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British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

thedrive.com

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Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#71

Post by ethbr0 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #36
ethbr0 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flight hours + HR costs. The key financial advantage of drones is that they don't need money to live after work, health insurance, or a pension plan. It's expensive to ask people to risk their lives for work. And specifically for forward deployment scenarios: they don't require human support infrastructure pushed forward, at great cost. Even in austere military terms, it's logistically expensive to keep a human a…

>It's expensive to ask people to risk their lives for work. Unless you're in the Russian army.

The Russians are paying good-for-Russia bonuses to attract recruits, as well as giving anyone who fights or builds for the military in Ukraine veteran status.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#72

Post by ummonk »

Thoeu388 wrote: post #57
chipsa wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's vertical landing, not vertical take off. It's still a short rolling take off. I actually wouldn't be suprised to find they do a short rolling landing too (rather than go full hover, use the lift fan to allow them to land at lower than normal stall speed would be). They've tested the rolling landing on board the HMS QE And yes, for full maintenance, you do need need a proper airport and hangars. But for a quick r…

From what I know, we only have single military airport capable of supporting F-35. Fully loaded F35 needs 2.5 km of high quality concrete. It also needs extensive overhaul after every flight to maintain stealth coating. There is no "quick refual/arm" with stealth, it is more like operating Space Shuttle! There are also civilian airports, but we would propably run out of those very soon. And using civilian infrastruct…

There's no phenomenon that causes the F-35 to magically lose its stealth coating at the end of exactly one flight. You can obviously delay maintenance for a few flights just fine.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#73

Post by gostsamo »

chipsa wrote: post #64
Thoeu388 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I know, we only have single military airport capable of supporting F-35. Fully loaded F35 needs 2.5 km of high quality concrete. It also needs extensive overhaul after every flight to maintain stealth coating. There is no "quick refual/arm" with stealth, it is more like operating Space Shuttle! There are also civilian airports, but we would propably run out of those very soon. And using civilian infrastruct…

A Boeing 787 needs 2.8km of high-quality concrete for a runway. A F-35 is known to have low maintenance stealth coatings, so you don't need extensive overhaul every flight. If you're fighting other countries from Czechia, the most likely countries to fight are either Russia, or it's minion Belarus. In which case you're probably not worrying about the politics of using civilian infrastructure.

Or you are part of a NATO operation against Serbia. Mentioning it, because the conflict in Kosovo is not resolved yet.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#74

Post by Sharlin »

madaxe_again wrote: post #49
sillywalk wrote: post #18

"FTA: they would involve placing aluminum AM-2 mats along a strip of highway, up to 1,500 feet long. This will be sufficient for the stealth jets to carry out short takeoffs and vertical landings while protecting the road beneath them." "AM-2 matting consists of 1 1/2" x 2' steel rectangles coated with a epoxy nonskid material, available in both 6 and 12 foot lengths, and are assembled in a brickwork pattern to form…

I can’t help but think it must be about protecting the aircraft rather than protecting the surface, as in ukraine roads are commonly built out of reinforced concrete slabs, and somewhat less commonly, but still frequently, they are built to take the weight of tanks, and are wide and straight enough to accommodate even large aircraft - there’s a strip of highway north of Mariupol that was originally built to accommoda…

Is concrete used much in Europe? I’d think asphalt is a much more common highway surface material.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#76

Post by gostsamo »

lumost wrote: post #9
darkclouds wrote: post #2

[flagged]

the pilot isn't the expensive kit, although the flight-hours to train them may be. Even an unmanned NGAD will probably cost ~500MM.

People can withstand only certain G-s of acceleration. Remove them, and you have a much more manueverable craft.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#77

Post by marvin »

tudorw wrote: post #30

Would this make highways a legitimate military target?

This is in the context of fighting Russia, and current events demonstrate that the legitimacy of a target is moot.

But of course highways, infrastructure, is a relevant thing to destroy in war.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#78

Post by gostsamo »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #45
crote wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having AI kill humans on their own without any supervision is an extremely controversial move. It will result in friendly fire sooner or later, and the resulting controversy is pretty much guaranteed to terminate the program. Laser comms are neat, but they suffer from things like clouds or smokescreens. And once you figure out the wavelength, a hostile laser comms sat can trivially jam it.

How can you jam a laser from a satellite to a drone, if it is one way? With the sensor on top of the drone, e.G. a Predator? Wouldn't you need something flying higher than the drone?

you can directly target the satellites. Currently in development in Russia, China, and the US.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#79

Post by jacquesm »

sillywalk wrote: post #18

"FTA: they would involve placing aluminum AM-2 mats along a strip of highway, up to 1,500 feet long. This will be sufficient for the stealth jets to carry out short takeoffs and vertical landings while protecting the road beneath them." "AM-2 matting consists of 1 1/2" x 2' steel rectangles coated with a epoxy nonskid material, available in both 6 and 12 foot lengths, and are assembled in a brickwork pattern to form…

Interesting, here is a picture with a bit more detail:

https://ascelibrary.org/cms/10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.00016...

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#80

Post by jacquesm »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #46
albertopv wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tank days were numbered, and yet they still are heavily used

An aside thought: the days of soldiers riding horses into battle is currently considered to be an outdated mode of warfare. It seems quaint to even consider that one day warriors on horseback may again be the prominent warring force on our planet. And yet here we're are packed with nukes, as if we couldn't make it all happen.

It will be a long while before you have enough horses.
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