F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

BON PLAN

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Nigga please! Wasn't the first Rafale crash also due to a disoriented pilot. So far F-35 already has more orders than Rafale and those inducting it are happy, the only ones bitching are armchair nobodies. Nigga Norway F-35 getting IOC in their respective airforce has nothing do to the fighter but national requirements and adherance to SOPs. Rafale won't get IOC in India for another 2-3 years and FOC will only be granted after the last of the 36 with ISE clears all trials, probably around 2023. So nigga take your dumb nigga logic and wipe your ass with it. You're ignorance has a pungent stink.
Rafale lost was flying alone, in the dark night, during a AtoA training mission.
The Japan one was with 3 others, in a routine flight, at the end of the day (ie with day light).
 

BON PLAN

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Nigga please! Wasn't the first Rafale crash also due to a disoriented pilot. So far F-35 already has more orders than Rafale and those inducting it are happy, the only ones bitching are armchair nobodies. Nigga Norway F-35 getting IOC in their respective airforce has nothing do to the fighter but national requirements and adherance to SOPs. Rafale won't get IOC in India for another 2-3 years and FOC will only be granted after the last of the 36 with ISE clears all trials, probably around 2023. So nigga take your dumb nigga logic and wipe your ass with it. You're ignorance has a pungent stink.
Nigga ????
It says a lot about you.
 

vampyrbladez

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You sound too sure.
Plan is to replace ALL F-18. 2017 budget allocation allowed only 14 Super Hornet buys for 2018. But due to excessive wear & tear due to Syrian war, the availability rates of Super Hornet felt dramatically to 30%. The new aircraft orders are to fulfill that immediate need. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a22778556/us-navy-fighter-shortage-progress/

Current Navy carrier air wings each have four fighter squadrons equipped with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The near term goal is to replace half of the Super Hornet fleet, the older half, with the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter.

The long term goal is for F/A-XX (a 6th generation aircraft) to replace the remaining Super Hornets, leaving each air wing with two F-35C squadrons and two F/A-XX squadrons. This is because there is residual life left in newer squadrons.

There is nothing that F-18 can do that F-35 cannot and you cannot replace F-35 with F-18. https://www.popsci.com/you-cant-replace-f35-with-f18-donald-trump-tweet/
Pardon our President.
Go look up transonic acceleration of the F 35C. It is the worst of all the variants. It is also the most maintenance heavy. The plane lacks agility to engage in carrier fleet air superiority roles.

Trump is absolutely right. The F 35C is no match for an F 18 SH in WVR.
 

vampyrbladez

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@BON PLAN stick to the topic. Trolling will not help you won arguments. It makes you look juvenile and weakens your case.
 

asianobserve

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no buddy tanker capacity
no AGM 88 HARM and AARGM
but I'm not a defense industry specialist.
You should really not be commenting about the F-35:

1. There's no need for B2B refuelling for either F-35B or F-35C when you have Boeing's MQ-25-

Boeing's MQ-25 Stingray Carrier-Based Tanker Drone Demonstrator Flies For The First Time

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...r-drone-demonstrator-flies-for-the-first-time

It's such a waste of figher airframe to use it for refuelling. Fighters ate for fighting air, sea or land targets.

2. Northrop Grumman has been awarded contract to manufacture AGM-88G which fits inside F-35 internal weapons bays, flies faster and further, among other things-

Navy Orders Development Of New Air Defense Blasting Missile That Will Fit Inside F-35

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...se-blasting-missile-that-will-fit-inside-f-35

USAF F-35As Will Get Navy's New Air Defense Busting Missile Amid Talk Of Anti-Ship Variants

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...sting-missile-amid-talk-of-anti-ship-variants
 
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asianobserve

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Go look up transonic acceleration of the F 35C. It is the worst of all the variants. It is also the most maintenance heavy. The plane lacks agility to engage in carrier fleet air superiority roles.

Trump is absolutely right. The F 35C is no match for an F 18 SH in WVR.

F-35C will avoid WVR st all cost. But should it be forced to go near an enemy fighter then EOTS, DAS, HMD, AMRAAM or AIM9X will ensure that the F-35C will get the first opportunity to shoot.

