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What are the chances that we will ever see an F-35 two seater? Are there any drawings or artwork available?

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I doubt we will ever see a two seater F-35. The Air Force is only intrested in single seater fighters and is using simulators for training to formalize pilots with
aircraft. Why this is I don't know. Personally I always thought that two seater aircraft always perform better then single seaters for strike runs which is what the F-35 is geared towards. Shoot I reckon soon they're won't be any seat fighters in the future what with all the UCAV development going on.

F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2862

Doubt we will see such a thing. There is no plan for it. And no money either.

Netcentric strike warfare also means less cockpit workload for certain strikes. Strategic first nights of the war fixed targets are just lat longs that can be handed to you over the network or acquired yourself. The two man cockpit for small aircraft has to do more with the old way of doing business... running low through the hills watching a radar scope to do both terrain avoidance and radar assisted bombing. We just don't have much of a use for that anymore.
For small fast movers the extra person takes up space better used for gas or systems.
Some design paths don't have a choice. Example the SU-27/3x family. Precision strike work, true multi-role with PGMs is almost always a two seater. Russians did some tests trying multi-role PGM work with single seat SUs and one of the comments was "it was a negative experience". That was a few years ago and it may change in the future. I would rather have a single seat SU-35 that had cockpit workload/switchology of an F-18E than a two seat SU-30. And yeah you can do unguided rockets and optical smart bombs with a single seat SU. Just that for extensive menu and weapons diversity....two seater SU-30s get the job more times than not. ( look at India ).
Around half of the Super Hornet squadrons are completely all F models. Nothing more than a jobs program for RIOs. And yes SH did some successful 2 seat Fast FAC in OIF 2003. But that doesn't justify having whole squadrons of Fs.

OK, the US doesn´t have interest in a two seater, but what about other countries. A lot of two seat F-16's are sold nowadays (UAE, Israel, Greece, Poland, Chili.. ).

Cost is amazing. More seats, more O2. More crew to have in your unit and kept current. Less room for fuel or mission systems.

As stated, systems in today's airplanes are adequate to replace second crewmember on virtually all missions. I would have said all, but a good friend of mine is a Beagle WSO...can't dis him too much Smile

There will be no 2-seaters. There is no need for a 2-seat F-35. Roscoe summed it up pretty well.

Dang, the dual seat F-35 woulda looked cool.

Wouldn't pilot training and upgrades be performed with a chase T-38 or other aircraft? You can't just use a simulator for everything. At Holloman we HAD the 7th FTS for pilots new to the airframe (this squadron recently disbanded because of the 117 retirement).

Take for example a new fighter pilot in the AF slated to fly Vipers goes through all the preliminaries (Academy gliders?), then slowly moves up to jets at Sheppard AFB (T-37/T-3 Cool

, then moves on to Luke to fly two-seater F-16s. What will the F-35 guys do? They will have to have a chase plane shoved tightly up their a##.

Elite 1K Joined: Jul 20, 2005 Posts: 1035 Status: Offline

MabJab23 wrote:

What will the F-35 guys do? They will have to have a chase plane shoved tightly up their a##.

I'd guess it will be like the F-22...no newbies flying the jet...all experienced drivers...Check

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 01, 2006 Posts: 1003 Status: Offline

checksixx wrote:

I'd guess it will be like the F-22...no newbies flying the jet...all experienced drivers...Check

It depends on what you mean by experienced. They will all be qualified fighter jocks with considerable flight hours in at least a high energy jet trainer for sure. But they will not necessarily be pilots who had flown fighters for many years. There will be more than 3000 F-35s in service. Basically, at some point it will be the mainstay of US and many other countries fighter aviation. It will be the first combat jet for many of its pilots.

Basically, flight training will entail flying the basics in theory, prop and jet trainers. Then the trainees will fly the F-35 simulators. Finally, they will be given a real F-35 and they will fly it. 2-seater are not necessary for pilot training. We put pilots in P-51 Mustangs without ever putting anyone in a 2-seat Mustang. And the Mustang will more easily kill you than a very pilot friendly and easy to fly jet like the F-35. It is practically impossible to spin an F-35 or get into an irrecoverable deep stall for instance, and there is no "tricky" tasks like fiddling with switches to switch fuel feed from one one the aircraft's half a dozen or so fuel storage bunkers.

I wouldn't count it out Wink

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checksixx wrote:

MabJab23 wrote:

What will the F-35 guys do? They will have to have a chase plane shoved tightly up their a##.

I'd guess it will be like the F-22...no newbies flying the jet...all experienced drivers...Check

I agree. The butterbars will get a tour in a viper or eagle first then go to F-22/F-35. They are too expensive to lose to rookie mistakes.

LMAggie wrote:

I wouldn't count it out Wink

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I would. There will be no two-seat F-35s - unless the UAE decides to fund the development ala Block 60....

habu2 wrote:

LMAggie wrote:

I wouldn't count it out Wink

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I would. There will be no two-seat F-35s - unless the UAE decides to fund the development ala Block 60....

I wouldn't...I have seen trade studies.

We can always keep some of our newest F-16, F-15 and Rhino two seater's in service for decade to come and just use them solely for training purposes.

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F-35 two seater?