Forum: F-35 Variants and Missions

Back to the WVR discussion, with legacy systems, is a close-in fight more or less likely at night given visibility constraints? Once they work out the bugs in the HMD, it's superior night vision should weigh heavily in the F-35's favor.

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munny wrote:

Perspective's a bitch aint it.

It sure is.

So a 5% increase in the F-35 budget means what, another 12.5 billion dollars overall? How much is an aircraft carrier again?

UK Accepts F-35 as New Nations Commit to Production
AIN Defense Perspective » July 27, 2012 by Chris Pocock

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... production

"...High angle-of-attack [F-35] flight tests are under way..."

spazsinbad wrote:

UK Accepts F-35 as New Nations Commit to Production
AIN Defense Perspective » July 27, 2012 by Chris Pocock

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... production

"...High angle-of-attack [F-35] flight tests are under way..."

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... af-369838/

“…There are still four more years of potential changes due to discoveries during flight test, he said. However, he believes that the biggest discoveries have probably been found….”

But…
"We have told the contractor and the programme office that there is no more money," USAF secretary Michael Donley told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on 20 March. "To the extent that if there continues to be cost growth or challenges it's going to be paid for by tails."

Contractors love being paid more for doing less. Either someone jacked with the original specs too much or the original specs were too high for the available money. LM wins and taxpayers lose. The song remains the same.

How does LM win?
1. They are vilified by naysayers
2. It has lost tails already for both Partners and DoD
3. Production is delayed
4. Profit margin remains virtually the same.

The only way they lose is if it gets cancelled for something they do. So far they got more overall money for producing less actual product. How did they not win? The points you listed are inconsequential when you have a monopoly on the program.

Quote:

How did they not win?

1. Bad Press
2. Less airframes means less parts and support over the lifetime of the program (the biggest chunk of profit is in lifetime parts)
3. There is an ever-increasing push for UCAV to replace a lot of the F-35's missions. Most of this push comes from the increasing cost of the F-35.

jeffb wrote:

So a 5% increase in the F-35 budget means what, another 12.5 billion dollars overall? How much is an aircraft carrier again?

Still doesn't make it more of a failure than those other programs. It could slip 1% and still have a higher program cost dollar increase and you'd still call it a failure.

Mind you, the program unit cost in that report will reduce significantly when FRP starts, while the Zumwalt will just get more and more expensive.

So my statement still stands, saying that its the MOST FAILED program of modern times is drivel.

As for other insights in Redbird's post...

Quote:

In March, the DoD projected that the total cost to develop, buy and operate the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be $1.45 trillion over the next 50 years. That new estimate is up from $1 trillion the previous year. I understand things change, but HOW IN THE F&*% can you tell the bill payers, that the previous information you gave them was off by.......oh.........just........450 billion dollars? "Minor oversight?" "We missed a decimal place?" "Oh.......it's that damn inflation, we forgot and left it out of last year's estimate?

From the official f35 web site...

Quote:

As recently reported, the Office of the Secretary of Defense issued the 2011 F-35 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) to Congress, which updated the total cost estimate to develop, build, operate, upgrade and maintain all aspects of the F-35 program and its military support infrastructure for the next 55 years. Lockheed Martin remains confident that F-35 operations and support costs will be comparable to or lower than that of the seven legacy platforms that it will replace and our statement on the Selected Acquisition Report may be found below, including answers to frequently asked questions.

Today, the Office of the Secretary of Defense issued to Congress the 2011 F-35 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR). It included estimates of the total cost to develop, build, operate, upgrade and maintain all aspects of the F-35 program and its military support infrastructure for the next 55 years. The total estimated cost, including adjustments for anticipated inflation—which represent more than one-third of the total—is $1.51 trillion.

The cost projections estimated in the SAR are based on a number of variables that are subject to considerable fluctuation over the next 55 years, making the estimate inherently imprecise.

For example, media reporting on the 2010 SAR estimate included only operations and support costs, while recent reports on the 2011 SAR estimate add the cost of acquisition and development, which the U.S. government currently estimates at $396 billion.This results in the appearance of cost growth year over year.

URL:
https://f35.com/news-events/top-issues.aspx

So it was your favorite reporters, Bill and co. who screwed up and didn't factor in acquisition costs, then had an epiphany a year later, or perhaps just playing the same game they do with URF and program unit costs. Then year, $1.5 Trillion equals just 2.4% of the US military budget over 55 years (taking into account massive cuts in the next few years and 3% annual growth). 2.4% for 90% of the fighter force (50% of USA's military strength) seems pretty reasonable to me.

redbird87 wrote:

Let's look at some facts in this technical debate. The US ranks 25th among peer developed countries in high school age math. China is number 1. To assume that over the next 40-50 years this won't translate into them making significant technical breakthroughs of their own is wishful thinking.

archeman wrote:

RE: 25th in math. Fast flash media statistics are not what they always seem.
See this: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com ... education/

Contrary to the majority of "facts" on the this site, this is one area I feel competent to share an opinion. The U.S. generates some of the brightest and most creative students in the world. Sure, if you want to take an average that includes inner city schools of Detroit, Atlanta, or L.A. where they have to teach the students English first then our test score scrape the bottom of the barrel. But that is not even close to say the the U.S. doesn't produce millions intelligent students that can think creatively in addition to memorizing the answers to some standardized test.
...which brings me to the Chinese. The predominate teaching method there is rote memorization. Which maybe works OK for math, but stinks for science, literary studies, and teaching strategy.
My masters programs there were 48 students and 4 were Chinese. I was impressed with 1, but the other 3 I wondered how they obtained such impression entrance test scores...later found out there are places there that "teach" the test.
Anyway, while the foreign students did well, with a few exceptions, the most successful came from the U.S.
The surprising part is that at least half of our class has had difficultly in finding jobs that are equal to their educational level. In fact, I have found that having higher education often is a negative to landing many jobs as hiring managers see it as a threat to their own employment.

