back to article Supersonic stealth jumpjet rolls off production line

The plane which will replace the famous Harrier "jump jet" passed an important milestone yesterday, with the first production F-35B rolling off the assembly line at US builder Lockheed Martin. The F-35B at the rollout ceremony The F-35B rollout ceremony. Note the raised covers above the lift fan and supplementary dorsal …

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  1. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    Some points.

    1) The Harrier was regarded as a White Elephant by the US military when it came out, 'cos it wasn't supersonic. The Marines insisted on evaluating it (as they're *really* bloody-minded and don't like taking accepted wisdom from other arms of the military) and rapidly came to the conclusion that it was a "must have" item.

    Nice to see that with the advent of a new STOVL aircraft everyone's climbing over each other to say it's of no use. Try learning from history rather than repeating it's mistakes.

    2) VIFFing. During said US marine evaluation, the Hawker project manager was upset to be woken at about 3am (time difference) by a request for an answer to the question: If you're going flat out and you shove this nozzle control around, will the airframe take it? The following day the answer was supplied that the Harrier was as tough as old boots and it would, indeed, be ok to do this. The subsequent Aggressor evaluation of the Harrier, using VIFFing as a defensive/offensive technique came the conclusion that a Harrier in the hands of a skilled Harrier pilot was nigh-on impossible to shoot down for a modern, supersonic fighter as you just could not hold a missile lock for long enough. If the supersonic boys slowed down to handle the problem, the more maneuverable Harriers promptly handed their arses to them on a plate (there are more tricks in VIFFing than just "stop quickly...").

    3) The vertical lift system on the '35 is a ducted fan. It's extremely unlikely to melt anything and significantly less so than a Harrier, which points its hot jet exhaust downwards.

    The Soviets actually built a 'plane with a couple of extra jets pointing down to provided VTOL. That one required a concrete emplacement to take off from and land on (very useful).

    IIRC, when Hawkers were demonstrating the Harrier at the Paris(?) air show, the annoying "wurp, wurp" noise went off that means that the clever bit that balances the puffer jets has failed. In turn, this means "get out now". The pilot banged out and the unaccompanied Harrier then turned turtle and landed on top of the Soviet concrete monolith (Hawkers were trying to be flash by touching down on the grass next to it to prove they didn't need one) and their unfortunate aircraft. The diplomatic stink caused was a tad serious.....

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ Final Version (and others)

    There have been a few interesting (unofficial) reports sneaking out about Typhoon, in the past few weeks. Early in 2007 the Indian AF sent over some of their brand new Flankers, thrust-vectoring, the works; 'officially' no opportunity was taken to try these two cutting-edge fighters against each other - unofficially there was a chance for some pilots to have a crack at each other, and Typhoon flew rings around the Flankers.

    Also during the year some Typhoons went to the States to 'visit' the F-22s. In BVR conditions the Raptor did what is said on the tin, it was stealthy and pretty much unbeatable. Very, very unofficial reports say, however, that in 'real world' conditions with close in fighting Typhoon creamed the pride of the USAF!!

    Typhoon has been built with a certain amount of future proofing - a naval variant would be feasible, if the US decided to play hardball (again) over some of the technology and software issues. Interestingly it would also be possible to incorporate the type of thrust vectoring nozzles that feature on the F-22 and recent Russian jets; the structure of the fuselage can easily take the necessary modifications, but the software would need an extensive re-write.

    One option you have all missed in the AWACS/ASaCs discussions; an AEW version of the V-22 Osprey has been proposed and is, apparently, favoured by many.

  3. stalker

    @Natecar

    Hum.....

    "They also like having their aircraft so close to the front that the pilots sleep in a foxhole"

    Not sure how much tactical sense this makes, to be honest. Pilots (and planes) are multi-million dollar assets, having them that close to the front line seems like a...dumb?.....idea.

    I'm ex-army (british) and have to say that whilst the marines are fantastic guys, and very capable at what they do, their doctrine and training focuses on very different areas from ours. An example: We once did an exchange, and sent our recce platoon over to the states for a "swap", before a gang of jar heads came over to us. Some comments passed by them (not verbatim, but you get the idea)

    on fighting: "jesus did you see that? He hit him with his face!"

    on setting off for a 12 mile march and shoot competition:

    "waddya mean we have to walk? Wheres the freakin' humvees? A truck? you gotta be shittin' me!"

    on losing said competition:

    "how the f**k do you guys walk so fast with all that shit on your backs?"

    on losing out on a girl to an engineer:

    "yeah man, i'm gonna bust your face!"

