F-35 May Never Be Ready for Combat

a reply to: Fastmover

Now that it's in the hands of the warfighters that will use it, interesting things are happening, and it's proving to be much better than people gave it credit for. From having to use transponders against training SAM sites, to killing Red Air almost as soon as they were airborne, it's been an interesting few weeks recently.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Hell I'm still very unconvinced when it comes to F35, but attempting to tie the black sea non incident and the Vincennes into it is just shoddy criticism that relies entirely on lack of fact checking and non sequiturs to get off the ground.

While I'm almost certain that the Russians actually do have some stuff that may come as a very nasty, costly, and tragic surprise if the worst ever happens and we go at each other hard, the system on the su-24 that day sure isn't one of them.

Like zaphod has said over and over there was just nothing about the black sea thing that would have justified even lighting them up with fire control radars.

If you're going to hate the F35 at least do it for good reasons, not made up ones.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Indeed

www.businessinsider.com...

My only beef with the 35 was when it was reported to be replacing the A-10 for the primary CAS role. Granted, I understand the need to replace an aging fleet of A-10's eventually, but the F-35 doesn't seem to fit that role in any such way. From what I've understood so far, that motion has been taken off the table though?

I haven't really stayed all that caught up with the 35 program since.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Why do I feel deja vu with every US aircraft weapon system ever bought out with that article.

a reply to: Blackfinger

Yeah, I've had to laugh at some of the recent comments aimed at the critics by people that don't necessarily love the aircraft, but realize what's going on. It's been funny as hell.

Along the lines of: Boy it's a good thing the F-16 didn't have any problems during development. Oh.... wait....

F-35 are only useful partially to some Italy and the UK who need the STOVL capabilities of the F-35B in order to replace the old Harrier. Moreover they are only useful against poor African countries that don't have (yet) modern quantum technologies for the detection of such "stealth" planes. Stealth was the previous century's response to former soviet anti-aircraft missile systems. Against modern system that exploit the principles of the new "quantum age", the F-35, F-22, B-2 don't stand a chance.

The new paradigm for survivability is speed and automation, not stealth!

a reply to: Flanker86

Yet another "Stealth is useless against modern opponents" when everyone that has any substantial military is building stealth. I'm so glad we have so many people running around that know better than everyone else about what does and doesn't work.

a reply to: Flanker86

who are these people with quantum detection tech?

and how does that tech work to detect aircraft?

originally posted by: darkstar57

The death of the f35 is based on 24 million lines of code and Khibiney.. the Russian electronic warfare gizmo. The stealth of the f35 is based, like the f22, on multiple antenna arrays (like 30) in the skin that actively spoof tracking radar.. and when they are taken out and the software driving the spoofers, it is naked. and likely guidance and control systems are locked,

Those antenna are passive receptors that allow the system to gather data and they try really hard to never turn their own radar on. This is why they are have fun guiding missiles from other launchers. You need to read up abit.

originally posted by: darkstar57

Now FredT had some really good points, i will have to think a bit before responding. but my first response is that say the f22 can be seen 13 miles out, but my view...only with active suppression from computer controlled 30 element skin array. otherwise...it may be visible more than 100 miles out because those dead antennas are going to be good reflectors of attack frequencies. go refresh your antenna theory with the ARRL handbook.

WOW its true. The best way to hide the truth is to tell the truth.

So guy the F-117 was faceted to place the dosens of little antennas in the correct position to absorb the radar waves.

$5 says I'll be be misquoted in another thread as the "unnamed military confirms the truth".

originally posted by: darkstar57
a reply to: Zaphod58 I read the RWR passage in wikipedia, and that is why i insist that once electronic management of the antenna array is lost, the f22 is naked as those 4 plastic trump statues posted by the killery gang.
Now imagine you are a 3 gig radio wave, 10 cm long, minding your own biz and making an EM field. but you run into two 5 cm pieces of wire (an antenna) with a radio amp at the junction...so suddenly you transition to a positive charge (left piece) and a neg charge right piece, and the radio amp sees the voltage, and absorbs the voltage while running it through capacitors, inductors etc. But wait...you have an expensive mil spec 10 gig cpu analyzing the signal...and making stealthy decisions. what it does will be tottally classified.
but wait . what happens if the radio amp is down, the electrical signal is still there. but hit a road block. the hams called it SWR. its going to return to the EM form.
And the antenna is not going to be covered by a rf absorbant coating...unless they have a coating that can alternately block then transmit RF.
That tiny reflected signal is just what the opponent is looking for.
Now, on the Vincennes downing cause it was in a high threat area.. Is that not exactly what the Black sea area is???? the Cook incident was ap 12, 2014, Crimea, Istanbul Ankara, Romania, (now home of maybe 10 nukes from Incirlik), are nearby. Brennan in Ukraine the 14th encouraging mercs to attack Russians. and the Cook did promptly retire to Romania, according to CBS...
That the f35 or f22 are jaybird naked without computer control of the antenna arrays is one of the way above top secret pentagon secrets. and a stealth coating and configuration will not hide SWR reflection, far as I know.

RWR is a passive electronic system. You are correct that the ant. respond when the radar waves hit them. Thats what they planned on they planned on them doing. They also though of the other aspectest of your post too.