Difficulties on the way to the implementation of the American fifth generation aviation program
"The one with the advantage is obliged to attack under the threat of losing this advantage." The old rule of the chess game prompted the American military to develop and put into service two aircraft systems at once, the further fate of which is now in question due to their exorbitant cost.
Combat aviation of the fifth generation is the most fashionable topic of the last decade. The public is full of enthusiasm: the country that is the first to commission such machines will receive a decisive air superiority. It seems that the situation is repeating a century ago, when Great Britain launched the battleship "Dreadnought", which once depreciated the old familiar battleships.
Around what a fifth generation fighter should be able to do, and what it shouldn't be able to do, a lot of spears have been broken. The list of qualities of the aircraft looks like this: multifunctionality, cruising supersonic speed without engine afterburner, radar and infrared stealth, all-round radar, the presence of a single combat information system with an expert prompt mode and the ability to fire at multiple targets from all angles. Each of these positions entails a lot of requirements for high-tech products - electronics, software, polymers, structural materials, jet engines, and radar equipment.
If we consider the combat vehicles that are currently in production or at least commercial readiness, then only two aircraft belong to the fifth generation, and both of them are American - the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II.
PREDATORY AIRCRAFT
The history of the Raptor (Predator) goes back to the first half of the 80s, in the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter) program. By 1991, the basic prototype was chosen - the YF-22 developed by the Lockheed, Boeing and General Dynamics consortium. It formed the basis for the project of the new F-22 fighter, which took off in 1997. Since 2003, the aircraft began to enter service with the US Air Force.
As far as can be judged, the car in operation shows itself relatively well. The announced monstrous sums of flight service costs ($ 44,000 per hour of flight time), judging by the latest conclusions of experts, do not correspond to reality. Official Pentagon data indicate that these figures do not greatly exceed the similar costs associated with the operation of the F-15 aircraft - the functional "ancestors" of the new fighter. Not yet found substantiated confirmation and widely disseminated in the press reports that an expensive coating that absorbs radio waves, was unstable to rain moisture.
However, the cost of the entire program for the creation and construction of "Raptors" exceeded $ 65 billion. The production of one machine costs 183 million dollars, and taking into account R&D, its cost exceeds 350 million. The logical result: the military budget of 2010 was drawn up without the purchase of the F-22. Apparently, having estimated all the "rapacity" of the program's financial appetites, the Pentagon decided that the available 168 aircraft are still sufficient for it. It will not work to reduce the cost of the car due to export: the fighter is legally prohibited from being delivered outside the United States.
Against the background of the initial statements about the complete replacement of the F-15 fleet by Raptors, this looks almost scandalous: recall that the issue price is 630 vehicles, of which about 500 are combatants. Even if we consider the starting requirements of the Air Force (750 units) too high, then the last quota was established in 2003 and amounted to 277 aircraft, and it was already considered insufficient and forced (for financial reasons). It remains to be seen to what extent the US Air Force is satisfied with the current situation, but some experts note in this regard a decrease in the overall combat potential of American aviation.
MAKE CHEAPER
When the first real data on the serial cost of "Predators" appeared, the Pentagon made efforts to somehow cut the growing costs. Reducing purchases of F-22 was the second step, and a tactical step. Strategically, they tried to solve the problem back in 1996 by launching the development of a cheaper and multifunctional fifth-generation tactical fighter. This is how the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) program and its awkward child, the F-35 Lightning aircraft, were born.
According to the requirements of the technical assignment, the car was supposed to be lighter than the F-22, not so powerful, but it went into the army in three modifications at once. Option "A" is an airfield-based tactical fighter for the Air Force. Option "B" - with a short takeoff and landing for the Marine Corps. Option "C" - carrier-based fighter for the Navy. The Pentagon was once again tempted by the idea of saving through universalization, forgetting the old truth, which has been repeatedly confirmed by practice: a universal weapon combines all the disadvantages of the specialized samples it replaces and, as a rule, in the absence of specific advantages.
American engineers noted that the F-35 project was born as a result of "close consultation" with the Russian Yakovlev Design Bureau, which at the time of the collapse of the USSR had an experimental prototype of a promising aircraft with a shortened takeoff and landing - the Yak-141. If everything that then began to happen with the JSF program is a direct consequence of these consultations, then the Yakovlevites should be awarded state awards for the collapse of the costly military program of the "potential enemy."
