Naval Aviation Path

The Navy, as it often does, has flip-flopped in just a year or so on the viability of the F-18 Super Hornet. 

 

The Navy announced in its Fiscal Year 2021 budget submission that it would stop buying Super Hornets after that budget year, despite prior plans to buy more of the fighters in a multi-year procurement from FY 2022 to FY 2024. (1)

 

Now, you’re probably expecting ComNavOps to embark on a rant about the stupidity of Navy leadership, once again.  Well, I happen to agree with this move and, more surprisingly, I agree with some of the rationale and contingencies noted by the Navy.

 

RAdm. Andrew Loiselle (Director, Air Warfare Division, OPNAV N98) described the rationale this way,

 

Super Hornets are, “a 30-year airframe at 10,000 hours. So that takes us out to about 2055. And there isn’t a lot of analysis out there that supports fourth-generation viability against any threat in that timeframe. (1)

 

ComNavOps agrees completely with this.  The Hornet, in any of its guises, is a compromised aircraft that is optimized for nothing and sub-optimal is a good way of dying on the battlefield, current or future.  Terminating the Hornet production line is mandatory.  Of course, one can legitimately ask why, just a couple of years ago, the Navy thought that the Hornet could meet the future combat needs but now, suddenly, it cannot.  Well, that’s just more routine Navy incompetence.  But, I digress …

 

As you recall, the Hornet, in a misguided concept of epic proportions, was designed not with combat as the primary design requirement but with reduced operating costs as the primary driver.  This unavoidably led to a compromised design.  We’ve gotten away with it for several decades because there was no significant threat but that has now changed in a major way with the emergence of an expansionistic China.  We can no longer afford to depend on a sub-optimal aircraft whose distinguishing characteristic is reduced operating costs.  We need a true, optimized air superiority fighter aircraft.

 

Of course, this leads immediately to consideration of the next generation aircraft for the Navy and we have no idea when that will be ready for squadron service.  What do we do for aircraft in the meantime?  We have to have something, right?  Well, here’s a couple of answers:

 

1.     We absolutely cannot depend on the F-35 to be our future combat aircraft for the many reasons we’ve thoroughly covered in previous posts.  Any money spent on the F-35 from this day forward is money being poured down a black hole of uselessness.  Why spend money on an aircraft that is clearly not the answer to our future combat needs?

2.     We have a grace period of perhaps 5-10 years before the threat of a war with China becomes imminent.  It’s a risk, but we can bridge that gap with existing F-18 aircraft and the few F-35’s already on order while we develop the next generation aircraft.  Of course, that assumes that we don’t take 20+ years to develop the next generation aircraft and I’ve described how to field a suitable aircraft in just 5 years (see, “How To Build A Better Aircraft”).

 

 

RAdm. Andrew Loiselle (Director, Air Warfare Division, OPNAV N98) describes how to manage the gap years and potential aircraft shortages by adjusting the F-18 Hornet Service Life Modification (SLM) program,

 

Loiselle argued that investing in Service Life Modification upgrades for aircraft already in service provides the capability and flight hours the Navy needs, noting the service can pay for three upgrades for the same amount of money it would cost to buy one new fighter. If the Navy does need more Super Hornets in the future, Loiselle said he can add more aircraft into the SLM update program. (1)

 

RAdm. Loiselle is spot on.  The Navy has plenty of Hornets that have reached – or soon will - the end of their normal life spans but that can be revitalized to serve several additional years, if necessary.  Using the SLM program this way is prudent and wise.  Of course, this depends on being able to process Hornets through the SLM program expeditiously and that is by no means a given.

 

As we noted, all of the above depends on the next generation aircraft (Next Generation Air Dominance – NGAD) development to be timely, affordable, and combat focused.  So, what do we know about the NGAD program direction?  Not much!  Here’s what the USNI News article had to say,

 

The NGAD program is classified, so service officials have provided little details. But NGAD is slated to be a family of manned and unmanned systems that will work in conjunction with a fighter jet, also known as the F/A-XX, as the nucleus. (1)

 

It would seem the Navy is already heading off the rails.  What is needed is a very long range, air superiority fighter and, instead, the Navy is looking towards a multi-role (note the F/A designation which automatically means compromise) aircraft whose primary purpose is to hop aboard the unmanned, distributed fantasy train.

