The F-35 is not dead

[frosti]

Click Here

Sen. John McCain called the program “one of the great national scandals.”

McCain criticized the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as the government’s first trillion-dollar acquisition program (including sustainment costs). Its repeated cost overruns “have made it worse than a disgrace,” he said. Despite recent efforts to reduce prices on the next batch of aircraft, “it’s still one of the great, national scandals that we have ever had, as far as the expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars are concerned,” he said.

Horrid political grandstanding. Why doesn't he propose his alternative? Oh, right.. he doesn't have one.

[frosti]

EDITED
http://www.airforcemag.com/DRArchive/Pa ... -Real.aspx

Press reports about F-35 lifecycle costs—indicating that the new estimate is $857 billion versus the previous estimate of $1.1 trillion, or 22 percent less—were accurate, said F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan. "We're working well" with the Pentagon's independent cost-assessment shop to get to figures both teams can agree on, he said during a Sept. 17 interview. One difference of opinion: the cost-assessment office's estimates assume seasoned maintainers will be doing the repair work, since senior people have been tapped for the program so far. But eventually those jobs will be done by two-stripers, said Bogdan. Such assumptions make a "huge difference" in cost over the 53 years for which the cost estimators are required to forecast. Bogdan asserted that opponents of the F-35 have "too many opinions, not enough facts." He considers himself an honest broker and is not afraid to tell bad news about the F-35, or in this case, good news.

Dutch order this "gun-less, can't see out the back too expensive and useless" fighter despite the costs.

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... uy-only-37

Belgium is also considering the jet.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/1 ... 4820130917

Exclusive: Belgium considers Lockheed F-35 to replace F-16s - source
(Reuters) - U.S. government officials have briefed the Belgian government about the capabilities of the Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35 fighter jet, as Brussels prepares to replace its aging fleet of 60 F-16s, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

The source, who was not authorised to speak publicly, said Belgium was considering buying 35 to 55 of the new radar-evading F-35 jets. No decisions are expected until late 2014 at the earliest after next year's elections in Belgium.

Belgium was one of the original NATO partners to buy the F-16 fighter jet, also built by Lockheed; but unlike Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, it did not join the international consortium that funded development of the F-35.

U.S. government officials have visited Belgium to discuss the F-35, which is being built to replace the F-16 and a dozen other warplanes in use around the world, according to the source.

The current Belgian government says a decision on replacing the F-16s will be made by the next government after elections in early summer 2014.

EDITED

[iflyforpie]

Lots of airlines 'ordered' the Concorde too...

[Big Pistons Forever]

deleted

[iflyforpie]

Everyone's opinion is worthless.... basically, just type your opinion into an internet search engine and you will find volumes of content that support your position... no matter how ridiculous it is.

[Rockie]

Dutch order this "gun-less, can't see out the back too expensive and useless" fighter despite the costs.

I don't believe I said it's useless, because so far at least they make a pretty good ramp shade in the hot Florida sun.

So The Netherlands buys 37 F-35's, less than half of the 85 they originally intended to buy but now can't because of skyrocketing cost. Holland is a postage stamp of a country of 16,000 square miles housing roughly half of Canada's population for a ratio of 1062 people per square mile, all of whom live in a consistently hospitable environment.

Canada has 3,854,085 square miles, most of which is inhospitable and has nobody living in it but must nevertheless be defended by our proposed 65 F-35's.

1 F-35 per 432 square miles of hospitable Dutch territory
1 F-35 per 59,294 square miles of inhospitable Canadian territory

I don't know, seems to me getting more of something cheaper makes sense. Especially if the costs are known and it's already been proven to work.

[azimuthaviation]

Lots of airlines 'ordered' the Concorde too...

From my 1968 issue of Popular Mechanics:

(about the concorde) "confident representatives from 16 airlines have deposited about $300, 000 per plane for options on 74 Concordes. In the United States, PanAm wants eight; American, Eastern,TWA, and United, six each; Braniff and Continental, three each. To meet these and other anticipated demands, the two manufacturing companies plan to turn out Concordes at the fantastic rate of one a week once they get going".

I think Braniff has a better chance of getting their Concordes than the Dutch do of getting their F35s at this stage.

[W5]

Dutch order this "gun-less, can't see out the back too expensive and useless" fighter despite the costs.

I don't believe I said it's useless, because so far at least they make a pretty good ramp shade in the hot Florida sun.

So The Netherlands buys 37 F-35's, less than half of the 85 they originally intended to buy but now can't because of skyrocketing cost. Holland is a postage stamp of a country of 16,000 square miles housing roughly half of Canada's population for a ratio of 1062 people per square mile, all of whom live in a consistently hospitable environment.

Canada has 3,854,085 square miles, most of which is inhospitable and has nobody living in it but must nevertheless be defended by our proposed 65 F-35's.

