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Red Flag and the F-35 Kill Ratio Is 15:1
The much maligned F-35 did very well at the February 2017 Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nevada. In fact the F-35 dominated the skies. When paired with F-22 the kill ratio may have been as high 17:1.
In the past few months reading through news stories about the F-35 I wondered why the F-35 was denigrated in the US, but Australians and Europeans were so impressed by this aircraft. The F-35 is available for purchase by American allies, the F-22 is not. The Red Flag exercises provided the answers to that question.
In the first day of sorties during Red Flag not a single F-35 was lost to “enemy action”, and not one F-35 was grounded to mechanical or electronic malfunctions. Throughout the exercise the operational ability to keep the F-35 flying was approximately 92%.
What this means to NATO is that the Russians would not be able to support ground troops and it would allow NATO to dominate the sky. The Russian Air Force would not be able to protect Russian armored or infantry units. The Russian Air Force would have to sit on the ground, or risk being destroyed in a very short time, or confined to Russian airspace.
Published in MilitaryRunning from January 23 to February 10, this year’s Red Flag involves more threats to pilots than ever before, including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), radar jamming equipment, and an increased number of red air, or mock enemy aircraft. Against the ramped-up threats, the F-35A only lost one aircraft for every 15 aggressors killed, according to Aviation Week.
The F-35 Lightning II’s advanced avionics software was the star of the show, as multiple F-35s successfully compiled data into a detailed layout of the battlefield with each individual threat pinpointed. The stealthy aircraft could then slip into weak spots in the defensive layout and take out SAM targets, opening up the space for follow-on forces of legacy fighters. Even when the F-35s ran out of munitions, F-22 and fourth-generation fighter pilots wanted the aircraft to remain in the combat zone, soaking up data and porting target info to the older fighters.
Before where we would have one advanced threat and we would put everything we had—F-16s, F-15s, F-18s, missiles—we would shoot everything we had at that one threat just to take it out, Lt. Col. George Watkins, 34th Fighter Squadron commander, told Aviation Week. Now we are seeing three or four of those threats at a time.
The F-35 and the F-22 Raptor pair up to make a particularly deadly team, according to the pilots. The Raptor uses its advanced air maneuverability to shield the F-35 from airborne threats while the F-35 relays data to the F-22 to paint a clear picture of the battlefield. Once the duo of fifth-generation fighters take out an initial wave of ground and air targets, F-18s, F-16s, and F-15s bring up the rear to provide support, all receiving target data from the F-35s in the field.
@jamesgawron I do not disagree with you observations on the F-22 and the A-10. Military doctrine comes and it goes. The belief after the collapse of the Soviet Union that there would be no more massive land grabs in Europe was now a thing of the past. Well, it all depends upon on how Vladimir Putin might behave.
Having a first rate military is expensive, but if you don’t have one no matter what you want to spend on domestic programs becomes irrelevant.
It does not matter if we don’t believe that Vlad the Shirtless can take the Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States, control the Baltic Sea, etc. All that matters is what Vlad believes he can do.
I haven’t met a single person who is happy with the low number of F-22’s in the Air Force. Everyone seems to agree we should have built more. Unfortunately that ship has sailed.
That right there. Avoiding systems that are designed to “do everything but eat” has been the problem from the beginning. Design a platform to do ground attack and do it well. Design another for air supremacy.
Ironically, we have had much better luck with systems designed and fielded for one purpose and then modified for another. It lets you get the bugs worked out quicker than if you are designing for multiple purposes from the beginning.
Consider the F-15 Eagle which was designed as a pure air-to-air fighter. It was then easily modified to the Strike Eagle. Consider, also, the F-4 and A-4 which were Navy aircraft adopted by the US and other Air Forces.
Back to the McNamara Future. Can you say F111? I knew you could.
I have some empathy for the Air Force and the Navy/Marines. And I certainly want the hardware to have at least air superiority, if not outright air supremacy. But the reality is quite simple, if you are an air guy, the A10 is a drag on resources. If you are a ground guy there is no better combination of air support than a team of A10s and Apache attack helicopters.
Adapting airframes for other roles has been going on a long time. The Air Corps pulled the guns out of P-38 Lightnings and replaced them with a bombardier seat and a radar set (the Pathfinder) while WWII still raged. Nobody ever attached a blade to the nose and called it a snowplow, though. Trying to foist too many roles on one aircraft could lead to so many design trade offs that none of the roles are handled adequately.
He also expressed a lot of frustration with how the F-35 is portrayed in the media, the fixations on any piece of out-of-context negative news, and the lack of ability to express the enormous positive aspects of the aircraft due to classification.
Do you think this is truly a rule or the result of selection bias in which systems gets modified for which purposes? I can easily think of examples of the opposite experience in my engineering life: “If we had thought of this from the beginning we could have designed for it, but now we’re stuck with what we have.” You can end up with an even worse compromise, or deciding not to do it at all. There is the rare system that finds a new lease on life but that seems like the exception.
But here’s the issue. If you let the Army Air Corps develop the P-38 as a pursuit aircraft and then try to add a plow, there are one of two likely outcomes: 1) it works as a plow; and 2) you are out the cost of a couple of P-38 test aircraft, a couple of Fisher plows and a few hundred man-hours.
What we did with the F-35 is specify from the beginning that the P-38 had to plow. That tripled the development costs and delayed its likely service introduction from 1941 to 1959.
See 129. It depends mainly on how likely those additional features (and their human advocates) are to interfere with the overall development. As an engineer, you should appreciate that for most of history few things were more productive than building prototypes early and testing the snot out of them. Adding a laundry list of features just slows that process.
