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F35 cancelled..by marines


viper-30

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It's only a matter of time....................

There, that will get up a few members noses....again!

Quote by USAF Major of my acquaintance - ex driver of F-86, F-100, F-104, F-89, F-4, A-7, A-10 and others 'F-35 is a POS, never be any good, should buy more F-22s'

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Quote by USAF Major of my acquaintance - ex driver of F-86, F-100, F-104, F-89, F-4, A-7, A-10 and others 'F-35 is a POS, never be any good, should buy more F-22s'

He's just scared of it ;)

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He's just scared of it ;)

He loves the F-16, supposed stealth aside, he says it is way better at ground support than than the new kid on the block. If you have to hang around the battlefield, stealth isn't much help, and it won't turn in combat as the wing is too small to be useful at combat weights. As a former F-104 driver, he should know all about that.

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He loves the F-16, supposed stealth aside, he says it is way better at ground support than than the new kid on the block. If you have to hang around the battlefield, stealth isn't much help, and it won't turn in combat as the wing is too small to be useful at combat weights. As a former F-104 driver, he should know all about that.

The Lt Col, Major and two captains I know would beg to differ.... and two of them have flown both the F-16 operationally and F-35. Frankly, the criticisms you lay out are basically the ones tons of individuals have made over the past decade. Almost every single one has not flown the aircraft, they are relying on scraps of information provided by defence journalists or others opinions. I know a pilot who was very skeptical of the F-35... he had read the same articles as everybody else. Then got some extended time in the full mission simulator and he completely revised his opinion afterwards. While its not the F-22, the F-35 is slightly better than most aircraft out there.

Here's a audio clip from a recent conference from a naval aviator trying to describe the F-35's capabilities in comparison with other aircraft in the USN fleet. Remember that the C has about the lowest performance of all three variants... so the A version would be the best.

http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=289126#p289126

Edited by -Neu-
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The basic issue that journos, defence hacks and retread fighter jocks have is that they are thinking entirely conventionally. They look at the planform, the performance numbers and physical characteristics of the F-35, then make a very conventional and erroneous judgement based on their previous, conventional experience.

What they collectively fail to grasp is the extraordinary capability that the F-35's modern avionics, fly by wire, data processing and connectivity add to the basic platform. It doesn't really matter how well it can turn if it's already tracked and killed the target before anyone knows it's there. Likewise, the point of stealth, advanced acquisition and track/kill capabilities is that the enemy is comprehensively beaten before it even enters the battlefield.

The F-35 is not designed as an airshow performer, dogfighter or cheap lightweight fighter. It's specifically designed to exploit the weaknesses of every other flying enemy that was. It's pointless trying to make comparisons with cheaper,legacy fighters because it simply isn't taking account of the additional, vastly superior situational awareness that even one F-35 has over existing platforms, never mind a pair or flight.

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And one of the giant leaps backward made with the F-35B is having to lug around a socking great lift fan, gearbox, shafting, umpteen doors and their actuators and a small suite of computers to run the whole shebang instead of fuel, weapons, a second pair of eyes or something else that's actually of use to the operator(s). Or even a smaller, more manouverable and more affordable aircraft.

Have the Yanks ever tried getting an F-16 up a ski jump? Somehow I doubt it, so there's another pointless exercise trying to get the Misery of Disarmament interested in that, whilst making sure that premium prices are charged for a forty year old design.

Bring back the Fairey Fruitbat FR/PR/GR. Mk 207!

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Thanks. I couldn't have proven my point any more clearly. A pop journalism piece over two years old, grinding the fiscal axe and wheeling out old faithfuls like Pierre Sprey, whose crusade against the F-35 is well documented and filled with fallacy and wrong conclusions.

But everyone's free to believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of the facts.

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Time will tell. Sadly, with so much money wasted on this project, there is precious little else out there. That report was what...three years old? And yet we have had even more problems since then. Do we believe the hype or the detractors? Somewhere in the middle is the truth, and to me it looks ugly. How do they make the aircraft perform as advertised? Oh, yes....re write the spec to fit the airframe, whereas, of course, the aircraft is supposed to perform to the original spec.

As they say, you can't polish a :shit: , but you can roll it in glitter!

Ever heard of the expression about putting all one's eggs in one basket (case) ?

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What they collectively fail to grasp is the extraordinary capability that the F-35's modern avionics, fly by wire, data processing and connectivity add to the basic platform. It doesn't really matter how well it can turn if it's already tracked and killed the target before anyone knows it's there. Likewise, the point of stealth, advanced acquisition and track/kill capabilities is that the enemy is comprehensively beaten before it even enters the battlefield.

What others collectively fail to grasp is the extraordinary dependence that the F-35's modern avionics, fly by wire, data processing and connectivity add to the support requirements. It doesn't really matter how well this all works if ALIS says that the jet can't go and play. Likewise, the point of stealth, advanced acquisition and track/kill capabilities is irrelevant if the F-35 can't even enter the battlefield.

