Woaaaa...

Suddenly went deathly quiet all of a sudden...

Hope I didn't tread on any toes..

Originally posted by stumason
I don't think you have "built this bird from the ground up". I think you'll find two major players in the development have been RR and BAe. Without which, you would have to build from the ground up with no prior expierience in V/STOL and without a large chunk of sub-systems. But hey, who's counting....

I thought the VTOL inputs were more Russian (Yak-141) than British.
Also aren't the USMC Harriers manufactured in the US itself?
So I would imagine that area of know-how would have been covered as well.

Anyways I find this whole thread pointless.
Joint projects are always a pain in sorting out the finer details but they're always much better this way, than one country/organisation starting from stratch.

Originally posted by Daedalus3
I thought the VTOL inputs were more Russian (Yak-141) than British.

I'd be surprised if that was true! Seeing as it is a Rolls Royce engine they are using.. Also, the Yak-141 never even saw production, so why would they use dodgy Soviet tech that never even got off the drawing board?

Originally posted by Daedalus3
Also aren't the USMC Harriers manufactured in the US itself?
So I would imagine that area of know-how would have been covered as well.

They still use Rolls Royce Engines, built in Bristol, UK.


[edit on 13/12/06 by stumason]

Well I wasn't talking about the engine as such but the entire VTOL subsystem.
Same with the Harrier; although I'm surprised the engines aren't manufactured in th US.
Is it the same deal with the F-35 engines?

EDIT: The Yak-141 wasn't a dodgy design by any means; the a/c never saw production for the same reason many other decent projects didn't see production: collapse of the Soviet Union and hence lack of funding.

[edit on 13-12-2006 by Daedalus3]

No, the engine management system is BAe designed, on the F-35 anyway.

Why would the Harrier, an aircraft designed during the height of the Cold War, have a Yakovlev engine subsystem?

The F-35 having the Yak-141 design!

Look it up there are references here and there.. not too vocal though obviously!
I edited my above post as well..
The Yak-141 wasn't dodgy! I refuse to believe that

From first glance, it looks like LM teamed up with Yakovlev in '95 prior to LM's bid being accepted to design the F-35. The purpose of this teaming up was to give LM knowledge of VTOL so they could put together a bid.

Now, I think you'll find, the VTOL is very much Rolls Royce and BAe designed.

EDIT: To add, the Yak-141 engine was inferior to the harriers engine, in that it produced so much heat on takeoff, most surfaces would melt. The Admiral Gorshkov had to fitted with special cooling to protect it's deck!!

[edit on 13/12/06 by stumason]

Originally posted by stumason
From first glance, it looks like LM teamed up with Yakovlev in '95 prior to LM's bid being accepted to design the F-35. The purpose of this teaming up was to give LM knowledge of VTOL so they could put together a bid.

And BAe didn't have this VTOL info otherwise LM would've preferred BAe to Yakelov anyday for obvious reasons.
The design hasn't changed from the original LM bid has it?
I believe its very much the same Yak design in many aspects.

EDIT: To add, the Yak-141 engine was inferior to the harriers engine, in that it produced so much heat on takeoff, most surfaces would melt. The Admiral Gorshkov had to fitted with special cooling to protect it's deck!!

[edit on 13/12/06 by stumason]

Hardly making it an inferior engine!
C'mon the Harrier take off loaded weight is half of that of the Yak141!!
Cut the Yak some slack!!


[edit on 14-12-2006 by Daedalus3]

Wow. Reading this entire thread has been very educational, but unfortunately I have to say I'm really disheartened at the way Americans have been insulted and ridiculed here. They seem to have alot of tolerance for it and they come off way more mature. Don't let it influence your opinions though, there are plenty of Britons who wouldn't act this way (me being one of them would know).

Now, on topic.. I'm very glad the UK is acquiring the F-35, it's a great deal and I think it will effectively give us a nice range of technologies at our disposal, considering we have the Typhoons aswell.

While I view both aircraft as extremely valuable, for curiosity's sake I'd appreciate it if someone knowledgable explained to me how both aircraft compare in the A2A and A2G roles..

Thanks.

I'm jumping in at the deep end - again!

The original VSTOL concept was, I delieve, mooted by Barnes Wallace and taken up by a designer/engineer from Hawker Siddley.

Those canny Ivans came to the UK, did a bit of spooky business then came up with the Yak Forger. This unremarkable aircraft used no less than 5 engines - 1 to fly and 4 to hovver. It was a total disaster.

Hawker Siddley managed to power the Harrier with a single Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine and bled the exhaust through tiny vector capable ports mounted on wingtips and 4 huge swivel exhausts.

This gave the Harrier a tremendous advantage over all combat aircraft, anywhere in the world's air forces - even over those who were supposedly capable of take off and landing in rough terrain.

This aircraft, like it's American cousins is still second to none in the world and if only somebody could come up with a bigger, better and more heavily armed version - we would not need such expensive industry led fighter aircraft that will, probably, never see air to air combat against a similar adversary.

