The Amityville Horror, AKA F-35B is back in the news. “Rick, there are Cracks in the Fuselage, I
tell you, I am shocked, shocked I tell you”.
Another structural failure observed and reported in the
continuing saga of the certification of the airframe to it (Sic) operational
design lifetime of 16000 Hrs. And they
were so close, well closer than the last time structural failures were observed
and reported. This time the observed
failures were report around the 7000 Hrs. mark.
Back to the drawing board for that part, that has got to hurt LockMart
bottom line (probably not LMT executive will present some argument as to how
and why it is the DOD fault, and that DOD should pay for it), after DOD has
already paid to fix this problem once before, and given the United States Budget
issues, and especially the DOD portion of the budget issue, are we the people
going to be asked to pony up for this error (Yes).
On a side note it is a very challenging engineering problem,
to design and build an aero structure that will meet the reliability
requirements and yet still be light enough to not make too big of a dent in the
performance envelope of the aircraft, it will be a trade off between the two
requirements, one gives you an under performing airframe that will last for a
long time, and the other givers you an airframe with an excellent performance
envelope but does not hold up to the daily grind, and becomes a maintenance
whore. But either way at the end of the
day it will be a very expensive airframe to operate and maintain.
This latest development begs the several question about the F-35
program and its two most troubled variants F-35B (Marines) and F-35C (Navy),
not that the F-35A part of the program is a thing of beauty and a cakewalk.
F-35B cannot seem to get pass the 8000 Hrs. mark, without a
cracks in the bulkhead flange, and mind you this is the redesigned bulkhead
flange, aka the Mark 2 design. So I
guess it off to redesign and we try it a third time, aka the Mark 3 design. Mean while the aircraft being produced are
with the Mark 2 design bulkhead, the prototypes had the Mark 1 design bulkhead.
Questions abound about this latest issue. One question concerns just how good is the
software that was used to design the Mark 1 and Mark 2 bulkhead flange, and
possibly the Mark 3 bulkhead. Maybe the
third time is the charm. Or it could
just be the definition of insanity, you know doing the same thing over again
and expecting a different result.
Lockheed has now done it twice and the results were pretty close to
being the same.
Just how good is the finite element simulation software that
was and is being used in the design and development. It might be that simulation software is
acceptable but that the tuning parameters were in error. It might be that the simulation software is
not acceptable and the tuning parameters were in error. Could it be that the aero structures
engineers just do not have a very good handle of the stress, strains and
vibrations that this particular part of the airframe is experiencing, or has
Lockheed just run out of Unobtainium.
The program is very quite on the F-35C front, and the
continuing efforts to carrier qualify this variant. Not very many if any successful traps,
something to do with the arresting hook location on the airframe (too far
forward relative to the main landing gear, due to the main landing gear being
placed so far aft on the airframe and the of the general absence of any
significant load bearing flight elements aft of the main gear, and the high
angle of attack required to get the arresting gear to project below that of
main landing gear). All of these
many-failed traps have been at the hands of some of the hottest sticks in the service;
God knows what it will be for the average Naval Aviator. Will the F-35C become the Navies new F7U-3?
Night traps were called by many practice bleeding, Day traps
were exciting, but nothing compared to a night trap. Given the very unique flight profile for the
F-35C currently being used in the attempts to make a trap, I suspect that day
traps in this airframe will become the practice bleeding exercise, and night
traps will be just exercises in pure terror.
As said before this program is looking more and more like
the TFX/F-111 program. It is time to cut
our losses. This will be one of the
great legacy problems that the out going SECDEF will leave to the incoming
SECDEF. There is a need, for some type
of Stealth attack aircraft, more so since the United States Air Force decided
to retire the F-117A. (Yes I know that
the F/A-22 can do some of the mission, and the B-2 maybe kind of sort of adapted
to parts of the mission, but you really would not want to.)
Given what we do know about the program the question is do
we need 2000 plus of the jewels?
The service that is going to be hurt the most if the F-35B
is a failure is the United States Marine Corp, the Royal Air Force will be a
close second. There is not follow on for
the AV-8B, which are getting pretty long in the tooth, parts are becoming a
major issue for this aircraft. It might
be a time for the Marines to start to rethink their doctrine on VSTOL. Other than in exercises have the Marines been
forced in any significant military operation to operate the AV-8B in VTOL mode
only, or have they had the luxury of operations from CTOL facilities?
If the issues with the F-35C continue The United States Navy
still has a plan B, in the FA-18 E/F/G.
The United States Air Force could continue with the F-35A, but limited
the number of airframes purchased to a few hundred, produce a new block variant
of the F-16 and or an uprated F-15E.
It comes down to a basic question, which I just have not
seen discussed much anywhere, and that is “Just how many stealth aircraft are
really needed after you have obtained control of the battlefield airspace”? Given that the past few major actions would
at best be characterized as High versus Low and Stealth is not a predominate
factor for a majority of the engagement, it does have it place early in the
engagements in the SEAD mission, but once the air defense system have been
render ineffective either by being destroyed or due to lack of replacement
parts and reloads, stealth does not play any role in the continuing engagement.
An aircraft system that tries to be everything to everyone
in the end typically becomes nothing to anyone.
