F-35

[Syco21]

Unless the DoD commissioned a fourth variant of the F-35, there is no such aircraft with VTOL capabilities. The F-35B, however, has STOVL capabilities. DIFFERENT!

 

I can't remember if anyone mentioned it here or not, but I'm going to address it anyway.

 

The cost of the B-2, particularly that favored $1B+ per plane quote the media loves to toss around is just smoke. It includes the R&D overhead and isn't a proper reflection of what each plane costs. Had more been built, the final cost would have been much lower.

 

A lot of people were happy that Clinton canned the program. But now with the B-52 fleet coming upon retirement age, it's time to replace them. Hey guess what, now we get to spend another hundred billion researching a new bomber. Yay!

 

Same thing will happen with the 22 and the 35 if it gets canceled.

[JimboUK]

If Steve Austin cost $6 Million in 1974, today that'd be $6 Billion easy, so $25 Billion for a whole plane sounds cheap at the price. Britain won't be buying any, we've just made a deal with Burma to take back 25 brand new Spitfires! (fact: they were buried just after WWII and their locations were lost. They've just been found and will soon be returned, probably as the RAF's front-line fighter)

 

The Typhoon cost the UK alone £23bn ($36bn), the US taxpayer got off lightly. I wouldn't put it past this government to give the things away and replace them with the Spitfires. :facepalm:

[Aurielius]

Unless the DoD commissioned a fourth variant of the F-35, there is no such aircraft with VTOL capabilities. The F-35B, however, has STOVL capabilities. DIFFERENT!

 

I can't remember if anyone mentioned it here or not, but I'm going to address it anyway.

 

The cost of the B-2, particularly that favored $1B+ per plane quote the media loves to toss around is just smoke. It includes the R&D overhead and isn't a proper reflection of what each plane costs. Had more been built, the final cost would have been much lower.

 

A lot of people were happy that Clinton canned the program. But now with the B-52 fleet coming upon retirement age, it's time to replace them. Hey guess what, now we get to spend another hundred billion researching a new bomber. Yay!

 

Same thing will happen with the 22 and the 35 if it gets canceled.

Absolutely correct, I thought that the Marine variant still had two options...my mistake. The F-35B can land vertically I erroneously attributed similar launch characteristics. How embarrassing...mea culpa :facepalm:

Edited April 16, 2012 by Aurielius

[MajKrAzAm]

Your $25 billion figure is wrong. R&D for the program is over $60 billion with an extra $10 billion funding still needed for R&D. The total cost of the JSF program as of 12/2010 is $326 billion with $256 billion total funding still needed.

 

I think you underestimate just how much of a colossal mess up the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is. The program forced the Marines requirements of STOVL onto the Navy and Air Force desire to replace their legacy fighters, the three F-35 variants have now diverged in costs and parts commonality to the point that in hindsight three separate programs would have probably been better. And on top of this they decided to internationalize the JSF program.

 

The amount of money that has been sunk into the program is disgusting. We have long reached the point where the cost per aircraft is unjustifiable, and that the combat capability of less capable alternatives would exceed the benefits of the huge JSF investments. The difference between the JSF and 4th generation fighters in avionics, range, payload etc is too small to justify the enormous costs that have and will still be sunken into the program.

 

Only the F-35B is potentially necessary since we are long due to replace the AV-8s. Replacing the F-18E/Fs with the F-35C just doesn’t make any sense to me fiscally or qualitatively. Investment into the F-35C has been focused on strike role capabilities, but the strike role of naval aviation has shifted away from fixed wings in the past decade to subs and surface launched cruise missiles. Why not invest in areas where fixed wing naval aviation is required like electronic warfare and fleet defense. And in the interceptor role, I don’t see how the F-35C has a significant advantage relative to the Superbug to vindicate its cost.

 

The F-35C has done irreparable damage to naval aviation. Wait 10 years when debates on the relevance of the CVW in future environments will intensify, and then we’ll see why pouring billions into it was such a stupid idea that lacked strategic foresight. It pisses me off just thinking about the capabilities that could have been introduced without the F-35C black hole. Just imagine if instead we had invested a fraction of the money into the X-47 UCAS.

[HeyYou]

Too many chefs spoil the broth......

