It is turning out that remote piloted fighting planes, without the fragile human cargo, can out-turn, out-brake, and out-accelerate the old line manned fighters.
In many ways you can add 'smarts' to any missile to make it a very good one shot attacker.
With no human on board the weapon load can be 5 or more times larger. In addition, the cost declines.
In addition, with modern missiles, even a stealth fighter is an easy target now they use the newer multi emitter radar.
(multi emitter radar has many radar transmitters/receivers at separate locations that exploit the specular aspects of stealth planes. Every cell tower can be used as one of these sites with data processing finding the shape of the plane in the sea of clutter).
If the US is smart, they will switch away from manned and to remotes, like Russia has indicated they are doing.
I'm not the person you were responding to, nor do I claim any knowledge of jet fighters, but at a top speed of Mach 1.6 (1,200 mph), it would seem to me that relaying data back and forth from the jet would be a serious technical challenge.
A pilot on board the jet receives input from the environment with effectively 0 latency, and responds with 0 latency as well. The only latency would be human reaction latency, which the remote pilot would have to. Except that remote pilot would also have to contend with network latency to a plane that's thousands of miles away.
That's assuming the connection doesn't break, which with a plane moving away at 1,200 mph in various arbitrary directions, seems likely.
> A pilot on board the jet receives input from the environment with effectively 0 latency, and responds with 0 latency as well. The only latency would be human reaction latency, which the remote pilot would have to. Except that remote pilot would also have to contend with network latency to a plane that's thousands of miles away.
Also remotely operated planes can be disabled by disrupting the communications link. A piloted plane is still able to operate in a degraded mode in an environment where communications links are disrupted.
If the USAF went all-in on remotely operated planes, that could incentivize adversaries to increase investment in technology to disrupt the links that control them, since such technology could deliver air-superiority against an all-remote air force in a single action.
so true, and deep scrambling involves longer delays - delays you do not have.
You can have local pilots 10-15 miles out with fighting robots as the tip of the spear.
Read about how the Air Force shrunk the coding procurement link - which was 3-4 years deep
There is no one size fits all solution. Data link latency is a real factor, but that can be mitigated by hard wired look up tables and some degree of AI auto piloting. In addition, the Military industrial complex has its mouth gripped tight to the Pentagon teat. As we have seen in past wars, the rise of fogies into upper echelons with archaic mind sets is a real problem. Losers fight with the past wars winning tech, winners do better.
More likey we’ll see combined strategies. Some missions are better manned and some unmanned, while some scenarios would benefit from a hybrid approach where manned fighters operate among a fleet of autonomous, semi-autonomous, and remotely controlled air vehicles. Among the later, the lines between missile and drone are likely to blur.
The article is a year old and parrots some of the talking points from the F-16 vs F-35 exercises that definitely didn't reflect the full capabilities of the two aircraft.
The F-35 at the time was flying with its flight envelope restricted by software, and the test pilots involved were not really doing an all out dogfight but were instead working on determining the F-35's flight envelope and how it responded to different tactics.
In general the article just does the same thing as others, repeats stuff from blogs and so called "experts", people who have probably never even touched and F-35 much less flown one.
It does seem to be a fun topic for clickbait though.
And adding to that that the only nation to use it in combat so far is Israel and they seem to like it (they are the only nation to increase their order after using it in theater) and despite theirs being heavily modified I would err on the side of caution swallowing these gloomy statements that seem to have more problems with the politics and funding of the program than with the jet itself.
The same things were said about the F16 in it’s early days.
And in fact it was the IAF that proved that it was suited for both long distance combat sorties and old school bomb sights bombing runs when they used it to take out the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq which proved many F16 critics at the time wrong.
The truth is that these days no replacement for a fighter jet would be that much superior to what it’s replacing not because it’s poorly designed but because what it’s replacing has had 40 years worth of improvements and refinements.
Block 70 F16s have nearly nothing in common with the original fighting falcon there likely isn’t a single part that is even interchangeable between them.
That said the F16 unlike the F35 doesn’t have another 40 years it’s air frame has already been stretched (literarily) beyond its limits so we do need a new platform regardless of its growing pains.
And for people criticizing the F35 over its low order numbers well they are low compared to the F16 but the F16 has been in service for 40 years and introduced during essentially the largest arms race the world has ever seen aka the Cold War.
