With only 114 built and a rather irrelevant combat record, the Whirlwind may at first glance seem a bizarre candidate for the title of ‘greatest fighter of the Second World War’. Has the recent sunshine cooked my brain and left me vulnerable to wild ‘hot takes’? Well, maybe, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a real case to be made here.
The Westland Whirlwind is the Velvet Underground of World War II aircraft: unpopular, ahead of its time, and far more influential than sales units alone* might suggest. The Whirlwind was the fastest fighter in the world when it first flew in 1938, and the best armed, with a nose toting more firepower than a libertarian barn-dance. Whereas most other fighters of the time did all they could to obscure the pilot’s view, Whirlwind designer Teddy Petter generously blessed the aircraft with a fully transparent canopy, as Matt Bearman pointed out in his Hush-Kit article“Drawings for Westland Aircraft Co’s proposed P-9 from early 1937 show a perfectly smooth, teardrop-shaped and fully transparent canopy. This was extraordinarily ambitious – as the technique and tooling to manufacture such a large acrylic bubble didn’t yet exist. It was as though Petter assumed it would be invented before he had to build a prototype.”
The Whirlwind embraced much of the latest thinking in aircraft design and construction, and was a generation ahead of the handful of Spitfire Mk Is then in service with the Royal Air Force. To stand as the ‘greatest’ we must fend off the predictable claims from supporters of the likes of the Spitfire, Mustang and the other ‘A-listers’. In doing so, we must look at the vital issue of legacy in terms of both sales and design influence on later aircraft. The legacy of the A-listers we have all heard of, is striking in its absence: as can be seen from Supermarine’s woeful attempts at early jets, the Spitfire was a design cul de sac; the Messerschmitt Bf 109, slats aside, even more so; and it is even the case for the Mustang.
The Whirlwind on the other hand was a jet aircraft just waiting for a jet. When Gloster created the Meteor, the first Allied jet fighter, it didn’t lean to heavily on its own design history but instead created a design far more redolent of the Whirlwind. With four nose-mounted cannons, bubble canopy (of later variants) and cruciform tail with acorn and twin engines on the wings, it is very much a jet Whirlwind. Even more directly related to the Whirlwind is the English Electric Canberra, which started as a jet replacement for the Mosquito based on the Westland Welkin (essentially a high-altitude Whirlwind).
Both have a defining symbol: the Velvet Underground is associated with the iconic banana image, and the Whirlwind with the tail acorn. There are other similarities: both the Velvet Underground and the Whirlwind have ties with Wales. The Velvet Underground’s John Cale was born in Wales, and 263 Squadron, which operated the Whirlwind, spent six months of its Whirlwind time in Wales.
The Meteor and Canberra were categorically the most successful British post-war aircraft. The Meteor started the jet age for the Allies, and a total of 3,947 were built by the time production ceased in 1955. The Canberra was the highest-flying and most agile bomber of its generation, and 949 were built in the UK and Australia. It was so good, in fact, that even the US wanted some and created over 400 as the Martin B-57.
The Velvet Underground did not outsell The Beatles nor make as much money, but their stylistic influence on future music, as David Bowie explains below, was far more significant. Likewise, the Whirlwind did not shoot down more aircraft than the Spitfire, nor sell as many units, but as an aircraft design, its legacy is more significant.
Descendents of the Mustang did not fight in Vietnam or provide vital military intelligence in Afghanistan and around India in the 21st century – or still serve with NASA today for that matter. To appreciate the Whirlwind you have to look at the big picture (something the reconnaissance Canberra excelled at) and when you zoom out enough, it is clear the Westland Whirlwind was indeed the greatest fighter of World War II, winning not the present but far out into the future.
*Though the VU were selling more than apocryphal stories suggest.
Aviation enthusiasts, in all their fussy, pedantic, literal-thinking fuckery, should not be allowed anywhere near anything as gloriously grubby as alternative rock. Sadly, helped across the rubicon of brain hemispheres by music’s greatest traitors, record collectors, we have let Matthew Dupuy befoul the world of alternative rock with a look at record covers through the lens of the aerophile.
1: Suede – Sci-Fi Lullabies (B-sides compilation album, 1997)
Aircraft depicted: An image by photographer John Kippin of the bullet-riddled carcass of an English Electric Lightning, used as a target at Otterburn Training Area in Northumberland, North-East England. On CD releases, the wider aspect ratio of the front cover means a similarly dilapidated Hawker Hunter can also be seen in the distance, under a rudimentary camo net on the left-hand edge of the image.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Yes. Without a doubt. Kippin’s image of ruined, obsolete machinery in a harsh, overcast landscape, with its uneasy blend of loneliness and implied violence, perfectly captures the atmosphere of Suede’s stories of drugs, sleaze and doomed urban youth.
How good is the record?: Despite being a B-sides collection, the care Suede took over their early singles means the sprawling double-album that is Sci-Fi Lullabies is actually one of their best records and well worth investigating. The first disc, in particular, is absolutely stunning.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Sort of. It is unclear if Les Rallizes’ hellish oeuvre could really be accurately described by anything as prosaic as a photograph. I’m not sure what would describe it. One of Bacon’s “screaming pope†paintings, perhaps? Or maybe the aftermath of a particularly gruesome murder?
The image on the cover obliquely refers to the activities of one of the band’s founder members – bassist Moriaki Wakabayashi – who graduated from playing with Les Rallizes to participating in the hijacking of a Japan Air Lines Boeing 727 in 1970, along with fellow conspirators from the completely deranged Japanese Red Army Faction (an incident that could be a separate Hush Kit article on its own).
After some shenanigans and the taking hostage of Japan’s Transport Minister in exchange for releasing 23 women and children on the flight, they had the aircraft flown to North Korea, where Wakabayashi and his comrades were decorated as heroes and still reside, albeit unwillingly.
So it reflects that aspect of the band pretty well. But does it represent the music? Impossible to say. It’s impossible to say if some of it is music at all, to be honest.
Even when captured in reasonably decent quality, much of their music is like staring into a howling abyss of white noise. ‘Smoking Cigarette Blues’, the fourth track on this haphazard collection, goes on for nearly 20 minutes and sounds like somebody has put Jimi Hendrix, an early incarnation of The Rolling Stones and the house band for the musical The War of the Worlds into a rapidly spinning cement mixer, locked it in a shed and then recorded the resulting cacophony from a bunker half a mile away. It is a genuinely terrifying hurricane of incomprehensible, but oddly muffled noise that seems to go on forever.
I mean, if you like that sort of thing (and a growing cult of saucer-eyed noiseniks apparently do), then I imagine it’s great . But if you prefer your music to not actively wish you harm, then maybe give this one a miss.
