Putting all your eggs in one basket is usually a bad idea. Especially Faberge eggs.
I believe I saw a group of 3 F-35s flying low near my house yesterday. It was difficult to tell, as you can imagine, one doesn’t have much time to look get a good look at them.
They were so low, I believe they mights have been ‘practicing’ on a nearby bridge. I waved at the last one, and I think he might have tipped his wing at me. lol
It amazes me the kind of speed and power fighter planes have. I’m just in awe every time I get to see one. I would just LOVE to see an A-10!
Having one design do multiple tasks is always a disaster.
And getting rid of the A10 to boot.
This seems like stupid squared.
Yeah, brilliant. They are just trying to get ahead of the end of the contracts. At the pace they are building this one they had better get about 5 or 10 years ahead.
“internal air-to-air and maybe a new engine”.... sounds like the best solution would be to pick up the seat and slide a new design underneath it.
This is a POS and is going to get people killed and lose battles. It is an albatross.
In other words...
We made a terrible decision to cap F-22 production at less than 200 aircraft, and refused to sell them to Japan and Australia (and did we mention the production line is gone and it would be too expensive to re-build it?)
We don’t have enough money in the R&D budget to design and produce a true, sixth-generation fighter (thanks, Barry)
The F-35 becomes the de facto choice for future, manned tactical aircraft.
My crystal ball says the first sixth-generation fighter will be a drone.
Remember the big news last month when the CV variant landed on an aircraft carrier. Headlines: Historic first F-35 landing on carrier. Navy completes milestone with 2 perfect-to-the-eye landings.
It took 13 years to get there... so I’m not seeing a huge victory.
Not only is the F-35A (USAF)/F-35B (USMC)/F-35C (USN) the most expensive fighter ever built, it is the last manned fighter the United States will buy. Most of the fighter mafia are resigned to flying drones in the future.
why not just build the F-21 follow-on of the F-14?
David Axe’s War is Boring has completed a study on the F-35. In short it is the “0” of fighters. It falls short is all respects and is classed as “junk”. Worth the read and scary as hell. Damn multi-role fighters/bombers always seem to fall short.
The airforce would likely pit the air dominance fighter version of the F-35 against the F-22 and I don’t see the raptor losing that fight...ever.
Anybody really think the ChiComs haven’t already hacked into the flight-control systems of the F-35? I think we should keep some F-16s around just because they’re NOT as chipped up.