The truth is that these days no replacement for a fighter jet would be that much superior to what it’s replacing not because it’s poorly designed but because what it’s replacing has had 40 years worth of improvements and refinements.
What is the scope of the improvements and refinements?
I’m hard-pressed to think of something you could replace “fighter jet” with and have the statement be true.
Computer? Automobile? Spacecraft? Telephone? Probably not. Dwelling or building? Potentially...
Is this a Ship of Thesius situation where every part of the F-16 has been redesigned and replaced over time, but it’s still called “the F-16”? Was forward-compatibility a design goal? Was it just designed at a time where the state-of-the-art was at a ‘sweet spot’ of sophistication such that the overall structure had design longevity but the guts could be replaced?
>What is the scope of the improvements and refinements?
The current F16 has very little in common with the original one that entered into service in 1978, even the air-frame was redesigned several times, new engine, new avionics new everything, the modern F16 blocks (C 50/52 onward) are like 6000 lbs heavier (naked) than the F16A naked while having a longer range and larger carrying capacity.
>Computer? Automobile? Spacecraft? Telephone? Probably not. Dwelling or building? Potentially...
Yes and no, in this analogy the F16 isn't a Laptop Model X123 but rather just a "Laptop", in the desktop PC world just a "case" and on top of that if the case could also be heavily modified.
The SR-71 had an official top speed, and a real top speed. Every time the Russians put out a new world record the Blackbird would go up and take it back.
When we talk about how defense dollars are spent I always am of two minds. Because I have no idea if we are comparing apples to apples. Everyone knows the flight characteristics of the F-16, but how many of us know what the -35 can actually do?
> but how many of us know what the -35 can actually do?
Zero people.
What we know from the years of F-35 testing to date is that the aircraft meets the original contract specifications. What we do not know is how the aircraft will perform in operationally representative scenarios. That will be done beginning later this year (supposedly) when Initial Operational Test & Evaluation begins.
The test in question was not even an "F-16 vs F-35" exercise, it was a regression test of a new vehicle control law software with an F-16 being used as a visual reference for maneuvering against. Additionally, the F-35 being used for the test, AF-02, is a "Flight Sciences" aircraft that lacks all of the F-35's mission systems (Radar, Electro Optical Targeting System, communications suite, and electronic warfare suite).
Can someone explain to be like a I'm a five year old why these planes cost much more than say a commercial airliner and the differences apart from the obvious speed, agility and missiles?
To be honest this is what I thought and had suscipions of most, I get the rnd costs but there aren't many defense contractors so they can charge what they like
The F-16's airframe is fine, but not stealthy. Stealth is crucial when it comes to taking out the tracking radars of most "strategic level" SAM systems (like the S-300 and S-400). The F-16, with its inability to carry stores internally, shines like a beacon to these SAM systems and can't get close enough to take them out without huge amounts of support.
Well among other things, these planes don't really cost much more than say a commercial liner.
Wikipedia says that 787s have a production cost of around $100 million per unit, and that the unit cost of purchasing one is somewhere between 200 and 300 million, and that Boeing expected breakeven at around 1000 units sold.
The unit cost of a F-35 is currently in the 100-150 million dollar range.
The 1.5 trillion dollar cost quoted is for the total program life - that's the cost purchasing, operating, maintaining, and upgrading a fleet of over 2000 aircraft over nearly 50 years. Of that, 1 trillion is in operating and sustainment costs. Total R&D and Test/Evaluation costs are estimated to finish up somewhere around 60 billion dollars, which compares favorably to the estimated 32 billion that Boeing spent before the first 787 order was completed.
They don't cost much more than a commercial airliner. The Boeing 777 costs around $300M. The most expensive F-35 (the STOVL B model) costs around $125M depending on how much accounting voodoo is performed.
Is there some reason why there are so many F35 articles on HN recently? Is there an anniversary coming up or an appropriations bill? Is someone shorting Lockheed Martin?
Will the f35 still be stealthy in 10 years against improved DSP capabilities?
My understanding is that if slap a super computer on top of the current radar systems, you can kinda of maybe possibly triangulate a F35. And DSP can be scaled up horizontally with cores...