The F-35 is beginning to look that type of weapon system, a veritable
Swiss Army knife, it looks good but for many situations, however it is just not
that good and for the most part impracticable if not impossible to use in any
meaningful way. Given the total program
costs to date that first bomb dropped in anger by the F-35 will be very
expensive.
I was taught that war is the application of violence to
achieve a desired outcome in an effective, and efficient manner. Will the F-35 meet this definition? It should be effective; the question is will
it be efficient?
The F-35 is thought of as some type of magic silver
bullet. Stealth will protect it in
combat. The problem is that stealth will
only get you so far, yes can delay detection, and yes it can mitigate
interception, but once the darkness has been pierced it will not stop holes
appearing in the airframe from bullet, or shrapnel. Just like the British and German night
bombers of World War II once you were caught in the spotlights you were shot
down no matter what you did.
If the ultimate mission for the F-35 is to penetrate and
either destroy or render a high tech oppositions Command, Control and
Intelligence infrastructure and systems ineffective we might possibly want to
look a cheaper can opener. Instead of a
magic silver bullet, we might want to think about a swarm of a thousand of
unmanned or autonomous not so magic silver bullet to do the heavy lifting with
a much smaller fleet of manned aircraft to clean up the surviving enemy assets.
You can only swat a few down at any one time, while you are
concentrating on the few, the many have already delivered packages, and
completed their mission. They would be
the Divine Wind on grand scale. This is
especially true with increased uses of Cruise Missiles, UCAV, and armed RPV. That is the order that you would use them in. These systems were either design to make the
initial penetrations of enemy airspace or have been adapted to make the initial
penetrations of enemy airspace. When
used in significant numbers these systems are capable of the destruction of an enemy’s
fixed based ground assets (fixed radar sites, offensive and defensive systems
sites, power generation and distribution facilities, communication switching
facilities, POL, Logistics and transport facilities, and air defense/operation facilities),
and to a limited extent mobile ground based offensive and defensive system.
These various unmanned or remote operated systems are about
as exciting as paint drying. They are
cheaper to develop than the current manned aircraft system. Provided they are developed with either a
single mission type or to a few limited mission types their development costs
can be easier to control.
It is to be expected that significant numbers of the
vehicles will be loss in combat. In the
case of the cruise missiles 100 percent will be loss, therefore they should be
the some of the cheapest to produce. In
the case of the UCAV and the RPV initial combat losses rate in excess of 50
percent should be unexpected. In the
cases where damaged UCV and RPV do return, the operational philosophy should be
to salvage and then scrap. Forward field
repair should not be an option. Forward
field repair is too expensive. Salvage
and scrap would only be performed at depot levels.
The goal should be to reduce logistics footprint of the forward
operational units, it will also reduces the intrinsic knowledge and training
level required of the system for the forward deployed personnel (when forward
operational loss do occur the pipeline for the replacements are significantly
reduced). On one side it will place more
slightly more strain on the logistics system to get fresh rounds/systems out to
the forward units and to recovered damaged round/systems. But on the other side it will significantly reduce
the sustainment requirements for the forward units, they are just not going to
be that big, food, fuel, water requirements will be significantly reduced. It takes a great deal of pallet space to support
a forward deployed soldier, so every one that you do not have to forward deploy
is significant savings.
These systems should be cheap to produce even to the point
of reducing reliability of the individual round, and they should be produced in
large numbers. They should be thought of
much in the same way as any ammunition round be it a bullet or an artillery
shell. One could argue that in many ways
they are nothing more than artillery rounds with greater range (I know that
this will hurt the feelings of members of the various services aviation
communities, but you all are big boys and girls and you will get over it), with
more smarts, but no more smarts than is required to perform its designed
function. But just like the artillery
round once it is fired it is on its way.
In the situations where the environment is hostile to the performance of
the mission due to counter systems you must put enough of these rounds on the
target to overwhelm the defensive system and destroy the target. The round does not care if it hits a target
that has been render ineffective or destroyed by the previous round.
The Israel Iron Dome system is a very nice system, but I am
sure that given the right conditions even it can be overwhelmed. The Iron Dome system is not cheap, and its
rounds are not cheap. You are basically
destroying a dumb cheap round with a very expensive smart round. Economics are not on the defenders side.
Israel has been lucky that to date the opposition forces have
not massed enough weapons for such an attempt, or maybe they were just trying
to get a handle on the systems performance envelope? One question that the IDF should be asking is
what did the opposition forces learn about the Iron Dome system from their last
demonstration? I suspect that various
interested parties were watching and watching intently, observing, and
cataloging the various events as they unfolded, and that today they are
formulating new tactics and test scenarios.
At the end of the day the winner will be the guy with the
last round and the ability to put it down range on the target. On the surface it appears that it is easier
to be the offense (your systems do not have to be that smart, and for that
matter that accurate, and if they not accurate you just put a larger war head
on it). The defense has the more
difficult problem to solve, and he has to keep solving the problem with a high
degree of accuracy and consistence in order to be successful.
The Offense just has to throw enough projectiles at a single
target within a limited amount of time to succeed (One big Time on Target
problem, with multiple threat axis if possible).
To the new SECDEF, reduce the F-35 Program, it will bankrupt
the United States, there are other options available.
