Had a good day yesterday,watched a couple of F35s take off,

[Torch]

They are loud and actually an attractive looking aircraft when you see them up close..

 

[Gnomey]

Cool!

 

[mikewint]

Rubber band launch?

 

[ODonovan]

Rubber band launch?

No, but they had to push them backward in circles for a half mile each before they took off, to wind the springs.

Actually, I think the 35 is going to be a total PITA to our enemies, in combat. Imagine playing hide and seek, but having someone who could see everyone's hiding place helping the seeker by pointing them out. With the 35s in the enemy airspace, tagging enemies for our forces, one plane such as an old B-52 loaded with air to air missiles, could take down a large part of an enemy's airforce from well out of their range. The face of air combat may be changing more than at any other time in recent history.



-Irish

 

[michael rauls]

I'd love to get a look at an F35 taking off myself. What we did get yesterday and today was a formation of 4 F16s making U-turns right over my house.
There was an air show in Huntington beach which is about 5 or 6 miles from here and they were using they airspace abouve my house to start their turnaround back to Huntington which was of course verry cool.
Spent several hours yesterday out on the porch enjoying the free show.

 

[mikewint]

A $1.5 trillion dollar program, 18 years of "development", a plane that costs $100 million per plane, VERY difficult to manufacture AT the factory with body panels that have to be VERY precisely aligned to maintain stealth (imagine combat field maintenance) and that radar absorbing coating is easily scratched.
IMHO the primary problem is/was the Pentagon's insistence on a "one size fits all" aircraft. The four services demanded features that were almost incompatible with each other.

History is littered with multi-mission aircraft that never quite measured up. Take Germany's WWII Junkers Ju-88, or the 1970s Panavia Tornado, or even the original F/A-18. Yea it's true. The Hornet is a mainstay of the American military, but when it first appeared it lacked the range and payload of the A-7 Corsair and acceleration and climb performance of the F-4 Phantom it was meant to replace.

The F-35A Strike Fighter carries no more than four air-to-air missiles in its internal bays. Less if it has to add air-to-ground weapons to that mix.
While the Lightning II can carry a much more extensive payload — including air-to-air missiles — under its wings, it does so at a significant cost: i.e., it loses its stealth ability.
Without that ability to hide in the skies, its relatively poorer maneuverability, acceleration and speed puts it at a disadvantage to most modern Russian and Chinese fighter aircraft designs.
Not a problem we just re-define the "combat" so that the F-35's concept relies upon all air-to-air combat being conducted 'beyond visual range', where it is not required to maneuver. But long-range missile attacks are generally regarded as having less chance of success than those at close range.
A study by the RAND Corporation showed that, even assuming a 50 per cent offensive missile success rate and a 100 per cent successful defensive missile evasion rate, F-35 Strike Fighters would run out of missiles long before they ran out of targets.

Stealth in not invisible and countries like China, are upgrading their defense systems to take these new radar-evading capabilities into account. There have also been secrets about the stealth technology stolen through espionage. One of the creators of the B-2 bomber was convicted of passing classified information to China and other countries. So the improved systems being developed by other countries will take into account the secrets of the stealth technology and reduce its effectiveness.

While something like 200 F-35s are flying worldwide they are really not "finished". The GAO has found almost 1000 "deficiencies" in the aircraft. Each aircraft will have to eventually be recalled and retrofitted upwards to the new 2019 standard. The degree and complexity of that retrofit depends on the age of the aircraft.

 

[michael rauls]

A $1.5 trillion dollar program, 18 years of "development", a plane that costs $100 million per plane, VERY difficult to manufacture AT the factory with body panels that have to be VERY precisely aligned to maintain stealth (imagine combat field maintenance) and that radar absorbing coating is easily scratched.
IMHO the primary problem is/was the Pentagon's insistence on a "one size fits all" aircraft. The four services demanded features that were almost incompatible with each other.

