F-35 looking more like white elephant

Originally posted by budski
reply to post by tristar

 

Or never stop spending money on something that is really not needed.

It's obscene.

its all a matter of click and the decimal point. Resources at hand do equal and perhaps are way beyond what posters are at hand.

I think the F-35 is a flying turd.

The US Air Force senior leaders can take any good aircraft and screw it up beyond recognition.

If you want a premier fighter, then build a damned fighter.

If you want a penetrating bomber, build a penetrating bomber.

You want a top performing close ground support aircraft, build a top performing close ground support aircraft.

Every time you try to take an aircraft and add an additional "mission" capability, it reduces the other mission advantages.

It doesn't matter that they have the Air Force version, the larger Navy version, or the VTOL Marine version. The base aircraft, designed to do a bit of everything actually won't do anything very well.

Wing loading positively sucks, and that will show up in combat.

White elephant?

More like brown/green Elephant ****.

Originally posted by tristar

Originally posted by budski
reply to post by tristar

 

Or never stop spending money on something that is really not needed.

It's obscene.

its all a matter of click and the decimal point. Resources at hand do equal and perhaps are way beyond what posters are at hand.

No, it's a matter of perpetuating war, and war machines because it makes some people very, very rich.

Me?
I'd rather look after the starving, dispossessed, homeless citizens let down by government legislation which protects those who put them there in the first place.

The relationship between the arms industry and the money-making (banking) industry, is incestuous, and has no place in the modern world.

Originally posted by randomname
reply to post by RedGolem

 

this is the military industrial complex. they are going to milk this cow until cheese comes out.

They won't stop at cheese they'll go through the pus through the blood they won't stop till they've taken the marrow out of the carcase's broken bones.

Originally posted by RustyShakleford92
reply to post by RedGolem

 

This is suppose to be a top of the line aircraft, with no others like it in the world for decades to come. The R&D put into this to make it untouchable for decades to come couldn't have been cheap, so it's not so easy to say that Lockheed is milking this one.

China will enter the 5th generation fighter market around 2020 with the J-20 aircraft
(source)
blogs.wsj.com...

Russia/India will enter the 5th generation fighter market around 2016 with the Su-T50:
(sources)
www.foxnews.com...
www.globalsecurity.org...

It is rumored that Sweden will also get into the 5th generation market with the Gripen(NG):
(source)
www.gripen.com...

The world is catching up fast and for less money, so I hope the F-35 lives up to the hype!

Mathieu Rabechault?????
Here are some more articles from Mathieu Rabechault.

Gay US soldiers must still hold fire on sexuality
news.yahoo.com...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell' voted down in U.S.
www.nationalpost.com...

Gay U.S. soldiers almost in the open
www.montrealgazette.com...

It looks like he has a personal vendetta against the military. I think he will be fighting a hard uphill battle on this.

Originally posted by MarkLuitzen
reply to post by budski

 

the j20 from china will and can compete with the f22 its better in someways but we have to see what the j20 can do

Yeah yeah, with all due respect I lived all this before with the Mig 25 and the F-15.

Turns out the Mig couldn't turn and was a bucket of bolts and vacume tubes.

Originally posted by majesticgent

Originally posted by RustyShakleford92
reply to post by RedGolem

 

This is suppose to be a top of the line aircraft, with no others like it in the world for decades to come. The R&D put into this to make it untouchable for decades to come couldn't have been cheap, so it's not so easy to say that Lockheed is milking this one.

China will enter the 5th generation fighter market around 2020 with the J-20 aircraft
(source)
blogs.wsj.com...

Russia/India will enter the 5th generation fighter market around 2016 with the Su-T50:
(sources)
www.foxnews.com...
www.globalsecurity.org...
It is rumored that Sweden will also get into the 5th generation market with the Gripen(NG):
(source)
www.gripen.com...
The world is catching up fast and for less money, so I hope the F-35 lives up to the hype!

edit on 13-1-2011 by majesticgent because: (no reason given)

I'll fly an F-35 and take on 2 of each of the above fighters simultaneously.
And win, before the dog fight even starts!

reply to post by Violater1


I hope so too, but you'd be better off in a F-22 as it is the air superiority fighter.

I just mentioned the other planes because they could be viable competitors and to illustrate that the US isn't the only one working on 5th generation fighters.

I hope they will never have to tangle in combat with one another, but that's wishful thinking.

The F 35 has been a boondoggle from the git go.
All along there have been detractors mumbling dire warnmings about the way in which it is being put together.
The US should have never hyped this aircraft till they had one to show...
My country, canada, is in for 16 billion dollars for a plane that we havent even seen the final drawings for....
If this thing is a dog, i hope we cancel the hell out of any contracts weve signed on the hype that the govt put into selling this thing to defray the costs of building it.We wont get top of the line ones anyways...these are reserved for the US.
Anything we needed as an airforce could be gotten from the F15 ,F 18 or other foriegn aircraft.
This is one airplane with a lot riding on its success, and if theres any problems with it i am sure the US Gov. will never admit it.
Like when all those NATO pilots were crashing the F100 starfighter.It was the plane, not the pilots.
Same same for the harrier, it has the worst record in the biz for crashes.
I have no faith in the US to play the sale of their war machines honstly, even to their valued allies!
It is pretty obvious that china has stolen all of the f 35 as well as other technology in the past decade.
Still nobody plugs the leaks, why?