3. The Dead Kennedys – ‘Holiday In Cambodia’ (7†Single, 1980)
Aircraft depicted: The unmistakable outline of a B-52 dropping a string of bombs, presumably referring to the use of the BUFF in the deeply questionable Operation Menu raids over Cambodia in 1969 and 1970. ‘Holiday In Cambodia’ was released with at least three different sleeves in different markets, with this one mostly used in Europe. Of the three, it is the only one depicting the B-52.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Anyone who has heard ‘Holiday In Cambodia’ will know that it is one of the great punk singles, featuring a monumental, doom-laden intro more indicative of an imminent air raid than pretty much any other song imaginable. A terrifying, rapidly building tidal wave of thundering bass, stampeding drums and slashing, echoey guitars, it is what Holst’s ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ would have sounded like if it had been composed by four snotty, unwashed punks from San Francisco. So yes, it sounds exactly like the cover. In the best way.
How good is the record?: I just compared it to Holst and I wasn’t joking. It’s a masterpiece.
4. Mystere V – ‘No Message’ (7†single, 1980)
Aircraft depicted: A contemporaneous NME review of this single suggests it has “diagrams of the French fighter plane on the coverâ€. But this is why you should never employ music journalists in your Observer Corp, as that clearly isn’t a Mystere. If the band’s name is a nod to the French fighter, then they are not referring to any known type. The model following the Mystere IV was the extremely handsome Super Mystere. This was almost an entirely different aircraft from its predecessor, it was not known as the Mystere V, and it looked entirely unlike the aircraft on the cover of ‘No Message’. So, in conclusion:
The aircraft on the cover appears to be a freelance drawing of a generic space shuttle, loosely modelled on the NASA prototype
The NME is completely useless as a source for identifying aircraft.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Not really, no. I think the cover is a vague gesture to the band’s name rather than the song, which has no discernible relation to aeronautical themes. The sleeve credits its design to “Frenchyâ€, who according to the Mysteres’ drummer was “a non musician, a punk, who was then forming an indie-punk record labelâ€. It is notable that “aircraft expert†is not listed among his attributes.
How good is the record?: I’m gonna be honest here and admit I bought this in a shop in Camden about 20 years ago because I liked the cover and the band name, then put it in a box and forgot about it. I only heard it for the first time recently when I was looking at records for this article. And it’s good. A bassy post-punk/ska number with appealingly glassy, echoey early 1980s production on it.
Weirdly, it makes me think of ‘Hollywood Nights’ by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, as they have similar chord sequences despite being extremely different songs. It has a functional cover of The Flamin’ Groovies’ ‘Shake Some Action’ on the B-side that the world didn’t really need. Not bad, though. Well worth a speculative £2 Camden purchase.
5. Talking Heads – Remain In Light (Album, 1980)
Aircraft depicted: 1980 was clearly quite the year for record sleeves depicting aeroplanes. In this case it is a flight of four US Navy Grumman TBF Avengers flying in formation over Norfolk, Virginia in September 1942*. This image has been digitally manipulated, with the aircraft being coloured in red and green and superimposed over the Himalayas. The image was selected from US Navy stock images by Talking Heads’ bassist Tina Weymouth, partly in tribute to her father, who had served as a US Navy pilot in World War II**.
This stock image was then manipulated on a computer at MIT by researcher Walter Bender, a process that took an astonishing length of time with the tiny amount of processing power then available, but which nevertheless made it the first album ever released with a computer-designed sleeve.
The resulting picture decorates the rear cover of Talking Heads’ seminal post-punk classic album, with the front cover displaying digitally defaced portraits of the band members. The Avenger image had originally been intended for the front cover to go with the album’s working title of Melody Attack, but it was later relegated to the back cover when the title was changed.
The innovative methods used in the sleeve’s creation, along with its striking design by graphic artist Tibor Kalman, led to the sleeve and its associated artwork being retained as a valuable cultural artifact by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
* There is a common misconception that the Remain In Light Avenger image represents Flight 19, the Avenger training flight that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in 1945. While Weymouth may have considered this (the fate of Flight 19 was part of the plot of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg’s hit sci-fi movie that had come out in 1977, so it was in the public consciousness), she never mentioned it in interviews if she did.
** Tina Weymouth’s father, Ralph Weymouth, actually flew the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber from the carriers Saratoga and Lexington during the war, rather than the Avenger. His exceptional wartime piloting exploits won him a Navy Cross and no fewer than five DFCs. He later transferred to jets, fought in Korea and finally retired as a Vice Admiral in 1973, before becoming an anti-nuclear campaigner as a consequence of his service in the occupation forces in Japan after the war. He died in January 2020 at the age of 102. He was quite the badass.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Kalman suggested that the image of the Avengers was retained after the album’s title was changed because it was appropriate, as the Iranian Hostage Crisis was going on when the album was recorded and released, but this is an oblique reference at best.
In truth the choice of a flight of Avengers was an odd one, given the era in which it was released. However, the hard, heavy outlines of the aircraft placed in an environment they are not intended for echoes the album’s unusual mix of edgy funk, angular post-punk, African-influenced polyrhythms and general Brian Eno-produced weirdness, with lyrical themes of faceless bureaucracy, post-colonial politics and the blending of government and capitalism.
In short, Tina Weymouth knew what she was doing.
How good is the record?: It’s the one with ‘Once In A Lifetime’ on it. And it’s not even the best song on there. If that isn’t good enough, then I’m not sure I can help you.
6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Yanqui U.X.O. (Album, 2002)
Aircraft depicted: No actual aircraft, but instead a rear-facing camera captures the release of what look like napalm canisters, presumably over Vietnam. You wouldn’t believe how much Vietnam-era ground attack footage I watched to try and find this one, but oddly the only source I could find was a political protest film (skip to around 3:30) made by Indian film-maker K P Sasi in 2005. This clearly isn’t the original source and I suspect it comes from Vietnam-era USAF footage of a ground attack run, as shown by similar rear-facing footage shown in this official film.
The image is very grainy, but the shiny aluminium finish and lack of fins on the weapons suggest they are fuel-air explosives being dropped at low altitude: probably BLU-27 or Mk 77 FAE bombs with end caps attached.
There is no way of telling what aircraft they were dropped from, but the low speed differential of the aircraft relative to the falling, high-drag bombs in the film suggest a low-speed aircraft, like a Douglas A-1 Skyraider. Alternatively, the inside sleeve of the record includes a grainy picture of a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, though this is more likely a randomly chosen image on a theme, rather than a clue to the front cover’s origins.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: It certainly reflects the band’s anarchist, anti-war political leanings, but given the music consists of long, almost ambient instrumental pieces in a sub-genre known as “post-rockâ€, it doesn’t exactly mesh with the sound they make. They may think otherwise (the back sleeve of the record is covered with a tortuous diagram purportedly showing the links between four major record companies and weapons manufacturers) and their music does have some very intense moments, but the cover is honestly a fairly jarring mismatch with Godspeed’s lengthy, droning soundscapes. It is also very out of step with the cover images on most of their other releases. Maybe that’s the point?
