Future of JSF?

[Kurt Plummer]

Supe,

>>
Interesting. Much more useful than DDG types (space requirements?),
>>

Depends on how you do it of course. My personal favorites are based on SLICE or planing cat hulls like the Jervis Bay. Whose Big Flat Top Deck means you have reasonable ability to do air ops without resorting to a Skyhook or like system (though that could be made to work too). 50 knots up to sea state 3 also makes true STOVL as a function of lost winglift on marginal postlift not quite so critical.

IMO, 'the next big step' is going to be a two-stage system.

With forward drones either self emplacing like the French Fast-Slow UAV concept. Or missile-dropped like a scattering of Silent Eye/Finder/SMACM/LAM systems via high speed cruise.

These systems will then need a comms relay platform that functions like an AEW platform to 'bridge the horizon' with either datalink or detection facilities sufficient to cue personal defenses against intelligent TBM while counter targeting onboard weapons against point targets.

5 minutes out at FastHawk/ARRMD speeds.

Without a carrier.

IMO, the parent drone may very well be a hybrid hydrogen/solar/conventional fueled LTA. With the ability (BWB) to mount some truly big fans in a fairly deepXwide fuselage whose center well has a billboard AESA mounted keel-like within it as integral structural reinforcement to a light vacuformed semi-rigid hull.

Depending on absolute up and away performance, (and to keep deckspot controllable) it may also be wise to fit scissoring/oblique or 'retractable' joined-wing (maybe with a film airfoil if not full MAW) technology which also carries all the conventional fuel for climbout/recovery, high energy, work.

The idea being that you have a system with enough power to loft the big antenna quickly above weather on conventional turbines plus liftfans. And then /stay/ using a combination of solar plus hydrogen fuel cell technology to power the avionics (day/night).

For at least 2-3 days.

If the asset is pure ISR/BMC3 then it is workable. Leaving the weapons carriers to perform strictly as trucks (recoverable or otherwise).

>>
Would be the benefit of using an evolved 'pocket carrier' with native amphibious capability, which would fit British doctrine quite well. (space for helos/expeditionary force/ucavs/ and a great asset in peackeeping - enforcing operations/battle management? etc). I can envisage this as what the RAN will be using future LHD's for.
>>

Well, the Marines are already there of course so it's not like this is anything new or apt to 'multimission neglect' by anybody else.

Yet I frankly expect the notion of littoral ops along with ('big amphib' or otherwise) UCW support to live and die with the Iraq war, much as it did with Vietnam. If we were serious about GWOT we would have been swarming Pakistan on the basis of shaking the bag empty as much as full and flushing UBL out of the White Mountains. Yet now the trail is so cold that he could likely get out of the country without any problems and despite what Bush says, the likelihood is /overwhelming/ that 'another President' will see an urgent need to withdraw our forces from Iraq, in 2009.

Conventional Military Force having proven to be nothing but a pie in the face way to massively increase debt.

Get rid of littoral and 'enablers' like Excalibur and RQ-8 and all the other inshore /crap/ goes right into the toilet with it. Because they can barely protect the ship from boghammer threats (forget mines) and they cannot reach far enough inshore, from -far enough out-, _quickly enough_, to keep the parent vessel safe from even the most basic of AShM. If the ship ain't safe, the SWO Daddy's can't rely on it for support. And if the ship stands out to blue, you are back to using more or less conventional systems to get to range in time to be worth it.

There -may- be a slight gap between the two for a micro-JSF (SDLF plus LC) concept that is 'just a bomber' (BUET-VS and GBU-39). But this will have to be introduced /after/ the supporting infrastructure is in place. Or the Big Deck Navy will kill it in the crib.

That said, IMO, the rising cost of naval warfare, along with the continuing need to cover areas where we simply /are not/ wanted will have smaller and smaller task groups assigned to maintain low profile monitoring (the only USN vessel within a 1,000 miles of Hainan after the EP-3E incident was supposedly a DDG).

And that can only happen if the ship is safe and the airwing is sacrificial. ADSAM will go a heckuva ways if the threat lane is a given (attack the CSA drone) and with R-CDL technology I can easily see smaller systems similar to a late model BQM-74 in performance being able to range quite deep over threat territory _and still talk back_. Ala Sea Ferret.

The question then becomes one of scale and affordability. Because if you make a huge hull on the premise of 'modular mission inserts' and then _never build the inserts_ (most especially including Arsenal Ship VLS loads) it doesn't matter how much technology changes between mission classification it's still gonna be just what it looks like: an empty box. Even as it is class costed to the ton draft rather than true capabilities.

Which is why I look at LCS and DDX and laugh my hindquarters off.

Because the first is a heavy corvette as much as a bluewater frigate (what, a ten day stock of supplies?) yet it is equally NOT a PB/PC class 'Swift boat' and so will /never/ operate cleanly inshore with all the low tech threats that can be run up against it. It is too slow, too big and too valuable to risk in even the kinds of 'pirate' games we are now playing off Somalia.

Of course the DD-X is somebody's WWI fantasy as a cruiser-class (14,000 tons!?!?) 'destroyer' with an ironclad freeboard.

In political terms the DD-X is the USN's attempt to maintain the dominance of the CVSF while acknowledging in the most expensive, least effective, fashion, the past-due arrival of the Arsenal concept.

OTOH, the LCS is Congressional Pork designed to feed naval yards as an OHP-sorta followon.

>>
For the cost of two CVF's the Brits (at a guess) could probably buy three perhaps four of these 'pocket carriers'.
>>

If I saw the world as headed towards another round of black and white polar specific nationalist political or economic climate change, I might agree.

Instead, I see something more akin to OEF AfG where 'success' was bred less upon changing the LCD status quo (raising up a nation) than the topline leadership figurehead politics and casualties were a matter of not having reporters present to acknowledge horrific indigenous losses rather than anything approaching 'minimal casualties' (for either side).

In the soundbyte world, if U.S. forces are not present to lose, then _we don't lose_.

And Iraq is likely the Tipping Point for the latter failure of a War Of Liberation type revolutionary political sea change. From which our own political will to throw the dice will never again be 'allowed' (party policy) as much as available to again risk our collective rep for a bunch of savages that bite the hand that reaches out to them.

In these conditions, limited objective/effects based ops by mercenary or indigenous forces, with or without SOF stiffening, will largely dictate the way things are played. And a DDG or Cruiser sized asset which, 100-400nm out into the deep blue, can supply /limited/ fires to support these forces 'without acknowledgement' will be more useful than a CVSF of any flavor that has no way to cover it's actions.

