back to article F-35 'incomparable' to Harrier jump jet, top test pilot tells El Reg

What's it like to fly an F-35 fighter jet? We interviewed the chief British test pilot about a uniquely British flying technique – and then had a play with a full cockpit simulator to find out for ourselves. Squadron Leader Andy Edgell is the Royal Air Force's top test pilot for the F-35 flight trials programme. A former …

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Flying experience

        > Particularly not this bit, which is closer to a description of how to spin into the ground

        Indeed, it is a textbook description of a spin entry.

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think it was well known....

    ...that the Harrier was an utter bugger to control. The question is, could a "new" Harrier done a better job with modern avionics and technology, for far less money, rather than complete redesign, creating a whole new set of issues?

    1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      Re: I think it was well known....

      I've thought that a few times. I'm inclined to think that the airframe would be up to snuff - the difference would be that the control commands would be coming from a computer rather than a human.

    2. SkippyBing

      Re: I think it was well known....

      'The question is, could a "new" Harrier done a better job with modern avionics and technology, for far less money, rather than complete redesign, creating a whole new set of issues?'

      You'd make the flying easier, but the F-35 can carry ~twice the weapons load ~twice as far ~twice as fast, and has the space for more avionics than the Harrier. I think they're were pretty much at the limits of what you could do with the Pegasus engine as well which would make improvements in thrust challenging.

      1. x 7

        Re: I think it was well known....

        " I think they're were pretty much at the limits of what you could do with the Pegasus engine as well which would make improvements in thrust challenging"

        But they were thinking on the lines of a grown-up Pegasus with either a Spey or Olympus core, which would have massively increased thrust. Would have required a new larger airframe, and the MOD weren't interested.

        1. Sanguma

          Re: I think it was well known....

          Wasn't there a book published some time in the late 90s - early 2000s about BAE experimental aircraft and projects that hadn't got off the ground?

          IIRC, there was a Harrier Next Generation design that had twin tail-booms allowing the engine to have a more realistic afterburner with similar or same thrust vectoring from the bypass fans.

          Anyone remember the name of the book? I've forgotten it completely.

          1. Adam 1

            Re: I think it was well known....

            > about BAE experimental aircraft and projects that hadn't got off the ground?

            Shirley it is only the ones that they got off the ground that are worth considering?

            /Coat please

    3. Tannin

      Re: I think it was well known....

      "The question is, could a "new" Harrier done a better job with modern avionics and technology, for far less money?"

      Not a snowball's chance in hell. Could a hypothetical New Super Harrier do all that it required? Sure it could, if you spent enough money - i.e., something an order of magnitute greater on a per-seat basis than the F-35. (Or anything else for that matter.) Most of the cost in producing an aircraft is in the design and development process. To get the cost per unit down to something sensible, you need to produce hundreds, if possibly thousands, of units.

      Same with any high-tech product.

      Q: How much does it cost to produce one modern CPU chip? Ans: Hundreds of millions.

      Q: Having made the first one, how much does it cost to produce the second one? Ans: small change.

      Now, if you could sign a customer up to pre-order, say, 450 New Super Harriers and pay cash up front ....

  2. JaitcH
    FAIL

    F35 - Too Late and Over Budget

    The F35 has been on the drawing board so long that parts of it are now ancient technology.

    It's the latest American military project failure and they are foisting it on other nations to recoup some development costs.

    Will Britain still have to send these dogs to Italy for engine maintenance?

    1. x 7

      Re: F35 - Too Late and Over Budget

      The engines will be repaired in Turkey, not Italy

      Not much use in a hot war against Russia

      1. Aladdin Sane

        Re: F35 - Too Late and Over Budget

        Major overhaul will take place in Turkey. Day to day maintenance will be done by RN and RAF techies.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: F35 - Too Late and Over Budget

          "Day to day maintenance will be done by RN and RAF techies."

          More likely outsourced to Crapita, Babcock, Serco or the like.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: F35 - Too Late and Over Budget

        "The engines will be repaired in Turkey, not Italy"

        Yup the same Turkey Trump is currently pissing of by creating the likes of the Kurdish Border Force.

        1. YetAnotherLocksmith Silver badge

          Re: F35 - Too Late and Over Budget

          No-one mention the European Union, ok? You know - fast Erdoğan the dictator is trying to get into, while we are (hopefully failing to) getting out.

          What a total pooch screw - it won't even be possible to get the engines from the UK to Turkey without going the long way around.

  3. Aladdin Sane

    "both of the UK's previous aircraft carriers"

    There were 3 ships in the Invincible class, not to mention the several classes prior.

