F35 - the plane with anything but a stealthy financial footprint

[Skybird]

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/air-force-admits-f-35-fighter-jet-costs-too-much-ncna1259781



And even the relatively low $80 million-per-F-35 price tag is deceptive, because the F-35 has proven so expensive and challenging to maintain that every hour an F-35 is flown costs $36,000 on average (https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/lockheed-martin-confident-f-35-operating-cost-will-be-reduced-to-25000-per-hour/142577.article), compared to $22,000 for an F-16 (https://nation.time.com/2013/04/02/costly-flight-hours/). By an alternate metric, the F-35 is over three times more expensive per hour (https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/08/16/the-hourly-cost-of-operating-the-u-s-militarys-fighter-fleet-infographic/?sh=7321ce98685f)to fly.




My old lament. Too high costs mean smaller numbers, smaller numbers only to some degree can be compensated for by technology superiority (that is dwindling both on stealth and sensors). Even a supoerior plane still has nto developed the capability to be in two or three locations simultaneously. And every single loss weighs the heavier if you have no robust numbers in reserve.



Thats why the F35 never would be my choice.

[Mr Quatro]

It's sad that the F-35 proves the old ways of obtaining good (piloted) fighting aircraft did not work out.

Too much, too little, too late ... cost over runs, training, manning and stationing have left us worse off.

The future is unmanned fighter planes anyway offenses and defense.

Now the circle starts all over again ... I hope they all go to the great grave yard in the desert unused myself. :yep:

[Schizo]

::sigh:: Every new generation aircraft comes down to the same criticism and speculation as the generation before it. "It's too expensive!" "What's wrong with our current airframe?" Every new generation is leaps beyond what the old was. I like the F-35. Once enough of them are made it will be cheaper to maintain and cheaper to sell, just like the generations before.

But yes. Give it 50 years and it will all be drones most likely.

[mapuc]

I do not have the book anymore.

History of US air force.

I seem to recall there was huge problems with F-15 Eagle or was it F-14 Tomcat. It was one of these who had lots of childhood diseases.

Markus

[3catcircus]

To misquote Alvin Holmes:

"What's wrong wit da planes we got? I mean, they fly pretty goooddd, don't they?"

Joking aside, the cost overruns come down to one thing and one thing only: requirements creep.

[Von Due]

What I'm most curious about when it comes to the F-35 is: How will this design succeed in going against one of the axioms of aircraft design: You can not have one design to master all tasks ahead.
Did they make several designs for different variants to fullfill different roles? Will each variant come at a premium price? Will their customers need to buy multiple variants? Did they really manage to prove the aforementioned axiom wrong and create a jack of all trade? Or is it a design that will do some roles better than others and some roles poorer than competing designs?

[AVGWarhawk]

::sigh:: Every new generation aircraft comes down to the same criticism and speculation as the generation before it. "It's too expensive!" "What's wrong with our current airframe?" Every new generation is leaps beyond what the old was. I like the F-35. Once enough of them are made it will be cheaper to maintain and cheaper to sell, just like the generations before.

But yes. Give it 50 years and it will all be drones most likely.

I remember the old A-10 Warthog. It was received like a pill of poop in a bag. These still fly today! The F-35 will find her place. :up:

[ET2SN]

I do not have the book anymore.

History of US air force.

I seem to recall there was huge problems with F-15 Eagle or was it F-14 Tomcat. It was one of these who had lots of childhood diseases.

Markus

Just off the top of my head:

F-14A- Engine stalls at critical angles of attack.

F-16A- Critical gyro for computer control would snap its rotor under high G loading causing total failure of the flight control computer. Faulty O2 system.

F-22A- "Faulty" O2 system/oxygen mask and regulator causing pilot to black out. Speculation was that the F-22 routinely operated at much higher altitude than previous fighters.

[mapuc]

Just off the top of my head:

F-14A- Engine stalls at critical angles of attack.

F-16A- Critical gyro for computer control would snap its rotor under high G loading causing total failure of the flight control computer. Faulty O2 system.

F-22A- "Faulty" O2 system/oxygen mask and regulator causing pilot to black out. Speculation was that the F-22 routinely operated at much higher altitude than previous fighters.

I forgot to mention the most famous fighter jet, which had lots of problems during it lifetime.

F-104 Starfighter or in common F104 The Widowmaker.

Markus

[AVGWarhawk]

Not to mention the V-22 Osprey that was a disaster from first flight.

[Schizo]

I remember the old A-10 Warthog. It was received like a pill of poop in a bag. These still fly today! The F-35 will find her place. :up:

Yes, the A-10 is an awesome airframe. I was in an aviation camp as a teenager and we drove down to Connecticut to an Air National Guard base. I got right up to one and was allowed to touch and look at the cockpit. Still remember it clearly to this day.

I used to fly the A-10C quite a bit in DCS World. Nowadays I fly the F-16C most of the time. Both good airframes but if I had to choose one over the other, it would be the F-16C. The A-10C is more fun to fly but the F-16 is a better overall design.

