Oh vell..
Lieutenant General Jon Davis, the top Marine in charge of aviation, watches as a Marine Corps pilot prepares to land an F-35B aboard the USS Wasp during testing off the coast of North Carolina May 26, 2105. REUTERS/Andrea Shalal
Posted on 07/18/2015 2:57:23 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Marine Corps' top aviator flew to an Arizona air base this week as part of a final effort to certify the combat-readiness of an initial squadron of 10 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35B fighter jets, their pilots and technicians.
Marine Corps officials were due to brief Lieutenant General Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation, on a week-long review which included operational and simulator flights in five core mission areas, an inspection of the maintenance department, and academics for both pilots and technicians.
If Davis is satisfied, he will brief Marine Corps Commandant General Joseph Dunford, who will decide whether to declare an "initial operational capability," or IOC, of the stealthy new jets, a key milestone for the $391 billion weapons project.
Officials at Lockheed and the Pentagon see the expected Marine Corps declaration as evidence that the F-35 program has turned the corner after years of cost overruns and schedule delays.
Spokesman Major Paul Greenberg had no immediate comment on the results of this week's inspection or Davis' review.
With Dunford's approval, the Marine Corps would become the first U.S. military service that could deploy the new jets overseas to drop laser-guided bombs, provide close-air support and carry out other military missions, if the need arose.
Barring unexpected needs, the Marines plan to deploy the first F-35 squadron to Japan in early 2017.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
what will China be flying?
knockoffs, more than likely.
if we're lucky.
Oh vell..
Lieutenant General Jon Davis, the top Marine in charge of aviation, watches as a Marine Corps pilot prepares to land an F-35B aboard the USS Wasp during testing off the coast of North Carolina May 26, 2105. REUTERS/Andrea Shalal
readiness??
They told us its not even close to ready a couple of weeks ago when F-16’s kicked its rear.
Im going Sgt. Schultze here.. and then some.. ;-)
Probably a smart move.
With full fuel it will carry.... what? A few bullets? As long as they aren’t too heavy.
That was my first thought, too. The explanation two weeks ago was the software wasn’t ready. Must have some crack programmers.
... or programmers on crack.
The thing with the F-35: if you're in a visual-range turning dogfight with an F-16, you're probably screwing up badly (or restricted by an exercise). The F-35 gets info fed to it from AWACS so that it doesn't need to turn on its radar. Its mission is to use its stealth, come in high and fast, and fire a missile that the enemy doesn't perceive until his jet explodes.
The CAS tank-killer mission is completely assinine and will never be flown. When aircraft are justified before congress, they have to promise to do everything and they have to "prove" through testing that they can do everything. When they can't, the media just rips them apart, which is exactly what has been going on. Using this platform to fly the A-10's mission is a complete joke. If it could, the Marines would've slapped a 30mm gun pod on the AV-8 Harrier and had been flying that mission since the early 1980s. The Air Force tried that on the F-16 in the early '80s and the results were horrid, as any normal person would expect.
Nice link and comments, but I’ll still wait and see. I don’t think we’ll ever see these aircraft in full production.
Missile lock on a SR-71? Like the time over Libya? Where the guys floored the bird and watched the missile fall harmlessly into the sea far behind?
Getting missile-lock on a SR-71 and hitting it are two different propositions.
Somewhere here likely I read that the standoff missile the F-35 is supposed to be armed with is too big and too heavy. So that leaves the handful of rounds in its main gun. Very useful; worth every penny, etc.
But the integrated systems won’t be completely working and maybe not all the weapons it’s supposed to be able to use, will be able to be used. And hopefully it wont burn through the decks when in VTOL.
I don’t think it even can hold 200 rounds.
For the F-35A (Air Force) and F-35B (Navy carrier-ready), yes, losing a fight to the F-16 is a big problem.
For the F-35B (Marines), it's replacing the AV-8 Harrier, for which the term "losing a fight" too often meant that the plane got unstable and killed its pilot. The F-35B is a too-expensive but far-better alternative.
f-35c is the carrier ready variant. with heavier landing gear and corrosion resistance. B is vstol, the harrier replacement. B will have little fuel on board at take off to increase arms and refuel immediately. The mid fuselage fan will enable very slow flight, but that assumes a non threat environment. CAS missions will be handled by B with SDB’s (small diameter gps guided bombs). The F-35 in general but the B and C’s in particular will be the QB’s of flight packages controlling squad’s of x45 type platforms. The full report on the f-16 encounter makes it clear that its BS. The 35’s are partially combat ready, I personally think the chicomms may have gotten access to the code and we’re busy building it. Also since originally planned many of the electronic systems have been made obsolete, so replacing/updating the radar, computer, data link, ect is necessary. The radar can already be used to destroy electronics. As its power accuracy is increased it will become more lethal. Then their is the 10kw electronic laser advances made in the last few years. If what has been publicly released is near true, photonic “bullets” will be a real possibility by 2020.
Lastly from what I understand some of the $ were used to build a hypersonic manned platform that has been flying for about 18 months. The X-43 seems to be a red herring. The engine tech is not yet there, and there have been a few in flight incidents requiring quick landings.
The Brits,are,having to upgrade their decks for that very reason.
Yep. The story with the F-15 guys is that, for an exercise, they were provided with precise flight path and time for when an SR-71 would be flying by. One of the F-15s got a momentary fleeting missile lock (that really means nothing). Air Combat Command immediately put out a press release that an F-15 had successfully intercepted an SR-71. On the next scheduled flight for the exercise, the F-15 squadron asked for the SR-71’s flight path info. The SR-71 guys said, “There’s no need since you successfully intercepted us last time.” On the next flyover, no F-15 even came close to getting anything resembling a firing position.
Declare all you want. When a 40 year old plane beats the latest jet they outta go back to the drawing boards.
Good stuff!
I beg to differ. The F-35’s mission is to come in high and fast, use stealth to avoid detection, and hit the enemy with a missile, and kill him before he’s even aware that he’s in an engagement. If he’s slowing down, turning corners, and getting into a turning dogfight with an F-16, he’s screwing up. In the military, you go for the rout, you don’t fight fair. Vietnam is the classic example of what happens when you negotiate away all of your advantages and fight fair (the way your enemy and the U.N. expects you to fight). So is the 2nd half of the Iraq war.
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