Given the history of military procurement, I am not sure building a drone with the capability of say, an F-18F, will be any easier or cheaper than continuing to build the fighters on the production line. I am sure it wouldn't be faster.Originally Posted by SteveMetz
Bluntly if you run something by computer or remote telemetry (two different things) sooner or later it will be vulnerable and used against you. Buy me a beer and I'll tell you about sooner.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Quoth Carl:
My conversations with assorted thinking Grunts * indicate they strongly disagree and most -- not all -- would say:"Also agree about not giving a blank check. I wouldn't fund the F-35. But I do think the F-22 is critical as are fast replacement of the transports and tankers."
""Also agree about not giving a blank check. But I do think both the F-22 and F35 are critical as is replacement of the transports and tankers.""
The alternative to the capabilities a mature (note that word) F35 will bring is the Army having its own CAS with UAVs and E-4s flying them.
Your choice, Air force...
* Those are the Army types, haven't talked to any Marines on the topic recently but I suspect they feel even more strongly that the F35 should stay (for some strange reason). That's without even addressing the other Nations that have bought into the program and have a right to expect something for their money. I suggest that if the AF wants the air missions required for national defense, it needs ALL the capabilities including the ones it does not like and has consistently tried to ignore over the years...
Both of course would be better, but if the choice had to be made, I would give up the F-35. The Australians are already covering their bet in that regard.My conversations with assorted thinking Grunts * indicate they strongly disagree and most -- not all -- would say:
""Also agree about not giving a blank check. But I do think both the F-22 and F35 are critical as is replacement of the transports and tankers.""
The alternative to the capabilities a mature (note that word) F35 will bring is the Army having its own CAS with UAVs and E-4s flying them.
Your choice, Air force...
* Those are the Army types, haven't talked to any Marines on the topic recently but I suspect they feel even more strongly that the F35 should stay (for some strange reason). That's without even addressing the other Nations that have bought into the program and have a right to expect something for their money. I suggest that if the AF wants the air missions required for national defense, it needs ALL the capabilities including the ones it does not like and has consistently tried to ignore over the years...
True on the Australians (and the USN...).
The Australians are less bureaucratic and more focused than we are. They also have a booming economy (right now) and can afford alternatives. The other JSF partners are not so fortunate -- aside from the fact that we said we would do something (a fact the USAF senior leadership in some cases appears to be willing to ignore)...
History is full of similar examples. Army Ground Forces fought tenaciously for the Tank Destroyer concept in WW II in spite of overwhelming evidence form 1940 forward that it was an extremely stupid idea; as late as 1944 they were still wasting money, material and effort developing Tank Destroyers and trying to derail the M26 Tank. They fought mightily to prevent it being deployed in Europe, it took a personal plea from Eisenhower to Marshall to fix that. Criminal malfeasance in my view.
The USAF fought all through the 70-00 period buying enough Transports to fund more than enough fighters; they tried at least twice to dump the A-10. They don't like the F35 because it 'won't do the air superiority mission...' and siphons funds from the F22. Also criminal malfeasance in my view, perhaps even more so as the USAF has fought tenaciously to retain the CAS mission while avoiding until forced to buy the right gear for the job.
Both aircraft are equally necessary; the workhorse F16 is also a '70s design. so's the A-10 -- all of them are going to wear out soon.
The US Army diligently ignored COIN all through that same 70-00 period -- they paid and are paying a price for that. If you want a job, better be prepared to do it and to do it right you need the right tools for those jobs...
Or someone else will take your job.
I'm not convinced
The article fails to point out the lion’s share of the USAF load in IZ and AF is borne by AMC. In the world of air dominance the Eagle and Viper are still the premier platforms. Are they old? Certainly. Are they still relevant? Certainly. Should they be replaced? Not by obscenely expensive manned platforms.
I have sat in meetings where the USAF bemoans insufficient funding to recapitalize its fleet yet has no problem “deploying” 2nd Lts to EUCOM in Stuttgart for four months, paying them TDY, billeting them in hotels, providing them rental cars (at €100 per day) under the guise of “QOL,” and providing them two weeks of leave off the books (to recover from an arduous deployment). All at an estimated cost of around $60,000 per. Now while in the grand scheme of things $60K may be a drop in the bucket, multiply that by the thousands of Airmen who “deploy” under similar circumstances. To me it shows a distinct lack of prioritization and resource allocation skill in a service that often places quality of life issues far ahead of mission capabilities. Yet they are "desperate to figure out how to save money."
"For the 30 years during which I covered the military, the pattern was to defend the advanced weaponry while neglecting the inglorious low-tech equipment needed in war. There is no constituency for the cheap and mundane. The military prepares to fight an enemy, however imaginary, that justifies the high-tech equipment it wants — not the unglamorous ragtag militia that is actually out there."
Fred Reed
Washington Times
December 15, 2007
Of the all the services the USAF has a serious techno-crack habit (although the USN is close behind).
