Forum: F-35 Lightning II

stereospace wrote:

"There is no fifth generation aircraft other than the F-35 available to Canada and the United States, so all the hypothetical discussions—and quite negative discussions, quite frankly—about this program are really just clatter and noise.” ~Peter MacKay

Mr. MacKay does not look happy about all this...

The Flight Testing is going well and the Training Squadrons progressing quite nicely. Further, production aircraft are coming off the line and building momentum. Yet, all you hear from the critics is the same old doom and gloom. So, do you blame them? Confused

Funny, the F-35 Critics sound exactly like the ones during the development of the F-16 Viper and M-1 Abrams Tank. Doh

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stereospace wrote:

FlightDreamz wrote:

bjr1028 wrote:

The Air Force really doesn't have an alternative, but I think the naval variants are dead meat.

Well the F-35B STOVL seems to be in trouble (seems a real shame with all the time and trouble spent on it). Not sure if the U.S.A.F. doesn't have an alternative to the F-35 though. They could still possibly reopen the F-22 production line (with the F-35 delays and overruns the F-22 almost looks reasonably priced)! And the F-15 & F-16 lines are still open...

Quite honestly, other than getting the price down, I don't understand all the negativity here. The folks actually flying these planes are raving about them. The governments and ministers who've been briefed seem to be firmly committed. The Marines are 100% behind the Bee. Other than minor issues, testing is going well. Far from running away, more foreign customers seems interested in getting in on the program.

So on what is all the doom and gloom based? On what factual indicators, not your wishful thinking, are the Bee and Sea dead meat? WTF

Affordability is the central issue, and the biggest danger to the program. If costs are unable to be controlled - given the already massive increases in actual and predicted costs - the program will be unsustainable for the number of aircraft envisioned. The -B has added issues with weight, structural components, powerplant, reliability - all which are the process of mitigation - and actual relevancy in combat (an ongoing debate.) We really don't have much feedback about the -C, other than testing has demonstrated that an arrestor hook redesign is needed. The -C is vulnerable basically because the Navy has options if the -C gets overweight or too expensive. And if you know aviators, we always love our aircraft...

alloycowboy wrote:

The real problem with the F-18E Super Hornet is that it only has a 390 Natical Miles combat radius. The F-35C has a combat radius of 640 Natical Miles. That is 164% farther for those of you doing the math.

Some journalists have no idea why the F18 is too old/short legged and Canada “urgently” needs the F35!

Canada and Denmark at War!
http://notoriusunpublicus.blogspot.com/ ... t-war.html

Canada in quarrels with Denmark over control of Hans Island

In 1984 the Danish minister of Greenland, Tom Höyem, flew with a helicopter to Hans Ö and raised the Danish flag. He also put up a sign "Welcome to the danish island".
In 1988 the danish patrol ship HMDS Tulugaq visited the island and raised a new flag.
In 1995 soldiers from Thule flew to the island and raised another flag.

June 13, 2005 Canadian soldiers raised the Canadian flag and built a inushuk. A week later the Canadian minister of defence, Stephen Harper, visited the island.

"With immense natural wealth and the growing potential for new global trade routes, the strategic importance of Canada's Arctic is heightened as never before," Harper told reporters and military personnel aboard the frigate. He has repeated his message after becoming Prime Minister.

Harper repeated his oft-quoted line about Arctic sovereignty — "use it or lose it"

LPD’s, F35’s, armed arctic Ice breakers. Plus Canada suddenly also has plans ordering nuclear Virginia subs!!!

Canada & Denmark will have some competition. Lots of words to digest at URL jump.

Putin Seeks Arctic Riches By Dr. Richard Weitz Nov/23/2011

http://www.sldinfo.com/putin-seeks-arctic-riches/

"...Although Russia has sought to avoid triggering a strategic race for Arctic riches, Moscow’s ambitions to develop the Arctic have worried the United States, Canada, Norway, and Denmark, the other states that have claims to Arctic territory. In 2009, Denmark began the process of setting up an Arctic Command within its armed forces, citing the region’s heightened “geostrategic significance” in light of the contention over it. This force will include an Arctic Response Force, a specialized military unit adapted to Arctic conditions capable of quick response throughout the region.

Canada has begun to flex its military muscle in the Arctic, recently conducting the country’s largest Arctic military exercise ever in the Canadian High North....

...Yet, the Arctic is not fated to become an arena of international conflict. Cooperation and joint development of the region could develop that would satisfy all parties. The forum for such an agreement would likely be the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum made up of the eight Arctic states (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) that seeks to cooperatively address the issues facing the Arctic region...."

@ Spazsinbad. Wasn’t serious, just joking about journalists
Greetz m

Not so sure all of these journalistic messages are in fact jokes. At least some of these 'journos' could very well be part of a calculated and purposeful 'project' with the game to promote both 'division' between Canada and Denmark (and division between Canada and Europe in general). Classic divide and conquer.

One interesting note not widely known is that Greenland actually has the closest undersea 'land bed' stretching to the 'True' North Pole. This is pretty interesting actually as a third state was the one who 'set' the flag, via mini-sub, on the sea floor of the North Pole a few years back. (That flag being neither Danish or Canadian).

So how clever and fascinating if there is some grand conspiracy to snatch away the official owner of the North Pole (an independent Greenland) when others were diverted by quarrels! Perhaps instead, Canada and Denmark should instead be coordinating to form a consortium for mutual Arctic sea floor resources development with Greenland authorities?

