China shows off its C-17 and F-35 prototypes

The thing that most concerns me about the Chinese stealing the F-35 data is if they got the information on sensor fusing and other sensetive parts of the aircraft. Thats the big worry. Planform info, while we don't necessarily want it in our enemies hand, can be attained with good engineers and pics. kinda. But if they learned how to sensor fuse, then so did every one else in the world and there goes our advantage.

These planes are crap and not half as good as what the USA Builds !!!

Yes but China builds these for less than a tenth of what military contractors charge US tax payers and Hitler made the same mistake with his T2 tanks that were the best in the world money could buy at the time.

a reply to: mindseye1609

I highly doubt china has any plans In the near future or the even moderate future for a war with a major power. Not even Russia wants it with the US or china.

if the USA keeps pushing then Russia/China are going have to fight, like it or not and the only country in the world to have used nukes in anger will see what its like to be on the receiving end.

Getting US military bases out of Europe will do more for world peace than anything but that would upset the USA who's only major export is military hardware and GMO's plus fracking chemicals.

China/Russia should buy up these fracking chemicals and send them back home as a cheap form of agent orange if you ask me.

originally posted by: boomer135
The thing that most concerns me about the Chinese stealing the F-35 data is if they got the information on sensor fusing and other sensetive parts of the aircraft.

If we are talking about steeling trade secrets then the USA is number one and used the tame excuse of fighting terrorists as a reason to spy on the world whilst steeling all the information they could which really pissed Germany off.

The trouble with tanks is jets can take them out if they are in the open and the trouble with jets is they are always out in the open and China will have surface to air rockets that they can make for a fraction of the cost that it took to build a F-35

These type of jets need major engine rebuilds after a few days of flying and the cost to take out a 4X4 jeep and its AA Gun that's worth about $50,000 ends up costing $250,000 for the flight and $20,000 for the missile to do the job.

Wars are not won like this

originally posted by: bjarneorn

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul

BS Russian propaganda should always be balanced with western propaganda:

Actually, it *IS* correct ... this is one of the "under the board deals", that lead to the self inflicted collapse of the Soviet Union and the "stand down" of arms, in Yougoslavia.

NATO is the one, who is the aggressor ... always has.

Interesting as I live in the eastern part of the EU (Poland) and I haven't seen NATO doing anything aggressive towards Russia for a long time (and lets not put spying as a reason since all countries do that so its a non issue here). Even after putin started his bonkers destabilization of Ukraine, NATO was sitting quiet. Even after they took control of Crimea (which in my opinion this whole thing was about, and is still about since they are trying to secure a land route towards the new territory), nothing much was happening besides everybody saying that they are "concerned" or "angry" (which was widely criticized by the population of EU). They haven't even reacted when a bloody civilian jet was shot down ,and please don't tell me this was done by the Ukrainian army ...

If they would have stopped at this point nothing would have happened besides some sanctions from the EU, which lets be honest would have gone away after some time.

It is only AFTER they kept pushing further into Ukraine and started doing flyovers over (and I can't find a logical reason for that) different countries, that actually belong to the NATO pact, did the top brass supported by the outcry of countries like mine, got very nervous (and had the excuse in front of the public) and started acting.

Without that stupid push on Ukraine nothing would have changed for a long time (in my opinion of course), since everybody was perfectly fine with the way things were. Everybody spied on everybody, everybody tried to get an military advantage over everybody and everybody was sticking to their own Territories.

Look at it this way, if Sweden which always wanted to stay neutral despite many attempts by different officials to make them join the pact are seriously considering joining, means things have changed and it is not due to some NATO actions.

At least that is my point of view, but correct me if I am wrong on some issues .

If we are talking about steeling trade secrets then the USA is number one and used the tame excuse of fighting terrorists as a reason to spy on the world whilst steeling all the information they could which really pissed Germany off.

Its stealing, not steeling

And no thats not what I have a problem against. We do it too, I blame that on LM for not safeguarding the info. Im just wondering what all they got. Not sure what Germany has to do with that...

The trouble with tanks is jets can take them out if they are in the open and the trouble with jets is they are always out in the open and China will have surface to air rockets that they can make for a fraction of the cost that it took to build a F-35

Who said anything about tanks? And of course jets are always out in the open. The fly.

