First Marine F-35 flight

[unixronin]

A week old, but I haven’t seen this anywhere else.  Marine Corps News reported last Friday that the first Marine JSF development test pilot, Maj. Joseph “O. D.” Bachmann, flew the F-35A Lightning II for the first time last Friday.

Bachmann said the purpose of the flight was to acquire experience and become comfortable with the aircraft so he can to find any potential flaws or issues that may need correction, especially in the short take-off and vertical landing version of the aircraft.

“Mission: accomplished,” said Bachmann after his first F-35 flight.  “It was amazingly easy to fly.  It was surreal.  It was badass.”

The F-35A is the conventional takeoff and landing version of the F-35, slated to replace the Air Force’s F-16s and A-10s.  The US Marine Corps will be receiving the F-35B STOVL version, which will replace their F/A-18 Hornets, AV-8B Harriers, and EA-6B Prowlers.  The US Navy will be getting the F-35C carrier variant.  In all, it is expected the F-35 will replace 13 aircraft types in the air forces of 11 nations.

An interesting detail:  Word is that only the F-35A will have an internal gun, a General Dynamics GAU-12 25mm rotary cannon with 180 rounds of ammunition.  The Marines and Navy have chosen to delete the internal gun and carry the same gun, with a helical ammunition drum holding 225 rounds, in a stealthy external pod that can be fitted to a dedicated centerline pylon.  In addition to the ability to remove it for missions when it’snot needed, one argument for the pod is that it allows larger ammunition capacity, but either way we’re only talking a couple of seconds of firing time.  I can’t help but suspect the drag of the pod will prove to be a bigger drawback than the extra 45 rounds, and I’ll bet the external pod — when carried — adds nearly as much additional weight over that of the internal gun as is saved by deleting the internal gun.

I thought we learned the lesson of the “no internal gun” idea on the F-4 in Vietnam.  The F-4 went into service without an internal gun, and it quickly became apparent that it was a bad idea, necessitating the hurried development of under-wing 20mm Vulcan gun pods.

Comments

[shadowcat48li.livejournal.com]

depending on the pod design the drag might not be too bad, I agree on going gunless being a bad idea we should have learned from the F-4. not a big fan of the F-35 in general, I am worried there trying to do too much with one overall platform.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

not a big fan of the F-35 in general, I am worried there trying to do too much with one overall platform.

I'm a mite concerned about that myself. The trouble with building an aircraft designed to do everything is the odds are good it'll turn out not to do any of them particularly well.

I see it in particular as a very poor and utterly unsuitable replacement for the A-10. It doesn't have the firepower for the job, it doesn't have the ordnance capacity for the job, it doesn't have the low-altitude survivability for the job, and it's too fast (and not maneuverable enough at low speed) for the job. Close air support needs a slow aircraft to give the pilot time to acquire and engage targets while operating at little more than treetop height. I don't believe the F-35 can do that.

(Numbers: The F-35 carries at most 225 rounds of 25mm ammunition plus 4000lb of ordnance "clean", or 12000lb using external hardpoints and sacrificing its stealth, which will leave it nearly defenseless at low speed and altitude. The A-10 carries 1,135 rounds of 30mm ammunition and up to 16000lb of external ordnance, and stalls at 120 knots. The F-35's stall speed is not currently available, but I'll bet you it's at least 160 knots.)

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the plans for the tactical doctrine call for a combination of precision bombing and attack helicopters to fufill the close air support missions. Either that or they fail yet again to kill off the ugly, unsexy, A-10 because there is nothing else in the world that can fufill it's role. A third option may be a new/updated A-10 with a smaller cannon. I wonder how much more ammo you could pack in if you replaced the 30mm Gau-8 with that 25mm Gau-12.

Also how will the trade off between loiter time and top speed play out for the F35 vs the A-10.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much more ammo you could pack in if you replaced the 30mm Gau-8 with that 25mm Gau-12.

Oh, a lot, I'm sure. But I severely doubt the GAU-12 can do the GAU-8A's tank-busting job. It's an air-to-air gunnery weapon, not an anti-armor weapon.

Also how will the trade off between loiter time and top speed play out for the F35 vs the A-10.

Badly, I suspect. There were plenty of occasions in Korea and even Vietnam when close-air-support calls answered by "fast movers" found they were only able to stick around long enough to make one or two quick passes, while Douglas Skyraiders could loiter over the target for 45 minutes at a time, loping around at 120 knots and stomping on anything that moved. Old Spad drivers still consider the A-10 "the second-best close-support aircraft ever built".

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking that the tankbusting role is not going to be a major requirement in the future, or that the gun will be inadequate to bust future tanks. However a lighter gun with lighter ammo would still probably be able to do a number on lightly armored or unarmored vehicles and bombs or missiles can be used on heavy armor.