Remember that any F-35C strike package will be preceded by stealthy UAVs or F-35Cs in full stealth. The ones who will fire the missiles are always going to be the F-35 formation at the back.
 

vampyrbladez

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F-35C will avoid WVR st all cost. But should it be forced to go near an enemy fighter then EOTS, DAS, HMD, AMRAAM or AIM9X will ensure that the F-35C will get the first opportunity to shoot.

Remember that any F-35C strike package will be preceded by stealthy UAVs or F-35Cs in full stealth. The ones who will fire the missiles are always going to be the F-35 formation at the back.
In the 'merge' all stealth goes to waste. There the ability to point your nose and fire is what matters the most.
 

asianobserve

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In the 'merge' all stealth goes to waste. There the ability to point your nose and fire is what matters the most.
No need to point your nose when your missile aims where you look at. Note that in the F-35 you can look at your enemy even through the floor.

And with 40+G LOAL jam resistant missiles, the aircraft that will most likely to survive are 5th gen like the F-35 which has intuitive sensors fusion system, radar and IR signatures mitigations, most advanced EW systems, are more likely to be able to shoot first and survive. So far the best aircraft with these capabilities built into is the F-35.

But as I said, F-35 pilots will avoid at all cost getting into visual fight.
 

vampyrbladez

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No need to point your nose when your missile aims where you look at. Note that in the F-35 you can look at your enemy even through the floor.

And with 40+G LOAL jam resistant missiles, the aircraft that will most likely to survive are 5th gen like the F-35 which has intuitive sensors fusion system, radar and IR signatures mitigations, most advanced EW systems, are more likely to be able to shoot first and survive. So far the best aircraft with these capabilities built into is the F-35.

But as I said, F-35 pilots will avoid at all cost getting into visual fight.
When in the merge, switch to guns. That's why all the variants have a gun.
 

BON PLAN

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You should really not be commenting about the F-35:

1. There's no need for B2B refuelling for either F-35B or F-35C when you have Boeing's MQ-25-

Boeing's MQ-25 Stingray Carrier-Based Tanker Drone Demonstrator Flies For The First Time

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...r-drone-demonstrator-flies-for-the-first-time

It's such a waste of figher airframe to use it for refuelling. Fighters ate for fighting air, sea or land targets.

2. Northrop Grumman has been awarded contract to manufacture AGM-88G which fits inside F-35 internal weapons bays, flies faster and further, among other things-

Navy Orders Development Of New Air Defense Blasting Missile That Will Fit Inside F-35

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...se-blasting-missile-that-will-fit-inside-f-35

USAF F-35As Will Get Navy's New Air Defense Busting Missile Amid Talk Of Anti-Ship Variants

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...sting-missile-amid-talk-of-anti-ship-variants
off topic.
The initial question was : "There is nothing that F-18 can do that F-35 cannot and you cannot replace F-35 with F-18."
=> there are....
 

BON PLAN

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@BON PLAN stick to the topic. Trolling will not help you won arguments. It makes you look juvenile and weakens your case.
what? Nigga?
If it's the case it's strange your answer, very strange. partiality ?

If not, what else? If this thread is only there to make praises of the flying brick, modify the title please.
 

BON PLAN

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asianobserve

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When in the merge, switch to guns. That's why all the variants have a gun.

Even during the Vietnam war the A2A record ratio was 3:1 - 3 missile kills for every 1 gun kill. And that was the time when most air engagements 1) happened in WVR; and 2) A2A missiles were mostly duds.
 

asianobserve

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In the 'merge' all stealth goes to waste. There the ability to point your nose and fire is what matters the most.
Of course not. 5th gen fighters like the F-35 have better IR mitigation measures and their advanced and integrated sensors - AESA+EOTS+DAS+HMD - makes the kill chain shorter than 4th or 4.5th gen fighters.
 

asianobserve

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And imagine if Peregrine missile is inducted into service. With its trimode seeker the F-35 will be devastating.


Credit to Doge @ F-16.net
 
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Armand2REP

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The F-35 Might Not Be Able to Fly in the Desert
November 7, 2019
The most expensive weapons program in U.S. military history has yet another technical problem.

by Sebastien Roblin

Key Point: The F-35 continues to have a litany of problems.


