ANALYSIS: Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter
(Australian Aviation, May/June 2002, p 28-32, p
24-27.)
Carlo Kopp, PEng
Carlo.Kopp@aus.net
© 2002, Carlo Kopp
©2002, Aerospace Publications, Pty Ltd,
Canberra.
July 15, 2002
1 Part 1 A Cold War
Anachronism?
Judging from the media
rhetoric in early January this year, one could almostbe forgiven for believing that the Joint Strike
Fighter (JSF) was the anointedreplacement for Australia's F/A-18A and F-111
fleets - no doubt to the annoyance ofmany in Defence who are immersed in the
complexities of AIR 6000 capabilitiesdefinition. The reality of the Joint Strike
Fighter is much less sparkling as manywould like us to believe. In this month's
analysis we will explore some of theissues.
The new LM F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has the
distinction of being a `first' in more than one respect. It is the
first combat aircraft to leverage the massive US Air Force research
& development investment in the F-22 family of aircraft. It is
also the first attempt since the 1960s TFX (F-111) program failure
to produce a fighter which can meet the needs of all three US
services with fighter fleets, as well as the needs of export
clients. As the Joint Strike Fighter program includes both
conventional, carrier capable and STOVL variants, it is the first
ever attempt to create a fighter which spans three very distinct
deployment regimes. Finally, it is the first attempt to produce a
very low cost aircraft with genuine stealth characteristics.
With the prospect of around 3,000 Joint Strike
Fighters for the US services, replacing the F-16A-D, A-10A,
F/A-18A-D and AV-8B, and the potential to render all European
fighter offerings wholly uncompetitive in the large F-16 and F/A-18
replacement markets, the hope of US manufacturers and their
congressional supporters is that the Joint Strike Fighter will
become the next F-16 and secure the US industry with an unbeatable
advantage in the future `commodity' fighter market. Greed is a
powerful motivator in the Joint Strike Fighter program and one which
is likely to see most of the obstacles to this aircraft, and its
inherent limitations, ignored in the quest for market dominance.
The history of the Joint Strike Fighter (formerly
the Joint Advanced Strike Technology - JAST) program is by any
measure colourful, its earliest origins tracing back to technology
demonstration programs for a Harrier follow-on for the US Marine
Corps and multirole fighter for the US Air Force (refer AA December
2001 and http://www.jsf.mil/). The shrinking US aerospace industrial
base soon saw significant congressional pressure applied for the
initial technology demonstration goal to be extended into a
production fighter program. In its current shape the Joint Strike
Fighter program could lead to the production of around 3,000 Joint
Strike Fighter variants replacing US Air Force F-16Cs, A-10s, US
Navy F/A-18Cs, and US Marine Corps and RAF/RN Harrier variants. The
lead service in the Joint Strike Fighter program remains the US Air
Force.
From the very outset the principal aim of the
Joint Strike Fighter program was to produce a low cost mass
production strike aircraft which exploits the latest
avionic/computer, stealth and production technologies. Given the
incessant political threats of F-22 program cancellation held over
the US Air Force through most of the 1990s, limiting the air
superiority capabilities of the Joint Strike Fighter was a political
imperative - moreso given that air superiority capabilities such as
high thrust/weight ratio and sustained supersonic cruise are not
very compatible with very low unit cost. If the Joint Strike Fighter
were to be too snappy a performer in the air superiority game, the
F-22 would have been promptly axed thereby shifting USD 20B or more
of production costs back by at least a decade much to the delight of
vote buyers in the US Congress.
Indeed as recently as a year ago the US Air Force
had to defend the F-22 against repeated political attacks, most of
which clearly illustrated the almost total technical illiteracy of
the F-22's critics. Invariably the argument is that the F-22 is `too
big, too costly, too capable' or `built around Cold War needs, thus
irrelevant to the modern environment' and that a Joint Strike
Fighter can do the job well enough.
The US Air Force crafted the basic definition of
the Joint Strike Fighter - its size, performance, load carrying
ability and target cost around its principal tactical strike
fighter, the Lockheed-Martin F-16CG/CJ. In the mid 1990s US Air
Force force structure model the F-15C flew air superiority and air
defence tasks, the F-111F, F-15E and F-117A performed the `deep
strike' penetration tasks, with the latter used in more heavily
defended environments. The venerable Fairchild-Republic A-10A
Thunderbolt was used for battlefield interdiction and close air
support, together with the F-16CG. Defence suppression was performed
by the F-16CG, in concert with AGM-130 firing F-15Es, after the
retirement of the formidable F-4G Weasel. In this model targets fall
into two distinct bands - those within a 400 NMI radius of friendly
runways, and those at 600 NMI and beyond.