The key is to be able to stay stood off (maximizing the ton-mile costs for useful mission system scaling of investment = 100nm /minimum/ per 1,500 tons vessel dwt) while using _air_ to come inshore and support either the brown/white water warfighter. And at least 'spring for throwaway CAS' another 500nm or so inshore.

We certainly have the technology to make it work. Between ramjet and gel propellant systems and microdrones like Silent Eyes, it should be possible to in fact bus multiple SDB or (dumb) LOCAAS type systems with BIA for all.

Support forces in contact (assuming they don't bring their own drones to the party) with ROVER type terminals at _considerably_ greater depth with missile and separable UAV/UCAV based microsystems (strictly parsed and partitioned separation of fires from targeting). And you will successfuly knife conventional airpower right out of the picture.

>>
Just on UCAVs though. Are they secure assets? You wouldn't want jamming/cracking of communication protocols to render them useless or worse, be employed against you. Are these platforms of sufficient maturity?
>>

I think the Armed Forces failed the smell test on 'rigid uplink data security' when the whole freakin' world got to watch commercial satcomms relay of Predator video during OAF.

That said, the reality remains that microwave systems are both directional and exceptionally powerful for their size while a 'reporting system' (GPS) could work as similarly discrete up-only overhead relay to ensure that stealth assets could be accurately communicated with via AESA type (MP-RTIP eventually, though the present testbed is the APG-77) operating at close to maximum LOS ranges with upwards of 540mbps or 1gbps on-receive.

The big question then becomes whether the drones themselves have enough oomph to talk back or if you have to significantly push forward the relay platform and put it at somewhat higher risk.

In terms of overall security, there are four basic principles to remember:

1. Flash Light to Klieg Lamp to Silent Running to ELS Hunter.
As stated above, anything Ali Babba and his band of thieves can bring in by camelback will likely never come close to being able to outyell an F-22 with upwards of 100KW worth of directional comm-strobe. Especially if, 'absent Tamara' they cannot localize against the ether the microreturn signal that is a stealthy UCAV dropping GBU-39 bombs on them, 20 miles away.
If you are fighting China, you put in a preselected target list and/or a BIA capable set of optical targeting algorithms and simply bomb a list of fixed targets while running dumb.
If you have an ability to HOJ triangulate, you drop on the emitters. Anything below the horizon without a 'commandos here' geocoordinate exclusion zone should be fair game.

2. Multichannel Spread Spectrum.
100Hz ((RRR)()DSAKLSJ@)($*(FSLFLKALR_)@)$)(OFISLRJWOWFOSFJI)
200Hz SFSFSR#$T)PFOFLKSR_))_@$)_P_FOFSL:F:LSF::LSLSLF:RK@)$FPSLF
300Hz ADSIFIOE)_R(SF()GLKF)@$EKLFKL)@$))_)F)SF@$FFGSDGALE$#RSF
400Hz A)((E(SF()(FFDIOSF_%#T(UFIOGE_)(%#((*G(G*)SG(SG)(G)()(SGT(G

Say that the above is digital pseudo random noise separated by 'channel steps' within X-Band. Assume that these are all transmitting simultaneously out of the same aperture. Realize that in the time it takes you to see it and wetware process the letter shapes, all four lines have been sent. Several times. Ignoring synchup and a few other variables which are somewhat predictable, can you find a single go-code 'APPLE' in there? Can you do it in realtime without knowing what sequence point in each crypt had -any- useful data. Or if it had two or three or none or all?

3. Single Use Keypad Crypting.
Imagine a vocabulary in which any 20 words might mean the same thing. Once. And never mean that thing again, for ten million repetitions. So that /even if/ you could find 'APPLE' in the noise, you couldn't figure out that it meant 'fly to Waypoint X and bomb target 22 on your frag list' from observed behavior. And that furthermore, the total vocabulary was so broad that nothing you ever overheard spoken would ever have the same meaning to upwards of 100 other users on the same net. For an equal period of term-reuse. That furthermore, for ALL drones, whether shot down or RTB successful, the list of code words would change for the very next DTM upload of mission orders. Now realize that the part of the drone which knows which command to associate with which code is NOT the part that is connected to the transmitter system and so effectively cannot be convinced to do a datadump of the total command list, even if it 'wanted to'. Nor can a drone combat controller. Because when he says 'go to target 22 and drop four bombs on it' he himself doesn't see 'APPLE' as a word, only his desired command before machine translation.

Takes 90% of the fun out of technical espionage to know that you are trying to talk two 10ft tall deaf mute morons out of the keys to the kingdom when they can only do sign language to each other and forget what they said after each and every communication.

4. Moated Systems, Hardwire Laws.
Milspec equivalents to Faraday Cages and metallic EMI shielding on cables and the like protect both avionics boxes and ports. Furthermore, it is possible to create datafunnels and physical or electronic 'moats' whose one-way passage or restricted (time:space) access means that if a UCAV was outside a given battlespace it simply would 'pull the plug' to the weapons system and not -itself- be able to 'recertify' until a ground crewman reset the inertial clock. Of course there would be tactical modifiers as well in that a UCAV which came in through any but a channelized passage corridor in a given period could and would be treated as malfunctioning and if it did not acknowledge a go-to-range-safing-zone recovery command, _hostile_.

Taken together, I would not say it is impossible for a Drone to be tampered with in flight. But I would say this-

A UCAVs electronic systems are no more vulnerable or less mission critical than a manned platforms.

A manned platform is typically vastly easier to detect as a preexistent requirement to /pointing/ a spoofer/meaconing system at.

Anything which rises above the horizon is looking at being fried 'quite ordinarily' by laser light much past 2015. Out to 25km from a surface site. And 60-100km using a relay mirror balloons under optimum conditions. For but a few thousand dollars per shot.

I worry about the hard kill much more than the soft one. Because I can erect barriers to subversion of the machine without ever endangering a man. OTOH, if I cannot do anything but send men over the top to slog away into the photon bullets of a 'light machine gun', my manned force has suddenly become a kamikaze one.

And that is beyond redemption as a value-in:risk out investment.


KPl.

 

[Supe]

@Kurt

wow. Intense stuff.

