Posted on 09/17/2015 2:14:46 PM PDT by pabianice
WASHINGTON — When the Marine Corps put its version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through a series of tests aboard an amphibious assault ship in the spring, officials said that the aircraft performed so well that the service soon declared it ready for combat.
But the Pentagon's top weapons tester said in a report in July that the exercise was so flawed that it "was not an operational test... in either a formal or informal sense of the term." Furthermore, the test "did not — and could not — demonstrate" that the version of the F-35 that was evaluated "is ready for real-world operational deployments, given the way the event was structured."
For the test, which happened in late May aboard the USS Wasp, to be "bona fide," it would have had to be under "conditions that were much more representative of real-world operations than those that were used during this deployment," Michael Gilmore, director of the Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation Office, wrote in a memo.
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
I think there was a Soviet group in WWII called the Night Witches made up of entirely women pilots and they used old biplanes for night ground attacks. The Germans had trouble engaging them with the ME109’s and up because of the speed differences. Some of the Witches shot down the German planes IIRC.
Active Duty ping.
Everything 0bama and his regime touches turns to shi7.
5.56mm
Yep.
F—— me!
One thing is for sure, if the F 35 keeps this up it will be like the Brewster Buffalo; obsolete before it is fielded.
Not that well at all. Read the history. There is lots of it, and there is nothing to prevent you from researching it. When you have nothing, a match may seem valuable against a flame thrower, but it does not change the truth. If I had no heat in my home and someone gave me a match, I would praise the match. It does not mean the match was ever in the same class as the heat.
In Finnish Air Force service, the B-239s were regarded as being easy to fly, a "gentleman's travelling plane."[29] The Buffalo was also popular within the FAF because of its relatively long range, and also because of a good maintenance record. This was in part due to the efforts of the Finnish mechanics, who solved a problem that plagued the Wright Cyclone engine by inverting one of the piston rings in each cylinder which had a positive effect on reliability.[citation needed] The cooler weather of Finland also helped, because the engine was prone to overheating as noted in tropical Pacific use. The Brewster Buffalo earned a reputation in Finnish Air Force service as one of their more successful fighter aircraft. In service from 1941 to 1945, Buffalos of Lentolaivue 24 (Fighter Squadron 24) claimed 477 Soviet Air Force warplanes destroyed, with the combat loss of just 19 Buffalos, an outstanding victory ratio of 26:1.[30]
So it looks like the Finns took a turd and managed to polish it.
BTW, we have been pouring time and money into the F 35 and it still won’t shine.
SecDef Dick Cheney ordered the destruction of F14 jigs, dies and tooling in 90 or 91.
The Phantom didn’t work out so well? You’re wrong.
Now if you compared the F35 to the F 111 you would have more of an argument. The Navy version flopped. The Air Force finally got the bugs pretty much worked out of their edition.
Some idiot came up with the Phantom “flying brick” blather since it didn’t have the conventional look back then but it damn sure was effectively aerodynamic. Building 5000 of them kind of hints at that.
And the Phantom II was NOT NOT NOT NOT a combination one size fits-all airplane for all the services. It evolved out of a private, in-house project by McDonnell as a follow-on to the Phantom I and the Demon. The Navy let them a development contract for a long range fleet air defense fighter from it which evolved into the F4.
BTW, McDonnell’s original project had four 20mm cannons. Navy Secretary Charles Thomas and his admirals were the missile kooks over the company’s scepticism.
If the British had not had their POS Harriers they would have lost the Falklands.
I don’t think that the jump jet concept is a bad idea. I DO think that this do everything muti-role dollar swallower is.
Can’t tell if that RAF Buffalo in post 45 had a flat or dug into a soft spot.
Anyway, the RAF evidently did not listen to Chenault’s warnings about dogfighting the Japanese either. Their Hurricanes in southeast Asia got drubbed along with the Buffaloes.
I don't think floating upon the ponds is a bad idea. But Engineering gets in the way. If you are uneducated on this, then you are in some way an invader. A polite invader is all right, but you cannot change God's Laws of Science.
The F35. Twenty years of development and not done yet, two million lines of computer code and a stupefying price tag are not real reassuring.
I think the B47 program cost 4 billion. That got over 2000 units. Even allowing for inflation things are just totally screwed now.
With modern materials, they could be built stronger, lighter, faster, and set up to kick butt, and still turn on a dime and give you 11 cents change.
Darn good idea actually.. 21st Century re-thought BI—Plane.. it SINGS..
Actually we have drones.. but the bi-plane frame has advantages.. in some situations.. paired with A-10’s
also immense firepower.. How bout mini-drones shaped like bi-planes.. call them BEE’s launched BY A-10’s... for recon after A-10’s fly over.. and scatter the rats..
Exactly. Fascinating history that.
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