Britain cites overweight JSF

[46Driver]

Just in the Washington Times. www.washingtontimes.com/world/20040517-100311-2390r.htm

The (British) Defense Ministry admitted it is "concerned" about the aircraft's weight and urgent attempts are being made to fix the problem. The airplane is 3300 lbs overweight.

Cancel this thing now and get us more troops instead.

 

[jarhead]

and replace the Hornets & Harriers with what? more troops can't really provide Close Air Support, and current Hornet & Harrier airframes aren't going to last another 10 years ... actually they probably will, but will be G limited like the Prowlers

it's similar to the MV-22 debacle

s/f

Just in the Washington Times. www.washingtontimes.com/world/20040517-100311-2390r.htm

The (British) Defense Ministry admitted it is "concerned" about the aircraft's weight and urgent attempts are being made to fix the problem. The airplane is 3300 lbs overweight.

Cancel this thing now and get us more troops instead.

 

[46Driver]

There is a train wreck coming in the Pentagon budget. And its fairly obvious from the problems in Iraq that we do not have enough troops - witness that DoD is planning on using the IRS to find reservists it has lost track of. Tell me how the JSF could help the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan to justify the multi-billion dollar price tag.

 

[Dirty Underwear Gang]

So if we could cancel the JSF program this very moment and divert the money immediately towards increasing troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan (ignoring the fact that Congress would have to approve an increase in troop end strength), how do you propose that the services recruit, train, and integrate the new troops into a combat ready force in a reasonable amount of time where they could be a factor in improving the situation on the ground?

 

[VetteMuscle427]

Are we going to fall into the F-22 development cycle with the JSF? Can we afford to have an aircraft that takes 15 years to develop?

 

[riley]

You can't justify the price tag of the JSF by measuring it against its effectivity in Afghanistan and Iraq. The first aircraft hasn't even flown.

It is like saying, "Tell me how the JSF could help with violence in schools to justify the cost of the aircraft." The two don't go together.

Isn't it about future conflicts? I'm just a dumb civilian - but don't CH-46's cost a lot to maintain? Aren't you throwing all that money away maintaining old aircraft when you could have new ones whose maintenance and supportability costs are much lower?

Now to put it in context with the actual aircraft it is replacing - aren't Harriers maintenance intensive and costly to support? The Corps' F-18's aren't getting any younger either. Would the grunts on the ground like a forward area aircraft that can get to their position quickly and not have to leave immediately to go refuel?

I guess you could cancel the contract - move the money so that more ground guys can make it over to Iraq and Afghanistan - but many of those extra guys would go to supportive roles in order to keep aircraft older than the pilots and maintainers in the air.

I agree that the DoD needs to shape up (I'm thinking of that quote that by 2050 the entire budget of the pentagon will go towards the purchase of one aircraft and the services will have to register for time to use it) - and I'm not saying the JSF program is perfect - but somewhere down the line y'all are going to need new aircraft.

 

[vv123]

We definitely need to scrap this junker. I mean that is sound engineering isn't it: when you run into problems just shut the program down instead of solving the problems. I'm sure none of the current naval/marine/air force aircraft ever had problems during their development. Plus flying Vietnam era A-10's, 1970's F-16's, and '80's F-18's are fine today, who cares about twenty years from now.

And who would think that a next generation fighter would cost more than a fighter developed in the 1970's? Maybe added technology/sophistication and inflation are real things? Ya, we ought to pull old F-4's and A-7's out of the Boneyard and just fly those until Lockheed or Boeing can develop a cheap, quick, problem free replacement to just about every airframe we have. Problem solved!

 

[jarhead]

the U.S. didn't have enough troops in Iraq from the beginning, and the Army isn't doing a good job at it's role of an occupation force.

it's not the JSF we need, it's the new airframe. how would it have helped in the current conflicts? ... doing what our current Hornets & Harriers are doing now, providing CAS and armed recce, but with better, more advanced avionics, more fuel for loiter time, & easier maintenance (less cancelled flights)

There is a train wreck coming in the Pentagon budget. And its fairly obvious from the problems in Iraq that we do not have enough troops - witness that DoD is planning on using the IRS to find reservists it has lost track of. Tell me how the JSF could help the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan to justify the multi-billion dollar price tag.

 

[46Driver]

Nobody is still saying how we are going to pay for it - there is only so much money.

From Martin Van Crevald's "On Future War": "The discovery made by the Germans were later shared by virtually every other major armed force. Hitherto their tanks, artillery, fighters, and bombers had experienced little difficulty in tearing to pieces the rest of the armies of the world but when confronted by small bands of guerillas who did not wear uniforms, did not fight in the open, and melted away in the surrounding population, they found themselves at a loss." Sound familiar?

From Eliot Cohen's "Defending America in the 21st Century": The Air Force, Navy, and Marines still hope to spend $200B on the JSF - a short-range airplane that can only deliver a limited amount of ordnance....The Crusader and the JSF are 2 prime examples for dramatic cancellation. (since then, both the Crusader and the Comanche have been cancelled).

