F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Immanuel

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Now why would a professional force with perhaps among the best SOPs and refined tactics like the Israeli AF deploy the F-35 when it only achieved IOC in December. IOC in a professional AF is long checklist which only certifies the aircraft can be used safely in the country with some limited capability. Sure it can be used to shoot down incoming intruders, drop a few bombs etc but to deploy it into harms way when the tactics aren't fully refined yet is something that a force like IAF won't do, It is not a banana republic AF like PLAAF or PAF which rushes to declare a bird operational.
http://www.sldinfo.com/the-israeli-...writing-the-next-chapter-in-airpower-history/

So all articles claiming that a F-35 was shot down or shot at is simply fake news
 

asianobserve

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Only first batch is operational it probably means the batch is more for training and opening air combat envelope purposes.

Besides, Israeli F-35s (and all the rest) are still waiting for the next 3f software drop to unlock its full capabilities. I think the Israelis are still integrating their weapons and systems on their F-35s.
 

BON PLAN

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F-35 takes flak, but still flying high

"since its inception in the late 1990s, the price tag for the stealthy plane has skyrocketed from a vastly over-optimistic estimate of $40 million a copy, to more than $100 million, with projected costs topping $1 trillion to keep the aircraft flying over its projected 60-year lifespan."

“This program is deeply troubled,” said Dan Grazier, a senior military fellow with the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group. “This program was deeply flawed from the very beginning. There were some really bad assumptions that were made, and some really bad decisions that were made before the contract was even awarded.”

“Finally and most importantly, the program will likely deliver Block 3F [full war fighting software] to the field with shortfalls in capabilities the F-35 needs in combat against current threats,” Behler wrote in his annual report.

And the reality is, unlike the F-22 raptor, whose production was cut short when the cost spiraled off the charts, there is no Plan B if the F-35 were to be canceled or curtailed.

“Part of the justification of cutting shorter the production of the F-22 was, 'Hey, we have the F-35 coming up right behind it.' Well, we don’t have the next aircraft coming up right behind the F-35, so pushing forward with the F-35, unfortunately, is the only option we have at the moment,” Grazier said.
 

BON PLAN

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What Went Wrong with the F-35, Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter?

The F-35 was billed as a fighter jet that could do almost everything the U.S. military desired but has turned out to be one of the greatest boondoggles in recent military purchasing history

Officially begun in 2001, with roots extending back to the late 1980s, the F-35 program is nearly a decade behind schedule, and has failed to meet many of its original design requirements.

In spite of its significant advantages, the F-35A’s test pilot noted that the F-35A was less maneuverable and markedly inferior to the F-16D in a visual-range dogfight.

One key reason the F-35 doesn’t possess the world-beating air-to-air prowess promised, and is likely not even adequate when compared with its current potential adversaries, is that it was designed first and foremost to be a stealthy airplane. This requirement has taken precedence over maneuverability, and likely above its overall air-to-air lethality. The Pentagon and especially the Air Force seem to be relying almost exclusively on the F-35’s stealth capabilities to succeed at its missions.

The plane looks smaller on radar – perhaps like a bird rather than a plane – but is not invisible. The F-35 is designed to be
stealthy primarily in the X-band, the radar frequency range most commonly used for targeting in air-to-air combat. In other radar frequencies, the F-35 is not so stealthy, making it vulnerable to being tracked and shot down using current – and even obsolete – weapons.

Of course, radar is not the only way to locate and target an aircraft. One can also use an aircraft’s infrared emissions, which are created by friction-generated heat as it flies through the air, along with its hot engines. Several nations, particularly the Russians, have excellent passive infrared search and tracking systems, that can locate and target enemy aircraft with great precision – sometimes using lasers to measure exact distances, but without needing radar.

Pierre Sprey, a cofounding member of the so-called “fighter mafia” at the Pentagon and a co-designer of the F-16, calls the F-35 an “inherently a terrible airplane” that is the product of “an exceptionally dumb piece of Air Force PR spin.” He has said the F-35 would likely lose a close-in combat encounter to a well-flown MiG-21, a 1950s Soviet fighter design. Robert Dorr, an Air Force veteran, career diplomat and military air combat historian, wrote in his book “Air Power Abandoned,” “The F-35 demonstrates repeatedly that it can’t live up to promises made for it.


https://www.scientificamerican.com/...e-f-35-lockheed-martins-joint-strike-fighter/
 

asianobserve

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scatterStorm

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What I think as of the western aviation might after reading dozens of books by the very members of there intelligence organizations, is that they have shifted there policy of being a "bragrilla". It might be possible that they might be downplaying the qualities of F-35s and it could be a maneuverable fighter, not super-maneuverable because that part is handled by the F16s, F22s formations.

