
F-35's Towed Decoys - adolph
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27185/f-35s-most-sinister-capability-are-towed-decoys-that-unreel-from-inside-its-stealthy-skin
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maxxxxx
After a lot of bad news about the F35 it seems the PR effort has started to
make it look better. Lots of positive articles about it all of a sudden.

~~~
partiallypro
I always found the F-35 "bad" news to be agenda driven, possibly by a foreign
actor. The people I know in the Air Force are fans of the F-35, but the media
never has been. I think there are certainly cost overruns, etc that deserve
coverage...but I am always struck by the negative opinion even the most common
person has of the fighter just from headlines, that in some cases are
misleading. I just can't shake the feeling that some of it is manufactured. I
could be wrong, but it has certainly felt that way to me. So, it wouldn't
surprise me if the DoD is doing a bit of a PR push to restore public faith in
the project.

~~~
ken
It's $100,000,000 per aircraft, and US military spending is bigger than the
next 7 countries combined. The news stories I've read about America in the
past year are about how our water pipes are still full of lead, people are
dying of gun violence, and government workers who live paycheck-to-paycheck
got hurt by the shutdown.

I don't need a foreign actor to explain why people in America today are
unsympathetic to a new technologically advanced fighter jet. Even the foreign
threats of today aren't the type where air superiority would help at all.

~~~
hestefisk
Imagine how many people you could feed for $350B. Or how much we cancer and
HIV research we could fund. Denmark bought a set of these monsters and I still
have no idea why we need them. Competition (SAAB Gripen, F18) was 1/3 of the
price, purchase as well as ongoing opex.

~~~
partiallypro
That's not how budgets work. You don't automatically get to spend $350B
because of a budget shift. You also have to consider the diminishing returns
of things like disease fighting, crime fighting, and the incentive to
fraudulently justify your research/actions.

The F-35 is designed to be more expensive but cheaper to maintain. Fleet
maintenance, especially in the US eats up a massive, massive chunk of the
budget. So while the F/A 18 might be 1/3rd the price, once you count in
maintenance, it might not be much cheaper...and it's last generation. There is
a complex math behind it. There is absolutely waste, fraud and abuse in the
military...but it's probably not as much as you think since the majority of
military spending in the US is actually on pensions, healthcare, housing,
salaries and maintenance of aging equipment. Things that in other countries
are much cheaper or just not given to soldiers. Comparing the US to China and
Russian (at least their public spending numbers) is so misleading. New
research and projects is a drop in the bucket.

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ptero
Sorry, but this reads like a cheap infomercial to me. Nothing wrong with extra
advertising I guess (other than the fact that it is likely in the end charged
to the taxpayer), but I just cannot help translating things like

"The fusion of information ... degrades a stealthy aircraft's ability to
remain undetected" to "this was cutting edge stealth when conceived, but as
aircraft has been in the works for so long (work started 1992, first flight
2006) its stealth is kind of useless now. We have to depend on towed decoys :(

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jaytaylor
TFA includes this image of an F-35 underbelly:

[https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/the-drive-cms-content-
sta...](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/the-drive-cms-content-
staging/message-editor/1553810000189-dadadac.jpg)

The exotic curves are visually exquisite, and I'm curious what the production
and fabrication technique and processes are.

Particularly for the jet engine housing. Is it comprised of a few large
sheets, or many smaller pieces? Not sure how to get the curvature and bends
consistently correct within tolerance limits for large sheets. It seems like
it would be extremely challenging.

It looks like it might be titanium?

If you know about this or have ideas, please do tell!

P.S.

What a cool read! This is the type of article I come to hacker news hoping to
find :)

~~~
Sharlin
Look at those High-Tech Hexagons[1]! The F-35 designers knew their tropes.

[1]
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighTechHexagons](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighTechHexagons)

~~~
monocasa
Hexagons are the most efficient way to tile a 2D surface.

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CodeSheikh
One thing that has often puzzled me is the effectiveness of an expensive
fighter jet against inexpensive adversaries in a face to face dogfight. For
example F-35 costs in upwards of $90 Million per unit. Chinese J-10 or JF-17
are $20 or $25 Million per unit. That's 3 fighters for one F-35. So is one
expensive F-35 capable enough of taking on 3 cheaper (yet sophisticated enough
jets read up on JF-17 recent achievements)? Granted pilots and ground crew on
both sides are equal match in skills.

~~~
ben7799
Internet bench racing of aircraft always focuses on "dogfighting". Dogfighting
has no purpose in in winning the war. Striking the enemy ground targets
without engaging in dogfights is successful. Do that and pretty soon there
won't be any enemy fighters in the air to worry about.

Modern combat is not at all the same thing as WWI/WWII "turn and burn" stuff
or what gets depicted in Star Wars.

"Turn and Burn" was already out of favor with US pilots in WWII.

If the F-35 enters into a turn-and-burn in a 3-1 situation the pilot has
already failed.. if he gets out of the situation alive he's getting chewed
out.

They have all kinds of training & procedures around different scenarios and
those don't involve flying straight at the enemy and then getting into a
turning match.

We haven't seen the deployment of a drone which can threaten manned aircraft
yet. That's going to be fascinating to watch.

I'd envision "kamikaze" drones being the most feasible thing to be effective
first. Basically much smarter missiles. A vision of a swarm of something that
looks like a DJI phantom threatening fixed wing aircraft is pretty much
fantasy right now though. Too slow, not enough weight capacity, range &
loitering time & service ceiling too low, etc.. the only way I seem them being
useful is 1000 of them in a dense cloud around a target.. like stationary
mines in the sky hoping to be struck by attackers like a bird strike.

