[LS]

Finally, I will note that I heard the same things about the Osprey 10 years ago until I visited the Osprey base at Camp Lejuene & talked with the pilots, crews, and mechanics. Their take was that "all flight manuals are written in blood," meaning that it's expected that every new airplane will fail a few times before the bugs are worked out. They accept that. By then (2006) they spoke glowingly of the Osprey.

[9422WMR]

Fox has been showing links to articles on their webpage with a heading about the F22, but the image is the F35.
Typical reporter/editor stupidity.

[riverdawg]

I was at an airshow in Brunswick, GA ten days ago. The Blue Angels were there, flying F-18s through their crowd-pleasing aerobatic routines. The most spectacular performance, however, was by a pilot flying an F-22. The combination of speed, agility, and raw power exhibited by that aircraft was jaw-dropping. There was an F-35 parked at the show, but it was roped off so that nobody could get within 50 feet of it. While I was there (all day on Saturday), the F-35 never moved. I don’t know if it performed on one of the other two days, but I was disappointed because I wanted to compare the show performance of the two aircraft.

[Enlightened1]

New aircraft, tanks, etc.. in many instances have issues. That’s a known fact the Osprey or Bradley.

While it is true that the F-35 is not the best dog fighter compared to F-22, F-18, F-15, F-16, etc... The Pentagon believes that dog fights in the future will not be the case.

Honestly, how many dog fights has U.S. Aircraft engaged with other nations since Vietnam? It’s very few compared to a fighter-bomber attack. Probably because we always attack enemy Air-Forces first in order to control the air.

The F-35 is a replacement of several fighter jets roll in battle such as the Steath Fighter, the Marine Harrier, the F-15 E and theolder F-18s.

Bottom line is this. It’s A LOT cheaper to maintain one jet vs. a variety of jets is the thinking.... Plus the F-35 has much less maintence time compared to flight hours with the older jets. Thus, you can run more missions.

What people need to ask is how come the Air Force, Navy and Marines all want this jet? Do they believe the Generals in all three branches are wrong.? For the record too the F-35 has been being pushed since the late 1980s and early 1990s. So it’s not just recent Generals.

[DoodleDawg]

Here's an article from a Norwegian pilot about his F-35 experiences. It's way more technical than I can follow, but the gist of it seems to be that he's impressed with the aircraft and thinks it's a solid performer. Link

[fatman6502002]

One must also remember that a lot of the critics of the F-35 worked on competing projects of for Boeing. The politicians that always criticize it are usually those that supported the Boeing model that lost the competition between the two models. The worst of problems for the F-35 are now in the past. The reports coming out lf the last Red Flag war game in Nevada are glowing; the F-35 racked up a 20:1 kill ratio. It also defeated aggressor aircraft when it was wildly outnumbered. I saw a video that claimed at Red Flag, now that the F-35 has it’s full combat capability one F-35 consistently defeated 6 F-15’s, 6-F-16’s, 6F-18’s, and 6 of any Euro fighters that were in Red Storm this year. The F-35 is here to stay it is the best Strike Fighter ever produced. Working together with F-22’s, the F-35 will allow the US and our allies to operate together to establish air supremacy in any theater of operations. The F-35 gives US pilots a bigger advantage in team work, tactical battle management and situational awareness than any pilots have ever had over any potential enemies. It is a game changer, and if you listen to the pilots that fly it, you will hear all of them talk about how much easier the F-35 is to fly and fight than the aircraft they flew previously.

[\/\/ayne]

F-35 cannot hold enough bullets for Close Air Support. Perhaps it may be good for other things but not Close Air Support.

[thoughtomator]

The biggest problem with the place is its obscene price tag.

War is about economics as much as it is about violence.

[GBA]

When the F-15, F-16 and the F-18 were being developed, power to weight ration and agility were the keys to success.

The same was still somewhat true when the F-22 was being developed.

Here and now, however, computing power is at least as important as speed and agility are, if not more so.

The F-35 brings the biggest brain and the most badass software, in addition to engine power and agility, to whatever situation it might find itself.

Whatever the bugs are, and there are always problems, even with mature programs, they will be addressed and fixed as need be.

Fwiw, whatever they may say now, people bitched and moaned about the F-15, the F-16 and the F-18 at first and they're still bitching and moaning about the F-22, the B-1B and B-2.

Also fwiw, as you no doubt know, you will rarely if ever encounter decent reporting about anything aviation, even in times of responsible journalism, which our now is not.

For example, what's the latest fake news about Trump? It's always going to be something, generally something not true or blown out of proportion, such are the times we live in as the people we have become.

[Terry L Smith]

IIRC, the last “multi-service” aircraft, was the McDonnell-Douglas F-4(x) series aircraft. The train of thought was, at THAT time, that the ‘dogfight’ was a thing of the past, and that all aerial combat would take place at distance, with the use of missiles, only. The skies of Vietnam proved that to be a fallacy.