 

So, while I agree with and applaud some of the Navy’s decisions regarding the future of the F-18, I have to reserve a huge amount of caution because the Navy seems to already be screwing up the NGAD program.  This fixation with ‘families of families’, ‘systems of systems’, and unmanned is wholly (unholy?) without any analytical or empirical foundation and yet the Navy is betting the future of the country on it.  This is reckless, in the extreme.

 

Why has the Navy opted for this highly risky course of development?  Well, I don’t claim to be privy to the Navy’s innermost thoughts but it seems pretty obvious that much, if not all, of the motivation comes from budget considerations and the Navy has decided that ‘unmanned’ is the answer to out of control costs.  The rest of us would look at poor designs, horrific program management, reduced industrial capacity, and similar reasons for the out of control costs but self-blame and self-control is not the Navy way so Navy leadership merely rails against high costs with no acknowledgement that they, themselves, are the reason for the high costs.

 

Unfortunately, we have no Navy leaders who have ever experienced peer combat or even participated in complex, realistic exercises so they have no concept of what’s required.  Hmm … I said I wasn’t going to rant and yet …  Sorry about that.

 

 

 

So, the Navy is half right and half incredibly wrong.  They’re right about the need to terminate F-18 production but they’re incredibly wrong about the future of naval aviation.

 

 

_____________________________________

 

(1)USNI News website, “Navy Questions Future Viability of Super Hornets; Recommends Against New Buy”, Mallory Shelbourne, 3-Aug-2021,

https://news.usni.org/2021/08/03/navy-questions-future-viability-of-super-hornets-recommends-against-new-buy

Strike-Fighter Example

As the navy contemplates the next carrier aircraft, it is well to recall the state we’re in and how we got here.  The ‘state’ I’m referring to is a carrier air wing with only one type of combat aircraft, the F-18 Hornet.  The F-18 was designed as a combination strike and fighter aircraft and, as a combination, is badly flawed since it is optimized for neither the strike nor fighter role (see, “The Strikefighter Myth”).  It is not well suited for pure air combat as it lacks maneuverability, speed, acceleration, endurance/range, sensors, and other aspects that a modern air superiority fighter must have.  Similarly, the F-18 is not well suited for pure strike as it lacks a degree of all-weather/night effectiveness in terms of dedicated air-to-ground sensors, terrain following, targeting, speed, range, maneuverability, and other aspects that a modern strike aircraft must have.

 

We used to have dedicated strike aircraft such as the A-6 Intruder and dedicated fighters such as the F-14 Tomcat.  How did we neck down to a single, compromised, inadequate aircraft?  There’s a variety of reasons but they boil down to trying to build an air wing based on a business case instead of a combat effectiveness case.  The F-18 was a cost saving, business aircraft instead of a supremely effective combat aircraft.

 

What does this mean for our next aircraft?

 

The most important lesson from the F-18 is not to try to build a do-everything, combination strike-fighter.  We need to return to dedicated fighters and dedicated strike aircraft (if we even want strike aircraft ?!).

 

Many of you are already pounding out replies about the much hyped benefits of combination strike-fighters.  Before you finish your misguided comments, let’s take a closer look at the combination, strike-fighter concept by looking at the most famous example the Navy has of the ‘success’ of the strike-fighter.  Yeah, you know the one – it’s the only one.  It’s the Jan 17, 1991, Desert Storm mission by a pair of VFA-81 Sunliners, Lieutenant Commander Mark Fox and Lieutenant Nick Mongillo with CVW-17 flying off the USS Saratoga.  During the mission which was intended as a strike mission, the F-18 Hornets encountered enemy aircraft, shot down two of them with air-to-air missiles, and then continued on to bomb their original targets.

 

Wow!  This is the perfect example of why the strike-fighter combination is so awesome, right?  The aircraft are self-escorting and can fight their way through to the target, taking on all enemy aircraft, destroy the ground targets, and then fight their way back home.  What’s not to like about this?

 

Well, the reality is that this example was a one-in-a-million scenario that just happened to work out perfectly for a variety of reasons and is unlikely to ever be repeated and certainly not during a peer war.

 

An aircraft loaded with weapons for a strike mission cannot successfully engage in air-to-air combat.  The weapons load renders the aircraft non-stealthy, slow, and unmaneuverable.  The air combat word for that combination of characteristics is ‘dead’.  The only reason the F-18s were able to succeed in this scenario was the total ineptness of the Iraqi pilots. 