    5 secs later

    "shit man, let him get up! stop hittin' him! you brits are crazy!"

    on getting up in a morning:

    "semper fi! do or die! gung ho! gung ho! gung ho!"

    This last i feel sums up the main differences between them and us...they are more (openly) aggresive, arguably better equipped, and theres more of them. They ARE that hard because they throw men and resources at the job until it gets done, whilst our soldiers have to work with the bare minimum of resources and support. compare your average US marine with pvt. charlie bottle from manchester, weighing in at 90lbs and doing the self same job, you realise that they may be as hard as they think, but we are a damn sight harder. we just don't tell everyone about it :)

  4. Matthew Morrison

    RE: It Isn't WWII Any More

    @ John Griffiths - to be fair John, the Phantom programme, albeit late on, highlighted that we hadn't quite reached the era of doing without a relatively cheap 'n' cheerful back-up weapon just yet.

  5. Steve
    Thumb Up

    @John Griffiths

    "Yes, in some conceivable situations someone on a battlefield might wish they had a sword, and a pilot might wish they had a machine cannon.

    But it's just not worth the weight anymore, or the training time that could be spent on something more useful."

    Have you not seen TopGun. "Too close for missiles, switching to guns"...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @Andy Bright - Eurofighter has a cannon...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon

    Armament

    * Gun: 1x 27 mm Mauser BK-27 cannon

    In fact, the same cannon used on the Tornado, Alpha Jet, Gripen and planned for use on the F-35 but they switched to a variant of the GAU-12 'Equalizer' cannon as used on the US Harrier II. The UK Harrier GR7 and GR9 though do not have cannons.

  7. David Evans

    @Andy Goodair

    The Typhoon may be the best thing since sliced bread, but that's no guarantee a navalised version would follow suit; The Typhoon has a number of design issues that make conversion for naval use pretty complex; low wing design, high landing speed, landing visibility problems etc. not to mention the the amount of airframe strengthening it would need; about a million years ago I used to work in the design office for BAe, working on the T-45, the navalised Hawk trainer for the US navy. By the time they'd finished redesigning it they could have designed an all-new aircraft; and the Naval plane weighed more empty but only had about 2/3 the takeoff weight of the land-based Hawk. Successful naval adaptions of land-based aircraft are extremely rare; the other way around, certainly, but bear in mind, one of the reasons the French went their own way with the Rafale was because they wanted a plane designed for carriers from the outset.

  8. Ishkandar

    @Mike Plunkett

    Investment in flat-tops is *NOT* a valid argument NOT to can a plane !! The Chinese currently possess *THREE* large flat-tops; Two are now casinos with landing/parking spaces for private choppers and the third is a floating hospital. Not one of them will ever carry a warplane !!

  9. Steve Ringham
    Stop

    Harriers in combat

    @Ashley Pomeroy

    If you'd read all of Sharkey's excellent book (well worth reading for anyone interested in a "bottom-up" view of the Falklans campaign as a counterpoint to Sandy Woodwards "top-down" tome) you'd know that he successfully piloted his Sea Harrier in mock combat against F-5s and even F-15s. The art of dogfighting is to make the opponent fly in the speed regime where your 'plane handles best - Sharkey understood his aircraft very well, hence his success against F-15s.

    Due to it's design, Harriers (all models) fly very well very slowly - far slower than air superiority fighters. That and the ability for the pilot to shield it's Pegasus engine's heat signature - keep the nose up and let the broad wings hide the exhaust ports.

    In the Falklands, the faster and (on paper) more capable Mirages learnt to keep well away from the Harrier patrols after their initial encounters. The Argentine successes with Exocets appear to be due to gaps in the patrols due to operational changes (it's all explained in the book).

  10. DutchOven
    Black Helicopters

    @Andy Goodair

    We've got to buy this plane. Whatever happens, we won't stop our military spending.

    We can't take our lips and tongue off the cock tip of the american military in case they go off in a huff.