A bit of context as to why I think LHD's have merit in some of the concepts you've touched on : I approach this from the POV of a citizen of a medium power which could not afford CG's/DDG's and certainly not in numbers - then there's the absence of doctrine to support buying them in the first place. The flexibilty of an LHD (for a medium power) is that it can be tasked with all sorts of roles that a dedicated ship cannot.

With regards to pocket carriers (flat top amphibious ships). I don't see why this isn't the preferred option vs CG's/DDG's which sound like very expensive propositions. You've mentioned swarms (UCAVs) in some of your previous posts - what better launching platform? Surely the DDG/CG's you proposed wouldn't have the basing capacity for such swarms that a flat deck amphibious ship offers. (for smaller nations, LHD's are suitable multi-use solution). Then there's recovery - even platforms that cost only few millions vs many millions are assets hardly likely to be deemed completely disposable. So there's the issue of recovering these vehicles - can your proposed CG/DDG's do this?

Which sort of raises another issue. What is your doctrine here? A bunch of CG's moving in a pack or independently? How are they replenished - is there a mother ship which tops them up and sends them back on their merry way?

In these conditions, limited objective/effects based ops by mercenary or indigenous forces, with or without SOF stiffening, will largely dictate the way things are played. And a DDG or Cruiser sized asset which, 100-400nm out into the deep blue, can supply /limited/ fires to support these forces 'without acknowledgement' will be more useful than a CVSF of any flavor that has no way to cover it's actions.

That sea based asset proposal is reminiscent of those Tomahawks sent over to Sudan/Afghanistan by Clinton. They weren't very effective tools. Sledgehammer to crack a peanut. All roads lead to Rome and savvy folks know where the road leads. In this case back to a 'DDG or Cruiser asset' and the nation that sent off the weapons. Use of proxy forces is no guarantee to get the result you want.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Supe,

>>
wow. Intense stuff.
>>

I hope so. The concept of a wedge or triangularform shaped LTA with semirigid (inflateable) skins and extensible high altitude solar panels/wing skins is not itself new but the notion that it can function as a fixed wing aircraft with 200-300 knot transit speeds and full naval ESTOL/STOVL recoverability IS.

I hope the the USN thinks about it because with J-UCAS dead and netcentric nodes needing highbandwidth datarelay, there are not a lot of options remaining for them as a CSA followon that covers the mission spec between E-2 and E-10 and RQ-4.

>>
A bit of context as to why I think LHD's have merit in some of the concepts you've touched on : I approach this from the POV of a citizen of a medium power which could not afford CG's/DDG's and certainly not in numbers - then there's the absence of doctrine to support buying them in the first place.
>>

DOCTRINE 101:
A. Seaward assets cannot viably support inland forces with helicopters. Period. Dot.
B. Surface units cannot viably survive, even with the 'best of intentions' (Aster-30 and SM.6/SM.IV LEAP) without cueing.
C. WHY put megabucks into SPY-1A type gear that has ZERO functionality over the landward horizon but looks like a veritable lighthouse from a 30,000ft and 1,000km out?

>>
The flexibilty of an LHD (for a medium power) is that it can be tasked with all sorts of roles that a dedicated ship cannot.
>>

Depends on how you look at it. I would go to a full sized SWATH or STAC type hull in the 30-50,000 ton class just so that I could keep the hull length reasonable while giving myself a big hangar and dual flight decks (no angle deck nonsense) with the possibility of heavy-COD or fast-reconfiguring (C-130 shortland) between troop and airwing configured specialization.

OTOH, two hulls is two hulls so this ship is going to run you a /minimum/ .75 billion dollars. Even if you give it commercial ships services (Smart Ship stuff) and min-compliment, min-mission systems; it's going to run you a further /minimum/ quarter million dollars per day to tool about in, during peacetime. With no air ops to speak of.

OTOH, a JSF is going to run you about 104 million bucks. A Rafale is going to cost you between 60 and 80. This means you've got another /minimum/ billion bucks tied up in an airwing which will age like all naval aircraft do, on a ten vice twenty year replacement cycle.

Now throw in a useful 'alternate amphibious capability' with LCAC or LCVP plus AAV and a decent heavy lift option in the Merlin. And that's /another/ billion bucks.

And for what? Without a real airwing, it's not a war winner, it's a peace keeper. Which means you may get constant requests for deployment that means your ops account is ALSO going to be bloated by every Typhoon, Tsunami, Boat People yadda de yadda yadda 'emergency' out there.

Now, to win wars, carriers need to either stack back (one provides FORCAP for the other's strike wing from the lee) or dual-axis (wave from here, smack in the teeth from there) deceptive capabilities. Which means that, even if you have a decent 500-700nm sphere of influence around the boat (and it _will be_ considerably closer in than this, supporting amphibious ops); you will need a minimum 2 and preferrably 4 ladies in waiting to escort each little fairy princess flight deck around. And a fleet train to match.

Now assume that you want to have the /minimum/ ability to maintain 'presence' via one active deployment, one deck in SLEP or turn, and one deck at least nominally ready for immediate sortying if not working up (carqual newbies etc.).

And life just gets to be a merry hell of patching a broken ship while juggling ten chainsaws, budget and ops wise.

Compared to the cost of a flight of 10-15 DDG with _proper_ (expected not sudden adjunct) long range airpower support I suspect you're looking at at least an order of magnitude difference in total lifecycle costs.

>>
With regards to pocket carriers (flat top amphibious ships). I don't see why this isn't the preferred option vs CG's/DDG's which sound like very expensive propositions.
>>

Well, from a threat perspective, by 2020 I fully expect a combination of overhead and JORN/ROTHR type sea basin surveillance systems, added on to IRBM class guided AShM, to make life within a 1,000nm of shore a rather interesting experience. OTOH, while I find a 220-250 million dollar LCS to be a questionable investment in HG&U steel for steels sake, there can be no doubt that a 'fully kitted' DD-X is going to run you about a billion bucks if not a billion five.

'Somewhere inbetween' (signature vs. standoff) is going to be a viable option for a smaller hull which you can afford to risk in small task forces if not alone. Yet which has the basics (40-60 cell AAW VLS count) to survive if attacked, _provided_ it has an early cue. Which means your sensors must go airborne.

