Posted on 04/01/2016 3:57:03 PM PDT by Mariner
The development of a sixth generation fighter should not be a top priority for the US Air Force given that, according to Rob Weiss, executive vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works division, regular updates to the F-22 and F-35 would keep the edge of the current stealth fighters over China’s and Russia’s future fifth generation warplanes.
Weiss recently told to DefenseOne.com, that these aircraft already enable the to have a distinct advantage over the capabilities its adversaries are developing and that a replacement for today’s F-22 and F-35 fighter jets isn’t needed anytime soon.
“We’ve done this analysis for more than a decade now and it’s clear that the fifth-generation F-22s and F-35s are very capable versus a threat and substantially more capable than any fourth-generation airplane. There’s, in our view, little point in developing a new airplane that doesn’t do anything more than what you can do as you modernize F-22s and F-35s.”
Instead the Pentagon should invest in developing “truly game-changing technologies and capabilities” that will be part of the future sixth-generation fighter whose development, added Weiss, should start in a decade or more from now.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Well, that pretty well says it all. I have said from Day 1 the F-35 Edsel will never see full production. It won't. Just my humble opinion, of course. (But I'm taking bets).
I got some decent hearsay from an Air Force source that F35 is not what it is cracked up to be.
Pretty sure I can best the F-35 with a hanglider.
I still think we should have gone with the YF-23.
Good that you brought that up, but that ship left the station in 1990.
YF-23 was a faster, stealthier plane, but the F-22 is more manuverable.
One of the big reasons cited for cancelation of the F-22 was that is it’s per hour flight cost of $40K per flight hour, pertaining to engine short overhaul schedule and the need to do frequent resurface painting of the plane in order to preserve it’s “stealth’ radar attributes.
One thing for sure, our plane inventory is dwindling while China and Russia is gaining air superiority numbers.
All part of Obola’s promised “fundamental transformation” of our nation...
RE: “I still think we should have gone with the YF-23.”
I’m aware of all the avionics upgrades, radar capabilities and even with all that the F-35 may know something is out there at 100 miles but it can’t do a damn thing about it.
Weapons wise its pathetic and has numerous problems especially in the weapons bay and air-to-air wise they carry the same weapons every other fighter carries, air to ground what’s planned for the F-35 is one thing, getting them on there is another.
F-35 is tax payer nightmare and all the money being thrown at it is just more taxpayer waste. If they scrapped it now we’d be better off.
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