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The bright side is that Cheyney will probably croak in the next 4 years regardless of who wins.

Siyanara DICK.

"US Snipers, Providing surgical strikes since 1776"

ROFLMGDAO!!!!!! would someone please explain the idea that lil ole Missouri has more clout than NeW York lol.

F-14 in the AG role, I just wonder if Grum shot itself in the foot by keeping F-14 in the AA mission in order to protect A-6 procurement? hmmmm.... I know Grum did work on the AG role for F-14 but I wonder how much they really pushed that idea.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

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Jack, I agree...

Lehman wanted the F-14 to remain a Air to Air killer....Some within the brown shoe community did want to exploit the mulit mission capabilitys of the F-14 after those A-6's where bagged over Lebanon...Lehman being from the A-6 community, wanted to either upgrade the A-6 (A-6F) or<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>
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We pay serious bucks to think a tad out of the box. USAF had Strike EAgles flying in the 80s and doing pretty well. Lehman (we debated him before), as a A-6 B/N, then a pilot, had some flights in Hornets. You would had thought he could had added 2+2=4. Carry serious ordnance on the Tomcat, nice legs, and geeze a shit hot bomber. Hell we knew Phantoms could play a multi-role already.

So here we are 20 years later. Hogs are probably toast soon. Raptors have serious problems. Osprey has been in test for 50 years in one form or another. JSF, might take a decade or so.

At the rate were going, we might need to buy some used Bird Dogs for FACing.

Jack

Osprey should have been cancelled 49 years ago then.

"US Snipers, Providing surgical strikes since 1776"

ugh, hate to say this but my spidey senses tell me the F-22 will be semi-cancelled and the small number produced will get a fusalage plug where the leading edge of the wing meets the fusalage. This would lengthen the main bays for bombs and the side bays for AMRAAMs plus more fuel. This would become the "FB-22". Tremendously expensive, so it fits right in with the program.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

It's tremendously expensive because no one can stop F'ing with the program.

"US Snipers, Providing surgical strikes since 1776"

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ROFLMGDAO!!!!!! would someone please explain the idea that lil ole Missouri has more clout than NeW York lol.

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Well, politics is pretty dynamic. There was this hard nosed professional pol from Long Island by the name of Joe Addabbo (sp?) that was the Chairman of the House Armed Services Commitee for a decade. He took care of Grumman and Republic at the expense (to their thinking) of MacAir, Vought, Rockwell etc. When he died in 1987, many old scores were settled. It's hard to determine whether the decline of the Aerospace industry on LI, and their products in service, was as a result of that or many other possible factors, includig a general decline in defense spending. However, in the next two years Republic A-10A&B production possibilities were zeroed, the T-46 was cancelled, Grumman lost the competition for the ATA, got the A-6F and G cancelled, the F-14D cut back to a trickle, the EF-111 upgrade axed, and on and on. The supporting electronics houses like AIL systems, Norden, and Sperry also folded. Even prime A-10 support contracts were eventually placed off LI(but still in NY). Aerospace presence on LI is now about 1% of what it was in 1985. The political representation is decidedly left of center so I'm thinking defense related businesses are not really welcome. That's what the people up there want, I guess.


Edited by - a10stress on Mar 25 2004 09:10 AM

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Republic was a major subcontractor for the F-14...
It was just a botched program all in all...The F-14 reminds me of Robert Redfords character in "The Natural" as good as Roy Hobbs was, he could have been better...But, all in all the Tomcat captivated the imagination of the world in large, something most military fighters do not do...

BTW, with the wings overswept aft, I believe the F-14 takes up less deck space than the Hornet...F-14's can operate from any carriers, just the blast deflectors on the Midway class CV's were to small for a cat shot...never could figure out why they didn't modify the ships for the F-14, vice build a new aircraft for the ships that were all decommed eventually anyways...

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Republic was a major subcontractor for the F-14...

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They only had a few years production of the aft fuselage, maybe until 1973, and I think Grumman brought it back in-house. The vertical fin production continued at Republic (in Hagerstown Md.) for many more years (1978?). There was some trouble with disbonded honeycomb assemblies made by Republic in the mid seventies. That may have had something to do with moving the fin production to Kaman, either the quality control costs went up too much or Grumman was still unhappy with the Republic processes. Republic was not involved with F-14 production at all after that. Now, they were making F-4 aft ends, including the stabilators, till they closed the plant.

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Thanks for the correction stress....I did not know that Republic was not envolved with the later block Tomcats.

The holy grail of commonality threatens all three versions of the F-35. It may bring them all down.


<b>England Says STOVL Version of JSF Is 'Critical Design' of Entire Program </b>(Posted: Tuesday, April 06, 2004)
[Defense Daily, April 6, 2004]

By Lorenzo Cortes

The overall success of the multi-service, multinational F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) produced by Lockheed Martin [LMT] relies on the performance of the short takeoff, vertical landing (STOVL) variant, according to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, who cited it as the "critical design" of the program.