Personally, I do see education as current and future problem to U.S. prosperity, yet I also see the current mis-management of physical and intellectual capital by large corporations to benefit a few at the top and the complaisancy by our government towards this trend as the more immediate threat.

jeffb wrote:

I skipped over the words and went straight to the pictures, they really are worth a thousand words aren't they?

Notice how it's almost linear Spud? You can draw a line from 18 degrees AOA @ 0.7M right down to 9 degrees AOA @ 0.95M. Good thing it won't have maneuver much in that part of the envelope hey? LM claim that it'll get to 50 degrees angle of attack, I think they're being conservative. I reckon it'll get all the way to 180 once the wings rip off! Laughing

Spudman wrote:

In case you want to stake everything you believe in on the QLR, notice that they also made a mistake about the effects of buffet and HOBS shots. They mistakenly make the assumption that the helmet is required in order to take a HOBS shot. The truth is that EODAS is constantly tracking WVR targets and all the pilot needs to do is pick a target on the shoot list and pull the trigger (if it's in range).

But with the aircraft and displays shaking so much how do they select the right plane off the list? And which plane is that again? That blurry one just passing two o'clock? Laughing

I'm looking forward to the flight test results in summer Spud, they're bound to be "interesting" Wink

Ah... only a few months ago. Funny how quickly things change isn't it?

I would almost say it is a shame that he got banned, but then it isn't really is it?

'hobo' I guess is referring to recent 'test F-35 story'? http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopi ... t-555.html Troll down Very Happy

Anyhoo in the spirit of 'anything but the F-35' here is a nice video/story about the Shornet at Farnborough 2012.

VIDEO: Flying the Super Hornet at Farnborough

http://media.aerosociety.com/aerospace- ... ough/7608/

Actual VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV5Md-rg ... r_embedded

"..."...It is also to be remembered that while 480 F-35Cs will consitute the ‘day-one’ stealth for US NAvy carrier wings in the future, the 500+ Super Hornets (and 110+ Growlers) will provide the other half of the backbone for US carrier air power for quite some forseeable time. This will tide the US Navy over before any future F/A-XX ‘sixth gen’ fighter.

My pilot for the flight, Cdr Jonthan ‘Gabby’ Wise, US Navy.

Whether poaching JSF dissenters, or hunting down new ones, Boeing believes its ‘Rhino’ now represents a balanced, evolutionary fighter design able to continue well into this century."

A VERY LONG INFORMATIVE ARTICLE - best read if you GO THERE.

Salute!

The discussion goes on, heh?

Doesn't matter if you can pull 90 deg AoA for a second or two, or 50 deg AoA for 5 seconds. It all depends on the geometry of the fight.

The Viper was designed to fight a high energy fight and not bleed off "e" because the pilot pulled too hard for too long. know what? It worked.

The thing about the F-35 is it may be gee-limited about like the Super Bug or Eagle, but with that big motor it will be able to continue the fight longer. Most og the Viper fights were not at 9 gees. Sure, we could do the "bat turn" at 9 gees for a few seconds, but then we eased off and c ontinued the fight, usually 5 or 6 gees for another 30 seconds.

The fascination with the 50 degrees of AoA or anything else like that is not a big factor in the jet's survivability. A good sustained gee of 5 or 6 gees at 350 knots IAS will work almost every time. And then we have increased SA due to the sensor suite and then.....

Well, guess some here are wishing to go back to WW2 or 'nam or .... Maybe watched too many videos of the "cobra maneuver".

Gums sends...

Oh I am not trying to overstate the value of the F-35's high AoA capabilities, I just think it is funny that as recently as this summer the trolls were still trying to argue that the F-35 wouldn't be able to reach its design specs.

hobo wrote:

Ah... only a few months ago. Funny how quickly things change isn't it?

I would almost say it is a shame that he got banned, but then it isn't really is it?

Wouldn't have mattered. He just would have moved on to the next "scoop" Peter Goon and his mysterious "sources" would have told him about and he would have completely ignored any reference or discussions about the time he was adamant that 50 degree AoA couldn't be reached by the F-35.

For further confirmation, one can ask Goon about the days he used the say the JSF design was that bad it wouldn't even be able to take off.

When that was proven wrong, he went around telling all and sundry it wouldn't be able to fly supersonically, or one could ask him about his statements alluding to his opinion that the Super Hornet wouldn't be able to fly supersonically over the Northern Territory...

When that was proven wrong he went and dreamed up other nonsense, such as this about the AoA issue and filtered it through trolls...

When these statements are categorically proven wrong, their MO is to just deny they ever made them or ignore that part of the conversation and move on to the next ridiculous and completely un-supported claim...

Forum: F-35 Variants and Missions

JSF WVR Air to Air Combat