This force structure model evolved during the
latter part of the Cold War, and combined a relatively diverse mix
of fighter capabilities. With the 1970s F-111F, A-10 and F-117A,
1980s F-15C/E and F-16C and a mix of weapons with lineages back to
the 1960s, this model was a cumulative aggregation of almost three
decades of technology and evolving doctrine. This was the force
structure which the US Air Force applied with such devastating
effect against the SovBloc modelled Iraqi defences in 1991 and it
proved itself convincingly.
There is however one important division which can
be drawn through this force structure model - size. With the
exception of the small single engine single seat F-16, all of these
aircraft are large twin engine fighters designed to push the
performance envelope in their respective categories.
The ubiquitious F-16 was a uniquely Cold War
phenomenon. With NATO and the Warsaw Pact geographically poised
along either side of the Iron Curtain, presenting each other with a
concentration of force and targets unprecedented in history,
significant imperatives existed for both sides to saturate the
theatre with high performance fighters. Whoever won the air
superiority game over Central Europe held the decisive advantage in
the Cold War standoff. Fighter combat radius and endurance over the
target are not issues when the geographical environment puts the two
largest military forces on the planet head-to-head across a single
frontier.
The Light Weight Fighter (LWF) contest saw the GD
YF-16 take the laurels and decisive build numbers over the YF-17.
The production F-16A was a day-VFR light weight air combat fighter
designed for exceptional transonic agility and good supersonic dash
performance when clean, armed with Sidewinders and an internal gun.
Its principal role was to destroy enmasse the Soviet and allied
Warpac strike fighter fleets in close air combat, and then swing
into day-VFR battlefield air interdiction and close air support to
eradicate Soviet/Warpac land forces, the latter role to be shared
with the F-15A, F-4E and F-111D/E/F. With the Soviet/Warpac fighter
fleets dominated by the MiG-21, MiG-23/27 and Su-7/17/22 series, the
F-16s would have enjoyed a decisively target rich environment.
With the impending retirement of the F-4E Phantom
II, the US Air Force needed a substitute to fill the tactical
fighter bomber role. The F-16C, equipped with the LANTIRN Terrain
Following Radar and FLIR/laser targeting podset, was to fill this
niche. With European theatre geography and threats driving this
need, the radius of the F-16 airframe was yet again not an issue.
When the Soviet Empire collapsed, the US Air Force
was forced into a massive downsizing program. Under significant
budgetary pressure, the remaining F-4E and F-4G aircraft were
retired, followed by the F-15A, much of the F-16A fleet and early
model F-111A/D/E/G aircraft. By the mid to late nineties, the US Air
Force fighter fleet comprised primarily the F-15C, F-16C variants,
the F-15E and a small number of F-117As. Most of the massive B-52
fleet was retired and the buy of B-2A `batwing' bombers was chopped
from 132 to 60 and then finally 21.
Expectations during this period were that the
principal strategic problems the US would confront would be
troublesome nations in the Balkans and the Middle East, with
ethno-religious conflicts between smaller nation states dominating
agenda. In this environment problem nations would be unable to
threaten US basing, and the enormous political clout during the `Pax
Americana' period would see easy access to basing. Concurrently the
US Congress showed little interest in the defence budget, and the US
Air Force faced the prospect of an aging and increasingly expensive
to run fighter fleet, in a strategic environment where air
superiority and safe in-theatre basing were virtually guaranteed.
This was the environment which shaped the Joint
Strike Fighter program - a situation in which combat radius,
endurance over the target, air superiority performance and
availability of in-theatre basing were not principal design
imperatives. Cost and industrial base survival pressures were the
foremost drivers in the Joint Strike Fighter program. The US Air
Force needed a cheap mass production bomb truck to provide a
one-for-one replacement of its aging F-16C inventory. The US
aerospace industry needed another F-16A with which to saturate
export markets and retain their eroding market position against the
Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon.