"STOVL has a more difficult design challenge but it also has the greatest payoff--it is the critical design in Joint Strike Fighter," England said recently in an interview with SAS Daily. "We know that we can design a carrier airplane, and we know we can design conventional airplanes. We're doing that today. The challenge is to design a STOVL airplane and maintain a high degree of commonality with the other two versions."

The current plan is to proceed with the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) type, followed by the STOVL version and then finishing with the Navy's carrier variant (CV).

The STOVL variant in particular is slated for use by the Marine Corps, Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy (RN) and might constitute the bulk of international sales, given its advertised ability to operate in demanding environments. Air Force Secretary James Roche and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper said last month that their service would study acquisition of the STVOL as well as CTOL (Defense Daily, Feb. 13).

Britain picked the STOVL variant of JSF after considering it over the CV to meet its Future Joint Combat Aircraft requirement to replace the RAF's GR7 Harriers and the RN's FA2 Sea Harriers (Defense Daily, Oct. 1, 2002). Britain could acquire as many as 150 STOVLs for RAF and RN requirements. The Air Force has not made an explicit reference to actually how many STVOL JSFs it would eventually acquire from Lockheed Martin if it decided to make a purchase. The Marines could acquire a few hundred JSFs to replace its Boeing [BA] AV-8B Harrier II fleet.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced that it was adding another $5 billion to development costs and delaying the program by one year, mostly to address lingering weight issues (Defense Daily, Jan. .

England indicated the delay cost a "gigantic" amount of money. "In my judgment it was better to do that now and get a better design integrity so we don't have problems later."

As concerns about the STOVL exceeding desired weight metrics mounted, the Pentagon considered a re-sequencing of the production run that could have placed the STOVL at the end of the line (Defense Daily, Feb. 20). After deliberating the issue, the JSF Joint Program Office (JPO) opted to keep the sequence in its present form (Defense Daily, March 18). The CTOL and CV variants still meet their key performance parameters despite being overweight, England said.

The Navy does not necessarily have to consider direct acquisition of the STOVL like the Air Force is pondering given the Navy-Marine Corps tacair integration plan. "We have no plans on the Navy side, the Department of the Navy," England said. "But you have to keep in mind, we have integrated Naval air [and] Marine air." A Marine colonel is taking the reins of one of the future carrier air wings, he noted.

"When we have them in the Department of the Navy--they're here regardless of where you put them because we're integrating the force," England said.

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And the hits just keep on coming. There is no rest for the weary. There is probably some insight to be gained from this article, but I've never seen these numbers before. Ouch!

<b>JSF costs to rise $45 bln-Pentagon</b> (Posted: Tuesday, April 06, 2004)
[Note: Company response is in bold face below.]

[Reuters, April 5, 2004, 7:48 pm ET]

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, April 5 (Reuters) - The total cost of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s (NYSE:LMT - News) Joint Strike Fighter program will surge $45 billion, or 22.6 percent, to $245 billion, the Pentagon said on Monday, citing rising labor costs and program delays.

The U.S. Defense Department has recently signaled rising costs for the new jet, also known as the F-35, which is designed to be the main U.S. fighter in coming decades.

But the extent of the increase caught even Lockheed and program critics by surprise and could prompt tough scrutiny by Congress, which is worried about rising federal deficits.

"I'm totally shocked. To us this is the height of fiscal irresponsibility," said Eric Miller, defense analyst with the government watchdog group, Project on Government Oversight.

"The JSF is barely a gleam in the Pentagon's eyes and it's already well on its way to becoming the biggest defense boondoggle of all time," he said.

Citing cost overruns and tight budgets, critics have begun to question whether the military really needs so many F/A-22 fighter jets, also built by Lockheed, and nearly 2,500 F-35s.

In a report to Congress, the Pentagon said JSF costs were rising due to increasing contractor labor and overhead costs and a delay in the start of procurement from 2006 to 2007, as well as the addition of a new optical tracking system.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, prime contractor for the family of modular fighters being developed for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and U.S. allies, was stunned by the news and insisted it had won praise for its management of the program.

<b>Spokesman Tom Jurkowsky said the report was intended to help map out costs over the next 40 years. He said thus far Lockheed had only won an $18.9 billion development contract for the program, with no production contracts signed. Lockheed beat Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - News) to win the lead on the JSF in 2001.</b>

The United States has agreed to jointly develop the F-35 with Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and five other countries. They are paying over $4.5 billion toward development costs.

The Pentagon said "revised contractor direct labor and overhead rates" alone would raise the price by $13.7 billion.

