[HN Gopher] F-35A has flown from a highway for the first time
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F-35A has flown from a highway for the first time
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 47 points
Date : 2023-09-25 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| dgunay wrote:
| Isn't the F-35 VTOL capable anyway? Wouldn't it already be able
| to use most "big enough" paved surfaces to land and take off?
| jstarfish wrote:
| The article is about the F-35A.
|
| > The U.S. Marine Corps has already shown its ability to use
| its short and vertical takeoff and landing capable F-35Bs in
| this way, as The War Zone has previously reported.
| Kye wrote:
| I think that's specific to the Marine version.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| wyldberry wrote:
| There are 3 models that roughly breaks down like so:
|
| A - Standard runway takeoff, carries the second most amount of
| fuel B - VTOL, carries the least amount of fuel C - Carrier
| launched, carries the most amount of fuel.
|
| There are tradeoffs each version makes. The F35 is the plane of
| the future for NATO and other US allies. Having the _A_ variant
| able to take off and land from a highway allows (theoretically)
| you to have the less expensive to maintain A variant and deploy
| it all over your highway areas (Norway) for example.
| HerculePoirot wrote:
| > Norway
|
| Sweden.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_90
|
| > Like its predecessor, the Bas 90 system was based around
| defensive force dispersal of aircraft across many
| krigsflygbaser (wartime air bases) in case of war, as well as
| dispersion of the air base functions within the individual
| bases themselves. The air units would have been dispersed so
| one squadron (8-12 aircraft) would be stationed per
| krigsflygbas. The system was a protective measure against
| nuclear weapons and airstrikes, the purpose being to make it
| complicated for an opponent to destroy the Swedish Air Force
| on the ground and thus ensure endurance for the air force in
| a conflict scenario.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| Any highway in Colorado would tear the landing gear off in a
| second.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I wonder what the engine does to the road during takeoff. How
| many times can a road be used this way?
| yawnxyz wrote:
| Can these planes still land in somewhat icy and snowy weather?
| The article mentioned drag chutes and arrestor hooks, but I'd
| imagine a foot of snow being a problem...
| verdverm wrote:
| Can any plane land in a foot of snow?
|
| i.e. Why would there be an expectation that a military plane
| would be significantly different in this hypothetical?
| thrill wrote:
| Shrug. F-4s were doing this in the early 80's.
| Terr_ wrote:
| On a related note, there's a common MYTH that the US highway
| system was designed to create sections of roadway suitable for
| emergency airstrip use:
|
| > [...] no law, regulation, policy, or silver [or] red tape
| requires that one out of five miles of the interstate highway
| system must be straight.
|
| [0] https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/mayjune-2000/one-
| mile-...
| Abekkus wrote:
| OPSEC is a myth, apparently.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| "It's a myth that the US military is creating a specific
| taskforce to fend off the Gummy Bears of Mars."
|
| "OPSEC, I getcha."
| Retric wrote:
| That's an overly specific exclusion.
|
| Highway strip is a real thing, but obviously the US doesn't
| need 20% of all highways to be useful in this way.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_strip
|
| The stretches that qualify are tracked as useful military
| assets and worst case alternatives by the FAA, but you need to
| avoid overpasses etc, not just have a long stretches of strait
| road.
| bradley13 wrote:
| Military aircraft landing and taking off from roads has happened
| forever. The F-35 has now done this. Whoopee. Water is wet.
|
| How about fixing that little problem of not being allowed near
| thunderstorms? Not till 2027 at the earliest? But it can land on
| flat, straight roads, so that's something. /s
| dboreham wrote:
| They erect a grounded mast to provide lightning protection for
| each parked plane. (Source: discussed purpose of said mast with
| ground crew at Nellis last year).
| karaterobot wrote:
| > For Baana 23, a section of Finland's Regional Road 551 between
| the towns of Karttula and Tervo in the southern end of the
| country has been turned into an impromptu air base.
|
| Regional Road 551 shall now be known as the highway to the danger
| zone.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Someone nearby needs to set up a pirate radio station that play
| Kenny Loggins in a permanent loop.
| tuna74 wrote:
| I saw a JA 37 (or AJ 37) Viggen land on a road in the late
| eighties. It was pretty cool for the 8 year old me!
| rwmj wrote:
| > _Just shutting down complex fighter aircraft can increase the
| chances that they will have serviceability issues starting up
| again._
|
| Not very encouraging?
| jstarfish wrote:
| Police leave the car running for the same reason.
| sn_master wrote:
| I thought that was to keep the electronics powered up. The
| 12V battery isn't enough to sustain them for too long.
| doubled112 wrote:
| A combination of both, I'd imagine.
|
| In my experience (with cars, motorcycles and small boats),
| once a vehicle is started it tends to stay running.
| jstarfish wrote:
| That's my experience too. Maybe it's a chicken-or-egg
| problem.
|
| The electronics and lights would certainly drain the
| battery, but the specific fear was that the car wouldn't
| _start_ when needed. It was never specified whether that
| fear was of a dead battery or failed starter, but
| frequent starts and short trips will deplete the battery
| in any car...
