Bash the F-35 thred.

[Sturgeon]

[cm_kruger]

[EnsignExpendable]

Major Laurier had picked the wrong day to change meth dealers.

 

The sharp pounding in his head had started just as the scramble alert came on. A Russian Tupolev Tu-95 bomber had blatantly violated Canada's northern sovereignity and was headed for the strategic city of Yellowknife. It was up to his squadron, No. 420 Harper's Harriers to show those Slav bastards what-for with their state-of-the-art C-35 war machines... and peacefully escort them out of Canada's airspace. 

 

Now, he was alone. Captain Fraiser's C-35 had flown through a cloud and the moisture had torn its skin from its fuselage. The rookie, Lieutenant Dorian, had attempted a gentle banked turn and the strain on his engine was too great. His plane exploded in a hail of fire, cheap steel and packing peanuts. He didn't even have time to scream. Fucking hotshot, thought the Major.

 

The Tupolev was zooming southeast at a blistering Mach 0.3 but he was slowly closing in on his prey. He had already dropped his external fuel tanks, all four of his bullets and his missile to stay airborne, and the airframe was shuddering like his Chevy Cavalier on the Trans-Canada Highway. The radar app had crashed an hour ago and OnStar was useless. No, I don't want to find a fucking gas station, I'm trying to intercept a warplane! Nonetheless, he had followed the contrails left by the bomber in the northern sky. He knew he was close. And then there! On the edge of his horizon, a vast twenty miles away, were the Russians. He clenched his jaw and punched up the afterburners. The plane kicked and lurched like a mechanical bull with half the gears broken. He set course to ram his plane into the hulking turboprop. I knew I wasn't coming back from this mission, he thought. I'm a C-35 pilot. We don't come back. But at least I'll take these assholes with me. His squadron's motto, FUCK EVERYONE AND PISS ON THEIR ASHES, rang in his ears as his HUD flashed a 404 error. 

 

Meanwhile, on the Russian plane...

 

The Major was five miles from the bomber when he heard a new and unfamiliar bang. He tried in vain to look behind him, but from the corner of his eye, he could see a great crack forming on his left wing. He knew at once what it meant. The epoxy that kept the plane together was never meant for such extreme temperatures. His plane was literally coming apart at the seams. How he wished he was in an Avro Arrow now. With a sickening CRRRACK the wing tore itself free from the plane and the C-35 went into a death spin. The Tupolev continued on, oblivious.

 

Amidst the alarms, klaxons and spontaneous fire, Frasier bit his lip and thought of Maverick. Then suddenly he remembered his training. One of the Powerpoint slides had mentioned that the ejection seat was NOT made by Lockheed, but by a British company! Hope sprung in his breast; perhaps he might survive this ordeal, and achieve his dream of becoming a cyberathelete! In desperation he lunged at the ejector handle. The seat roared upward into the void and while the canopy didn't deploy, it didn't matter; the cheap glass was shattered easily by his hundred thousand dollar helmet. 

 

The Major breathed a sigh of relief as the chute deployed and slowed his descent. He took one last glance at his plane, which plummeted like a meteor into the ground and exploded. It was a bittersweet sight. At the very least, he thought, he had saved half a billion dollars from the clutches of the poor, the needy, the nonwhite and Quebec. The thought made him smile. 

 

The ejector seat landed with a soft thud on a river bank, narrowly missing some pine trees. He looked around at the bright sky, the green grass and river teeming with fish. This unfamiliar hellscape sent chills of fear down his spine. If I liked the outdoors, he thought, I would've joined in the army.

 

Thus began Major Laurier's desperate bid for survival in the harsh subarctic summer, where temperatures could drop to nearly below freezing. In the distance, a beaver roared.

[Sturgeon]

Wasn't funny 'till the Arrow reference, then I died.

[LoooSeR]

[Priory_of_Sion]

Production has begun for the 1st Israeli F-35.

[Belesarius]

1st USAF AIM-9X launch.

 

http://www.janes.com/article/57517/usaf-f-35-test-fires-aim-9x

 

Edit:  To keep it on point with the thread title, I'll note that that is on an external pylon, not from the internal weapons bays.  The software isn't apparently ready for that yet. :/

[xthetenth]

Spiral development baby. Can't wait till the 22 can fire them.

