It doesn't carry much payload and, to be stealthy, it is limited to what it can stow in the relatively small spaces inside.
It is range-limited. If it is to remain stealthy it has to rely on internal fuel stores only. No underwing fuel tanks. One solution proposed is the development of an unmanned stealth tanker to refuel the F-35 as it approaches contested airspace. The problem is that hangar space on even the biggest aircraft carrier is at a premium and tankers will take up valuable space aboard the ship reducing the number of other aircraft that can be carried.
Fuel has become a critical issue because the adversaries against which the F-35 might be used, let's call them China, have developed a stand-off ballistic missile designed to keep the carrier fleet at bay. These 'carrier killers' mean the F-35 has to be launched far from its intended target. That's not good for an aircraft that already has a fuel capacity problem.
The Navy likes the F-35's electronic wizardry well enough it just doesn't like the shortcomings of the wrapper, the airframe Lockheed designed back when stealth was in its infancy. The Navy needs a better airplane, something that can allow its carriers to operate out of range of the Chinese ballistic missile wall.
This from Forbes:
The U.S. Navy quietly has stood up a program office to begin figuring out what the sailing branch needs in a new manned fighter jet.
One leading think tank in Washington, D.C., has ideas. Whatever the Navy buys to replace today’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, it should “emphasize range and speed, with low-observability being a secondary concern.”
In other words, it need not be a stealth fighter. Not as long as it can fly far and fast while carrying a useful payload.They want more F-14 Tomcat, less F-35 JSF.
The Navy’s new fighter should be fast and maneuverable while also possessing a combat radius that’s sufficient to keep the carrier beyond the range of the deadliest enemy anti-ship weapons—1,000 miles or so, seems to be the consensus. That’s 400 miles farther than an F/A-18 or F-35 can travel with a useful weapons load and moderate refueling support.
To help it defend itself, the Navy should equip the new fighter with “sensor-countermeasures”—that is, jammers—and self-defense weapons such as anti-missile missiles and lasers, CSBA recommended.
The Navy reportedly already has decided its new fighter will be a brand-new design rather than a derivative of the F/A-18 or F-35. If the service follows CSBA’s advice, its future F/A-XX could look a lot different than the non-stealthy and short-range F/A-18 and stealthy and short-range F-35 do.
Indeed, a fast, long-legged and reasonably maneuverable next-gen fighter could end up looking a lot like the Navy’s last fast, long-legged and reasonably maneuverable fighter did.
We’re speaking, of course, of the legendary F-14.
Boeing already has underdevelopment a somewhat stealthy version of its long-ranger, the (McDonnell Douglas) F-15. The F15SE (Silent Eagle) features changes in shaping, canted tails, radar absorptive coatings, internal storage bays for missiles normally carried underwing. It also incorporates the latest and greatest electronics. And it remains a very long-range, Mach 2+ fighter.
The F-15SE isn't a contender for Canada's next fighter buy. That comes down to Boeing's even less-stealthy and massively less capable, Super Hornet; Lockheed's profoundly compromised F-35, and SAAB's new generation JAS-39 Gripen. I'm not sure that any of the shortlist contenders will provide what Canada needs but the Gripen seems the best of the lot.
6 comments:
Regardless of the USN opinion of the F35 the aircraft relies upon the mothership to execute it's more elaborate capabilities.
Those motherships (AWACS) are only operated by the US and maybe the UK.
At the end of the day the F35 is feature of US foreign policy.
It was born in the age of you are with us or you are against us, USA policy.
Battles have seldom been won by technical, hardware, superiority but by overwhelming numbers of military equipment.
With outlandish costs the US cannot afford the amount of F35's to do it's will.
Hence the sucker campaign of offering manufacturing contracts to those it thinks could be coerced into it's own foreign policy.
America first!!