    If we upset them then they'll probably decide that we're part of the "Axis of Evil"...

  11. Nev
    Joke

    @ George

    "Well maybe one, its French so only fires white flags."

    George, T'es une vrai connasse.

  12. James Pickett

    Cost?

    No mention of the price, I see. Apparently this is about $60m each, or enough to buy three of the AV-8 Harriers it is designed to replace. I wonder which would be more effective..?

  13. Mark
    Flame

    @ Starace

    Considering that during the Falklands war 20 Harriers managed to thwart 120 Argentinian mirages by shooting -a lot- of them down using the air-braking/enemy overshooting strategy. The Argentinians (and French) also thought that the Harriers would be easy targets, and how wrong they were. Its a great strategy that has been conclusively proven in a theatre of war.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AEW Planes

    Air search radar is limited to line of sight. Since the Earth curves this means that at sea you are luck to pick up sea skimming missles and/or planes at much over 18-20 miles (on a good day....more likely to be 5-10 miles). Putting air search radar on an airborne platform increases the the performance considerable...the higher the better. RN used to have Ganetts for this task but with the demise of the fleet carriers (Ark Royal, Hermes, Eagle, Bulwark Victorious etc etc) we where left with the stunted things that are currently in service (Invincible, Ark & Illustrious) which had not facility for Airborne early warning aircraft.....Having almost had our arses kick in the Falklands because of this (and lost Sheffield & Coventry specifically as a result of this lack of radar coverage) we ended up with a kludge solution that is the Sea King fitted with AEW radar.

    Much better for loiter times and height to have a fixed wing solution...increases the range considerable.

  15. heystoopid
    Black Helicopters

    @john

    @john if those pesky Russians were crap pilots then please explain the missing numbers of the cream of both USAF and the RAF pilots flying some very sophisticated heavily armed jet air craft were mysteriously lost in flying over many former Soviet Russian States back in the cold war or why the ratios were not so hot in the Korean War !

    By the way in the same period how many Russian Military aircraft were shot down flying over the so called Western NATO Countries ?

    One very unsophisticated Russian pilot pre training begins with all candidates subject to a high speed centrifuge G test prior to being placed in the appropriate training program where as the wankers in the west post test their pilots after their expensive training program before being moved to advanced jet trainers the two seat versions of the front line fighters !

    You also forgot to mention a number of salient facts about what happened to an entire range of NATO aircraft including the ultra sophisticated F15E advanced model (not the crappy very long in the tooth older F15A with high flight hours as the nose section forward of the first Wing Spar frame section now tends to fall off in any G turn above 5 but that is another story for another day) for all these aircraft became canon and missile fodder to the so called lesser Russian counterparts !

    Me thinks you have completely forgotten about the results of the last three years Asian Pacific War Games with the Indians supposedly flying the far less sophisticated export model Sukhoi SU-27 or how a small batch old MIG-29E's of the old East German Air Force post 1989 took out the best of the best in the European theatre for nearly a decade !

    The problem in the west is that we suffer from the syndrome that if it was made behind the Iron Curtain and built by the Russians it can only be crap or rubbish ! , But how soon we forget the numerous assorted very expensive white elephants like "Blue Bolt" or the equally crap Bloodhound Ground to Air Missiles , the TRS2 or the two decades needed to iron out the bugs in the F111 to name but a few of the numerous late over designed and ten times overpriced rubbish and the lousy battle unready junk sold to equip our western armies on the Rhine or the many numerous extensive well documented military lemons made post WW2 ! How soon we forget western arms maker make far more expensive but very useless play toys that cost between ten and a hundred times more then their Russian equivalents !

    What price a choice indeed !