After eighteen years of troubled and controversial development, the Lockheed F-35 Lightning stealth fighter may soon enter mass production, many of its bugs having been expensively squashed after delivery of an initial four-hundred “low-rate-of-initial-production” aircraft.


However, a June 2019 scoop by Defense News journalists Valerie Insinna, David Larter and Aaron Mehta has revealed thirteen serious Category-1 flaws remain.

As reported by Insinna and Larter, on two occasions late in 2011 an F-35B and F-35C flying near their maximum service ceiling of 50,000 feet damaged themselves using their afterburners to attain speeds of Mach 1.3 and 1.4.

Remarkably, these eight-year-old incidents had not been previously reported to the public, despite numerous critical reports by the Government Accountability Office and Department of Testing & Evaluation.


Officially, all models of the F-35 have a maximum speed of Mach 1.6, though such speeds are rarely attained in routine operations. Like all but a few jet fighters, the F-35 relies on afterburners to sustain supersonic speeds. These bypass the jet’s turbine to inject fuel directly into the tailpipe, producing a huge boost in speed at the expense of gulping fuel and causing a brilliant plume of hot exhaust to trail behind the fighter, as you can see in this video.

However, the documents obtained by Defense News reported that heat from afterburner exhaust caused an F-35B to experience “bubbling and blistering” of its radar-absorbent materials (RAM) and of its horizontal tail surfaces and boom.


Heat damage also “compromised the structural integrity” of the horizontal tail and boom of an F-35C. Sensitive sensors buried inside the skin of the rear tail surfaces could also have proven susceptible to damage.

Since the incident, the Marines have instituted a policy requiring F-35B pilots not to engage afterburners for more than eighty seconds cumulatively at Mach 1.3, or forty seconds at Mach 1.4. Navy F-35C pilots have fifty seconds at Mach 1.3 to ration.


To “reset” the afterburner allowance, they must then allow three minutes non-afterburning flight for the tail area to cool down to avert damage.

Though looser restrictions on safe afterburner usage exist for other jets, the document apparently acknowledges the restrictions imposed on the F-35B and C are “not practical/observable in operationally relevant scenarios.”


After all, a pilot in a combat situation would likely struggle to count exactly how many seconds the afterburners have been cumulatively engaged while attempting to manage the many other tasks demanding his or her attention.

An F-35 pilot might still choose to exceed afterburner limits during an urgent combat scenario, accepting the risk that the plane might sustain “degradation of [stealth], damage to antennas, and/or significant horizontal tail damage.” However, this could then result in the jet being removed from operations while it awaits depot-level maintenance, which could be especially problematic for carrier-based squadrons.


The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin, however, maintain the problem is minor—noting that the damage occurred only near the F-35’s maximum altitude, and insisting that since the incidents in 2011 the afterburner damage has never been replicated despite multiple attempts.

F-35 program lead George Ulmer characterized the tests as being performed at the “highest extremes of flight testing conditions that are unlikely replicated in operational scenarios.”


Furthermore, new thermal coatings first introduced on Lot 8 of the F-35s have reduced the risk of thermal damage. However, Ullmer also admits the coating hasn’t eliminated the problem, which is deemed too rare to warrant further correction.

This last caveat, combined with the fact that the restrictions on afterburner-usage apparently still remain in effect, strike a discordant note to the confidence that the afterburner damages reported in 2011 were merely freak incidents.


Though rare, pilots may resort to sustained afterburners in scenarios, such as attempting to intercept bombers or missiles racing towards an aircraft carrier—an especially vital job for carrier-based fighters.

An F-35 seeking to evade incoming enemy fighters or anti-aircraft missile might also resort to sustained afterburners. Stealth aircraft are by no means completely undetectable, and part of the way Lightning pilots will seek to manage the threat posed by more agile incoming fighters is by keeping their distance.


Other Category-1B Issues

Of the other Category-1 deficiencies, the most serious is an incident reported on by Aaron Mehta in which the lift fans on an F-35B vertically landing on the amphibious ship USS Essex failed to generate enough thrust due to ambient temperatures above 90-degrees Fahrenheit. The Lightning managed to land, but its pilot was “shaken.”


