Posted on 06/28/2007 5:04:11 PM PDT by nypokerface
FORT WORTH, Texas, June 28 (UPI) -- All three versions of the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter have now cleared the final milestone needed before entering the production phase.
The carrier version of the cutting-edge F-35 recently passed its Air System Critical Design Review, putting it on track for Low Rate Initial Production.
The conventional and short-takeoff, vertical landing variants of the plane passed the CDR earlier and have been approved for LRIP.
"The die is now fully cast for the unique, three-variant Joint Strike Fighter program envisioned when the planning began in the late 1990s," said Air Force Brig. Gen. C.R. Davis, the JSF Program Executive Officer.
Lockheed Martin said in a statement Thursday that the naval variant, designated the F-35C, had an extra 200 pounds shaved off its design prior to the CDR.
The F-35C will be the Navy's first stealthy plane and will eventually replace the F/A-18 Hornet and fly alongside the newer F/A-18E/F Super Hornet as the main combat assets of U.S. naval aviation. The F-35A is the conventional version for the Air Force and will supplant the F-16 and A-10 attack planes beginning in 2010 while the F-35B will replace the Harrier jets flown by the U.S. Marines and the British military.
Lockheed is also eyeing major foreign markets for the JSF.
That didn’t seem to be an enormous disadvantage for the A-4, A-7 and F-8. Okay, A-7 and F-8 were basically the same airframe, but the idea of carrier-based single-enging aircraft is nowhere near unprecedented.
An attack helo can do this as well.
My point with the earlier comment was that the A-10 mission is unique, but it does not all encompass CAS. F-35 will be a fine replacement for the Hornet and Harrier in the CAS role. It will be more versatile and survivable than both.
Read the reports from those who ask for CAS or want an FAC on station. Bombing from 10,000' isn't what they are asking for. They seem to like having the A-10 around.
The only thing A-10 seems to lack is speed. One thing it does have is a proven track record of doing the job and getting its pilot back home.
I am guessing by your oversimplified comment that your point is you can make all things stealthy. Your correct to some degree, but we dont want to take a $25,000 Guided bomb and spend 50,000 to make this expendable stealthy. The ordnance needs to be cheap so we can buy lots of them. So your point is made, but not a very smart choice given limited budgets with LOTS of other big ticket items.
The problem with A-10 that most are overlooking here is it would take a pounding in a dense IADS environment, despite its survivability. Thats not dissing the A-10, its just acknowleding that it has a limitation on employment.
Those that are poo-pooing the stand-off CAS support are failing to recognize that against a sophisticated enemy with dense IADS (AA and missiles), low is not where you want to be. Afghanistan and present day Iraq are not dense IADS environments, so A-10 shows its stuff there.
If we were only building to fight against third world countries, we would not need new aircraft. We are building to fight against major adversaries.
I've pointed out my words weren't as clear as they should have been. There is no USN F-22.
Where would it come from? - The same place the YF-23, F-35 and every other aircraft came from.....The Dev process. Build and create a USN F-22 version.
Not pride. For thousands and thousands of U.S. sailors lives. The USN needs to be fully self-sufficent for extended periods of time. The air superiority role falls into this need. The notion that we're going to send CBG across the oceans only to have them have to wait for the USAF to provide them cover is silly and dangerous.
Projecting the power and influence that several CBG can & do is not wasting billions of dollars. In fact it is a bargain price for their influence.
The USN without question needs a top of the line air superiority type airplane.
If you ask the Navy if they want a Naval F-22 at the expense of half the surface fleet, they will say NO.
You have to look at what the services buy in context of all the other things they must maintain. I think the services are pretty happy with the F-35 given more expensive alternatives.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how stealth works.
Reality is for the bargain price of what a CBG influence around the world is....we should not be going on the cheap so that bean counters are happy.
One engine planes, flying mainly over water, lacking here and there to boot....bad design....brings back memories of bean counters knowing better...and going sans any guns on the early F-4s (pilots paid with their lives as Migs ate them for lunch in knife fights).
That’s been the plan, but even the Raptor can’t provide the quality of support to boots on the ground that the A-10 can.
Really, what the hell does the A-10 have to do to get support from AF brass? Right here and now, the A-10 is probably the most important aircraft the Air Force has.
The problem is the A-10 does not cost enough.
I'm sure the some of the roughly 200 or so F-22s can somehow manage to be where ever the Navy might happen to be to protect the Navy from what their OLD F-18s and out classed F-35s can't handle.
I don’t think the black widow or the F-22 were ever designed to be carrier aircraft. They were meant to take over for the F-16 and later the F-15.
I'd sure like you to say what your experience base is in this area. Are you a former flyer, grunt, FAC, or other operator? Do you have war college background and understand the procurement system? Are you just arm chair quarterbacking on this?
The current aircarft fleet is quite capable and carriers do not rely on AF support for defense.
The F-22 is designed to penetrate the most sophisticated and threatening IADS environment we imagine the enemy will have for the next 20 years. It is for deep strike, not fleet defense.
But many hear dont want to listen to an old aviator with hands on experience from the operator level to the planning level, to the contractor level, about such things...
Folks made similar arguments about the F-18 when it first came out. The Hornet now has more combat experience than any other aircraft flying and is arguably the most succesful fighter/attack aircraft ever built.
The services put very tough requirements on F-35 and it has come through very succesfully. It will be a world class aircraft. And from my previous post to DevSix, the Navy wont need F-22 for fleet defense.
Sorry for post confusion. Half of what I said to you was directed to GBA.
Hanging around at 20,000ft might make Air Force mission planners happy because they don’t have to take ground fire, but it wastes ordinance and it causes accidents like some guy in a fast mover who’d rather be pretending he’s the Red Baron, dropping ordinance on me.
Bottom line here is that I trust a pilot in an airplane using the M-1 Eyeball and some judgement a whole lot more than I trust a bunch of transistor twidget stuff at 20,000 where the pilot can’t identify anything and which because of time compression because he’s moving too fast, he can’t set up the shot for accurate weapons delivery anyway, let alone discriminate between ground decoys, the enemy and me.
That guided crap looks good on paper, but it ain’t always so out on the sharp end.
Thanks. No need for me to address this as well. You got it.
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