[dazzerfong]

One thing: are the F-15 SE's and F/A-18 E/F SH's really need replacing? They're doing perfectly fine so far from the looks of things, and at a fraction of the cost.

[Aurielius]

One thing: are the F-15 SE's and F/A-18 E/F SH's really need replacing? They're doing perfectly fine so far from the looks of things, and at a fraction of the cost.

Using that logic why not keep using the P-51 and the Corsair, they work fine also. You don't maintain air superiority by sitting on your laurels while someone else catches up to you.Technological superiority is the most fleeting of advantages.

[dazzerfong]

@ Aurelius:

 

No, that's stretching it: you're asking to NOT progress from propeller to jet. There's a huge difference in them, over 40 years. That's too extreme. Well, let me ask you again: ARE F-15 SE's and F/A-18 E/F SH's adequate for the job now? What distinct advantages right now are there of replacing the aforementioned aircraft with the F-35 series? It's an honest question, I'm not a pilot, I'm asking you right now (since you seem to know your stuff).

 

To be frank, I don't care what a country does when it has money. Look at China: I could care less they build a new bridge in the middle of nowhere, or design a jet for a decade's time. Right now, America frankly does not have plenty of it. Even then, if they are serious about technological superiority, they would have gone with the F/A-22 instead. But they didn't.

 

Oh, and one thing: what's with the green text?

Edited April 19, 2012 by dazzerfong

[HeyYou]

From an article here:

 

 

"Even without new problems, the F-35 is a 'dog.' If one accepts every performance promise the DoD currently makes for the aircraft, the F-35 will be: "Overweight and underpowered: at 49,500 lb (22,450kg) air-to-air take-off weight with an engine rated at 42,000 lb of thrust, it will be a significant step backward in thrust-to-weight ratio for a new fighter…. [F-35A and F-35B variants] will have a 'wing-loading' of 108 lb per square foot…. less manoeuvrable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105 'Lead Sled' that got wiped out over North Vietnam…. payload of only two 2,000 lb bombs in its bomb bay…. With more bombs carried under its wings, the F-35 instantly becomes 'non-stealthy' and the DoD does not plan to seriously test it in this configuration for years. As a 'close air support'... too fast to see the tactical targets it is shooting at; too delicate and flammable to withstand ground fire; and it lacks the payload and especially the endurance to loiter usefully over US forces for sustained periods…. What the USAF will not tell you is that 'stealthy' aircraft are quite detectable by radar; it is simply a question of the type of radar and its angle relative to the aircraft…. As for the highly complex electronics to attack targets in the air, the F-35, like the F-22 before it, has mortgaged its success on a hypothetical vision of ultra-long range, radar-based air-to-air combat that has fallen on its face many times in real air war. The F-35's air-to-ground electronics promise little more than slicker command and control for the use of existing munitions."

 

Appears that the F-35 isn't all it's cracked up to be..... and not as capable as some of our current fighters.

 

Of course, here is a project brought to you by the same folks that thought the V-22 was a good idea, even when it had a record of NOT meeting some of the specified design parameters, and the promises of the folks building it.

Edited April 19, 2012 by HeyYou

[Aurielius]

@dazzerfong

The reason I used the Corsair as a bit of hyperbole was that it too was kept in service long after it's technological peek had been passed as a ground attack aircraft as late as mid Vietnam. The F-15 will be kept on in service for exactly the same role. The in flight electronics of the F-15 are old and use up too much valuable time reading multiple displays which burns critical seconds in a dogfight. In reality I hold no special love for the F-35 but do want the F-22 ATF. Ground attack can afford slight obsolescence but air superiority cannot which is well shown by my favorite ride the A-6 which was older than most all of it's aviators. The same goes for the B-52's, venerable workhorses still in the field well past their prime but only capable of performing their function if air superiority is already acheived.

 

The green ink is for a good friend of mine in this forum who finds regular white type hard to read and for some strange reason likes to read my posts. If I can make her life easier then it's a small price of additional time for me to provide.

 

@HY

LOL..the Osprey aside from providing jobs in my state was a cluster '****' from the beginning. You might say that it was the aviation's world way of mimicking the design of a platypus..design by committee. :psyduck: