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"easily destroyed by much cheaper drones" To a certain extent, this has been true for more than two decades. I used to work as a radar engineer for the RAAF,

"easily destroyed by much cheaper drones" To a certain extent, this has been true for more than two decades. I used to work as a radar engineer for the RAAF, and every time we went on exercises against US forces (both teams flying F 18s, but with different missile payloads, we had AIM9s, the Americans had AMRAAM), we would see our aircraft swatted from the sky before we could even get the bogeys on weapons-system radar. Talk about dog-fighting maneuverability and visibility is just ridiculous - if you're using those characteristics, you've already lost the battle. In the control room we used to joke that the USN could have sent P51s equipped with AMRAAMs and AWACS support and they would still win. Modern fighter aircraft need to: a) not be seen b) be fast (time to target is still important!) c) carry a decent payload of weapons. Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need to carry it's own sensor suite. Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is almost inconsequential.

AsymetricCom 13y ago
A monumental fuckup of this magnitude makes me wish that this was some kind of smoke screen to cover the cost of some other kind of R&D of technology we can scarcely comprehend. $1,000,000,000,000 for a plane that doesn't work and has been outsourced to a dozen foreign contractors? I don't buy it.
- gchpaco 13y ago
  Are you kidding? My father works in aerospace for firms doing subcontracting on non-black projects and every time he talks about work it would be about some new ridiculous boondoggle. I remember some idiots conducting testing managed to pick up and drop a piece of flight hardware the size of a car about six inches, which probably cost about $100K to realign and repair. The ISS went through I think three or four--or maybe five?--ground up redesigns requiring everybody throw everything they had already done completely out the window and start over. Many of us on the sidelines watching marveled quietly that it ever flew at all. Small teams with tight deadlines can do wonders. This is why Skunkworks stuck. But it's important to note that Kelly Johnson was behind a lot of the big successes there and he was an amazing man. Absent organizational genius, you can run into trouble. The JSF is pretty much the antithesis of "small teams with tight deadlines".
Retric 13y ago
What I think most people miss is that Air to Air missiles are effectively beyond-visual-range Mach 4+ drones at this point. Stealth works, dog fighting is pointless.
TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
But Vietnam? Don't you think that the US might not eventually have problems when missiles get jammed and drones stolen?
jessaustin 13y ago
How are AWACS defended? Are they too far away for the enemy to engage? Is it possible to stealth a plane that constantly broadcasts radar? Do they have other means of missile/drone defense? I hope that "assume AWACS doesn't get attacked" is not the first assumption in all these war game exercises.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  The point being that the radar range of an AWACS vastly exceeds the range of any air-to-air missile in production or under design. So when you see hostile planes driving towards you, you send some fighters to go and shoot them down. Meanwhile the AWACS can be supporting air, sea and ground battles happening for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. They really are powerful tools.
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    How about disabling it from space. Load a cruise missile onto a satellite and launch?
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      Why not railguns? Or laser beams? The point is to deal with what exists currently and what is likely to exist in the service life of a military system. You're right though. Space will eventually and inevitably be much more militarised.
      - rdtsc 13y ago
        > Why not railguns? Or laser beams? But at the price of $1T they better be thinking of the future and think about opponents who are also willing to spend around that order of magnitude on defense.
        jessaustin 13y ago
        Well if this tactical situation goes like others have recently, it will more probably be a weird, cheap-ass, out-of-the-box attack that will dominate AWACS like roadside IEDs dominated Hum-vees. I don't know what that will be, but some possibilities are: network or systems hacks, airborne debris dispersal, swarm of cheap drones released inside the fighter shell, etc. The concept of a fighter escort perimeter reminds me of the firewall on a network boundary. That's not defense-in-depth, and by itself it doesn't work too well anymore. Sure the space-borne laser or railgun is fun, but it's probably not the first thing that the Taliban or their equivalent will attempt. Unless they can find a way to hijack one that we've conveniently installed for them.
tlear 13y ago
That was the theory in Vietnam, then jammers happened.. reality intruded and Mig17 with a cannon savaged far more advanced US craft that outnumbered them by orders of magnitude. oops. Drones are even more fun, notice how Iranians took control of one and got in perfect condition. Want to be defending your carrier then realize hmm I dont think we have concat with our toys oops indeed
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
This is the best comment in this whole thread: >Modern fighter aircraft need to: a) not be seen b) be fast (time to target is still important!) c) carry a decent payload of weapons. Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need to carry it's own sensor suite. Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is almost inconsequential.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  A drone? Why even bother putting a pilot into a steel tube with wings so it can fly some distance ahead, launch another faster steel tube with fins, then turn back. The only reason to even have a person in there is for dog-fighting for what I see. Otherwise with specs you described, it is just a pointless waste of money.
  - greedo 13y ago
    Because a pilot can control a plane when GPS is down, when jamming prevents remote control from Creech AFB, and because the Mark One eyeball is still pretty good.
    - rdtsc 13y ago
      A pilot still uses eyes, gyroscopes and has an understanding of terrain and how to manipulate a flight controls to make the aircraft go a certain way. Presumably all those things can be done by technology, terrain following, and autopilot systems are not new. If jamming detected it can return back to destination. I am sure it can be done for less than $1TN
      - greedo 13y ago
        Return to base automatically didn't work so well for the drone the Iranians managed to capture. Drones seem sexy and safe, but I'd be very surprised if we didn't keep pilots in the plane for a long time.

