the delusion of the f-35 bootlickers knows no bounds "we canceled the f-22 because it was too expensive and built to defeat an enemy that doesn't exist" but at the same time "we can't use any of our proven CAS in the future because we will be fighting enemies with advanced SAM sites" as if we couldn't just use any of the other stealth aircraft in our fleet to knock out sam sites. as if insurgents/isis/etc have access to substantial amounts of SAM sites. what is the best case scenario for the 35cucks? The aircraft finally becomes merely average at the things it was designed to? What a value at a mere TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS. the f35 is the worst defense department boondoggle in history and youre white knighting it over a plane which has steamrolled the nigh invincible f15 in every training exercise. care to explain to me why the f35 isnt complete shit? "b-b-but the f22 had reliability problems" The F-35 would kill to have the reliability of the f22. The F-35 makes the fucking F-104 look like a fucking volvo. http://www.military.com/daily-news/...ate-reliability-of-f-35-engine-very-poor.html http://defensetech.org/2014/01/29/report-f-35-cracks-in-tests-isnt-reliable/ http://www.defensenews.com/article/...026/Kendall-Fan-Blade-Rubbing-Cause-F-35-Fire The engine has had 2 total redesigns since 2006 alone because of catastrophic failures. The F-35 is supposed to take the place of the F-18 as a carrier based weapons system? Only problem is that the stealth skin can't be repaired at sea. Any damage requires the plane to be sent back to lockheed on land to be fixed. http://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...ugh-f-35c-air-ship-integration-issues-377171/ Oh, and we have to retrofit the entire fleet to make it capable of holding the stupidly heavy f35. Why don't you throw that into your per-unit cost analysis. But hey, maybe this thing is hell on wings and offers a substantial improvement over every current airplane? Oh wait, it sucks. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ealth-fighter-10-years-behind-older-jets.html “EOTS is a big step backwards. The technology is 10-plus years old, hasn’t been able to take advantage of all the pod upgrades in the meantime, and there were some performance tradeoffs to accommodate space and stealth,” said another Air Force official familiar with the F-35 program. “I think it’s one area where the guys are going to be disappointed in the avionics.” http://blogs.reuters.com/great-deba...t-f-35-fighter-cant-turn-cant-climb-cant-run/ https://medium.com/war-is-boring/so...ns-latest-stealth-fighter-report-2ef94297330d Only one third of F-35s are flight-ready But the F-35’s independent “inertial” navigation gear—which determines the plane’s position by constantly computing starting point, direction, speed and time—is off by a few degrees. That’s just enough to make it useless in combat. “These errors prevent accurate targeting solutions for weapons employment in a GPS-denied environment,” the Pentagon warns. There's also the problem where it can't fly at night http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...rease-risk-of-being-shot-down-u-s-pilots-warn "If I do not keep that F-22 fleet viable, the F-35 fleet frankly will be irrelevant. The F-35 is not built as an air superiority platform. It needs the F-22."- Air force general Michael Hostage. The F-35 is the most expensive weapons project in history and it does all of its jobs worse, and at a higher operating cost, than things currently in existence.
2 Squadrons heading to AK https://www.adn.com/article/20160404/air-force-oks-f-35-fighter-jet-squadrons-eielson-air-force-base Big for our local economy Spoiler Air Force OKs F-35 fighter jet squadrons at Eielson Air Force Base Erica MartinsonAlaska Dispatch News April 4, 2016 An F-35 Gatling gun fires during a flight over China Lake Weapon Range, California.U.S. Air Force photo/Chad Bellay The Air Force will send two squadrons of F-35A fighter aircraft to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, the military announced Monday. The announcement marked the last in a series of formal steps toward the decision to bring 54 new stealth strike fighters to Alaska, accompanied by nearly 3,000 people connected to the F-35 program, including airmen and contractors. Eielson has “the largest airspace in the Air Force,” a “strategically important location with a world-class training environment” and easy access to the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex -- all of which, combined, “ensures realistic combat training,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in a statement announcing the final decision. The move comes after years of lobbying by Alaska’s elected officials -- local, state and congressional -- for the high-dollar military project, in hopes that it would prevent downsizing at the base. The Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce, which has advocated in favor of locating the new F-35 squadrons at the base, said the new construction and additional military families could add $1.3 billion in annual revenue for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. The military’s program to develop the new aircraft, called the “F-35 Lightning II” and produced by Lockheed Martin, has come under fire for years of delays and cost overruns. The nearly $400 billion cost makes it the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history. Design flaws, such as dangers related to a $400,000 pilot’s helmet featuring a mounted display system, have plagued the roll-out. The Air Force already has 26 F-35As, the version of the aircraft that is headed to Eielson, stationed at bases in the Lower 48. There are 16 alternate versions (F-35B and F-35C) in the hands of the Marines and Navy. The new F-35As are scheduled to arrive in Fairbanks in 2020, and construction at the base should begin in fiscal year 2017, the Air Force said Monday. The aircraft were originally expected to arrive in 2019, but the “Air Force is facing a shortage of experienced, active-duty fighter aircraft maintainers as we transition” away from older aircraft, said Lt. Gen. John B. Cooper, the deputy chief of staff in the Air Force for logistics, installations and mission support. While the Air Force works on training active-duty officers in Alaska, new F-35s will first go to the Burlington Air Guard Station in Vermont in 2019, flip-flopping the original schedule. The Air National Guard already has an “experienced fighter aircraft maintenance force,” Cooper said. Alaska Rep. Don Young (R) said he would keep a close eye on the decision to swap timelines for Burlington and Eielson “to ensure the Air Force and the F-35 program stay on track.” Young inserted language in defense authorization bills that encouraged the decision to move the F-35s to Eielson. The Air Force estimated that homing two new F-35A squadrons at Eielson would boost the total base population by 55 percent -- to 7,751 -- by adding 2,765 people, according to an environmental review of the plans released in February. The report estimated that the new squadrons would add 1,076 active-duty military members, 487 civilian and contractor employees, and 1,202 military dependents. Currently, there are just short of 2,000 active duty military personnel stationed at the base. More than a dozen types of types of aircraft operate temporarily from Eielson, along with 21 F-16s, 9 KC-135s and 2 HH-60s that are stationed at the base, according to the environmental review. Adding 54 F-35s and more than 1,500 military and civilian employees will require a lot of construction at the base, including new buildings and updated infrastructure. The Air Force estimates the construction will cost $453 million and impact about 66 acres of land. President Barack Obama’s latest budget request includes $295.6 million for F-35 related construction at Eielson Air Force Base in the next fiscal year. Alaska’s congressional delegation and Gov. Bill Walker cheered the decision Monday, citing the economic benefits to Fairbanks, and the implications for Alaska’s position as a strategic outpost for national security. The decision to put two F-35 squadrons in Fairbanks establishes Alaska as “a critical hub of combat air power for our nation,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who noted “rising threats in the Arctic, on the Korea Peninsula, and in the South China Sea.” Walker said the decision “has once again confirmed Alaska’s strategic significance and critical location on the globe.” “From the announcement to delay cuts to JBER’s 4-25, basing the Gray Eagle UAV’s and Apache Helicopters at Fort Wainwright, keeping the F-16s at Eielson and now today’s announcement, it is clear [the Defense Department] understands that Alaska’s strategic value -- its vast training areas, proximity to the Asia-Pacific, and our commitment to serving our military -- is unmatched anywhere else in the world,” Young said after the announcement. Lawmakers noted that the decision signed Monday marks a major turnaround for the fate of the base. “The road to today’s announcement began in 2005 when it was determined that Eielson Air Force Base would be shut down. Alaskans pulled together and fought hard to stop that from happening, ultimately making today’s news a reality,” Walker said. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the news “a remarkable reversal of fortune for Eielson Air Force Base.” Citing her positions on the Defense Appropriations and Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittees, Murkowski said she will “work to fund the planes, the people, and the military construction to make this a reality.”
bricktop if you think those redesigns are funny and this is all a big waste of money you should see the development of literally any aircraft. its all underbid overspent behind schedule underfunded delayed testing clusterfuck. f-35 just happens to be the biggest one.
more like why do we have littoral combat ships when we already have super carriers, nuclear submarines, missile cruisers, hovercraft, destroyers, etc. there's not a single role that the F-35 does better than current platform.
Isn't that the point of the program? To be good enough in multiple categories to sell to all three services?
Good at nothing, average at everything isn't a reassuring philosophy I want our armed forces to be built around
It originally was.going to be AF and Navy. But the Navy said no and put out another bid, resulting in the F 14.
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. I find it funny that a plane so many people do not want is going to a base that has iffy weather (?) and was scheduled for closure 10 years ago
Well, I get why politicians associated with the development and manufacturing of it would defend it. I get why workers at those facilities would defend it. I can't understand why people on here and irl that have nothign to do with it are still trying to defend the program.
Location location location, most useable airspace for any Air Force base in the world, infrastructure, etc. Not sure what weather has to do with it when considering the temperature these planes fly at at altitude or the fact there's been F-16s based here for decades. And with the F-22s in Anchorage they wanted to spread out our top two fighters.
The weather is because so far, the F-turdy-five (huehuehue) has not been able to actually operate in any sort off inclement weather.