    1. x 7

      Re: "both of the UK's previous aircraft carriers"

      And besides the Invincibles, Hermes also flew Sea Harriers

  4. DCFusor

    They hate the infantry

    They're trying as hard as possible to get rid of the close air support mission. This time they're using a trick my ex used - be so bad at it that no one wants you to try anymore.

    With a fraction of the money, they could have re-tooled for the A10 or some improved variant that can hang around long enough to get the bad guys and ID the good guys to avoid friendly fire. But they don't want that mission (Except for the dedicated A10 pilots who I hear rarely have to buy their own drinks if ground pounders are around).

    This beyond visual range stuff is great when it works, and it's been pushed since long before it ever worked - some people, like Spey think it's a bunch of bull even if it works sometimes, because sometimes it doesn't and whether it's doctrine or not - dogfights are gonna happen and it pays to be good at that - ask Israel.

    This looks like one of the usual failing software projects - overpromise, underdeliver, be late, and claim they can patch whatever is wrong and anticipate all the edge cases. Yeah, right - but when your service falls over in the normal world, it's just a crash. In this case it's a CRASH and people die and stuff.

    It's one thing when the BVR missiles went nuts in 'Nam. Now we can have whole planes do that?

    War is about money. As another commenter mentioned, in asymmetric warfare, likely the only kind to be fought unless we have Einstein's WW3 after which there's nothing but sticks and stones - a cheap drone (not an remote controlled F-35,22,15,16, but something actually cheap) are gonna win that sphere of operations totally.

    But we'll be ready for the last (imaginary in this case) war, you betcha.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: They hate the infantry

      I don't think the A10 would be much use to the Navy.

      I'm sure you could make it land on deck easily, it's tough enough, but it's not designed for air defence of the carrier and it's not got that long a range. There might be an argument for the RAF to have something like the A10 - but in most cases that kind of warfare is now being covered by drones. And give the job description is flying low and slow over the enemy, that's a great place to use drones too.

      It is probably true that it's not really a saving to have one type of aircraft rather than 2. Sure you save on spare parts, training and the supply train, but you do end up paying much more for multi-role.

      But this isn't so true with carrier aviation, as you've got to have air superiority and strike capability on a carrier - but you've only got one small group of maintenance people. If you need more close air support capability, you can fly Apache off the carrier as well as F35.

      The MOD then made a decision to buy 140 planes to have one joint pool between the RAF and the RN. It may be that this was the wrong decision, or that it was part of the negotiations in order to get the B version built at all (with BAe getting work as a subbie). Hard to know the specifics of that negotiation.

      If we'd gone Cats-and-traps we'd have lost that joint pool option, as it's much easier to do VSTOL landings than arrested ones, so you can have RAF part-time carrier pilots, only used for short periods on the carriers. Which wouldn't be safe otherwise. That would have probably resulted in having to buy many more aircraft, probably meaning you wouldn't make any savings buying cheaper ones.

      1. Danny 14

        Re: They hate the infantry

        they should have bought f18s instead. much cheaper, plenty of parts and experience.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: They hate the infantry

          F18s need cats 'n' traps. The carriers weren't designed for that. A mistake I think.

          However planes you use that way don't last as long as VSTOL. The airframes get knackered much earlier. So you may get cheaper ones, but have to buy them twice.

          I don't agree with the MOD's decisions. But they aren't actually stupid. Thought has gone into them.

          1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

            Re: They hate the infantry

            The MoD's decisions may have been not stupid and well thought out; but they also seem to show that the UK can't afford to keep up both a modern navy and a modern air force any longer.

  5. Jeroen Braamhaar
    Joke

    of course the F-35 is incomparable to the Harrier

    ...because the Harrier actually worked and flew.

  6. CN Hill

    "while the pilot pores over his screens"

    Subs!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's correct. What would you suggest - "pour" or "paw" ;)

      1. David Roberts
        Trollface

        Pour or paw?

        Both applicable if the main display is running porn?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But is it better than a Harrier

    and a fleet of drones for the same or lower cost.

  8. steelpillow Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    ROTFL I mean SRVL

    Back in the day, this was known as STOL - Short Take Off and Landing. You don't need vectored thrust, just leading-edge slats and trailing-edge flaps.

    The F-35 may be unjustifiably expensive and our Reg hacks lack historical knowledge, but it is undeniably a cool piece of kit.

    1. SkippyBing

      Re: ROTFL I mean SRVL

      If you can get a 20 tonne fighter to fly at 35 knots just using slats and flaps you crack on.

      1. steelpillow Silver badge

        Re: ROTFL I mean SRVL

        "If you can get a 20 tonne fighter to fly at 35 knots just using slats and flaps you crack on."