We moved the UK's nuclear deterrent to a submarine based capability simply because fixed bases, even allowing for dispersal plans, were too vulnerable. Please explain how F-35 overcomes its dependence on fixed bases, even for the B model?

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. Please explain how F-35 overcomes its dependence on fixed bases, even for the B model?

Ah, you just plug in your i-pad round the back of the haystack on your dispersed site. Then of course you are compromised by excess weight, and can't carry a decent fuel or war load.

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Personally I think the F-35 is too far gone in it's development to cancel. The financial cost would be too high and even more so to start all over again. 4th generation fighters such as the F-15 and F-16 have been in service for a long time and I imagine to be quite near their end of life. It would be surprising if the Marines chose to cancel the F-35 as I heard their air frames are very old and in desperate need of replacement.

Not sure if buying more F-22's is the answer. Isn't it an air superiority fighter rather than multi-role and excluded from being sold to export customers.

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Not sure if buying more F-22's is the answer. Isn't it an air superiority fighter rather than multi-role and excluded from being sold to export customers.

It's primarily an air superiority fighter, but is quite capable at ground attack as ISIS has found out.

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I would be happier if we had stayed with the F-35C rather than switching back to the F-35B. That myriad of doors and hatches looks very pretty but the more moving parts there are the easier it is for something to get stuck, or to quote Commander Montgomery Scott: The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

And DO NOT get me started on the lift fan stupidity. There was a reason everybody -except the Soviet Navy- abandoned that concept back in the 1970s.

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The basic issue that journos, defence hacks and retread fighter jocks have is that they are thinking entirely conventionally. They look at the planform, the performance numbers and physical characteristics of the F-35, then make a very conventional and erroneous judgement based on their previous, conventional experience.

What they collectively fail to grasp is the extraordinary capability that the F-35's modern avionics, fly by wire, data processing and connectivity add to the basic platform. It doesn't really matter how well it can turn if it's already tracked and killed the target before anyone knows it's there. Likewise, the point of stealth, advanced acquisition and track/kill capabilities is that the enemy is comprehensively beaten before it even enters the battlefield.

The F-35 is not designed as an airshow performer, dogfighter or cheap lightweight fighter. It's specifically designed to exploit the weaknesses of every other flying enemy that was. It's pointless trying to make comparisons with cheaper,legacy fighters because it simply isn't taking account of the additional, vastly superior situational awareness that even one F-35 has over existing platforms, never mind a pair or flight.

Totally agree ! Budgetary issues apart, most negative comments are the result of analyses on how people believe air combat was 10 or 20 years ago, most critics can't seem to grasp the improvement in capabilities brought by the F-35 program.

This situation reminds me of a letter that was in a book, letter that had been written by a US Army general in the late 19th century where he commented on the introduction of magazine fed rifles. According to the general, these were totally unsuited to military use, they were just a fancy toy good to impress at gun shows but the Army should have stayed well clear of them. Wonder what he'd have said in discovering that only a few decades later not only all combat rifles were magazine fed but also automatic and capable of firing bursts...

Same for the F-35, people may comment negatively now but once the advantages will be clear, everybody will want these capabilities.

What others collectively fail to grasp is the extraordinary dependence that the F-35's modern avionics, fly by wire, data processing and connectivity add to the support requirements. It doesn't really matter how well this all works if ALIS says that the jet can't go and play. Likewise, the point of stealth, advanced acquisition and track/kill capabilities is irrelevant if the F-35 can't even enter the battlefield.

We moved the UK's nuclear deterrent to a submarine based capability simply because fixed bases, even allowing for dispersal plans, were too vulnerable. Please explain how F-35 overcomes its dependence on fixed bases, even for the B model?

And what is the dependence of current fighters on the support requirements ? Fly-by-wire, data processing, connectivity, they all exist in one way or the other on the Typhoon, Rafale and other aicrafts ! So these are fine but the F-35 will not be able to enter the battlefield ? Or should we go back to simple aircrafts with no avionics and disperse them all around the country, only to see them wiped away from the sky as soon as they meet the more modern and sophisticated opponents ?

Reminds me of some comments from Air Force officers in Italy in the late '30s, when some believed that there was no point in the modern monoplane fighters with retractable undercarriage as this was a potential source of problems while biplanes with fixed undercarriages were more robust, more manouverable and more reliable... for some reason though the Spitfire was a better fighter than the CR.42..

Like it or not folks, technology improves ! We can cry how much we can against technological advancements but the world will not stop moving forward because of our cries

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We moved the UK's nuclear deterrent to a submarine based capability simply because fixed bases, even allowing for dispersal plans, were too vulnerable. Please explain how F-35 overcomes its dependence on fixed bases, even for the B model?

By working on the principle that the West will never again get into a hot war with anyone with this kind of capability. Or, if they have the capability, they won't have the will to use it. Which sound like a couple of fair-sized assumptions to me.

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