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Pentagon’s big budget F-35 fighter ‘can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’
Reuters ^ | July 14, 2014 | David Axe

Posted on 07/15/2014 12:38:36 PM PDT by Rodamala

Americans should be worried.

The U.S. military has grounded all its new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters following an incident on June 23, when one of the high-tech warplanes caught fire on the runway of a Florida air base. The no-fly order — which affects at least 50 F-35s at training and test bases in Florida, Arizona, California and Maryland — began on the evening of July 3 and continued through July 11.

To be fair, the Pentagon routinely grounds warplanes on a temporary basis following accidents and malfunctions to buy investigators time to identify problems and to give engineers time to fix them.

But there’s real reason to worry. The June incident might reflect serious design flaws that could render the F-35 unsuitable for combat.

All those F-35s sitting idle could be a preview of a future in which potentially thousands of the Pentagon’s warplanes can’t reliably fly.

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: aerospace; boondoggle; davidaxe; f135engine; f35; jointstrikefighter; pos; warisboring; wasteofmoney
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To: EternalVigilance

It was on the IDF Facebook page


41 posted on 07/15/2014 2:57:04 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

So that’s where Mitsubishi sold those left over grilles!


42 posted on 07/15/2014 2:58:52 PM PDT by Kenny Bunk (The GOP is dying. What do we do now?)
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To: SkyDancer

It’s no different than cars. You can test the thing a million times, but you cannot account for all possibilities. Take a look at cars, for example. Cars are only a fraction as complex as a jet fighters, but despite the battery of tests a car goes through before it goes into production, there is always something that becomes unaccounted for and a recall goes into effect.


43 posted on 07/15/2014 2:59:13 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Redmen4ever

Did they cancel the F-22 because they wanted the Air Force to buy some to help justify its cost?


44 posted on 07/15/2014 3:02:11 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: rdcbn

The Marine variant went 1.6 mach?


45 posted on 07/15/2014 3:03:39 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

32-— that is just butt ugly


46 posted on 07/15/2014 3:04:13 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Rodamala

It is big and fat.


47 posted on 07/15/2014 3:04:42 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: rdcbn

Yes, sort of The F-35 is not a fighter. It’s a stealthy light attack aircraft in the lineage of the A-4, A-7, AV-8. I’m not sure I’d compare it to the F-117 which was, mostly, a one trick pony aircraft designed for a very limited mission profile (stealth penetration against high value targets) and intended to get a decent stealth capability into squadron-level service as quickly as possible.


48 posted on 07/15/2014 3:11:48 PM PDT by tanknetter
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

That plane is smiling.


49 posted on 07/15/2014 3:13:14 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: Jonty30

I read Chuck Yeager’s biography and he wrote about test flying - a bit different than cars. But yeah, individual systems can fail but the dynamics of the airframe would show its flight characteristics.


50 posted on 07/15/2014 3:18:56 PM PDT by SkyDancer (When the government is above the law, it's called fascism.)
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To: Rodamala

John Boyd, R. I. P.


51 posted on 07/15/2014 3:22:54 PM PDT by ducdriver (judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta. (Ps. 42))
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To: GeronL

Why was the F-22 cancelled? I’d say that additional procurement was cancelled. The AF isn’t retiring the ones it has on hand. Thus, the F-22 becomes a “boutique war plane.” A plane with tremendous advantage in its original, air dominance mission; but, merely average for other missions relative to much less expensive planes. The following article discusses some war games of F-22s versus German-flown Eurofighters (or, Typhoons). I notice that the Saudi are buying 72 Typhoons.

SEE:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/07/f-22-fighter-loses-79-billion-advantage-in-dogfights-report/


52 posted on 07/15/2014 4:18:37 PM PDT by Redmen4ever
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To: minnesota_bound

You’d think it was being fed a steady diet of Haji’s.


53 posted on 07/15/2014 5:56:34 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (zerogottago)
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To: rdcbn

“The F-35 is very definitely supersonic. In fact, it set a record as the first supersonic VTOL aircraft.”

That’s all. No supercruise like a real 5th generation fighter. A real bad acceleration due to the big frontal surface that produces drag. Drag is related heat and heat is today very visible via infrared sensors. So much about stealth...

BTW. the F-35 is only partly stealth at X-Band radar. For L-Band radar like on the new Russian fighter jet or on any modern anti warfare destroyer the F-35 is a bright spot.

It is time to stop that nonsense.


54 posted on 07/16/2014 12:41:25 AM PDT by MHalblaub ("Easy my friends, when it comes to the point it is only a drawing made by a non believing Dane...")
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