I wouldn't call it techno-crack, I'd call it techno-Ketracel White.
See, if not for the continuing march of technology, there'd be minimal reason for the AF to exist as a separate service.
Eagles and Vipers the premier platforms? Maybe, probably not. A well crewed SU-27 derivative is at least as good if not better. But, arguments about which is better don't really matter. Ours are going to fall out of the sky from old age before we can develop an unmanned alternative, so we have to go with what is available now.
Stories of Air Force profligacy won't put airplanes on the ramp. But knowledge of that behavior make it much more painful to spend the money to do so.
What is AMC?
So...the old hidden agenda...the Army again wants to take over and reinstitute the Army Air Corp as in charge of all flying, short of the Navy/Marine air arm!
We are still amazing parochial, as was the case during the Bill Mitchell days.
I don't think it's exactly hidden, George
Of course we are -- human frailty. If there was a huge AAC, then the Infantry and Tankers would fight about who was to control it -- allowing the Aviators to do whatever they wanted...
Are you talking about what the Israelis reputedly did to the Syrians only from the ground up rather than from the air down, so to speak?Bluntly if you run something by computer or remote telemetry (two different things) sooner or later it will be vulnerable and used against you. Buy me a beer and I'll tell you about sooner.
I can neither confirm nor deny (even though "I" have no security clearance or restriction) the current capability of any state or non-state actor to actively jam and or obtain control of telemetry systems (and or INTERNAL) systems of UAV's.
The answer though is on the Internet. I'm only mildly joking the thrust is quite deadly serious.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Not only that, but let us not forget about software bugs.
How many times have each of us cursed Bill Gates when we get some kind of glitch associated with a software programming error?
Just think how many KSLOC (thousands of software lines of code) would have to be written and, at best only partially, debugged to get a fully automated or remotely piloted drone capability that comes close to matching what a human does in an aircraft moving at supersonic speeds. "Oops" just doesn't quite cut it when you get a 404 error and your Predator launched Hellfire flies into Hagia Sophia in Istanbul instead of Balla Hissar in Kabul.
And the UAV was built by the low bidder. In all honesty I think the aircraft has a role, but the implementation may have issues that can't be overcome.
I'd say this... naw I won't.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Microsoft has a different, more expansive set of problems to deal with than the embedded arch required for UAV control.
On the order of 1e5. Outside of the front-end web developer space, debugging is only the first, most basic step in a test path. Given a defined envelope of requirements, unit, functional and performance testing harnesses ensure to at least a high degree of reliability (compared to a human) in a target system. And these test suites run in seconds to hours, as opposed to months and years for similar validation in manned pilot programs.Just think how many KSLOC (thousands of software lines of code) would have to be written and, at best only partially, debugged to get a fully automated or remotely piloted drone capability that comes close to matching what a human does in an aircraft moving at supersonic speeds.
If a contractor's selling you onboard software that interoperates via web services, you probably should drag him, his contracting officer and DASD Acquisitions into court. Beyond that, a lot of things would have to go wrong for a computer to mistake two targets thousands of miles away and successfully prosecute to full error. It's the equivalent of a human pilot, his combat commander, and dozens of others going full retard. On the other hand, the real problem is whether unmanned software is better able than a human being (who is undoubtedly relying on software anyway) to discriminate a target from a school a few dozen yards away. Or, barring that, if a computer can abort as reliably as a man."Oops" just doesn't quite cut it when you get a 404 error and your Predator launched Hellfire flies into Hagia Sophia in Istanbul instead of Balla Hissar in Kabul.
PH Cannady
Correlate Systems
Simple aircraft with small investment
OK, I have read this thread from end to end.
Certainly the hang-up or beef many of us have (those of us in the dirt world) is the AF crying for funding after years of watching them have facilities worlds beyond the other services. I think the other services see the Air Force as having forgotten that it is in the military and the mission, not people, come first.
The idea of a limited capability aircraft for COIN is outstanding. An aircraft along the lines of an OV-10 would be very useful. As you stand up the indigenous forces of the host nation, you could turn those aircraft over to them and buy new ones for yourself with the latest avionics/electronics, at a fraction of the cost of a new fighter jet. Wikipedia has some descriptions of what the original OV-10 design specs were to be and I think that would be an interesting aircraft. Perhaps a biplane to fit the 20 foot wingspan?
You have to wonder what we were thinking with F15/F16s providing aerial reconnaissance over Iraq and Afghanistan. We wanted the observation but the tradeoff of wear and tear on the airframes is questionable.
The Air Force likes to talk about having been on a war-time footing since Desert Storm. Well, we certainly didn't hear that back in the 1990s. Perhaps if they had mentioned it, they could have gotten new fighter aircraft (same models, just newer) through Congress. I suspect they didn't want to raise the issue too loudly because it would hurt recruiting and support for newer models of aircraft. Of course, as many here have mentioned, war-time footing for the Air Force (when not in an actual aircraft) means the danger of intermittent satellite TV...