TB
I don't think the RAF operates its own AWACs, TB. It relies on the NATO AWACS fleet. The Achilles' Heel of the F-35 in USN use is the range of China's AA/AD ballistic "carrier killer" missiles. The F-35 is woefully inadequate in range to allow carriers to operate within China's aerial denial kill zone. That was one of the fatal compromises Lockheed had to accept in designing what was essentially a prototypical technology demonstrator and putting it into frontline service.
https://www.flightglobal.com/reduced-f-35-performance-specifications-may-have-significant-operational-impact/108619.article#:~:text=Lockheed%20Martin,-The%20US%20Department&text=Turn%20performance%20for%20the%20US,5.1%20to%20five%20sustained%20g's.
This is not the first time the F35 has had its performance expectations reduced.
If memory serves me well it could not meet range requirements early in its development.
Again this is an US airplane for US ambitions.
TB
It's had no end of shortcomings, Trailblazer. It couldn't 'make weight.' It has always had a weight problem. At one point Lockheed removed the fire suppression gear to pare a few pounds. When your onboard fuel supply is in a bladder draped over the engine and the aircraft has to fly around thunderstorms lest a lightning strike blow it to shrapnel, you've got a problem. At the end of the day the Air Force simply re-wrote the landing and takeoff distance requirements.
It was a flawed programme from the outset. Bush/Cheney wanted what they called a "two generation" technology leap and so they rushed this aircraft into production. It was even put into service a couple of years before the testing programme was complete with the idea being that deficiencies could be fixed on a remedial basis.
The prudent course was to let Lockheed design a technology demonstrator, a proof of concept aircraft. Then you identify what you need it to do and where the design needs to be changed to meet those requirements. Instead they insisted on hammering a square peg into a round hole, even getting foreign purchasers to rewrite their requirements to fit the F-35's abilities.
So, a new design. But here's the problem: For a new design, they'll have to go to the same bloated, corrupt corporations, and the same dysfunctional, corrupt procurement process, that resulted in the F-35. So, bets on whether it turns out to be just as bad? Bets on how many years the design process will take, and how many glitches and cost overruns happen on the way to production?
It might not be as bad because it seems like they're not trying for something that's all things for all roles. But still. At best, they're going to be waiting some few years before they get something they can use. At worst, they're going to be waiting some few years to get another F-35. And in either case, it will be so expensive that their huge budgets will continue to conceal relatively small numbers of actual planes.
Not that I mind. The more the US fucks up its military procurement, the less it will be capable of fucking up actual countries.
Never underestimate American military prowess, PLG. If, as you suggest, they run out of one thing they've always got something else to fire or drop on their adversaries. If they get really short, Trump has, I believe, authorized the development of a new generation of mini-nukes. In my time we used Anita Bryant's, Florida orange juice ads motto - "those little bags of instant sunshine."
There's still a lot of Dr. Strangelove in America's nuclear policy and what has been 'de-activated' is usually only turned off.
There was a time when I reluctantly supported disarmament. I'm becoming ambivalent again. The nuclear doctrines of the 20th century are obsolete, in need of a wholesale overhaul. We've still got Russia and America, the biggies. Then there are France, the UK, and Israel - all nuclear capable but second tier. What troubles me most are China, India and Pakistan. Three overtly hostile countries, all dependent on Himalayan headwaters, all with nuclear arsenals wildly beyond their needs. Two have established nuclear triads and Pakistan is working to catch up with a nuclear missile sub of its own.
Chinese and Indian troops continue to skirmish along the border of Uttar Pradesh. BBC reported today that an Indian force expelled a Chinese unit trying to become established in Indian territory. China, meanwhile, has built a big new highway right up to that border. A lot of Indian material and troops have to be brought in by train and helicopter.
Climate science keeps predicting severe climate impacts on all three of these nuclear adversaries - heat, droughts, sea level rise, water insecurity, food insecurity, powerful destabilizing impacts.
Meanwhile the centre is not holding globally. America is no longer the default world policeman. Chinese hegemony has been quick to exploit power vacuums opened by America's retreat. China again.
You can take these new realities, toss them up in the air, and each time you'll get a new pattern or scenario. And then there's "Thucydides Trap."
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