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Sturgeon's House

Bash the F-35 thred.


Belesarius

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2 hours ago, roguetechie said:

we could be looking at each plane going up once every other day.

 

Quote

https://fas.org/man/eprint/F35-sar-2016.pdf


On page 17 (just Ctrl-f "sortie") you can see the program target for sortie generation rate for the F-35A (CTOL) is "4.0/3.0/2.0 2.5 ASD", and that it is currently estimated as "3.4/3.0/2.0
2.5 ASD"

The three slashed numbers for sortie rate are: Surge / Sustained / Wartime sustained with "ASD" referring to average sortie duration in hours.

 

This means that it is currently estimated the F-35A is capable of generating two 2.5 hour sorties per day (five hours total) in sustained operations during wartime (the lowest number).

 

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And if it can really meet this number I'm a pretty happy camper.

 

I still have a few other concerns, but realistically I'm not well equipped to even evaluate the truthfulness or falsehood of most statements about the aircraft because I lack the requisite schooling and the TS/SCI clearances I'd really need to get at the plain English black and white information that someone actually needs to evaluate such a fantastically complicated project!

 

Funny how uncle Sam doesn't just release the relevant information because forum guys with inquiring minds want to know.

 

Aka: some people take this stuff way too seriously!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Quote

   Landing at the Estonian air base Emari of one of the two arrivals with a brief demonstrative deployment of the fifth-generation Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighter from the 34th Fighter Squadron of the 388th Fighter Wing of the USAF (US Air Force No. 14-5094, serial number AF-95 ). 04/25/2017

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With how little capability the B gives up compared to the normal models (it certainly compares a lot better than the harrier to any equivalent fighter), doing the dispersed thing in the event of a major conflict does make more sense now. Still odd to hear after everyone else has tried and abandoned that idea

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20 minutes ago, Xlucine said:

With how little capability the B gives up compared to the normal models (it certainly compares a lot better than the harrier to any equivalent fighter), doing the dispersed thing in the event of a major conflict does make more sense now. Still odd to hear after everyone else has tried and abandoned that idea

Except that technology is maturing and the F-35 is really just that much better than the Harrier.

 

 

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9 hours ago, Xlucine said:

With how little capability the B gives up compared to the normal models (it certainly compares a lot better than the harrier to any equivalent fighter), doing the dispersed thing in the event of a major conflict does make more sense now. Still odd to hear after everyone else has tried and abandoned that idea

 

WAG here, but the problem with dispersed basing was that the logistical resupply became hopelessly confused.  Perhaps computer logistics tracking has fixed this and makes the idea practical.

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2 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

 

WAG here, but the problem with dispersed basing was that the logistical resupply became hopelessly confused.  Perhaps computer logistics tracking has fixed this and makes the idea practical.

I thought that the problem with dispersing was that the big boys were looking down the barrel of nuclear annihilation (no need to disperse your tactical fighters in that case) or operating essentially with impunity from well-protected airstrips.

 

The little guys, meanwhile, were/are looking at either a peer-to-peer situation (where you can fend off raids and repair your airstrip fairly quickly) or one where you're facing the big boys (in which case you're fucked no matter how cunningly you hide your fighters under a bridge). The result is that the only countries that I know of which really rolled with the dispersion philosophy were folk like the Swedes or like us. The Swedes were contemplating a heroic last stand against a conventional push by the Soviets (ie: another Finnish war), so eking out every gram of deterrent capacity was good. We were, I think, contemplating the use of long sections of paved roads as small forward airstrips. But then we stuck a lot of them fairly close to our existing air bases anyway, so IDK.

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15 minutes ago, Collimatrix said:

I could see the Israelis being interested in dispersed airbases after what they did to the Arab air forces in 1967.  Especially now with the stealth/sensors/countermeasures game being in a very unclear state, there's no guarantee that early detection and air defense systems would render similar raids impossible.

If so, I'd expect them to show a sudden interest whenever the Saudis look like they're going to get F-35.

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