As somebody just said on the Mathew Right talk show, The Wright Stuff, what use is the Eurofighter Typhoon against a terrorist, and I have the same opinion about the JSF etc.

why did LM go to YAK , not BAE for VTOL advice ?

the obvious answer would be - because lockheed martin is a commercial competitor of Mcdonald douglas -

and the BAE / MD collaborations on various products contain NDAs [ none didclousure agreements ] that prevent either company divulging R&D secrets to other companies that thiey are in comptetion with

just a guess - i have no inside knowledge of the aero industry - but i makes sense to me .

Originally posted by Daedalus3

And BAe didn't have this VTOL info otherwise LM would've preferred BAe to Yakelov anyday for obvious reasons.
The design hasn't changed from the original LM bid has it?
I believe its very much the same Yak design in many aspects.

Think about it and engage the Grey Matter. LM had no VTOL experience and BAe/RR were otherwise engaged, as mentioned above. During the bid process, LM had to find somebody else with some VTOL knowledge and went to Yakovlev, as they are the only somebody left after the British companies. Yak's involvement was purely for the bid process and as an advisor on VTOL technology to the otherwise VTOL clueless LM.

Once they won the bid. Yak were dropped as BAe and RR were now available as they were not in a competing bid anymore. BAe and RR have infintely more knowledge on working VTOL engines than a Russian company who didn't even make it to production.

When I say the engines on the F-35 are BAe (engine management) and RR (actual engine), I mean it. There is no Russian technology on the F-35.

Originally posted by Daedalus3

Hardly making it an inferior engine!
C'mon the Harrier take off loaded weight is half of that of the Yak141!!
Cut the Yak some slack!!

Considering it's operational theatres would be limited due to it completely obliterating anything but the hardiest surface, it had no where near the scope of Operations that the Harrier has. This makes the VTOL componenet rather redundant if you have to have them taking off from specially prepared airbases and ships, you might as well just have a normal engined aircraft use the same base/ship, which the Russians do.

The Yak may have been cancelled due to funding, but it would have probably been cancelled anyway if the funds had been there. It was an unworkable design, unless you like having to retarmac your airbase every day...

Originally posted by stumason
When I say the engines on the F-35 are BAe (engine management) and RR (actual engine), I mean it. There is no Russian technology on the F-35.

Umm... the main engine on all F-35's so far is the GE F-135, almost all US engines will be from GE, the GE/RR engine (F-136) is still in testing phase and it will probably power the British versions. The only engine that RR makes so far is the lift fan found only on the F-35B.


[edit on 14-12-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by WestPoint23

Originally posted by stumason
When I say the engines on the F-35 are BAe (engine management) and RR (actual engine), I mean it. There is no Russian technology on the F-35.

Umm... the main engine on all F-35's so far is the GE F-135, almost all US engines will be from GE, the GE/RR engine (F-136) is still in testing phase and it will probably power the British versions. The only engine that RR makes so far is the lift fan found only on the F-35B.


[edit on 14-12-2006 by WestPoint23]

Is the F-35B not the only production model? I thought the others had been dropped. Apologies if I was wrong.

I know the info about the engines, as if you look back, I posted exactly what you posted just now, yesterday. What I was expalining just there is that the engine technology is RR designed to counter the claims that it was Russian.

Whilst GE will manufacture the engines, I bet my bottom dollar that RR have a heavy hand in the design of it, as they have unparralled VTOL engine experience. It is a team effort, after all.

It's like the USMC Harriers, they made by McDonald's (probably why they crash so often... sorry..really, really bad joke), but is a British designed aircraft.

What your seeing with GE making the US engines is...oh my.."Operational Sovereingty".... You have control over the manufactire of the engines yourself, even though they use some RR technology.... For the British ones, the situation is reversed. As I said, team effort.

Just cause one company has it's logo on the side of something, does not mean it made everything within it.

EDIT: BAe still do the engine management on all the aircraft, from what I can ascertain.

[edit on 14/12/06 by stumason]

Originally posted by stumason
Is the F-35B not the only production model? I thought the others had been dropped. Apologies if I was wrong.

Stu, where did you get that impression from? The F-35B is the only one that was in danger of being dropped.The US will procure up to 2,400 F-35's in all three models A, B and C with the majority being the CTOL version (F-35A). Britain and the USMC are likely to be the only significant buyers of the F-35B, and out of all the three that will be the least produced.

Originally posted by stumason
Whilst GE will manufacture the engines, I bet my bottom dollar that RR have a heavy hand in the design of it, as they have unparralled VTOL engine experience. It is a team effort, after all.

Te F-135 is a standard fighter engine, it is used in the A, B and C versions there is no need for any RR "expertise", GE has more than enough experience building jet engines.

Originally posted by stumason
...even though they use some RR technology....

Care to elaborate? The F-135 is completely a GE product, the F-136 on the other hand is a joint project by GE and Rolls Royce, the Lift Fan is the one that is completely a Rolls Royce product.

[edit on 14-12-2006 by WestPoint23]

Ahh, that sheds light on the subject. Looks like I got my wires crossed with regards to the variants.

So 35 A and C's are not V/TOL? I see... I thought they were all V/TOL, which is were the confusion seems to have stemmed...

I don't pretend to be an expert, so forgive my ignorance with regards to the engine variants on the different F-35 types.

Cool, cheers

Still, I think we can safely say there is no Yakovlev technology within any of the variants...