Here is a really great write-up on the F-35 from Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-are-your-thoughts-on-the-F-35-Lig...
Great read...you should consider submitting this link as an article
Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
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Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#32The underlying problem seems to be that they tried to satisfy too many requirements, and are now ending up with a mediocre product that does nothing well. At this point I would seriously be considering reducing the requirements. Tell the Marines to go find another plane. Maybe the Navy too. Focus on the big customer, the Air Force. Do whatever it takes to make it work for them. (Although I kind of suspect the Air For…
Maybe the Marines should take the A-10 from the Air Force since they don't give a rat's ass about infantry support.
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#33This is surprisingly complex. I expected more points to clearly lean towards it or away from it. There are cost overruns and delays, but renegotiations happened and corrected at least some of that. The plane is real and works, but has weaknesses. It has tentative bipartisan support. We built another Jack of all trades for Veitnam, the F4 phantom. Largely it was regard as a failure because it wasn't good at anything.…
Is the F-4 really regarded as a failure? I thought it was a pretty big success. It certainly wasn't trouble-free. Infamously, the missile-only design ended up being way premature, but that was ultimately solved with a gun pod, and then a redesign to integrate a gun. Its combat record was good, it served in the US military for three decades, and it still serves in several foreign militaries today. However, I'm far fro…
No, you're right. I suspect the plane squeaky was really thinking of was the F-111. The F-35's development process was reminiscent of the F-111, with features incorporated to create something for everyone, along with the concomitant weight and cost increases.
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the F-4 really regarded as a failure? I thought it was a pretty big success. It certainly wasn't trouble-free. Infamously, the missile-only design ended up being way premature, but that was ultimately solved with a gun pod, and then a redesign to integrate a gun. Its combat record was good, it served in the US military for three decades, and it still serves in several foreign militaries today. However, I'm far fro…
No, you're right. I suspect the plane squeaky was really thinking of was the F-111. The F-35's development process was reminiscent of the F-111, with features incorporated to create something for everyone, along with the concomitant weight and cost increases.
Yes, the F-111 would fit much better! Seems like the F-4 and F-111 occupy opposite extremes of the potential outcomes for a jack-of-all-trades aircraft.
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#35This article violates Betteridge's law of headlines.
Actually it doesn't.
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#36Question: many people prefer the A-10 Warthog for ground support, and argue that the F-35 is both overpriced and insufficiently capable for the task. A big part of the reason is the A-10 cannon, which can be used to great effect on enemy targets very near friendly forces, and in a timely manner.
During the Iraq War I remember reports about about AC-130 loitering in circles above a battleground, presumably just out of the effective range of shoulder fired ground-to-air missiles. More importantly, a gunner would use a side mounted cannon on ground targets.
My question is: could be we replace the A-10's (and even the F-35's) ground support role with a similar gunship, but with much a much more accurate cannon; one that could reliably and consistently hit with, say, 1 meter accuracy. Do the existing cannon mounts on the AC-130 utilize accelerometers and mechanisms to compensate for the movement of the plane? Is there existing technology to use, say, lasers to measure wind and air turbulence to improve projectile accuracy? How high could a gunship theoretically loiter with improved technology? (I assume ground-to-air missiles will only get better, and cheaper, and more portable with time.)
Theoretically, such gunships could be flown fully autonomously, with a remote human doing targeting.
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#37Does the world need F35...by the sounds of it f22 was good enough
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#38In a lot of ways yes. It was likely a mistake to base a multi role fighter on a design aimed primarily the first strike role that were the first of the airfoces roles to be handed over to robots(cruise missiles), and it was most definitely a mistake to pick the one role where manned planes are least likely to be replaced by drones as the lowest priority roles. The problem with the F-35 is that it's good at low level…
In a lot of ways no as well. Take for example F-35B. That would've never happened on its own. Too few customers for a separate development project. Whereas now combined with amphibious assault ships it will be a quantum leap for USMC capabilities. Otherwise they'd have to retire Harrier for just V-22, AH-1Z and CH-53K.
It already costs less than its contemporaries Rafale and Typhoon. Remotely operated planes are not cheaper. Take for example MQ-4C Triton, which can only be used for intelligence and recon. That costs around 190 million apiece. Quite the sticker shock when you can get almost two F-35As for the same cost. Basically even if you could get similar capabilities (there are no air to air UCAVs atm), it will cost at least as much for quite some time.
According to pilots flying it, it's equal to clean F-16 within visual range.
F-35 program is also invaluable in utility. Nine countries became partners. Eventually most Nato-members and even some affiliates will adopt it. That's standardization of capability across the board on an unprecedented level.
Quick overview of test results: https://youtu.be/zgLjNsB_hyM?t=4m17s
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#39Question: many people prefer the A-10 Warthog for ground support, and argue that the F-35 is both overpriced and insufficiently capable for the task. A big part of the reason is the A-10 cannon, which can be used to great effect on enemy targets very near friendly forces, and in a timely manner. During the Iraq War I remember reports about about AC-130 loitering in circles above a battleground, presumably just out of…
A-10 has been known to be a MANPADS magnet since the Desert Storm. If you have air superiority, you can keep them, use UCAVs or buy new Super Tucanos. But in contested environment they are useless. Multiroles or bombers with precision weapons are better suited for CAS. Cannons are legacy, which is why you haven't seen a uav concept matching your description. In the future targeting platform and the one doing the shooting might not even be the same.
"Part of the reason the A-10 has enjoyed the amount of success and notoriety it has is because there has been unopposed use of the airspace over Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria. It is not a contested environment. It is not a degraded environment. It’s not an operationally-limited environment–save for bad weather and some really big, nasty mountains in Afghanistan. All of that means our air assets have an ability to fly and operate unmolested in those AORs.
Tomorrow’s fight will NOT be that." https://fightersweep.com/2038/the-a-10-warthog-debate-a-fate...
Re: Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically in any reasonably capable enemy airspace, you need to fly with emissions control - ie. no radio, no radar else passive detection systems will find, triangulate and guide a SAM on you. If you're doing drones, this means programming fully autonomous AI to identify and kill targets - which no one quite wants to do just now. For the same reason, "swarms" are tricky since you need radio coordination. Drones have…
>Basically in any reasonably capable enemy airspace, you need to fly with emissions control - ie. no radio, no radar else passive detection systems will find, triangulate and guide a SAM on you. A cruise missile on final approach don't need forward radars or datalink back to base, and the same goes for almost any kind if missile used since the 2nd world war. Just because remote controlled drones don't work under heav…
You can forget the ground observer. Stealth is the reason why it can fly high all the time to avoid visual/audio detection. Non-stealth planes like F-15E are forced into High-Low-Low-High altitude flight profile. where low level ingress and egress will e.g. drastically reduce range. F-15E going around threats both ingress and egress uses about 30% of its fuel to do so. F-22 would use around 6% in comparison. So basically stealth means that you can waste less fuel on threat avoidance.