Seriously speaking, the F-35 project fell victim, on the one hand, to the conflicting desires of the customer, and on the other, to technical and economic constraints, which no longer allow relatively inexpensive construction of aircraft with such characteristics. The JSF program can be considered a prime example of what an attempt to create a combat vehicle on the edge of existing technology leads to, and even on the principle of "the same, but cheaper." One of the developers of "Lockheed" on this occasion laconically remarked: "They wanted an aircraft with such requirements - stealth, one engine, internal suspension, shortened takeoff, and they got it."
In September 2008, American experts in the field of aircraft construction published a note in the English review "Janes Defense Weekly", where they gave the Lightning an unpleasant verdict: "The F-35 program is unsuccessful and has every chance of becoming a disaster of the same scale as the F- 111 in the 60s ". Comparison with the ill-fated F-111 is extremely accurate: it was a previous attempt to create a single "universal aircraft", which in various modifications was supposed to serve both the Air Force and the Navy, and even strategic aviation.
The officially published characteristics of the F-35 caused a lot of gossip. The revolutionary innovation of American engineers from the aircraft industry consisted, for example, in the fact that the initially declared combat radius of the aircraft in various modifications ranged from 51 to 56% of the maximum range. Whereas the classical design procedure, supported by the usual everyday logic (you need to fly there and back, and even leave a reserve for air combat and unforeseen maneuvering), lays this parameter in the region of 40% of the range. There is only one meaningful conclusion of experts: the public was shown the combat radius of the "Lightning" with suspended tanks in comparison with the maximum range without them. By the way, the data was subsequently "corrected": now the radius is strictly equal to half of the maximum range, which still leaves the question open.
The subtlety is that the placement of fuel tanks or weapons on the external sling of this aircraft (and in the internal compartments it carries a very modest 910 kg of combat load) immediately violates its "stealth". This is not to mention the deterioration of maneuverability and speed characteristics (and so rather weak, if we start from the official thrust-to-weight ratio and geometry of the machine) and the ability to withstand the cruising supersonic mode (which, even without external suspension, is questioned by some observers). Thus, the F-35 can indeed have such a combat radius, but in fact has lost some of the critical tactical elements of the fifth generation vehicle.
Let us add here the "blunder" revealed in 2003 in the distribution of the weight limits of the structure (an unprecedented error of 35% of the calculated value, according to the lead developer of Lockheed Martin, Tom Burbage), which ultimately led to the loss of time searching for a solution, the weight of the machine and … spending an extra five billion dollars. But that five billion was just the beginning of the JSF funding epic.
RECOGNITION OF TRANSFER
In 2001, the Pentagon announced that during the implementation of the program, 2,866 F-35 fighters would be purchased, and the price of one aircraft in production would not exceed $ 50.2 million. Seven years later, the US Department of Defense "recalculated" the budget: by that time, the US Navy had come to the conclusion that four hundred Thunderbolts were of no use to them. Now it was planned to purchase only 2,456 aircraft, but the total contract price did not fall at all, and even rose to $ 299 billion. Due to such expenses, the schedule for the supply of equipment to the troops was stretched for two years.
And, finally, another attack of rediscounting. In the spring of 2010, the Pentagon was forced to officially admit in Congress that during the implementation of the JSF program, the "Nunn-McCurdy Amendment" was again violated (the military project budget was exceeded). Through clenched teeth, the US Department of Defense announced a new figure - $ 138 million for one F-35 fighter in 2010 prices. Thus, the initial cost of the car, announced by strategists from the Potomac in 2001, jumped 2, 3 times (with the elimination of inflation and rising prices).
It should be emphasized that this is not the last part of the "Marlezon ballet". The named value is only an average estimate of the cost of a fighter in the conditions of its mass production "taking into account export contracts" (and we will return to this difficult issue a little later). In the meantime, in the hands of Congress other figures: in 2011, the US armed forces ordered the first batch of 43 "Lightning" at a price of over $ 200 million per vehicle. It is clear that with the deployment of mass series, the unit costs per aircraft will decrease, however, to the same extent, this process can be used to incorporate design costs into the prime cost.