 

Although it totally makes sense to fire from outside before seeing if you can make the handover work for bay fires.

[Sturgeon]

Before anyone links to a useless news article, here's the actual 82 page Pentagon report on the F-35:

 

http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2015/pdf/dod/2015f35jsf.pdf

 

I haven't read it yet. Draw your own conclusions.

[Belesarius]

1st F-35 transatlantic flight.  Italian F-35 flew Lajeri AFB in Italy to NAS Pauxtent River, with a stop at Lajes Air Biase in Portugal..

 

 

http://www.defensenews.com/story/breaking-news/2016/02/05/f-35-makes-first-transatlantic-crossing/79901306/

[SoukouDragon]

Japan has plans to purchase 42 F-35As. The first 6 are to be payed for by the 2016 defense budget. Of the 42, the first 4 are being manufactured in the US. The rest will be licensed produced in Japan. That will come with a lot of technology transfers. Here are pictures of Japanese F-35As being built in the US.

 

 

 

 

[Sturgeon]

Guys, it's gonna collapse in a heap any day now!

[Toxn]

Since I've basically turned into Malal now, I feel the need to be contrarian regarding your F-35 contrarianism.

To whit: doesn't it bother you a bit that so many of the arguments for the program boil down to 'this is what was chosen, no going back now'. Or 'all the money is spent, no better options are possible'.

The fix being in doesn't say too much about the merits, after all.

[Sturgeon]

Since I've basically turned into Malal now, I feel the need to be contrarian regarding your F-35 contrarianism.

To whit: doesn't it bother you a bit that so many of the arguments for the program boil down to 'this is what was chosen, no going back now'. Or 'all the money is spent, no better options are possible'.

The fix being in doesn't say too much about the merits, after all.

 

I think your assessment is overly reductionist and misses a great deal of very important details like "the guys designing the F-35 know way the fuck more than we do about aerodynamics" and "military hardware configuration must exist within the context of the force utilizing it", so until you get an F-35 critic who comes along and slaps down detailed deconstructions showing why F-35 is a poor choice in either of those two respects, then yeah, all you can do is say "the program has eaten up a lot of money, but the folks at LockMart know their trade, and the train's already left the station, so let's maybe not kill it?"

 

Oh, also: F-35 introduces a comprehensive software suite, which is one of the primary reasons for its money and time consumption. So far as anyone can tell, this software suite is a necessity for a next-generation combat aircraft. So it doesn't really matter if we're talking F-35 or a budget version of F-22 or something else, a huge part of the program's cost and delay will still be there.

[Collimatrix]

I would be more willing to credit the various criticisms I've heard of the F-35 if there were strong indications that the soi-dissant defense journalists writing them had a pulse.

 

Take the "F-35 vs F-16 dogfight" report that came out and was widely heralded as damning.  Can these people read?

 

-Specific complaints about rearward visibility with the fancy new helmet, and specific complaints about the helmet (and its associated display) sliding around the pilot's head when they were pinned by Gs were translated into claims that the pilot cannot move their head around in a JSF, which is manifestly untrue if you look at a picture of one.

 

-This isn't a direct comparison of the performance of the JSF and the viper.  How do I know?  Because they specifically mention that this is a test of the high AoA performance of the JSF.  They mention bringing the JSF to forty degrees alpha, and the viper is software-limited to twenty five degrees!  So all the complaints about the controls being mushy and needing some tweaking refer to the quality of controls on the JSF when it's doing something that the viper already cannot do.  The second paragraph of the conclusions and recommendations also strongly suggests that the complaints about lack of energy maneuverability isn't a general complaint.  They're saying that the JSF lacks SEP when it's at absurdly high alphas that the viper can't even reach in the first place.  This is like bitching that the F-35B was test flown next to an F-86 to evaluate it's VTOL handling characteristics, and it had some problems, which shows that the F-86 was the better VTOL platform all along.  It's seriously that illogical.