Doubt anyone in the thread would defend all the missteps in the program. I suspect all the reasonable posters in, while not having a financial investment in the development, will be working with the f-35s in some way for the next 20 years once they finally go IOC. So they are very interested in the end product and have a more grounded perspective than "omg this blogger from Australia says it sucks let's stop the program." And the arguments you guys are making against it being a single multi purpose aircraft replacing numerous others sounds silly. You're not arguing against the F-35 at this point, you're arguing with the pentagons understanding of the direction of modern air warfare. Not only that but it will still almost certainly perform better at all those functions than any other country. It will be a jack of all trades and master of all in comparison.
Of course they are eventually going to have a product that is fully operational. But when and at what cost? This plane was promised to do certain things. It doesn't do those and this is after several years of development beyond the promised delivery date and many billions of dollars over budget. That is the point here.
I mean I'm sorry Lockheed and everybody involved misused tax payers money in the development. If that's your only point then yeah, it sucks when that happens. But the F-35 is going to be our 5th generation, so we're moving forward with what we got, which is more capable than anyone else.
We already have a 5th gen fighter. One that is far and away the best fighter in the world. It is and will be better than the F-35 will be. At being a fighter.
The f-22 is mostly a tacair fighter. The state of air warfare is moving away from dog fights and towards SAMs, AAA, EW, and PGMs. That's what I was talking about in the previous post. Pentagon wants to move towards a single aircraft that can most effectively do everything. I mean if you're saying lets just build more f-22s instead, now we have to go back and develop another 5th generation bomber, another plane to launch off aircraft carriers, and more variants of those with EA suites.
"sure it can't achieve air superiority over any modern enemy, but at least it can't do any of the jobs it needs to do as well as presently available aircraft" this is literally the best defense that delusional f35cucks can come up with. "b-b-but the fact that multirole aircraft exist justifies the f35" How come when we build multirole aircraft last time, they were cheap and effective. The f-16 was just as technologically advanced at the time as the f-35 is now, except it actually represented a cheap and effective way to do multiple things. Same with the F-18 and to a lesser extent the F-14 and F-105. even the F-15 saw effective multirole capability with the introduction of the F-15E The f-35 is just a fucking design disaster and every available statistics, measurement, wargame result and analysis say it. "b-b-but the pentagon knows more than you!" the air force is insanely political and there's no shortage of officers looking to make their career as the person who developed some sort of critical f-35 protocol or purchase deal. Not to mention, there's basically an infinite pipeline of retired officers who move straight into defense contracting. But of course, no officer would ever push for the f-35 then take a 250k a year job at lockheed after retirement. that certainly never happens and the way DoD budgeting works would never tacitly encourage officers to blow through huge loads of money in order to justify an inflated budget for the next year. never ever.
ALIS software is so ridden with bugs that the entire F-35 fleet can be grounded http://motherboard.vice.com/read/th...-ground-the-whole-fleet?utm_source=vicenewsfb
Part 1: https://news.vice.com/article/what-is-the-pentagons-multi-billion-f-35-jet-actually-supposed-to-do-1 Part 2: https://news.vice.com/article/what-does-the-f-35-mean?utm_source=vicenewsfb Three part VICE article on the F-35. These first two paint a glorious picture of the aircraft. It's design and it's intended capabilities and purpose. It's the greatest! It's going to revolutionize everything! We're the best and everyone with this thing will be the best too! Can't wait for Part 3 about quirks, problems, and idiosyncrasies with the aircraft.
The Danes fucking love it http://breakingdefense.com/2016/05/f-35-wins-denmark-competition-trounces-super-hornet-eurofighter/
Probably not. If all systems are working, F-35 would make the kill from 100s or miles away without being noticed.
The second article is one of the best I've seen at laying out the global implications of the F-35. Freeing us up from some of the conflicts and telling other countries to handle it is a nice ancillary benefit of the program and makes the cost over runs a little more tolerable.
I think long range stealthy drones with incredibly powerful computers that can pull incredible g's (no human inside) to elude interception are going to make all this a gigantic waste. As far as the stuff about aircraft carriers.... Couple drone technology with the new anti-ship missiles and torpedoes out there that even second rate powers can afford makes concentrating all those assets on vulnerable flattops rather dicey. Meaning, even if they manage to work out all the kinks, even if the F-35 works as designed and envisioned... I think the days of manned air-to-air combat and gigantic floating warships imposing power across the globe are increasingly numbered. If our country (and our allies) are going to spend > $1 trillion on this, I really hope I'm wrong.
They really lost me talking about nukes though. That shit was just too much imagination and speculation.
I feel the same way. You'll probably see the end of manned millitary aircraft by ~2075 Airlines will probably never ditch manned aircraft because airline passengers would be freaked out pretty bad knowing there was no pilot.