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Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

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Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#81

Post by JohnBooty »

orwin wrote: post #10
hunglee2 wrote: post #4

Yet despite these problems, the F-35 remains the most commercially successful airframe in the world, with over 670 sold, and 2,500 on order from US-allied countries all over the world. What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

For the first sales (Australia and either Norway or sweden, i dont remember), the US and lockheed Martin hid away the issues and lied on operating cost and availability. For sales to NATO: you have to buy a plane that can carry the US bomb if you don't have one yourself (despite the fact that nukes will probably never be launched from aircrafts if at all). For sales against competition, i don't have a lot of data, bu…

    stealth isn't that much of a factor in defense, especially in the Alps
I'm far from an expert. Can you elaborate?

I know that mountains can help planes evade radar and missiles.

But any fighters used in a defense role (against Russia presumably) are definitely going to need to contend with (Russia's apparently rather capable) air to air missiles.

I think they might well need to deal with SAM as well. Sx00 batteries are portable and presumably an invading Russian force would be bringing them along for the ride with ground forces. So I don't know; stealth seems like one of the most important things these days, if you're planning on engaging anybody with modern air to air missiles.

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#82

Post by 542354234235 »

mrtksn wrote: post #15

Elon Musk recently made some remarks about F-35 on Twitter: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1860574377013838033 It's exactly what I was thinking about: Having a pilot onboard is overhead and its a limiting factor for the flight envelope as you have to keep it alive. Besides, it's not invisible despite calling it that. It's visible in the visible spectrum and hearable in the human hearing range, which means that you can…

First, visible/invisible isn’t a dichotomic distinction, it is a spectrum. Stealth isn’t to make an aircraft “invisible” to radar, it is to reduce its radar signature, which means that radar can’t see an aircraft at all beyond a certain distance, and can make it more difficult to identify and track at closer locations. What that means is that a stealth aircraft can fly “in between” radar stations without being detected, where other aircraft couldn’t, and get closer to an adversaries location before being detected, and be more difficult/take more time to identify it as hostile and engage. That adds up to being able to strike many more of your adversary’s targets and escape without them being able to meaningfully engage you and gives you a significant advantage.

It is just like regular camouflage. You cant just throw on a camo jacket and walk around Walmart and be “invisible”. But in the woods, with the right camo, and the right technique, you can move very “stealthily” and if it allows you to get in a position to kill your enemy before they can see and kill you, that is the point.

Second, is an issue with AI I didn’t see anyone bring up. Related to my first point, stealth is about minimizing signatures and that that includes sending/receiving signals. Situations where an aircraft is operating in a highly contested environment means it may not be able to communicate reliably or safely and maintain stealth (they do have MADL but I am sure it can’t work 100% and maintain stealth perfectly). You would have to delegate complete shooting authority to the onboard AI. That is very difficult for many reasons, just one being accountability (who is responsible if an AI commits a war crime?).

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#83

Post by TiredOfLife »

ossobuco wrote: post #67
KoftaBob wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US isn't the only NATO member that produces fighter jets. EU members of NATO make the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, and the Saab JAS 39 Gripen.

There are no F-35 equivalents beside the Russian Su-57 and Chinese J-20, afaik

F-35 actually exists.

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#84

Post by numpad0 »

orwin wrote: post #10
hunglee2 wrote: post #4

Yet despite these problems, the F-35 remains the most commercially successful airframe in the world, with over 670 sold, and 2,500 on order from US-allied countries all over the world. What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

For the first sales (Australia and either Norway or sweden, i dont remember), the US and lockheed Martin hid away the issues and lied on operating cost and availability. For sales to NATO: you have to buy a plane that can carry the US bomb if you don't have one yourself (despite the fact that nukes will probably never be launched from aircrafts if at all). For sales against competition, i don't have a lot of data, bu…

> stealth isn't that much of a factor in defense, especially in the Alps

I'm confident that DCS and War Thunder pilots would disagree to that

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#85

Post by EasyMark »

orwin wrote: post #35
lloeki wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> despite the fact that nukes will probably never be launched from aircrafts if at all "if at all": that's deterrence. I don't think any nuke-able aircraft small-country customer intent is to launch, but you gotta have the ability to. "from aircrafts": when you have no submarines/silos and carting ground launch platforms around is impractical for your country, aircraft is the only remaining option to display deterren…

If the US need Belgium planes to launch nukes, well, europe is truly fucked anyway. If the US had the French doctrine i.e. any army moving toward France's strategic assets will be targeted with a "warning" shot (yes, the warning shot is to be nuclear), but it does not, US nuclear force is for retaliation only. It will never be launched from planes in the foreseeable future. Which is more than the operational lifetime…

Whatever money it saves over the short term for a country, dissolving NATO is a big blank check for Putin and Xi to whatever, whenever they want, including (attempted) genocide of “previous” NATO countries, like what is happening in Ukraine.

