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You do realize that the F-16's cost in 1998 was about $18,500,000.00 which is roughly $27,000,000.00 in today's dollars?..A massive problem with the F35 its too fu***ng expensive no one apart from the US can afford to lose one, good luck getting anyone in NATO risking there shiny new F35s anywhere near a man with a $5,000 shoulder launched rocket or even a $10 AK47 never mind a $20,000,000 aircraft.
Actually if you look who added the dogfighting capability, it was the USAF and the aircraft was designed per a spec put out by the DoD. The only thing the aircraft wasn't capable of meeting was the sustained 9G turn which was something totally unnecessary in the capacity the F-35 is to be used.Hi Joe,
I wasn't asleep when they bought this plane and it was sold with a dogfight capability when the ordnance was gone. I know you like the F-35 and that's fine. But they absolutely DID sell its fighter capability when it was getting approved.
It turns like an F-18C, nuff said.Getting into a visual range combat may not wise when you can avoid it by killing BVR, but I can guarantee it WILL get surprised by something sometime in its service career. This report may be a piece of bad journalism, I don't really know. But it sure doesn't LOOK like it can turn very well. The wings look like afterthoughts.
And that's what being done now. no one mentions the test the marines have done or BVR tests that have already been accomplished.But ... and here's the part I want to see ... they absolutely SHOULD incestigate the capability this crate has against the current US and Allied fighter inventory. The Russians and Chinese may be "on the other side," but their planes, especially the newer ones, are not likely to be less capable than US fighters fielded in the early 1970s.
It's already done that and there will be more of these tests that will eventually quiet the opposition.As a taxpayer, I am unwilling to spend over a hundred million dollars on a plane that can't survive an ecnounter with an early-block F-16. All they have to do to dispell this report is let the F-35 fight in a war game the way it was designed to fight, with the array of sensors and information it was designed to fight with. If it STILL loses, then its time to seriously think about continuing with the horendous expense of the program.
Show us proffo of that? Are you referring to the "hot Fuel" report tfrom an interview with an air force E-4 fueler?We already know it can't fly with low fuel because they use the fuel as a heat sink.
over 1300 miles. F-35s been flown on long cross countries for the past several years and have done quite wellSo, exactly what IS the range of this thing between times when it is imperative to hit a tanker? Can it fly as far as, say, an F-18? Which has notoriously short range when compared with an old F-14.
The specs for the aircraft been out for a long time. It carries a greater bomb load than an f-105. Everyone seems to emphasize the bad press but ignores the F-35's achievements. The recent Marine deployment yielded a 90% MC rate, no one is talking about that. When it's said and done this aircraft will be a game changer, and this come from people I know who have worked on and flown it.It would be nice, considering all the money we've spent, to know how much it can carry and how far without air-to-air refueling. If they want to muddy or deflect that question the obvious answer is, "That's classified!" But considering the money involved, it damed well should NOT be classified. We pretty much know those parmeters for the F-15 / F-16 / F-18. All we need to know is whether or not the F-35 is any better.
That hold true for any aircraft including the F-16, Su 29 and typhoonI thought the F35 was a bad idea from the start the problem with a multi purpose aircraft is it has to do everything well. If an F35 cant look after itself in poor conditions at low level and can be beaten by a 2nd hand 1970/80s aircraft then all that money begins to look a little sick. No use saying "Oh but the dice were loaded against the F35" combat has a nasty habit of throwing up situations where the odds are against you.
In the end it's going to cost not much more than any other modern western fighter, that been well documented.A massive problem with the F35 its too fu***ng expensive no one apart from the US can afford to lose one, good luck getting anyone in NATO risking there shiny new F35s anywhere near a man with a $5,000 shoulder launched rocket or even a $10 AK47 never mind a $20,000,000 aircraft.
... the public has been soiling thier drawers over every single new aircraft ...
We first need to assume the mantra of: "the F-35 is NOT a dogfighter...the F-35 is NOT a dogfighter..."
This is the 21st century and the F-35 is a new age of fighting platform. If the F-16 had been a MiG-29 in a hostile environment, it would have never gotten close enough to engage in a "furball".
Not F-35 bashing here, but isn't that what was said of the F4?