Well, that's not what the Vice Admiral Venlet is saying. I agree it would have been even more of a mistake to roll out total production now, but the point is that they should have built just a few planes, maybe four or five, and tested them thoroughly, before producing more. Now each time an improvement is made, its expensive to upgrade the existing aircraft.
F-35 Multirole Joint Strike Fighter
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They self funded it with other partners, ie they took a commercial risk outside of the project.
In absolute terms, the alternative engine has no relationship to current progress of JSF as it was always in independant venture seeking attention and noise from congress to get up...
yet eurofighter doesn't meet some of the critical through life requirements.....
and they've never had access to F-22. a long hard and consistent NO to F-22 despite all the gnashing of teeth by those who sought to ignore the realpolitik of F-22 being unavailable due to other US international political constraints
The point I was making was that GE and their allies have given up the ghost. The administration and the Pentagon have written off the GE engine as you said years ago. Keep in mind there aren't too many blue chip American corporations larger than GE.
Senator McCain Misfires: Rushing Towards the Past - SLD Forum | SLD Forum
Looks like it has been decided already. Japanese order for F35 will come out of LRIP-8. Also interesting to note that all "hots spots" will be fixed for LRIP-8.
Looks like it has been decided already. Japanese order for F35 will come out of LRIP-8. Also interesting to note that all "hots spots" will be fixed for LRIP-8.
the reality is that even if some procurement fairy managed to get the US to build 10,000 units they'd still be arguing that the end of air combat is nigh and that we'll be at the mercy of whatever the hordes throw at us.
the best advertising for demonstrating the irrelevance of the naysayers and their lack of comprehension of the issues is to let them babble on. the SLD blog is a nice summary of what they're missing
the general media have slowly been working it out for themselves over the last few years as well. The frothers still haven't worked out that when they're trotted out for commentary its not because of their foresight but because if their capacity to provide controversy . eg a bit like when Hanson or Katter get a mike shoved in their face.
the beat goes on.
the road runner
Active Member
Japan chooses F-35 as mainstay fighter jet: reports | Air Force News at DefenseTalk
Defence talk has a link up,saying a similar thing
I was more interested in whether it was appearing in JT as it is a newspaper that doesn't get overly excited and only cites from officials when it has a degree of confidence.
I'd still be tempted to wait till Friday irrespective of the growing noise.
Its not about AEGIS, it's about the advantages and benefits that it provides with the bigger C4ISR and I3 picture.
The Mainichi Daily News is now saying that "government sources" said today that Japan plans to buy F-35.
Japan to choose U.S. F-35 as next-generation fighter: gov't sources - The Mainichi Daily News
I'd trust that a lot more than the previous reports I've seen. As one of the three leading Japanese newspapers, the parent paper (Mainichi Shimbun) has good sources.
Japan to choose U.S. F-35 as next-generation fighter: gov't sources - The Mainichi Daily News
I'd trust that a lot more than the previous reports I've seen. As one of the three leading Japanese newspapers, the parent paper (Mainichi Shimbun) has good sources.
PeterCrisp
Member
It's a shame as I was hoping they would go for the Eurofighter but at least the UK will get some work out of the order.
Does anyone know if the ramp up in production will mean more jobs in the UK soon?
Does anyone know if the ramp up in production will mean more jobs in the UK soon?
No it's not. Venlet said production has to slow down until faults in the design can be addressed, so we aren't up for large repairs bills later down the track. At no time has he ever said that concurrent development and production should not occur and there's a good reason why he never said that.
The production has to be smoothed out by the time full rate production is beginnng or you'll end up with huge bills for repairing poorly manufactured jets anyway. Their capabilities might very well be fully developed, but no matter how good your models, the "hotspots" that are causing the problems are only going to be discovered by flying a relatively large number of aircraft. There are two sides to development of a brand new aircraft, the aircraft/systems and the manufacturing process. You have to adequately develop both or you'll get "mistake jets" regardless, requiring costly repairs. If you try and do it that way at a FRP of 200 aircraft per year, such a bill will get very large, very quickly...
If you try it the other way, you end up with programs like Rafale and Eurofighter which had almost as long or longer development times for far less technically ambitious aircraft, that were nowhere near as capable at entry to service as the F-35 Block III will be.
That's the exact point of why it isn't being done the other way way. Every major US aircraft since the 70's, including the F-16, has had over-lapping developing and production phases, this isn't new fir JSF, however this particular program has had the added challenges of a Congress forcing 3 variants into the basic design philosophy to save costs, the aircraft has to be the second ever only supersonic Low Observable fighter and it has to be crammed chock full with the most advanced systems and most amount of mil-software ever loaded into a fighter aircraft, yet maintan fighter performance, great range on internal fuel only in a smallish airframe AND yes an overly ambitious customer and an overly optimistic contractor...
Or one can say it simply, one doesn't develop any aircraft program with 3 thousand aircraft in the works with five or even ten aircraft. By the time one worked out the gremlins of the ten aircraft years would have passed by leaving thousands of workers unemployed over ten years. Of course, those laid off employees would find new jobs long before the gremlins were fixed. On the other hand if you aren't going to lay off the employees, they might as well as be building aircraft.
Trillion-Dollar Jet Has Thirteen Expensive New Flaws
^well, the Quick Look Review report concludes it went into production to soon, but I guess you know better? Do you work for Lockheed Martin? Its just a billion dollar mistake I guess. Interesting to see more negative news come out on a day of triumph about the Japan sale, wonder what the flaw is?
^well, the Quick Look Review report concludes it went into production to soon, but I guess you know better? Do you work for Lockheed Martin? Its just a billion dollar mistake I guess. Interesting to see more negative news come out on a day of triumph about the Japan sale, wonder what the flaw is?
Trillion-Dollar Jet Has Thirteen Expensive New Flaws | Danger Room | Wired.com
Take off your troll hat Moa or get ready to be thumped.
ADM didn't say anything about the precise timing of the entry into production of the F-35 rather about the concept of concurrency which is well established back till the 1950s. If we were building aircraft as unsophisticated as the Mustang then sure we can do simple things like build prototypes and tinker with them before production. But contemporary capability is far more complex (something many of the F-35 critics just don’t understand) and requires concurrent development with production, otherwise the aircraft won’t be ready until 2030.
No one here disagrees that Lockheed haven’t covered themselves with the proverbial in delivering this program. But unless the USG is going to take the project of them and second source we are stuck with them. And despite all that it still remains the most capable air combat system in development or entering production.
Anyone who refers to someone who has never had anything to do with an actual aviation program as an "aviation guru" doesn't know what they are talking about. Sweetman may have a nice turn of phrase, be an exceelent defence journalist, etc, etc but that doesn't make him anything more than someone on the outside peering in through a very little hole. Real "aviation gurus" known widely to the public are people like Kelly Johnson, Pavel Sukhoi, Dan Raymer, Bert Rutan, etc.
On the topic of the leaked QLR it’s interesting to note that all the usual suspects are running around waving it in the air screaming ‘cancel the F-35’. Except the QLR specifically states that none of the problems with the F-35 that it has identified are significant enough to stop production... Hardly a death sentence.
I agree with your last 2 sentences but not your first, a number of posts on here, are blindly defending LM and the process of this project to date. I don't think there is harm from learning that the computer simulations didn't work as LM predicted / that in future it may be better to nail down as much as possible before ramping up, or perhaps even that such a big multi-role, multi mission aircraft project with three main variants to only one supplier wasn't as cost effective as was predicted.
As to what the flaw is, I would also bet that it is stealth related, as the radar signature remains a secret. My only other thought would be a missing jamming or weapon capability, but that would probably come out eventually.
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