Marine pilots on USS America speak out about flying the F-35B

i would hope this Trillion dollar platform/economy would perform well.

a reply to: Maxatoria

Yeah, ADA has been in use by the military for as long as I can remember. It shouldn't make a difference, but it wouldn't be the first time I've seen two different computer languages decide they didn't want to talk to each other.

a reply to: In4ormant

The Trillion dollar claim that is so frequently misrepresented is for 60 years of use. It's a yearly cost for upkeep, upgrade, flight hours, etc. It's not going to be paid tomorrow, or next year, but over many years. It's also dropping almost monthly at times, as they figure out ways to bring costs down through maintenance, or even through production changes. They only reason it's still even close to $1T, is because they extended the planned life of the airframe by 10 years.

a reply to: Zaphod58

last number I saw was 1.45 trillion. I want to be optimistic with it but as you know it has been far more woes than wows.

a reply to: In4ormant

Which, again, is for over 2100 aircraft, over 60 years. There isn't an aircraft flying that hasn't run in the hundreds of billions or even close to or over $1T that has operated that long (B-52, KC-135, C-130). The 2014 SAR showed acquisition costs had dropped, but life cycle costs were up, due to the extension, to $1.124T. That was based on buying 2,443 aircraft, and operating them until 2070.

a reply to: Zaphod58


With stuff like this you at least will normally compile it down to assembly level which is pretty much as lower level code as some understand (think of a drill sergeant telling you when to lift your feet or breathe etc) having multiple language and compilers will always cause problems.

Also I seem to remember PPC chips do run a bit hot as generally they're nowadays built more into the iSeries kit which normally lives in well air conditioned rooms.

a reply to: Maxatoria

They're running pretty much right at the limit of their cooling ability. They've run into a few issues cooling all the electronics. It's one of the reasons they can back engineer EODATS and other systems to older aircraft.

a reply to: Zaphod58


I just feel its outdated logic these days and the problems with it arent helping me. The whole stealth platform is rubbish to me at this time. Why do you need stealth? So you wont be seen? Well heads up, once the bombs drop they know you are there.

Stealth only serves to protect the person in the seat once the SHTF.

That approach is outdated.

Can you imagine the drone airforce we could have at that same cost without pilot safety needing to be a consideration or factored in?

Start building the hive, dump the manned money pits.

a reply to: In4ormant

Do you realize the problems they have with UAVs doing anything but basic strike? They can't do air to air, they can't recognize threats from the ground without a person in the loop, etc. They can hit pre programmed targets, and fly pre programmed routes, and do basic tasks, and that's it.

As for stealth, with the weapons ranges they have now, they can launch them from hundreds of miles away, so while they'll know you're there when the bombs go off, they still won't know where you are. It allows a smaller number of aircraft to go places that right now you can't go without huge strike packages destroying threats along the way and losing dozens of pilots doing it.

Contrary to popular opinion, UAVs are not the most amazing thing since sliced bread. They're there to reduce risk to pilots, but they're extremely limited in what they can do to do that right now. They're at least 10 years from seeing anything approaching a fully autonomous UAV in service, probably longer.

a reply to: Zaphod58


I know a couple teenagers who could do dogfights with em.

Id rather the investment go to creating exceptional cross platform UAVs than the F35 over the next 20years. IMHO

a reply to: In4ormant

If you can´t get to drop the bomb because the SAM is waiting for you in it´s silo/launcher already armed because it´s been notified minutes ahead due to radar contact, then what?

I would not reduce the whole platform to stealth. Seems you have never looked up some specs.

a reply to: verschickter

I have a different opinion on what that investment should be used for, it does not mean that I dont understand what the F35 specs are.

There are ways around SAMsites. Its not as if weve been crippled by SAMs until the F35 showed up.

a reply to: In4ormant

At 100 or so feet from them. At the ranges we're talking about there's a 1 second delay between control input, and reaction by the aircraft. If you're going to put someone close enough to eliminate that lag, you better hope they're on a stealthy platform, of they won't be in the battlefield area long.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I dont want anyone up there getting shot. I wanna send 500 Drones to do whatever it is we need done and if 450 come back then oh well.

Im talking Henry Ford production line. Mass produced on the cheap and sending so many that counter measures are pretty futile.

a reply to: In4ormant

You'd send 500 in, lose them all, and not get anything accomplished beyond losing every one of them.

a reply to: In4ormant

The SAM of today, and the SAM under development are radically different than the ones used in 1991, or even 2003. The current primary inventory of the US military is hard pressed to get through them. They're harder to just avoid, and the ranges they're capable of reaching are equal to, or even greater than the ranges of the weapons we're using against them. Not to mention the age of our current fleet is at the point where the aircraft are limited in what they can do anymore.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I guess theres no other answer but the F35.

Smart and stealthy drones....nope
Long range smart bombs/missiles.....nope


What would we have done without it?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Make them smarter, improve the network. They are the future, invest in them heavily and speed up the cycle.

a reply to: In4ormant
If you know the specs, then why focus on stealth? It has far more range in terms of enemy detection, provides a huge advantage in SA, as we´ve read from first hand accounts. See I´m not trying to sell you this but at some point in time, you have to advance or the enemy does. And they do already.

The drone scenario you bring up, like Zaphod said, it´s too much lag. What if your communication link is jammed? All possible. Look what has been done and is possible with GPS jamming and spoofing. In another thread in this forum we discuss the problems of autonom UAV, this thread might be interesting to you.

Edit: Also consider, you don´t really want one single piece of equipment to fall into the hands of the enemy. Sending 500 drones in almost guarantees one to fail, crash, be reverse engineered and the aquired knowledge, used against you.

a reply to: In4ormant

At this point, no. There will eventually be UAVs capable of doing the mission that the F-35 will do, but right now, there isn't. If they tried, they'd lose them all, over and over again for no gain. I don't see why that's so hard to understand. You're sending a signal across thousands of miles, which means there's a delay. Until they figure a way around that, there's no way to have an air to air capable UAV that can fight its way in, and hit the target.

As for nothing but the F-35, it takes 15-20 years to develop a modern aircraft. We're currently at the point where they're retiring some of the older aircraft in the inventory to have parts available for others of the same type, or that use the same parts. If we waited even 10 years to have something else even close to ready to go, we wouldn't have aircraft flying, unless we want to spend more upgrading the current inventory than they've currently spent on the F-35.