---------

As for Corsair's point above about 'Critics' getting the F-16 Program wrong in the early days too... there's really no similarity. At least in the F-16 days, an early F-16 actually cost the price of an early F-16 and if all else failed, at least there was an F-20 in the interim as a potential Plan B. Today, the complexity of the F-35 is a whole other animal and the jet is not anywhere near the cost of a current day F-16. Best to differentiate here and let the natural critics at heart be born critics and the strategically minded and calculating critics be represented. imho

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the F-20 as plan B during the F-16's early days. The YF-17 was the alternative. Or they could have restarted production of the then obsolete F-4. But the F-20 was purely an F-X program option.

Corsair1963 wrote:

stereospace wrote:

"There is no fifth generation aircraft other than the F-35 available to Canada and the United States, so all the hypothetical discussions—and quite negative discussions, quite frankly—about this program are really just clatter and noise.” ~Peter MacKay

Mr. MacKay does not look happy about all this...

The Flight Testing is going well and the Training Squadrons progressing quite nicely. Further, production aircraft are coming off the line and building momentum. Yet, all you hear from the critics is the same old doom and gloom. So, do you blame them? Confused

Funny, the F-35 Critics sound exactly like the ones during the development of the F-16 Viper and M-1 Abrams Tank. Doh

...as did those of the now-holy F-18 (pick your variant). Plastic jet, too much glass (information) in the cockpit, overweight from naval mods, deficient in range, deficient in roll rate, massive development overruns, unit costs too high, etc etc.

Once once the F-35s make it to Top Gun/Red Flag exercises the DoD will see what they can do, they will tell Congress that they rock/suck, and Congress will stop funding them because they are so good that the DoD doesn't need all they asked for in the first place or because they were a waste of money. I'm betting on the former, but can anyone else honestly say they can't see one of the two happening? Just look at the F-22 history. It came(late), it saw, it kicked everyones tailpipes, it got CnXed because it cost a lot of money.

And the only reason the original F-16A didn't cost that much is because it had nothing on it. Talk about specified role, daytime clear weather WVR dogfighter. That was it. Then they gave it a multi mission radar and strapped it's weight in bombs to the outside so they could stop using the SLUF and Phantom as bombers. No way was the USAF going to let their precious "not a pound for air to ground" Eagle be laden down with bombs... Until McD-D demonstrated the Strike Eagle as an F-111 replacement. If the F-16 was developed in the late 1970s to have the capability of a Block 50/52+ it would have caused an outrage over the cost. The F-15A was already decried for its astronomical cost. So the "high" cost a lot for pure A-A dominance, which it had for decades, and the "low" costs just as much due to needing to fill so many other roles... just like right now with the F-22/F-35.

The view from Bloomberg today...

Quote:

$1 Trillion Pentagon Budget Cut Is Possible but Not Wise: View

Before the body of the congressional budget supercommittee was even cold, we heard outcries over the Pentagon budget cuts mandated by its demise.

“I will not be the Armed Services Committee chairman who presides over the crippling of our military,” vowed Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, a California Republican, on Tuesday.

Reasoning for the inclusion of the F-35 on the list:

Quote:

our high-quality current generation of F-16 and F- 18 jet fighters makes Lockheed-Martin Corp.’s (LMT) F-35 an unnecessary luxury;

Full article can be found here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-2 ... -view.html

That's about the dumbest thing I've heard in months. An unnecessary luxury? Our f-16's and F-18's are falling apart! They certainly won't last forever and the F-35 offers the only option for replacement of all of our aging aircraft with something that can sustain our military dominance! Whatever, let's just keep our F-16s in service until 2030 and F-18's in service until 2040. That is a wonderful idea! Rolling Eyes

We knew that the cost cutting would come....today ACC announced that they will only be supporting the F-22 Raptor and Thunderbirds display teams in 2012 - scrapping Viper East/West, A-10 East/West, and Strike Eagle Demonstration Teams.

Full release quoted below.

Quote:

ACC statement about reduction of single-ship demo teams in 2012

We face significant fiscal constraints and are making tough decisions about the best ways to continue providing combat airpower to warfighting commanders, which is what we do as the Air Force’s primary force provider.

One decision we’ve made is to sponsor one single-ship demonstration team for the 2012 air show season, scaling back from the six teams we’ve historically sponsored – A-10 East & West, F-16 East & West, F-15E and F-22.

For the 2012 season, we’re sponsoring our F-22 demonstration team to perform at up to 20 shows. In addition to the F-22 demonstration team, the Thunderbirds are set to complete a full season next year, and their schedule will be announced next week at the International Council of Air Shows conference.

Reducing the number of single-ship demonstration teams will allow us to reallocate more than 900 sorties to our wings so they can maximize their flying hours for combat readiness training, offsetting some of the reduction we’ve seen in flying hours. Most importantly, reallocating those sorties will provide an increase in more than 25 combat-ready fighter pilots – that’s a very good thing for our Nation and wise stewardship of our limited resources.

The opportunity to showcase our aircrew at air shows around the country is important – and we’re confident our Thunderbirds, F-22 demonstration team and Air Force Heritage Flight Foundation will continue highlighting the extraordinary work of all our Airmen.

http://www.acc.af.mil/shared/media/docu ... 01-048.pdf

hotrampphotography wrote:

We knew that the cost cutting would come....today ACC announced that they will only be supporting the F-22 Raptor and Thunderbirds display teams in 2012 - scrapping Viper East/West, A-10 East/West, and Strike Eagle Demonstration Teams.

To my mind, those teams do fall into the category of luxury. I would even qualify the Thunderbirds as a luxury, but there are a few federal departments I'd close and some entitlements I'd scale back before I defunded the T-Birds.

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

US Defence Secretary - F-35 may be cancelled.