Today's roll-out of the first Lockheed Martin F-35B is a milestone in the development of a runway-free supersonic fighter. But it does raise a huge question: what is it for?
I have written elsewhere that if there is a more complicated, tortuous story in the history of aerospace than the quest for a practical, runway-free supersonic fighter, I have yet to hear of it. As a terminally geeky kid, I preferred Flying Review to comics like Eagle or Wizard, and in 1963-64 the magazine was full of supersonic VSTOL fighters, and stories about how NATO was going to band together to buy them in thousands.
The only problem was that none of them worked. My take on the whole ghastly tale is here (pardon shameless plug); and from the early 1980s I spent a lot of time tracking the evolution of advanced short take-off, vertical landing (STOVL) technology.
ASTOVL begat DARPA's Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter, with some genes from the Navy's secret STOVL Strike Fighter, CALF begat Joint Advanced Strike Technology, which begat JSF. And now, a mere 46 years after that NATO requirement hit the streets, a production-type supersonic STOVL is complete.
It was the great C.G. Grey who acted as the spectre at the feast in 1931, after Britain had claimed outright victory in the Schneider Cup seaplane races (by winning three races in a row). Grey reminded The Aeroplane's readers of the Yorkshire horse dealer, who had told his customer that the animal he'd just bought had only two faults.
"Once 'ee lets him loose in the field, he takes an 'ell of a lot of catching," he said. What was the second problem? "Oh, once thee 'ast catched him 'e's no damn use."
As it happened, it was the engine technology in the Schneider seaplanes, not the aircraft, that turned out to be vital. But today, the question is what STOVL is for.
20 to 25 years ago, STOVL advocates (I was one) had some clear answers. In Central Europe, STOVL was a way to provide airpower whatever the Soviets tossed at NATO's airfields. Jets could deploy off-base completely, or to sites on the periphery, taking off from taxiways and roads. At sea, STOVL fighters could operate from smaller ships, and would potentially be easier to operate than conventional Navy jets.
But the world has changed and so has the STOVL fighter - because nobody, back then, expected that it would be the size of an F-4. Also, some realism has entered the calculations.
Going off-base with an F-35B is probably not too practical: it takes at least one CH-47 to deliver enough fuel for one sortie, and I would really question whether the jet would be stealthy after one landing on anything except clean, FOD-free concrete. Anti-access threats are different today: in expeditionary warfare, the attack's more likely to be aimed at troops and accommodation than at the runway.
The USAF flirted with the idea of a STOL or STOVL F-35B a few years ago, but is no longer interested. It may have occurred to them that the day when an F-35B can perform a vertical landing in Kabul (5900 feet) with a useful payload is a few engine upgrades away.
As for shipboard operations: when the UK decided in 1998 to build a second carrier, their Lordships in the Admiralty were thinking of a 40,000-tonner, something about twice the size of today's Invincible-class. But they soon found that to sustain independent operations, the carrier force needed to be able to launch combat air patrol (CAP) and strike missions at the same time.
That drove sortie rate, which drove the number of embarked aircraft, which drove the size of the carrier. By 2002 it had reached a size where it could (and still can) be modified to launch catapult-arrest jets.
Meanwhile, the Marines are realizing that, to support a realistic number of JSFs and V-22s, they have to dedicate a ship to aviation, eliminating its landing craft.
STOVL aircraft are easier to land than conventional carrier jets - something which would have a huge effect on operating costs, because carrier air forces spend lots of time and money, and wear out airplanes, practicing landings. In this respect, the F-35B is apparently excellent: its controls and handling are completely unlike the snaky Harrier.
But that argument, too, may soon be obsolete. If the Navy's UCAV project demonstrates reliable, safe automatic landing to the Navy's standards, that technology will read across instantly to the rest of the fleet.
And STOVL is expensive. The F-35B costs more to build than the land-based F-35A (about $30 million more in average then-year dollars); it is more complicated and will cost more to maintain; compared to either the A model or the carrier-based F-35C, it has 150-200 miles less combat radius; it has smaller weapon bays and a smaller payload.
The UK is facing another challenge: providing airborne radar cover for its carriers. If the French build their second carrier to the same basic design, they have no problems: just buy more E-2s. But the UK carriers will have to use helicopter-based AEW, which simply can't fly as high, or see as far, as the Hawkeye. A serious weakness, particularly against threats like the 3M54 Klub (page 21) missile.
So, after all the time we've spent catching the horse, is he going to be any damn use? It's a good question.