  16. Paul Rafter
    Thumb Down

    Oh Dear

    Some of the comments here are just plain wrong, there seems to be a lack of understanding on many things. Did someone say the Eurofighter has stealth!? where did you dream that up? Harriers need replacing they cannot carry many weapons or are capable of long range flight. The B varient will always be useful as someone said before you dont just send a carrier in, it requires support ships supplies, an Aegis cruiser or 2 a few ASW destroyers o maybe a sub or 2. Can the RN supply that? no. Who ever said the waves add strain on the wings? plain stupidity. Naval versions worst enemy is salt the modification to navalised one plane aren't much but the catapult strain and arresting wires strain mean the whole aircraft needs to be structurally sound otherwise it will pull itself apart. Who ever said planes only fight BVR is just wrong, they love to do BVR but its not always the case. Otherwise IR missles which work in visual range and cannons on planes would be useless yet they have them because NAM taught them a reason, NOT every fight is BVR. The Eurofighter is crap not stealthy and slow, the F-22 is hands down the best fighter in the world the Euro fighter loses in nearly every way to an F-22 the F-35 shares some tech from the F22 but comparing the F35 to the Eurofighter of F22 is not fair the Eurofighter was concieved in the 1980's the F-35 wasn't. Rememebr if a plane carries weapons externally it WILL NEVER be STEALTH. And what people fail to forget is theres no point having a sick aircraft loaded with weapions that can go fast, as if it cant lock up its enemy with radar then its game over. Look first Shoot first KIll First. One last point top gun decceleration manouvers and harriers pointing there thrust forward, will result in death. Jet jocks live by a rule. Speed is energy, Energy is Life, nuff said.

  17. ton

    how about

    some kind of small zeppelin or balloon to take care of the aew role, remote control, could keep it in the air for days.

    the e2d works but only on big carriers as the french found out during trials, as the deck was just a bit to short for them to land on it

    as with all air warfare today command and control decides the outcome, get your planes in the right place at the right time and your opponent is doomed, make sure he does not see you and he should not even take off. All of history proves that if you don't control you lose

    @dave

    sound is not an issue, as its speed is limited, thus sound is perfect to find a submarine at 10 20 knots, but a fighter jet even subsonic is almost as fast as the sound it makes so by the time you hear it it is there, at supersonic speeds you hear it only after it is past you (and then only if your not dead)

  18. Sweep

    @ Lewis Page

    Increasingly any article by Lewis serves only to put forward his own views on his pet subjects.

    When are we going to get a section of the Register that is just called Lewis' Blog? Or alternatively why doesn't he just run for Prime Minister? Or EU President?

    Would you vote for him?

  19. alyn
    Black Helicopters

    What made the Harrier a success in the Faulklands

    The Harrier consistantly out-manouvred surrender-monkey Mirages and super Entendards by vectoring their thrust in flight and regularly exceeded their design specifications, even going supersonic for short periods in dives. We could never buy froggie aircraft just as they would never buy ours.

    Nobody doubts that the US can produce top quality military hardware, the British could too if we put as much money into defence,but the F-35 is unproven in battle. Wait for Faulklands II or Viet Nam II. Then we'll see if it "kicks ass"

    Alyn

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    RE: Boggling

    The beauty of stealth and supersonic really. It can't be "seen" by conventional radar and the noise it makes is of no help either. The damn thing could be pumping the Star-Spangled Banner out of a loudspeaker, but it would have overshot you (no pun intended) by the time you heard it - the plane's flying faster than the speed of sound y'see. :-)

    And regarding the STOVL and VTOL debate on the Harrier, IIRC, the Harriers can still technically do a vertical take-off, but would be next to useless as it can't carry weapons or much fuel to keep the weight down (the reason it needs to dump all its fuel before vertical landing).

  21. SnowHawk
    Boffin

    Not sure if you noticed

    I may be a little biased in this, as I am an Engineer that has worked on the F-35 program, but in case you haven't noticed, the F-35 is the cheap alternative right now. As expensive as the program is, you will not get a capable new fighter for less money. Especially not one with the sort of life-span that this program is envisioned to have. F-35s will be flying for a very long time.

    Nine Partner Nations (United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, and Turkey) are involved in the development of the F-35, with development efforts being spread out to those Nations in relation to the amount of development costs that they contributed. And yes, the whole withholding info from the British was a stupid thing to do, but withholding from Turkey is probably the right thing to do.

  22. Andy Bright

    @ Anonymous Coward - re Eurofighter Cannon

    I know the Eurofighter has a cannon - it's just the RAF ordered theirs without one to save money. And then said something stupid about never needing one in modern combat.

    The process went like this.

    Our glorious ex-Prime Minister promised the RAF they would get new planes. He then promised the Navy they would get new aircraft carriers, made a big speech about how we would once again have a great Navy and then someone pointed out the budget didn't quite stretch that far.