 

LtCdr Fox acknowledges this.  In his own words,

 

Talking about the strike-fighter concept that the F/A-18 represents, Fox has a definite opinion.  “This is the first time to my knowledge that an airplane scored a kill while carrying four 2,000-lb bombs, then continued on to hit its target.  If the MiGs had got behind us, we would have had no choice but to honor their threat.  You can’t do that with 8,000 lb of bombs.  We would have had to jettison ordnance to face them, and would have served their purpose in stopping our strike.  They failed, we succeeded.” (1)

 

Fox recognizes what so many outsiders don’t:  the strike-fighter is not a capable fighter in any scenario more challenging than a drone shoot down which is, essentially, what the Iraqi incident was.  The added drag and weight of bombs and missiles significantly impacts the aircraft’s already sub-optimal fighter characteristics.

 

VFA-81 Sunliner

As a point of interest, here’s the weapons load the aircraft carried for that Desert Storm mission :

 

• 4x 2,000-lb Mk84 Low Drag, General Purpose Bomb
• 2x AIM-9L Sidewinder
• 2x AIM-7 Sparrow

 

Examining the weapons load we note that attempting to conduct aerial combat against a competent enemy peer fighter while lugging 4x 2,000 lb bombs would be suicidal.  Here’s the other overlooked aspect:  if the strike-fighter jettisons the ground attack weapons, it is left with a very minimal air-to-air weapons load – 2 Sidewinders and 2 Sparrows, in this case.  That kind of a minimal air-to-air load is starting the fight at a decided disadvantage.

 

A strike-fighter, by definition, carries a less than optimum load of ground attack weapons since it has to give up hard points to the air-to-air missiles and it carries a less than optimum load of air combat weapons since it has to give up hard points to the ground attack weapons.  Thus, both missions are compromised and sub-optimal right from the start.

 

The next issue for a strike-fighter is training time and, hence, competence.  There is simply not enough flight training time for pilots to be supremely competent at both missions.  In fact, today’s pilots are barely staying flight certified when not deployed and the use of waivers to maintain flight certification is becoming commonplace.  How can a pilot be supremely skilled at both missions when he can’t even get enough monthly flight hours to remain flight certified without waivers?

 

The only possible conclusion from this is that a strike-fighter can only succeed when the opponent is so incompetent as to be barely flight-capable, as was the case in the Desert Storm incident.  In any other scenario, the strike-fighter is a kill or, at best, a mission kill, waiting to happen.  It is certainly not a viable concept against a competent, peer enemy.

 

What does all of this tell us about the next Navy fighter?  The answer is crystal clear:  do not attempt to produce another strike-fighter.  Make the next fighter a pure fighter.  The A-6/F-14 combination is the example to follow, not the F-18/F-35.  The A-6 and F-14 were huge successes, for their time, whereas the F-18 and F-35 are mediocre and marginally successful, at best.

 

The next fighter must be a pure fighter.

 

 

 

_________________________________________

 

(1)https://theaviationgeekclub.com/this-vfa-81-f-a-18c-driver-scored-the-first-of-only-two-u-s-navy-mig-kill-during-operation-desert-storm/

Book Review - "Hornets Over Kuwait"

ComNavOps has offered occasional book reviews and I’ll try to include a few more in the upcoming year.  ComNavOps loves books written by the men who were there.  There’s nothing like hearing it from the horse’s mouth.  Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that the horse is right but it’s a pretty good start.  One such book is “Hornets Over Kuwait” (1) which, as the title indicates, is about a Marine Hornet pilot in Desert Storm.  The pilot was, at the time, a 30 year old Marine Corps Captain flying with VMFA-451 (Warlords).  The book is written from the day to day perspective of the pilot rather than attempting to delve into the larger strategic or operational picture.  As such, we get a fantastic glimpse of the pilot’s limited but up close view of the war. 