Obviously, high temperatures are common in areas such as the Middle East, and such failures could lead to hard, damaging landings or accidents. Though the incident was apparently unique, it reportedly risks occurring to F-35Bs which have flown for more than 750 hours and are heavily loaded for combat operations.


The F-35 program leads do admit the problem could recur and have begun implementing software patches and recalibrated throttle valves to address the problem.

Two other Category-1 issues arose from visual artifacts associated with the pilot’s “X-Ray vision” flight helmets that are expected to be fixed with new forthcoming Generation III helmets. Software patches, meanwhile, are expected to address a buggy battery-failure reports in low-temperature environments, while mechanical fixes are hoped to address cabin pressure regulation spikes which caused excruciating sinus pains in two pilots.

The Navy is also dissatisfied that the F-35’s radar can only perform tight-beam rather than wide-area searches for ships at sea; however, maritime scanning capabilities are set to be improved in the forthcoming Block 4 upgrade.

Insinna and Mehta also cover the extensive problems in both functionality, cyber-security and data-sovereignty associated with the F-35’s ALIS ground-based logistic systems. These well-known problems have proven so pervasive they may lead the Air Force to simply develop in-house software to replace it entirely.

As successful fourth-generation jets like the F-16 and F-14 Tomcat also had troubled early services lives until their bugs were weeded out, the F-35’s proponents argue the new jet is merely experiencing typical growing pains.

Lockheed Martin maintains the newly revealed flaws by Defense News are either on the verge of being fixed or have not been experienced with any frequency. However, the failure to report these supposedly rare problems may inspire some doubts about the program’s transparency as it pushes for approval to begin full-rate production.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-might-not-be-able-fly-desert-94081
 

asianobserve

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The F-35 Might Not Be Able to Fly in the Desert
November 7, 2019
The most expensive weapons program in U.S. military history has yet another technical problem.

by Sebastien Roblin

Key Point: The F-35 continues to have a litany of problems.


After eighteen years of troubled and controversial development, the Lockheed F-35 Lightning stealth fighter may soon enter mass production, many of its bugs having been expensively squashed after delivery of an initial four-hundred “low-rate-of-initial-production” aircraft.


However, a June 2019 scoop by Defense News journalists Valerie Insinna, David Larter and Aaron Mehta has revealed thirteen serious Category-1 flaws remain.

As reported by Insinna and Larter, on two occasions late in 2011 an F-35B and F-35C flying near their maximum service ceiling of 50,000 feet damaged themselves using their afterburners to attain speeds of Mach 1.3 and 1.4.

Remarkably, these eight-year-old incidents had not been previously reported to the public, despite numerous critical reports by the Government Accountability Office and Department of Testing & Evaluation.


Officially, all models of the F-35 have a maximum speed of Mach 1.6, though such speeds are rarely attained in routine operations. Like all but a few jet fighters, the F-35 relies on afterburners to sustain supersonic speeds. These bypass the jet’s turbine to inject fuel directly into the tailpipe, producing a huge boost in speed at the expense of gulping fuel and causing a brilliant plume of hot exhaust to trail behind the fighter, as you can see in this video.

However, the documents obtained by Defense News reported that heat from afterburner exhaust caused an F-35B to experience “bubbling and blistering” of its radar-absorbent materials (RAM) and of its horizontal tail surfaces and boom.


Heat damage also “compromised the structural integrity” of the horizontal tail and boom of an F-35C. Sensitive sensors buried inside the skin of the rear tail surfaces could also have proven susceptible to damage.

Since the incident, the Marines have instituted a policy requiring F-35B pilots not to engage afterburners for more than eighty seconds cumulatively at Mach 1.3, or forty seconds at Mach 1.4. Navy F-35C pilots have fifty seconds at Mach 1.3 to ration.


To “reset” the afterburner allowance, they must then allow three minutes non-afterburning flight for the tail area to cool down to avert damage.

Though looser restrictions on safe afterburner usage exist for other jets, the document apparently acknowledges the restrictions imposed on the F-35B and C are “not practical/observable in operationally relevant scenarios.”


After all, a pilot in a combat situation would likely struggle to count exactly how many seconds the afterburners have been cumulatively engaged while attempting to manage the many other tasks demanding his or her attention.

