Lightning II makes its debut, official naming link

www.af.mil...

I know there is another thread on this aircraft, but the naming can't get any more official then this site shows.

Still, there is already a thread on this matter, and it is rather (excuse me for sounding British) usless to have an other.

You could have posted that link in the existing thread.

The Link says that among others its supose to replace the A-10.
Who ever thought that up is a fool.
Nothing I have see yet will ever be able to replace the A-10.
That was the best plane ever made for its purpose.

Originally posted by RedGolem
The Link says that among others its supose to replace the A-10.
Who ever thought that up is a fool.
Nothing I have see yet will ever be able to replace the A-10.
That was the best plane ever made for its purpose.

That is (and will forever be) the best plane ever made for its purpose.

How can a Medium sized Stealth built for Attack/Air Strike replace a heavy Close-Support aircraft? Will the F-35 even come equipped with the necessary hardware?

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies02
How can a Medium sized Stealth built for Attack/Air Strike replace a heavy Close-Support aircraft? Will the F-35 even come equipped with the necessary hardware?

Shattered OUT...

Exactly, at least the 30 mm cannon is hard to hide or mount up in the plane. it would make the palne luess stealthy right?

The airframe just isn't built for that, so it can't be the classification of the aircraft, because the airframe can't handle it.

Shattered OUT...

Its not going to replace the A-10, the upgraded Thunderbolt II will stay around until at least 2025. Then we will either have to make another A-10 type of aircraft or find a way to render CAS unnecessary. The F-35 cannot replace the A-10 for several reasons, if anything will its likely to be a UCAV.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Its not going to replace the A-10, the upgraded Thunderbolt II will stay around until at least 2025. Then we will either have to make another A-10 type of aircraft or find a way to render CAS unnecessary. The F-35 cannot replace the A-10 for several reasons, if anything will its likely to be a UCAV.

West Point
Hear is a quote from the link that was listed in the first message on this thred.

7/10/2006 - -- Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley announces the name selected for the new Lockheed Martin F-35 during the inauguration ceremony at the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 7. The jet, named the Lightning II, is a 5th-generation, supersonic stealth fighter designed to replace a wide range of existing aircraft, including the AV-8B Harrier, A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F/A-18 Hornet and Royal Air Force Harrier GR-7 and Sea Harriers. (Image courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

The artical is saying it is supose to replace the Thunderbolt, so are you saying that this is not correct?
I do hope it is not correct but I do want to know what the correct info is.

I think we are all saying that it is incorrect, how can the JSF replace something that will continue on for another 30 years?

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies02
I think we are all saying that it is incorrect, how can the JSF replace something that will continue on for another 30 years?

Shattered OUT...

Military offices have said several times on new reports that the F-16 can do the same job as the A-10. I think it is more just playing politics but that does not mean that the jerks in DC wont do it that way to get more money to what ever company pays them enuff.

Well, it's mostly political, an F-16 cannot do what an A-10 can, anyone with half a brain will realize this, the F-16 does not have a 30mm General Dynamics cannons running the length of the fuselage and it certainly isn't as strong as an A-10 is, can an F-16 return to base, land with parts of it's wings blown completely off and wittled with bullet holes?

Can the F-16 even deliver a similar payload as the A-10?

An F-16 most definitely cannot fly at the low speeds that an A-10 does to provide close air support for infantry.

I'm just saying that the JSF can't replace the A-10 and the assertion that an F-16 does the job of an A-10 also cannot be correct because the F-16 just isn't built for it, simple as that, it's a different Air Frame.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies02
Well, it's mostly political, an F-16 cannot do what an A-10 can, anyone with half a brain will realize this, the F-16 does not have a 30mm General Dynamics cannons running the length of the fuselage and it certainly isn't as strong as an A-10 is, can an F-16 return to base, land with parts of it's wings blown completely off and wittled with bullet holes?

Can the F-16 even deliver a similar payload as the A-10?

An F-16 most definitely cannot fly at the low speeds that an A-10 does to provide close air support for infantry.

I'm just saying that the JSF can't replace the A-10 and the assertion that an F-16 does the job of an A-10 also cannot be correct because the F-16 just isn't built for it, simple as that, it's a different Air Frame.

Shattered OUT...

Shattered,
I do agree with eveything you are saying.
I just hope all the crooks we have on capital hill will relise that it is there job to give the people we have on the ground the best avaible support.
Which as good a plane as I am sure the F-35 is, its just no where close to the A-10 for that job.
And I was being nice useing the term "crook" instead of other things I was thinking.

[edit on 11-7-2006 by RedGolem]

It's them guys at Capital hill, whatever makes there pocket's tingle they're all for.

Shattered OUT...

A-10
10,700lbs internal fuel, 270-320knot cruise, 2-5hr endurance (depending on radius and profile from base to patrol area). Carries: No IAM. Only 2 LGB, over the 20% of the force fitted with LITENING. Cannot fly over the top of many threat envelopes, either as an escort to the V-22, as a RESCAP platform operating off a common tanker. Or as an independent CAS asset in high-hot conditions. The A-10 has virtually NO netcentric connectivity, thanks to the principal failure of various SADL related programs to field a common Architecture down to the boot level. As I recall, there were all of _ten_ A-10s with ROVER capability and all were in operating in AfG.

