Posted on 12/31/2014 7:19:35 PM PST by thetallguy24
At this point, it's not even funny how much the Pentagon has screwed up the development of its new stealth fighter jet, the F-35. But the latest report that the jet's 25mm cannon won't be operational until 2019 at the earliest is just laughable. Even more laughable is that it probably doesn't even need the gun to begin with.
Unnamed Air Force officials revealed the bad news in a Daily Beast story about the F-35. Apparently the software that will power the four-barreled rotary cannon on the Air Force version of the jet, the F-35A, won't be ready for at least four more years. The Navy and Marine Corps version use a different cannon, but it'll also be years before the software's ready for those guns.
The real kicker here is that the gun is probably just dead weight (read: a waste of taxpayer dollars) anyways. The F-35A's cannon can fire 3,300 rounds per minute but can only hold 180 rounds. "I would be lying if I said there exists any plausible tactical air-to-air scenario where the F-35 will need to employ the gun," one senior Air Force official told the Daily Beast. "Personally, I just don't see it ever happening and think they should have saved the weight [by getting rid of the gun altogether]."
The jet, which is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, is already the most expensive weapon in American history. It's expected to cost the Pentagon well over $1 trillion over the next 50 years. And little hiccups like this only add more taxpayer dollars to that price tag. [Daily Beast]
Yeah... but it would be an exciting 3 seconds :)
As long as they still let the pilot carry a sidearm .. I doubt their true mission will be defeated.
All this and we can’t afford $7 billion for an Israel-style secure border fence?
No need for a gun eh? I guess the Air Force has forgotten the bitter lessons from the Vietnam air war.
No need for a gun eh? I guess the Air Force has forgotten the bitter lessons from the Vietnam air war.
Yeah - I got to thinking about that. A career in the Air Force is, for most people, 20 years. Go back 20 and you have a career that began in 1994. Another twenty and you have 1974. Another 20 and you have the people who learned the lesson. Three generations. That's why. We're gettin' old, my FRiend.
No, just harriers.
Four days to code the software, four years of bureaucratic spending to fill out the budget.
Hey now, why are you hating on ebolacare?
The F-15. F-16 and F/A-18 all carry 500-600 rds of 20mm cannon.
Fact is, 20mm is kind of marginal these days
The 25mm is a significantly more lethal and it's longer in range capability than 20mm and the targeting system for the gun in the F-35 is far more efficient than systems for the earlier aircraft.
A hit with one 25mm round will take out just about anything that flies in the air and it's not that far off from an A-10’s devastating 30mm armament
Only time will tell, but if things work the F-35 will be at least as capable in air to air guns solution than previous aircraft and should even be pretty effective if it ever needs to do CAS against armor
The great nation that built the Empire State Building in one year and 45 days, fought WWII to a victorious end in less than 4 years. and put a man on the moon in 8 years doesn’t exist any longer.
DARPA’s Exacto program can fix that.
I second that idea.
We need a buncha new A-10s painted blue with the Cobra Logo emblazoned on it. Load it up with Hellfire missiles, sidewinders and a full load of 30mm amm. It would work a lot better than the F-35. And bring the pilot back alive.
we must recycle and be kind to Mother Earth ?
Nope. It all has to do with flight safety.
If I fire my gun and my wingman is behind me, his aircraft could ingest the casings into the intake.
Catastrophic for a single engine jet.
this sounds like a joke
they keep trying to reinvent things that worked fine and ending up with a hot mess
I can save them money and finish the project ahead of schedule.
Just attach a trigger to it, like a regular gun and bkaze away.
(IIRC): Check out Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors...F4F pilot, Japanese battleship, .38 revolver. (great read)
The truth is that when I posted that, I was making a kind of humorous reminding crack about WWI, I had totally forgotten about hearing such things from WWII, and I think that I had only heard about the one.
Here is a forum poster’s description of the incident you posted.
“The author puts you “all over the place”, including in the cockpit of a TBM Avenger where the pilot runs out of ordnance, so he dives on a Japanese battleship, yanks the canopy back, starts hurling every loose object he can reach at the ship (like a Coke bottle and his clipboard) and finally starts blasting away with his .38 revolver.”
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