Outgoing Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim acknowledged in an interview on Monday that JSF program costs were rising. He blamed the increased weight of the plane, adding that such problems were common for new aircraft.

He said the Pentagon wanted to stick to the basic design and get through development and testing before making any decisions on cutting back the number of planes to be built.

Currently, the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines are slated to buy 2,457 F-35s, with the foreign partners to buy 700.

"If you do start playing around with development and trying to 'cut costs,' you're really just cutting off your nose to spite your face," Zakheim said. "If you tolerate some increase now, you'll have less of an increase later," he said.

The General Accounting Office last summer said the cost of developing the F-35 was already $11.9 billion over budget since the program began in 1996, and further overruns were likely as the program moved toward production. In January, industry and defense sources forecast an increase of $5 billion.

GAO has warned lawmakers and the Pentagon that the United States could get stuck paying for any cost increases, since the terms of U.S. agreements with its foreign JSF partners do not require them to pay for cost overruns.

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Ruh Roh.

"It should come as a surprise only to the fools among the men of our generation that we liked war."

Major V. 'Popski' Poniakov, British LRG, WWII

I think I see what is going on with this cost revelation. It is an attempt to project out-year costs as best they can. As such, the $45 billion increase prediction is hopelessly unreliable, and really irrelevant to present day discussions of things that interest us. My bad. One of the numbers must be pretty good since it refers to near term effort. The $5.5 billion increase attributed to the one year delay seems to have a lot of "get well wishes" in it.



Edited by - a10stress on Apr 07 2004 05:00 AM

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if your gonna say we dont need stealth, then we dont need F-22 either. I dont think F-16 has room for the 119 which my stuff says is 35K not 39K+ not that the thrust matters that much.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Stealth is but a small part of what makes the F-22 great.

The F-15 is worn out....the F-16 is not.

Therefore to me, we NEED the F-22, we do not neccesarily need the F-35.

Also, the F-22 is ready NOW, and it works NOW.

Can't say the same about the F-35 by any stretch of the imagination.

You comfortable with almost 50yo F-15Cs flying CAP over the battlefield 10 years from now while we're still waiting for the JSF Booms?

Not me.

"It should come as a surprise only to the fools among the men of our generation that we liked war."

Major V. 'Popski' Poniakov, British LRG, WWII

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Wow, late model Vipers are looking all the more attractive as a viable alternative to the Joint Suck Fighters. With the new P&W F119's at 39.5k pounds of thurst, modern AESA radars, and an improved wing to support such stress and carry more fuel and ordiance would seemingly be just as good as the F-35A's minus the stealth, and we all know that even the F-117's are not incapable of being shot down! And that's what we would have the F-22 and B-2's for.

Think of all the money that could be saved in buying an airplane that already exists!

<img src="http://people.tamu.edu/~rdr0821/BigVette%20FA18F.jpg" border=0>
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It was an IR missile that got the F117. Had nothing to do with RCS.

The F117 has Less RCS that the B-2, F22, and X35.

Any Eo system can kill stealth technology. That is why they Fly at night.

"The power to Destroy the planet, is insignifigant to the power of the Air Force----Mudd Vader

there's no reason at all why we cant build new F-15s. Your confusing what I WANT with the reality of how things are gonna go. F-22 is still having computer problems, but they ARE getting better.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Minor computer problems now. A little birdie has told me all the serious glitches have been corrected, and it's good to go.

Building F-15Ks wouldn't exactly be cheap either...and that still doesn't bring the sunk costs of the F-22 back, ever.

"It should come as a surprise only to the fools among the men of our generation that we liked war."

Major V. 'Popski' Poniakov, British LRG, WWII

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Minor computer problems now. A little birdie has told me all the serious glitches have been corrected, and it's good to go.

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This is the way I see it:

http://www.afa.org/magazine/April2004/0404FA22.html

I'm getting nail bite nervous over OT&E testing. The jet can do everthing advertised of it (OK, almost), but can it do it consistently? Watch this space.

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The F117 has Less RCS that the B-2, F22, and X35.

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Except for the X35, I can't say I agree. Wait, maybe in some frequency bands, but...I dunno about that, Mudd. I'll ask the sparky spooks, if I can find one. Who am I kidding, they won't give me a straight answer. Darn, I'll have to open that dusty physics book again. Was it Maxwell's equations? Seriously though, the pole data to make that comparison is very tightly clenched between the cheeks of people who can keep secrets. It would be difficult to be sure.

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[url="http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/electronics/q0168.shtml"]Here's a comprehensive read-up on cross sections with a list RCS's for different airframes.[/url]




Edited by - tritonal on Apr 07 2004 1:08 PM

LMAO , ok I guess it's safe to say the RCS of the Eagle is off by at least a factor of 10 lol probly just a missplaced decimal

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.