Nearly 200 of America's F-35s May Remain Indefinitely Unfit for Combat (Updated) As the services buy new planes, older ones may remain permanently unfit for combat First it was the U.S. Navy and how not to build a warship like the Combat Littoral Ship (CLS / Crappy Little Ship), the Zumwalt class destroyer where each round for its popgun cost $400,000 each and the Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier using an untested magnetic catapult. Now it's the F-35 !!! When will Congress end this "Russia, Russia Russia" bull **** and go back to work and end Obama's sequestration and start appropriating the money to fix our broken military ?
Sadly, there were other choices when they decided on these. My suggestion is to build something a bit less technologically advanced for human participation, but with great maneuverability and thrust to weight ratios. I'm thinking taking the Fighting falcon and the eagle, and giving them a total makeover would be best. More money needs spent on perfecting drones and other front line defense without transporting humans. With satellites, most planes are obsolete. Only small drones with great power are worth spending time developing. Those planes were a huge waste of money, though the military does need continuous research, development, and upgrades. It was just ridiculous to spend the money on these. What a shame. We should also look into ways of protecting areas with something like the manner in which Tesla wanted to transmit electricity. Pretty much anything that messes with the flow of electrons will be useful. I would guess.
End Obama's sequestration is a start. I'm still on the fence when it comes to the F-35. I just don't see either of the F-35 (A, B, and C) being able to conducting CAS missions. Even as an air battlefield ground interdiction missions and deep strike missions it's weapons payloads are so small. Of all of the fighter jocks I know who fly the F-18 C's and FA-18 E/F's today, the majority don't want to transition over to the F-35 B or F-35 C even though the FA-18 C's are literally falling out of the sky because of Obama's sequestration.
The Su 37 is a pretty good platform. We should purchase a few without the electronics and reverse engineer them and learn something. Isn't that a shame?
No, the sequestration is reducing debt spending. If all you do is end it then you are just increasing debt spending with no way to pay for it. You pay for it in two ways. Raise taxes or cut spending somewhere else. But then the obvious question is why not raise taxes or cut spending to pay for deficit reduction rather than to pay for new military spending?
There was only 1 other choice and the F-35 was a better option. The problem with a major program like this is that the Pentagon keeps changing major requirements halfway through a program. This was made much more difficult by the Pentagon deciding to try to use 1 airframe to conduct the missions of 4 different aircraft. Every mission was compromised in order to incorporate the ability to do all of them. Another problem with this program, and every other aviation program that I'm aware of, is the fact that it isn't one company in charge. There are dozens of companies making major components. It makes accumulation of tolerances a significant issue, and it makes correcting those issues slower and more expensive. Older aircraft would be slaughtered if they go into combat against a military with similar technology. Stealth is the only way to way to offer any survivability against modern surface and airborne radar. The F-22 is by a significant margin, the most deadly air to air combat aircraft in the world. Between it's speed, advanced electronics, and stealth, it can sneak up on a target, attack, and then get put of the area before the enemy can even react.
Boing? and Gen Dy? Hey, I guess I forgot. Doesn't matter. The issue with tolerances can be solved if the drawings are done properly, and everyone uses them, no matter who makes what part, or who makes the drawings. I realize there are security issues, but tolerancing is tolerancing and how a part is cut and measured should be the same. If the part is not made according to the drawing, then it's scrap. Neither should that be some big secret. but I understand having several different companies churning out different parts, and no one having the complete diagram. As to the other part about the suggestions, the businesses are making such a huge profit from the government, they will not tell them they need to finalize something before they start.(I'm sure they charge a premium when there are changes, plus, they have to be paid for the previous work that is worthless due to the changes. Oh, yeah, they aren't as stupid as the gov't.) Therefore, something needs to change about the way these contracts are designed. Military are not business professionals, so let's get them out of the business end of it and allow the business attorneys to care of that. It costs way too much for things. The amount of money spent is far exceeding the value.
I believe the main argument against the F-35 is the mentality that it's the be all end all of aircraft that can do everything. Mainly the CAS platform is what has folks concerned about it. I think that if they just scrapped the CAS design of the thing and made it a fighter/bomber like an upgraded version of the F/A-18 then folks would have less of a problem with it. I'm pretty experienced in CAS, it's my job, but I'll admit that being a whirlybird guy I don't know too much about fixed wing CAS, but from the studies I've read this thing just doesn't seem to measure up to what the A-10 can do for the boys on the ground. The problem is that the DoD felt like they had to make a choice. The A-10 is old, reliable and proven itself time and time again, but it's old. Us rotary wing guys don't have the range nor the speed to to be effective CCA/CAS platforms very far past the front lines. What we need is an aircraft designed for CAS like the A-10. As with anything else in life something can either be "good" at a lot of things or "great" at one thing. The F-35 may be "good" at multiple roles but it's the master of none. And when it comes to providing CAS for ground guys being "good" isn't good enough in my book. I have a few fighter jockey buddies and they all universally hate the F-35. Why they hate it I honestly don't know, they usually just say something along the lines of it's a POS and go off on a tangent about it. The best CAS airframe in the world is an attack helo. We just have to figure out a way to increase the range on those things.
Stealth > payload size on a modern battlefield. Would you rather have a plane that can actually get to the target but have a smaller payload or one with a massive payload that gets destroyed by a S-400 a hundred miles before it reaches its target?
