No, it can carry weapons externally. It simply compromises it's stealth when it does so. The F-35 was designed for "first day of war" stealth, then high load capacity during the ongoing campaign.
Posted on 12/04/2017 5:40:45 AM PST by C19fan
The United States Air Force is adding the ability to attack moving targets to its new Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter with the addition of the 500lbs Raytheon GBU-49 Enhanced Paveway II laser-guided bomb. "Fielding the GBU-49 for use on the F-35A is a key milestone in delivering combat capability to the warfighter," Brig. Gen. Todd Canterbury, director of the Air Force F-35 Integration Office, said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
Good to hear it can fight a ground war. But can it get off the ground to do it?
A 4-ship of F-35’s, each with as many as one can carry, would be nothing to sneeze at.
Correction:
The F-35 can now SUPPORT a ground war.
In other, but related news....
It’s cousin the F-22 Raptor has another problem, should we ever decide we need replacement parts or more F-22s. The manufacturing dies have “been lost”. Parts for the F-22 cannot be built unless new dies are built for manufacturing.
Under Obama, when the order was reduced/Cancelled, the dies were collected from manufactured to “protect them” from spies. But, alas, they went missing.
Don’t be surprised if the Chinese or the Russians start manufacturing their version of the F-22 in the next 5 to 7 years.
No, it can carry weapons externally. It simply compromises it's stealth when it does so. The F-35 was designed for "first day of war" stealth, then high load capacity during the ongoing campaign.
Does not matter - there are no plans to restart the line as the start up expense would approach 20 billion before the first plane was finished. Besides the F-22 never got the HUD it was supposed to have - a 20 year old tech found on most modern fighters. Moreover, the tech to build it is from the 1980s; and the people who understood that tech are in rest homes - at best.
Back when the US began to build the F-22, we still produced an adequate supply of excellent engineers.
Today the best engineers come from China and Pakistan, while the US production of engineers is somewhere near 3rd world status.
Just hope that there is something residing in some secret skunk works in sufficient quantity to be a game changer.
As for the F-35, it is and remains a POS. Taking off form a carrier is still likely to kill the pilot, the guns do not work, and the software for dropping those 2 lonely bombs - as well as for other operations - is a buggy mess - as of last report - being too expensive to fix, and the best lest expensive option would be to start over from scratch.
Thank for the correction.
Bingo.
You make me sad.
Another nail in the coffin for the glorious A-10 Thunderbolt.
It is called reverse engineering and the Russians and Chinese are very good at it. Maybe thanks to the F35 we will have to learn from them. A modified F22 is still the best option.
Sorry. It is sad what the lack of political will can ‘achieve’. We got the F-35 because the F-22 was claimed to be too expensive, but has succeeded in surpassing the F-22 in price per plane. We got the Obie Amendment which effectively killed the F-22 because politicians believed their own lies.
But the death of the F-22, major as it is, pales in comparison to what we lost in the 60s ... the politicians killed Project Orion (not to be confused with NASA’s lame capsule of the same name) in 1964 to fund the Apollo Program. Both programs would have cost roughly the same. Apollo got us to the moon on a very limited basis, while Project Orion would have taken us to the entire solar system and to the stars (Mars by 1965, Venus by 1970) ... but government interagency infighting, NASA Apollo conflict, perceived treaty obligations, lack of political leadership won. “...the first time in modern history that a major expansion of human technology has been suppressed for political reasons.” - Freeman Dyson.
No, it can carry weapons externally. It simply compromises it's stealth when it does so. The F-35 was designed for "first day of war" stealth, then high load capacity during the ongoing campaign.
I always said that the F-35 is as much as bomber as the F-117 was as a fighter.
“I always said that the F-35 is as much as bomber as the F-117 was as a fighter.”
IOW, the FB-111 for the new century!!
The F-35 was designed to be the follow on replacement to the F-117, not the F-22
F-35 has better low observables than the F-117 , more weapons capacity, supersonic speeds and much higher maneuverability.
Ironically, the F-22 has taken over the some of the jobs of the F-117 since the F-117 was mothballed which is a waste of a scarce and invaluable resource
I am a hoarder and someone stealing these dies pisses me off to no end. :)
Additionally, BJ Clinton crashed one in Bosnia, which was quickly pilfered. The radar absorbing material, the aircraft's only defense, was analyzed, which made the aircraft useless against modern air defenses.
Don't believe this clap trap about the F-35 or the F-22 being useless. Airframes are consistently upgraded with newer technology. All next generation aircraft are of modular design. Any newer technology can be uploaded. The days of swapping boxes are pretty much over. The only limitation would be airframe degradation.
The day of manned flight in warfare are coming to an end. One F-35 can control the battlefield airspace. It can engage targets over the horizon. It won't be to long before an entire network of remote weapons platforms, centrally controlled by a quantum computer system, will be able to defeat any enemy on earth. Every move and counter move will be calculated and platforms engaged in milliseconds.
Warfare will then move to space. This is where the USAF has narrowed its focus.
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