>>
You've mentioned swarms (UCAVs) in some of your previous posts - what better launching platform? Surely the DDG/CG's you proposed wouldn't have the basing capacity for such swarms that a flat deck amphibious ship offers.
>>

Silent Eyes can be ejected out the back of a modified ALE-50 towed decoy container similar to that on a late model F-16. Finder can be carried under a Predator I see no reason not to make a cruise weapon carry one targeting/BIA drone and 5-10 variable delayed impact micro-PGMs like Viper Strike if not SDB.

OTOH Slow-Fast-

http://www.defense-update.com/products/s/slowfast.htm

As now configured, is a 500kg system which combines Mach 1.6 transit with 120-200 knot loiter in a given target area for 3-4 hours. Trade a couple hours for a payload bay and now you can drop directly with both the targeter and the bomber fully recoverable.

I knew the A-45/47 were dead as soon as they became 'officially sponsored' by manned airpower services. First they exploded the scale of them. Then they called them too expensive for 'what they did' (stick around at distance, better than any manned platform). Then they cancelled the lot. Budget trimming and Iraq were just convenient excuses.

The difference between the two of course is that the A-45 is a UCAV approaching the scale of a 'real' airplane so that it can afford CVTOL type landing on a pitching deck etc. etc. And once you make them that big, you need 'real carrier' to land them on in any kind of significant numbers. Real carriers are inhabited by flying monkeys who will never yield their 'divine right' to waste our money.

It's like putting a fox in charge of the hen house and then letting it define what a chicken is.

My idea is that once you pass a certain weight threshold, everything becomes repackagable in a way that both demands and rewards a pure VTOL approach. Imagine something like a BQM-74F in size-

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-74.html

But designed around a rhomboid type lifting body shape with an oblique wing-

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Photo/AD-1/Small/ECN-13302B.jpg

That is functionally similar to that of a V-22 during hangar stowage (stacked in horse cradles if you wish) or high speed transit flight. But which grants U-2 like minspeed hangtime at the target area.

I say rhombus because I want enough space to integrate an SDLF using paired microturbines, fore and aft, to provide a four post VL capability (the forward engine exhausts laterally like the X-32 and because it is not a manned asset, you can afford the slightly higher L+LC 'startup' risks).

If you can keep costs down to 1 million or less for a 300-400nm ranged asset including the optics/micro-SAR package (which would nestle smartly between the intake channels feeding each powerplant) and run them at least 10-20 missions before loss, you've got a _very_ reasonable alternative to manned air for the 'targeting portion' of the netcentric option.

>>
(for smaller nations, LHD's are suitable multi-use solution). Then there's recovery - even platforms that cost only few millions vs many millions are assets hardly likely to be deemed completely disposable. So there's the issue of recovering these vehicles - can your proposed CG/DDG's do this?
>>

HMAS Jervis Bay
http://de.geocities.com/glupscherle/hmas-jervis-bay.jpg
http://www.aspi.org.au/aspi_shipbuilding/images/p13_jervisbay.jpg

You are quite right in that, if you can make the air vehicle system viable, you can always weaponize it. It's just that I've 'finally realized' our military development and procurement system is so completely corrupt at all levels that the only way to get towards a cost effective naval airpower system is to do so 'sub scale' so that NEW CONCEPTS of what will work (unmanned and jet speed and VTOL) can come online for use from ships where aviators are not notably present to object.

'Then, when we're ready...'

>>
Which sort of raises another issue. What is your doctrine here? A bunch of CG's moving in a pack or independently? How are they replenished - is there a mother ship which tops them up and sends them back on their merry way?
>>

That depends a great deal on some key policy issues and the march of technology over time.

Ugly Americanism is perceived to be so pervasive around the world that we are rapidly losing all hope of non-forced entry to theaters where we once might have been welcomed. Indeed, we are actually retracting from overseas bases in the process.

Given that we are in a period of relative prosperity and peace, continued Bully-For-U.S. JDAM power diplomacy may reach the point that all 'favors and friendships' from WWII through the Cold War are cancelled or collected out. Something that is likely to be even further speeded along as newer, richer, commercial markets provide economic alternatives to an MFN monoblock.

At the same time, DEWS are the new-nukes (actually useable) which will largely render conventional airpower obsolescent _if caught_. Even as the responsiveness needed to put iron on target in a 'time critical target set' manner with fixed wing airpower also degrades with range on subsonic platforms. But not for missiles. Missiles whose speed is both survivability (over a threatfloor perhaps 60-100,000ft tall) and reactivity.

Even as their /price/ (1.6 billion dollars for 2,200 Tomahawks) is and always has been dominant and readily reinventoried on expenditure. Indeed, double the going rate of 730 grande for Blk.IV to gain a Fast Hawk (Mach 8 to 800nm weapon) and you _still_ beat the the total inventory: gas + training + munitions costs of conventional airpower. IN ONE YEAR.

Provided you know where to put it.

Of course, what goes around comes around so it may very well be that naval assets are subject to the same kinds of attack to even larger, cheaper, landbased, systems.

Which is why drones must go where lasers lie in wait. And DDGs must risk what a carrier cannot.

As principal airpower exponents.

Because if things go the direction I expect them to, both the air assets and their basing modes will become throwaway to DEWS and hunting weapons. And the 'next step' up from missiles will be FALCON or CBM type Pizza Hut delivery (around the world in 30 minutes or your next ones free!). Which, even with conventional warheads, is quite an escalation for both cost and political factoring.

>>
That sea based asset proposal is reminiscent of those Tomahawks sent over to Sudan/Afghanistan by Clinton. They weren't very effective tools.
>>

They more less hit what was aimed at. Some say it was pharmaceuticals and African Politics. Some say it was the real deal.

http://www.tenc.net/articles/jared/sudan.html

Without /someone/ on the ground, you'll never know. Of greater import is the certainty that the CIA had UBL under crosshairs several times during the 1997-1999 period in AfG with Gnat-750 that could have easily been armed. But were not allowed to be so under Cuba Rules.

>>
Sledgehammer to crack a peanut. All roads lead to Rome and savvy folks know where the road leads. In this case back to a 'DDG or Cruiser asset' and the nation that sent off the weapons. Use of proxy forces is no guarantee to get the result you want.
>>

Given that there are some 70 active conflicts ongoing and none but Iraq and AfG are ever reported (and then only by 'imbedded' dog-owns-tick types) and an Unacknowledged Combat replacement now in place which lets the President break the law /at home/ 'for the period of the ongoing adventure' (tongue in cheek).