 

JSF critics would be well within their rights to whip this document and say that it shows that the ultra-high alpha capability of the JSF is of limited air to air combat utility, and that the rear visibility isn't all that great and the helmet is a bit big.  That's basically what it says.

 

But no, that's not what they said it said.  

[Toxn]

I'm not denying that the reportage on this thing has been dumb.

 

But the central issues that the reporters have raised; that the project tried to shove all the eggs in the same basket and essentially got too big to kill; is perfectly valid.

 

It doesn't matter at this point whether the F-35 works as advertised, or that it was flawed in its very conception (imo, of course). Because the US and partners are getting it anyway and there are no better options on the table. You can be thankful that it isn't bad, I guess. But it certainly isn't perfect, and it has sucked up all the other options which might have lead to something better.

 

In the end, this is just how military procurement works. It tends to be very large, very political and very inefficient in terms of resource use. But I hold that we should treat it as a sad fact of life, not a feature of the program or a reason to defend it.

[Toxn]

Just to explain my point, I'm going to cross-post a quote from Colli:

 

The legacy fleet is good-ish.  It won't stay that way forever.  Fatigue is already an issue, and it pops its ugly head up now and again.

 

If you cancel the F-35 there will be a a lot of other countries wondering what in the hell they're supposed to fly now.  There will be brief enthusiasm for Gripen NG, Rafale, etc. until people realize that those aren't that much better than upgraded F-16s, and not remotely a match for the likes of the PAK-FA and J-20.  

 

F-35 is also the closest thing to a "long range stealth boat with large internal capacity" that's being produced, and from a non-evil country.  F-35 has bigger internal bays than F-22 (and as of block 5 will match the internal missile capacity of the raptor), and it outranges the F-16 (which, let's not forget, had amazing range for a tactical aircraft of that size when it was introduced) once you start attaching weapons.

 

Note second and third paragraphs. Again, the arguments here are more along the lines of 'no better options' and 'could be worse' rather than anything superlative.

 

Which, as I said, is how military procurement tends to work. But, again, not exactly something that's going to convince many folk that all is well with the bird.

[Belesarius]

UK just got a bunch of ASRAAM missiles for integration work on their F-35s.

 

http://www.defencetalk.com/mbda-delivers-asraam-missiles-for-f-35-integration-66685/

[Sturgeon]

I'm not denying that the reportage on this thing has been dumb.

 

But the central issues that the reporters have raised; that the project tried to shove all the eggs in the same basket and essentially got too big to kill; is perfectly valid.

 

It doesn't matter at this point whether the F-35 works as advertised, or that it was flawed in its very conception (imo, of course). Because the US and partners are getting it anyway and there are no better options on the table. You can be thankful that it isn't bad, I guess. But it certainly isn't perfect, and it has sucked up all the other options which might have lead to something better.

 

In the end, this is just how military procurement works. It tends to be very large, very political and very inefficient in terms of resource use. But I hold that we should treat it as a sad fact of life, not a feature of the program or a reason to defend it.

 

So basically:

Some Dumb Military Reformer: "We should cancel F-35 and replace it with Aerogavins!"

Me: "No, that is stupid. F-35 has way too much invested into it to cancel."

You: "Why do you act like that's a good thing!?"

See the problem?

[Toxn]

So basically:

Some Dumb Military Reformer: "We should cancel F-35 and replace it with Aerogavins!"

Me: "No, that is stupid. F-35 has way too much invested into it to cancel."

You: "Why do you act like that's a good thing!?"

See the problem?

 

I keep having to say this, but I can disagree with both statements 1 and 2.

 

The Malal line wasn't entirely random, in other words.

[Sturgeon]

I keep having to say this, but I can disagree with both statements 1 and 2.

 

The Malal line wasn't entirely random, in other words.

 

You're being obstinate. Cancelling the F-35 is stupid because much of the technology would have to be developed anyway, and it being a joint project, it has sucked up all the funding for anything that could fill its roles.

We can bluster and guess about what might have been better, but that doesn't change the fact that those who advocate for the program's cancellation are morons who think the A-10 is a multi-role aircraft.