How good is the record?: It’s certainly not chart music, so One Direction fans will be disappointed. Nevertheless, it is often very beautiful in a glacial, inexorable way and the band have a very loyal following of the sorts of people who probably decorate their walls with pictures and news articles connected by lengths of bright red string attached to safety pins. But then I just spent several hours looking up Vietnam-era ground attack footage and specifications of bombs, so who’s the chump, eh?
7. Blur – ‘For Tomorrow’ (Single, 1993) – Keith Park Life
Aircraft depicted: Two early-model Supermarine Spitfires silhouetted against the bright blue sky and stormy-looking clouds as they bank towards the viewer, in an oil painting by artist Paul Stephens.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Blur had been sent off on a 44-date tour of the US and UK in 1992 by their record company, in order to recoup a £60,000 debt run up due to questionable management. The tour was a harrowing ordeal, where the band drank heavily, played to disinterested crowds only interested in grunge, and frequently ended up fighting each other out of sheer frustration.
On their return to the UK, they resolved to produce a record that examined the Britain they had missed during their time abroad, an album that evolved into 1993’s Modern Life Is Rubbish. ‘For Tomorrow’ was the first single from that album, and it is a paean to a partly mythical retro-future Britain, as previously imagined into being by the likes of The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Jam and Slade.
The band reportedly put Spitfires on the cover as it was the most British thing they could think of. And yes, it sounds just like that.
How good is the record?: Genuinely marvellous. Given that when it was recorded, the band were broke, miserable, under threat of being dropped by their label and had to abort their first attempt at recording the album after disappointing results, it is remarkable that ‘For Tomorrow’ came out as it did. Managing to somehow sound simultaneously lush and edgy, it is fresh, accomplished and introduced us to the idea of Britpop: something that until then we hadn’t known about and didn’t know we wanted.
It isn’t clear if the aircraft and background are from the same photograph, as the image has clearly been modified. The tower blocks look like Kai Tak, though, and Swissair Coronados did fly there from Zurich, as shown in this period film, although the thirsty 990 had to stop for a drink four times on the way.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Given Scarfo were a tight, spiky, late-Britpop outfit known for their sharp songwriting, sharp clothes and fondness for obscure and arcane equipment, the cover of Luxury Plane Crash is a bit underwhelming. Rather than fitting seamlessly with the atmosphere of the record (as with Suede’s Sci-Fi Lullabies) or making a clear reference to it (as with Les Rallizes’ Flightless Bird…), this cover has the clear implication of an overworked design team saying “will this do?â€
How good is the record?: It has its moments. The band have some difficulty maintaining the wiry, frenetic energy of the singles ‘ELO’, ‘Alkaline’ and ‘Cosmonaut No 7’ and the record is a bit patchy as a result. But it’s still a fine effort and far better than most of the tired remnants of Britpop that were their peers.
Scarfo weren’t helped by the fact that their drummer, Al Saunders, was run over by a car in 1996, forcing them to effectively take a year out to allow him to recover, robbing them of a lot of their momentum just before the release of the album.
9. The Screaming Blue Messiahs – Good And Gone (Mini-album, 1984)
Aircraft depicted: A three-ship formation of Republic P-47N Thunderbolt fighters in bare-metal livery, reportedly taken in 1947. The image has been mirrored (so the aircraft are now travelling left-to-right, rather than right-to-left) and the serial numbers removed from the tails to disguise this fact. (They were, for anyone interested, from front to back: 488576, 488589, 488577). The image has also been colourised, as the original is in black and white.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: Given that the record is a howling, yelping punk-blues mash-up of a subgenre known as “psychobillyâ€, and features references to Americana generally, and guns, cars, trucks and aeroplanes in particular, then yes, it does. If this record was an aeroplane, it would definitely be a P-47: an overpowered flying hot rod covered in guns, used for hooning around and shooting up whatever is put in front of it. Theoretically they could have used a picture of some Hawker Typhoons, which did some of the same things (The Screaming Blue Messiahs were from London, after all), but it wouldn’t have been quite right. It needs the bare metal, the big star-and-bar roundel, the triangle of fifty-cal barrels protruding from the wings, the conspicuous flash. It needs ramalama, a bit of showbiz. You just don’t get that with a Typhoon in RAF camo.
How good is the record?: Great. Probably not for everyone – people whose musical tastes do not extend beyond Taylor Swift might find it a bit much – but the Messiahs’ feral, turbosupercharged pub blues is just unequivocally marvellous. I gather they were a magnificent live act (you only have to listen to about twenty seconds of this to know they were awesome live) and it is a great shame to me that I never got to see them. Although, to be fair, I was only eight when Good And Gone came out and I was probably more concerned with Lego and Panini football stickers at the time.
10. Primal Scream – ‘If They Move, Kill ‘Em’ (CD single, 1998)
Aircraft depicted: The sleeve depicts a Junkers Ju 87 ‘Stuka’ ground-attack aircraft banking into a dive. From the bulges on the trailing edges of the wings and what look like lengthy barrels projecting from the leading edges, it looks like a G-1 or G-2 Kanonenvogel model, armed with a 37mm Flak 18 anti-aircraft gun in a pod under each wing for anti-tank work.
The aircraft image itself has been reproduced in neon pink on a bright yellow background in a sort of blurry screen-print style, along with two lines of Japanese katakana script reading “PRIMAL SCREAMâ€. The “V†under the left wing suggests this might be an image of the personal mount of famed Stuka pilot and enthusiastic Nazi Hans Ulrich Rudel (or one of them, at least – he had 30 aircraft shot out from under him in his wartime career).
We will come back to him later.
I have been unable to track down the original image this piece of artwork was rendered from, which is odd, since Rudel was the most decorated Nazi pilot of WWII and an airborne image of one of his aircraft would be very famous. This makes me think that rather than being adapted from a stock photo, the cover image was custom-created from one of the numerous models or kits available of Rudel’s Ju 87s. It is credited on the sleeve to Paul Kelly, a designer and filmmaker who has also worked with Saint Etienne, so it’s unlikely he was around in person to capture Rudel’s G-2 as it winged over into an attack run.
Does the image accurately reflect the music?: The Stuka, with its steep dive-bombing attacks, screaming “Jericho Trumpet†sirens, and blitzkrieg history, is a machine with an image that is crying out to be used on a sleeve by a hardcore Rock and Roll band. You could imagine Motörhead having a record cover featuring a Stuka, for example*. Primal Scream do have a song called ‘Stuka‘, but it is not on this CD (it is on their fifth album Vanishing Point, the one that also features the original version of ‘If They Move, Kill ‘Em’), although it may have inspired the artwork.