Just about every country in the world, including the USA can build a surface to air rocket for a fraction of the cost that it took to build an F-35. They are $100 million dollar aircraft!

These type of jets need major engine rebuilds after a few days of flying and the cost to take out a 4X4 jeep and its AA Gun that's worth about $50,000 ends up costing $250,000 for the flight and $20,000 for the missile to do the job.

Um, no they dont need a major rebuild after a few days of flying. Go find a source that says that...
Well if the flight is longer than 8-9 hours then yes it will cost 250,000 dollars for that mission, but combat missions are usually half of that. And you were so close on getting one right with the 20,000 dollar missile but im afraid your wrong, see a 2000 pound JDAM, most likely the bomb chosen to take out that poor jeep, costs around 25,000 bucks each, not 20.

Wars are not won like this

You know what, I'll agree with this. Cause by your calculations you were rooting for Japan or even Germany in WW2 and they both lost...

a reply to: boomer135
don't need a source about engines being rebuilt after a few days flying on modern fighters because I have been involved in this work to some degree but not on f-35 so please feel free to do your own research if you think I am wrong.

I said if you look
" $250,000 for the flight and $20,000 for the missile "

You say
" see a 2000 pound JDAM, most likely the bomb chosen to take out that poor jeep, costs around 25,000 bucks each, not 20."

Where did the $20 come from ?

I might not be good at spelling as you pointed out but you don't seem to be good at reading so best we call it quits on that one.

You know what, I'll agree with this. Cause by your calculations you were rooting for Japan or even Germany in WW2 and they both lost...

Not sure why you want to go off on one but was you to ask about Russia and the USA today then I am against the aggression from the USA and would side with Russia if that helps.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA

China pretty much owns a significant proportion of American debt. They don't need to go to war with America never mind anyone else.

originally posted by: VirusGuard
a reply to: boomer135
don't need a source about engines being rebuilt after a few days flying on modern fighters because I have been involved in this work to some degree but not on f-35 so please feel free to do your own research if you think I am wrong.

You're wrong. Engine life spans are longer than they have ever been, and are approaching the point where they will only have to be removed for failures, and won't have to have anything replaced on them. Engines run for years without being rebuilt, unless they have a failure during that time.

The F119, which has the same core as the F135, achieved a hot section full life of 4,325 cycles. The turbine blades can last hundreds of flight hours before having to be replaced.

a reply to: Zaphod58
OK I will try

"Early on, the F-22 required more than 30 hours of maintenance per flight hour and a total cost per flight hour of $44,000"

Link
"In 2011, the RAF deployed 10 x Typhoon aircraft to its base in Italy for operations in Libya, and achieved 4,500 flying hours without an engine change."

Yes that's between ten of them so 450 hours is something to brag about but when not under war time conditions the number of hours is closer to 50 before the engines are removed for maintenance and for a total rebuild and apparently it cost something silly like $1/2m per engine just to recondition with each engine having its own set of magnets that were used to test for metal contaminates in the oil.

The guys working on these engines looked after these magnets like they were the crown jewels for some reason.

I was told this was cheap to what they were doing because at one stage they use to replace the engines at a cost of $1m each engine.

Link

Would try to give you more details but its not easy to find much of a breakdown on the costs when it comes to the military but lets just say my information might be old but I did get it from the horses mouth so to speak.

a reply to: VirusGuard

It helps if you actually know what you're talking about.

The F-22 required 30 hours of maintenance per flight hour. How does that mean that the engines had to be rebuilt every few days? Apparently in your world maintenance = engines. I hate to break it to you, but by FAR the most maintenance intensive portion of the F-22, to this day, is the skin. Even a slight blemish in the skin makes the aircraft less stealthy, and can result in large portions of it being replaced.

Engines fail, yes, but 450 hours is far from "every few days", and a failure does NOT mean that it has to be totally rebuilt. The average non-ferry flight is two hours max, while ferry flights can last 8 hours. That means in a non-ferry situation, even at two flights a day, they MIGHT get four hours a day in flight time. That means that it's around a YEAR of flights before that engine failed. And even then, failure could be as simple as a fan blade, which would require it being pulled and the blade replaced, which is FAR from a total rebuild.

