Posted on 07/04/2016 11:26:32 AM PDT by iowamark
It's no secret that we at War Is Boring are skeptics when it comes to the F-35 Lightning II. The new, radar-evading, "fifth-generation" warplane is years late, over-budget and — by virtue of its many, sometimes contradictory missions — represents a design compromise, meaning it's okay at lots of tasks but excels at none of them.
Still, the U.S. military plans to replace nearly all of its current tactical jets with as many as 2,400 F-35s at a total program cost, including maintenance, of around $1 trillion.
The U.S. Air Force, one of the F-35's main proponents, is understandably optimistic about the single-engine, supersonic fighter — at least in public. Perhaps the strongest recent endorsement came from William Redmond, the executive director of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In an unclassified presentation, Redmond claimed he was worried that the F-35 — along with its heavier, twin-engine cousin the F-22 Raptor — would be too sophisticated and capable for the Air Force's existing test facilities to handle.
During mock combat, the F-35s reportedly shot down eight twin-engine F-15Es, for no losses of their own — this despite the 2015 revelation that the F-35 is inferior to a single-engine F-16 in a simulated dogfight. It's possible that the Lightning pilots have devised special air-combat tactics that take advantage of the F-35's stealth and cutting-edge sensors.
According to Redmond, it's hard to adequately stress the F-35 and F-22 in a simulated combat environment. "Very difficult to generate the threat density and complexity to meet fifth-gen operational test requirements," he complained...
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
Mean machine! Yikes!
The F-35 hype goes on parade ...
Good, time to start winning again!
I agree with many of the sentiments that highlight the shortcomings of the F-35, I also view it as a new system with new technologies that will have a lot of unforeseen growing pains.
Granted, things like the fuel temperature being too high to effectively cool the avionics, issues with any number of integrated systems, etc. are discouraging in a plane so expensive and it seems like they should have been foreseen.
That said, I was also around when the F-111 concept bombed, although it became a very capable platform afterwards, and I was also around when the M-1 tank was being developed. And I do remember the negative firestorms that surrounded the Abrams...it would never work in the desert, the fuel consumption was too high, it was too expensive, etc.
It turned out fine and proved itself in terrible desert conditions, somewhere people said it would never work with its gas turbine engine.
So I have cautious hope for the F-35.
Wonder how much foreign governments will pay Hillary for the designs..
The F-35 will have to be debugged as all new airplane do. It is refreshing to hear a success story.
Liger
In other words:
they cooked the books.
I think you could get a lot more performance with a lot less cost of you eliminate the pilot.
And, High Frequency radars used for targeting cannot detect it precisely enough to hit it.
After years of naysaying it is not credible to think it is suddenly best. Did they solve the lack of weapons, the software glitches, etc.? I think we are seeing propaganda, maybe to again try dumping the A-10.
Still, the ignorant judge it by speed, altitude, g-force, angle of attack, etc.
So yesterday.
See my post #12.
I agree with you. The biggest shortfall of the F-35 is that it can't carry enough AA missiles.
That's OK, when coupled with 2-3 drones (controlled by signals in the very powerful radar) it will be able to "carry" sufficient ordnance to shoot down over a dozen bad guys.
And the bad guys just cannot target it. The terminal guidance of modern AA missiles cannot see it.
Agreed. Many of the criticisms are valid, but I think we are too far into it to back out and scrap it, so we should all hope that the shortcomings are addressed.
The criticisms were based on the wrong metrics.
See my #14
Yes, it’s hype. ANY new system gets hyped as the best thing since sliced bread.
Time will tell, as it shakes out. In the end, we’ll see a capability quite different from the one it was designed to implement, I suspect. . .
Was this the plane that was hacked by China?
You can, but totally autonomous aircraft will not be fully viable for another 15 years.
The F-35 is a bridge to that future
A good comparison is the fact that manned bomber aircraft are still relevant 60 years after ballistic missiles should have made them obsolete because you can't call back a missile.
We’ve already accepted orders for the F35 from other countries.
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