    Worse, aircraft carriers aren't much use without planes to fly off and onto them. Sure we could use harriers, but why then bother with the big aircraft carriers?

    So cuts had to be found and a series of stupid decisions were made in order to save face.

    First you have to remember that the Eurofighter was going to receive upgrades to it's spec over a timeline, and that the final spec (a la F-22) wouldn't be met until the very latest Eurofighters rolled off the production line.

    Unfortunately the RAF got theirs first. And while we were allocated a portion of later orders, we had this sticky issue with the aircraft carriers and the F-35s, the planes we decided to buy to save face. And actually the F-35 wasn't too bad an idea either, if we had the money.

    So where do we get the money? Well we could increase the defense budget, except we can't because we've promised it all away on other things - like fancy new passports and ID cards and some really, really big databases.

    Here's an idea - why not sell some planes to the Saudis. Well great, except the Saudis won't buy Tornados any more because they've had a go in F-15s and F-16s, so they know they're rubbish. What they would be interested in though, is the very latest version of the Eurofighter, the ones better than our own.

    Well that was nearly enough money, but we need a bit extra. Enter cannon-less Eurofighters, and a line of bullshit about not needing cannons in modern warfare.

    So yes, Eurofighters do have cannons, but they can be removed to save money and that's what the RAF has done.

  23. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Boffin

    @ too many people to list!

    1/ Fighter pilots keep asking for cannon because all too often they end up getting close and personal with their targets, and a backup is always nice to have. It also helps in "policing" actions when you can fire a shot across the bows (or nose), whereas if you fire a missile then it's not a warning it's terminal (anyone remember a Sukhoi shooting down a commercial Jumbo over Korea 'cos the Suke didn't have a cannon?).

    2/ Harrier pilots used VIFF to tighten turns, usually to gain a few degrees on supposedly better-turning opponents, and again usually to get a bead for the old and reliable 30mm Adens. The "I'll throw open the airbrakes and he'll fly right by" trick only works in Top Gun (and with much more humour in "Hot Shots"). One Harrier trick was similar, this involved using VIFF to cause a sudden climb whilst maintaining an almost level attitude, a trick that caused many opponents to undershoot.

    3/ The GR7 and GR9 Harriers were originally to have the new 25mm Aden. This was the old Aden cannon updated to fire modern (American GAU-12) 25mm ammo. Whereas the old Adens could be carried in pairs in slim underbelly bulges on the previous Harriers, the 25mm Aden had the gun in one pod and feed from ammo in the second. All nice until the gun jammed (which it did a lot!). The old Aden was much more reliable but still did jam occaisionally, but having two meant there was still one to shoot those pesky supersonic drivers down with. The cancellation of the Aden 25 left the GR7 and GR9 without cannon, it was not an original design decision.

    4/ For the Falklands, the RN was quickly supplied with what was then the latest AIM-9L Sidewinders - these still proved very disappointing, with many falling short of the brochure range. The pilots themselves said the most reliable solution was getting in close and using the Adens. One pilot put it "I rated the Sidewinder as 50% effective, but the Aden as 100%." The next gen Sea Harrier FA2 got better radar to allow use of AMRAAM instead, but kept the trusted 30mm Adens. If only the RAF had perservered we wouldn't have wasted so much time and money on the Aden 25. This is even funnier when you consider many Argentinian pilots complained their DEFA 30mm cannon (the French competitor to Aden) often didn't work! This saved at least one Sea Harrier. Rafale has switched to the new and still French GIAT 30mm, apparently not without issues, rather than co-operate on a new design or use the existing Mauser 27mm.

    5/ The Dassault Super Etendard was a flying piece of cack. The navalised Jaguar would have been massively superior, but Dassault made sure that never happened. We lost our picket destroyers in the Falklands because we didn't have AEW, plain and simple. When the Harriers were able to find the Etendards they shot them down with ease. In Kossovo (and the Gulf) the Americans had so little faith in the French jets (christened "Super Reatrds" by the USN) they gave them the easiest missions only, and kept the tough jobs for themselves. Dassault tried to make marketing out of the fact that the Etendards scored "highly" against the easy targets, everbody in the know laughed. In the Falklands, it was Exocet and poor RN counter-missile capability that led to losses.