The F35 in 10 years won’t have much in common with the F35 today just like a block 70 F-16 has nothing in common with the original F-16A, there is literarily not a single part that is interchangeable even the entire airframe is different between the F16s flying today and those which took off during the Cold War.
I worked on the Boeing-Sikorsky Comanche helicopter. That aircraft was also intended to be a multi-role aircraft, intended to provide stealthy armed reconnaissance and attack roles. The project was canceled after investing approximately $7 billion.
Multi-role aircraft are intended to save money, and it sounds like a good idea. You save money training pilots and ground crew. You save money with parts, support equipment and logistics. Unfortunately, the multi-role aircraft don't do the individual roles as well as aircraft designed specifically for the individual roles. I have yet to be convinced that the F-35 will be able to do close air support as well as the A-10.
When you put together the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Air Force requirements, it's really hard to come up with a multi-role aircraft that does each role well.
To be fair, each service has its own variant. That's increased cost, but each service should have aircraft that'll work well for the individual service's requirements.
The F-15, F-16, and F-18 are all multi-role aircraft, and are fairly unarguably the world's best in their categories. There's no reason to think the F-35 won't be in the same class.
As to the A-10, I believe the F-35's primary ground support approach will be from pretty high altitude, using smart weapons. That kind of approach will even work against first-tier opponents.
If you need "low and slow" close air support while shooting up the enemy with cannon, the Apache seems a better fit. The AC-130 is somewhere in between...note recent AC-130 variants have been getting longer and longer range weapons to decrease vulnerability to MANPADS.
The F-35 is not a multi-role aircraft, period. It is at best a platform, but there is only about 30% commonality between the different aircraft variants (A, B, and C).
40 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 67.1 ms ] threadIf that were the case, why wouldn't the world's premier warfighting nation instead be creating such a project, graft and all, instead?
Perhaps the answer is that the F-35 still fulfills a very real, very important role and that all of the FUD around it is just that. FUD.
A pilot on board the jet receives input from the environment with effectively 0 latency, and responds with 0 latency as well. The only latency would be human reaction latency, which the remote pilot would have to. Except that remote pilot would also have to contend with network latency to a plane that's thousands of miles away.
That's assuming the connection doesn't break, which with a plane moving away at 1,200 mph in various arbitrary directions, seems likely.
Also remotely operated planes can be disabled by disrupting the communications link. A piloted plane is still able to operate in a degraded mode in an environment where communications links are disrupted.
If the USAF went all-in on remotely operated planes, that could incentivize adversaries to increase investment in technology to disrupt the links that control them, since such technology could deliver air-superiority against an all-remote air force in a single action.
Read about how the Air Force shrunk the coding procurement link - which was 3-4 years deep
The F-35 at the time was flying with its flight envelope restricted by software, and the test pilots involved were not really doing an all out dogfight but were instead working on determining the F-35's flight envelope and how it responded to different tactics.
In general the article just does the same thing as others, repeats stuff from blogs and so called "experts", people who have probably never even touched and F-35 much less flown one.
It does seem to be a fun topic for clickbait though.
The same things were said about the F16 in it’s early days. And in fact it was the IAF that proved that it was suited for both long distance combat sorties and old school bomb sights bombing runs when they used it to take out the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq which proved many F16 critics at the time wrong.
The truth is that these days no replacement for a fighter jet would be that much superior to what it’s replacing not because it’s poorly designed but because what it’s replacing has had 40 years worth of improvements and refinements.
Block 70 F16s have nearly nothing in common with the original fighting falcon there likely isn’t a single part that is even interchangeable between them.
That said the F16 unlike the F35 doesn’t have another 40 years it’s air frame has already been stretched (literarily) beyond its limits so we do need a new platform regardless of its growing pains.
And for people criticizing the F35 over its low order numbers well they are low compared to the F16 but the F16 has been in service for 40 years and introduced during essentially the largest arms race the world has ever seen aka the Cold War.
What is the scope of the improvements and refinements?
I’m hard-pressed to think of something you could replace “fighter jet” with and have the statement be true.
Computer? Automobile? Spacecraft? Telephone? Probably not. Dwelling or building? Potentially...