An F-35 pilot might still choose to exceed afterburner limits during an urgent combat scenario, accepting the risk that the plane might sustain “degradation of [stealth], damage to antennas, and/or significant horizontal tail damage.” However, this could then result in the jet being removed from operations while it awaits depot-level maintenance, which could be especially problematic for carrier-based squadrons.


The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin, however, maintain the problem is minor—noting that the damage occurred only near the F-35’s maximum altitude, and insisting that since the incidents in 2011 the afterburner damage has never been replicated despite multiple attempts.

F-35 program lead George Ulmer characterized the tests as being performed at the “highest extremes of flight testing conditions that are unlikely replicated in operational scenarios.”


Furthermore, new thermal coatings first introduced on Lot 8 of the F-35s have reduced the risk of thermal damage. However, Ullmer also admits the coating hasn’t eliminated the problem, which is deemed too rare to warrant further correction.

This last caveat, combined with the fact that the restrictions on afterburner-usage apparently still remain in effect, strike a discordant note to the confidence that the afterburner damages reported in 2011 were merely freak incidents.


Though rare, pilots may resort to sustained afterburners in scenarios, such as attempting to intercept bombers or missiles racing towards an aircraft carrier—an especially vital job for carrier-based fighters.

An F-35 seeking to evade incoming enemy fighters or anti-aircraft missile might also resort to sustained afterburners. Stealth aircraft are by no means completely undetectable, and part of the way Lightning pilots will seek to manage the threat posed by more agile incoming fighters is by keeping their distance.


Other Category-1B Issues

Of the other Category-1 deficiencies, the most serious is an incident reported on by Aaron Mehta in which the lift fans on an F-35B vertically landing on the amphibious ship USS Essex failed to generate enough thrust due to ambient temperatures above 90-degrees Fahrenheit. The Lightning managed to land, but its pilot was “shaken.”


Obviously, high temperatures are common in areas such as the Middle East, and such failures could lead to hard, damaging landings or accidents. Though the incident was apparently unique, it reportedly risks occurring to F-35Bs which have flown for more than 750 hours and are heavily loaded for combat operations.


The F-35 program leads do admit the problem could recur and have begun implementing software patches and recalibrated throttle valves to address the problem.

Two other Category-1 issues arose from visual artifacts associated with the pilot’s “X-Ray vision” flight helmets that are expected to be fixed with new forthcoming Generation III helmets. Software patches, meanwhile, are expected to address a buggy battery-failure reports in low-temperature environments, while mechanical fixes are hoped to address cabin pressure regulation spikes which caused excruciating sinus pains in two pilots.

The Navy is also dissatisfied that the F-35’s radar can only perform tight-beam rather than wide-area searches for ships at sea; however, maritime scanning capabilities are set to be improved in the forthcoming Block 4 upgrade.

Insinna and Mehta also cover the extensive problems in both functionality, cyber-security and data-sovereignty associated with the F-35’s ALIS ground-based logistic systems. These well-known problems have proven so pervasive they may lead the Air Force to simply develop in-house software to replace it entirely.

As successful fourth-generation jets like the F-16 and F-14 Tomcat also had troubled early services lives until their bugs were weeded out, the F-35’s proponents argue the new jet is merely experiencing typical growing pains.

Lockheed Martin maintains the newly revealed flaws by Defense News are either on the verge of being fixed or have not been experienced with any frequency. However, the failure to report these supposedly rare problems may inspire some doubts about the program’s transparency as it pushes for approval to begin full-rate production.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-might-not-be-able-fly-desert-94081
There's nothing in this article that proves the title! This is one of the worst piece of journalism ever. 1) The tail coat blistering is very rare. 2) The loss of thrust of F-35Bs on landing only happened once and most importantly, most of tge time USMC F-35Bs will land conventionally in the ME runways than on ships since the US and allies have airfields all over the whole region.

In fact, F-35s was recently deployed to the ME. Certainly no F-35 crashed.

Air Force's F-35A Deploys to Middle East for First Time


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mi...f-35a-deploys-middle-east-first-time.html/amp
 

asianobserve

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F-35 operating from Al Dafrha Air Base, UAE


With full weapons load in UAE:


And Israeli Air Force F-35s:


All operating in desert or hot climate areas.
 

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