Perhaps the greatest misconception about the Joint
Strike Fighter program is that it represents a `repeat scenario'
when compared to the YF-16/F-16A program - a low cost highly agile
air superiority fighter designed to exploit cutting edge technology
to provide a shorter ranging supplement to the top end twin engine
large fighter (then F-15A, now F-22A) of the period. This
misconception misrepresents the central design objectives of the
Joint Strike Fighter program against the Light Weight Fighter
program, and also ignores the decisive role shift in the F-16 fleet.
In its day the F-16A was perhaps the nastiest
close-in air combat fighter in existance, requiring careful tactics
by even the top end F-15A air superiority fighter. While the F-16C
Block 40/50 is heavier, it is still a respectable air combat fighter
even if a dubious bomb truck. The F-16's central design optimisation
was the transonic dogfight, reflected in thrust/weight ratio, wing
loading, turn rates, climb rates and acceleration. In these
parameters it was competitive against the best in the field, even if
it could not compete with the thrust/weight ratio, wing loading,
climb rates and acceleration of the F-15A.
The Joint Strike Fighter's central design
optimisation is in-theatre strike, battlefield interdiction and
close air support, reflected in forward sector stealth, internal
weapons/fuel capacity and cruise efficiency in clean configuration.
In these parameters it outperforms the incumbent F-16C and
F/A-18A/C, while providing relatively similar air superiority
performance to these types. Against the current yardstick for air
superiority performance, the F-22A, the Joint Strike Fighter is a
non-contender - its 35 degree class transonic wing and 1:1
thrust/weight ratio are adequate for self-defensive purposes but not
in the league for rapidly establishing air supremacy.
Just as the joint Tactical Fighter eXperimental
(TFX) or F-111A/B program was cast at an early stage into a
conceptual mold of a high speed long range bomb-truck, the Joint
Strike Fighter has been cast into the mold of an incrementally
improved F-16C / F/A-18C class light bomb-truck, exploiting stealth
and modern avionics to provide a survivability edge over its
predecessors. The TFX program crashed and burned on the evolving
needs of the US Navy, who wanted more air superiority performance
and lower carrier landing weights.
Some critics of the Joint Strike Fighter argue
that it will `inevitably go the route of the TFX' experiencing cost
growth, weight growth and performance loss as it undergoes
development and its respective end users load it up with desired
design extras to meet their specific needs. Indeed US reports
suggest repeated political clashes in recent years, as the US Marine
Corps and Navy sought performance and capability improvements which
conflicted with US Air Force unit cost targets. Given that the
maritime users of the Joint Strike Fighter do not have an F-22
equivalent to gain the high ground in an air battle, it is not
inconceivable that we might see downstream disagreements in the
Joint Strike Fighter program as these players try to fill this
crucial gap in their basic capabilities.
The broader strategic issue for the Joint Strike
Fighter will be its basic sizing in a world environment which sees
two mutually supporting strategic trends - `problem nations'
acquiring ballistic missiles, both mobile and semi-mobile, weapons
of mass destruction, and a concurrent trend to implementing
`shoot-and-scoot' SAM/AAA air defence tactics. In air power
theoretic terms, the use of `shoot-and-scoot' SAM/AAA and ballistic
missile/WMD technologies represent an `anti-access' strategy. Such
strategies aim to deny the use of nearby runways by threatening
ballistic missile or WMD attacks on runways as well as hosting
nations, while providing a persistent and highly mobile air defence
threat (A good summary of emerging ballistic missile capabilities in
this area is at:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/missile/index.html,
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/missile/index.html).
Prior to the 11th September, long term US Air
Force envisaged a two tier force structure model: the Global Strike
Task Force (GSTF) , an Air Expeditionary Force comprising 48 x F-22A
and 12 x B-2A, would break the opponent's air defences and launch
high tempo attacks on critical command/control/communications, WMD
sites and ballistic missile forces. As the opponent's defences would
crumble, a `sustainment' Air Expeditionary Force, comprising the
Joint Strike Fighter, B-1B and B-52H, would then hammer the opponent
to collapse. This model makes two implicit assumptions - the enemy
cannot bombard friendly runways with ballistic missiles, and these
runways are close enough to permit a viable sortie rate
(missions/day) by the Joint Strike Fighter and F-22.
If the opponent chooses to play the ballistic
missile bombardment game, then this model does get into some
difficulty, since the 400-600 nautical mile range of evolved Scud
class missiles presents difficulties for the Joint Strike Fighter -
nearby nations might deny basing access and bases which are made
available might be shut down by ballistic missile strikes. This is
less of an issue for the supercruising F-22, as with decent tanker
support it can sustain a high sortie rate from a much greater
distance - the F-22 can transit to targets at roughly twice the
speed of contemporary fighters and the Joint Strike Fighter.