    6/ Rafale is good, very good even, but expensive and tailored very closely to the French requirement. It would be hideously expensive to refit to RN requirements, especially as there are doubts about Rafale's ability with AMRAAM despite Dassault's insistance it is tested. Rafale has so far failed in every sale outside of France, beaten by older but better kit like the F-16 and F-15. Even the Eurofighter Typhoon which Dassault tried its best to saboutage is doing better, and anyone who thinks the French can't pay bribes really does need to do some reading! SuperHornets are better all-rounders in nearly every respect and would probably be cheaper to buy off-the-shelf than Rafale. Both, however, just like the navalised Eurofighter, Rafale and teh SuperHornet cannot work from smaller carriers, unlike the F35B..

    7/ The US Marines love the Harrier. It is the USAF that hate it. Having browbeaten the US Army into giving up fixed-wing aircraft, the USAF is intent on getting the Marines into the same pickle. Most attacks on the Harrier (including the rubbish about how it is a bigger IR target for MANPADS) originates from the USAF. Thankfully, as well as being tough, the USMC is notoriously stubborn!

    8/ The Harriers have problems in hot air like the Gulf - all aircarft burn more gas in hot air, especially when manouvering, as hot air is thinner. The Tornado display team used 20% more fuel in their Riyadh display than they did at home! This hot air led to problems with GR7s in the Gulf and lots of media frenzy, but it is often forgotten that the GR7s still did the job. If needed, the Harriers could have remained, it was just at that point with hostilities over it made more sense to withdraw them.

    9/ Supersonic fighters do not do well at low level - especially when the pilots have been trained for higher level operations. Harrier has proven much better at the lower levels than many fighters. The USAF found out the hard way when it used fighter jocks in F-16Cs to support ground forces in Iraq, and the F-16 drivers started smearing themselves all over the scenary. The A-10 was and still is better for such operations than the F-16 or the F-18 or any other supersonic figter, and the Harrier a close second. I expect the F35B to be as good, though without the A-10's super-toughness.

    10/ STOVL is a much safer way to land on a carrier! With conventional jets you have to land and then stop, with STOVL you stop and then land. The former means taking an aircraft designed to fly supersonic and trying to get it to fly as slow as possible without falling out of the sky, then bringing it to a halt in a very short space. This means building fast fighters to fly well at the 180 knot range (hard!) and making them strong enough to take the deccelleration form 180 knots to zero under arresting (heavy!). Harrier was simply lighter as it didn't need all the extra reinforcement. The RN saw a major drop in landing accidents per flight with Harrier, especially as their carriers have always been smaller. The RN's use of Phantoms on the old HMS Ark Royal was considered suicidal by the USN, and that was much bigger than the Falklands carriers. It also means you can park more aircraft ready on the deck, whereas with arresting you have to clear a space for each aircraft to land. I have seen a pair of Harriers landing at once on the tiny HMS Invincible with two others hovering nearbye. I have never seen more than one conventional jet landing at a time, even on the USN supercarriers, and any companion flying out well away in circuit.

    11/ The new Russian fighters are very good, as were many of the older ones, especially as they have moved to building high quality rather than quantity. But the F35B will still be a far better naval fighter. The Sukhoi 27 would probably have been just as ineffectual as the Mirage in the Falklands as it was the Argentinian strategy and training that put them in a poor position. The RN pilots were better trained and had a better tool for the job. In a replay, given the same strategic issues, I would expect F35Bs to triumph over a force of Argentinian Sukes and Super Retards.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Andy Bright

    Actually the RAF versions have cannons, and always have done.

    The cost of deleting the cannon, designing the ballast to replace it and most importantly adjusting the avionics code was prohibitive.

    So all that was done was to just not bother to buy any support equipment for the gun, or ever load any ammunition into the aircraft, but to just leave the gun dormant. The '0' in the rounds remaining counter on the weapons display is easily ignored.

    I understand that this decision has now been reversed as someone has realised that cannons are sometimes useful, for example strafing ground targets in Afghanistan.

    Re: Saudis and Tornados; if they think they're so rubbish, I wonder why they're spending so much money at the moment on upgrades and a life extension program?