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I mean it's well known to not turn off an old machine lest the
| hard-disk not spin up. Same basic idea, no?
| ipnon wrote:
| This has a significant deterrence effect because it means you
| can't just massively attack all airbases and expect the Air Force
| to be disabled. Even if you destroy all runways there will still
| be air units with all manner of destructive weapons in action, at
| least for a long enough time to massively retaliate in kind.
| rhuru wrote:
| Isn't this a very common requirement though ? India mostly has
| Russian planes but most new major Indian highways have several
| stretched that can be used as runways and Air Force also does
| test landings from time to time.
| rewmie wrote:
| > This has a significant deterrence effect because it means you
| can't just massively attack all airbases and expect the Air
| Force to be disabled.
|
| I'd be very surprised if being able to land/takeoff from
| highways wasn't one of the most basic design requirements for a
| project as massive as the F-35. If highways are already
| designed to be usable as ad-hoc airfields, it would make no
| sense at all to design new airplanes to keep them compatible.
| ipnon wrote:
| Absolutely, that's why STOVL is the defining feature of the
| F-35B. It's common knowledge where American and allied air
| bases are, by making them able to base anywhere with modern
| infrastructure it makes "zerg rushes" untenable. The astute
| reader will note recent examples of countries with outdated
| airframes being vulnerable to massive surprise attacks.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Both F-35B and F-35C are the variants that can liftoff from
| a Carrier (aka: Navy) or WASP-class Assault Ship (aka:
| Marines) respectively.
|
| F-35A is the one that needs the full runway. This is a big
| deal, as the F35A has the best performance overall but
| needs the nicest conditions to launch. If the "hardest to
| launch" variant can be flown from a highway, then the other
| two models will do even better.
|
| This is a "steelman argument". We're demonstrating the
| worst F35 at this job. All other variants will do even
| better.
| ano-ther wrote:
| Can anyone explain how this makes a meaningful difference?
|
| In my lay-man's imagination, there will only be a few of these
| highway airstrips. And they are quite obvious, either from media
| reports, satellite images or when you drive along them in
| peacetime.
|
| So the enemy will know and target them like your other airfields.
|
| What am I getting wrong?
| [deleted]
| Eji1700 wrote:
| To add to other answers:
|
| The enemy only has so many resources to target your resources.
| War has been, really for most of history, an economic struggle
| as much as a tactical one.
|
| If they're planning an attack, they have to decide if the risk
| is worth the reward. They can't just magically hit all targets
| (or they can but that's because things go nuclear and hey, none
| of it really matters).
|
| The more redundancies you have, the more likely you are to stop
| their attack, or to exhaust their ability to extend themselves.
| Given the absurd size of most road networks, that's a lot of
| potential targets to worry about, even if mostly undefended.
| Zigurd wrote:
| It does not mean it would be meaningful inside the US, but
| Sweden, now a NATO ally, has had this doctrine and design
| requirement for a long time. Evidently they think it is useful.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Can anyone explain how this makes a meaningful difference?_
|
| See how Ukraine is using roads to hide its warplanes and site
| decoys.
| camel_gopher wrote:
| There's a lot of highway in the US
| Javalicious wrote:
| I was going to respond to this, only to have found myself at
| the end of an urban legend (no, there isn't a stipulation in
| the US to have 1 in every 5 miles straight in the US interstate
| highway system in order to allow for emergency landing of
| aircraft: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/landing-of-hope-
| and-glory/).
|
| I do agree with the other sibling responses, though -- bombs
| cost money, and there's a lot of roadway that would need to be
| bombed in order to render entire highway systems unusable. So
| that's probably where the "win" comes in -- being nimble in
| takeoff / landing of aircraft locations makes life much more
| difficult for the enemy.
| Someone wrote:
| This doesn't look like a special part of a highway that's
| prepared to be an airstrip, but just a stretch of road without
| any obstacles such as road lighting.
|
| This being Norway, I expect they have quite a bit of that. The
| country is reasonably large (385,000km2), population density is
| fairly low (15 persons/km2), so in large parts of the country
| roads won't be busy and don't need much infrastructure.
| zokier wrote:
| This is Finland, not Norway, and the landing sites definitely
| are prepared and marked as such, they are not just random
| stretches of road.
|
| edit: you can clearly see in satellite images the strip in
| question here, its significantly wider than the surrounding
| road and additionally has been recently repaved:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/teYJ7wzbTzcfwngB6
| hashmush wrote:
| Maybe this video about how the Swedish Air Force uses the
| JAS-39 Gripen helps?