The music that is on this single is typical of Primal Scream’s late 90s output: a quite scary remix of ‘If They Move…’ by My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields that should come with some sort of warning before you listen to it on headphones; a dubby, echo-laden cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Darklands’; another wah-wah heavy “Disco†remix of ‘If They Move…’; and a track called ‘Badlands’ which is an even slower, dubbier version of the earlier cover of ‘Darklands’ that probably sounds great at 3am if you’re stoned.
Does it sound like a neon pink Stuka? That’s the thing. It could, because Primal Scream are exactly the sort of band that could carry it off. When they rock, they mean it. They’re not Motörhead, but they actually covered the song ‘Motörhead’ on Vanishing Point. They really believe. They do not do this stuff by halves.
BUT… they are also notoriously left-wing and that makes it seem this image of Rudel’s Stuka has appeared on their record as the result of some terrible error in the creative process. Rudel was an unapologetic Nazi until his death in 1982, set up a “relief agency†for Nazi war criminals and worked hard after the war to help former members of the regime escape justice in South America. Primal Scream are an avowed anti-fascist band. If they had known what that picture was, there is no way on Earth they would have let it go out. Sure, they might have had a Stuka on there, in pink to reclaim it for Rock and Roll, mess with preconceptions and all that. But not Rudel’s plane. That’s somebody not doing their homework and it’s too much. The cover represents something, but it’s not them and I am not sure they even know it.
How good is the record?: As with a lot of these choices, it rather depends on your expectations. But it is, by most objective standards, a pretty extraordinary musical document by a band who hadn’t come anywhere near to running out of ideas yet. Their next album, by coincidence, was 2000’s XTRMNTR, which had US Navy deck crew and an F-4 on the cover.
* As far as I know, Motörhead never had a record with a Stuka on the sleeve. They did use an image of the band flying a Heinkel He 111 on the cover of their Bomber album, though, and for a while they used a custom-built lighting rig in the shape of a Heinkel in their live shows, as shown on the cover of the seminal live album No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith.
Interview with author Robert Forsyth and book review
Credit: EN Archive.
When faced with similar design goals and timing to the Grumman Tigercat, Dornier took a radically different approach with their unique Do 335. To minimise the frontal surface area, drawing on earlier experience with the Do 18 and the P.59 (a 1937 patent for a tractor-pusher bomber), the ‘335 adopted the rather weird ‘push-pull’ configuration, with both engines mounted in the fuselage. The forward engine is in the traditional location with a tractor propeller. The aft engine is mounted in the middle of the fuselage (for better weight distribution) and is connected to an aft push propeller with a driveshaft. The resulting surface area is only slightly higher than a comparable single-engine fighter.
A pair of Daimler-Benz DB-603 engines, each producing 1,800 hp, allowed for a maximum weight a little higher than a traditional fighter, armed with a 30-mm cannon firing through the propeller hub and a pair of 20-mm cannons in the cowling. The aircraft could carry a lot of fuel and provided a combat range 30 per cent higher than the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 or Messerschmitt Bf 109. The aircraft was too late to see combat in the Second World War, and only thirty-seven were built. Of these, a few reached conversion units for a short duration, but the type did not see combat.
The design produced tremendous performance; despite having 10 per cent less horsepower, the Do 335 was 14 mph (23 km/h) faster than the Grumman Tigercat.
Robert Forsyth’s book on the appealing eccentric Dornier Do 335 is excellent. It is a fascinatingly deep delve into the subject, complete with a generous amount of illustrations and photos (and often quite surprising) personal accounts. The macabre world of an evil empire falling to pieces while at the cutting edge of engineering, and the bizarre combination of logical thinking and human madness is brought deftly to life. We met author Robert Forsyth author of Dornier Do 335 (X-Planes Book 9) to find out more.
What was the Do 335?
A big, brutalist, ‘push-pull’ piece of aeronautical engineering from Dornier which first took to the air in October 1943 and was intended to be a high-speed, all-weather, day- and night-fighter. It was one of the small number of German piston-engined wartime designs to feature a nosewheel.
There were plans for a two-seat Do 335 A-6 nightfighter (the radar operator was to sit facing forward in a raised cockpit above and behind the pilot). The various radar aerials were to be fitted as ‘toasting fork’ aerials to the wings, a pair for the lateral beams on the port side and two for the vertical on the starboard side.
Equipment was proposed as:
Telefunken FuG 220 ‘Lichtenstein’ SN-2 D A/I set (later to be replaced by Siemens FuG 218 ‘Neptun’)
Telefunken FuG 350 ‘Naxos’ passive radar to home on to emissions of Allied bombers.
Was it a good solution to max power with minimum wetted area (compared to, say, the Hornet)?
I’m afraid I cannot comment with regard to the Hornet, which is beyond my knowledge, but it’s an interesting question! Powered by two Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines (one each in the nose and rear fuselage), the Do 335 had, for example, a maximum speed of 732 km/h at 7.1 km. It took 14.5 minutes to climb to 8,000 m.
Did pilots like flying it? What did they like about it?
The Luftwaffe never flew the Do 335 operationally, although a test unit, Erprobungskommando 335, was established in late 1944. The small group of Luftwaffe pilots who conducted test flights felt the Do 335 could best be deployed as a night fighter.
A test pilot at the Luftwaffe test centre at Rechlin, Flieger-Haupting. Hans-Werner Lerche, summarised: ‘The Do 335 was an unusually powerful aircraft with exceptional flying qualities, and an aeroplane that bestowed on me the pure pleasure of flying, a feeling which I shall not forget as long as I live.’
Lt Cdr Eric Brown, test pilot attached to the Aerodynamics Flight of the Experimental Flying Detachment, recorded: ‘I found the Do 335 lively to fly, and right from the short take-off run under the smooth roar of the two Daimler-Benz DB 603s, it afforded that comforting feeling of being over-powered, a gratifying sensation that one seldom experiences… View in the air was excellent and I had a distinct feeling that the Do 335 was better suited to nocturnal than diurnal fighting…’
What was its best feature?
Its ambitious experimentalism.
And worst?
Its ambitious experimentalism. Paradoxically, its design did not live up to the aircraft’s name of ‘Pfeil’ – ‘Arrow’.
How would you rate it in the following:
Sustained turn
Instantaneous turn
Climb rate
Speed
Acceleration
I believe all above were acceptable for 1944, but they would be exceeded and or outclassed by the new German jet types.
Take-off and landing characteristics
These were the two areas where the Do 335 would have probably bettered the jets.
Cockpit layout
Well laid out, and roomy with good vision when airborne, but because of the aircraft’s height when on the ground, tricky when taxiing.
How much fighting did it do?
None.
What is the most interesting fact about its development?