AsymetricCom 13y ago

A monumental fuckup of this magnitude makes me wish that this was some kind of smoke screen to cover the cost of some other kind of R&D of technology we can scarcely comprehend. $1,000,000,000,000 for a plane that doesn't work and has been outsourced to a dozen foreign contractors? I don't buy it.

gchpaco 13y ago
Are you kidding? My father works in aerospace for firms doing subcontracting on non-black projects and every time he talks about work it would be about some new ridiculous boondoggle. I remember some idiots conducting testing managed to pick up and drop a piece of flight hardware the size of a car about six inches, which probably cost about $100K to realign and repair. The ISS went through I think three or four--or maybe five?--ground up redesigns requiring everybody throw everything they had already done completely out the window and start over. Many of us on the sidelines watching marveled quietly that it ever flew at all. Small teams with tight deadlines can do wonders. This is why Skunkworks stuck. But it's important to note that Kelly Johnson was behind a lot of the big successes there and he was an amazing man. Absent organizational genius, you can run into trouble. The JSF is pretty much the antithesis of "small teams with tight deadlines".

Retric 13y ago

What I think most people miss is that Air to Air missiles are effectively beyond-visual-range Mach 4+ drones at this point. Stealth works, dog fighting is pointless.

TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago

But Vietnam? Don't you think that the US might not eventually have problems when missiles get jammed and drones stolen?

jessaustin 13y ago

How are AWACS defended? Are they too far away for the enemy to engage? Is it possible to stealth a plane that constantly broadcasts radar? Do they have other means of missile/drone defense? I hope that "assume AWACS doesn't get attacked" is not the first assumption in all these war game exercises.

jacques_chester 13y ago
The point being that the radar range of an AWACS vastly exceeds the range of any air-to-air missile in production or under design. So when you see hostile planes driving towards you, you send some fighters to go and shoot them down. Meanwhile the AWACS can be supporting air, sea and ground battles happening for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. They really are powerful tools.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  How about disabling it from space. Load a cruise missile onto a satellite and launch?
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Why not railguns? Or laser beams? The point is to deal with what exists currently and what is likely to exist in the service life of a military system. You're right though. Space will eventually and inevitably be much more militarised.
    - rdtsc 13y ago
      > Why not railguns? Or laser beams? But at the price of $1T they better be thinking of the future and think about opponents who are also willing to spend around that order of magnitude on defense.
      - jessaustin 13y ago
        Well if this tactical situation goes like others have recently, it will more probably be a weird, cheap-ass, out-of-the-box attack that will dominate AWACS like roadside IEDs dominated Hum-vees. I don't know what that will be, but some possibilities are: network or systems hacks, airborne debris dispersal, swarm of cheap drones released inside the fighter shell, etc. The concept of a fighter escort perimeter reminds me of the firewall on a network boundary. That's not defense-in-depth, and by itself it doesn't work too well anymore. Sure the space-borne laser or railgun is fun, but it's probably not the first thing that the Taliban or their equivalent will attempt. Unless they can find a way to hijack one that we've conveniently installed for them.

tlear 13y ago

That was the theory in Vietnam, then jammers happened.. reality intruded and Mig17 with a cannon savaged far more advanced US craft that outnumbered them by orders of magnitude. oops. Drones are even more fun, notice how Iranians took control of one and got in perfect condition. Want to be defending your carrier then realize hmm I dont think we have concat with our toys oops indeed

alexeisadeski3 13y ago

This is the best comment in this whole thread: >Modern fighter aircraft need to: a) not be seen b) be fast (time to target is still important!) c) carry a decent payload of weapons. Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need to carry it's own sensor suite. Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is almost inconsequential.

rdtsc 13y ago
A drone? Why even bother putting a pilot into a steel tube with wings so it can fly some distance ahead, launch another faster steel tube with fins, then turn back. The only reason to even have a person in there is for dog-fighting for what I see. Otherwise with specs you described, it is just a pointless waste of money.
- greedo 13y ago
  Because a pilot can control a plane when GPS is down, when jamming prevents remote control from Creech AFB, and because the Mark One eyeball is still pretty good.
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    A pilot still uses eyes, gyroscopes and has an understanding of terrain and how to manipulate a flight controls to make the aircraft go a certain way. Presumably all those things can be done by technology, terrain following, and autopilot systems are not new. If jamming detected it can return back to destination. I am sure it can be done for less than $1TN
    - greedo 13y ago
      Return to base automatically didn't work so well for the drone the Iranians managed to capture. Drones seem sexy and safe, but I'd be very surprised if we didn't keep pilots in the plane for a long time.