engine for greater simplicity and weight efficiency. You can make something like the Tomcat or Hornet work, but it's not as agile as a dedicated interceptor, can't carry as much weight as a dedicated strike aircraft, and is heavier than a dedicated light-multirole aircraft. It's also more maintenance-intensive and has higher fuel consumption/shorter range than all of these. Money is no object for the US military, we get the best aircraft for the role, period. You can disagree about whether that should be the policy, but it is. The Marines' STOVL requirement is a third set of requirements that is totally disjoint to the other services, agreed. I don't know enough about it other than a general sense that it's possibly the complex task to engineer out of all of these. Airplanes go forward, not up and down. From a financial perspective, we might be better off just telling the Marines to fly helos instead and operate light strike aircraft off improved strips once we have a beachhead, but again, money is noobject, so they get a rube-goldberg airplane that can go up and down and land on their pipsqueak carriers.
- philwelch 9y ago
  That’s the theory, but are the differences between, for instance, the F-16 and F/A-18 really enough to make any difference in any conceivable threat environment? It’s already a hard sell having dedicated fighters in the first place, since the US military hasn’t operated without air supremacy since the first weeks of the Gulf War. Is there a realistic threat model where the increased maneuverability of a single-engine light fighter provides any benefit whatsoever?
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    The U.S. military publicly agreed with your argument until a few years ago. To bomb primitive foes like ISIL or the Taliban, they don't even need F-16s; low-end planes or drones can do the job. Sec Def Bob Gates canceled several high-end weapons programs planned in the Cold War for that reason. But now the U.S. military expects to compete with 'near-peer' enemies such as China and Russia, and that is what they are preparing for. In that threat environment, any advantage or disadvantage can be significant.
gaius 9y ago
the Royal Navy needs a STOVL fighter-bomber to replace the Harrier since they don't have full-sized carriers The QE class carriers are 50% larger than the French carrier that has cats’n’traps and can happily operate any navalized aircraft. It’s not that they’re too small. It’s that they were designed by idiots. Then more idiots signed the cheques for them.

pg_bot 9y ago

I think you've learned the wrong lesson from the F35's development. It likely would've been more cost efficient to build three different planes that are specialized to the needs of each branch of the military. One reason that the plane has been such a boondoggle (1.5 trillion in development cost) is that it is trying to be everything for everyone. Optimizing a fighter jet for replacement parts is monumentally stupid. It should be optimized for its ability to perform its job in the field and it turns out each branch needs a different type of plane. Stockpiling several sets of parts is of least concern and is unlikely to cost more money.