Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

I personally hate when aerospace managers drawn comparisons with automotive as if they were not already in the most advanced industry. Bring back the bad vib from the most damaging professionals.
If LM now is proud to sell Ferrari, perhaps DoD would pin that to them regarding their mission availability (bring me back my Jeep or my Hummer!).
 
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Despite the awesomeness of this Turbo Lightning, I fear LM proposal would face the same difficulties met by the Super Starfighter in the 60's: larger program in the US and national conflicting priorities among allies (GCAP, FCAS, Boramae...).
But who knows, maybe the Saudi?
 
The obvious risk being that "Ferrari variant" going the way of the proverbial Ship of Theseus... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus Starting from "new wings and no tails" and "oh, wait, adaptative engine too".

Until only the (engine) bell is similar, bwaha ha ha.

By the way, how much commonality left between the three F-35 variants ? and why would a fourth variant do any better at "cost savings through commonality" ?

Also it's Lockheed we are talking about, more on the greedy side than benevolent...
 
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I don’t think anyone is interested in the concept. USAF already shot down the adaptive engine. Plus just getting the Blk 4 avionics working has been a huge task. I cannot see anyone buying a new version with airframe changes, at least not unless LM pays for development.
 
Josh_TN said:
I don’t think anyone is interested in the concept. USAF already shot down the adaptive engine. Plus just getting the Blk 4 avionics working has been a huge task. I cannot see anyone buying a new version with airframe changes, at least not unless LM pays for development.
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Aside from that, isn't the selling point of the F-35 that it's relatively cheap and available in huge numbers? What exactly would be the incentive for the USAF to get a most likely much more expensive version few others will adopt that's still not going to be anywhere near as capable as the F-47?
 
The AF will almost certainly have to think of the 'beyond block 4' F-35 capability. Unless one thinks they'll just keep the same configuration through the 2030s, and 2040s and 2050s through whatever the retirement date of the F-35 is going to be (2065? 2070?). For context, the USAF concluded the radar modernization program on the F-15E fleet like a year and a half ago and is now entered into the EW upgrade phase of the program. So there will have to be a block 5 and a block 6 for the F-35. The big miss here was not doing the adaptive engine. The current path on the F-135 enhancement is not going to be sufficient so they will likely have to revisit this after NGAD is developed (instead of before it).

But yes, overall no 'almost' sixth gen configuration is likely to be achieved..though these would be substantial upgrades over the next 10-20 years.
 
bring_it_on said:
The AF will almost certainly have to think of the 'beyond block 4' F-35 capability. Unless one thinks they'll just keep the same configuration through the 2030s, and 2040s and 2050s through whatever the retirement date of the F-35 is going to be (2065? 2070?). For context, the USAF concluded the radar modernization program on the F-15E fleet like a year and a half ago and is now entered into the EW upgrade phase of the program. So there will have to be a block 5 and a block 6 for the F-35. The big miss here was not doing the adaptive engine. The current path on the F-135 enhancement is not going to be sufficient so they will likely have to revisit this after NGAD is developed (instead of before it).

But yes, overall no 'almost' sixth gen configuration is likely to be achieved..though these would be substantial upgrades over the next 10-20 years.
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I wonder if they could "F-16XL" it and put in a fuselage plug. At least for the A & C model2.
 
I am sure there will be avionics updates. I doubt there will ever be fuselage changes. Engine update might happen eventually, but I think that’s a long term item at best.
 
@Sferrin an XL is literally what they seem to be proposing. But the Block 4 / TR3 debacle appears to be the nail in the coffin; USAF wants out of this relationship, for many reasons. But hey, the Marines have a supersonic, stealth jet that can take off and land like in Michael Bay movies, and in the end, like NYU, it’s about enrollment, errr, enlistment.
 
GTX said:
Based upon what?
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LMT mentioned porting many things from their NGAD proposal to an F-35 variant including geometries. Given F-35 as a platform, seemed the most likely “geometries” improvement would be a delta design (yes XL is cranked arrow but I was only making a loose shape comment), since the better aero and greater fuel capacity via bigger wing tanks plus A100/101 would be LMs best shot at getting to a high fraction of the proposed range of F-47.
 
