Year: 2008

The JSF is Less Capable and More Expensive Than Previously Admitted

No Comments

Well, we now have reports of Israel signing a contract to buy F-35 JSFs for $15.2 billion (see also here).

As Bill Sweetman notes this means that the JSF costs about $200 million a plane, well over the $80m claimed for the aircraft, and more than the fly away cost of the F-22.

As I’ve noted earlier, there was a Rand study modeling the F-35 against an upgraded Su-27, and it was allegedly clubbed like a baby seal (here and here).

This is unsurprising: with a thrust to weight ratio of about 0.85:1 in air to air configuration, and a wing loading of 108 lbs/sq ft, similar to the F-105 Thunderchief (aka the “Lead Sled”), this will not be a particularly agile aircraft, even with a state of the art flight control system.

It appears now that the USAF and Lochkeed Martin are claiming that Maneuvering is Irrelevant, as the fighter will have the Distributed Aperture System (DAS), a system of multiple wide angle sensors that will create a 360° view around the aircraft, and so it will be able to fly through at high speed and launch a, “high-off-boresight, lock-on-after-launch (LOAL) missile shot with any datalink-equipped missile.”

They said that the missiles would do all the work before Viet Nam too, and the USAF and the Navy had to start training their pilots to dogfight again.

BTW, Bill Sweetman (again), in writing about the 360 degree attack, notes that there was a precedent, the Boulton-Paul Defiant, and notes:

If the Germans had had an expression for “clubbed like baby seals” in 1940, the Luftwaffe would have used it.

My thoughts exactly.

Hope Hits Target in Tests

No Comments

The German Hope penetrating glide bomb hit its target in flight trials in September.

It’s a 3000 lb class weapon that is supposed to have a better penetrating capability than the 5000 lb GBU-28, and it has a range in excess of 100 km and a CEP of 3m.

I find it interesting that it appears to have a variable incidence oblique wing, at least as shown in the picture, which is probably needed to get the range.

If one assumes a launch at 35,000 feet, and a terminal dive from 5000 feet, the range implies a 10:1 glide ratio, which would require decent aerodynamic efficiency.

Worst Political Commentary Ever

No Comments

You can almost visualize Rich Lowry masturbating to the debates:

A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It’s one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O’Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can’t be learned; it’s either something you have or you don’t, and man, she’s got it.

And them, I guess, he cleaned off his keyboard.

I’m thoroughly squicked by this.

This is So Undeniably Cynical and Dishonest

No Comments

It appears that the McCain campaign wants Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston to have an October wedding, because they think that it would have a positive impact on their campaign:

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

As Lily Tomlin says, “No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.”

Unfortunately for John Sidney McCain III and His Evil Minions™, it appears that the love birds are looking at a Summer wedding.

Eisenhower’s Kid Speaks

No Comments

John S.D. Eisenhower, Dwight Eisenhower’s son, notes that he is the only son of a president or vice-president who served in combat while their parents were serving, and he notes that Sarah Palin’s, Joe Biden’s, and John McCain’s sons should not be serving in Iraq:

As the time for my deployment approached, I discussed my intentions with my father. We met at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, just after the Republican convention, and I explained my position. My father, as a professional officer himself, understood and accepted it. However, he had a firm condition: Under no circumstances must I ever be captured. He would accept the risk of my being killed or wounded, but if the Chinese Communists or North Koreans ever took me prisoner, and threatened blackmail, he could be forced to resign the presidency. I agreed to that condition wholeheartedly. I would take my life before being captured.

On looking back, however, I now feel that I was being unfair and selfish, and that my father was being far too conciliatory in giving me such permission. On the other hand, I don’t think that the army should ever have given me an option in the matter.

(emphasis mine)

This argument also applies to Prince Harry, by the way.

SEC Reauthorizes Faith Based Accounting

No Comments

It looks like the banks lobbying the SEC has gotten the desired results. The SEC has relaxed rules on “Mark to Market” accounting:

The three-page joint statement today from the SEC and the Financial Accounting Standards Board does not do away with fair value accounting provisions altogether.

But it gives companies more leeway to employ estimates and their own judgment in many cases when they deem the market to be “disorderly” or seized by liquidity problems. It also gives companies room to determine whether the impaired value of their assets is no longer temporary, a conclusion that could trigger massive write-downs.

Not to get in to the minutiae of this, but it appears that they largely gutted mark to market.

This will make any final reckoning worse.

DoD and Army Fight Over Tank Purchases

No Comments

Basically, the Army wants to shift $1 billion from M-1 Abrams procurement to the FCS program, and the DoD is rather unimpressed at the concept.

As has been made clear here by me many times, I’m on the side of the DoD.

I think that the FCS Manned Ground Vehicles are not well suited to currently foreseeable conflicts.

To pay for this, the Army would drop plans to upgrade hundreds of Abrams tanks and scrap a last planned purchase of at least 30 new tanks, saving a total of $1 billion through 2013. As well, it would slash planned purchases of Strykers, saving $1.3 billion, and reduce purchases and upgrades of Bradley Fighting Vehicles, saving $417 million.

The DoD comptroller’s office is especially opposed to cutting Abrams funds, a senior Pentagon official said.

Of course, the army is arguing that the FCS, weighing just 25-30t to the Abrams’ 70 t, is more survivable:

“The MGVs will provide the soldier with an array of crew protection, to include advanced lightweight armor composites, crew mine blast protection, active protection systems, thermal management and radar. Most important, the FCS network provides better situational awareness, allowing soldiers to engage targets at greater distances,” said FCS communications manager Paul Mehney.

But this is crap.

In a counterinsurgency campaign, the insurgents always have better intel. They choose where and when to attack, and at that point, the network is not a substitute for armor.

Besides, the network can be retrofitted into existing vehicles for less cost.