F-35
20,000lbs internal fuel, 400-500 knot cruise, 6-8hr endurance _without tanking_. Carries IAM internally and externally (as many as 10) from the start, will likely enter squadron service with GBU-39 as a standard, increasing IAM counts to X24.
Has third generation targeting FLIR with the ability to designate targets from upwards of 40nm out, based on video of Sniper ATP doing the same. Will further come 'fully netcentrized' TTNT or better systems. It will additionally have integrated MAWS technology and smarter expendables while fully able to fly over the threat bubble and hang the like a vulture. Lastly, 'being a fighter' (i.e. sexy and thus accepted) there will be more than 250 of them available to swing roles with.

Folks, the only thing that the A-10 has is a gun which is nearly useless in a shoulderfire or better AD environment. This is particularly so when compared to the APKWS/LCPK systems which are fielding _70mm_ (twice the GAU's caliber) guided rockets for about a third the cost of Hellfire. When that system fully fields, nobody in their right minds will want anything else because you get the equivalent of 40-70 30mm rounds in ONE guided (Laser now, INS/GPS coming soon) MPSM or multidart warhead. With a standoff range upwards of 6,000m and thus _completely beyond_ what the GAU can achieve, with accuracy.

The sadness here is that the F-35 costs too much to do the job, even if we had pilots who could stand up to the 10-12-14hr mission rotations that a UCAV could handle 'as standard'. Otherwise, the A-10 is completely past it and ONLY the _primitive nature of the OOTW threat_ keeps it in the game.


KPl.

For us simple minded-folk, do you think you could use less acronyms and more, well just type out the whole word so it's not so much a pain when we go out to do research on our own to see what you're saying is actually relevant Ch.

Comparing Apples to Oranges, what I want to know is that stall speed for the F-35, and if it's low enough for it to be a good Close Air Support craft, if not, then what's the point of having all those bombs? So what if one laser guided bomb equals so many rounds from a 30mm, you don't have several hundreds of them on the craft now do you?

A gun cannon can take out many more targets than a single bomb.

Comparing Apples to Oranges man, and perhaps, just perhaps, UCAVs aren't godly and invincible. That's how it is to me anyways.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies02
How can a Medium sized Stealth built for Attack/Air Strike replace a heavy Close-Support aircraft?

I think it has to do with missiles and bombs getting smarter.

You dont need a plane with a big gun flying low shooting at tanks and putting itself in a high risk environment, if you can just drop some jdams on the tank and they wouldn't know what hit em, or shoot hellfire missiles at your targets.

I'm not dissing the A-10...Because its obviously a tough plane, and has proven its worth, I'm just thinking outside the box.

The A-10 has the low speed capability needed for CAS and its rugged and cheap, I wonder how an F-35 would handle the battle damage the A-10 has sustained over the years. Personally I’d go with a UCAV swarm concept for next generation CAS, hovering over the battlefield for hours and perhaps days they would be able to provide immediate support with precision and speed, and they’d be easy to replace seeing as they wouldn't cost 45 Mil a pop.

BTW the F-35 will perform close air support missions but it will not totally replace the A-10. Like I said the USAF has upgraded the A-10’s frame so that it can keep flying until 2025. Don't take the generals words too literally.

I agree with Ch1446, the principle reason the A-10 has continued to perform is that the air defences it has come up against in recent times allow it to succeed in surviving in a low altitude environment. Should it ever come to having to perform CAS in a high threat environment (SA-18+, SA-19, SA-10s, SA-11/17 supporting manoeuvre elements), the only thing the A-10 will be good for will be keeping the PR guys busy. This, of course, is also true of F-16/F-18 aircraft as well. Even if you suppress/destroy the bigger systems, you just can't guarentee that the low altitude environment is safe from advanced MANPADs. And CAS, by definition, suggests proximity to the adversary. Much better to stay up high and pick them off with SDB or some of the newer swarming type weapons now that the accuracy is good enough.

The A-10 was, and is, a great little aircraft. But you are kidding yourself if you think it is worth the cost of the platform, and the pilot, to put them into anything other than a low level threat environment when these days you just don't have to. The fact that so many have suffered severe battledamage, while testament to the survivability of the aircraft, means that a combat option is removed from the commander's arsenal. And that simply isn't a smart way to fight a war.

Only problem with high altitude JDAM, SDB or Hellfire support is the fact that you will still have to be able to spot and target the enemy... Properly hidden Tank comppany is hard to find even if you walk past them 100m away, let alone flying 600km/h above them at 10 000ft... This may not be a problem in Iraq, but somewhere more forrested it's a major problem.

Do you want to risk recon squads or CAS aircraft, because someone has to find the enemy before you can destroy it?

UAVs and UCAV may help in this...