Possibly that such a monstrous (and expensive) aeroplane was seen to have multi-role capability: day and night fighter, ‘Zerstörer’ (‘heavy’) fighter, long-range reconnaissance machine, bomber, all-weather aircraft.
Describe it in three words
Ambitious. Clever. Complex.
What is the greatest myth about the 335?
It was unimportant
What should I have asked you?
About the planned Ju 635 Zwilling (twin-fuselage) long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft – now that would have been monstrous!
If you’re on any social media and are interested in aeroplanes (and this clearly applies to you), then you know this story. Some typically dumb military officers approach Abraham Wald, a mathematician working with airplane survivability, with data showing how bombers get shot by fighters in their wingtips and tails, and asking him to help work out how much armor they should add there so that they will lose fewer bombers.
Bill Sweetman
Wald then points out that the airmen are looking at the bombers that survived and that those that were shot down were hit somewhere else. Enlightened, the Army Air Force installs armor according to Wald’s ideas and more bombers survive.
Armour-proper
The story is usually accompanied by the same drawing (see above)
I first saw this story no more than a few years ago, and I thought, wow, I never heard that before. Which, given that I wrote a book about the A-10 and read the Good Book on aircraft survivability, and attended a conference or two devoted to survivability, piqued my curiosity, not to mention my amour-propre.
There was another piece to the tale that did not fit. The aeroplane in the universally used drawing is a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura. Nothing at all against the Ventura, but almost the entirety of its career was spent chasing submarines or shooting up ships with the Navy, rather than getting shot down en masse over Germany. Why would it be the focus of a survivability study?
Since I have an ADHD proclivity for internet rabbit holes, off I went and found more.
Wald did important mathematical work on survivability. But in 1943. Why is this important? By the time it was completed and reported, the final operational versions of the B-17 and B-24, after getting hammered over Berlin and Schweinfurt &c, were already flying, with essentially the same protection (self-sealing gas tanks and selective armour) that they used for the rest of the war. And where is said armour?
Wald did really good work, but the story got embellished. How?
A statistician, author and lecturer called Howard Wainer used the story in lectures and books, back in the late 1990s. He also had a very simple version of the drawing, which was later elaborated into today’s ubiquitous image.
But Ground Zero was where Wainer’s story got Glabared – Gladwellized* beyond all repair – by a best-selling mathematician, Jordan Ellenberg.
“The officers saw an opportunity for efficiency; you can get the same protection with less armor if you concentrate the armor on the places with the greatest need, where the planes are getting hit the most. But exactly how much more armor belonged on those parts of the plane? That was the answer they came to Wald for. It wasn’t the answer they got.”
Whoa! Who’s missing from this account? Fighter pilots, that’s who. As far as I know, they didn’t go shooting at wingtips and tails. They knew damn well what the crucial bits of a bomber were: the engines and the cockpit. Nobody had told the bomber designers, or the USAAF requirement-writers, that?
“Wald’s recommendations were quickly put into effect, and were still being used by the navy and the air force through the wars in Korea and Vietnam.”
Put into effect how and where? Nobody says. Nobody points to a certain block of B-17G or B-24J production where changes were introduced.
And the survivability lessons of WW2 had mostly been abandoned by the time of Korea. Indeed, jet airplanes were so sensitive to weight and burned fuel so fast that self-sealing tanks (which cost fuel volume) and armour were ditched. It was also assumed from the late 1950s that if you were hit, it was by a missile and Goodnight Nurse. Vietnam proved this to be wrong, and its lessons were incorporated in the A-10 ‘Warthog’ and, more subtly, in many other aircraft.
Lessons: as Abraham Lincoln said, don’t believe everything you see on the Internet. And mathematicians, like fighter pilots and first violins, are not immune from telling stories about how important they are.
*Malcolm Gladwell, Norden, Lenin and strategic bombing is a whole different story
Bill’s new book Trillion Dollar Trainwreck: How The F-35 Hollowed Out The U.S. Air Force is available to buy here.
The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes Vol 3 is available to pre-order here
Airbus has announced that they will present a full-scale model of their ‘Wingman’ concept at the upcoming ILA in Berlin. The Airbus announcement includes a picture of the concept, which features several emerging technologies that are being showcased for possible inclusion in a future air combat semi-autonomous wingman.
These technologies include a design that is clearly intended to be both stealthy and manoeuvrable, and to offer supersonic capability. Carriage of sensors and air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons is envisaged, and the potential role described is as a semi-autonomous adjunct to aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Importantly, Airbus explicitly recognise that future capabilities using such systems require not only the platform technologies to be available, but also the broader system of systems, enabling command and control, decision-making and teaming of the air combat elements. In addition, novel tactics are likely to be developed for the effective application of teamed manned and unmanned solutions.
Proposals of this sort are not new, but they are of considerable interest to the writer, having been involved in UK Air Combat research for a period in my mid-career. The first autonomous fighter proposal I encountered was a Lockheed-Martin attempt to market autonomous F-16s, perhaps influenced by the sense of emerging competition from European platforms such as Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen. This was supported by early autonomous combat work using the USAF VISTA testbed, in which, I understand, the safety pilot found the aircraft autonomously pulling significant g, while seeking to engage a target, quite disturbing. “Difficult to keep one’s hands on the knees†is the quote I recall.
I have no doubt that the concept of a pilot, in (for example) a Typhoon, FCAS or Tempest, controlling a number of autonomous armed wingmen to shape the battlespace favourably, can work. I make this assertion because such a situation has been modelled using simulators more than two decades ago in the UK research programme, as part of work to examine future capabilities.
At the time, many of the technologies would have been regarded as somewhat immature, but apart from establishing a level of feasibility, useful work was done examining how command and control would be exercised, how situational awareness might be delivered, and how the use of such systems affected pilot workload. The development of tactics for the use of such systems was of particular interest, and I am confident that much thought is being directed in this area, given the significant range of roles which might be addressed by such systems.
I’ll say no more about that work, which was, to some extent overtaken by the pressure to bring Typhoon into effective service, and, to some extent, made to appear less relevant by the economic collapse of the Soviet Union.
Today, however, such concepts appear more relevant than ever, with a resurgent Russia, with concerns about Chinese aspirations, and with considerable uncertainty about how reliable the US might be as an ally in the future.
The Airbus concept
Concept cars are always fascinating to look at, even though the eventual marketed products rarely live up to the imagination of the concept. In aerospace, however, technology demonstrators have had a useful place in helping to identify technology and integration risks, and showing how these can be resolved.
In the case of the Airbus offering, and on the basis of the information provided, I’ll make the following observations:
The wing and canard planform and thickness/chord ratio, plus the engine installation and intake, appear consistent with a maneuverable platform capable of flight at up to about Mach 1.8.