I think we’re violently agreeing again. Many times I have been asked to develop X but “put the hooks in” so X can transition to Y one day. The cost of the functionality for Y is frequently a fraction of the cost associated with “the hooks.” When the costs of “the hooks” plus the new functionality for Y appears that it will equal or exceed the cost of doing Y as a standalone effort I try to make that point.
Sometimes that works.
Mr. law,
I do believe this is a lesson well learned. Those that refuse to grasp your logic should be given a swift kick in the behind and feel lucky that’s all they got. We don’t have an infinite amount of time or an infinite amount of money. If Mattis wants to know what his options are pronto because of a real threat he can’t base it on simulations of a system unbuilt and untested.
Regards,
Jim
I’m a Marine and I worked in Marine aviation for 8 years a long time ago. The Harrier is a 1960’s plane that the Marines like because it was painted green. It was so terrible that it was restricted to flying in the Gulf War only where there was no air threat. Great praise was lavished on it, much like the failed Apaches, despite its failure for reasons known only to the Generals.
The Marines rely heavily on the F/A-18 and Marine fixed wing aircraft aren’t going away anytime soon, except maybe for pilotless aircraft in the future. In fact, with the rise of drones, the V/STOL capability becomes even more irrelevant.
But back when the JSF was born, the Marines were in danger of losing their fixed wing aviation. As you point out, the Harrier was past its “sell by” date and their F/A-18s’s clocks were ticking.
Option 1, a stand-alone Harrier replacement was not on the table.
Option 2 was just try to get Super Hornets like the Navy. This was hugely risky in terms of turf battles with the AF and Navy. Also, it was not a long-term option given that the Super Hornet was obsolescent from birth.
Option 3 was JSF.
Hell, my squadron was the second to get the F/A-18D’s and I watched the F/A-18A’s come in the fleet. Short legs, low payload capability. The thing was a mess in many ways.
People liked to point out its bombing accuracy, but our A-6E TRAM’s were getting CCIP (constantly computed impact point) into our jets and were just as accurate with almost three times the payload and much longer legs. The only real advantage to the F/A-18 was the maintenance cycle, but that was being addressed in the A-6F, after the A-12 was cancelled.
The story of aircraft procurement is a long story. The F-35 is an amazingly capable aircraft, no doubt about it. It could have had different design choices, as is true of any design. The only point of debate is whether they are worth the cost. With the cost so high that we can only afford a few, my vote is that they are not worth it.
I am positive that the Red Flag results are biased. Such things always are. I don’t doubt the gist of the story that they are phenomenal. I don’t think it is wise to sink all our money into one design for all the services. The risk of an exploitable flaw is too high.
I heard the plan was to acquire nearly 2,500 of them in the US alone. Do you consider this a high or low number? Not a loaded question.
The original buy of the F22 was projected in 1994, at over 750. By 2003 it was down to 339 and the final # was 183.
A far cry from Churchill’s experience in 1913. He asked for funding to build 6 battleships. The Treasury offered to fund 4. Parliament compromised by authorizing the construction of 8.
Just to make sure this is clear, I was referring to the F-35.
Mark,
Just curious, when we get done buying your 2,500 F-35s, even at your bargain price, will we have any money left over for an army and a navy. Or will the F-35s handle their roles as well?
Regards,
Jim
I don’t think there is any productive way to respond to this question because your tendentious phrasing of this unserious line of questioning doesn’t indicate a willingness for back-and-forth discussion. But I will try anyway.
Yes, the F-35 program is very expensive. At about $100M per unit, it’s not the most expensive airframe we’ve bought but it’s well above average. And no, despite the budgetary pain from a program that all three flying services bought into, we won’t have to cancel the Army and Navy.
Yes. I’m just noting that historically, we wind up with fewer air frames than projected because of a combination of Murphy, Congress and gold plating.
Eventually we will only have one plane, but it will be very expensive and do every mission simultaneously.
I fear that if these planes ever have to go into a near peer combat situation we will be reminded of Beatty at Jutland: “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.”
This does not make sense. A single-engine aircraft has more range than a dual, not less. UAVs make dandy long-range, long-loiter aircraft (see Global Hawk and Predator).
Canada should build an air base at Hall Beach or Roche Bay – a place with easy sea-lift capability and centrally located for sovereignty purposes. Then run it as a mechanical base for a UAV fleet, with actual mission control someplace where pilots actually want to live.
There’s a perceived reliability issue for single engine flights over water or mountains or remote uninhabited areas. That’s a big reason why Canada and Australia bought F-18 instead of F-16.
UCAV technology is not mature enough.
Just as there is a perceived reliability issue for 2 engined-commercial aircraft instead of 4. Except that the actual data from operations is that 2-engines are safer than 4. 777s are safer than 747s. And A340 has no demonstrated safety advantage over the A330 (they are basically the same airplane – one has 4 engines, the other 2).
One HUGE advantage of unmanned vehicles is that we do not care as much when we lose one. Without human life onboard, we can reasonably take risks that one would not take with pilots. Think of the drones that fly into Hurricanes to collect data.
On two versus one, the equation is not dependent on statistics. The equation is to ask, when you have an engine failure, would you rather have another one to get you to the ground safely?
The thing is those risks do not include that of shooting down an airliner instead of a bomber when the communication link fails.
I said something like that to a pilot friend of mine once and he told me that the reason most twin engine planes have two engines is because they need both of them.