[Skybird]

They have their individual and defined roles for which they were designed. In these, both serve better than the other. The F16 however can be used in more different roles, that is true.

On your remark about maintenace costs of the F35, read the article again. I doubt it will ever become as cheap as you implied. Its an expensive aircraft, and it remains to be that. Production costs have dropped within the projected plan the producer announced earlier, not more. Wait until the midlife updates begin, and modernizations and system upgrades... If a plane starts its life with maintenace costs three times higher than that of the old wornout airframes it should replace, this is not a good sign (except for the servicing contractor...). Since this is one of the main reasons why older systems get replaced with newer models: using them on has become too expensive since they need more and more maintenace. It will be like this as well when the F35s made today will grow old in the future. Best example is the A-10, it still could fly and fight, and does fill its role better than any other plane in the US inventory. It excels in that role, but maintaining it has become so time- and cost-intensive that they pull(ed) the plug.

[Catfish]

The problem is as old as the first planes used for war. Throw too much at them and they will not fulfill any single task properly.

The F35 is clearly not a dogfight plane. It can do crazy manoeuvers, but so can its adversaries. They designed it to shoot missiles early enough to take out threats before they come close enough to be dangerous.m I don't know how much missiles it can carry but this looked like a blunder to me since day one. It is not too stealthy either.
The carrier planes have a stronger body to resist starts and landing if you do not use VTOL, they are heavier and have to be inspected all the time due to stress and strain.
I heard it can fly in nice formations automatically :D

[Skybird]

I heard it can fly in nice formations automatically :D
:haha: That was an original Catfish!

[Bilge_Rat]

You have to remember the whole reason behind the F35 program is to be able to meet current threaths.

By the 1998-99 Kosovo operation, it was obvious the current generation of planes, F-15/16/18 were getting long in the tooth, Serbian air defences were able to furstate a lot of missions and the Serbians were not even using the best air defense equipment available at that time.

The F35s were designed to be a lot more "stealthy" so that in the event of a real hot war, whether against Russia, China or whoever, the F35s could fly at night undetected by radar and take out any air defences so that older planes like F15/16/18 could go in and bomb other targets.

Current gen ACs like the F15/16/18 are fine if you are going into an operation in a third world country like Afghanistan where there are no air defences, but would probably suffer heavy casualties in a war against a 1st rate power.

Yes the F35 is expensive, but as has been shown throughout the history of mankind, the cost of building a strong defense to dissuade potential adversaries is cheap compared to the costs of an actual war.

[Skybird]

Yes the F35 is expensive, but as has been shown throughout the history of mankind, the cost of building a strong defense to dissuade potential adversaries is cheap compared to the costs of an actual war.
That agument only bites as long as the costly defence works in preventing a war in the first. But if the opponent knows he can afford higher losses better than you can even mild losses due to low numbers of your costly platform, you get after the costly dfeence the even more costly war nevertheless. And yes, the scenario here is China, sooner or later - and as long as the US does not run then.



Tech superiority compensating for lower own numbers works only so and so far - and not further. And China closes the technology gap faster than was considered possible just ten years ago. And btw: "gap"? That sounds like two things hopelessly apart. They aren't anymore.



I cannot help it but both Chinese determination to get what they want (Taiwan, for example) and their technological development level get notoriously underestimated here in the West (I did that, too, until maybe ten years ago). Plus that one still mostly assumes their best intentions.



Watch Honkong, how they take it out. They will do the same wiht the South Chinese Sea, and with Taiwan. And if it does not work "peacefully" (which means not more than "without war", but not necessarily "peacefully"), they will wage war. Mark my words. They want Taiwan, and they will move heaven and hell to get it.

[3catcircus]

That agument only bites as long as the costly defence works in preventing a war in the first. But if the opponent knows he can afford higher losses better than you can even mild losses due to low numbers of your costly platform, you get after the costly dfeence the even more costly war nevertheless. And yes, the scenario here is China, sooner or later - and as long as the US does not run then.



Tech superiority compensating for lower own numbers works only so and so far - and not further. And China closes the technology gap faster than was considered possible just ten years ago. And btw: "gap"? That sounds like two things hopelessly apart. They aren't anymore.



I cannot help it but both Chinese determination to get what they want (Taiwan, for example) and their technological development level get notoriously underestimated here in the West (I did that, too, until maybe ten years ago). Plus that one still mostly assumes their best intentions.



Watch Honkong, how they take it out. They will do the same wiht the South Chinese Sea, and with Taiwan. And if it does not work "peacefully" (which means not more than "without war", but not necessarily "peacefully"), they will wage war. Mark my words. They want Taiwan, and they will move heaven and hell to get it.

China's technological development level is what it is because they're all a bunch of thieving spies.

[Skybird]

Yes, and because we voluntarily made them strong and transferred technology and knowhow to them - for money. What is more outrageous here? Their impertinence and determination and long breath, our our stupidity and shortsightedness? They surpass us - and we must blame ourselves for that.