If nobody knows that _there is a forest fire_ how does anyone figure out that a tree hath fallen before, during or after the conflagration? Remember limited support, enough to let the barbarians know that their opponents have indirect fires for the duration of the mission. Not enough to win the war outright.

That said, WHAT CAN either a CVBG or a Destroyer do, as now configured? Where was the navy when the Rangers were getting the snot kicked out of them in The Mog? Why wasn't a DDG off the shores of Afghanistan in less than the thirty days it took us to standup a carrier group out of Japan? Why didn't we shift assets from the 5th or 7th fleets which nominally should have had somebody in the IO or PG/Red Sea areas at all times?

Because they couldn't hit what they couldn't target (forget bent pipe, put YOUR EO eyes on). And they didn't have any reason to send a toothless dog which couldn't hunt for the range. That's why.

FIRST- You have to be present. As a function of affordable HDHD _low intensity_ peacetime deployment economics. Not a HDLD _full scale_ warfighter which is so valuable that entire systems are created to beat it.

SECOND- You have to be able to go well over the beach. If not /with bombs/ then with an asset that can correct the fall of them. Boyd was right about one thing: Don't get obsessed with salty wet sand.

THIRD- You have to be able to support and survive. In whatever conflict level you suddenly face WITHOUT having to change your position-as-posture to become proactive or 'safe'. Basically this means stood off beyond the range of easy mine or PCI or AShM attack. While able to reach /into/ the deep littorals fires zone as a matter of course (FTSF= 400nm and beyond).

Amphib, IMO, doesn't get you there because it's at least 50% about the surfzone and 40% about rotary wing <150nm radii. Whereas a decent SOF team can call down fires from a valley wall or an overhead drone that obliterates a force ten times their size, 700nm inland. Just so long as they don't have to hump more than a radio in with them.

Carrier Air can be made to work, but only provided you have a boat available, and you _buy to scale_ so that the low number of pointy-end sorties per day can be offset by either huge airwings. Or incredible loiter on station. None of which can now be properly done.


KPl.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

U.S. Partners On F-35 Concerned Over Plane's Cost, Cuts.

>>
Analysts said England's logic made sense, as long as Lockheed Martin produces at least 100 airplanes per year. Teal Group aircraft expert Richard Aboulafia said costs shouldn't rise too much even though the Pentagon probably won't buy all of the planes currently on its books.
"Yes, the Air Force might get 1,200 instead of 1,700" of the new fighters, Aboulafia said. "As long as you've got a minimum economic rate, unit cost shouldn't change much for the total buy."
>>

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BA876F7EA%2DBB8F%2D4E67%2D9224%2D91998C44FD18%7D&dist=newsfinder&siteid=google&keyword=

The notion of rubber numbers is a flat out lie. Because everything from materials buys to subcontractor-X widget manufacture is SOLD on the basis of an initial guaranteed sale.

If you say 3,000 U.S. and 'as many as' 4,000 world wide, and then cut to about 50 percent of the U.S. original total, you WILL effect overall sales negatively.

Officially (as was done on the F-16) this 'frees up early lots' for FMS sales and inventory fill in key client nations. Unofficially, it means that all the addon sales are in fact _at the front_ of the production totals. Not lumped on after the U.S. buy.

This is critical for several reasons:

1. Initial costs will be higher before the line stabilizes and high rate manufacture is achieved. Tier 1 partners will thus expect more offsets (on the expectation of fewer followon sales later on) or lower their own inventory purchases. Or both.
3. Followon sales will depend largely upon word of mouth because they won't be getting the juicy bits of the production/technology offsets. And if the baseline fighter is 104 million, it's not going to be a simple thing to sell it since the real total (1,500 U.S. jets, /maybe/ another 500 initial foreign) will be roughly half the amount promised and the jet is already 4-5 times it's original 1994 price.
4. Lunchmeat Inc. WILL respond accordingly. And sell high now on the expectation of weakening rather than strengthening sales as time goes on and UCAVs and DEWS come online as orders of magnitude cheaper alternatives. Not the least factor in this will be the utter absence of a threat base (PAK-FA and LCA/MCA plus J-10 are all vaporware) to drive sales. But most especially because because they are already carrying the F-22 debt.

CONCLUSION:
What really makes me mad is that not only are we expected to give away VLO technology 'or else they'll pick up their dollies and go home' (buh-bye now) like the whiney brats they are.

But NOW, in trade for something like 10% of the R&D funding, we must guarantee what price we sell them their shiny new toys by porking up our own inventory purchases (and defense debts) _while a war is going on_.

i.e. They expect Congress to ante up to foreign interests despite the fact that it would _cost U.S. less_ to not produce /any/ export F-35s and simply pay back their initial investment while increasing our total inventory buy a full 2,000 JSF to replace any 'local support' altogether.

These nations have no stake in America. They should have absolutely NO say in how we spend on defense. Or what kinds of technology access they 'deserve' for wanting to own what they cannot build. Period Dot.

Nor should we trust the word of our own defense contractors and 5 Wall Asylumists to be unbiased. Because they expect to see profit as a function of taxpayer guarantee of their bottomline /no matter what/ the Fed officially FMS' their product for.

I might not mind if there was a real threat out there. Or if the nature of airpower was not on the verge of massive change. But the simple fact of the matter is that if we don't need but half of 3,000 jets for our own services; whoring VLO technology to the world so that they can have 500 airframes that they otherwise could never afford to develop on their own makes NO SENSE AT ALL.

Because the number of friendly airframes out there to help us in time of need will be less than what we ourselves originally 'deemed needful' before 9/11. And Iraq has proven that international coalitions are not reliable or necessary for the amount of assistance they give when push really comes to shove.

I swear, _it's about damn time_. To tell our government to stop arming the planet purely for the profit of the MIC. So that we can shut this sucker down before it ramps up a juggernaut fit to flatten our economy right into ruin.


KPl.

 

[perfectgeneral]

Hold on a minute. Before you turn isolationist.