Depending on the scale of the platform, which is difficult to judge from the image, but will become apparent when the model is displayed at the ILA, there appears to be adequate provision made for both fuel and a variety of weapons.
The absence of a vertical fin, plus the edge alignment and the treatment of control surfaces and leading edges, suggest that a low radar signature is one of the design drivers.
Novel control systems will be essential, particularly to manage lateral-directional stability and control at supersonic speeds. This can be problematic for a slender aircraft, and is one reason why large (and often twin) fins and rudders have been a feature of supersonic manoeuvring aircraft. Techniques are available, and have been demonstrated, ranging from split control surfaces to provide pitch, roll and yaw control, to circulation control by b[own jets, with no requirement for moving control surfaces.
Rather like a concept car, not all the trade studies have been done as yet. High maneuverability may or may not be required, depending on the role and mission. For example, an opportunity exists to design a platform able to manoeuvre outside the 9-g limit imposed by a human operator. But this would come with a weight penalty and would require a suitable (bigger) engine.
Whether such manoeuvrability would be required is probably tightly connected to whether the primary use will be as an ancillary sensor and EW system, as a strike platform, or as an air combat system.
The sensor suite, missile armament, datalink and communications capabilities are also all in the complex trade space, and will be dependent on Defence Department decisions about what the missions need to be, and how they are split between the manned and unmanned elements.
Inevitably, of course, one has to consider cost and broader programmatic issues. The more capable the semi-autonomous system is, the more complex it will be. Size, weight, propulsion and payload-range are all enablers for greater capability but are also powerful cost drivers.
System integration, and particularly the time taken to deliver the fully integrated system that would be needed is a powerful driver of risk, cost and time, and, indeed, may well be considered as the ongoing thorn in the side of the JSF programme.
The other elephant in the room is the messy situation regarding European and International air combat programs. Development of an effective system-of-systems will require coordination between manned and unmanned platform programs since there will be a co-dependency of requirements for each, dependent on the roles envisaged for each and how these are to be delivered.
This will have a comprehensive impact on the sensor, communications and weapons suite for each, as well as having fundamental effects on weapons bay size, fuel capacity, propulsion and layout. So, is the Airbus concept aimed at co-development with the Franco-German FCAS, or the Tempest/GCAP program? Or is it a stand-alone effort hoping to appeal to both, or even the US future air dominance programs?
Programme aspects
There are many issues to be addressed and questions to be answered before the technology mix adopted in a future semi-autonomous uncrewed air combat system can be defined. The Airbus concept demonstrator is important, not least because it should stimulate debate about how the future air combat systems of a number of countries are to be developed, and because it may de-risk some key technologies.
Key issues include the role of manned and unmanned systems; the effects to be delivered and how this will be done; the definition of the requirements for system elements; and who the key partners will be, both from the Industrial and the Military perspective. Recent discussion has emphasised the importance of Sovereignty in the development, deployment and use of such capability, and this aspect will surely also need careful consideration.
A nagging final question, particularly for the Tempest/GCAP and FCAS programs, is what adjunct systems will be required and how these are to be funded. Does the Airbus concept have a place in either program? If so, what would impact the management, industrial structure, requirements, and development program?Â
There is some sense of urgency in all these questions, given worldwide developments in foreign and military affairs, and some considerable uncertainty about possible political developments in the US, which may impact on current alliance structures.
Airbus presentations at the ILA on this topic will surely be observed with great interest, but one does feel that there is much water to flow under this particular bridge before a sensible, effective development partnership and program can be developed.
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Airbus press announcementÂ
“Berlin, 3 June 2024 – Airbus will be presenting its new Wingman concept at the International Aerospace Exhibition ILA in Berlin. In military aviation, a “Wingman†is a pilot in another aircraft that protects and supports the flight lead, delivers more tactical options and thus contributes to mission success. In the Airbus concept, the Wingman is going to operate very much in the same way – only that it is neither a pilot nor a fighter jet flown by one. It is a fighter-type drone that will be commanded by a pilot in a current combat aircraft such as the Eurofighter and can take on high-risk mission tasks that would pose a bigger threat to manned-only aircraft.
Boeing Australia MQ-28 Ghost Bat Loyal Wingman
The 1:1 model, which Airbus will be exhibiting from June 5 to 9 on its static display at ILA, is similar to a “show car†used as a design exercise by the automotive industry. The Wingman model showcases all of the foreseen capabilities required, such as low observability, the integration of various armaments, advanced sensors, connectivity and teaming solutions. As with “show carsâ€, not all of what is on display may find its way into series production. In this aspect, the model on display at ILA Berlin will serve as a foundation and catalyst to drive the design requirements for each generation of the Wingman.
Based on the current concept, the Wingman is intended to augment the capabilities of current manned combat aircraft with uncrewed platforms that can carry weapons and other effectors.
“The German Air Force has expressed a clear need for an unmanned aircraft flying with and supporting missions of its manned fighter jets before the Future Combat Air System will be operational in 2040,†said Michael Schoellhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space. “Our Wingman concept is the answer. We will further drive and fine-tune this innovation made in Germany so that ultimately we can offer the German Air Force an affordable solution with the performance it needs to maximise the effects and multiply the power of its fighter fleet for the 2030s.â€
The Wingman’s tasks can range from reconnaissance to jamming targets and engaging targets on the ground or in the air with precision-guided munitions or missiles. Pilots in manned aircraft acting as “command fighters†will always have control of the mission. They are always the final decision-making authority, while benefiting from the protection and smaller risk exposure that the delegation of tactical taskings to unmanned systems offers. An additional focus is on affordably increasing the overall combat mass so that air forces can match the number of opposing forces in peers or near-peers in conflicts.â€
You hear a lot of “the Global Combat Air Programme’s going to cost just as much and take as long as the F-35 has, so why bother?†Based on the work I did for TRILLION DOLLAR TRAINWRECK (now available from the Big South American River place), here are 10 areas where GCAP (or any other new project) can do much better than F-35 without little or no effort.
17 years after Saab started talking about partitioning mission systems from vehicle management on what was then Gripen NG, the verdict is in: that’s how it’s done on the B-21 and Rafale F4. The F-35 and F-22 system, where everything is peripheral to a big central computer, are like home computing in the 90s, when installing a scanner or a new program almost invariably caused something else to stop working. The process of fixing that is “regression testing†and it is slow, painful, and costly.
2. No STOVL scars
It’s not surprising that the F-35 gets called Fat Amy. The operating empty weight is about the same as the Buccaneer, the weapon bay is close to the same size, and the F-35 is 12 feet shorter. That’s because of a hard limit unwittingly set by the STOVL requirement and the designers of an earlier supersonic STOVL fighter, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154.