1 F-35 per 432 square miles of hospitable Dutch territory
1 F-35 per 59,294 square miles of inhospitable Canadian territory

I don't know, seems to me getting more of something cheaper makes sense. Especially if the costs are known and it's already been proven to work.

The Dutch have also had their F-16's in Afghanistan for almost 10 years. They were also active in over Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia. It has less to do with the size of the country than international commitments (i.e. political decisions).

[Rockie]

It has less to do with the size of the country than international commitments (i.e. political decisions).

See my previous post on Canada's deployment of the CF-18 outside of Canada since the first Gulf War. With only 65 of them contemplated there isn't enough to adequately exercise sovereignty over Canada's massive territory. The same hardly holds true for the RNLAF that has 68 F-16's to defend an area smaller than Nova Scotia.

Any foreign deployment of Canadian fighters in the future will follow the trend of short duration and small numbers...if at all. And they won't be risked in very high threat operations where stealth is required for survival.

[2R]

Maybe we should get back to discussing global warming, or climate change as it is now being called after the earth has been observed not to be warming. Or it has not warmed in the last 15 years.
Funny how it has taken so long for some to realize the truth, what was so obvious to me years ago.

The Stealth capability of the F-35 is, at best an overestimate of capability, at worst a myth almost as bad as the little green and grey men propaganda,used to hide the weather modification projects at Roswell, NM.

Now ,where did I hide my tin foil hat

The enemy that Canada will face in the next fifty years does not have an air force.
Why would we need any fighter aircraft ?

To kill an enemy in 1980 dollars it took 63 cents to kill one enemy using conventional means,
To kill the same enemy using nukes it took an estimated 13 cents per dead enemy.
Using biological and chemical weapons it takes an estimated 8 cents per dead enemy.
Even allowing for inflation you could kill a lot of enemies for the price of one F-35.

[flatface]

Deleted

[frosti]

Canada has 3,854,085 square miles, most of which is inhospitable and has nobody living in it but must nevertheless be defended by our proposed 65 F-35's.

1 F-35 per 432 square miles of hospitable Dutch territory
1 F-35 per 59,294 square miles of inhospitable Canadian territory

We are currently defended by less than 40, with at least half broken at any given time, CF-18s so 65 will be an improvement. Besides, with the way things are going now there won't be enough techs left to maintain 65 F-35s. There are barely any left to fix the current fleet. What happens when the government continues to operate a base in oil country.

[frosti]

This is a new way of training current generation kids to become front-line fighter pilots. I love technology, welcome to the fifth generation.

The Making of a Joint Strike Fighter Pilot

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-avi ... 70321.html

The first step in becoming a Joint Strike Fighter pilot is familiar to anyone who has learned to fly: ground school. In Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, ground school consists of academics and simulators that teach the pilots how to operate and fly the aircraft. When I learned to fly the AV-8B, I got a stack of books. I read the books, sat in classes, and practiced in a basic cockpit trainer. My student got a laptop computer with a stick and throttle to plug into it, just like the stick and throttle in the F-35. His classroom is fully electronic. He learns by doing. When we are teaching him about the fuel system, he sees the fuel system, watches the fuel burn down, and views the fuel display on his computer exactly as it appears in the aircraft. When he is in the classroom, his desktop trainer has a touch screen display, a stick and throttle, and a headset and microphone so he can use voice activation to command certain functions—all precisely mimicking the systems in the airplane. After three weeks in the classroom, he graduates to the Full Mission Simulator, an F-35 cockpit that slides into a large dome. Multiple high-definition cameras project on the surface of the dome images of the scenes around the airplane. Although the simulator does not move, it provides realistic video and sound. The simulator is vital, because the F-35 does not have a trainer or two-seat variant. When a student first flies the airplane, he or she is solo.

Going out to taxi the airplane may not sound challenging, especially given the caliber of pilots we selected for initial training. We added taxi familiarization to the syllabus to give students a chance to sit in the aircraft when they were not under pressure to fly. They are strapped in, the engine is running, and for the first time, they get to experience the real thing. In the simulator, the student “sees” the airplane. It doesn’t rumble or vibrate; the computer-generated sounds are realistic but not quite true. When the student puts on his flight gear, straps into the cockpit, starts the engine, and begins to creep forward, it’s a real thrill.

This approach to military aircraft procurement, known as concurrency, is controversial. Why would anyone start training with an airplane that was only partially capable? Because we are building understanding, familiarity, and compatibility. Center stick pilots need to become side stick pilots. Push button and analog pilots need to become touch screen and digital pilots. Head-up-display pilots need to become helmet-mounted-display pilots. Fourth generation pilots need to become fifth generation pilots. We’re still learning what the F-35 can do, and we need people who know the airplane and can continue to drive it to its ultimate performance.

more in the link.