Half my family are american and the other half Brits. One of the dollies that you have full use of is VTOL technology. Part of a technology sharing deal on the F-35. There are many other areas where the US benefits from UK tehnology in this (joint) project. Sure we don't bring as much money to the table - that makes us a junior partner, but still a partner. Congress (in part) has taken it upon itself to welsh on this deal though observing an optional spoiling statute made law after the partnership deal was struck and UK technology started flowing your way. You have a nerve berating the UK in this manner. The UK is also in a war. The UK has the largest foreign stake in the USA. Don't kid yourself that VLO originates in the USA. They/you got the idea from a UK scientist's report. How does the UK affording a sovereign F-35 help the USA. We would equip two 65,000t carriers with them and operate them alongside our closest NATO allies. That's the USA, who seem to have trouble with a domestic jackass in congress or are genuinely trying to shot themselves in the foot by ensuring that the carriers are poorly equipped or never built. That means the USA has to operate more carriers than they would like (nuclear ones that cost a lot to run). Unless you want to count on the 65,000t carrier that we have sold France the design for? That will be flying Rafales. Maybe having to talk to the neighbours makes you sick. Hold your nose and think of the US tax dollars this deal saves in the big picture. LockMart interests are not the same as national interests. One congressman is cheaper than competative bidding on engines, servicing and upgrades. There is a lot more to this issue than you have concidered, Kurt.

Less than a hundred UK citizens died in 9/11. Loads have died in Iraq and 'Stan. Then there were the London bombings that were a direct result of us answering the call before it had even gone out. We did not flinch from our duty to international peace and the rule of law. Nor our NATO comitment even though the qualification was ambiguous (I'm sure the US would have declared war on Argentina had we needed that). We helped bring other states on board for an open ended war that was hard to sell. Spain showed what a less resolute state can contribute to international principles. Much to the embarassment of her armed forces and position in the world.

The threat is always hidden. It may not exist today, but it might be by the time the CVF is built and the F-35 is operational. The nature of airpower is on the verge of massive change, but to wait for the final design is to wait forever. It is a rolling process. Look how UK fighter manufacturing and design was hit by cancelation of projects. It is better to have a rolling programme of projects. Cuts happen in all budgets. In this joint project the terms of the deal affect the UK budget as well as the US budget (which is funded more by foreign debt than US tax payers, so quit bellyaching).

:sick:eek

CONCLUSION:
What really makes me mad is that not only are we expected to give away VLO technology 'or else they'll pick up their dollies and go home' (buh-bye now) like the whiney brats they are.

But NOW, in trade for something like 10% of the R&D funding, we must guarantee what price we sell them their shiny new toys by porking up our own inventory purchases (and defense debts) _while a war is going on_.

i.e. They expect Congress to ante up to foreign interests despite the fact that it would _cost U.S. less_ to not produce /any/ export F-35s and simply pay back their initial investment while increasing our total inventory buy a full 2,000 JSF to replace any 'local support' altogether.

These nations have no stake in America. They should have absolutely NO say in how we spend on defense. Or what kinds of technology access they 'deserve' for wanting to own what they cannot build. Period Dot.

Nor should we trust the word of our own defense contractors and 5 Wall Asylumists to be unbiased. Because they expect to see profit as a function of taxpayer guarantee of their bottomline /no matter what/ the Fed officially FMS' their product for.

I might not mind if there was a real threat out there. Or if the nature of airpower was not on the verge of massive change. But the simple fact of the matter is that if we don't need but half of 3,000 jets for our own services; whoring VLO technology to the world so that they can have 500 airframes that they otherwise could never afford to develop on their own makes NO SENSE AT ALL.

Because the number of friendly airframes out there to help us in time of need will be less than what we ourselves originally 'deemed needful' before 9/11. And Iraq has proven that international coalitions are not reliable or necessary for the amount of assistance they give when push really comes to shove.

I swear, _it's about damn time_. To tell our government to stop arming the planet purely for the profit of the MIC. So that we can shut this sucker down before it ramps up a juggernaut fit to flatten our economy right into ruin.


KPl.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

PG,

>>
Half my family are American and the other half Brits.
>>

And I have a British Lord in my ancestral tree. Whoopy.

>>
One of the dollies that you have full use of is VTOL technology.
>>

SDLF, as a 'derivative' of Tandem Fan and GDLF, came out of NASA's ASTOVL program. Not Warton's. The Lobster Tail nozzle came out of Russia's Yak-141 technology base. I /think/ the Brits did some 'digital control laws' testing on a modified Harrier but I'm not sure that even that wasn't redundant to U.S. tests.

>>
Part of a technology sharing deal on the F-35.
>>

The problem here is that BAe is _not_ moated from EADS/Thales and never will be. Something Janes has commented on since 1997. We don't owe stealth technology to an increasingly close shop 'commercially isolationist' EU. No matter /what/ happened in WWII. Not when NATO itself is a dead mission and we are pulling out of Germany.

Nor are we being asked to share the technology 'just with you'. If every other nation on the planet dropped the JSF, The City would insist on a Brit pullout of the program, even if we gave you the keys to the kingdom on VLO. Because it wouldn't be profitable.

OTOH, the notion that VLO will remain secure /without/ restricted ownership of the airframe as well as the tech base is ludicrous so we are going from a situation where nobody can keep U.S. out and our friends sleep well knowing their enemies know that. To a situation where LO is not a guarantee /because/ it is proliferated.

>>
There are many other areas where the US benefits from UK tehnology in this (joint) project. Sure we don't bring as much money to the table - that makes us a junior partner, but still a partner. Congress (in part) has taken it upon itself to welsh on this deal though observing an optional spoiling statute made law after the partnership deal was struck and UK technology started flowing your way. You have a nerve berating the UK in this manner. The UK is also in a war. The UK has the largest foreign stake in the USA. Don't kid yourself that VLO originates in the USA. They/you got the idea from a UK scientist's report.
>>

And here I thought Ufimtsev was Russian. Of course old Pyotr did his fine work in 1966 on 2D shapes. David Overholser wrote Echo 1 and we are now at least three generations beyond flat-plane geometric prediction of complex surface/creep wave phenomena 'all on our own'. It's like saying the Brown Bess was responsible for the style of fighting and outcome of the Civil War even though paper cartridges were nowhere to be seen.

>>
How does the UK affording a sovereign F-35 help the USA. We would equip two 65,000t carriers with them and operate them alongside our closest NATO allies.
>>

And those carriers will be home ported 90% of the time because the U.K. cannot afford to run them on constant cruise deployments. If the oceans remain gapped, then the principal (first reaction as a deterrence force) element of carrier power is not happening.

Nor will U.S. forces be able to interoperate with these carriers so that, should we lose a ship or otherwise have more airpower than we can sortie in a 'better than 30 damn days' (9/11 - 10/10) fashion, we could 'borrow' one of yours. Something which we offered to do with a full LHA and her battlegroup when it looked like the Argies had got the number of the RN with SUE and AM.39.