The story is too unbelievable to not be true. The dimensions of the long-cancelled P.1154 were used to size the elevator on the Invincible class, in anticipation of a follow-on to the Sea Harrier; JSF was originally intended to fly from the Invincibles until the RN got new carriers, and by the time this plan was abandoned it was too late to change the JSF designs.
STOVL also meant a single engine, and the JSF programme’s prejudice against a separate lift system meant it was a big and heavy one. (There is a square-cube principle in engines – smaller engines tend to have higher thrust/weight ratios.) In the F-35 it is installed so far forward, to put the lift vector from the main engine in the right place, that the weapon bays are splayed outwards, and all the system runs are wrapped around the big, hot engine tunnel like a nest of snakes.
Even two F414s – a 1990s engine with 1980s technology – would weigh less, cost less, and produce more power than the 6500-pound F135, and a twin layout logically allows system runs and weapon bays to be grouped on the centerline.
And nothing does quite as little for good area ruling and transonic acceleration as stuffing something twice the size of a tun barrel of ale right behind the cockpit.
3: No carrier scars
It was the Navy’s requirements for carrier approach speed and controllability that drove a conventional quad-tail layout for the JSF. Without that limit, or the need for a folding wing, team GCAP has gone for a big transonic near-delta wing, reminiscent of the original Boeing JSF or the never-built F-16U.
F-16U Credit: Bill Sweetman
4. Otherwise sensible requirements
Likeany “supersonic†fighter except the MiG-25/31 or the YF-12, GCAP will do most of its work in the high subsonic realm; and the value of high-energy maneuverability is likely to decline in the long-term. Hence, again, the delta and a relatively thick section – which will accommodate an absolute bleep-ton of JP.
5: Design to play well with others
Design to play well with others, including unmanned systems and in-service fighters. U.S. Team Stealth resembles Capt. “Aarfy†Aardvark’s fraternity in Catch-22: “We used to ostracize everybody, even each other.†The F-22 and F-35 datalinks are secure but highly classified and too different to talk to one another. That. Is. Not. Good.
One easy role for collaborative unmanned systems is as magazine extenders. That may mean that GCAP doesn’t have to accommodate as many internal weapons itself.
6. No pet rocks
U.S. Air Force Research Lab loved all the Joint Integrated Subsystem Technology widgets that ended up with electrohydraulic actuators the size of lawnmower engines and their own cooling circuits. Other tech communities were all over the HUD-less cockpit. They and other things infiltrated the JSF requirement and have been nothing but trouble.
7. Security, not insanity
The U.S. can afford (or thinks it can afford) to operate the bulk of its air force under Special Access Program rules, with positive vetting for thousands of people.
Four years before Switzerland is due to get F-35s, U.S. security organizations are discovering to their shock that it is a small country that operates on a high trust level, and that the first planned base at Meiringen is crossed by a public road, and is overlooked at a short distance by a small hotel that until recently was owned by a Chinese family, until the Swiss responded to U.S. pressure, raided the place, and in the time-honored Swiss manner found enough irregularities to send them packing.
One piece of Sherlock Holmes-level evidence that the Chinese were suspicious: they showed inadequate interest in Swiss traditional cuisine. Errm, 90% of Chinese-ethnic people are lactose intolerant, and have you ever done a serious Swiss fondue session?
Keep things secret, yes, but there’s also a need to operate efficiently.
8. Related: sovereignty
A million years ago, British defense minister Paul Drayson (below) said the country might quit JSF if it didn’t get access to source code that would allow it to update mission data files and integrate new weapons on its own. In 2009, the U.S. made it abundantly clear
that wasn’t going to happen. UK MDFs are now updated in a U.S.-owned vault at Eglin AFB, and the integration of Meteor and Spear 3 (which, quite coincidentally I am sure, compete with weapons made by Lockheed Martin and RTX) is six years away. As it has been for a decade or so.
A more open policy has already brought Japan into GCAP (I thought that might happen and knew about two other people who did) and will foster success in the long run.
9. Resilience must be built into the programme.
There are going to be problems, but at some point, someone with authority and resources must be ultimately accountable for the schedule and the budget, and that accountability must flow down. A lot of what went bad with JSF (and many other programs) was a result of minimizing problems, and adopting over-optimistic plans to fix them. Another all-too-frequent problem: people keep quiet about the fact that their part of the project is running late, in the hope that someone else will be later.
Duct tape buys time for a permanent fix. Don’t mistake it for one.
Have a back-up to everything until you have confidence it will work. In this case, Typhoon plus unmanned systems. My principle is always that any strategy needs a Plan B, and Plan B should be better than “so we retreat as far as Smolensk, where we all starve to death in a snowbank.â€
It’s tempting to do it when you’re on top of the world and looking at monopoly status, but when you’re in deep mulligatawny and you need friends, you’ll regret it.
Whilst I have done many missions on the aircraft it is often those that have a special place in your heart, rather than the more demanding ones that you recall. I think my most memorable sortie was when I flew in a missing man formation of 4 Hercules that did a fly past at the RIAT to commemorate the loss of our colleagues in Iraq. It was a privilege to represent 47 squadron in that formation.
I think the Hercules is so loved for a few reasons, firstly, its shape, it looks almost comedic with its large bulbous tyres and rounded nose, who couldn’t love an aircraft like that. The second is the fact that the aircraft has always been seen as the ’saviour’ in some way, whether that be dropping relief supplies, evacuating the injured or stranded, or rescuing hostages, it does not have the image of a fighter or bomber aircraft, it is one that saves lives, doesn’t take them.
The legacy aircraft and the J are so very different, it is often likened to owning a 1980s Ford Fiesta in comparison to a Tesla. Although at their core, the are both Hercules the capabilities and technology that the J has, eclipse those of the earlier models; whether that be the glass cockpit and heads-up-display (HUD), or the FADEC controlled uprated engines with a six-bladed carbon fibre prop, or the state of the art avionics that reduce the number of crew required to operate the aircraft tactically from 5 to 3.
The Hero has lasted so long because of the built in ability of the original design to be adapted as technology evolved. The aircraft provides capabilities that, until recently, had no equal, and in some areas, it still doesn’t.
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Bill Sweetman believes something is very wrong with the F-35.
The F-35 used to have a largely negative public perception, but this seems to have changed with a media offensive in the 2010s, with many public interviews with test pilot Flynn and other pilots enthusing about the F-35’s capabilities for stealth and situational awareness – what do you make of this shift in perception?
Not sure I’d agree that there was a shift. Aside from myself and a few others (APA for instance) there were more enthusiasts, and they were louder. Although there was a change in propaganda around 2008 as LM got ready to ditch support for the F-22 and go all-in on F-35. I think that a lot of people who could have helped form opinions just gave up. It certainly wasn’t career-enhancing.
What does the recent GAO report tell us about the health of the F-35 programme?
