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

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

#121

Post by ajuc »

Thoeu388 wrote: post #37

Highway landing and take-off on its own is useless. F35 requires extensive machinery to maintain, in needs proper airport and hangars. It is not possible to operate it somewhere from forest! And vertical landing/takeoff can not support any load, it can not even be fully fuelled! In Czechia we are replacing Gripens that can operate from almost anywhere. It only needs a few hundred meters of road, and single truck to r…

That's what people were complaining about in Poland in 00s when we bought F-16 in addition to our MiG-29.

That the airplanes will be hard to maintain, aren't as rugged, can't handle street landing and improvised conditions. There was a huge scandal because one of the F-16 was flown from USA to Poland and did emergency landing on the way because of some minor technical issue.

20 years later and we lost two MiG-29 to bad maintenance and no F-16.

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

#122

Post by dotnet00 »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #11
paganel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think what a lot of countries, like Germany (German here), for a lesson, is that your current stock of weapons is most useful in the beginning of a conflict as the conflict rapidly changes weapon development and your weapon will need heavy upgrades or they are no longer useful. All western weapons get less useful by the minute.

I don't see how you're reaching that conclusion from Ukraine. What Ukraine has shown is that war is mostly unchanged, you're still mostly just digging trenches and firing artillery at each other.

Sure there are lots of drones, but that's mainly to make up for both side's lack of guided weapons and sufficient air power to establish air supremacy. Neither of which is an issue for NATO.

The situation in Ukraine has only been validating western military planning by showing that precision strike capability and air power are key.

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

#123

Post by moffkalast »

Sharlin wrote: post #75
fmajid wrote: post #66

Parking lots would make more sense than highways.

Parking lots would make no sense whatsoever, and I fail to see how you’d even get the idea that they would.

I assume OP means because it's a VTOL? It doesn't need a runway, just a large enough flat spot.

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

#124

Post by avereveard »

Thoeu388 wrote: post #117
thunderbird120 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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! I don't know where you heard that but it's completely untrue. Some older radar absorbent material required intensive maintenance but the F-35 is not like that. It's not that much more difficult to maintain than a previous generation fighter. It would b…

Right now that is not verifiable. It is a clasiffied information, only supported by claims from manufacturer. And maintaince cost is already dispuded at court in Switzerland. >It would be completely impractical to operate if you needed to completely overhaul it every flight. And? Maybe it is every 2nd or 10th flight, that does not make it much more practical. Cost for operating F35 is astronomical. Old Soviet airplan…

And their circle of hit probability with preprogrammed missiles is misured in hundreds meters instead of a handful. The war for which they were built never materialised, and their performances now largely obsolete.

And who's going to sell you replacement parts anyway if your principal adversary is also your plane supplier? You want suppliers that don't threaten to nuke you every other week.

Soviet planes came at a much higher cost...

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

#125

Post by phil21 »

koheripbal wrote: post #118
wongarsu wrote: post #105

Cold-War West Germany had about 30 "Emergency Airstrips", about 3km long Autobahn sections that could be converted to airports for military use. Complete with parking lots designed for aircraft parking, mobile air control towers, etc. Large enough that we landed C-130 Hercules on them. Similar strips exist in Finland, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. Though most of the German locations are now retired and removed.

This is true in the US and Canada as well.

> This is true in the US

As far as I could tell after a bar argument, this is more or less an urban legend[0]. While the referenced article only debunks the "Every 5 miles" myth, further (brief) reading led me to believe if there were ever any designed airstrips into the interstate system they were short-lived and likely very one-offish style programs.

[0] - https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/mayjune-2000/one-mile-...

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

#126

Post by meepmorp »

ethbr0 wrote: post #29
carabiner wrote: post #8

Sikorsky is gonna bring back the Comanche. I can feel it. Yeah baby!

That's the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30405/behold-sikorskys...

Dunno, the V280 was selected for FVL and FLRAA at the end of 2022; if only for pilot training and maintenance logistics, it probably makes more sense for FARA to go that way, as well.

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

#127

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

H8crilA wrote: post #120
koheripbal wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true in the US and Canada as well.

Crucially this is also true in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force has found a new clever way to keep using normal air bases. After a hangar got bombed by cruise/ballistic missiles they would print a 1:1 aerial/satellite picture of the rubble, hang it over the actual rubble and then clean up under the print. It took quite a few weeks for the Russians to understand this ruse. The doctrine of always having air superiority…

> After a hangar got bombed by cruise/ballistic missiles they would print a 1:1 aerial/satellite picture of the rubble, hang it over the actual rubble and then clean up under the print. It took quite a few weeks for the Russians to understand this ruse.

This sounds very interesting! Any sources?

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

#128

Post by Sharlin »

moffkalast wrote: post #123
Sharlin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parking lots would make no sense whatsoever, and I fail to see how you’d even get the idea that they would.

I assume OP means because it's a VTOL? It doesn't need a runway, just a large enough flat spot.

Yes, I realized that afterwards, but it’s not VTOL but STOVL. I believe it can take off vertically but mostly for airshow demonstration purposes, with minimal fuel and armament.

In any case, highways make much more sense logistically and operationally.

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

#129

Post by Pixie_Dust »

“in light of potential Russian aggression in Europe”

Who was it pushed NATO right up against Russia's border. Despite repeated statements from the Russians that there would be push-back. --

coob > “NATO have always been on Russia’s border.” (deleted)

On the Soviet Unions border. When the Soviets relinquished control of the client states to the west, they were given an understanding that NATO would not expand east.

(and modded down)

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

#130

Post by [deleted] »

Pixie_Dust wrote: post #129

“in light of potential Russian aggression in Europe” Who was it pushed NATO right up against Russia's border. Despite repeated statements from the Russians that there would be push-back. -- coob > “NATO have always been on Russia’s border.” (deleted) On the Soviet Unions border. When the Soviets relinquished control of the client states to the west, they were given an understanding that NATO would not expand east. (a…

[deleted]
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