F-35 Fighter Too Big To Fail

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Yeah, all those high-tech weapons that America makes are junk.
Just ask Emperor Hirohito, Josef Stalin, Manuel Noriega, Muammar Qaddafi, and Saddam Hussein.
 
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This is a topic that can very easily go political or cause a lot of fighting. So be careful what is said here, or it will be closed and possibly worse.

I don't know enough about fighter jets to be an expert, but it seems that this was an experiment in acquisition reform and a host of other things that has gone haywire. I don't doubt the study that says it would have been cheaper for each service to design a plane (engineering always has a set of trades to be made, but engineers don't often make these decisions, uninformed lawyers do). Id suspect that if the government had not been lambasted as lazy and overpaid, and been able to maintain a technical competency, along with lead system engineering and integration for as long as possible, the outcome may have been somewhat cheaper... But it doesn't change the laws of physics creating tradespaces for various trades to be made, which align to each service...
 
As soon as I read the phrase "expert reveals," I knew Pierre Sprey would be in there. Really entertaining guy, but his qualifications are hideously overstated. Guy knows a thing or two about 3rd and 4th gen fighters, but when he comments about 5th-gen stuff, he's like a muscle car guy trying to talk about Formula 1.

Speaking of which, check out the last line of the article. Professor of Finance? Not exactly the kind of person whose opinion on cutting-edge defense projects I'm most interested to hear. The F-22 photo near the beginning isn't inspiring, either.

Unsurprisingly, the article is made almost entirely of true-but-misleading tidbits. Like, yes, if you use low-frequency radar, you can find it. But you'll also be finding every bird and large insect in the airspace, as well as clouds and rain. Do you want to be the guy who has to figure out which of those thousands of tiny blips is the F-35? I don't. Yeah, you can use low frequency radar, thermal imaging, and laser range finders to shoot down a first-generation subsonic stealth aircraft with no real defenses when its crew gets lazy with mission planning and gives clear signals about where and when it's going to be flying. Which, one might add, is the only time a stealth aircraft has ever been shot down. Good luck translating that into a useful strategy on a modern battlefield against a plane that's 30 years newer, can handle itself against a missile, and isn't necessarily exactly where and when you think it should be.

And yeah, if you bring an F-35 within visual range of a solid 4.5-gen fighter and THEN begin the engagement, the F-35's going to have a hard time. Again, do you want to be the guy searching the airspace for a plane you have to visually acquire to engage, but that has the sensors and missiles to be able to track you and shoot you long before then? I don't.

On a modern battlefield with modern radars and missiles, a 4th gen plane won't just have a hard time operating; it'll be swatted from the sky before it knows what hit it. In that context, low observability isn't some whiz-bang add-on; it's the bare minimum a plane needs just to survive. Likewise, speed and maneuverability don't mean jack if you're spotted and shot down from over the horizon.

Here's some real info from people who actually know what they're talking about: F-35 test pilots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTgDTC8_PM0

Gonna leave it there for now. Yes, the project is years behind schedule and hideously overbudget. By all means let's have a tough conversation about whether it's worth all this money to stay on the bleeding edge of military technology. But this article, like most F-35 criticism (especially where Pierre Sprey is involved), is way off the mark.
 
That article is using some not only outdated but wrong information. The F16 designer has a hard on for the F35 and his views are worthless. The previous comments about VS the F16 are also outdated/wrong. Also many Euros want home grown fighter planes even though parts of the F35 are made in Europe. The demo today showed only the beginning of what the plane will do (7G limit now, 9G soon) Go online. Recent dog fights F35 defeated the F16 and F18..having matched the F15C two years ago. Plane has had trouble and is more expensive than expected, but from recent accounts it will turn out a winner BTW the photo in the article is F22 Raptor...
F35 Paris Airshow 2017 F35 was loaded with missles
Red Flag results
 
F35 is not a fighter jet tho. It's primarily a support air craft. What it offers is a very good radar, advanced radar jamming abilities and many other features.

It can be used offensively but that was never it's intent. It could be better but it's not intended for air superiority. It's features compliments other air craft like the F22 and to a lesser degree f16.

It's able to communicate with other air craft and it's radar jamming abilities also cover other jets with it and it can send radar feed live to other jets.

It's is not and was never intended to be a dog fighter. It simply complements the F22 and makes it far more effective offensively and defensively then without it.

Not all jets are fighter jets.
 
There's only so much ordinance a single small jet can carry. The goal is to kill and we can't forget that. I'd rather have 10 cheap simple jets than one super tech one.
 
