variant brings unique STOVL capabilities...
Posted on 09/06/2011 6:31:04 AM PDT by Reaganite Republican
But it's the United States Marine Corps who anxiously await the first deliveries of their advanced -and a bit more pricey- short/vertical take-off and landing (STOVL) F-35B, and this is the one that most closely resembles that famed British Harrier 'jump-jet' about to ride-off into history... this thing is really something else.
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The decision to go with the F35C instead of B for carrier based operations was announced in June 2009. The decision was made primarily because the greater size of the new carriers meant VSTOL was unnecessary and the C is seen as more capable than the B. In addition it was wondered if the more complex B would ever actually get built. Switching the carriers to full catobar aoperation also allows them to use a proper AEW aircraft, ie the Hawkeye or even a navalised version of the Typhoon if need be.
Also, apologies for being pedatic, but it’s the Royal Navy, not the UK navy. :)
The defense department may be planning to buy 2400 of these things, but there’s no way they’ll get that many. Well, unless they put electric engines in them.
The election is less than 14 months away.
“When you saw one of those twin boomed beauties in the air, you knew every plane in the sky was American.” -Magslinger’s Dad.
Some people like to knock the Lockheed Martin F-22 for costing $140 million a piece, excluding all expenses for development and spares (which takes the price all the way up to $350 million/copy?).
But not to worry! The next fighter coming along — Lockheed’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — is supposed to be based on affordability, with a (formerly projected) flyaway cost at roughly one-third of the F-22’s price tag using 2001 dollars.
So, let’s see how the F-35 measures up.
The US Navy and US Marine Corps plan to buy a total of 680 F-35Bs and F-35Cs over the next 15-20 years. The FY2009 budget contains budget projections for the remainder of the program. Note that this includes only procurement (flyaway) cost. Amortized development and spares costs are excluded.
Year Aircraft Average unit cost/aircraft
FY2008: 6 $184.2 million
FY2009: 8 $200.2 million
FY2010: 18 $172.3 million
FY2011: 19 $146.4 million
FY2012: 40 $124.4 million
FY2013: 42 $115.1 million
Remainder: 547 $109.3 million
Total: 680 $115 million
(A little more than one-third of an F-22’s cost. But that’s just Navy/Marine figures. Our Air Force is buying the most, in the A version. We’re on schedule for almost 2500 of ‘em for all service branches; we likely won’t be able to afford 250 total, w/ about 68 going to the Navy/Marines. Guns or butter, eh?)
Nope, it doesn’t... does it
I did a post on these a couple weeks back, last year’s California Capitol Air Show had five of the survivors there... I think there are only 7 flightworthy left now
Much obliged, Magslinger
Just doing my job as holder of the Sonobuoy Ping List. If it’s Navair related, I ping to it. Feel free to ping me if/when you post a thread on the subject. That goes for anyone.
That IS a lot of money... the first thing I thought is all the folks in congress who will have the long knives out for F-35 production
It’s not a lot of money, relatively speaking.
If the first TARP were not wasted on union cronies, it would have paid in full, for appx 5,000 F-22 Raptors.
Do the math.
Lightning
Magnificent airplane (Yamamoto’s Bane) with the one flaw being the horizontal stabilizing strut between the twin rudders tended to cut in half a pilot who needed to bail out. No rocket ejection seats back then.
P-38 “Lightning” That’s the plane that brought down Admiral Yamamoto . One reason it could was that it had a longer range than the 51. Who flew that plane ?
An interesting fact about WWII was that the Japanese had longer range fighters than any of the combatants in that war. If Gernamny had fighters and bombers with their range the outcome would have been a much longer war.
Nor have I heard or read of any aircraft interchange by the Nazis using Zeros etc during that war.
Japanese Zero's range was at the expense of not installing cockpit armor and self sealing fuel tanks.
If Germany had fighters and bombers without those features they would have suffered even worse attrition, and it may have shortened the war.
Also the F-35A makes no sense to the RAF - it's to replace the F-16, and they already have the Typhoon for that role. Also while they have officialy abandoned FOAS (Future Offensive Air System) to replace the strike GR4 Tornado, an RAF F-35C would plug that gap better that the shorter legged F-35A.
It you have a minimum sized airforce, why go for 2½ types of fast jets when 2 would be a better fit?
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