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Originally Posted by NeonSamurai
I honestly never thought much of the Harrier. As a fighting aircraft, its capabilities are pretty crap. It has just one thing going for it, that it can do STOL and VTOL for landing (yes it can do VTOL takeoffs but only naked), which makes it somewhat useful for the helo-carriers. It's a poor dogfighter due to lack of energy, and its payload is very small.
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I'm not 100% sure about the Harrier VTOLs only being naked, I think it can do them with a reduced load, otherwise it would make the FOB deployments in West Germany a bit difficult, that being said, there were probably roads nearby to enable STOL operations, although given the lifespan of the average pilot when the balloon went up it would have been academic really.
VIFFing is a handy technique that only the Harrier can do, but it only really works in the merge and it can be countered fairly easily.
It's not the best aircraft, but it wasn't really designed for air to air, it was more aimed at ground support in an era when helicopters were only just coming into their own. This niche could explain why we never really went into attack helicopters in a big way until getting the designs for the Apache from the US, I mean there was the anti-tank Lynx, but the Lynx wasn't designed as a sole attack helicopter.
Of course, when the CVA-01 project was cancelled and we found ourselves having to build a navy on the cheap, we found that a ski-jump carrier could throw VSTOL aircraft up, and so the Harrier was slotted into that role too.
Really, the Harrier is a typically British design, a square forced to the do the job of a triangle, circle, and a hexagon. In a way, the F-35 continues that mission, it's almost as if BAe had designed it and not Lockheed...
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I think many period early jets had high maintenance too, but the EE Lightning had the added problem of its stacked engines. I don't know if I would ever consider the Lawn Dart to be a particularly good aircraft. Sure its performance was great in it's interceptor role, though its payload was rather light. It could move but it couldn't turn well, and it had a very nasty habit of living up to its nickname.
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I had a similar opinion of the Tent Peg but Schroeder tells me that the Luftwaffe thought quite highly of it. Then again, these are the guys that flew the Komet so they were probably used to aircraft that were deadlier to the pilot than the enemy. Again though, it's square pegging a round hole, the F-104 was designed as an interceptor, it was designed to fly at the enemy very fast, hit them with air to air missiles and then return, refuel and rearm. Same as the Lightning. It didn't need to dogfight or evade, it was essentially a guided missile with missiles on it.
Then someone decided to put bombs on it.
It's like the 262, original plans for an inteceptor and then some bright spark decides that it must be a fighter-bomber.
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I suspect the F-35 won't for the simple reason that it's basic design is bad. Energy problems and a lack of maneuverability are not something that can easily be fixed. I also think the Navy is deluding themselves. You can't use a stealth jet for target acquisition and relaying, at least not while having it remain semi stealthy (this whole idea makes no sense at all).
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I think in that respect it's trying to pick up the enemies EM emissions without being detected and then relaying that across. Although of course, relaying that means that the aircraft has got to make some noise itself. I don't know how they're getting around that, laser transmissions perhaps?
I think though, the idea of target acquisition and relaying is more based around the kind of setup that the AH-64D has, in that one F-35 can pick up a contact, relay it to the group and then back to the AWACs who can correlate it with their data, all in a matter of seconds. I guess having data from two fixed points might help firm up a long range shot, but since the Phoenix went out of service there's not really much point in trying to snipe the enemy out in BVR, because as soon as you drop an AMRAAM, he's going to go defensive and then work back from where that weapon came from.
Of course, he can't hit what he can't lock on, and I think that's the whole idea for the F-35, is to reduce the range at which the enemy can get a solid lock on the aircraft. Enabling the F-35 to kill, say, an Su-33 before the Su-33 can get a good lock on the 35.
A chap from the RAS used CMANO, which is probably the closest civilian sim you can get, and put some F-35s up against some Sukhois, the results were telling:
http://aerosociety.com/News/Insight-...-in-air-combat
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Plus I highly doubt it is all that stealthy an aircraft to begin with (I suspect it is about comparable to the F-22). Furthermore if its design is as underpowered and unmaneuverable as is claimed, surface and aerial missiles will be a massive threat to it when it is detected, particularly against state of the art weapons systems which can't be jammed, are very maneuverable, and very resistant to chaff and flares. So it probably would be a bad idea to send these things into the heart of enemy territory (especially given how much these stupid things cost). You could buy half a squadron of F-16s for the cost of just one F-35.
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Definitely agree on this though, I don't think the F-35s mission is going to be deep penetration, not against an enemy that has a half decent defense network anyway. I suspect, at the least in the RAF/RN the F-35 will be a fringe support and interception machine. I don't know what sort of aircraft would do the deep penetration missions any more, the sort of thing that the F-117 and B-2 were designed for...well, obviously we still have the B-2, but otherwise. Probably RCS reduced drones, something like the Avenger, since the Sentinel seems to have already been put on deep recon missions in Iran.
I come across as defending the F-35 here...and honestly I find myself in a very odd position, because part of me thinks that the F-35 might just make it out alright given time, that all these nightmare reports are just the result of the internet age, and we'd have been seeing similiar reports about other successful aircraft during their early days. I mean, certainly according to the article I already linked, the report from War is Boring involved a prototype aircraft which lacked certain equipment, such as off-sight bore targeting and part of the stealth gear. However, there are a lot of problems with the F-35, there is no going around it, and the price tag on it is ridiculous in an era where manned aircraft are slowly becoming obsolete.
But, we're stuck with it, certainly the UK is anyway, and we're just going to have to try and bodge the best of it and hope that our other aircraft make up the shortfall. I'd have been happier if the QEII carriers had been a standard long deck rather than another bloody ramp job, we'd have had more options on the table in regards to what aircraft we could fly from it. Heck, we could have just gone and got a load of F-18s, but no, we have to have the cheap boat with the too expensive to fly aircraft.
British military procurement mysteries, we're full of them (see Nimrod fiasco).
Hopefully, once some of the customers start getting their F-35s we'll get more combat information about how the fully operational aircraft handles against a standard opponent.