Small batch purchases are also not encouraging: the Pentagon's latest contract with Lockheed Martin for a fourth trial batch is $ 5 billion for 31 Lightnings. Moreover, the agreement states that the price is fixed and in the event of additional costs, the contractor undertakes to cover them at his own expense.
This fact indicates a real danger of exceeding the "current final" cost figures. The US military department, apparently, has exhausted reserves for a further increase in purchase prices for equipment and will be able to effectively make up its budget only by reducing supplies or noticeably lengthening their terms. Both will lead to an actual increase in the unit cost of the purchased weapon unit, as in the case of the F-22.
WON'T HELP ABROAD?
The F-35 program was supposed to be "cheaper" primarily due to large export deliveries. According to initial plans, by 2035 over 600 cars were to go abroad, and taking into account the possible expansion of the circle of "partners" of the program, their number could grow to 1600.
However, the aircraft's rise in price and growing doubts about its combat effectiveness do not go unnoticed. So, the UK is considering the possibility of reducing purchases from 140 cars to 70. Evil tongues are already joking in pure English that the total amount will probably not change anyway due to the increase in the contract price.
For small partner countries, the situation is even more complicated. The Netherlands delayed the acquisition of F-35s for several years and reduced their number from 85 to 58 units. Denmark this spring froze the issue of deliveries until 2012 with a "good" prospect of abandoning such an idea altogether. And Norway has recently made a strong-willed decision to postpone the receipt of "its" 48 fighters immediately until 2018. The official reason is that the Ministry of Defense of the country said that "it does not understand at what prices it will be forced to buy these aircraft." Against the background of the fact that the Pentagon itself does not fully realize how much this "golden fighter" will cost it, such a formulation cannot be called anything other than mocking.
The fate of Lightning in the Middle East looks much more promising. Israel has just signed an agreement to purchase 20 F-35 fighters, agreeing to pay $ 138 million for each. There is also a clause on a potential increase in deliveries by another 55 vehicles, and the Israeli side has already announced that it is "ready to use it."
However, Tel Aviv's optimism should not be misleading. The Jewish state has always sought to acquire the most advanced weapons and military equipment, regardless of costs. Israel's strategy is to ensure the containment of its Arab neighbors, and this issue should be viewed in the context of politics, not the military economy. So, the Jewish state at one time made a lot of efforts to be the first among the Middle Eastern powers to get the advanced models of the previous generation fighters (F-15 in 1977, F-16 in 1980).
Therefore, the Israeli order does not in the least confirm the international success of the JSF program, but is an attempt to pass off need as a virtue. Tel Aviv is in a situation where it has no other option but to pay any money for the planes it deems vital. Moreover, most of the money for the contract will be deducted from the US military aid package. Simply put, the American budget is the end customer for a fair amount of Israeli cars.
A LOG IN THE EYE
One might get the feeling that the Americans have spent tens of billions of dollars and several decades of work on monstrously expensive, ineffective and seemingly useless machines, pompously called fifth-generation fighters. This point of view, of course, will amuse someone's hurt pride, but it is fundamentally wrong.
The US defense-industrial complex is extremely clumsy, monopolized and bureaucratic. He is able to devour billions without any visible effect and impose on the state frankly unnecessary contracts. And yet, looking at his work, one recalls Winston Churchill's old aphorism about democracy: "Disgusting, but everything else is even worse." The European military industry suffers from the same propensity to overspend and is further burdened by slow negotiation procedures. The Chinese defense industry, despite serious successes over the past 20-25 years, has not yet overcome its technological lag behind developed countries. The Russian defense industry has just received some significant funding and is just starting to restore production ties and promising developments that were completely destroyed in the 90s.
The only fifth-generation fighter in service, the F-22, has no one to fight with. He patiently awaits worthy rivals. Meanwhile, the American military industry is debugging production mechanisms and technological chains.
In the current situation, even noticeable difficulties with the F-22 (a completely combat-ready, but very expensive aircraft) and the formidable contours of the possible failure of the F-35 (just as expensive, but according to some estimates also of little use in combat) are a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a full-scale deployment of design, technological and production complexes of the fifth generation aviation. And this deployment is the exclusive reality of modern America. Other players in this field are forced to catch up, upgrading their R&D capabilities on the fly.