He describes:

• The striking degree of confusion and uncertainty surrounding the initial movement to the Gulf and the sheer magnitude of the logistics required to get a squadron into theater.
• Problems caused by women deploying with the unit.
• Interesting assessments of the F-18 including a somewhat surprising comparison of its air-to-air capabilities against the F-15 Eagle and F-16.
• The monotony of endless, routine CAPs.
• The adrenaline and terror of the first strike mission and the feelings associated with being shot at by AAA and SAMs.
• The Hornet’s air-to-ground performance.
• The overwhelming importance of tankers on nearly every mission.
• Interesting thoughts about the two seat F/A-18D which the author deems useful for FAC but not much else.
• The confusion of the Close Air Support (CAS) effort and the lack of peacetime training for the task.
• Aerial communications problems and overuse of the radio.
• Intel and bomb damage assessment (BDA) as being woefully lacking due to lack of peacetime training.
• The high and unexplained dud rate for iron bombs and the failure of electrical fuzes.
• Base life between missions which consisted of TV, cards, food, and mail and packages from home, among other activities.

The book is as noteworthy for what it doesn’t describe as what it does.  What it doesn’t describe is peer-opposed air operations.  Instead, the book clearly conveys that Desert Storm was, essentially, a live fire exercise conducted in a leisurely manner, the more so after the first few days.  The author/pilot even acknowledges this in his preface and throughout the book.  Thus, the applicability of the author’s experience to a peer level war is quite limited.

The author has done a magnificent job of providing a head down, lower level perspective of a pilot in Desert Storm combat.  The gems and insights scattered throughout the book make for a completely absorbing tale that is every bit as entertaining as fiction but carries with it the fascination of reality.  I highly recommend it.

_________________________________

(1)“Hornets Over Kuwait”, Jay A. Stout, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1997, ISBN 1-55750-835-6

IRST

The Navy is developing an Infrared Search And Track (IRST) sensor as a means of producing passive, infrared target location and tracking with accuracy sufficient for weapon guidance.  This would be useful for combat while remaining “stealthy” and not broadcasting with one’s own radar and for operating in an electromagnetically challenged environment where normal radar operation is degraded.  The system is initially intended for the F-18 Hornet.

DOT&E has reported its assessment of the IRST in the 2015 Annual Report.

“The system tested in OA 1 [ed., Operational Assessment 1, conducted in 2014] could not detect and track targets well enough to support weapons employment in an environment that reflects realistic fighter employment and tactics.”

Disturbingly, the unit’s basic design criteria is questionable, according to DOT&E.

“The Key Performance Parameter (KPP) and the derived contract specification for detection and tracking describe only a narrow subset of the operational environments where the Navy will employ IRST. Meeting the KPP (with a narrow reading of the KPP requirement) does not ensure a useful combat capability.”

Who came up with the initial spec????

IRST Mounted in Nose of Fuel Tank

Despite this, the Navy granted approval to enter into Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP).  This is a growing trend in the Navy, to accept products that fail to meet specs or fail to demonstrate useful combat capabilities.  Why are we building and buying a product that is not yet useful?

IRST Fuel Tank Mount

All of that aside, an IRST ought to offer a much needed capability for very little impact on aircraft performance (the IRST is mounted in the nose of the centerline fuel tank so fuel/range will be slightly reduced).  This is just one more incremental improvement that will help keep the Hornet viable.  I just wish the Navy would complete development before entering into production.  This is concurrency, again, which will require the initial IRST’s to be remanufactured, eventually.

Update:  This is why the DOT&E is so important and why there is tension between the Navy and DOT&E.  The Navy is entering into LRIP even though DOT&E testing shows the IRST to be of very questionable combat value.  If DOT&E didn't exist, we'd never know about the problems until combat revealed them and the Navy would have already committed to full scale production of a marginally useful system.  Why the Navy insists on putting badly flawed and substandard systems into full production is beyond me.

Hornet Upgrades

As we’re all painfully aware, the F-35 has been in development for two decades and is still years away from front line service in any effective manner (notwithstanding the Marine Corps’ PR stunt proclaiming a fictional IOC).  The danger with such a protracted development is that by the time the aircraft reaches squadron service, its technologies may be obsolete.  Most of us recognize this danger and worriedly track Chinese and Russian aviation developments to see what capabilities they’ll have when the F-35 enters service.  However, there is another F-35 “enemy” whose technological capabilities should have been vastly overmatched by the F-35 but are rapidly catching up and may surpass the F-35.  Who is that enemy?  It’s the F-18 Hornet.  Yes, the lowly, basic, non-stealthy Hornet is rapidly gaining capabilities to rival or surpass the F-35. 

