Currently there is one STOVL fighter in production, the F35B, it has unique capabilities but also suffers penalties in payload and range compared to conventional aircraft


New generation fighters require long lead times and spend many, many years in development (the F35 itself was a primary example of this) and I see several long term projects being undertaken around the world for these aircraft


It takes so long nowadays from gestation to putting a
fighter in service these programs seem to start the very moment a new fighter reaches operational capability



With that in mind you might wonder why there’s not been a word about a STOVL successor to the F35B



Will this be the end of this type of aircraft and an admission the design compromises are not worthwhile?

It depends if countries keep building carriers without catapults.

johns624 wrote:

It depends if countries keep building carriers without catapults.

Well that’s kind of backwards, VSTOL fighters such as the Harrier and F35B came first, then the RN and a few other nations realized they could be operated on much smaller ships without arresting gear or catapults


No one’s going to build a ‘carrier’ just for a VSTOL fighter if no such aircraft is being built anymore


All you have then is a big helicopter carrier

With the introduction of long range hypersonic missiles forcing the carriers farther and farther away, mabey the days of the carriers are limited as well. The niche may be take up by drones. Maybe someone can come up with a vertically launch and net capture UAV.

Far into the future, intercontinental capable fighters would remove the need completely.

bt

During the Cold War, one of the rationales for the Harrier was that it would be able to operate without needing a runway, under the assumption that many runways in Western Europe would be rendered inoperable in the first few hours of a conflict. Of course there are other ways to address the issue, such as adapting stretches of highways to be used as runways, and some European countries did just that, but the rationale still stands today.

IADFCO wrote:

During the Cold War, one of the rationales for the Harrier was that it would be able to operate without needing a runway, under the assumption that many runways in Western Europe would be rendered inoperable in the first few hours of a conflict. Of course there are other ways to address the issue, such as adapting stretches of highways to be used as runways, and some European countries did just that, but the rationale still stands today.

Good point


With its rugged, simple design the Harrier was able to be forward deployed to wooded areas close to potential conflicts (usually in Germany)


Hidden in the trees with additional camouflage and only needing a short grass strip to take off that was indistinguishable from its surrounds, fly a mission then being able to land vertically and be ‘hidden away’ again it was a uniquely flexible attack aircraft


Don’t see how the F35B could duplicate that capability with it’s highly maintenance intensive design and need for a hard surfaced runway

Max Q wrote:

johns624 wrote:

It depends if countries keep building carriers without catapults.

Well that’s kind of backwards, VSTOL fighters such as the Harrier and F35B came first, then the RN and a few other nations realized they could be operated on much smaller ships without arresting gear or catapults


No one’s going to build a ‘carrier’ just for a VSTOL fighter if no such aircraft is being built anymore


All you have then is a big helicopter carrier

Well, the projects around VTOL fighters and transports started in the 60ties.
RATO for the Starfighter ( belly rocket for taking off from a trailer, the full range of German VTOL craft ( fighters and transports )
the British Harrier precursor.
... under the assumption that a blooming conflict would begin with destruction of all relevant infrastructure in Europe.

Only surviving project was the Harrier.
And the Brits found use for it in the Falklands war. ( with provisional start/landing pads on the supply ships.)

Later the US took it up for Power Projection. how nice.

There will be no conflict in style of what was expected in the 60ties.
With drones and better airfield protection ( and more standoff range via refueling ) the use case diminishes.

WIederling wrote:

There will be no conflict in style of what was expected in the 60ties.
With drones and better airfield protection ( and more standoff range via refueling ) the use case diminishes.

There would still be countries that could use such a platform (Taiwan?). Unfortunately, the US may not and it's US and to a lesser extent Europe's development spending that will decide the future.

The current money into standoff brange seems to be long range AA, AG and hypersonic missiles.

bt

I think there will be a subsonic stealth VTOL multi role aircraft in a few decades time. It will replace tilt rotors, combat helicopters, black hawk, A-10 etc.

Think of a blended wing design with electric ducted lift fans. This is what the VTOL business jet idea looks like. Much faster than a tilt rotor.



The military version would have a stealth design no props spinning during cruise gives a big reduction in radar cross section compared to a tilt rotor. Internal weapons bays, rear cargo ramp. The turbofans on the back would have inbuilt generators. So they charge up a battery pack so that the electric lift fans have about 1 minutes of lift power. The brilliant thing about electric motors is you can overpower them for short durations to have incredible power to weight ratio. That is great for a VTOL setup as the lift engines only get used briefly and are then dead weight. I would expect it to look more like this.

Max Q wrote:

johns624 wrote:

It depends if countries keep building carriers without catapults.

Well that’s kind of backwards, VSTOL fighters such as the Harrier and F35B came first, then the RN and a few other nations realized they could be operated on much smaller ships without arresting gear or catapults


No one’s going to build a ‘carrier’ just for a VSTOL fighter if no such aircraft is being built anymore


All you have then is a big helicopter carrier

I'm not talking about "smaller ships". I'm talking about the QE-class. They could've easily made them CATO ships and bought the C model, but didn't.

The QE-class is a smaller ship.

With super carriers becoming increasingly indefensible vs. hypersonic/stealth/drone/space-based attacks, it’s unlikely a future joint program a la F-35 could be committed to a VTOL concept, nor could one plausibly sustain development costs as a stand alone platform. Niche roles, sure, but not a real all around fighter/strike tactical platform (at least, a manned one).

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The QE-class is a smaller ship.