_1,763 JSF_ will not be carrier mobile. For that reason alone, the U.S. Air Services have completely missed the boat on what 'Joint' (Common Basing Mode) capabilities should mean in a shrinking force structure establishment.

>>
That's the USA, who seem to have trouble with a domestic jackass in congress or are genuinely trying to shot themselves in the foot by ensuring that the carriers are poorly equipped or never built
That means the USA has to operate more carriers than they would like (nuclear ones that cost a lot to run). Unless you want to count on the 65,000t carrier that we have sold France the design for? That will be flying Rafales. Maybe having to talk to the neighbours makes you sick. Hold your nose and think of the US tax dollars this deal saves in the big picture.
>>

Well you are at least correct about the problem being far from that cut and dried:

1. Congress desparately wishes for this deal to go through. It's pure pork for them. This is why they have twice prevented the USAF from dropping to 1,500 and then 1,100 aircraft.

2. Carriers have relatively low operating costs compared to the escort groups that HAVE TO go out with them. And the difference between a 65 and a 90K ton vessel is miniscule on the 'sacrificial CVE' level of things. OTOH, we keep cutting and cutting manpower from the USN logistics tail and making deployment after deployment of the toothy end. Which means that things will start to break and retention will drop to the point where even a fit ship cannot go to sea with half her billets empty and everyone crosshatted 4-5 times.

3. The STOVL variant does everything WRONG that you could possibly want otherwise in a deep interdictor:

a- With 12-14,000lbs onboard, it can only run 450nm. Which means it can't match legs with the predominant CTOL model, even if it had the right refueling gear.

b- It is drastically overweight and will likely have to sacrifice fuel as well as the 2,000lbs weight class JDAM _or_ the 1,640lb BRU-61 (loaded with GBU-39) to make operational grade in hot-high conditions around the boat.

c- It is the sole author of the JSF program lag and price hike (other than the 600 million spent on 'securing LO for export') when we likely would have simply accepted that 2,750lb weight overage that the CVTOL/CTOL models represented.

d- It has numerous added holes cut in the airframe which cannot be good for manufacturing or LO qualities.

e- Because of it's short range, it cannot clear even a modest TBM envelope.

f- Because of it's 'configured deck' operating condition, it can neither land nor take off in-cycle with CVTOL jets. Because you have to derig or at least detension the pendant. And the run from the waist cat (without a ramp) is too short.

g- In U.S. service it will operate from LHA/LHD class vessels where the typical 'detachment' of Harriers numbers all of 8-12 machines.

WHY should we pay /you/ for production of the CTOL version when it is YOUR BLOODY VARIANT that is destroying the economics of the overall program for NO operational gain?!?

>>
LockMart interests are not the same as national interests. One congressman is cheaper than competative bidding on engines, servicing and upgrades. There is a lot more to this issue than you have considered, Kurt.
>>

No but there is more than you have. At the time Britain started belching fire over the F136; Ford had just cut 30,000 jobs. The headlines at the time _specifically read_ "Prime Minister goes to the wall over 100 jobs and 1 billion dollars worth of work." THAT is cheap political engineering. Not least because it did not choose to use a valid _operational consideration_ which was that the F135 may produce sufficiently less thrust to marginalize the aircraft's performance in a military fashion. No, Britain wanted the 'spare' engine option solely for money. And at that time, you could not have /possibly/ rammed your foot any deeper. Now, Delphi and Visteon, major parts houses for the automotive industry, are also thinking about similar cutbacks, starting with a 50% wage cut which will likely bring the UAW into strike conditions. Which will likely cascade further to GM, sending them into bankruptcy. SPECIFICALLY to get out of honoring union contract and retirement fund obligations. Which will knock over the PBGC as the next Savings & Loan default.

That's between 100 and 120 THOUSAND jobs gone in a major element of our _useful_ economy. You know, the one that feeds U.S., day to day.

And another 20 MILLION associated industry jobs and retirement beneficiaries also sideswiped and potentially no longer contributing to the economy.

The final insanity of which is this-

1. We have a 300/600 immigrant policy. 300,000 legal, 600,000 illegal immigrants MUST enter the U.S. economy /every year/. Or we will not be able to support social security. For ever 100K thousand 'alternate workers' crime rates go up a percentage. Wages go down a percentage and Health care goes up 4 percentage points. Every five years.

2. Declaring bankruptcy no longer lets John Q. Citizen start over with a clean slate. He can now /literally/ go to jail for failing to remunerate his indemnities. Not so Corporate America. A business model which _creates_ personal bankruptcy by firing people to send labor overseas.

3. At the beginning of the new Hurricane season in April, the Levies in New Orleans will only be at about 70% of pre-Katrina levels and we are getting forecasts of another 'record year'. Those poor blacks rendered homeless by that storm are now living in gulag style trailer camps and we have not even /begun/ to seriously rezone and lay out final replacement housing for them.

Indeed, all real rebuilding work is corporate and 'regular folk' are not even allowed into the camps. Or into the cities to do PWA style volunteer work. No food, no clothes, no help. Just money which has vanished into a black hole of accountable progress. Now they want _20 billion more dollars_.

4. We don't need Britain to 'win' this war. Either in Iraq or AfG. What we NEED to do is _strike the Will_ that is Osama Bin Laden. And we don't even have a division on the ground IN PAKISTAN to begin the process by which that happens.

CONCLUSION:

There will be no BP/SOO coup de crude in Iraq. No guarantee of a return to $1.30 gasoline by which our _service_ economy tape worms the world with cheap transport of market goods. We will be out on our ears from Iraq by 2008-09, it would be political suicide to do otherwise. And UBL will go free. This war has NOT jump started the economy, it has merely diverted funds which we /desperately/ need to move away from a petroleum based 'crack cocaine' dependency. And wasting 256 billion for JSF, atop the 600 billion being thrown to the wind in Iraq is not helping U.S. get there. Not when 1,500 UCAV (carrier capable in ALL their variants) @ 25 million apiece, plus another 30 billion of R&D. Would buy us a more credible 'total force' (manpower as mechanics with one robo squadron in every _Air Force_ squadron 'carrier capable') for about 67 billion bucks.

