Posted on 04/05/2017 12:36:10 PM PDT by LS
Yesterday there was a thread discussing, somewhat critically, the F-35. I have heard good things about the plane from the fighter jock community, but these guys were older pilots, none of whom flew the F-35. I personally know almost nothing about it, and I asked them for info. They sent the following comments and links which seem pretty positive:
http://whythef35.blogspot.com/2012/05/comparing-f-16s-development-with-f-35.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2016/03/28/solid-progress-f-35-fighter-pentagons-biggest-program-is-moving-forward-fast/#1d07166d4b57
From a pilot, who has not flown the F-35:
The F-35 is very complicated3 different variants (USAF, USN, USMC), millions of lines of code, stealth, new technology, etc.;
Building a new fighter is ALWAYS difficult, but given the notes above this one is probably even more so than most; There are many detractors of this program, and they will speak poorly of it no matter what;
As of 30 Jan 2017 there have been 80,000 flight hours logged, without any major crisis that I can recall;
I have no doubt that all of the versions flying now will be vastly improved a year, two years, 10 years from now.
I said Naval Combat Systems, which includes missile systems. I did not mention avionics. Besides being an arrogant ass, you’re also lying.
My point, exactly. Don’t try to tell that to the A-10 fetishists.
PIF: “You missed the point.”
So, if I understand, when you posted about “range”, you were not referring to normal “combat radius”, but rather to extended range with external fuel tanks?
You think for extended range, even “conformal tanks” unmask the F-35?
And this is a limitation somehow not shared by other stealth aircraft such as the F-22, do you say?
It sounds to me like loss of some extended range is a price of stealth, unless you do things like fill weapons bays with fuel tanks.
And I still note that published numbers show F-35 normal combat radius equal to or better than any except the F-15 Eagle.
But that must be assuming the F-35 is carrying bombs while the F-15 normally does not.
So, comparing apple’s to apple’s, how much range does the F-35 really lose?
Seriously, I don’t need to know that, but it is nice to hear the F-35 pilots are confident their weapons will bring them home from real combat not only victorious, but healthy.
Yeah external tanks are dropped for stealth mode, right?
I don’t “get” what our FRiend PIF’s real problem is since, to pick out just one example as I read published numbers: the F-35C has twice the combat radius of the F-18 Super Hornet it will replace — so how is that a bad thing?
Yes, the non-stealth F-18 can add external fuel tanks, which might double its range, so then it equals the stealthy F-35’s combat radius.
So, the problem here is what, exactly?
Dear fatman,
In my convoluted Viet vet assbackwards mind, “Combat ‘Systems’, whether they are being employed by, ‘a squid’, a ‘GIreen’, a ‘grunt’, or ‘a propellerhead’ like myself, in 2017-thumbtyping-times, the ONLY ‘system’ that is NOT ‘digitally-infected’, is the 1970 issue Colt M16, or the Smith and Wesson Model 15, that I was issued.
If it was onboard a ship, as the General Dynamics PHALANX ‘system’ was, or fired from a ship as the Standard RIM missile was, or loosed from an aircraft as the Sparrow III or AGM-88 was, there were electronics involved. If it were to be that ‘wondergun’ slung under an F-4 or an F-106, there was an optical sight system, slaved to the aircraft’s radar system. If it were that “electronics suite” installed on E-2c Hawkeyes, that is avionics, as is the command links between them and the carrier, or the fighter interdiction aircraft, or the hand-off to either E-8 JSTARS, or the E-3 AWACs.
Even in this 2017-year-of-the-thumbtyping, it is still the hand of the human, whether deomonstrated quirkiness of the millenials, or President Trump.
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