We know about the Advanced Super Hornet with conformal fuel tanks that would add 260 miles to the combat radius according to flight testing, enhanced stealth with a 50% reduction in frontal RCS, longer range, advanced cockpit avionics, and an enclosed weapons pod.  What else is being done to improve the Hornet?  Well, here are a couple of new technologies.

Harris Corp., Government Communications Systems Division, has received a $29M contract for the procurement of 138 Distributed Targeting System (DTS) kits for F/A-18E/F and EA-18G (1).   DTS provides enhanced targeting capability for the Super Hornet. It is part of the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18E/F Network Centric Warfare Upgrades program and the F/A-18E/F Flight Plan, which is intended to ensure that the Super Hornet remains ahead of emerging threats in coming decades.

DTS increases pilot and aircrew situational awareness and precision targeting when engaging air-to-ground targets, in part by using geo-registration technology.  Geo-registration technology compares images taken from tactical sensors with an onboard imagery database to produce highly accurate target coordinates.

From a Flight Global website article (2),

"The distributed targeting system allows you to self-generate GPS-quality mensurated coordinates onboard the airplane autonomously," Morley [Captain Frank Morley, Program Manager for the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G] says.

“That means that the Super Hornet will be able to use coordinates generated by its sensors, for example its Raytheon APG-79 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar or its Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod, and compare that to a precise onboard imagery database to generate precise weapons quality coordinates.”

Now doesn’t that sound a lot like the F-35’s vaunted sensor fusion technology?  The biggest difference is that the DTS is being produced today rather than being just a never-ending developmental project.

In addition to the DTS, the Hornet has an Infrared Search and Track (IRST) sensor in the works.  IRST is a passive, long-range sensor that searches for and detects heat sources.  The system can simultaneously track multiple targets and provides air-to-air targeting capability.  Being a passive sensor, IRST does not give off radiation and is harder to detect as well as being immune to radar jamming.

“Meanwhile, the Boeing is about one year into a development program to field a new infrared search and track (IRST) pod that should be fielded on the Super Hornet fleet by late 2016, Morley says. Developed in conjunction with Lockheed Martin, the new sensor is an evolution of the Northrop Grumman F-14D Tomcat's AN/AAS-42 IRST camera. Boeing upgraded the Tomcat's camera technology for foreign F-15 sales, Morley says. The variant of the sensor that will be added to the Super Hornet is a further development of Boeing's F-15 developments.”

“For the Super Hornet, the USN opted for a podded-solution. A pod avoids retrofit costs, Morley says. An internal system would require modifications to the aircraft's outer mold-line and avionics hardware changes, which would require extensive testing. Nor does the USN need the pod for every mission, Morley says. The IRST is only required for air-to-air focused missions like fleet air defence or air superiority. As such, the USN will only buy about 170 pods, which it will use only as needed, Morley says.

One of the unique design features of the new IRST pod is that it is built into an external fuel tank. Because the aircraft's centerline station is the optimum position for the IRST pod, it has to take the place of the Super Hornet's ever-present drop-tank.

In order to preserve the Super Hornet's range, the USN opted to have the sensor built into the forward half of the fuel tank. That way, some two-thirds of the fuel is still available for use.” (2)

IRST completed its first flight aboard an F/A-18 Super Hornet in February.

Further planned upgrades also sound like the F-35 sensor fusion (2).

“…one of the most important planned capabilities will be better multi-sensor integration (MSI). The aircraft will eventually be able to correlate all of the disparate information generated by the radar, ATFLIR, electronic warfare systems and data-links into one clear tactical picture …”

A Global Aviation website report sums up the Hornet’s development (3),

“Other F/A-18E/F Super Hornet next-generation capabilities included in the flight plan are advanced fused sensors, Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Counter Electronic Attack (CEA), Distributed Targeting System (DTS), Multi-sensor Integration (MSI), Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), IP-Based Linked Networks and advanced air-to-ground and air-to-air precision weapons operating on an open-architecture backplane.”

Again, the key difference between the F-35 and these Hornet technologies is that the Hornet’s are in production or nearly so and are being fitted to capable, combat ready aircraft.  By the time the F-35 is ready, it may find itself struggling to keep up with the Hornet rather than the other way around.