Unfortunately sice we aren't in charge of procurement we don't get to make the purchasing decisions.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, heck, you can bust up APCs and scout cars with any decent 20mm, or even a .50 with Raufoss rounds. But there's a hell of a lot of everything from T-62s to T-80s out there in unstable parts of the world, and burning a missile or a PGM on each one gets expensive fast. A single A-10 carries enough 30mm to scrap about 20 main battle tanks without using a single piece of external stores. The gun is a very versatile weapon, but about every 20 years or so since the birth of the guided missile it seems like someone comes along and tries to convince everyone else that the gun is obsolete.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

It may be cool, but do we need it?

(Yeah, Military Minds don't ask that sort of question.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, some of the aircraft it's replacing, like the EA-6B, are getting kinda long in the tooth. Others have been rendered obsolete by the F-22. There are things I'm sure it'd be awesome at, like, for instance, as a Wild Weasel.

;)

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

They have to ask and answer that question. They have to be able to justify it to congress. We have a fairly good procurement system. History shows why. It may seem a mess but the past is far worse.

We still get tripe like the Stryker. That's congress pulling those strings along with REMF generals who want to be in the political loop. When that happens a LOT of soldiers have to die loudly and publicly plus the people who brought that program in have to be out of positions of power.

I think the JSF is expensive but we have an aging air force, some frames have too many hours on them and are degrading faster than can be re-certified and it's horribly expensive to maintain them. Building a new 'old' plane can cost more since they have to be built with the old proven tech which is expensive. To redesign them to use more modern tech would cost the same as the JSF. The toxic materials in those old craft is insane.

I repaired F/A-18 radar assemblies. Because of the procurement issues and the inability to get a design changed without a lot of blood the assemblies I repaired were late 70's technology which cost up to 100,000 to repair something I could buy off the shelf for 100 and make to spec for maybe 3k.

That sounds insane. To find out why it's not insane you have to look at the constraints. Congressional laws, rules, regulations, design restrictions which are and have to be damn near eternal, etc.

To substitute one transistor in one of our power supplies with a better one that cost less but was not authorized for that power supply but had the same specifications would cost 1/2 million for it to be reviewed, tested, approved, signed stapled and notarized and blessed as an approved replacement part.

So instead they put out a bid for someone to make the old part at 1,000 each. The original was about that cost due to hazardous materials. The replacement that met all the generic military specs was $25.00.

And every step of that process is there for a reason and it's hideous and you can't and really don't want to change it.

If you leave room for fraud, graft, corruption you WILL get it.

Oh Sheesh /rant off already

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

yeah, no gun on an F plane == bad idea.

But, why the hell is this thing being given an F designation? It's clearly an A platform, replacing A and similar role planes (The A-6 platform's EA-6B variant, etc.). An A plane not having a gun actually makes LOTS of sense (the A-6 didn't, the A-4 didn't, etc.). They relied upon dogfight protection from the F parts of the air wing. The A-10 is a significant exception, solely for its tank-killing role; it's not a dog-fight gun.

I have a feeling that, like the F-117, this plane is an A plane in F plane's clothing. (and, if it has stealthy capabilities comparable to the F-117, then you can throw in a comparison there, as well: the F-117 is gun-less as well, relying upon stealth to avoid dog fights, not a gun to survive/win dog fights)

But, lets say that they do discover that they need an internal gun. How hard will it be to retrofit the gun into the B and C variants? I expect that since they're sister designs, it shouldn't be too difficult; not trivial (not possible in the field), I'm sure, but probably not impossible.


As for the A-10 ... it will never be replaced by anything. The Air Force doesn't want an A-10 replacement. Remember the slogan of the F-15 design team: not a pound for air to ground. The fact that the F-15 turned out to be a great Air Force style ground support platform was frosting, not cake. For the Air Force, fast, agile, and sexy are the right mix (even for ground support), not low, slow, flying-armored and ugly. The only reason the Air Force hasn't been able to get rid of the A-10 isn't because the A-10 is the best beast at it's job (it is, but that's not the reason the Air Force hasn't gotten rid of it). The reason the Air Force hasn't been able to get rid of it is: the Army wont let them. If the Air Force was given its druthers, the anti-tank arena would be solely the domain of helicopters and precision guided weapons. That's why the A-10 has been in the hands of the reserve type units within the Air Force for a VERY long time.

I bet that the integrated gun on the A model is NOT for ground support. It's for "we need this thing to be dog-fight able, just in case". Sort of like sysadmin's in a data center who wear hiking boots ... just in case a mountain springs up in the middle of the data center. And that's why the B model wont have a gun: the Marine Corps recognizes that the integrated gun wouldn't be enough of a win for ground support, and that this plane is an A role aircraft, not an F role aircraft.

I have a feeling that, despite the bad idea of having an F plane that is gun-less, the Navy and Marine Corps have more correctly identified the role of this plane than the Air Force, and that's why their versions are gun-less. For the Navy and Marine Corps, this is a replacement for the A-6 platform (and A-12), really. We have yet to see what the post-millennium Navy/USMC F plane will be, IMO. This isn't it, and the F/A-18 may still have enough life in it that they wont need one for a while.

Though, with the modern needs of the carrier air wing not being as focused on the F role, combined with the economy, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Navy/USMC try to figure out how to make this into an F/A plane. If they go down that path, it will almost certainly require an integrated gun.