[reality check]

http://vimeo.com/80490410

[Diadem]

Astounding how even the pilots have been sucked in.

You're right; why should we listen to the people who actually operate the aircraft? Their opinion should be discounted, and we should only trust armchair civilians who've never been within a mile of the aircraft, because the pilots must have been brainwashed. This reminds me a lot of people who claim we shouldn't listen to doctors because they've supposedly been bought out by "big pharma".

[frosti]

http://vimeo.com/80490410

Interesting how no one is listening to the fanboi's, including governments of the developed world. Super Hornets aren't flying off the shelves and soon Boeing will close the line of that underpowered pig. Besides the Australian Growler, who has ordered or even given a second look at the SH in the past 5 years? It's an old dog that needs to be taken out back and shot.

[Rockie]

Astounding how even the pilots have been sucked in.

You're right; why should we listen to the people who actually operate the aircraft? Their opinion should be discounted, and we should only trust armchair civilians who've never been within a mile of the aircraft, because the pilots must have been brainwashed. This reminds me a lot of people who claim we shouldn't listen to doctors because they've supposedly been bought out by "big pharma".

Being a pilot myself (and former fighter pilot) I understand the "shiny thing" syndrome. It may shock you to know military pilots are not immune especially when they don't have to pay for it. While in uniform I used to blithely do all kinds of things that as a simple beleaguered taxpayer I am now not so enthusiastic about.

You listen to the military when they state what their requirements are provided said requirements haven't been told to them first by a government that has other agendas. Then you decide what you can afford and take it from there.

Besides, how many of those people have actually operated the aircraft?

[Rockie]

http://vimeo.com/80490410

Interesting how no one is listening to the fanboi's, including governments of the developed world. Super Hornets aren't flying off the shelves and soon Boeing will close the line of that underpowered pig. Besides the Australian Growler, who has ordered or even given a second look at the SH in the past 5 years? It's an old dog that needs to be taken out back and shot.

What do you base the "underpowered" remark on?

F-35 - Max T/O WT 70,000 - Thrust 28,000/43,000
SH - Max T/O WT 66,000 - Thrust 26,000/44,000

I also can't resist mentioning that if the SH loses and engine it still has 13,000/22,000 lbs of thrust available. The F-35? Only what the pilot can produce depending on what he ate for dinner the night before.

[tailgunner]

Rockie,
How much drag does the SH have at max t/o wt? It has three hardpoints per wing all canted outwards at 3 degrees.....the f35 is in a clean configuration....
To compare thrust is not logical if one does not also compare the configuration of the a/c.
Cheers.

[AuxBatOn]

Rockie,

Remember the difference between doing BFM in a clean jet vs a 2-Tank config...

You can also supercruise a clean jet. Just for you to remember that drag makes a huge difference.

[Rockie]

Yes, I do seem to remember something about drag...

Where, when and how often do you think Canada would operate the F-35 in an environment where stealth is a priority? Most of the time - in Canada anyway - it will have external tanks hung off of it.

Frosti called the SH an underpowered pig which it certainly is not. Not compared to the F-35 anyway.

[AuxBatOn]

I don't care about drag and less than ideal performance in Canada. I care about that overseas, over hostile territory. The F-35 is design for expeditionary ops, while being able to do the NORAD mission effectively (way better than the Hornet)

[Rockie]

I don't care about drag and less than ideal performance in Canada. I care about that overseas, over hostile territory. The F-35 is design for expeditionary ops, while being able to do the NORAD mission effectively (way better than the Hornet)

How many hornets have we lost in combat so far?

This is why we don't let the users preference be the only determining factor in what to buy. We are getting this airplane primarily for the defense of Canada, not expeditionary ops, so its suitability over the north matters. There it will be hung with tanks...at least they better be. We aren't prepared to spend the farm on a few airplanes on the chance their time limited stealth capability will be necessary somewhere - sometime. It just isn't worth it.

How do you design a fighter for expeditionary ops anyway?

[AuxBatOn]

Like I said before, stealth is about 1% of the interesting things on the JSF. There is another 99% that most Canadian will never know.

The SH will not be supported past 2025. What do you suggest we do then??

[Big Pistons Forever]

The SH will not be supported past 2025. What do you suggest we do then??

The US Navy has already stood up a midlife extension and sustainment project office for the F-18E/F. They are on record in a report to Congress that the F-18 platform will be a part of USN fleet fast air until 2040.

I came across an interesting stat recently. The F 15, a decidedly non stealthy airframe, has a world wide all operator record of 115 to 0 in air to air combat in multiple theaters of operations and against aircraft that are peer competitors.

Just how many times better than the opposition do we have to be........