F-35 Multirole Joint Strike Fighter

[SteelTiger 177]

You should stilll have the 20mm mounted internally anyway it very useful on cas mission as well on caps mostly if the missles fail or if you run out of Amraams or Sidewinders and don't have a gun your up chocolate creek without a popcicle stick.

 

[Bonza]

You should stilll have the 20mm mounted internally anyway it very useful on cas mission as well on caps mostly if the missles fail or if you run out of Amraams or Sidewinders and don't have a gun your up chocolate creek without a popcicle stick.

Small point, it's not a 20mm, it's the 25mm GAU-22/A. I'd say if they're flying CAS missions they'll very likely have the gun pod mounted so I don't see the issue with it, if they need it they have it, if they don't need it, they don't need to mount it.

I don't know if running out of air to air missiles on individual aircraft is as much of an issue in modern air combat as people make it out to be, due to datalink and networking capabilities making it possible to hand off air targets to other platforms (thus each aircraft might only have four AMRAAMs onboard, but deployed in wartime, datalinked with one another and directed by AEW&C, it becomes easier to ensure there are missile shots available in the battlespace for a given target).

It's a debatable issue I suppose.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Why does the Navy and Marine versions have their 20mm guns mounted externally?Don't the designers know that's going to effect the aerodynamics as well as the stealth of the F/A-35.The USN variant is alomost the same as the USAF variant.

USN and USMC felt that the space taken up by an internally mounted gun (a significant amount on a tightly designed and packed fighter airframe) was better utilised by "other" things...

The external gun pod still provides a gun for CAS and other situations where required. I have no doubt the designers at Lockheed Martin understand the effect it has on drag and the LO of the airframe...

The F-35C is a fair bit different to the F-35A. Larger wings, larger control surfaces and vertical tails, heavier airframe and landing gear and different flight characteristics. Same engine, weapons, avionics and sensor systems, but the airframe is quite a bit different.

 

[Kirkzzy]

Looking over some dates, I noticed something that as good as it is makes the F-35 quite redundant. With IOC around 2014-2018 and countries currently in the program, using Australia as an example, not having all their F-35s scheduled to be delivered with full operating capability till around 2020 or a bit afterwards, I noticed that the F/A-XX is set to start replacing the Super Hornet in 2024. Wouldn't it then just make more sense if we (Australia) dropped the F-35 and went with some more Super Hornets for the interim period and then just got the F/A-XX which would no doubt be able to perform any current fighter.

Have a read of this so you can get the context.

 

[SpudmanWP]

Two things.

1. The F/A-XX is not a sure thing and what date it becomes IOC is anyones guess.

2. If the US is not willing to share the F-22, what makes you think they will share the F/A-XX?

 

[JWCook]

JSF grounded.

In-flight Failure Halts F-35 Flight Tests

Twin failures (triple if you include the oil leak).

But its all going well.

Regards

 

[gf0012-aust]

But its all going well.

Regards

I realise that you find it difficult to suspend your animosity towards the JSF Program

but seriously, your persistency is borderline trolling, especially when your engagement is reduced to the equivalent of internet "drive bys"

 

[Kirkzzy]

Two things.

1. The F/A-XX is not a sure thing and what date it becomes IOC is anyones guess.

2. If the US is not willing to share the F-22, what makes you think they will share the F/A-XX?

1) It is slated for 2024 to start replacing the Super Hornet.

2)In this story in one points says "Boeing makes the argument that a sliding in-service date for the JSF is worrying both the Australians and the U.S. military."

They offered it to Australia as well, I am sure the US would have told us no if they didn't think it would be available for export. And the issue with the F-22 was Congress not US military. So if we bought in early I am sure congress would have to see we already have gone as far as to buy more interim super hornets.

 

[JWCook]

I realise that you find it difficult to suspend your animosity towards the JSF Program

but seriously, your persistency is borderline trolling, especially when your engagement is reduced to the equivalent of internet "drive bys"

Firstly its news, and secondly my comment 'its alls going well' is relative.

Any normal program would have had the plug pulled a while back, the JSF program hasn't got a plan B so anything short of a catastrophic failure is a plus.

I'm just waiting for the chief of the airforce (RAAF) to come out with an "every confidence" statement in the next day or two.

Now I have an on topic news worthy item, have expressed an opinion, and now made a prediction, just having a different view from yours doesn't make me a troll.

However I am enjoying schadenfreuder moment, would you deny me that?

cheers

 

[Cailet]

1) It is slated for 2024 to start replacing the Super Hornet.

2)In this story in one points says "Boeing makes the argument that a sliding in-service date for the JSF is worrying both the Australians and the U.S. military."

Boeing are hardly unbiased on the subject given that the F-35 is made by their only competitor in the US. They would surely like nothing better than for LockMart to lose all their big projects and all that lovely lovely money be going into the coffers of their own company.

What's the betting that, come 2028 or thereabouts LockMart will be commenting that the delays in Boeing's 6gen fighter programme are of grave concern to the USN with the implicit (or quite likely explicit) addendum that more resources should be going to the LockMart F-35C Block 4 and F/A-YY due in-service in 2040.

 

[Aussie Digger]

JSF grounded.

In-flight Failure Halts F-35 Flight Tests

Twin failures (triple if you include the oil leak).

But its all going well.

Regards

If that's the style of your engagement then I suppose you won't mind this:

Well, when it's development gets delayed a bit more, the platform ends up costing a lot more, when developmental aircraft crash during testing and when the platform as a whole loses a significant part of it's capability, the F-35 should roughly equal the Typhoon's performance...

Fortunately the F-35 has a fair way to go, before it achieves any of these "outcomes" though...

