Comments on: Obsessed with Vertical Lift?

By: SteveD

SteveD — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:14:01 +0000

The F-35B has a serious business case — it is the only aircraft that can meet the USMC/UK RN requirement (not to mention the “Harrier carrier” requirements of India, Italy, Thailand, and Spain, and potentially of Japan). More importantly, if the Marines have any justification for a “high performance” fixed wing jet, it is that they need a jet organic to units operating from expeditionary strike groups (no CVNs) and from short/unprepared/minimally hardened forward air strips. VSTOL provides this capability, with the understood cost in range/payload.
However, traditional low-and-slow, eyeball-on-target CAS is obsolete in the era of ubiquitous MANPADS, SHORADS, and light AAA. CAS must be replaced by direct air support, providing NRT response to target designations by ground controllers using an illuminator (laser or MMW) or providing a 1m3 target cube based on GPS offset and laser ranging and a characterization (e.g., tank, troops in trench, mortar team in SE corner, 1st floor, masonry building, etc.).
The AF F-35A is an unnecessary airplane. It does nothing substantially better than the already in production F-22A except carry a somewhat larger (but still inadequate) bomb load; and is much weaker in range, air-to-air capability, and sustained cruise. The AF would do better buying 10 AEF’s worth of F-22s (380), updating the A-10 to A-10C, and remanufacturing or buying F-15Es with AESA radars and helmet-mounted sights, dropping the F-35, and expeditiously retiring the range/payload limited F-16.
The Navy F-35C is also of questionable value. While it has somewhat more range/payload than the F-35B, it offers no real benefit over the F/A-18E/F except stealth. It cannot match top-notch Russian– or European– air superiority aircraft. The Navy needs a replacement for the F-14D — a fast, long range, truly multi-mission aircraft, or should invest its money in supersonic, stealthy SSGN/DDG/CG-launched cruise missiles and long-loiter stealthy subsonic UCAVs.
–SteveD

By: Benjamin Onorato

Benjamin Onorato — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:15:20 +0000

An unmentioned fact is that the development of this technology is unprecedented. It’s versatility is unlike the Harrier, and requires extremely intense engineering. It will cost a lot of money to do something for the first time, but once you figure it out, it gets a lot cheaper.

By: Ian M. Guajardo

Ian M. Guajardo — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:58:23 +0000

Yes, the F-35B Lighting II V/STOL should proceed as planned. The need for a supersonic V/STOL aircraft was proven during Desert Storm and in the Faulklands.
AV-8B Harrier II has been intergrated into Marine Corps amphibious warfare doctrain. Cutting the program will only cause a deficiet in the over all war fight plans and doctrains.
Also, the new generation amphibious assult ships USS Wasp (LHD-1) class of ships are designed for the intergration of the Harrier/F-35B and the Osprey. These classes of ships cannot operate conventional aircraft (due to the lack of catapults and angle-deck flight deck.
Oddly enough, the U.S. Air Force was also considering a small number of F-35B V/STOL as part of their strike packages for future battles due to the capabilities of deploying with the troops, short runways, and quick reaction strike teams in a short notice.
There are three other countries currently using versions of the Harrier:
Italy, Spain, and India.
A plan should include these three and additional countries to provided a boost in the F-35B program.
Keep the F-35B program going strong!

By: Ian M. Guajardo

Ian M. Guajardo — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:56:53 +0000

By: Ian M. Guajardo

Ian M. Guajardo — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:55:18 +0000

By: John Duino

John Duino — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 06:33:52 +0000

VTOL has always been troublesome, as can be witnessed by the (continually growing) list of failed aircraft. When I approached a senior engineer while at Rockwell asking about VTOL he pulled out a study done by “some smart-aleck young engineer.” To summarize, if you took all the thrust required for VTOL, lose all the weight and complexity required for the clap-trap doors, nozzles, etc., and just shoved the thrust out the rear end, a same-planform aircraft could STOL in ~10–20% of CTOL aircraft.
Mr Skinner is correct re: the flapjack. The propwash over the surface is what gave it the extraordinary results.
One interesting statistic came out of the first Gulf War. Approx 15% of conventional aircraft struck by missiles were shot down. (my # might be slightly off, but not by far). The percentage of Harriers shot down when struck by a missile? 100%! The basic reason is that most missiles are heat-seaking, which head to the hottest parts, namely the nozzles. Where are the nozzles on each? F-18/F-15/F-14/F-16…they’re many feet behind the critical components of the engines and even the aircraft. Where are the nozzles on a Harrier? Directly below the wings, directly astride the engines, fuel lines, control systems…the heart of the beast.
The list of STOL technologies/techniques/tricks is probably orders of magnitude longer than VTOL, with just as high a percentage of failure (if not higher). It still comes down to physics and the air: there’s only so much you can make it do. Until we start modifying the air (plasma?) to alter the physics I just don’t see VTOL improving.
Just my $0.02.

By: George Skinner

George Skinner — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:19:02 +0000

Just wanted to respond to a couple of points earlier in the discussion:
I think the AH-56 would have serious problems with survivability in current operations in Iraq. From what I’ve read, one of the justifications for dumping the AH-56 and going on to the AAH/AH-64 Apache programs was that Vietnam had taught the US Army that they needed to build a lot more armour and survivability features into their helicopters, which had proven extremely vulnerable and suffered huge losses to ground fire. AH-56 started in 1965, so hadn’t benefitted from those lessons.
As far as the Flying Flapjack, I don’t think that a jet-powered version would be especially practical. The effectiveness of the prop-powered version came from directing the prop slipstream over the wing surface in such a way that improved lift and also reduced induced drag by counteracting the vortices along the edges of the wing/body. Without that prop slipstream, you’d just have a big low-aspect ratio wing that would be pretty draggy.

By: pedestrian

pedestrian — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 09:45:04 +0000

I like the F-35B’s VTOL capabilities, but miss VTOL F-109, which sounds like a jet version of a tilt rotor V-22. I wonder why F-109 was cancelled.
AH-56A is pretty cool too, even the price and technology was a challenge. How would it have performed in the world today if it was in service, especially in the assymetric warfare just like in Iraq?

By: RTLM

RTLM — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 04:14:39 +0000

The F-35B will happen. It is the only new fighter that the Marines and the British can launch off their Aircraft Carriers. By cutting the F-35B, you’d be asking the Marines and British to either replace their Carrier Fleet or consider disbanding it.
And having secondary Blue Water air wings atop much less expensive ships is an advantage worth the wait and the cost.

By: Bob Ehling

Bob Ehling — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:44:21 +0000

Two comments:
1) VTOL also gives the Harrier the capacity to “viff” (vector in forward flight), which allegedly gave it a high kill ratio at low altitudes in Red Flag exercises some time ago. The lift fan may have similar attributes for future ACM, particularly flight at the high angles of attack necessary to fully exploit future air-to-air missile capabilities.
2) Don’t forget that work is already under way to use the lift fan bay for a directed energy weapons suite. That capability might be worth the extra engineering costs.