Follow the history of the F-20, a great, cheap to buy, cheap to maintain weapon system that is quick to service and turn around and really good at below Mach 1 maneuvering but capable of Mach 2 speed and also super cruising. But....the US Air Force brass likes big, complicated and expensive jets and the F-20 was none of that. This Northrop line of planes that includes the T-38, the F-5 in all variants and the F-20 made up one heck of a product line. The T-38 was the best trainer the Air Force every deployed but for combat the other Northrop variants never made it pass the special interests in the Pentagon. The F-5/F20's were used as adversaries in ACM training and made live miserable for advanced students. Right now the Marines are buying every old F-5 they can find and that's quite an endorsement for such an old design that's still relevant today. It's small, maneuverable,not stealthy but very hard to see and has an up time and safety record never even approached by any other jet in any air force in the world.
 
Originally Posted By: Smokescreen
Put the F35 against a SU35S...it will fail.

Doubtful. The F35 could put a missile in the Su-35 before its pilot knew there was a threat. No "dogfight" necessary.

And the PAK FA... A plane Russia can only afford to build 12 of. 5th gen, huh?
 
Not that any of this has any importance in a SHTF conflict among superpowers since there are enough nukes in the world to turn everything to fine dust several times over...
 
My stepson is a weather guy in the USAF. His view is the plane is jack of all trades, master of none.

With drones doing a lot of our dirty work its not clear to me if it's needed.
 
The age of macho dog fighting has come and gone and so has stealth. Skies can be cleared with conventional jets or ground to air. Enemy targets can be taken out with Cruise missles. No one in their right mind (except the U.S. Military brass) would procure a 100 million plane when for the same price you could send 100 cruise missles with zero risk to a pilot that you have poured in tons of money to train.

But rest assured the dysfunctional system is alive and well...we can print as much money as we need.
 
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Originally Posted By: Donald
My stepson is a weather guy in the USAF. His view is the plane is jack of all trades, master of none.


Quite some years ago, I had a heap of beers with a US Marine technician who worked on the Harriers...that was his opinion...get it to do something well, not everything poorly.

Thinking about it, my daughter is 14, and it was well before she was even conceived.
 
Originally Posted By: AZjeff
Isn't the "F" supposed to stand for fighter??

Meanwhile, the F35s will be flying again at Luke AFB and they still have no idea why the oxygen supply decreases...

The "F" does stand for "Fighter", but that includes ground attack fighters.

Meanwhile, the oxygen problem has shown up in the rest of our fleet. So, it's not an F-35 problem. Eventually it will get sorted out. It's not like it's an airframe problem.

The entire Pentagon procurement process needs massive reform, they have never passed an audit, ever.

Not defending the F-35 at all, but if you want to compare it to something, compare it to the A-4. Yeoman service there, but those planes are OLD. We need SOMETHING to replace it with.
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Unsurprisingly, the article is made almost entirely of true-but-misleading tidbits. Like, yes, if you use low-frequency radar, you can find it. But you'll also be finding every bird and large insect in the airspace, as well as clouds and rain. Do you want to be the guy who has to figure out which of those thousands of tiny blips is the F-35? I don't. Yeah, you can use low frequency radar, thermal imaging, and laser range finders to shoot down a first-generation subsonic stealth aircraft with no real defenses when its crew gets lazy with mission planning and gives clear signals about where and when it's going to be flying. Which, one might add, is the only time a stealth aircraft has ever been shot down. Good luck translating that into a useful strategy on a modern battlefield against a plane that's 30 years newer, can handle itself against a missile, and isn't necessarily exactly where and when you think it should be.

I think you're confusing long-wave (LW) and ultra-short-wave (microwave or MW) radar. MW shows clouds, birds, bees, dust. It has limited range. It is easy to jam but hard to fool. It can also accurately track an incoming missile at Mach 5. Computers understand Mach 5 does not equal bird.

LW has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't care about weather or birds. Range is to the moon and back, or more. Any radar can be jammed, but LW is relatively easy to fool with active countermeasures.

All radars have horizon issues, thus the AWACS and the Hawkeye. It's all engineering tradeoffs. The real answer is the same as gun and car collecting, "get them all". Use each type of radar for what it's best at.
 
I don't think it's a fighter jet. It's more of a vehicle to provide jobs in a few Congresspeople's and Senators' districts and reward campaign contributors. Even the current president spoke about it before winning the office.
 
Originally Posted By: AZjeff
Isn't the "F" supposed to stand for fighter??
...

F-117 was not a fighter. It was an attach aircraft, so should have been an "A" designation (Like the A-10).
No idea why it or the F-35 has an F prefix.
 
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