|
| https://youtu.be/eEX8JJ0eXL4 (part of it at around 3m30s)
| whartung wrote:
| > What am I getting wrong?
|
| That in combat, it's never that simple. It seems like that,
| seems like the enemy has 100% information, or is 100% capable.
| And it's not (nor are we).
|
| Everything is muddy, nothing is guaranteed to work, the
| environment is unforgiving, people react differently under
| stress. We, they, everyone KNOW this and it still doesn't work.
|
| So, you plan, you test contingencies, develop capability, even
| if they're never used.
|
| In Germany, they had plans to use shopping centers as ad hoc
| aircraft bases. Knock large holes into the store front (they
| tend to not be load bearing), shove out all of the shelves and
| what not with a bulldozer, clear the parking lots of cars and
| lights (bulldozers work well for this as well). Boom, instant
| hangar and tarmac.
|
| But that's just it, just warplans. Think tanks thinking through
| potential problems and ways to solve them. They also had
| warplans to blow up dams to wash over a teeming Soviet advance.
| Seems, in the large, to be a bad idea. But, on the other hand,
| consider the events and thinking going on when someone chimes
| in "Hey, maybe we should blow up the dams...".
|
| Combat is very messy. No plan survives first contact. Just ask
| the Russians.
| thunderbird120 wrote:
| There are few air bases but many sections of highway which are
| long and straight enough to take off from. Targeting all of
| them with expensive precision munitions is totally impractical.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| How clean does a runway have to be for an F-35 to take-off
| from it? I remember a lot of internet grief over the idea of
| shipping American fighters to Ukraine, on the grounds that
| the F-16 and other American fighters were designed only for
| pristine runways. Low air intakes of the sort Americans favor
| would ingest debris that would damage the engines, so runways
| have to be absolutely clear. The MiG-29, on the other hand,
| has auxiliary air intakes above the wing for taking off on a
| poorly maintained airstrip. So, does the F-35 need specially
| cleaned highways?
| hef19898 wrote:
| FOD is something to avoid when operating aircraft,
| everywhere. Meaning clean is clean enough, and if it isn't
| an emergency landing strips are prepared (basic
| maintenance, personal facilities, fuel...)
|
| Regarding Ukraine, if it is internet grief, it is fair to
| assume it is wrong.
| sschueller wrote:
| I thought this was a VTOL aircraft so runway length should
| not be such an issue.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The F-35A variant doesn't do VTOL.
| akajla wrote:
| The article references the F-35A which is the conventional
| take-off/landing variant whereas the VTOL variant is the
| F-35B.
| thunderbird120 wrote:
| The article references the F-35A which is a conventional
| take off and landing aircraft (CTOL). The F-35B is the
| short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant. The
| F-35B belongs to the marines is capable of using extremely
| short and improvised runways and this has been part of its
| operational concept for quite a while[1]. For an
| expeditionary force that kind of thing is important.
|
| The F-35A is a bit different in that its a normal air force
| fighter. This is just proving that if push comes to shove
| it can be operated out of improvised bases.
|
| [1]https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-35b-just-
| touched-dow...
| eschneider wrote:
| VTOL takeoff usually reduces payload vs a more normal
| takeoff.
| janosdebugs wrote:
| There's a lot more highway than airstrip length. According to
| Wikipedia[1], Finland has 78,141 kilometres (48,555 mi) of
| highways. That's a whole lot of runway to destroy.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_in_Finland
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It's tricky to put airstrips out of service (for long),
| especially if the one looking to do the attacking doesn't have
| the ability to meaningfully contest the airspace there, as
| would be the case for most if not all adversaries an F35 might
| have.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Why is this so important if it has vertical takeoff?
| giobox wrote:
| Only the F-35"B" variant has this, if I remember correctly. The
| F-35A doesn't.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| A is normal takeoff/landing
|
| B is vertical takeoff/landing
|
| C is carrier takeoff/landing
| Telemakhos wrote:
| F-35B is the VTOL variant.
| [deleted]
| thejteam wrote:
| The A variant of the F35 doesn't have vertical takeoff.
| nand4011 wrote:
| In addition to what the others have said, the F-35B is more
| properly a STOVL aircraft: Short Take Off, Vertical Landing. It
| can't take off vertically with a useful combat load.
| riku_iki wrote:
| this version doesn't have vertical take off.
|
| Also, in my understanding, B variant doesn't have vertical take
| off too, it has short take off and vertical landing. It can do
| vertical take off, but burns too much fuel that way for any
| useful mission.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Even the F-35B doesn't actually do vertical takeoff in practice
| (though it's capable of doing so IIRC), it does vertical
| landing and short take-off. Going straight up uses a LOT of
| fuel.
| bouncycastle wrote:
| [flagged]
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