kallend 2,175 #1 October 16, 2017 More F-35 woes: www.thedailybeast.com/the-air-force-just-bought-100-stealth-fighters-that-cant-fight... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
winsor 236 #2 October 17, 2017 kallend More F-35 woes: www.thedailybeast.com/the-air-force-just-bought-100-stealth-fighters-that-cant-fight The F-35 is the Swiss Army Knife of airplanes. When you try to get one tool to do it all, you can't really expect it to do anything supremely well. It also tends to be overly expensive. To carry the analogy a bit further, I'd be a lot less concerned by an assailant armed with a Swiss Army Knife than a Marine with a Ka-Bar or a Gurkha with a kukri. The F-35 reminds me of a commercial where the recommended projectiles for the catapult were bags of gold coins. "You're saying we should just throw money at them?" BSBD, Winsor Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
yoink 321 #3 October 17, 2017 kallend More F-35 woes: www.thedailybeast.com/the-air-force-just-bought-100-stealth-fighters-that-cant-fight Oh no. Guess the other one thousand six hundred of them that are combat capable will just have to carry the load... No point in throwing good money after bad. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 644 #4 October 19, 2017 The original concept was to use one list of spare parts (pumps, valves, solenoids, etc.) to supply three different versions assigned three different missions. They hoped to share 80 percent of parts. Planners hoped that a simplified spare parts list would reduce the cost of maintenance over the 50ish year life of the plane. USAF fighter was the easiest mission to fulfill because USAF bases have such long runways. When the USN wanted a carrier-capable version, their shorter runways (less than 1,000 feet/ 270 metres) required larger wings, stronger landing gear and arrestor hooks. Larger wings allow slower approaches while tougher undercarriages survives harsher (unflared) carrier landings. Finally, all jet fighters need arrestor hooks, but since the navy tends to reuse their arrestor hooks, they need retractable hooks. USMC runways are so ridiculously short that Marines asked for a Vertical Landing version. Vertical Landings required adding a lift fan to the forward fuselage and puffer ports. Fortunately, the lift fan fit into a compartment vacated by a fuel tank. Every version requires different software and training regimes. While some critics whine that F-35 is not "stealthy" enough ...... remember that it has always been a game of leap-frog between stealthier airplanes trying to sneak past progressively better acoustic/radar/sonar/infrared sensors. The latest sensors are so secretive that they paint their labels with stealth paint. Damned if I can read that label! Ha! Ha! New technology is so stealthy that the public does not even hear about until its replacement nears production. Ideally, a new technology completes its service life before the press hears about it (e.g. Aurora spaceplane). Every new generation is required to fly faster or farther or higher or more stealthily than the previous generation. Every improvement drives up costs to the point that only a handful of newly-designed airplanes enter service every decade. F-35 is an attempt at reducing the cost of supplying too many different airframes (USAF, USN, USMC, Royal Air Force, etc.). The other motivation for increasingly sophisticated airplanes is "the voters back home." No mother ever wants to hear that her son died because he flew into battle in anything but the best possible airplane. Any elected official who sent her dear departed son into battle with less than the best airplane ........ will not survive the next election. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TriGirl 349 #5 October 25, 2017 riggerrob The original concept was to use one list of spare parts (pumps, valves, solenoids, etc.) to supply three different versions assigned three different missions. They hoped to share 80 percent of parts. Planners hoped that a simplified spare parts list would reduce the cost of maintenance over the 50ish year life of the plane. True. But... Quote USMC runways are so ridiculously short that Marines asked for a Vertical Landing version. . No. We needed the VSTOL version because we wanted it to replace our Harriers, which is our VSTOL jet aircraft. We already have missions and employment for this capability, so we still wanted the capability. They asked all the services what they needed in a replacement jet, and that is what we told them. They built it for us. Since we usually get everyone else's cast-offs, I for one was happy to see our requirement list get taken seriously. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