    I think what you'll find is they buy all sorts of things, and have had F-15s etc. for a while. They use everything together 'cos they can afford to and don't what to be stuffed by a single supplier.

    I believe that one reason for selling the Typhoons to the Saudis was to get rid of the Tranche 1 RAF stock. Tranche 2 (and 3, if it happens) are more capable and have the fancy technology - in helmet HUD etc. Better and cheaper to just offset delivery and get the later version than attempt an update on the old stock which isn't all needed at the moment. So sell the early deliveries and spend the money on later build.

    *

    I've had discussions re: the whole F-22 vs. Typhoon thing with some of those involved in the flying. Seem to remember something about approach speeds and engagement ranges and how the relative capabilities meant that the right tactics allowed a suitably armed Typhoon to take an F-22. (I believe you fly in fast and engage them at close-ish range before they get the chance to work out what's happening, react and get a lock, negating any initial BVR advantage).

    *

    Stealth - nice tech but debatable if a full stealth design is worthwhile compared to a low RCS design like a Typhoon. Most likely opponents don't have any sort of gear that would be a problem anyway. If they ARE the kind of people that could be a problem, it's quite possible they'll have a system that can detect a stealth aircraft even at extended range. Plus all the stealth in the world is useless if someone can get a thermo-optic lock on you. All you're doing is improving the situation with regard to early detection.

    It's all down to the compromise of whether using a stealth design is worthwhile compared to the possible degraded performance in other areas (e.g does a 'stealthy' shape provide the same flight performance as a more conventional 'low RCS' design?), and the high maintenance cost involved in keeping the aircraft fully functional (finishes, panel fit etc. need much more care). (Maintenance isn't cheap anyway with a 'standard' fast jet, but the costs are even higher with stealthy stuff)

    *

    Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how F35 progresses. Once a few line pilots get access and real life comparisons start to happen we'll find out how good it really is.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    leatherneck?

    The nickname really doesn't have anything to do with the haircut. It stems from the fact that on the Marines' uniforms between 1775 and 1875 there was a leather collar that was designed to protect the throat from saber slashes.

    Whatever. Enjoyed the article as usual.

  26. John Griffiths

    Top Gun

    Nice to see the gun advocates rely on 40 year old conflicts and the veracity of a 20 year old movie to push the case.

    You no longer have to point the plane at the target to hit it with the missiles guys.

  27. Geoff Spick
    Pirate

    Guns guns guns

    Can I point out that in the last three major wars, our aircraft spent less than 5% of their time in air-to-air action.

    These days its all about supporting ground forces with bombs, and when they are fighting at very close quarters, guns. Planes need guns and since we don't have the new A-10Cs to hand, the Harrier and its replacement need a gun. Otherwise we blow our own side up, see many angry donkey-walloper comments on the mil forums about Harriers being crap in the support role.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Blarg

    "you'd read all of Sharkey's excellent book (well worth reading etc"

    Hush. Of course I've read the entire book. It is not well worth reading; it is poorly-written, dispiriting, and unenlightening. It is the least entertaining aviation memoir I have ever read. The author comes across as the most unpleasant man in all of creation. His four topics are (a) the Sea Harrier's NAVHARS system is wonderful, and so is toss-bombing (b) it was unfair for the other carrier to perform fewer patrols (c) the Vulcan raids were a waste of time and money (d) the Harriers should have been asked to patrol at low level rather than up high.

    He briefly mentions a dogfighting competition against some US fighter aircraft, although there is not enough detail to support any conclusion. His subsequent air combats are brief, and described briefly. The Argentine fighters appear to have been armed with drop tanks. The actions of other pilots seem like an irrelevance to him. He moans continually and describes himself, with a straight face, as "Mr Sea Harrier". I envisage him as the kind of man who gets angry with counter staff. Nothing in the book supports these subsequent posts in which people authoritatively talk about Harrier air combat.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Lot of Falklands lessons being missed here

    >Using expensive ships as radar pickets

    This was due to the crap fit out of the expensive ships, ultimately two types had to be combined together because neither could do a decent job on its own.

    >You need to be using "cheap" aircraft

    Flown by "cheap" pilots?

    Living in "cheap" accomodation in the carrier?

    Aircraft stored in "cheap" storage space on the carrier?