We won WWII not by having the best stuff but having the most of pretty good stuff. Since the Air Force pilots are top notch, how about getting more 'good enough' birds, like upgraded F15/16 and having the ability to flood the airspace with more of them. The sheer numbers and their pilot's ability would outweigh the lack of technical uber-superiority.
Of course, to keep the cost of all these extra pilots down, we might have to have warrant officers flying them - not sure if AF could stomach that - institutional prejudice.
Perhaps the real beef here is the appearance (and likely just appearance) that the AF is much more interested in protecting it's sexy image of flying off in the wild blue yonder. Unmanned aircraft are not sexy. I truly think any officer could be trained to make the decision of shooting/not shooting, thus killing the AF hangup of having flight-qualified officers commanding armed UAVs. But the AF has a strange class/caste system where the flight-rated folks dominate and are treated differently. This could be a real upset to the culture. The AF will reply that the Army Chief of Staff and the key general officer commands only comes from the combat arms branches. True, but for the most part, in the Army, unless you are a commander, you really are not that special unless you have a lot of rank. In the AF, a rated officer is operating in a different sphere than his non-rated counterparts (not peers - they aren't).
I don't think the AF is going out of business. I do believe in the need for air superiority. I just think the AF doesn't have all its priorities in proper alignment and the very culture of the AF will have to change to properly affect this.
We need limited numbers of air superiority frames, and lots of drones for ISR and bombing. We might have to get by on simpler airframes, but we could use more of them. The AF might need warrants. Maybe they fly the drones.
I just hope the next administration and AF secretary take a realistic approach to this mess.
Tankersteve
Tankersteve -
I've corresponded with one of the USMC types who developed the OV-10, and the 20 foot wingspan is completely achieveable using a large chord wing, and avoiding malicious USAF efforts to kill the program/air craft through over-speccing. Ironically, though the USAF tried to kill the concept, they ended up buying them and using them during VN.
The original aircraft did not resemble the finished aircraft. But the concept of a rough field/no field aircraft that can be used (at low cost) to FTF with forward ground forces, drop ordnance, carry personnel and mark targets, without the typical rotary wing support issues is tempting.
Tankersteve,
I was in the Navy during the 1990's and I certainly heard the AF make those kind of complaints. In particular, I remember the AF complaining about the "gruelling" 3 month deployments to OSW, how it was negatively affecting their equipment and training, how they need more money to offset those effects, and their suggestion the Navy should do more. It made us Navy guys laugh because we were probably on month 4 or 5 of a six-month deployment - something we got to do every 18 months with lots of little deployments in between. Of course, at that time, the Navy and Marines were the only true expeditionary services and the AF didn't really have the mindset or organization to conduct OSW in the most effective and efficient manner.The Air Force likes to talk about having been on a war-time footing since Desert Storm. Well, we certainly didn't hear that back in the 1990s.
This won't happen because it would greatly upset the patronage system of the military-industrial-congressional complex. This would mean a lot less $$$ flowing into congressional districts and aerospace contractors' coffers, which would mean political death before the idea could ever really take hold.
Of course, this idea may sound more attractive as the reality sinks in that the nation (not just the government) is flat broke, but by then even el cheapo OV-10 style aircraft will seem like an extravagance.
He cloaked himself in a veil of impenetrable terminology.
We're missing a couple game-changing caveats here:
1. There is no multi-role UCAV in existence yet. The technology can handle reconnaissance, some deep interdiction and that's it. Autonomous or even remote strategic bombing, air-to-air and mid-air refueling remain a long way off. Hell, we haven't even automated similar tasks in the Navy onboard ships traveling slower than a Plymouth Horizon going up hill.
2. UCAVs today are essentially retrievable cruise missiles with human training wheels. The real debate isn't over shoot authority--both Navy and USAF reconciled themselves to that fact decades ago--but over how expendable those platforms are. And given the susceptibility of remote control to such environmental factors such as lightspeed lag and weather, the less expendable your UCAV the more likely you're going to have somebody in the sky looking out for it. Remote-control only narrows the scope of knowledge involved by eliminating flight medicine from training. You still need someone with a graduate understanding of aviation, and the reqs of effective flying haven't changed much in over a century. You're still going to have people with skill sets ranging from navigation to meteorology to aerodynamics with hands on the stick.
3. Full autonomy even in the ground attack and reconnaissance missions lies twice beyond USAF's 2025's vision of the future. That has nothing to do with a resistant culture, it has to do with the fact that there isn't yet an AI smart enough for cheap enough to integrate terrain mapping, threat evaluation and aircraft status to reliably implement countermeasures in deviance from the mission. Hell, there may never be. If these things are to be anything more than expensive cruise missiles or RC aircraft, then this is a hurdle we have to overcome.
Last edited by Presley Cannady; 12-15-2008 at 05:57 PM.
PH Cannady
Correlate Systems
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