        Easy. Just make the wings a bit bigger. The induced drag saving from abandoning the weight of all that lifting-fan gubbins will more than compensate for the higher form drag, not to mention maintenance downtime - compare notes with any F-35A operator.

        But don't change the subject. You can't update the principles of aeronautical engineering just by changing what you call it, and slagging off people with long memories. The F-35C is still a ridiculously expensive way to deliver the same STOL capability available from the F-35B.

        1. SkippyBing

          Re: ROTFL I mean SRVL

          'Easy. Just make the wings a bit bigger. The induced drag saving from abandoning the weight of all that lifting-fan gubbins will more than compensate for the higher form drag, not to mention maintenance downtime - compare notes with any F-35A operator.'

          So easy that I'm unaware of anyone who's ever tried doing that, hence the lack of modern fighters lifting off the ground at 35kts. Certainly not the F-35A.

          1. steelpillow Silver badge
            Pint

            Re: ROTFL I mean SRVL

            Oh, look, I got my B and C the wrong way round. Sorry about that. However, somebody else getting their A and B (or is that C) readings of my comment the wrong way round doesn't help either. May I suggest an honourable, er - solution?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "The F-35C is still a ridiculously expensive way to deliver the same STOL"

          The F-35C is simply the "navalised" version - it's not expressly designed for being STOL, although it has larger wings to increase payload and range, and allow for better low-speed control for carrier landings. The landing hook will take care of short landings, and catapults of short takeoffs.

          Most planes that were not exclusively designed for the Navy had a specific "navalised" version to ensure they can cope with carrier operations. That usually means features that are useless (more complex, heavier, and/or more expensive) on land-only version, like sturdier landing gears and tail hooks, foldable wings, etc.

          Also the US Navy uses a different air refueling system than USAF - the same used by most other air forces (probe and drogue ), and the C version is also designed for it.

          You can't simply get an A version and have it operate without issues from a carrier.

        3. ChrisC Silver badge

          Re: ROTFL I mean SRVL

          "Easy. Just make the wings a bit bigger. "

          A quick play around with an online lift force calculator suggests that, at typical sea level air densities and assuming a lift coefficient from a fully flapped and slatted wing of 3.3 (taken from the most optimistic looking plot of lift vs angle of attack I could find without spending much time on it), a 20 tonne aircraft travelling at 35 knots would need a wing surface area of around 300m^2 to maintain level flight.

          Wiki suggests the F35A has a wing area of 42.7m^2, and I don't think there's much difference between the A and B in this respect, so you're talking about making the wings a mere 6 times larger. Or, to put it another way, slightly bigger than the wings of a B767 airliner.

          So yes, theoretically speaking, it seems like it would be possible for a 20 tonne aircraft to fly at 35 knots just on wing-generated lift. Practically speaking OTOH...

  9. Kabukiwookie
    Mushroom

    And while tax payers in 'The West' see their money diverted from public health care to over the top expensive military toys, its 'enemies' are mainly fighting with AK47 for $50 a pop, unless they're supplied with more advanced stuff by the same people who are selling you that F35.

    Be afraid, be very afraid; that'll be $500,000,000 please. Thanks.

    1. YetAnotherLocksmith Silver badge

      $500 million? What, you only want 3 planes and no support contract?

  10. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Coat

    Economy of scale - F-35"D"?

    Scale up production to bring down the unit cost - but who can buy many hundreds, if not thousands of these aircraft?

    Produce a civilian variant that shares a lot of the expensive components, and market it to the likes of Amazon, DHL, UPS.

    After all, if the aircraft is a doddle to fly, no need for fast jet pilots - there are plenty of out of work commercial pilots who can now be employed as delivery pilots.

    F-35Delivery

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Economy of scale - F-35"D"?

      Re: "Scale up production to bring down the unit cost - but who can buy many hundreds, if not thousands of these aircraft?"

      Well not sure about complete aircraft, but cockpits plus a bit...

      Taking "The F-35 full cockpit simulator at the press event had been set up in London, as part of Lockheed Martin and the Ministry of Defence's efforts to tell the Great British Public that the heart-stoppingly expensive "fifth generation" aircraft really is worth its £100m-ish price tag." I suspect there might be a market in low end simulators for games arcades, and high end at places like the Fleet Air Arm Museum at RNAS Yeovilton.

      1. DropBear

        Re: Economy of scale - F-35"D"?

        "Well not sure about complete aircraft, but cockpits plus a bit..."

        Considering how incredibly precarious the positions of dedicated Flight Sim control gear makers seem to be these days (and there are likely many times more people with cash and room for a HOTAS than a full cockpit) I wouldn't rush into mass production on that idea alone...

