How different would the F-35 be if designed today?

Given that the F-35 design is in many ways still rooted in late cold war thinking, and taking into account combat experience of recent years, how would its design differ from what we see today if designed now?

Would it for example remain a single engined aircraft or would it gain a second powerplant?

If the RN chose to fit catapult/arrestor gear to it's Queen Elizabeth class carriers, this would leave only the USMC really demanding STOVL, on the assumption the USAF could be brought to it's senses. Therefore could the STOVL requirement be scrapped? This would certainly simplify the development program and greatly reduce cost, not to mention remove some of the limits placed on a given general design.

In light of the "rediscovery" of combat persistence and taking into account the now realised short comings of the "cheap light weight fighter" fallacy that are starting to dawn on operators, is it fair to say that a larger aircraft with greater internal fuel, sensor and munitions volume might be better suited? This seem's at least partially validated given the often heavy use of the USAF's bomber fleet for orbiting persistence attacks in for example Afghanistan, a country with few strategic targets worthy of the traditional use of strategic bomber employment. One larger aircraft with fuel, munitions and crew to orbit for say four hours at distance is inherently cheaper than two or three smaller aircraft flying a racetrack pattern to achieve the same objective.

Perhaps if designed today we might well see it being a development of the F-22, (a battlefield FB-22 perhaps?) or a craft of larger size to achieve a perhaps a 1000NM radius with a greater weapon load capacity?

Over to you.

LEE.

Originally posted by thebozeian
Given that the F-35 design is in many ways still rooted in late cold war thinking, and taking into account combat experience of recent years, how would its design differ from what we see today if designed now?

To all intent and purpose, it *was* designed 'today' - the final contract was only signed to Lockheed in 2001, and that defined the specifications for the vast bulk of the JSF variants.

Perhaps if designed today we might well see it being a development of the F-22, (a battlefield FB-22 perhaps?) or a craft of larger size to achieve a perhaps a 1000NM radius with a greater weapon load capacity?

Again, to all intent and purpose, it is a development of the F-22 - Lockheed used their vast experience on the F-22 program to shorten the development cycle on the F-35.

As for the range, its already slated to have a 1,200nm combat range.

I think you might be confusing the F-35, with the F-22 Raptor. The F-35 was design in today's post Cold-war world. The F-22, on the other hand, has it roots in the 1981 Advanced Tactical Fighter concept. The US Air Force concieved the ATF to counter a new generation of Soviet Migs they expected to enter service by 2000. The idea was to stay ahead of the Russians and hold our edge in the sky.

Now, the Joint Strike Fighter or F-35, which you are talking about was concieved in 1995-6. That is almost 14 years later.

Tim

[edit on 4/15/2007 by Ghost01]

Sorry for the delay but I had a beautiful rebuttal to you guys and then made the fatal error of literally going 1 character over the 4000 limit, so all was lost
I wont even bother to try rewriting it I'm to depressed about it so I'll just answer your statements simply.

RichardPrice,
Nope sorry the design lineage for the F-35 goes back to the mid 90's as Ghost1 said and the design philosophy even further to the early 90's late 80s so it is indeed a product of late cold war thinking. The fact the contract was signed in 2001, the software code is only now being written, and the paper concept fleshed out, cannot alter the basic size, shape, number of engines or performance of the F-35.

Only some features are shared with the F-22 such as the basic engine core design. In fact the two aircraft are designed to share concepts such as the F-35 side looking AESA panels as forward and backwards compatible items. Using your argument it could just as easily be said the F-22 is a product of the F-35, which is untrue of course. This is not the same as the concept I was putting forward for a physically larger aircraft based on current sustained persistence doctrine. Why else do you think they have employed B-1 and B-52 bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan? Its all about a large payload for bombs, gas and space for sensors.

You are confusing the terms RANGE and RADIUS. The only one that counts is the latter. And if you read again you will see I said

a craft of larger size to achieve a perhaps a 1000NM radius with a greater weapon load capacity

. The actual combat RADIUS of the F-35A is usually quoted at about 600NM, very slightly less than the combat radius of the FA-18E/F (often quoted as 635NM).

Incidentally guys, did you know that one of the design dimensional limits for the F-35 was the size of the deck lifts on the RN's Invincible class carrier's? The irony is by the time the F-35 makes it into service, even without IOC slippage, they will be either paid off or very close to it. Being replaced with the much larger Queen Elizabeth class.

Ghost1,
I'm sure by now you realise that I know my aircraft, and I like to think a little of their development history. I am not confusing the Raptor's lineage with the JSF, rather I am highlighting that both are more or less cold war in their thinking. The Raptors size and attributes mean it is still more or less relevant to the "new" doctrine. You were quite correct to point out that the design parameters were more or less set in the mid 90's, but as I said above the conceptual thinking behind this goes back further . I am sure you can agree that in military aircraft development, ideas can take a long time to come to fruition, a la the ATF program.