Regards,

AD

 

[Aussie Digger]

Looking over some dates, I noticed something that as good as it is makes the F-35 quite redundant. With IOC around 2014-2018 and countries currently in the program, using Australia as an example, not having all their F-35s scheduled to be delivered with full operating capability till around 2020 or a bit afterwards, I noticed that the F/A-XX is set to start replacing the Super Hornet in 2024. Wouldn't it then just make more sense if we (Australia) dropped the F-35 and went with some more Super Hornets for the interim period and then just got the F/A-XX which would no doubt be able to perform any current fighter.

Have a read of this so you can get the context.

It wouldn't even if F/A-XX were a real program and not a Boeing pipe-dream.

Defence planners have to consider reality. Dreamers (such as a large manufacturer who has missed out on BOTH of the last 2 tactical fighter programs for the US) I can only surmise do not.

Unfortunately for Boeing this project, at the current time is nothing more than a pipe-dream and is hardly more realistic than those who think the PAK-FA will reach IOC in 2015...

 

[gf0012-aust]

Now I have an on topic news worthy item, have expressed an opinion, and now made a prediction, just having a different view from yours doesn't make me a troll.

However I am enjoying schadenfreuder moment, would you deny me that?

cheers

I don't have any objection to you having a different view to me at all - my objection is your persistent and sometimes untrammeled foray into being snippy about the platform - even when developments are positive.

i've yet to see anyone in here display schadenfreude over EF hiccups or cutbacks - and yet I suspect that if someone did then you'd be white knighting in and flaying those internet naysayers for all your worth.

slagging professional senior officers in RAAF is the kind of cheap and unsophisticated dross that ELP, and goon via APA trots out to further their own irrational and hysterical bias, or sweetman who ended up on gardening leave for his own indiscretions and inability to be a journalist professional - I would have assumed that you'd be a little more circumspect - esp when some of those senior staff have over 5000hrs on type and in any number of instances have flown various contemporary aircraft from various nations

 

[Sea Toby]

We didn't hear of every glitch and gremlin with any other aircraft during test flights, but we are hearing about every glitch and gremlin with the JSF.... Its becoming annoying... The cynics would have you believe the JSF is a turkey, but somehow this turkey is doing better in testing than any previous aircraft...

Somehow the JSF has more critics than the F-111 a long time ago... We aren't hearing how great the testing has been, about how much the testing has almost caught up with expectations...

Do some have an agenda against the JSF?

 

[jack412]

"Do some have an agenda against the JSF? "

only that its not a euro design, if the f-35 was the EF, it would be a different story
except for the french guys, who would still have a problem with it

 

[StingrayOZ]

Seatoby makes a good point.

The F-111 was a complete headache and came into service latter than expected. Not only that it cost a bomb to operate.

The F-35 isn't going to get canned, its in development, approximately where most pundits would have put it. The failures are equivolent to the RR A380 failures, actually not even that bad, and they caught it in development. An oil leak or a spark in a single development aircraft is not going to cancel the project. They haven't lost an entire aircraft which is what often happens.

The F-35 promises running costs that are going to be incredably lower, its going to change the way people build aircraft.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Any normal program would have had the plug pulled a while back, the JSF program hasn't got a plan B so anything short of a catastrophic failure is a plus.

LOL. Like the F-22, B-1, F-111, B-58, F-100, F-102, etc, etc. All projects with much worse development histories than the F-35. Has the F-35 killed anyone? Has the F-35 seen +50% (infaltion adjusted) growth in cost? And so on.

I guess the big difference between the F-35 and the old days is there used to be a range of aircraft projects underway. So all the nutbags had their attention split amongst multiple projects to bitch and whine about. But the F-35 gets them all together. Fools never differ.

 

[SpudmanWP]

Remember too that the F-35 is the first fighter developed in the Information Age. Items that used to take at least a month (via specialty magazines) or a day (really big news via the newspaper) to report are now being reported as they happen. Not only that, but the Internet makes everybody with a blog a "journalist" with virtually equal footing.

 

[LGB]

At some point it simply has to be accepted that the F-35 program has been managed very poorly, as the current program manager Adm Vinlet stated to Congress on March 15th, and that delays keep getting announced. Now USAF IOC is stated to have another 2 year delay from 2016 to 2018 in the 2nd panels USAF submitted remarks to the above hearing.

At this point the program has completed around 500 of 7,700 test flights. Based on what is known now IOC will be 2018. Would a fool assume 2018 or that with 7,200 test flights to go that perhaps some more design changes will be required causing further delays?

The USN is buying more new F/A-18E/F's to compensate for delays in F-35 as well as planning for a long range LO strike UCAS to complement the F-18's and eventual F-35's. Long term they are working on another aircraft to replace the F-18's.

The USAF not buying any new tactical fighters for a generation and betting the farm on the F-35 was a hideous mistake. If not more F-22's then they should have purchased more F-15/16's. The only result of this poor decision will be a reduction in force structure as they will not be able to afford large enough yearly buys of F-35's to support the current force.

One can be a strong supporter of the F-35 and still be realistic about it's ongoing problems.







Fools never differ.[/QUOTE]

 

[SpudmanWP]

From the testimony:

Last June, based on this criteria, COMACC estimated the Air Force would be able to declare the F-35A IOC in 2016.

The Air Force’s position on IOC remains unchanged. We will declare IOC for our F-35As based on achieving the required ORD-compliant capability and capacity criteria, and not on a specific date. We are currently analyzing the impacts to program delivery timelines due to the most recent program restructure, and the results of this analysis will be available later this year. When this analysis is complete, the Air Force will reevaluate our IOC estimate, but we currently expect up to a two year delay.

Like I said, the expected delay is the one that pushed the IOC from a 2014 timeframe to a 2016 timeframe.