>>
Less than a hundred UK citizens died in 9/11. Loads have died in Iraq and 'Stan. Then there were the London bombings that were a direct result of us answering the call before it had even gone out. We did not flinch from our duty to international peace and the rule of law. Nor our NATO comitment even though the qualification was ambiguous (I'm sure the US would have declared war on Argentina had we needed that). We helped bring other states on board for an open ended war that was hard to sell. Spain showed what a less resolute state can contribute to international principles. Much to the embarassment of her armed forces and position in the world.
>>

This isn't about war. Hunting down UBL should be a bounty process by which we find ONE MAN and haul him by the testacles to New York for trial on mass murder. Shave him, dress him in an orange jump suit, let the world see him humbled as an ordinary mortal rather than some kind of Binh Saladin folk hero. And then stick a needle in his arm.

I swear, we have truly learned NOTHING from history if we have not learned that the Black Hand and Al Quaeda are the same phantoms of imagination. And that if you insist on polarizing your enemies by rendering 'them' as Islam rather than HIM as Osama, you will chase your freakin' tail til the cows come home.

>>
The threat is always hidden. It may not exist today, but it might be by the time the CVF is built and the F-35 is operational. The nature of airpower is on the verge of massive change, but to wait for the final design is to wait forever.
>>

Crap logic. Think about what you just said. The threat is not there today but it may be by tomorrow, and knowing that when it does eventuate (based on OUR technologic process), massive change will follow.

That much makes sense.

But then you go on to say that the threat will or will not happen based on a 'final design' for an _airframe_ is ludicrous. The threat IS going to happen. And an airframe designed to Cold War standards of value via baby onboard systemic flaw will ensure that the ENTIRE SYSTEM of airpower will come crashing down when it does. How well defended will we be then when we have no money and no /time/ to start another 10-15 year development process, eh?

Furthermore, we KNOW that M-THEL is going to start field trials in 2015. That is LESS THAN THREE YEARS after JSF IOC. It's not even a 'maybe' it's a _date with destiny_.

>>
It is a rolling process. Look how UK fighter manufacturing and design was hit by cancelation of projects. It is better to have a rolling programme of projects.
>>

Crap logic again. A decade of biplanes leading up to the Gloster Gladiator did not beget the Spitfire. And one could say that by waiting until the last minute to start the process by which the monoplane fighters eventuated, Germany saw a chance in 1939 she might not have did you simply _do the work_ on the monoplane paradigm change WITH MONEY CONSERVED from that which bought you an armed peace in a _zero threat_ period of the 20's and 30's.
Another problem here is that both the UK and the U.S. have viable 'programs in progress' which _both_ offer equal if not superior capability to a mixed range of _conventional signature threats_ than the JSF does. WHY hand out VLO when, by conserving it, you guarantee that the threat has to work that much longer, that much harder, to gain it?

550 F-22 (which _will do_ the job of 2,000 JSF) will run U.S. 70 billion. SAR/ISAR and EOTS may add another 20. Flubber with a big wing, AMSAR and EJ230 plus a range of cheap PGM will cost 10-15 billion.

So that manufacture and experience in aerospace engineering will not stop just because someone pulls the plug on this ONE massively wasteful, expenditure.

At the _same time_ we could restart J-UCAS and LRSA-as-Falcon tomorrow and have a better solution to both the tactical and strategic airpower projection problems of a 2020 world in which everybody hates our guts, are pisspoor barbarians without a concrete runway or have local DEWS defenses able to shoot down anything which comes within a 100,000ft of them.
All of which together, I believe, handles your 'poor little starving MICies' problem of continuity-of-funding quite simply.

No. What this comes down to is pure personality displacement and LOMD envy that is the 'fighter pilot' psychopathy.

>>
Cuts happen in all budgets. In this joint project the terms of the deal affect the UK budget as well as the US budget (which is funded more by foreign debt than US tax payers, so quit bellyaching).
>>

Sigh, you just do not get it sir. It's not within /the rights/ of a foreign power to dictate what we spend OUR money on. How WE decide to defend ourselves in trade for commercial guarantees. Fought a little thing called The Revolutionary War over that very subject I believe.

If you like the JSF, buy it. If you don't ask for your deposit back and find something more appealing, don't assume that a penny ante into a c-note game gains you the power to say how or indeed /whether/ we should continue in an effort which our own generals have downgraded the production buy _for our own use_ by more than half.

Because the paltry few JSF that the /entire world/ is apt to purchase 'in addition' to our reduced requirements will not make up the difference.
And no manned jet on the planet will survive the onslaught of the first beam weapons. NONE.

CONCLUSION2:

People don't realize exactly how _displeased_ America is with itself, it's leadership and it's direction in life. We got /suckered/ into playing the AOD Cavalry (albeit for profit) in two World Wars to build our economy but now the situation has changed and sport war for it's own sake merely drains us. Thus it is only now that we are realizing how much of our future we have sold away pursuing a militarist/elitist power block diplomacy based on guns and oil.
If for no other reason than to rescue ourselves from that false standard of protecting /other peoples/ lives; we need to pull back from the brink of an economic chasm, decide what war itself should be 'about' and whether we can stand to look at ourselves if there are (UN CAH prohibition against any sale of weapons or prosecution of aggression outside one's own borders) alternatives.

And ONLY then, if there is no other choice but to arm ourselves; to find the level of combat capability which we can afford to utterly dominate (through numbers or tech) rather than 'share the battlefield' with so called allies as much as enemies.

One last thing I would suggest you keep in mind. The TFX program eventually produced 563 airframes from a requirement of 650 USAF and 435 USN. Of those, only the last 106 F-models were really worth a damn and that was questionable compared to the F-4C/D/E (with EO) aircraft it was intended to replace and of which 3,000 had been built for roughly 4 million each. Even so, 'early production just to keep the wheels turning over in the defense industry' ended up costing the USAF 100 million dollars just in wingbox and stabilator fixes after a serious of crashes required multiple inspection lines be set up. If we end up buying 500-750 JSF to replace 2,000 F-16. And the ROW purchases 200-500 more, that means that _there will be no_ 'followon fixes by block number' as made a junk dayfighter into something marginally worthwhile with the Viper. Everything will have to be right THE FIRST TIME.

Because each JSF will cost over 100 million dollars (due to the limited total inventory purchase) and nobody will want to fork over money for another batch of 'updated' models. Because DEWS will be here.

I just cannot understand how people can be so utterly blinded by the 'star power' of manned aviation as a total _black hole_ of monetary waste.


KPl.

 

[gf0012-aust]

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