Remember the F-35 was conceived as the low end to the F-22's high end, (albeit they were conceived with 10-12yr long gap between them) just like the F-15/F-16 combination. Don't forget that the F-35 was designed to take over from the F-16, A-10, FA-18, F-117 etc, in the European style battlefront scenario. That is masses of Soviet/Warpac armor and troop columns pouring through the German Fulda gap. To this end their stealth was specifically designed to defeat Soviet "teen series" SAM acquisition radar's. It wasn't till the late 90's when first Bosnia then Afghanistan started to wake the Generals, that it began to be touted for the kind of expeditionary warfare we now are facing as a reality.

So to my mind the current F-35 is very much a "yesterday's" square peg being jammed into an increasingly round hole.

Well I'll be!! seems I have managed to rewrite most of what I lost
Except the bit about why the F-35B is a waste of effort

LEE.

[edit on 19-4-2007 by thebozeian]

[edit on 19-4-2007 by thebozeian]

Since I'm in the middle of crazy finals for my last year of dseign school my posts are going to be short and sweet.

My only problem is that the design roles of the europe theater of tank busting that the A-10 was designed for was dead as soon as the USSR failed. how long has that been scince 1991. that threat has been much lower since then, but the new threat of dealing with terror targets wan't defined till 2002. even then you still need to be able to deal with the types of threats you have dealt with in the past correct. those who don't learn form the past are ...... you know the rest im sure.

Hi Canada,
Your absolutely right, I wasn't discounting that a NATO/WARPAC style of conflict could happen again, it very possibly will again someday. My concern is that we need a design that can cover both contingencies. A larger aircraft will allways be capable of handling both a long and short range engagement. A smaller shorter ranged one cannot without generous tanker support. Even the USAF are running into problems there and it is only going to get worse. While the F-35 might be fine for European countries like Denmark, The Netherland's or Belgium inside an integrated NATO air defence system that includes member countries top end air superiority fighters, the same is not neccessarily so for countries with large areas like yours and mine. In order for the CAF to deploy you have to cover large distances right? And for Australia we might need to cover large distances as well for patrol or in the event of war, long range strike and maritime strike. This is where the "small more affordable aircraft model" breaks down. Unless you have ridiculous numbers of equally expensive tankers you simply cannot effectively carry out strategic long range punch missions. So yes your right, those who don't learn from the past are well.... doomed to failure.

PS. Good luck with your finals

LEE.

The 35 is a 21st century F-5.

Built for export..

The design is fairly new. There is even a directed energy hard point, or potential plans for one. How much newer can you get?

The thing is that we're trapped in the thinking of our time. I don't know about you, but my time-warping machine-building skills are not particularly well-versed, so a time travel device to plan for exactly what will come next in the future won't work here. The F-22 (and to an extent, the F-35 though not quite as much I think) were all influenced by Cold War thinking. Today, we've got modern systems and junk that we need to tailor the aircraft to.

In the next decade or two, who knows what new systems will come about that will change aircraft? Without this knowledge, we have to work with what we think we need. Early Cold War, what did we need? Aircraft for interception and delivery of strategic weapons. Hence, we have the XB-70 Valkyrie, the X-108 Rapier, etc. Late Cold War, what would we need? Air Superiority. Hence, the YF-22 and YF-23. Today? We need a good multirole replacement, apparently. Personally I would say that a dedicated interceptor is a good idea considering the F-14 was retired. Anyway, you can see where I'm going.

We can't really say how a plane would be redone. It's totally dependent on the situation we're in, and what needs are foreseen in the (very) near future. Past that, we can't really know what we're going to need. Yeah, it's more of a rant than post. But office work is boring.

Actually DarkprO your "rant" DOES deserve to be called a post, it makes more sense than you give yourself credit.

The thing is that we're trapped in the thinking of our time. The F-22 (and to an extent, the F-35 though not quite as much I think) were all influenced by Cold War thinking. Today, we've got modern systems and junk that we need to tailor the aircraft to.

Exactly my point.

We can't really say how a plane would be redone. It's totally dependent on the situation we're in, and what needs are foreseen in the (very) near future. Past that, we can't really know what we're going to need.

Again, this is more or less my point. If we cannot be sure what is around the corner(and we can't without the aforementioned time machine ) then we need to design systems to cover as many probabilities as possible, especially the practical worst case scenario's. And it is to this end that a larger aircraft more akin to the 1960's TFX that led to the F-111 would be better suited. Ironically the TFX concept was in many ways trying to cover similar design territory aims as the JSF, albeit without the original Navy interceptor requirement. As I have said before, a larger longer ranged aircraft can cover shorter range, lower intensity conflicts, but the reverse scenario is much less feasible.

LEE.