Now this is my opinion on the topic, i cant help but notice how the US cannot afford to run all three of its new fighter programs, being the FA-18E/F, the F-22 and the JSF.
The number of orders have been cut down dramatically to the point where they are even thinking of buying F-15E's to make up for numbers.
The obvious solution is to eliminate one or more of these aircraft.
Now the US navy seems to be one of the major causes from the situation they are now in. They dont know exactly what they want, the Superhornet is a stop gap between the current hornet and JSF. The super hornet offers very little extra performance over the current hornet if it was developed as a new aircraft it would have been rejected. Thats why the navy used the hornet name and insisted that it was only an upgrade as that allowed them to buy it soon. A superhornet is better than nothing in their eyes, that line of thinking is never going to acheive the best results.
The current US Navy, from my understanding want a stealthy, medium range strike aircraft that can also work as an excellent air interceptor. The JSF model has to undergo alot of modifications for the Navy, a new wing, longer range etc. Basically they are making the JSF a bigger aircraft to suit their requirements.
Now what they should have done is gone with a naval version of the F-22 like originally planned. Even if the range, performance, stealth is reduced by say 20% compared to the air force F-22 it would still be far superior to that of the JSF. A navy F-22 would suit their requirements perfectly. It would be the first time the navy would need the single fixed wing aircraft to do every role.
The f-22 no longer need Electronic warfare aircraft so these aircraft can be removed to make way for more naval F-22. The F-22's powerful radar and speed could cover more area than the E-2 hawkeye early warning aircraft also. It could strike land targets carrying two JDAM's while excorting itself with a pair of AMRAAM and IR missiles. Absolutely awesome flexibility, allowing the navy to reduce the number of aircraft carriers and still be way ahead in terms of overall cost and fire power.
Reducing the number of aircraft carriers would be the prefered option, as the cost of the F-22 would be double the cost of the JSF, so money would have to be saved somewhere. Six 6 carriers full of F-22's would offer similar capability of 10 carriers full of JSF and super hornets, with a few prowlers and hawkeyes as support. So even by reducing the number of Aircraft carriers by 1 or 2 would give the navy the available funds for all the F-22's. This reduction would be done by attrition, so they just wont order replacement carriers for the next 10-20 years, so they wont be throwing out perfect air craft carriers.
The Air force F-22 has an extremely high landing speed of 150knots. This is too high for a naval aircraft. The design of the wing is what gives the F-22 its high speed as you cannot have a fixed wing that has excellent high speed and low speed characteristics. So the F-22 would require a new wing designed to lower its landing speed to say 130knots similar to the hornets. Thats why the hornets top speed is only Mach 1.8 as its wing is designed for low speed. Based on this the navy F-22 would have reduced top speed and cruise speed, however it would still be much quicker than both the JSF and Super hornet.
All that would be required is a new wing for the F-22, and strengthened undercarriage, to make a the aircraft navy capable, sure they could change a few other things to adapt it even further to the Navy requirements, but even with minor changes it would still be far better than the JSF. Remember that these modifications that would be made to the F-22 are the same modifications they plan to make to the Naval JSF which also has a new wing and undercarriage.
Funding from the Superhornet and Naval JSF could then be placed into ordering atleast 500 Naval F-22's. This would then reduce the overall cost of the Air force version of the F-22 from 180million to around 120millions per aircraft allowing the airforce to increase their order up to around 500 aircraft.
It probably is a few years too late to stop now. But they could easily stop production of the Super hornet after 200 aircraft and cancel the Navy JSF as thats only exists on paper.
That would then put alot of strain on the JSF program, but it would also allow for a simpler product line as only one wing structure would be made, instead of the different navy wing.
Your opinions would be appreciated.
I actually have slightly more accurate information than most as my father is in research side of the australian military, and the Superhornet, F-22, JSF and Eurofighter were all compared to meet the australian requirements.
The number of orders have been cut down dramatically to the point where they are even thinking of buying F-15E's to make up for numbers.
The obvious solution is to eliminate one or more of these aircraft.
Now the US navy seems to be one of the major causes from the situation they are now in. They dont know exactly what they want, the Superhornet is a stop gap between the current hornet and JSF. The super hornet offers very little extra performance over the current hornet if it was developed as a new aircraft it would have been rejected. Thats why the navy used the hornet name and insisted that it was only an upgrade as that allowed them to buy it soon. A superhornet is better than nothing in their eyes, that line of thinking is never going to acheive the best results.
The current US Navy, from my understanding want a stealthy, medium range strike aircraft that can also work as an excellent air interceptor. The JSF model has to undergo alot of modifications for the Navy, a new wing, longer range etc. Basically they are making the JSF a bigger aircraft to suit their requirements.
Now what they should have done is gone with a naval version of the F-22 like originally planned. Even if the range, performance, stealth is reduced by say 20% compared to the air force F-22 it would still be far superior to that of the JSF. A navy F-22 would suit their requirements perfectly. It would be the first time the navy would need the single fixed wing aircraft to do every role.
The f-22 no longer need Electronic warfare aircraft so these aircraft can be removed to make way for more naval F-22. The F-22's powerful radar and speed could cover more area than the E-2 hawkeye early warning aircraft also. It could strike land targets carrying two JDAM's while excorting itself with a pair of AMRAAM and IR missiles. Absolutely awesome flexibility, allowing the navy to reduce the number of aircraft carriers and still be way ahead in terms of overall cost and fire power.
Reducing the number of aircraft carriers would be the prefered option, as the cost of the F-22 would be double the cost of the JSF, so money would have to be saved somewhere. Six 6 carriers full of F-22's would offer similar capability of 10 carriers full of JSF and super hornets, with a few prowlers and hawkeyes as support. So even by reducing the number of Aircraft carriers by 1 or 2 would give the navy the available funds for all the F-22's. This reduction would be done by attrition, so they just wont order replacement carriers for the next 10-20 years, so they wont be throwing out perfect air craft carriers.
The Air force F-22 has an extremely high landing speed of 150knots. This is too high for a naval aircraft. The design of the wing is what gives the F-22 its high speed as you cannot have a fixed wing that has excellent high speed and low speed characteristics. So the F-22 would require a new wing designed to lower its landing speed to say 130knots similar to the hornets. Thats why the hornets top speed is only Mach 1.8 as its wing is designed for low speed. Based on this the navy F-22 would have reduced top speed and cruise speed, however it would still be much quicker than both the JSF and Super hornet.
All that would be required is a new wing for the F-22, and strengthened undercarriage, to make a the aircraft navy capable, sure they could change a few other things to adapt it even further to the Navy requirements, but even with minor changes it would still be far better than the JSF. Remember that these modifications that would be made to the F-22 are the same modifications they plan to make to the Naval JSF which also has a new wing and undercarriage.
Funding from the Superhornet and Naval JSF could then be placed into ordering atleast 500 Naval F-22's. This would then reduce the overall cost of the Air force version of the F-22 from 180million to around 120millions per aircraft allowing the airforce to increase their order up to around 500 aircraft.
It probably is a few years too late to stop now. But they could easily stop production of the Super hornet after 200 aircraft and cancel the Navy JSF as thats only exists on paper.
That would then put alot of strain on the JSF program, but it would also allow for a simpler product line as only one wing structure would be made, instead of the different navy wing.
Your opinions would be appreciated.
I actually have slightly more accurate information than most as my father is in research side of the australian military, and the Superhornet, F-22, JSF and Eurofighter were all compared to meet the australian requirements.
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