Engines don't have to be rebuilt for years after they're in use. Within five years we'll see turbofans that won't have to be pulled for routine maintenance until after the aircraft is retired.

The F119 and F135 have a Mean Time Between Failures of over 25,000 flight hours for some components. It's been an extremely long time since engines have had to be rebuilt "every few days".

a reply to: Zaphod58
Yes It helps if you actually know what you're talking about and read what I said.

450 hours during war time but something like 50 hours when not and that is just a few days of continues flight without going on how rare it is for them to fly more than a few hours a year.

You are trying to make out that these fighters go on for ever like a 747 but they don't and I even gave you some links that took some time to get so if you want to argue about the costs then you should take it up with them.

Look at it anyway you like but the costs most people seem to agree on is in the range of $20,000 to $40,000 per flying hours (excluding initial cost) and if you take the 2 X $1/2 per engine and divide by 50 hours then you get to $20,000 per hour.

USAF estimates F-35 will cost $32,000 per hour to operate

The F119 and F135 have a Mean Time Between Failures of over 25,000 flight hours for some components

As do the seats in my car but seats built around an explosive charge in these jets I was talking about needed to be removed and tested once a year even if the planes didn't fly and that cost, so I was told came to $9000 per seat

Don't shoot the messenger

originally posted by: andy06shake

China pretty much owns a significant proportion of American debt. They don't need to go to war with America never mind anyone else.

What people don't get is that the USA could tear all them bonds so that they become worthless but this won't upset China too much because all the hard assets in China that are owned by the USA.

Who cares about paper when you have the assets

a reply to: VirusGuard

Right, they somehow get 9 times better during wartime than they do during peacetime. I've worked on aircraft that had flown months without the engine being worked on, besides routine maintenance required, such as oil changes, etc.

The F119, which is used by the F-22 has been flying in operational roles since 2004. The first core modules arrived for maintenance in 2009.

One instance of the engine's durability was a module brought for servicing after ingesting a landing gear safety pin. On inspection, the engine still spun freely with only one, small compressor blade missing.

"And that missing blade was only a little bit bigger than my thumbnail," Mr. Green said. "If the on-board computer hadn't notified the pilot, I think that engine still would have flown."

www.tinker.af.mil...

The F135 has a 225% increase in time between shop visits, and is capable of changing out external engine parts in 15 minutes or less, sitting on the ramp.

What does cost have to do with engine maintenance?

As for ejection seats, the charge is checked without removing the seats, but the seats are routinely removed during scheduled phase maintenance, which is done at the unit level, and is part of the cost of the maintenance.

The Su-30, which uses far worse engines than anything in the West, is at 3,000 hours between engine changes (although most Russian engines won't get anywhere near that, and show 1,500 hours for the Al-31). US engines are designed for 8,000 hours, and are overhauled at 2,0000/4,0000/6,000 hours. Still want to stick to that 50 hours crap?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: thebozeian

The J-31 is designed as an export fighter. The J-20 will be their indigenous use aircraft. The J-31 is their version of the F-35, designed for outside nations that can't afford, or can't get access to the F-35 to buy.

here here !
as a side note cost is also why outside nations get their J-31
with armament not hidden in the magical belly of stealth .
which includes exotic coatings, metal and Einstein CPU's.

a reply to: UnderKingsPeak

Really? You think so?

www.offiziere.ch...

i.imgur.com...

Sure look like weapons bays to me.

As for exotic coatings, of course the J-31 has exotic coatings. Do you think that they can just use straight up aluminum and composites and get stealth? Of course it will have exotic materials.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah but it's probably the same # they got the info from when the F-117 went down. Lol

Looks like the Chinese are lining up there first buyers of their export version of the J-31 (FC-31). Pakistan are in talks to buy them to replace their current F-16 fleet.

defensetech.org...

I wonder if the Pakastani DoD are aware of the apperent major shortcomings of the jet in it's curent configuration:

www.cnn.com...

originally posted by: Sammamishman
I wonder if the Pakastani DoD are aware of the apparent major shortcomings of the jet in it's current configuration:
www.cnn.com...

I'm guessing that Pakistan will base their decision upon the results of their own testing.
2nd.