Smaller than what? It's bigger by a lot than the French Charles de Gaulle and about the same size as the Forrestal. It isn't some LHD. It could've easily been equipped with cats.

Nimitz-class carriers, Ford-class

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Nimitz-class carriers, Ford-class

They are still large fleet carriers.

johns624 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Nimitz-class carriers, Ford-class

They are still large fleet carriers.

Navy sarcasm is lost, I guess

RJMAZ wrote:

I think there will be a subsonic stealth VTOL multi role aircraft in a few decades time. It will replace tilt rotors, combat helicopters, black hawk, A-10 etc.

Possible technically, but not economically. Hover efficiency drops dramatically with increasing disk loading, see Harrier/F35B vs tilt-rotor vs helicopter.

Sikorsky tried to expand the design space a bit in the mid-90's with the VDTR (Variable Diameter Tilt Rotor), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24322941_Wind_tunnel_test_of_a_variable-diameter_tiltrotor_VDTR_model. Serious study and clever idea, but it didn't go beyond a wind tunnel test.

You can't beat physics.

IADFCO wrote:

Possible technically, but not economically. Hover efficiency drops dramatically with increasing disk loading, see Harrier/F35B vs tilt-rotor vs helicopter.

You can't beat physics.

This is 100% correct but the design will be operating in VTOL mode for very short periods mainly when landing. So efficiency is irrelevant. Helicopters rarely hover these days. The Apache fleet got shot to pieces in the Gulf War on this one particular mission. Ever since all attack helicopters operate more like an A-10 but just lower and slower.

The blended wing would allow for more disc area than a F-35B. Approximately half way between a tilt rotor and F-35B in terms of disc loading would be ideal. The technology is already here and is a near certainty to appear in the future.

Helicopters might be very efficient during hover but they are the least efficient during horizontal travel.

texl1649 wrote:

With super carriers becoming increasingly indefensible vs. hypersonic/stealth/drone/space-based attacks, it’s unlikely a future joint program a la F-35 could be committed to a VTOL concept, nor could one plausibly sustain development costs as a stand alone platform. Niche roles, sure, but not a real all around fighter/strike tactical platform (at least, a manned one).

What space-based attacks?
The FOBS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractiona ... ent_System
Isn't the US developing long range missiles and hypersonics and unmanned tankers to extend the range of their carrier based aircraft in order to keep their carriers outside of the range of MRBMs like the DF21D?
Also using any kind of space based weapons, nuclear or conventional and long range ballistic missiles could lead to an all out nuclear retaliation.

Yeah, carriers will be obsolete when strategic bombers, tanks, etc., will. All those, and many others, have all been killed off by the "experts" several times already.

Delete post

Interesting that we say fixed air fields can be better protected but carriers at sea which are moving are being rendered obsolete by hypersonic missiles etc. guess they cannot be used against fixed targets?
What has not changed is a couple missiles dropping bomblets on runways puts million dollar fighters / bombers out of action.
Did the reason for the Harrier change, I would say no, combat experience showed the a/c vulnerabilities and limitations, but I don't recall seeing anything that the concept of forward deployment created major issues.
Maybe helicopters will get more capable missiles so they can be forward deployed, I just think the industry is not really interested in a Harrier replacement.

par13del wrote:

I just think the industry is not really interested in a Harrier replacement.

The market is small and with the F35B just coming into use, there's really no reason for another one to be developed yet.

What does being forward deployed buys you with a fighter? Being forward deploy also brings your support crew closer to harms way. Wouldn't mobile drone platform be better closer to the front lines to serve the same function as a forward deploy fighter?

bt

Until we have developed an AI that is both fully independent and fully trustworthy, which requires no external electronic communications to complete it's missions and also adjust for contingencies, we will still require at least a portion of our combat aircraft to be manned to guard against effective electronic countermeasures against drones and partial AI solutions. With that being the premise that we have to operate under, it is not unreasonable to conclude that there will still be developed manned fighters for the next 20 or more years. In 20 years, the base design for the F-35 will be over 40 years old and well into the replacement cycle.

We know that there are compromises in the F-35B design related to it's need to share parts with A/C versions. Just replacing it with a design that is focused solely on being an excellent S/VTOL and using more modern systems, engines and materials will bring about better capabilities on their own. There will always be use cases for VTOL fighters, from the vulnerability of carriers and traditional airfields, to the limitations of forward operating bases that are hastily assembled. They make having effective carriers more accessible to militaries with smaller budgets, which is an attraction all on it's own.

Forward deployment, while putting your airfields at greater risk, allows you to accomplish missions with decreased logistics chains. Just the fuel savings alone is a big deal if you can shave hundreds of miles from your flight time each way. Forward deployment bases can be ad-hoc, getting relocated often to keep the enemy guessing and hide it from counter strike. VTOL aircraft allow those bases to be smaller and much less resource intensive. Those are ALL very big things to consider.

LightningZ71 wrote:

Forward deployment, while putting your airfields at greater risk, allows you to accomplish missions with decreased logistics chains.

This argument only works if you pre-deploy your logistics and is trading land for time. For a sustained campaign, you still have to re-supply these bases and Afghanistan and Iraq shows the logistic issues with these bases.

Consider a near peer conflict and the requirement for air support (the only reason I can think that forward deployed Vertol/Stovl fighter aircraft would be useful). The development of long range ground base SDB launchers will address some of that need. Persistent UAV attack assets would also help.

The fleet operation is the few remaining place where this type of asset do not yet have a adequate option.

bt