  11. Milton

    And the day after he's retired ...

    And the day after he's retired ...

    ... he'll follow the time-worn tradition of ex-military when speaking on politically sensitive topics.

    Suddenly he'll discover that he can speak the truth, without the varnish and gilding and eliding and constant painful awareness that his career depends upon saying whatever his senior officers, and the political imbeciles they report to, want him to say.

    It feels good, as many a retired general/admiral/chief of defence staff et al has discovered ... though it be much, much too late to make any difference to the current disaster-in-progress.

  12. Milton

    The endless page ...

    The endless page ...

    ... looks exceptionally stupid when I can see the same story three times without scrolling.

    Yes, I have a UHD monitor.

    No, El Reg did not need to go down this particularly witless, brainless, positively f******g stupid approach to displaying its content. Leave the sh*t for the crap sites, ok? You can do better.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: The endless page ...

      For a second I thought you were referring to Lewis Page...

  13. Qwertius

    The F-35 is Awesome

    The F-35 is awesome if your a corrupt politician.

    To everyone else -- it's a flying pig & gravy train all rolled into one.

    Far as I can work out ---- its going to be outgunned and out-performed by a host of other aircraft & delivery systems.

    It's the Buffalo - Brewster Vs the Jap Zero of our times.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As Roger Waters Might have said...

    ...And his kind Uncle Sam feeds 10 trillion in change,

    Into the total entertainment combat video game.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Straw man.

    It's not one Harrier it's four, and it's not four Harriers, but two or three F18s it needs to be better than.

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: Straw man.

      Precisely, the same as comparing one to many thousands of drones. Individually not a comparison, but depending on the usage options may be rather better.

  16. Anonymous Coward 99

    Stealth Landings?

    Harrier - First generation/F35 - Second generation

    VTOL was designed as a capability to allow non-airfield deployment more than anything else. But Navy harriers used the "ski jump" to allow heavier loads to be launched from what is effectively a runway. The new capability is an equivalent rolling landing.

    What I would like to know is whether autolanding is less stealth than a conventional one.

    1. x 7

      Re: Stealth Landings?

      "What I would like to know is whether autolanding is less stealth than a conventional one."

      The point of the rolling landing is to allow the aircraft to return with stores attached.

      ANY landing with external stores will not be stealthy.

      But then any aircraft flying with external stores won't be stealthy either - to some extent it destroys the argument for stealthy aircraft. The F-35 can only be stealthy if carrying a much reduced payload i.e, internal stores only. The theory is stealth is only required on day 1 or 2 of a hot war: during that time you knock out the opposition air defences using stealth: if successful then on day 3 you don't need stealth. But to make that work you need a large superiority of aircraft to carry out the knockout punch, and you also need air superiority aircraft to deliver it. We have neither (and don't intend to have). The yank F-35 fleet will be protected by air superiority fleets, and will be available in sufficient numbers.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: Stealth Landings?

        x 7,

        Stealth isn't all about being invisible so you can turn up and bomb their capital city out of a blue sky. It's about minimising your radar signature. How much stealth you apply to a platform depends on what role you want it to fulfill, how much money you want to spend, and how maneuverable you want it to be.

        So if you're defending your carrier in air-to-air combat, and you can get a lock on the enemy fighters at 50 miles, and they can't lock you until you're at 40 miles - then you can have shot missiles at them and be running away before they can even get into range to return fire.

        Stealth is about giving you an advantage. Not making you invisible.

        1. x 7

          Re: Stealth Landings?

          I ain't Spartacus

          But any airframe, however stealthy, ceases to be stealthy when you hang a collection of bombs and missiles off the underside of it - which is how the F-35 is intended to work on day 2/3 of any war

          The F-35 can either be stealthy OR carry a useful payload. Not both.

          1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

            Re: Stealth Landings?

            But any airframe, however stealthy, ceases to be stealthy when you hang a collection of bombs and missiles off the underside of it

            x 7,

            Not quite. As I said above, stealth depends on the angle of the plane compared to the radar.

            For example if you're flying at low altitude to get under the SAM radars, then no radar can see the underside of the plane. So you can strap as much ordnace to it as you like. The only radars that are going to see you are above you - either on hilltops or on other planes.

            Also, the plane is far bigger than the stuff hanging off it. So it's going to give the largest radar return - so the more you can do to mitigate that, the better.

            Plus if the plane is front-on to the radar, and only has a few air-to-air missiles strapped to the wings, then they're really not adding that much to the radar cross-section.

            As I said, stealth is about mitigation - it's not magic.

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