They have placed this product strategically. They know that it's not super-maneuverable but it's job is entirely different! That is to say, assisting the front-line formations. I am writing this because, we have to take the time factor, research involved, progression and evolution in system avionics over the years in this product. It's like a flying supercomputer built for assisting stuff.

DCS 2.5 and aircraft game simulator developed by "eagle dynamic" which is famous for ditto copying the flight profile and avionics functions of real fighter jets was blocked to gain access to F35 flight performance data, because there game engine can simulate the flight parameters as they have done it previously with F15s. In a written statement it was later told that F35s is still a very tight lipped issue.
 

BON PLAN

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US Navy opts for the Advanced Super Hornet in all but name...we know how the F-35 vs Super Hornet comparison worked out!

Thanks to Super Rhino for the link!



via Combat Aircraft.net
US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) is awarding Boeing a $219,600,000 contract for non-recurring efforts associated with Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) 6503 for the design, development, test and integration of the conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) for the Super Hornet. Work will be completed in July 2022.

The Navy first said it would fund a number of the Advanced Super Hornet (ASH) capabilities under the Block III upgrade in June last year.

The concept for modernizing the ‘Rhino’ includes the CFTs, large area cockpit displays, a powerful new computer processor and a superfast digital network.

The Navy wants the CFTs, the Elbit 10 x 19-inch cockpit displays, the new computer, Distributed Targeting Processor-Networked (DTP-N) and ultra-fast high-band connectivity referred to as Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT).Story here.

Don't believe me. Follow the money. The USN is in the process of buying the Advanced Super Hornet in bits and pieces.

They aren't buying it all at once, but if you follow their procurement then with the exception of the weapons pods they're on track to buy every widget that Boeing threw there way.

There is no need for an announcement from the SecDef's office with regard to how the F-35 vs Super Hornet comparison worked out.

It's now obvious the Super Hornet won and Mattis might not like the outcome but he will follow Navy wishes.

Posted by Solomon at 2/17/2018 12:00:00 AM
 

asianobserve

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What I think as of the western aviation might after reading dozens of books by the very members of there intelligence organizations, is that they have shifted there policy of being a "bragrilla". It might be possible that they might be downplaying the qualities of F-35s and it could be a maneuverable fighter, not super-maneuverable because that part is handled by the F16s, F22s formations.

The maneuverability exhibited by the F-35 in the Paris Air Show certainly was something that I've seen only in TVC equipped fighters. This plane has so much nose pointing authority as can be seen in the Paris Airshow demo video. The power back flip and rudder turns (with full authority) from that demo also certainly were very impressive and have only been seen in F-22 demos among Western fighters.

I'll repost the video for facility:

 

asianobserve

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US Navy opts for the Advanced Super Hornet in all but name...we know how the F-35 vs Super Hornet comparison worked out!

Thanks to Super Rhino for the link!



via Combat Aircraft.net
US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) is awarding Boeing a $219,600,000 contract for non-recurring efforts associated with Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) 6503 for the design, development, test and integration of the conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) for the Super Hornet. Work will be completed in July 2022.

The Navy first said it would fund a number of the Advanced Super Hornet (ASH) capabilities under the Block III upgrade in June last year.

The concept for modernizing the ‘Rhino’ includes the CFTs, large area cockpit displays, a powerful new computer processor and a superfast digital network.

The Navy wants the CFTs, the Elbit 10 x 19-inch cockpit displays, the new computer, Distributed Targeting Processor-Networked (DTP-N) and ultra-fast high-band connectivity referred to as Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT).Story here.

Don't believe me. Follow the money. The USN is in the process of buying the Advanced Super Hornet in bits and pieces.

They aren't buying it all at once, but if you follow their procurement then with the exception of the weapons pods they're on track to buy every widget that Boeing threw there way.

There is no need for an announcement from the SecDef's office with regard to how the F-35 vs Super Hornet comparison worked out.

It's now obvious the Super Hornet won and Mattis might not like the outcome but he will follow Navy wishes.

Posted by Solomon at 2/17/2018 12:00:00 AM

Another ignorant article. The US Navy Navy is not favoring the F-35. Remember that there are 317 legacy Hornets and 500 Super Hornets. Legacy Hornets are retiring soon while the Super Hornets are still relatively brand new aircraft and thus will remain in service for decades more. It means that the F-35s will only replace the legacy Hornets while the Super Hornets need to be updated to remain competitive at a time when China is already fielding 5th gen J-20 in the Pacific, the theater where Super Hornets will main operate from.

In other words, these upgrades to Super Hornets fleet are necessary.
 
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