(1)http://www.defense.gov/Contracts/Contract.aspx?ContractID=5575

(2)Flight Global Website, “USN developing new Super Hornet upgrades”, Dave Majumdar, 28-May-2012

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usn-developing-new-super-hornet-upgrades-372392/

(3)Global Aviation Report, “Navy’s IRST System Successfully Completes First Flight Aboard F/A-18”, February 19, 2014

http://globalaviationreport.com/2014/02/19/navys-irst-system-successfully-completes-first-flight-aboard-fa-18/

F/A-18 Hornet - An Evolutionary JSF?

A recent comment to a post suggested that we continue procuring current aircraft and delay the F-35 until the technologies have been perfected.  While that’s a better approach than continuing the F-35, it’s not the best.  To take the discussion further, we need to ask, why is the F-35 failing?  The answer is because we’ve tried to incorporate too many advanced, non-existent technologies into a brand new airframe all at the same time (for the purpose of this discussion, I’m going to set aside the problems associated with trying to make a single airframe serve three diverse and almost mutually exclusive roles).  As a result, we’ve spent two decades trying to develop the final product and there’s still no end in sight.  Realistically, we’re probably looking at another decade of development and even then we may not (almost assuredly won’t) get all the promised capabilities.  In the meantime, what do we have to show for it?  Nothing.  We’ve got an outrageously expensive F-35 airframe that can fly but without its myriad advanced technologies is a below average combat plane with hideously expensive maintenance and operating costs.

Interestingly, the statement of the problem also suggests a solution.  What we should have done was engage in an evolutionary approach to the JSF development.  We should have designed an initial version that incorporated a capable but basic set of characteristics – an airframe that would have had a reasonable degree of stealth, good but not stunning flight performance, a good set of off-the-shelf sensors, and room for the future additions and modifications that could be reasonably anticipated.  This would have provided for an effective combat aircraft that could have begun serving two decades ago. 

As research and development allowed, new technologies could have been incorporated into the production line and retrofitted to existing aircraft, if warranted.  By not demanding all the technologies at once, we could have had success from the start.  Now, there’s nothing new about this approach.  It’s been used sporadically on various programs and, in fact, the LCS supporters have recently begun to claim that the LCS, virtually useless at the moment, was intended to be a spiral development program, exactly as we’ve just described.  Of course, that’s after-the-fact utter nonsense that’s being spun to explain total failure.  Still, the LCS modules have gone back to square one and are now attempting to produce a very basic version that can be enhanced over time – a case of a degree of wisdom being forced on an unwilling program by circumstances rather than foresight and planning.  But, I digress …

So, consider the implications of the preceding discussion.  We could have, and ought to, apply evolutionary development to the JSF program with the easier technologies incorporated at the outset and the more difficult ones incorporated over time while garnering the benefit of actual service from the aircraft and the benefit of real world experience to feed back into the design.  Think about it.  Does that approach sound vaguely familiar? 

How about the F/A-18 Hornet program?  The Hornet has progressed evolutionarily from the A/B models to C/D, then to the E/F Super Hornet, and now the manufacturer has built an Advanced Super Hornet with conformal fuel tanks, additional stealth, stealth weapon pods, etc.  This is exactly the kind of evolutionary development that we said the F-35 should have done.  In fact, if we devoted some effort to it, we could begin applying some of the JSF technologies, those that are mature, to the Hornet airframe, creating a Super Duper Advanced Hornet while still gaining the use of an effective combat aircraft while further R&D continues on the more difficult JSF technologies.  In short, the Hornet family is currently doing exactly what the JSF should have!!! 

If that’s the case, why did the Navy abandon the Hornet as a dead end and make the jump to an unproven new aircraft design based on largely non-existent technology?  Well, aside from utter stupidity and incompetence by Navy leadership, as evidenced by a non-stop litany of poor decisions over the last few decades, I really don’t know.  The Navy has bought in – hook, line, and sinker – to the concept of jumping generations of technology to produce wonder-machines in favor of solid engineering-based evolutionary development.  Despite the overwhelming evidence of the failure of the generation-jumping approach, the Navy remains firmly wedded to the concept.  Their fixation on shiny toys instead of solid tools is perplexing, to say the least.