Would you rather have a plane that can only provide CAS for a short amount of time due to a limited payload once reaching the troops in contact? That is a question that we must ask as well. There are many factors at play here. Having experienced warfare from both the front lines on the ground and in the air I can tell you that almost nothing is more heartbreaking than being in contact with the enemy and hearing your angels in the sky have to break station and leave you because they have run out of munitions and/or are running low on fuel. Stealth is a great asset to have but it's certainly not the be all end all solution. When it comes to CAS platforms there are many other techniques that can be used to remain undetected by enemy air defenses. Most SAM's and heavy AAA are designed for higher altitude engagements so utilizing stealth is paramount in our air to air fighters. The main threat to CAS platforms aren't the heavy SAM's or AAA, but rather the guy sitting there with a manpad who sees you with his own eyes where stealth becomes useless. If AAA and SAM's were that big of a factor for CAS aircraft then we would never be able to launch a single rotary wing aircraft anywhere because they would get slaughtered due to being snails compared to fixed wing and lack the high g maneuverability of fast attack aircraft. AAA and SAM's ARE a factor yes, but not as big a factor for CAS platforms as you may believe. It's not the SA-15 we worry about as much as the random guy with a Stinger hiding in the trees or a Dshk in the back of a pickup truck. CAS aircraft are also equipped with a multitude of countermeasures that can defeat most surface to air threats as well. If SAMs and AAA were as deadly as portrayed then helicopters wouldn't even be a thing because a helo putting along at 120kts wouldn't stand a chance against a surface to air missile.
Stealth is more important than payload on a modern battlefield. An aircraft without stealth technology simply won't survive against modern anti aircraft weapons, both ground based and ariel. We need to make aircraft for the fight against an opponent with common technology, otherwise we find ourselves unequipped for a modern fight. If we went to war with Russia, our helicopters would be basicly useless as they wouldn't last 2 minutes over an armored column. The same goes for an F18 and F16 if they tried to hit targets inside the Russian anti air defense screen. With the problems the Apache is having in the desert, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new Comanche type project in the near future. It's time for that platform, and other helicopters to incorporate stealth.
As far as I know there are no known plans for a conventional stealth attack helo on the horizon. At least none that I've heard of. In a conventional war CAS is used to help ground guys meaning that the CAS platforms don't outrun their own guys on the ground. More recently CAS birds have been used for actual strike missions simply because the US has air superiority and can fly around at will with little regard for surface to air threats outside of manpads. In COIN fights rotary wing aircraft can just fly high orbits around objectives because there is very little that can shoot them down. In an actual conventional war with a nation such as Russia or China or even N Korea, rotary wing aircraft wouldn't be utilized until the enemy's air defense network has been destroyed or at least crippled to the point where CAS birds could avoid the rest of the threats. As you know the US relies heavily on air power. Basically our first priority in any theater is to gain and maintain air superiority. Most SAM sits aren't designed for rotary wing aircraft. They physically can't even engage at the low altitudes that helo's fly. The Comanche was scrapped because it was too expensive and it wasn't working out the way it was planned and it was figured that the altitudes and speeds that helo's fly are already a pretty effective countermeasure to most SAM's and AAA. The biggest threat to the Comanche is the same as the Apache, the random guy with a Stinger who's eyeballs are his radar. Basically what I'm saying is that while SAM's are deadly, we don't fly around them anyway. We follow the FLOT and don't outrun the front line. As the FLOT moves we move with it so whatever SAM or AAA threats are within range of the FLOT have already been taken care of or are within range of our artillery. We aren't SEAD aircraft in a conventional war, that is suicide. The problem would arise when dealing with SF guys who are deep behind enemy lines who may need air support, that is when stealth would be helpful. Would I like a stealth helo? Sure, but knowing what I know about US tactics and enemy air defenses I wouldn't really feel any safer in a Comanche over an Apache. I would much rather have a heavily armored conventional attack helo over a lightly armored stealth one. The guy with a Stinger on his shoulder would shoot down a Comanche just as easily. Nobody is launching attack helo's on deep strike missions in a conventional war, that's suicide. That's the Navy and Air Force's job. What makes helo's survivable is the fact that we have the ability to fly below enemy radar coverage 2 feet above trees at varying airspeeds and can duck down in a cut in the trees if necessary. Fast attack birds can't do that which is why stealth is more paramount to them. Our maneuverability is our stealth. At our altitudes and speeds we are basically invisible to enemy radar anyway, not all but most. And the ones that can see us we avoid their areas until the Wild Weasel boys kill that thing. Our current helo's would fare much better than you may believe in a conventional war. Vast advancements in technology, countermeasures, and tactics have accounted for the fact that a helo putting along at 100kts would be a sitting duck. The Apache, for example, was designed to kill Soviet tanks coming through the Fulda Gap. If helo's would be slaughtered before even launching their first Hellfire at an enemy tank column then they would never have been fielded in the first place.
Couldn't agree more. That's supposing that two questionable doctrines work, that is; Stealth tech and BVR combat, being both hypes that are way more successful in theory than in practice. Too much has been sacrificed in the name of stealth, for which the countermeasures have but a fraction of the cost. As for BVR combat, the more the enemy will be technologically advanced, the less it will work, and even against technologically backward force, its ratio is far from being even acceptable.
Myself, I was never a big fan of the Air Force version of this aircraft. I never really saw the reason for it myself. Primarily, the F-35B was a huge boost for the Marines. The Harrier is long past it's era as an operational fighter against anything but the most primitive of adversaries. And adding the F-35C and giving some stealth capabilities for the Navy is also something that was needed. But the Air Force with this has now had 4 different stealth aircraft. How many do they need? I never imagined the F-35C being a replacement for the F-18, but there is little question the F-35B is vastly superior to the ancient Harrier. And it's weapons payload is significantly more than the AV-8B.