~~~
stcredzero
_Modern combat is not at all the same thing as WWI /WWII "turn and burn"
stuff..."Turn and Burn" was already out of favor with US pilots in WWII._

In WWII, F4 Wildcat pilots soon learned not to get into turning contests with
Mitsubishi Zeros. Instead, they maintained altitude and speed, using their
advantage in a dive to execute "slashing" attacks.

 _something that looks like a DJI phantom...the only way I seem them being
useful is 1000 of them in a dense cloud around a target.. like stationary
mines in the sky hoping to be struck by attackers like a bird strike._

Those drones are plenty fast enough for tanks. Why not a tank equivalent of an
aircraft carrier? The tank would act as a mobile charging station and command
center. Most modern tanks could be severely disabled by a shaped charge placed
directly onto the barrel of the main gun, or directly onto the tread
mechanism. The machine guns and targeting systems are also quite vulnerable,
the loss of which would also severely degrade the tank's combat power. Tanks
have acquired countermeasure systems like Trophy, but those could be
overwhelmed through saturation attacks and on current tanks, they are
externally mounted and themselves vulnerable.

~~~
pcarmichael
> Instead, they maintained altitude and speed, using their advantage in a dive
> to execute "slashing" attacks.

Fun trivia that I read a while back: After getting hold of a zero, they
discovered that the carburetor design would cause the engine to sputter on
high speed dives. [https://www.history.com/news/the-akutan-zero-how-a-
captured-...](https://www.history.com/news/the-akutan-zero-how-a-captured-
japanese-fighter-plane-helped-win-world-war-ii)

~~~
stcredzero
_they discovered that the carburetor design would cause the engine to sputter
on high speed dives_

Also, their controls could become sluggish at the right conditions near their
top speeds.

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dba7dba
If you'd like to read how the towed decoys are used in real life (F16 in this
case), be sure to check out book "Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat" by Dan
Hampton.

The desc of the book includes: 151 combat missions, 21 hard kills on surface-
to-air-missile sites, 4 Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor, 1 Purple
Heart.

I've been into historical aspects of war/plane/ship/weapon so I've read lots
of books and viewed many pics/videos related. However I had never heard of
towed decoys off of a modern fighter jet like F16 until reading above book.

The book is awesome to read if you are into that kind of stuff.

I remember reading in the book where he talks about getting into a fight with
the towed decoy deployed. When he was out of the fight and tried to tow in the
decoy, it was gone. Meaning it had done its job and sacrificed itself and
therefore saved the F16 itself.

Btw, there's been lots of discussion of MCAS on Boeing 737 MAX and how some
are uneasy that software HAS to be involved for 737 MAX to stay airborne at
certain times. I believe F16 was first production fighter jet where computer
has to be involved in controlling every moment it's airborne. If computers on
it stopped working, F16 will supposedly stop being a flying object almost
immediately.

~~~
bdavis__
thus the nickname of the plane. the 'lawn dart'

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dmitryminkovsky
Lots of talk about the F-35 here lately and I've been meaning to ask if anyone
caught the PBS NOVA "Battle of the X-Planes" about it back in 2003 [0][1].
It's a really interesting take on the program from that era. And it really
shows you the complexity of building this aircraft. I saw it in high school
and it made me want to major in aerospace engineering. That didn't happen, but
I always think about this show and wonder if people have seen it when the F-35
is mentioned.

[0]:
[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/xplanes/about.html](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/xplanes/about.html)

[1]:
[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ft1qf](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ft1qf)

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swasheck
Ever since the SR-71 piece a few days ago (in which there are some disparaging
F-35 comments), there have been a few submissions on the F-35 that appear to
attempt to bolster its reputation.

~~~
adolph
Personally I have no opinion on the F-35 and its reputation other than time
will tell and people other than me seem very invested in it one way or
another.

I think the article as an overview of towed decoys in general is interesting
and a not very well covered topic.

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themark
Seems like something the military would want to keep close to their chest. I
am amazed that things like this are allowed to be in the public domain.

~~~
dajohnson89
yeah, i tend to agree. i get that it's good pr, but is it worth it to
declassify these capabilities?

~~~
dba7dba
My gut reaction is they would like to, but they realize enough of the
information is already out due to carelessness, spying, etc. So they just
decide to release some information, with some FUD mixed in.

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stcredzero
The US has "little buddies." Australia is looking to build "Loyal Wingmen."
(Autonomous drones)

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/australia/australia-
artificia...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/australia/australia-artificial-
intelligence-boeing-drone/index.html)

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ben7799
This is a really interesting article. Having been interested in aviation for a
long time I was not aware of these. Fascinating stuff. A much fancier version
of chaff & flares. Reminiscent of submarine warfare.

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zepearl
I guess that once total stealth has been maxed in the "reflective" research-
area, the next effective defensive would be some wide-ground arrays pointing
to at least 1 satellite (making satellite techno a must) => as soon as at
least 1 of the emitting array does not reach the satellite (of course
something more complicated to avoid man-in-the-middle-attack, interference,
etc...) it would mean that something flew through it... .

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Zelizz
How well would a towed decoy be able to fool a missile equipped with a camera
and a neural net trained on pictures of fighter jets? Are the distances and
speeds too extreme for a visible light camera? Is there some technology to
"blind" a visible light camera?

~~~
bdavis__
missiles work with radar signature or heat signature, not the visible
spectrum. and yes, there are countermeasures available to 'blind' an IR sensor
(like those used on short range A/A missiles)

~~~
Zelizz
Right, I know that you’d want to use radar for longer distances, but if the
towed decoy is meant to appear as a juicy target, to take a hit for the
fighter, couldn’t you just follow it until you’re in close range, and then
switch to a better discriminating sensor (visible light camera in my example)
to hit the jet instead?

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lwansbrough
I wonder what role AI/CV has in identifying and ignoring towed decoys in
modern weapons systems (either allied or adversarial.)