In any event, how does all this help us in our current situation?  As I said, the Hornet represents a viable and steadily evolving aircraft path.  We can drop the JSF while applying its technologies to further enhance the Hornet as we continue to get immediate service out of a capable combat aircraft.  There’s no reason the JSF’s magic, 360 degree sensors and futuristic helmet can’t be applied to the Hornet if they ever achieve full functionality.  If the Advanced Super Hornet has insufficient stealth for its missions (and there is absolutely no Concept of Operations that says this is so that I’m aware of), more can be incorporated evolutionarily.  If the JSF’s ultra-sophisticated self-aware maintenance program ever works, there’s no reason it can’t be incorporated into the Hornet.  And so on.  If we want to continue JSF development as a purely R&D effort, that’s fine, too.   In the meantime, we’ll have a fully functional combat aircraft with known costs that are far below the F-35.  Evolve the Hornet!

Stealth and Mission Accomplishment

ComNavOps just finished reading a fairly detailed article on another blog that  debated the merits of the F-35 and the Advanced Super Hornet being proposed by Boeing.  One of the points that was made was that the F-35 was stealthier by some factor and, therefore, superior.  That got me to thinking …  Why is a given level of stealth better than another level?  Proponents of various platforms (and I’m talking about aircraft, now) argue vehemently about the levels of stealth that their favorite aircraft possesses, or does not.

Let’s take a momentary side trip to dip our toe into the water of stealth.  Stealth is commonly expressed as Radar Cross Section (RCS) and in units of square meters, the smaller the better.  That’s intuitively obvious and understandable.  The smaller the RCS, the harder it is to detect the stealth object.  The problem is that the numbers are meaningless.  An aircraft has an RCS of 1.0 sq.m., for example.  OK, so what?  What does that mean in terms of detection?  How far away can that aircraft be detected and under what conditions?  I think it’s safe to say that none of us have the training to translate the RCS into actual detection criteria.  Add to that the fact that RCS depends on what facet (angle) of the aircraft the detecting radar is looking at, what frequency the radar is using, backscatter, backscatter detection capability by the detecting radar, ambient interference, and a host of other factors and it’s clear that meaningful stealth discussions are well beyond most of us.  What we fall back on are arbitrary numbers.  Aircraft A has an RCS of 1.0 sq.m. and aircraft B has an RCS of 1.5 sq.m. so we conclude that aircraft A is 33% better than aircraft B.  That’s numerically correct but operationally meaningless to us.

Sure, there are arbitrary levels of “visibility” assigned to various RCS:  Low Observable, Very Low Observable, etc. but how do they relate to real world operations?

What we should be looking at is stealth as it relates to mission accomplishment.  Is the level of stealth possessed by a given aircraft sufficient to allow it to accomplish its mission?  If a given level of stealth is sufficient then having a greater degree of stealth is pointless and simply adds cost.

Here’s a simple example.  Instead of aircraft, let’s consider a person who is trying to walk up to within rifle range to shoot me.  If I see him before he does so, he fails.  If his rifle has a range of 100 m and I can see him at 120 m, he fails.  If, on the other hand, I can’t see him until 90 m, because he’s wearing camouflage (stealth), and his rifle range is 100 m, he can accomplish his mission and shoot me.  That’s simple but here’s the key point …  If he has additional camouflage that prevents me from seeing him until 50 m, he doesn’t gain anything.  He still accomplishes the mission and the extra camouflage didn’t help.  If the mission happens to be to close within 50 m then the extra camouflage is needed.  You see?  The required degree of stealth is related to the mission.

The point is that once the necessary degree of stealth has been achieved, extra stealth is pointless.

Let’s take it back to aircraft.  If an RCS of 1.0 sq.m. is sufficient to accomplish the types of missions that the aircraft is intended for, an RCS of 0.5 or 0.01 or 0.0000001 doesn’t gain anything and simply adds to cost. 

Let’s take it back to JSF and Hornet which is what everyone gets all wound up about.  What level of stealth does the JSF need to accomplish its mission set?  I don’t know and neither do any of you.  Does the base Hornet have sufficient stealth to accomplish the mission set?  Again, I don’t know and neither do you.  Does the Super Hornet have enough?  Does the Advanced Super Hornet have enough?  Supporters and detractors of each aircraft sling RCS numbers back and forth without having any idea of what it means in terms of mission accomplishment.



Advanced Super Hornet - Stealthy Enough?