Training_Dummy said:
LMT mentioned porting many things from their NGAD proposal to an F-35 variant including geometries. Given F-35 as a platform, seemed the most likely “geometries” improvement would be a delta design (yes XL is cranked arrow but I was only making a loose shape comment), since the better aero and greater fuel capacity via bigger wing tanks plus A100/101 would be LMs best shot at getting to a high fraction of the proposed range of F-47.
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Some facts: The whole story re the "NASCAR F-35" (for want of a better name) came from comments by Jim Taiclet, CEO of Lockheed Martin, during an earnings call. Specifically he said:

“And we plan on applying those [NGAD] technologies to our current systems, making our already proven products even more relevant to the future, as well as enhancing the capabilities we provide in ongoing and future development. For example, the knowledge and technology development gained from our investments in the NGAD competition strengthened our conviction to enhance the F-35 to a ‘5th generation plus’ capability. And I challenged the team to deliver 80% of 6th gen capability at 50% of the cost. In support of this vision, we’re also committing to drive disruptive innovation and building upon our recent established internal capabilities and AI autonomy, crewed-uncrewed teaming, and command and control systems across the whole company. We have aligned these technology investments with our customer priorities and demonstrated meaningful increases in capabilities at relatively low cost.“
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and
“We are not going to protest the NGAD decision of the U.S. government. We are moving forward and moving out on applying all the technologies that we developed for our NGAD bid onto our embedded base of F-35 and F-22. I feel that we can have, again, 80% of the capability potentially at 50% of the cost per unit aircraft by taking the F-35 chassis and applying numerous advanced technologies, some of which are already in process in Block 4 and F-35, but others that we can apply and we are going to offer fairly rapidly to the Department of Defense to really take that chassis and supercharge it for the future. And that’s kind of a 5th generation plus concept for F-35. And that investment in NGAD technologies that we made over the last few years are going to be applied directly to that chassis.”
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To then extrapolate from that to get to what you are saying is massive stretch and one that LM would not even contemplate without a Govt contract to do so. Realistically, one would be doing as Josh_TN has said above: avionics/software/sensors, maybe engine enhancements eventually, plus other incremental tweaks.
 
I agree I pulled from the transcript but I did it off
Bloomberg so couldn’t copy paste but i listened to the call l and read and reread the transcripts plus his ancillary interviews (bc I find the idea of a F-35+ plus absurd given TR3 disaster and the fact that everything the USAF is saying is a 180 shift away from what the F-35 is as a program). If you want me to admit that no one from LM said we propose a delta planform similar to XL to have the characteristics needed to support getting to 80% or whatever of F-47s sensors, range, weapons, CCA collaboration or whatever else it brings, then I can happily say that. In the spirit of the kind of discussion I intended to have, given F-35A or C as a baseline, what OML or planform changes allow our favorite car metaphor mixing to deliver a v high fraction of F-47s expected capabilities. FWIW a delta, in my stupid view, perhaps with a fuselage plug seems like the lowest risk way of doing this, so much so that it didn’t seem reasonable to consider much else, but I am ignorant….
 
Lockheed clearly had to say something to calm investors after basically being out of round 1 (and possibly the last round) of the sixth gen fighter competition. That said, their CEO's claims are probably just that. There is not a whole lot of equity and goodwill at the moment that would lend the DOD to embark on another multi billion dollar F-35 EMD effort which is basically what they are proposing here. The adaptive engine upgrade alone was to cost around $5 Bn to develop and more to retrofit..Something like an XL like upgrade could easily hit double digit billions if propulsion is also included. I don't see the DOD investing that much on the platform unless LM pulls a rabbit out of its hat like fund a large chunk of it itself or via foreign partners (UAE?) or offers up IP in return for government investment.
 
So if LM is pitching a F-35 "Ferrari" version I wonder what a "Hotrod" version could do;):D?
 
Viva la FB-22 & F-16XL - Falcon 21 haha.
Newest AWST has all this on NGAP being all tat.. modular, scalable etc. Engines make the hand.
 
bring_it_on said:
Lockheed clearly had to say something to calm investors after basically being out of round 1 (and possibly the last round) of the sixth gen fighter competition. That said, their CEO's claims are probably just that. There is not a whole lot of equity and goodwill at the moment that would lend the DOD to embark on another multi billion dollar F-35 EMD effort which is basically what they are proposing here. The adaptive engine upgrade alone was to cost around $5 Bn to develop and more to retrofit..Something like an XL like upgrade could easily hit double digit billions if propulsion is also included. I don't see the DOD investing that much on the platform unless LM pulls a rabbit out of its hat like fund a large chunk of it itself or via foreign partners (UAE?) or offers up IP in return for government investment.
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I'm honestly not sure. The complexity of avionics and engines is very high (almost all of the 'moving parts'). The ability to engineer an airframe and new aerodynamics is getting easier over time.

If the airframe is holding back a willingness to update avionics, weapons, or engine then offering an improved airframe could be a relatively easy and necessary step for opening up the possibility of further investments in the program.

The question is the cost/capability calculation regarding avionics, weapons, engines... what to add, what level of capability, and what alternatives.
 

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