Forum: General F-35 Forum

SnakeHandler wrote:

The F-35 will be successful because the pilots flying it (former Viper drivers, of course) will make it successful. It is our tactics, not our machines, that make us superior to everyone else. The Lightening II will pull 9Gs and will be able to at least dash supersonically by the time it goes operational, that I guarantee. But the sensors and situational awareness aids will enable us to develop our tactics so that we don't have to pull 9Gs and run away.

I simply put forward the fact that this aircraft is the wrong aircraft to keep the US aeronautical design and manufacture base active and experienced with designing and building the kick-the-door on nights 1-3, and then go head to head against other nations soon-to-be frontline and low oberservable fighters.

A somwhere around 50,000 pound airplane, with a greatly increased surface area over the F-16, and ~42-45k lbs-thrust... Leaves me wondering why we're stepping back from a greater than 1:1 thrust to weight ratio aircraft.

The US military & industrial base simply *can* do much better with designing a kick in the a$$ single engined fighter.

At least when the ATF program was going on, we were designing an aircraft that would not simply counter the new Migs and Sukhois, but in all probability would be able to compete against what the Russian's/Chinese would build to counter the ATF. With the JSF, there are already better platforms out there to compete against it. You can believe that what the Russians are going to start building will be closer to parity with the F-22 than the F-35.

Aircraft, especially fighter-bombers-attack jets, need to continually push the envolpe of performace to stay ahead of what its projected they will contend with. Not just a close-in guns duel, but also the bvr/semi-bvr adversaries.
These types of airplanes need to be highly specialized for their missions... We're not doing that with this program. Its a throwback the Kennedy administration and having an automotive manufacturer in charge of writing the specification of commonality above all other specifications... Here we go again, I'm afraid.

Those of you on this board who say that the F-22 won because the YF-23 was not as maneuverable as the 22... These same people say that maneuverability advancements are needed over the F-16 because of stealth.

Hence, you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.

F-16.net Sponsor

Hi there Fox100! Some good points there Smile

There are simply so many ways to measure what “success” means to an aircraft or to a person alike. Moreover, aircraft design is about compromises. High speed and high thrust-to-weight may come at the cost of range or unnecessary complexity (thus high cost). JSF is interesting in that it is designed with commonality and affordability in mind dated way back in the project’s definition phase. With 40,000lb of thrust, P&W F135 can handsomely gives a fighter 1.2+ thrust-to-weight ratio BUT by doing so we are likely to lose one of our primary objectives: commonality, affordability, stealth, among others. Engineers are trying hard to design a meet-all-criteria aircraft (e.g. pioneering power-by-wire to shave weight and complexity). In essence, it’s a silly gamble: we are putting our bet/eggs on making the plane as smart as possible so that hopefully F35 can outwit/evade its opponents way before coming close enough for a knife fight when kinetics/thrust-to-weight really matters. It is no doubt a tricky engineering & political business during a time when the nation is at war (politically distracted and fiscally short on cash) with partner nations constantly demanding for their shares/rights on the JOINT Strike Fighter.... Confused

fox100 wrote:

I simply put forward the fact that this aircraft is the wrong aircraft to keep the US aeronautical design and manufacture base active and experienced with designing and building the kick-the-door on nights 1-3, and then go head to head against other nations soon-to-be frontline and low oberservable fighters.

A somwhere around 50,000 pound airplane, with a greatly increased surface area over the F-16, and ~42-45k lbs-thrust... Leaves me wondering why we're stepping back from a greater than 1:1 thrust to weight ratio aircraft.

I hold exactly the opposite view. I see that the F-35 pushed the envelope much more any of its competitors including all the euro canards ever did, or the F-16 did when it was designed. What’s more important is that it pushed it in ALL the areas which matters the most whereas all its competitors focused on areas whose relevance is questionable or out right obsolete.

It what way you may ask? Compared to its 4th generation competitors, it delivers unmatched stealth (by 2 to 3 magnitudes), unmatched range, unmatched sensors, unmatched pilot interface, unmatched weight efficiency and unmatched maintainability, while offering comparable kinematics and similar agility with no increase in price. It is in fact a better aircraft overall than the F-22, IMHO. It is the best possible design for the $45-60 million unit price and $40 billion R&D budget. Any other compromise – biasing more towards speed or agility for instance – will produce an inferior platform. Not making any compromise will get you an airframe along the lines of an F-22 which is an aircraft that – not counting development amortization – costs three times as much to build and requires much more work on the flight line to keep flying. In fact, the F-35 has a much better set of sensory condiments than the F-22, a generation more advanced pilot interface and a more flexible internal bay capable of delivering heavier, bulkier ordnance to a greater range.

As far as the single engine design – a single engine always out performs two engines at delivering a given thrust in terms of weight, size, fuel efficiency, cost of manufacture and cost of maintenance. Single engined aircrafts also have an in-service attrition rate no worse and sometimes better than twins. In short a design should defer to a twin engine configuration only when the desired thrust cannot be achieved with one engine – which is not the case here. The F-35 is a 28,000 pounds aircraft with 43,000 pounds of installed thrust out of which 28,000 pounds is available dry. That is plenty by ANY standard and better than say an SU-27/30 for instance. Carrying the same typical warload and fuel as an EF Typhoon on an intercept mission (4,900 kg fuel + 800kg AAMs) the F-35A has a thrust to weight ratio of 1.06:1 (43,000x0.454/(12,700+4,900+800)). A Typhoon on the other hand as a 1.10:1 thrust to weight ratio (40,500x0.454/(11,000+4,900+800)). There isn't a significant difference there. The difference is that the F-35 has the option to carry an additional 3,500 kg of fuel internally and has the option to fly with no pylons, no external tanks and with full stealth. I am afraid the "heavy and underpowered argument" holds no water unless one considers an SU-30 and a Typhoon underpowered aircrafts.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

Do you think the F-35 will be a success? Y/N