    This swarm of aircraft taking off and landing on the multiple runways on said carrier?

    Nothing is cheap on an aircraft carrier least of all enough storage space for an aicraft.

    Actually, it's given me an idea for a new type of warship, the carrier swarm, one or two ships capable of acting as air traffic control, and multiple floating runways, little more than concrete barges.... Lose a barge - got another, lose ATC got another, got AWACS....

  30. Stephen Ware

    re: Lot of Falklands lessons being missed here

    >>Using expensive ships as radar pickets

    >This was due to the crap fit out of the expensive ships, ultimately two types had to be combined together because neither could do a decent job on its own.

    The point being made was that you shouldn't be using ships at all for purely picket duty as it just exposes the ships

    The supposed idea of 'picket' ships is to get around ground based radar line of sight problems with the curvature of the earth. If we had had a decent airborne solution then we wouldn't have probabaly lost Sheffield, Atlantic Conveyor, maybe even Sir Galahad. With the more advanced warnings we could have offered much better air support

  31. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Unhappy

    re: re: Lot of Falklands lessons being missed here

    The biggest lesson learned was that the RN (and to a degree, the whole British armed forces) had been far too tightly tied to the NATO mission role. This left us with a Navy that expected to be operating in the North Atlantic as part of a combined carrier group with lots of lovely USN E-2C/F-14 cover, with nothing more to worry about than hunting down the odd Soviet Alpha sub. Suddenly, said Navy had to take its small number of single-role warships and try and make them operate as an independent naval task force against a dedicated (but luckily poorly-trained) anti-shipping force.

    Our ground troops were almost as bad in that they had trained to fight in/with armour on the German plains against the Soviets, again with a nice NATO logistics system behind them. They now found themselves trying an amphibious landing without real armour support against a "friendly" power armed with the same and often superior kit (did you know the Argies actually had more nightvision gear on the Falklands than our troops did?), in an environment closer to artic tundra than German farmland, and thousands of miles from the nearest NATO warehouse.

    The RAF was suddenly asked to provide a very-long-range conventional bombing ability which it simply didn't have, because everyone had assumed that in the NATO war there would be only local interdiction at most and the only very-longe-range action would be the RN's subs throwing nukes at Moscow. Hence the deseprate refit of old Vulcans to do the job.

    Even the Special Forces (SAS, SBS and RMC) had problems as they just were not ready for the South Atlantic. Only the RMC had anything remotley like training for that kind of environment, and that was based around holding the Norweigean flank in the NATO war plan, not running Zodiacs up ice-bound inlets in St Georgia.

    What pulled it through was the grit and determination of our soldiers, sailors and arimen, backed by a gutsy PM. They pulled off an amazing victory but at a terrible cost that was largely avoidable. The biggest lesson from the Falklands War was that our military needs to be capable of independent action. This is again gradually being forgotten in the rush to meet unrealistic budgets and ludicrous commitments.

  32. Duncan
    IT Angle

    What's relevance to The Register here?

    Lewis is obviously obsessed with the military, but what the heck has it got to do with an IT news website? At least the eeeeeeepc girl has an IT angle!

  33. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    RE: What's relevance to The Register here? (and a self-correction...)

    The F35B deal includes a hardware and software technology hand-over to the UK. This may have a (tiny) impact on our high-tech/death-tech industries, most of which now relie on reams of software code to do the death-dealing bit. Also, we just like splodey-bang-bang stuff, 'cos we grew up with Airfix.....

    As for my self-correction (non-surgical), no Super 'Tards were shot down by Harriers in the Falklands War as they were operated well away from the Harriers. The Sea Harriers proved very effective at low-level, especially against the Dassault Mirage IIIs and IAI Daggers which had both been designed for higher altitude work. This was proven convincingly on 1st May when the Mirages first met Sea Harriers. Despite being armed with Matra Super 530 missiles the Mirages got their butts handed to them on a plate and for the remainder of the War the Argies tried to avoid the Sea Harriers, hence the Super 'Tards being kept well out of harms way. Instead, the Sea Harriers had to settle for shooting down 21 other Argentinian aircraft for no loss in air combat. Given that the majority of threats to the future Fleet will be doing the same (low-level anti-shipping attacks) it is highly likely the F35B will do just as convincing a job.

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