Forum: Program and politics

m wrote:

Advice … listen to the pilots flying the F35

Well said! Very Happy

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I am bad. Yes, I am the baddest guy around. I am gonna attack your ground forces with my air force in Somewhereland.

Huh? I do not have one? Damm, I will buy 1.000 piper cups, and hire 1.000 pilots.
Load a handbag of hand grenates in each one. And I am coming for your ground troops.

1. Try to shoot us down?
I fly at 50ft at 60 kts. You have absolutely NO room to trun and fight at your speeds. You can fire any misile you like => i make no tempreatures to see.....

Your gun? For those that have one?
At your speed? My spead and my altitude?? Please. . . . dream on.

I do not even need a weapon to defeat you. I can start counting your"Controlled Flight Into Tarrain" victories.

The ground forces? Ha-ha-ha-, what are they gonna do? Shoot holes in my cotton planes? I can fly wih a thousand holes in each one man.

No body is trained in fighting Low and Slow planes. And YES, i can still manoeve HARD at these 60 kts speeds. Radar controlled Modern Tripple A? Ha-ha.

And when all gets bad... shoot, and win some. You can shoot 500 of them down if you like. That means 500 got to you, and so did 500 bags of hand grenates.

But... nobody wants to hear that scenario. There are no dollars to be earned. All new planes "have to be expensive".

Why.. That is where the profit is. Industry and dollars dictate what "we"need to fight.

IF, I was a bad guy and IF I used some Lo and Slow planes all your super toys would end up in "CFIT." Oh, and I go steath too you know. Lots of wooden planes around that can I can use in my scernario.

You can show High and Dry, I"ll fight Lo and Slow,

Oh, and yes I have endurance you can only dream about.

Detection from above?
Oh, I will fly - hide at 10 ft above some train, or bus, or truck untill ready for the final turn.

My only problems would be your choppers. Your super dollar fighters? Ha-ha-ha- use them for marketing and air shows.

Pretty sarcastic, I know, and I hope it never happens.

vilters wrote:

You have absolutely NO room to trun and fight at your speeds.

Not needed. Modern fighters can hit targets that are literally sitting still.

vilters wrote:

i make no tempreatures to see.....

Not true.

vilters wrote:

Your gun?? For those that have one?
At your speed?? My spead and my altitude??

Yes, the same as for targets on the ground. Think of the phrase "sitting ducks".

vilters wrote:

The ground forces?? Ha-ha-ha-, what are they gonna do??
Shoot holes in my cotton planes???

Of course, or fire cheap little portable missiles at them (on the scale of something like an RPG or Stinger), which are quick and easy to produce and deliver to the field by the truckload. Why not? It's simple, easy, and effective. It wouldn't even be hard to set up a platform with a few hundred of those to be able to fire them automagically long before the "attack" planes are anywhere near their target, so the ground forces don't even need to think about it. Between the weapons that ground forces already carry (or could easily start carrying if going against such a silly opponent as you describe), and the use of modern armored ground vehicles (along with practically any building) for protection even if any of the planes you're talking about miraculously survived to get within miles, and having extremely long notice ahead of time that it's coming so they can relocate or take cover and still be waiting around for a while... the ground forces don't even have much need for air cover.

vilters wrote:

I can fly wih a thousand holes in each one man.

Of course not. This is exactly how planes of the type you're talking about shot EACH OTHER down when they were in use. (And what do you suppose might be the reason why they aren't anymore?)

Or, you know, all of those modern automatic assault rifles held by every single solder on the battlefield open up and kill the pilots in their unarmored piper cub cockpits.
Granted, "Bazooka Charley" got away with it in the age of bolt action rifles, but still...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ca ... t._Col.%29

vilters wrote:

But??
No body wants to hear that scenario.

My only problems would be your choppers.
Your super dollar fighters?? ha-ha-ha- use them for marketing and air shows.

Watch an F16 … flying side by side with an Apache AH64D
(What to think of an F35B and a Piper Cup…)

Apache AH64D + F16 Dutch Demo Team Looping + Flares Full HD Koksijde Air Show 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnmFnB-tSjs

Koksijde Int.Airshow 2011 Dutch Apache Demoteam !FLARES! [HD]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6bqKB41 ... re=related

vilters wrote:

But?

Anti American I suppose?

In 1995 the Royal Netherlands Air Force agreed to buy 30 AH-64D Apache military helicopters made by McDonnell Douglas Corp.,
a contract valued at $648 million.
Till so far, Dutch Apaches operated in Bosnia, Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan

We happily did not buy the European Tiger. We probably wouldn’t have had a single one fully operational yet.
(The NH90? A mistake we did buy the helicopter, in stead of an American helicopter)

Tigers at a cost like Australia (and still not operational):
page 106/114 : $2,060.3 million/ 22 Tigers
per Tiger: $93.65 million (Dutch Apaches: $21.6 million per Apache, plus operational!)