Originally posted by I B Dazzlin
RedGolem you are a tool to ignorance. If you don't know how much they cost or the technology that has been developed in the aircraft how can you say anything about the F-35 milking money? The F-35 has full colour displays, its lift fan is driven by the main engine which means it doesnt need a seperate lift engine, the handeling during hovering is supposed to be far superior to the Harrier, It has special radar absorbing paint that is put on with the aid of lasers.

Dazzlin
if you believe the military industrial complex actually gives a r@t$ @$$ about providing a piece of equipment at a fair cost then you are the (repeat what was said above). Actions in the past have been reported and recorded that were done deliberately and for the soul purpose of driving up costs. There have been a few cases that have gone to court and fines paid, those are a matter of public record if you know were to look you might be able to find them. I would not put using the same tactics beyond them now and the price tag enforces those thoughts. The only real new tech you mentioned above was the lift fan driven by a shaft. And that is more of an application of what was already out there.

Originally posted by stirling

Like when all those NATO pilots were crashing the F100 starfighter.It was the plane, not the pilots.

It's the F-104 Starfighter, and it is still a +1 Mach fighter.
Please provide a link to the NATO pilots crashing the F-104.
The Lighting II is an excellent fighter.

Originally posted by majesticgent
reply to post by Violater1

 

I hope so too, but you'd be better off in a F-22 as it is the air superiority fighter.
I just mentioned the other planes because they could be viable competitors and to illustrate that the US isn't the only one working on 5th generation fighters.
I hope they will never have to tangle in combat with one another, but that's wishful thinking.

In a mountainous combat zone, an F-35 assigned to CAP or SEAD will knock down anything but the TR-3B.
If your scrambling along the plains, or ocean, an F-22 will have air superiority.

reply to post by Thepreye


or...cheese is good to lol. I dunno, the name of the game is innovate and improve or be overtaken. Without our aura of military dominance we really don't have many things keeping us a superpower. We certainly don't have the financial means to hold that title

There trying to make it Windows 8 compliant. What would you expect. There adding wifi tech and windows 8 software for everything from programing the flight data to weapon systems that comunicate by wifi to flight deck personal about what weapons are to be loaded and how much fuel to put on.

Originally posted by RustyShakleford92
reply to post by RedGolem

 

My father works for Lockheed Martin. I believe each plane is going for roughly $90 million. And this technology is really incredible, some of which isn't made public.... so I would believe this price tag. The system that is involved to shield itself from enemy radar is a decent percentage of it.

This intrigued me. The tech behind the system that shields it from "enemy radar", not to mention enemy satellite tracking systems. And considering that radar systems are being upgraded to multifunction systems, these aircraft must also adapt to reduce and/or eliminate their signatures altogether.

Radar technology looks to the future

Could these technologies include metamaterials that are arrays of tiny electromagnetic resonators that are tuned to different frequencies that perhaps confuse, absorb, or fool these new radar systems?

online.wsj.com...

Is the extra monies going into microwave cloaking tech?

www.flightglobal.com...

Or do we encase these new craft in a plasma field, absorbing and bending the radar around the craft as explained here:

iron-eagles.tripod.com...

Whatever is being used, it is really expensive, and yes, the MIC (military industrial complex) has a notorious history of "padding" it's budgets. Spare no expense.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Not to mention the "black budget":

www.theregister.co.uk...

Which is just over 50 billion dollars! With the estimated population of the United States in 2009 of 307,006,550:

quickfacts.census.gov...

If we distributed that "black budget" to the American citizens instead, each one of us would receive a check for about $163.00! Hey it's not much, but I could use a little extra every now and then

And you guys have to remember why the cost is so high. An engineer here researching, developing, and manufacturing these planes are making good money. Nothing obscene, but they do get paid a high salary. In Russia and China, the people making and designing these planes are making a FRACTION of the salary an American does. America is known to be a place to make great money. Russia and China aren't, unless you are in a governmental or high business position, so alot of the high cost comes with the "greatness" of America.

Don't you guys get it yet?

The vast majority of people want to live their lives, as best they can.

It's just the rich who want war perpetuated, because it's in their interests for that to happen - so they make it happen.

And people fall for it...

Much better if we pool our resources and work together - but that will never happen while people covet money and power.

reply to post by JBA2848


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Back ot lol, I am perplexed by this fighter and what it hopes to acheive. I see much millitary technology as pretty stagnant in it's public side, how much better than a harrier is this? I know the harrier has limited hover capability because of cooling water reserves, however hovering is probably not the most common flight mode, or they'd likely want a helicopter.. How much will mountainous strikes need to be launched that a cheaper and safer, armoured apache couldn't do? The v22 osprey hasn't exactly been a 'hit' either.

Wonder why almost no other manufacturer has built vtol planes? Its a gimmicky niche.

reply to post by GhostR1der


The hovering technology is an extreme advantage to this fighter. It doesn't need an airstrip to land and take off. That is a HUGE advantage in many scenarios it could encounter. The military does always use the same few companys to build these planes. What other companies do you suggest they use? The technology is secret, they already have an established relationship with a few companies, and a good track record, so who else would they need?

And also, as my understanding, this is an all purpose kind of aircraft and can fly at ridiculous top speeds. And apache or any other sort of helicopter cannot do this. I also doubt they could make an apache invisible to radar, because its just so damn loud anyways.