This was a principal strategic argument against
the whole concept of the Joint Strike Fighter prior to the September
11th events. Since then we have seen a pivotal shift in bombardment
tactics, with long endurance `loitering bombardment' used to
successfully engage and destroy fleeting and highly mobile ground
targets. This in turn mitigates against smaller fighters and
decisively favours aircraft which have larger bomb loads and
endurance. The argument that Afghanistan was a `one-off' does not
hold up to scrutiny - a campaign against Iran, Iraq, the PRC or more
than one African problem nation could see the very same geographical
problem issues arise yet again. Well spoken diplomacy is no match
against the threat of domestic terrorism across porous Third World
borders, or ballistic missile attacks with conventional or even WMD
warheads - all being convincing disincentives to the basing of a
US-led Air Expeditionary Force.
Whether one is hunting a high technology Russian
mobile SAM system, a mobile ballistic missile system, or a bunch of
terrorists in a four wheel drive or BTR-60, the inevitable reality
is that the best technique is `loitering bombardment' which is not
the forte of smaller fighters - including the Joint Strike Fighter.
The revived argument in the US promoting new build
B-2C `batwings' and an F-111/FB-111A class `regional bomber'
illustrates this important shift in the bombardment paradigm - and
the increasing long term exposure of close-in based Air
Expeditionary Forces to MRBM attacks. The argument pits direct
operational needs for striking radius, sortie rates and bombloads in
difficult to export or non-exportable top tier assets against the
limited yet highly exportable and thus potentially profitable
JSF.
Part 2 will compare the F-35/JSF against some in
service and production fighter types.
| Figure 1: |
The USAF intend
to use the F-35/JSF as a `one-for-one' replacement
aircraft fortheir aging
fleets of F-16C strike fighters and A-10A battlefield
interdictors. Against both typesthe F-35/JSF provides a significant
survivability improvement by virtue of its stealth
capability,while it
outranges the F-16C on typical strike profiles. The air
superiority and air defence tasksof the F-15C and deep penetration tasks
of the F-15E and F-117A will be absorbed by
thesupercruising stealthy
F-22A Raptor (USAF). | |
| Figure 2: |
The USN aim to
use the F-35/JSF as a replacement for the older
F/A-18A-D models,to provide
a `survivable first day of the war strike fighter' to
supplement the reduced observableF/A-18E/F in carrier air wings. The
navalised JSF has larger wings, stabilators and
marginallymore fuel than the
USAF variant. It will provide a respectable combat
radius gain over theF/A-18A-D but will not match the
performance of the long departed A-6E Intruder (E.J. van
Koningsveld). |
| Figure 3: |
The USMC, RN and
RAF will use the STOVL F-35/JSF variant to replace a
range ofHarrier variants for
operation from unprepared FOBs and STOVL carriers. With
a supersonicdash capability,
significantly better radius performance and a modern
radar, the F-35/JSFis a vast
improvement over the sixties technology Harrier family.
The Shaft Driven Lift Fantechnology will provide better hover
performance than the Harrier (USMC). |
| Figure 4: |
Current USAF
planning sees the establishment of the Global Strike
Task Force(GSTF) comprising
48 F-22As and 12 B-2As. This `silver bullet'
expeditionary force is intendedto demolish opposing air defences and
critical WMD targets in the opening phase of an
aircampaign, upon which a `sustainment force' of legacy B-52H/B-1B and
F-35/JSF
fighterscompletes the bombardment. The JSF is predicated upon having runways
within a 400-600nautical
mile class distance of intended targets, thus aligning
the aircraft firmly with Cold Warperiod geographical assumptions - a
precondition which may not be met in future
conflicts(USAF). |
| Figure 5: |
A key issue for
the JSF will be the proliferation of medium range
ballistic missiles inthe
600+ nautical mile range class. With North Korea having
supplied this technology to Iranand Pakistan the long term outlook is
that proliferation will be very difficult if not
impossibleto contain. While
a supercruising F-22 can sustain a high sortie rate over
such distances, thesubsonic
cruise optimised JSF will suffer a debilitating
reduction in sortie rates as distancespush out well beyond the design point of
600 nautical miles - both types requiring
generousaerial refuelling
support (Author/LM). |
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