Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017 19 tech TALK t also baked into the airframe and unlike the F-22 it's good for the airframes entire life- cycle. Many people have mentioned buying a variant of the F-16 'Block 60' that the UAE bought, as it's already had its R&D costs covered ($3 billion) by the UAE so the roughly $80 million per unit cost they paid would be closer to $45 million per unit now. The problem is that the block 60+ F-16's are also nearly 3,000 pounds heavier than the block 50's when empty. True, the F-35 is 9,000 pounds heavier than the block 60's but it's non-afterburn- ing military thrust is also 28,000 lbs. Un- der full afterburner the block 60 F-16 puts out 32,500 pounds of thrust compared to the F-35's 40,000 lbs. The F-35 can also carry it's full 19,000-pound fuel load inter- nally which means it doesn't have to carry heavier, drag inducing external tanks to carry out its missions. This greatly reduces airframe stress over time and the internal loadout allows the F-35 to be less con- servative while maneuvering with combat loads as there is virtually no fear of damag- ing the pylons, release mechanisms or over- stressing the wings. Another important factor is the poten- tial for future growth. As artificial intel- ligence becomes more advanced and is able to handle more complex algorithms, the F-35 will become even more deadly by extension. IBM's Watson for example, has demonstrated the ability to learn and adapt to changing situations with efficiency and accuracy, and as an oncology aid it has shown to be as proficient and in many cases better than actual oncologists at diagnosis and treatment plans. Watson uses gath- ered info like symptoms, blood results and other tests and compares them to a massive collection of databases in rapid fashion and creates an accurate assessment, diagnosis and treatment plan. Oncologists can then simply confirm that the data is accurate which cuts substantial time off of the di- agnosis period which means treatment can start sooner. Watson is also not as advanced as the systems found in the F-35 which are in a league of their own. Take the F-35's 400 billion operations per-second and 360-degree awareness and use the Watson example to imagine what a system that is several times more potent could do on a battlefield. Watson, like other AI systems has also beaten the world's best and bright- est at their individual areas of expertise. Lockheed Martin is also constantly work- ing to create even better systems. Namely the block 4 upgrades which will be imple- mented in 4 increments (4.1/4.2/4.3/4.4) Block 4.1 is billed as the increment that will allow the F-35 to realize it's full planned platform potential. • A twin rail replaces the 2,000lb bomb rail on the A and C variants, which will allow 6 x AMRAAM to be carried. • The ROVER NG troop downlink from the EOTS (Initially delayed due to con- cerns regarding vulnerability to cyber- attack) • B-61 nuclear bomb integration Software based multistatic radar incorpo- ration. The multistatic radar is one of the key components of this block. Stealth aircraft generally rely on the scattering of radar signals away from the source. Multistatic radars can pick up on this deflected energy and with the F-35's systems it will enable multiple linked sources to be accessed to provide this information. The F-35 can stitch this data together and use it to ac-

• Cover