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#86

Post by rstuart4133 »

invalidname wrote: post #63
mrtksn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk can be many bad things, but he is also right in some things. Flying high might make it invisible for human observers but the idea is that it’s not invisible in that wavelength, therefore it must be possible to create devices that can detect it. Also, this is a brand new machine that is still not ready. Just write it off, liquidate any useful work that might have been done on it and go all in drones. What’s the p…

He is wrong about that with the current technology. All you have to do to see that is look at Israel vs. Iran. In a decade drone technology might be enough to do something similar to what the F35 does, but right now the F35 is still the peek of technology. There's a reason Israel ordered more of them. AI might be able to do a dogfight which is great in terms of flight envelope, but completely unnecessary in modern st…

Yet in Ukraine we see the reverse effect. Russia has some very advanced planes that are barely used.

It seems to come down to this: for the same money you can buy 1 F35 or 10,000 long range drones. If you are an army with a few SAM's, what you scare you more: a single F35 coming over the hill, or a swarm of drones so large you had no hope of taking them all out?

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#87

Post by _djo_ »

maxglute wrote: post #77
lm28469 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a bunch of microphones and binoculars would defeat stealth fighters (or any kind of jets) don't you think someone in the US, Chinese or Russian army would have thought about it ? Just as a reminder the thing is coming at mach 1.5-2 and as soon as it can it'll send a little present coming your way at mach 2-4 > therefore it must be possible to create devices that can detect it. What's the probability some over work…

>would have thought about it IIRC in 2000s there was talk by USAF that stealth is a 10-20 year advantage. Not something undefeatable. The actual degree to which stealth can be / is defeated, we wouldn't know until shooting starts. It's ancient technology at this point.

Stealth doesn’t stand still. The latest low-observable US aircraft have lower radar and visual signatures than the previous generation.

It’s not an indefinite ‘lead’, of course, but having decades of experience with LO shaping and materials means you can keep making effective incremental improvements.

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#88

Post by euler_angles »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #83
ossobuco wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no F-35 equivalents beside the Russian Su-57 and Chinese J-20, afaik

F-35 actually exists.

The J-20 exists in significant numbers, as well. The SU-57 really doesn't.

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#89

Post by maxglute »

_djo_ wrote: post #87
maxglute wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>would have thought about it IIRC in 2000s there was talk by USAF that stealth is a 10-20 year advantage. Not something undefeatable. The actual degree to which stealth can be / is defeated, we wouldn't know until shooting starts. It's ancient technology at this point.

Stealth doesn’t stand still. The latest low-observable US aircraft have lower radar and visual signatures than the previous generation. It’s not an indefinite ‘lead’, of course, but having decades of experience with LO shaping and materials means you can keep making effective incremental improvements.

IMO keyword is incremental, but we don't know what relative gap is being maintained against detection... if any. As in detection, queuing, targetting might well have caught up, but the virtue of stealth may still be it forces adversaries to have denser sensor networks, even if it means stealth is dead if caught within net. My understanding focus is more on LO materials vs LO shaping in terms of design (to not compromise kinematics), but report suggest coating is not reliable after decades. If LO fighter that doesn't have optimzied LO shape can't fly with LO coating is not a good combo.

Re: Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study Details Reliability, Security Woes

#90

Post by M3L0NM4N »

Reubachi wrote: post #80
hunglee2 wrote: post #4

Yet despite these problems, the F-35 remains the most commercially successful airframe in the world, with over 670 sold, and 2,500 on order from US-allied countries all over the world. What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

A totally incorrect statement. Super Hornet and Viper both dwarf this number by 10x and in every operational theatre in the world are exactly as competent as JSF. They currently are selling far more in every market than F35b, which is the most sold f35 to everyone's suprise. No market is seeking out f35 specifically for nato congruence/stealth. (Though, The SVTOL variant is a pleasant market-friendly surprise for Loc…

You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about if you say the F35B is the most sold F35 variant. It’s the F35A*.

It’s also STOVL, not SVTOL. You slapped an S in front of VTOL instead of thinking about what the acronym really means.

*From f35.com - Designed to operate from conventional runways, the F-35A is the most common variant operated by the United States Air Force and most international allied customers.

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