Source: Report No.20 2011–12
Assurance Report
2010–11 Major Projects Report
Defence Materiel Organisation

[quote="m"]

redbird87 wrote:

The best and the “only” reference of a jet is a pilot that flies a jet! Advice … listen to the pilots flying the F35

New member here, long time lurker (since 06).

I completely agree that you can only trust the people working directly on the program to get the most unfiltered answers.

I had the chance to chat with "Hog" (461st FTS F-35 test pilot) a couple weeks ago and I specifically asked his opinion on some of the controversial topics surrounding the aircraft including:

4th gen Comparison (specifically maneuverability): said he is dual qualified in both the 35 and 16 and while it doesn't perform as well as a clean block 50 Viper, when you factor in internal vs external ordinance and fuel the F-35 will perform better in combat (you guys already know this). They won't know exactly how it'll fair in a dogfight until OT&E begins later this year but he said that the F-35 will definitely be up to par with all 4th gen fighters.

Helmet mounted display/JHMCS: was very confident in the system and said they had almost all the bugs worked out. Gives him incredible situational awareness and he can even see threats below him. Eventually they will have the helmet set up so the "bitching betty" will talk into it based on where the threat is in relation to him (similar to a 5.1 surround sound system).

Supercruise: It takes afterburner to get past supersonic, but once there he can pull the power back to mil and it'll stay supersonic around Mach 1.25ish (you guys also know this, just reiterating).

Cost: very brief answer but said as the program continues to mature it will gradually decrease.

Datalink: Another very brief answer but his flight of 4 will know exactly what is going on around every flight member at all times. They can covertly share threat data between jets and they can even act as 2 independent 2-ship "hunter killer" groups (lead and 2 acting as shooters, 3 and 4 as controllers and even ECM).

IOC: Somewhere around 2017. Also said that individual squadrons will be able to deploy to a combat theater before the IOC date.

Just FYI while I am going into the AF I do not have a top secret clearance yet so obviously all of this is unclass.

sketch22 wrote:

4th gen Comparison (specifically maneuverability): said he is dual qualified in both the 35 and 16 and while it doesn't perform as well as a clean block 50 Viper, when you factor in internal vs external ordinance and fuel the F-35 will perform better in combat (you guys already know this).

Jon Beesley has talked about this many times. A clean F-16 is air show configuration. Hang on tanks and missiles and the difference is "dazzling".

sketch22 wrote:

Helmet mounted display/JHMCS: was very confident in the system and said they had almost all the bugs worked out. Gives him incredible situational awareness and he can even see threats below him. Eventually they will have the helmet set up so the "bitching betty" will talk into it based on where the threat is in relation to him (similar to a 5.1 surround sound system).

Are hostiles determined via IFF? How is this done?

sketch22 wrote:

Supercruise: It takes afterburner to get past supersonic, but once there he can pull the power back to mil and it'll stay supersonic around Mach 1.25ish (you guys also know this, just reiterating).

I did not know this. I've heard speculation, but not heard from anyone who claimed it was actual demonstrated capability.

sketch22 wrote:

IOC: Somewhere around 2017. Also said that individual squadrons will be able to deploy to a combat theater before the IOC date.

That's four years out. Is the AF going to wait until all testing is complete to declare IOC?

For the USMC, this was just posted by SpazSinbad:

"...Question from Journalist: When do you think that IOC for the aircraft will happen?

Answer: IOC comes with some basic requirements. And I can go through the definition of what the Marine Corps has decided what IOC is. How many airplanes mission systems that are up and running, et cetera. So in a sense, IOC is event-driven for us.

But what I can tell you is that in the fall of this year, we’re standing up our first operational squadron. Not the training squadron that’s in Eglin, but in the fall of this year, VMFA-121 in Yuma, Arizona is going to start receiving airplanes and they’re going to start flying training missions.

Not training new pilots, but flying training missions.

We look with the development of a block—block2b, as the core operational software. When that hits the street that’s a critical part of our IOC, and that point, all the other pieces will be in place.

And the Marine Corps will IOC by deploying a squadron first.

And then, six months later, we’re going to have the first F35Bs on the Marine Amphibious unit deployment on small deck ships...."

sketch22 wrote:

Just FYI while I am going into the AF I do not have a top secret clearance yet so obviously all of this is unclass.

Because you do not have a TS clearance does not make any or all of this unclassified. Be careful what you post.

Forum: Program and politics

Pentagon's Best-Kept Secret: F-35 Is Progressing Nicely