The most recent report is a shocker, even for me. It shows that the entire Block 4 upgrade plan has been found unrealistic. In early 2023, delivery of a combat-ready TR3 was expected in ~8 months. Now, more than a year later, it’s 18 months. They have done source selection for the upgraded engine (want to bet it won’t be a new engine by the time they’re done) without a requirement or a plan. Meteor? Spear 3? Don’t even ask.
Is the management of F-35 much worse than all other fighters? How is it compared to say the Typhoon, Rafale or Kaan?
No programme has been this late, or overrun by this much, when it has always been fully funded and the requirements have never been tightened, only relaxed. I go into detail in the book, but it has to do with the power of the mega-contractors that formed in the 1990s, the fact that the JPO doesn’t report to an operational user, and the absence of an alternative.
Typhoon had a lot of trouble, but a lot of it has been political, mostly British-German politics. Germany was ready to scrap it completely in the early 90s. Later, production and upgrade orders kept getting delayed because Germany was in an election year, the British Treasury was on the warpath, “why are you buying these relics when Our Boys need MRAPs?†and so on.
Much respect to the French. The end of the Cold War left the AdlA with a lot of quite new M2000s and the Aeronavale with museum-piece F-8s, so they built their fighter program around those data points, with M2000 upgrades and an F1/F2/F3 process that they had defined in the mid-90s and delivered on time.
I can’t say much about KAAAAAAAN! as William Shatner would call it.
What fighter would you choose to go to war in, and why?
I prefer to use them to deter war. Rafale has a vast range of capabilities available, may not be the best at everything, but is well balanced, has a solid upgrade program, and – I hate to say this is important, but it is – is very free from U.S. content. Gripen E is very close and less costly to operate (so I can field more of them), and may be better in some ways if that Mongo EW system does what it says on the tin.
5I may be wrong, but I feel I recall the JSF being promised as an extremely low-cost easy-to-maintain Mach 2 fighter-bomber*, do I recall this correctly and is it?
It was always M=1.6. But yes, it was advertised as being cheap to maintain and reliable, it is absolutely neither of those things, and it is going to be hard to change that. Far too much faith was placed in automated diagnostics and prognostics, and by the time they admitted that Alis was a failure it was very late.
The reliance on touchscreen has been criticised by some, as losing the eyes-off feel of buttons and switches, what is your opinion?
I don’t have a strong view there. I think it’s something you have to be careful with, because you don’t know what works and what doesn’t until you fly it. I love the incredibly French detail with Rafale touchscreens, which is to give the pilots gloves with seamless fingertips and a chamois back to wipe any hand-prints off the screen. Oh, and I hate touchscreens in cars.
To what extent, if any, has the absence of exportable F-35s and air-to-ground optimised F-35s led to the profusion of non-US fighters currently in development?
Limited. The main factors, I believe, are the strings attached to the F-35, the lack of confidence in the U.S. as an ally, which given the polls is entirely justified, and arrogance. The Japanese MoD insisted on “right of modification†in the FX RFI and the U.S. side ignored it entirely because they absolutely could not conceive of the Japanese ditching them for the Brits.
You have been studying this project for a while, how has your judgement of it changed over time?
Initially, it looked amazing. But around 2008, it was clear that the schedules being published were unattainable, the claims became more fantastical, and the assaults on critics became ruthless. After that, the propaganda became repellent and was clearly hiding failure.
Is the aircraft itself bad or just the programme management?
There are three main things wrong with the aircraft: the features forced in by STOVL, which degrade performance; the centralized and non-partitioned avionics, which make changes and upgrades difficult; and inadequate cooling. There are also what I call “pet rocks†– technologies that made their way in without adequate assessment, like the no-HUD cockpit, electrohydraulic actuation, and the steampunk secondary power system.
Is the F-35 the most survivable modern fighter?
Hard to say without knowing how effective other fighters’ EW systems are. It’s also valid mission engineering to say of some threats, “well that’s why we have Storm Shadow or Taurus.â€
1Does price gouging happen with the F-35 suppliers? Additionally, are F-35B peculiar components fairly priced?
Most supply-chain issues involve primes leaning on suppliers’ throats and threatening to recompete. Then the suppliers can’t pay competitive salaries and their best performers go to the primes, while quality gets pared to 0.0001 higher than acceptable. The TR3 problem is rooted in a recompete. Pro-tip: if your original supplier walks away laughing it’s a sign that they think their replacement doesn’t understand the job. They’re most likely right.
What needs to happen?
Very hard to say. I’ve been warning since 2009-10 that the project was in bad shape. At one point I recommended putting the B and C on ice and focusing on fixing the F-35A. But between the programme’s difficulties and the changes in warfare – long-range combat aircraft launching unmanned things might be more important. We also need changes in the way we do acquisition and stop thinking of it as a competitive market, because it ain’t that anymore.
1Some say the lower availability rates of the F-35 are offset by its superior potency, thoughts on this?
If the airplane was really as good, 1-v-1, as the fans say it is, the USAF would have stayed with the adaptive engine vs. revised F135.
Biggest myth?
That it’s cheaper than anything else. Typhoon beat it on procurement cost in Korea. In fact both Typhoon and Rafale are pretty close in real numbers. (Export sales to non-democracies often have bigged-up numbers because it benefits both sides.) And the operational costs are high, partly due to security.
What should I have asked you?
Why has it won all round on exports? I go into that in the new book, but the most basic point is that if you think it doesn’t matter where a nation shops for its largest military procurement, you’re being (to put it kindly) a little naïve at the best of times, and these are not the best of times.
You quoted someone in your first F-35 book about the JSF being the greatest threat to the EU, what did that mean and what do you think of that from a modern perspective?
That was a Frenchman in 2003-04 when everyone expected the F-35 to work as advertised. I don’t think there is any doubt that the programme’s objective was to knock the Europeans out of the business and establish a monopoly – which ultimately would have made Europe entirely dependent on American defense technology in ways that would take decades to reverse.
The next generation of fighters seem to all have greater range, is low range a weakness of 5th gen?
Cold War fighter ranges were measured against Central Europe. The “objective†range for the F-35A and F-35C in the Key Performance Parameters was influenced by Desert Storm, but the customers only got the threshold number. More range is good and worth trading max speed and max g for.
Bill’s new book Trillion Dollar Trainwreck: How The F-35 Hollowed Out The U.S. Air Force is available to buy here.
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*HK note: The design objectives for JSF were very broadly defined, in order to give maximum flexibility to designers. They eventually crystallized into something called ORD3. I think M 1.8 may have been desirable, but suspect 1.6 as essential. In the ASTOVL studies, only the RALS system might have given a Mach 2 capability but was a non-starter due to ground erosion, hot-gas ingestion, and (probably) other aspects as well. I think it must have been the M1.8 figure I recalled.