[Toxn]

You're being obstinate. Cancelling the F-35 is stupid because much of the technology would have to be developed anyway, and it being a joint project, it has sucked up all the funding for anything that could fill its roles.

We can bluster and guess about what might have been better, but that doesn't change the fact that those who advocate for the program's cancellation are morons who think the A-10 is a multi-role aircraft.

If the technology needed to be developed anyway, and has now been developed, why would it be an issue to simply transfer it to a new airframe?

 

In any case, my argument (see the same thread cited above) is for limiting an existing project (F-35) in favour of expanding/accelerating another existing project (LRSB), so your argument doesn't apply here.

 

As I said; I can disagree both with you and with the folks arguing for keeping the A10, F16 et al around for the foreseeable future.

[Collimatrix]

I'm not denying that the reportage on this thing has been dumb.

 

But the central issues that the reporters have raised; that the project tried to shove all the eggs in the same basket and essentially got too big to kill; is perfectly valid.

 

It doesn't matter at this point whether the F-35 works as advertised, or that it was flawed in its very conception (imo, of course). Because the US and partners are getting it anyway and there are no better options on the table. You can be thankful that it isn't bad, I guess. But it certainly isn't perfect, and it has sucked up all the other options which might have lead to something better.

 

In the end, this is just how military procurement works. It tends to be very large, very political and very inefficient in terms of resource use. But I hold that we should treat it as a sad fact of life, not a feature of the program or a reason to defend it.

 

I think this is partially true.  F-35 is definitely what's for dinner, whether's it's superlative or crap or somewhere in-between.  But I don't think that's necessarily the fault of the enormous scope of the program.  There weren't going to be a plethora of options, one way or another.

 

In the 1950s everyone and their grandmother could design a jet fighter and there were oodles of choices.  Part of this is because they weren't as cripplingly bureaucratic back then, and part of it is because they didn't have any clue what they were doing and their designs would have been considered irresponsibly slapdash by today's standards.  Design considerations that are obsessed over now were totally unknown back then.  Allowances for good pressure recovery at high alpha?  What the hell is that?  Tuning the interaction of LERX/canards to the main wing to delay stall?  Nope, never heard of it.  Ensuring adequate rudder function to keep yaw authority when asymmetrical nose vortices form during aggressive turning?  They were totally innocent of knowledge of that problem as late as the F-4.  Oh, and stealth.  That's big too.

 

So it takes way, way more wind tunnel time, and computer simulation time and flight testing time to get a fighter into the air now.  This, coupled with the consolidation of the aero industry and the de-industrialization of considerable parts of Western Europe means that there simply cannot be that many options when it comes to combat aircraft.

 

Look at fighter aircraft engine makers.  There are something like seven options spread out over five polities.  There are two in the US (GE and P&W), one in France (Snecma), one in China (Xian/Shenyang), two-ish in Russia (Saturn/Lyulka and Klimov, not sure about Kuznetsov) and one joint UK/German (Eurojet, although technically the Italians, Spanish, and a bunch of other lazy and useless countries are involved as well).  Japan probably could design and produce their own fighter engines by developing their existing gas turbine industry with oodles of money.  India is trying and failing to design and make their own engines.  DRDO is staffed by inbreds.  The turbine manufacturers in Ukraine are probably too far gone to salvage at this point.

 

So, unless you're one of those countries, and you also know the secrets of AESA radar, stealth coatings, tight-stream multi-band datalinks, contemporary ECM, long-range electro-optical sensors, and all the other goodies that fighters need these days to be more than expensive flying coffins, any sort of fighter program you enter will necessarily be a joint project.  Hell, the Swedish know all about the aerodynamics of fighter design, and they can manufacture a fair amount of the electronics.  But they can't make their own engines; they'll always have to go shopping for someone else's motors, with all the design and political compromise that guarantees.

 

Add to that how expensive modern combat aircraft are, and how flexible avionics have become, and the trend towards multi-role aircraft is irresistible.  So, a does-everything, multi-national program was going to be the shape of contemporary fighter design with or without the JSF program.

[Sturgeon]

Thank you, based colli.

[LoooSeR]

Just a little bit of F-35Pron