From Frank Finelli's "Transforming Aerospace Power" DoD is planning on spending over $300B (probably has risen since this was written in 1999) on the F-18E/F, F-22, and the JSF to replace our fighters largely on a 1 for 1 basis. Yet our adversaries already hide their aircraft when facing a confrontation with current US airpower... We face no competitor with the resources to build an integrated aerospace system....Plans to buy 3 new types of fighters for a total of 3000+ airplanes are almost certainly unaffordable."

The above came directly from my Naval War College books. Notice that when the Army cancelled the Comanche, they sunk the money earmarked for it into upgrading the ones they have as well as buying some more H-60's.

One of the exercises we had to do involved spending money on various programs. With all of the competing priorities, how are y'all going to spend the money? Bombers? Fighters? More troops? Carriers? Cruisers? Frigates? Tankers? Strategic Lift? Tactical Lift? Missile Defense? More troops? Trucks? Better Pay and Living Conditions? More money for training? Helicopters? V-22's? You only have so much money....which leads to the current and anticipated Security Environment? Who are we most likely to fight?

At the very least, I hope I have started some discussion. How do you split up the Pentagon's Budget.

 

[NeoCortex]

I agree what your quote is saying, that right now, we don't need Air-Superiority fighters. The problem with that is we can't plan for now, we have to plan for the future. What are we going to need in 20 years, not tomorrow.

 

[vegita1220]

Excluding the crap in Iraq, do we really want MORE troops? Seems to me more troops aren't actually suited for the war on terror.

Shouldn't the focus be on intel, SOF, and power projection? I mean, yeah you need troops to beat back the insurgents in Iraq and to establish order. But outside of Iraq, where we don't have a presence, it seems it would be more efficient to go after the head/s. Basically, assasination.

But then, what do I know, right?

 

[webmaster]

46Driver, great thread, and questions posed! I know everyone wants the newest and best fighter, predominantly, most of the members on this forum are hoping to fly one of those some day. But the military as a whole is facing a "tighten the belt" and save money for real world operations. Home cycle ships and planes are curtailing training and readiness to provide more funds for overseas operational efforts. Ongoing maintenance is indeed an issue, each community from F18s, 53s, 60s and P3s are facing unique problems with flying in many cases aging aircraft. This is not only being felt by the Navy, all you have to do is take a look at the problems the AF has been having with the overuse of the C5 fleet.

To see how this is not just an isolated instance, and the military is facing a shift in budgeting priorities, take a look at an excerpt from the news yesterday about the submarine force, and the problems it is facing on funding:

Submarine advocates are disheartened by the fact that the Navy is not building sufficient numbers of Virginia-class submarines to maintain the force, which would require two new ships a year.

In the early years of the Virginia program the Navy predicted it would be two a year by this year, but it now looks like it won't reach it until at least 2009 — and if a smaller force is authorized, it could be delayed longer.

But it's not just submarines that are in trouble. The House Armed Services Committee has cut funding to start construction of two next-generation surface ships, the next-generation destroyer or DD(X), and the Littoral Combat ship, or LCS.

And the other services have been equally hard hit. The Air Force wanted to build up to 700 F-22 Raptor fighter jets, but is probably only going to be able to afford about one-third of that number, and the Army has had two multi-billion dollar weapons projects, the Crusader artillery system and the Comanche helicopter, canceled outright.

....

But at about $2.5 billion per submarine, building two a year to maintain a force of 55 would eat up half of the shipbuilding and ship overhaul budget, he observed, making submarines a prohibitively expensive platform for missions where they face no threat, such as firing missiles into Afghanistan in the opening hours of the war against the Taliban.

Where do you spend the money? What is the priority? We are not using a peace time budget right now (with plenty for trainining and ongoing projects), we are spending money at a prodigious rate for operational missions.

 

[bch]

Just like to point out that the problem is not with all 3 models of the JSF. The AF versions and Navy version are looking good and are not having any signifigant problems (aside from normal ones that one encounters during initial testing). The problem is only with the VSTOL version. Does this mean that we need to cancel the entire program or possibly just the VSTOL version? Could the Corps be better supported with a better strike fighter or with just more Helicopter Gunships? Most grunts would rather see a Cobra overhead than a hornet.

As far as making more UAV's, that day does not seem too far away. When I was in school a few of my peers were asked to design and test a UAV that was capable of delevering ordinance ( I know they already exist) by a defense firm. It is sadly looking like the UAV may be the "strike fighter" of the future. (BTW just another reason to go Helos)

As far as the article about the subs... I think it should also be pointed out that while the American sub force does not face much of a threat these days, they are still one of the most valuable assets in the US Navy. They are not only one of the best ASW platforms, they are amazing covert strike, covert insertion, covert intel platforms. Not to mention the Boomer fleet which account for 100% of the US's survivable strategic deterent force.

All that being said, I personally think the corps could spend the money in better areas ( troops and helos)

 

[cindy]

Better yet, junk the JSF and put all monies into the UCAV design, development and deployment.

 

[VetteMuscle427]

My $.02 would be to develop it and start LRIP, at minimum. Just keep the assembly line open that way we dont have to start from scratch if we end up needing a new aircraft in mass quantity in a few years.

Why do we develop aircraft so much? These programs take forever. What ever happened to developing a good aircraft, producing a few hundred, upgrading as you learn more, and producing more? We had many versions of the F-4, F-16, F-15 and F-18.... why are we trying to get 100%