History is littered with multi-mission aircraft that never quite measured up. Take Germany's WWII Junkers Ju-88, or the 1970s Panavia Tornado, or even the original F/A-18. Yea it's true. The Hornet is a mainstay of the American military, but when it first appeared it lacked the range and payload of the A-7 Corsair and acceleration and climb performance of the F-4 Phantom it was meant to replace.

The F-35A Strike Fighter carries no more than four air-to-air missiles in its internal bays. Less if it has to add air-to-ground weapons to that mix.
While the Lightning II can carry a much more extensive payload — including air-to-air missiles — under its wings, it does so at a significant cost: i.e., it loses its stealth ability.
Without that ability to hide in the skies, its relatively poorer maneuverability, acceleration and speed puts it at a disadvantage to most modern Russian and Chinese fighter aircraft designs.
Not a problem we just re-define the "combat" so that the F-35's concept relies upon all air-to-air combat being conducted 'beyond visual range', where it is not required to maneuver. But long-range missile attacks are generally regarded as having less chance of success than those at close range.
A study by the RAND Corporation showed that, even assuming a 50 per cent offensive missile success rate and a 100 per cent successful defensive missile evasion rate, F-35 Strike Fighters would run out of missiles long before they ran out of targets.

Stealth in not invisible and countries like China, are upgrading their defense systems to take these new radar-evading capabilities into account. There have also been secrets about the stealth technology stolen through espionage. One of the creators of the B-2 bomber was convicted of passing classified information to China and other countries. So the improved systems being developed by other countries will take into account the secrets of the stealth technology and reduce its effectiveness.

While something like 200 F-35s are flying worldwide they are really not "finished". The GAO has found almost 1000 "deficiencies" in the aircraft. Each aircraft will have to eventually be recalled and retrofitted upwards to the new 2019 standard. The degree and complexity of that retrofit depends on the age of the aircraft.

I to worry a bit about the one size fits all dynamic here. I think the plane can be a huge asset, even a game changer with its ability to manage information but yes the collective record of " does everything" aircraft makes me a little nervous.

 

[mikewint]

Can you even begin to imagine trying to maintain and service the F-35 in a war zone? Especially if we're looking at combat with a nation close to or equal to the US. Capable of attacking in force our air bases and maintenance facilities. How many $100 million dollar aircraft are you/we willing to or able to loose?
The Navy is not much better, consider the money pit Zumwalt Class destroyers. The class was originally supposed to consist of 32 ships in total and has shrunk to just three, with each one having a price tag of $4 billion. That's not counting another $10 billion in research and development costs.

The Navy was also busy stripping planned systems from the design, to try and control any further cost overruns and delays. Close-in protection, ballistic and air defense capabilities, and various other associated systems are no longer part of the base design. All of these cuts have resulted in a ship that is focused on chucking cruise missiles and sending GPS guided cannon shells dozens of miles inland. If the Zumwalts are only going to launch Tomahawks for $4 billion they're a total waste as the Navy already has four of them with far more vertical launch cells than the DDG-1000 has. These are the converted Ohio class nuclear-powered guided missile submarines. In the coming years, Virginia class nuclear fast attack submarines with extended payload modules will take up this role as the four converted Ohio class SSGNs are retired.

Minus its 155mm guns the stripped-down, anti-air mission-less Zumwalt has simply become a far more vulnerable above-water guided missile submarine. Why not just build more submarines instead? They would be far more survivable and can stay on station much longer than the Zumwalt."

In November 2016, the Navy admitted it had cancelled plans to buy the specialized Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), each of which would have cost some $800,000. The Zumwalt's main guns have no replacement shell in the works. This effectively left one of the ship's key weapons as dead weight. Even better the Navy announced that the ships will also receive various additional systems in the form of add-on packages attached to the deckhouse and elsewhere, which can only impact the ship's finely tuned, complex, and expensive stealth shape in a negative manner.