Again, someone is going to comment that extra stealth will allow the given aircraft to get even closer to the target or maybe fly in formation with enemy aircraft and laugh because they can’t see us even though we’re wingtip to wingtip.  Well, if that’s the mission then the extra stealth is necessary.  If that’s not the mission then the extra stealth is waste.  Remember, stealth is like the extra knot of speed in a surface ship:  each knot above around 20 kts comes at an exponentially increasing cost (I’m looking at you, LCS).  Likewise, each “ounce” of additional stealth comes at an enormous cost.  Therefore, stealth needs to be assessed relative to mission accomplishment.

There is no public data relating stealth to mission accomplishment that I’m aware of.  The JSF is supposed to be stealthier than the Super Hornet but does the difference matter in terms of mission accomplishment?  My gut feeling is that the Super Hornet is sufficiently stealthy to accomplish all but the most demanding missions.  Is that difference sufficient to justify the mind-boggling cost of the JSF program?  I don’t know.  I think the Navy could accomplish its strike fighter missions with the Super Hornet (and maybe adopt the Advanced Super Hornet).  Remember, stealth can be achieved through electronic countermeasures, optimized tactics, deception, and other means.  It doesn’t all have to come from the aircraft’s airframe.  Indeed, the Navy’s rather tepid endorsements of the JSF suggest that they feel the same.  Given the cost of the JSF, I’d like to see the Navy drop the F-35C and continue with Super Hornets and Advanced Super Hornets long enough to go back to the drawing board and design a new, dedicated, optimized Navy strike fighter that isn’t a compromised disaster and doesn’t depend on non-existent, PowerPoint wishful thinking technology – a plane that has a laser focus on the required mission set and nothing more.  Whether that requires stealth, networking, 360 degree sensor fusing, Mach+ speed, etc. should be determined strictly by the mission requirements not by the fact that someone thinks it would make for a nifty PowerPoint slide.

What's Old is New Again

The current issue of the USNI Proceedings (1) reports that China has reached a deal to license-produce Tu-22M Backfire bombers.  The arrangement will initially result in 36 bombers which is regimental strength from the old Soviet days and was believed to be the amount needed to defeat a US Navy carrier group.

As you recall, the Navy’s response to the Soviet bombers was the long range, high speed Tomcat with its load of AIM-54 Phoenix missiles guided by the plane’s AWG-9 radar.  Tomcats made up the outer layer of the carrier group’s layered defenses.  I bet the Navy wishes they had Tomcats now!



Tu-22 Backfire - Bigger Threat than Ballistic Missiles



The Navy’s current front line fighter is the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet carrying AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles.  The Hornet has a combat radius of 390 nm compared to the Tomcat’s 500 nm.  The latest version of the AMRAAM has a 100 nm range which is comparable to the Phoenix but has a lighter warhead, 40-50 lbs versus the 135 lb warhead of the Phoenix.  Given the massive size of the Backfire, the much larger warhead of the Phoenix will be missed.



There are a couple of interesting points in all this.  First, the acquisition of bombers strongly suggests that the Chinese have realized (or known all along) that the magic, carrier-killing ballistic missile that has the Western media so frightened is only half the equation.  The other half is targeting.  Trying to produce launch quality targeting data on moving ships 500-1000 nm away is a challenge, to say the least.  We can’t do it and I highly doubt the Chinese can, either.  That renders the carrier-killing missiles ineffective.  Bombers, on the other hand, carry their own radar and generate their own firing solution.  The only question is can they survive long enough to get within radar range and launch? 

This is the Cold War scenario all over again and that brings us to the second point.  The Navy was misguided, to put it kindly, to abandon the long ranged, hard hitting Tomcat for the short ranged, light hitting Hornet.  This decision is further compounded by the decision to reduce the size of the carrier air wings based on the rationale that newer planes are superior to older ones.  If you’re going to fight an outer air battle to protect the carrier, you probably want as many airframes as possible to carry your missiles.  Instead of developing the marginally effective Hornet, we should have developed a new airframe with the characteristics of the Tom/Bombcat.  Oh well, at least we have the long range, weapons-dripping JSF coming soon and that will …  ah … well, it's not really long ranged, actually, and it can't carry much of a weapons load but still it can, ah …  Oh crap, we’re screwed!

(1) United States Naval Institute Proceedings, “Back(Fire) to the Future?”, Norman Friedman, Aug 2012, p. 90