So, in the new world of ‘stealth’, all else goes to the wayside, again, until the next time our intrepid airmen have to ‘dogfight’, to save their butts.

[buckalfa]

When you try to please everybody, you please nobody.

[BroJoeK]

Some basic data:

• 1996 contracts signed for F-35s
• 2006 first flight by F-35s
• 2015 first operational deployment (USMC)
• $100+ million each, unit cost.
• 200+ total F-35A & Bs produced so far
• 3,000+ total expected production through 2037.

Personally, I don't care what the cost overruns or delays are, nearly as much as: does it do what it needs to do to win?
If so it's cheap, if not it's a waste of money.

You mentioned the V-22 Osprey, which started in 1981 and is still in limited operational use after nine crashes with 39 fatalities.
So, as always with technology: the leading edge is the bleeding edge.

[butlerweave]

Make sure you paint F35 on the side and while the enemy pilot is laughing you move close and shoot him down

[diogenes ghost]

Well, LS, I have been an opponent of F-35 since it's inception. Just the concept of three very different variants in order to accomplish highly divergent tasks is incredibly difficult to start with. Then to ask them all to be the best in the world at each task, do it efficiently, and save the taxpayers money at the same time?? Do you still believe in Santa?

Last month the Project On Gov't Oversight, POGO, released a scathing report that will convince you that this aircraft will cripple our capabilities against peer and near-peer adversaries for literally generations.

I gotta admit to being html incapable, so I'll just show how to get it via Google. It's a very long read, but VERY well done, comprehensive, and from a group that cares about our gov't and how it serves us.

Google.......F-35 Continues to Stumble, the fond it on POGO.org

For everyone that has any interest in the F-35, or military procurement in general, it is a must read.

[PIF]

Ok you guys have read the specs, read pilot reports, but one thing among many many that will and cannot change is the plane’s limited range. It is a tanker queen; shoot down the tanker (Chinese strategy) and the plane is useless.

Station it on the ground close enough to the front lines to be effective and it is within S-500 range (Russian strategy) and would be shot down as soon as it becomes airborne.

Fix the gun so it can shoot, but it will run out of rounds after a few bursts; fix the software so it actually works, and you might be on to something as longs as the plane remains on the ground; fix the naval version so it does not nearly kill the pilots on take off only to run out of fuel when the tankers go away; fix the radar so it actually can be turned on, and wait to be hit by an S-500.

Find some way to surpass all those obstacles and get shot down by Russian BVR missiles; get around that and you get to drop the one or two bombs the plane is capable of carrying before running the same gauntlet to return to base.

These are problems are not even being considered to be fixed as the fixes would require either redesigning the POS from the ground up or making it far too expensive - exceeding costs before the ‘Trump Effect’ occurred.

Stop cheer leading for an extremely poor design (even for a committee); push for a modernized version of the F-22, or F-22B(omber).

[Seruzawa]

If they would call the F35 an A35 the perception of the plane would change.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. BUMP!

[rlmorel]

There are a lot not to like about the procurement process and the plane itself, that much is true.

But there are so many examples of weapons systems that have been introduced, had teething problems, have been the subjects of scorn and ridicule, but with time, became superior weapons. Your point about the Osprey is well taken. I was an early defender of the Osprey, and that was not an easy position to be in, as over budget as it was, with all the deadlines being missed over decades. But I felt that once it got into the hands of the people who would use it, that it would turn out fine.

I remember when the Abrams tank was introduced, there were a lot of people both in and out of the military who said the tank was too complicated, heavy, prone to breakdown, difficult to maintain, guzzled too much fuel, and most of all, with its gas turbine engine, would never be able to function in a desert environment. It has, hands down, been the finest and most battle tested main battle tanks for one of the longest periods of time.

The F-111 was justifiably criticized out of the gate, but with time, became a fine and extremely capable platform.

The B-29 was a horror show when the Army Air Force began flying it in combat. It wasn’t ready, but due to wartime considerations, had been rushed into production. The engines were completely unreliable and prone to catching fire.

And so on.

We have already sunk a lot of time and money into the F-35, but I have faith, if given appropriate funding to train, operate, maintain, and upgrade them over time, they will turn out fine.

The F-35 is not an A-10 or an F-22. It is something different, and a lot of people overlook some of its key strengths and potential which, in my opinion, lie not in the ability to outturn or outrun another plane, but to to function together in an environment that may provide an unprecedented tactical situational awareness by being able to integrate seamlessly into a much larger networked battlefield environment, and provide shared support and data. The software being used in the platform, both to fly it and become a integral component in a larger networked entity, is still immature. But I think they will get it right eventually.

A lot of people miss the point that an A-10 cannot function without air superiority. It is the perfect plane for its job, but if we have to fight a foe who isn’t a stupid, ill-trained Islamic country who has weapons they actually know how to maintain and use, we are going to need air superiority. The F-22 is a superlative air superiority platform, but stupidly, that ship has sailed. It isn’t going to come back, either.

[Oztrich Boy]

The F-35 was a great aircraft in its time