Is this a Ship of Thesius situation where every part of the F-16 has been redesigned and replaced over time, but it’s still called “the F-16”? Was forward-compatibility a design goal? Was it just designed at a time where the state-of-the-art was at a ‘sweet spot’ of sophistication such that the overall structure had design longevity but the guts could be replaced?
The current F16 has very little in common with the original one that entered into service in 1978, even the air-frame was redesigned several times, new engine, new avionics new everything, the modern F16 blocks (C 50/52 onward) are like 6000 lbs heavier (naked) than the F16A naked while having a longer range and larger carrying capacity.
>Computer? Automobile? Spacecraft? Telephone? Probably not. Dwelling or building? Potentially...
Yes and no, in this analogy the F16 isn't a Laptop Model X123 but rather just a "Laptop", in the desktop PC world just a "case" and on top of that if the case could also be heavily modified.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...
And in space you can see it today take a look at Space X and the differences implemented in Falcon 9 during it's development from block to block.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Launcher_versions
When we talk about how defense dollars are spent I always am of two minds. Because I have no idea if we are comparing apples to apples. Everyone knows the flight characteristics of the F-16, but how many of us know what the -35 can actually do?
Zero people.
What we know from the years of F-35 testing to date is that the aircraft meets the original contract specifications. What we do not know is how the aircraft will perform in operationally representative scenarios. That will be done beginning later this year (supposedly) when Initial Operational Test & Evaluation begins.
The test in question was not even an "F-16 vs F-35" exercise, it was a regression test of a new vehicle control law software with an F-16 being used as a visual reference for maneuvering against. Additionally, the F-35 being used for the test, AF-02, is a "Flight Sciences" aircraft that lacks all of the F-35's mission systems (Radar, Electro Optical Targeting System, communications suite, and electronic warfare suite).
But as stated elsewhere, that isn't porky enough.
The F-16 isn't stealthy (terrible in fact), and the F-22 isn't well suited as a strike bomber - its weapon bays are too small.
In fact, the F-35's single engine design works well in providing enough space for weapon bays, while still keeping the aircraft fairly compact.
The F-16's airframe is fine, but not stealthy. Stealth is crucial when it comes to taking out the tracking radars of most "strategic level" SAM systems (like the S-300 and S-400). The F-16, with its inability to carry stores internally, shines like a beacon to these SAM systems and can't get close enough to take them out without huge amounts of support.
Thus, the F-35.
I don't know why I was downvoted with no good counterarguments.
Wikipedia says that 787s have a production cost of around $100 million per unit, and that the unit cost of purchasing one is somewhere between 200 and 300 million, and that Boeing expected breakeven at around 1000 units sold.
The unit cost of a F-35 is currently in the 100-150 million dollar range.
The 1.5 trillion dollar cost quoted is for the total program life - that's the cost purchasing, operating, maintaining, and upgrading a fleet of over 2000 aircraft over nearly 50 years. Of that, 1 trillion is in operating and sustainment costs. Total R&D and Test/Evaluation costs are estimated to finish up somewhere around 60 billion dollars, which compares favorably to the estimated 32 billion that Boeing spent before the first 787 order was completed.
It's like comparing the cost of a bus vs a tank.
My understanding is that if slap a super computer on top of the current radar systems, you can kinda of maybe possibly triangulate a F35. And DSP can be scaled up horizontally with cores...
(I am not an expert on radars, planes, dsp, etc)
Multi-role aircraft are intended to save money, and it sounds like a good idea. You save money training pilots and ground crew. You save money with parts, support equipment and logistics. Unfortunately, the multi-role aircraft don't do the individual roles as well as aircraft designed specifically for the individual roles. I have yet to be convinced that the F-35 will be able to do close air support as well as the A-10.
When you put together the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Air Force requirements, it's really hard to come up with a multi-role aircraft that does each role well.
The F-15, F-16, and F-18 are all multi-role aircraft, and are fairly unarguably the world's best in their categories. There's no reason to think the F-35 won't be in the same class.
As to the A-10, I believe the F-35's primary ground support approach will be from pretty high altitude, using smart weapons. That kind of approach will even work against first-tier opponents.
If you need "low and slow" close air support while shooting up the enemy with cannon, the Apache seems a better fit. The AC-130 is somewhere in between...note recent AC-130 variants have been getting longer and longer range weapons to decrease vulnerability to MANPADS.