This from Defense News.com
U.S. Air Force chief Gen. Norton Schwartz is considerably "more optimistic" than he was this spring about the future of the F-35 Lightning II program given the significant progress being made on the plane's test programRead the whole thing but the Air Force buy is critical. To hear the Air Force Chief stating such reasoned thought when it comes to the F-35 is a pleasant surprise.
"I am more confident than I was, to be sure," about the F-35A - the Joint Strike Fighter version his service will fly - due to a recent string of testing successes with the jet, Schwartz said during an Aug. 4 meeting with the editorial staff of Defense News and Air Force Times.
The critics have failed. This airplane will be placed into full rate production.
Oh and for my boys at Lockheed...go on and destroy the tooling for the F-22...we won't be needing it!
i am wondering, if the 35 has so many capabilities, ummmmmmm........why do we have the 22s? i know it was suppose to be like the compliment of F16s and F15s (cheap and expensive respectively) but if as capable, why have two aircraft?
ReplyDeleteif the F35 ends up being as capable as an F22 in the a2a role and works as well as advertised everywhere else while still coming in at the kind of low price quoted over the years i'm guessing that even sweetman and kopp will be happy. sort of :)
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 isnt designed for A-A role, in fact as designed even with external racks there will be only 4 designated for AAM's I believe.
ReplyDeleteBut then the assumption is that any theater they operate in is either:
- No A-A threat
- Air Dominance established by the F-22 / F-15 force
All in all the F-35 doesn't really need offensive A-A capability.
The low number of F-22's will be countered by the their technical superiority and the fact that the F-15 fleet is being upgraded to supplement them regardless. Consider the F-22 force to be able to easily defeat a conventional enemy at 4-1 or even 5-1 odds.
As for destroying the tooling, thats a serious waste of hardware. Should we get into a full scale war we would need to resume F-22 production. Mainly though it presents the ready possibility for full scale upgrades and RESET's which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. It doesnt really cost anything to keep the tooling so why jeopardize the future?
that's just false Ron.
ReplyDeletethe F-35 is designed for the air to air mission and will be capable of carrying more than 4 air to air missiles.
the f-22 is already old technology. yes it has formidable stealth but that's about it.
everything else in that airplane is in need of serious upgrade. its avionics package is good but not great and is less advanced than the F-35's. that's not a bad thing, it was designed earlier but its also a fact.
the F-35 will and is meeting requirements. the F-22 like the B-2 will soon be relegated to only high end high risk missions. missions that will be augmented by F-35's and UAVs.
everyone forgets that the F-22 was never designed to operate alone either.
oh and why would you want to operate a fleet of stealth and non-stealth airplanes together? that very concept invalidates the superiority of stealth!
I know the F-22 is old tech on the inside, hence the very need to preserve the tooling so we can upgrade them when the money comes around.
ReplyDeleteAs for the F-15's the PR spin makes you believe that they will operate side by side, but I think that they are more likely to be used in situations where the F-22 is overkill. Think of a country like Iraq or North Korea people who don't really have too much of an Air Force. Why risk operating F-22's when F-15's are more than adequate?
The F-35's A-A capability is there but you have to admit its secondary to the ground attack role. Just look at the design of its internal bay's man, space for 2000pd JDAM's and 2 AMRAAM's internally. The external racks would be needed to carry additional AAM's but then stealth goes out the window.
If anything the F-35 has just enough A-A capability to operate with top cover CAP in a war zone, but lets not kid ourselves that it was ever meant for air superiority and interception.
BTW any thoughts on the increasingly farcical KC-X contest?
ReplyDeleteThings aren't looking too good for the B version. I'm starting to wonder if the B version (when they finally work out the kinks)will be too delicate and problematic for the manner in which it will be used by the Marines. I mean, if the B didn't exist the JSF program would have passed with flying colors.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why it has to be one or the other? And I really don't understand why you would want to destroy the tooling. I generally am in line with your way of thinking, but we diverge on this.
ReplyDeleteWe won't be fighting dune coons in the desert forever. One day we'll fight someone who has just as good toys as we do. On that day we'll want the F-22... and not just 187(or however many) of them.
Ron, the F-35 has 6x external hard points, each of which can carry air to air missiles or fuel or air to ground ordnance. There is also 2x internal hard points and 2x internal rails. A growth option for the F-35 is the addition of a centre-line hard point, for a total of 11x hard points.
ReplyDeleteIf you need it to, F-35 will in fact be capable of carrying 12x AMRAAM missiles and 2x AIM-9X/AIM-132 IR missiles with a combination of external and internal carriage options, not including a potential centre line hard point. Arguing it is somehow lacking in air to air firepower is therefore a nonsense.
If an F-35 needs to carry external weapons, fuel or sensor/EW pods, 'stealth' will NOT 'go out the window'. What WILL occur is that the radar cross section of the aircraft will most likely increase. The IR signature will not measurably increase, nor will the electronic emissions of the aircraft. Furthermore, the existing low observability of the airframe itself will not be effected, so what a targetting radar would see, would be a strange spike in radar returns, at a greater range than if the F-35 were in it 's 'full' LO state.
Your other points are equally flawed, but I've pointed out enough already I hope, to make you think a bit more critically about the capability an F-35 will bring to a fight.
One last point, if an F-35 is incapable of fighting without 'top cover' as you have stated, why are the majority of planned users, intending to use the aircraft as their SOLE tactical FIGHTER?
Are you honestly suggesting the majority of F-35 partner nations haven't done due diligence on their capability needs and considered how and if the F-35 meets these requirements?
If you are, then my friend, you've swallowed FAR too much APA Kool Aid and it's time to remove the tin foil hat....
If what I read about the UK eschewing JSF for Hornets is true, then JSF is in trouble.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.arrse.co.uk/current-affairs-news-analysis/138705-r-n-buy-fa-18f-instead-jsf.html