The F-35. :haha:

Dave U-Turn Cameron.:haha:

I am not sure where the idea that it will fail to be stealth because it has two tails the F-22 has dual tails and the F-117 had a V shaped quasi dual tail and that aircraft was stealthy.Being stealthy from radar requires two things working at the same time basically the radar beams(or most of them) need to be either absorbed or deflected away from the aircraft and not back in the direction of the source.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question69.htm

Nothing truly is "invisible" not even the B-2 nor the F-117 what they did/do was send such a small amount of the radar waves back to the source that it appears as at most a flock of birds or other anomaly one could target every flock of birds that show up on their radar but that would be futile and a waste of resources.

Now I do agree on the massive cost of the entire program.Though your statement on the plane to buy 2,443 F-35s come directly from that Atlantic article where do they display the source of this claim?

I can find an article form the Washington Post that says that the US planned on buying 2,400 and that is including ones for the UK(this was written in 2005) making the wording deceptive. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Mar15.html.

My feeling is that some are listing the total planned production based on current orders for all nations that currently plan to buy F-35s 8 and the US makes 9 and are making a good story by listing that as the desired amount for the US military.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Mar15.html

2443/9=271 aircraft per nation obviously the US is procuring a larger portion but that number 2443 sounds more like the total planned production for all customers.

Here is what the GAO had to say sorry I do not have the time at the moment to read the entire PDF but the answer is in there it says 2,547 was planned for the DOD but if you read the highlights they recommend a review if the costs which pretty much means that the contractors will want more money for less aircraft I am sure that total number will go down but the F-35 will not go way. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10382.pdf

Well, the Russkies had the Golden Fish...

I guess when this is all over we'll have the Golden Bird...

Let's just hope it works a tad better... :dead:

Well, if the Russians keep treating their modern planes the same way, they're going to run out of either planes or volcanos. Won't take too many f35s then to outnumber them.

Hello Stealhead,


"I am not sure where the idea that it will fail to be stealth because it has two tails the F-22 has dual tails and the F-117 had a V shaped quasi dual tail and that aircraft was stealthy."

Maybe the fins are coated with some "Alberich" stuff to absorb or deflect radar in other than emitted or detecting source's angles, however the older F-117 with its similar twin tail is not stealthy in a way the new plane was meant to be. You can read that those V-shaped rudders had to be added to make the new jet fit for its additional tasks added AFTER the initial plane had been projected - which is what i mean happens when you try to stuff too much in one plane.

The building numbers of more than 2000 seem to be right, if it's some 2400 or more (?) there will be most likely all in it, including sales to other countries - i mean who would buy more than several hundred, apart from England ? Even with much less the US United States plans to have 15 tims as many modern fighters as China, and 20 times as many as Russia, as it was written in several articles. Don't you think someone might feel threatened, and react accordingly ?
A worldwide arms race again ?
I mean : What for ?

I understand that a budget or financial limitations do not weight that heavily when it comes to national interests and the security of the land, but does this really add to the security ? And doesn't it also look as if certain companies make more profit out of this fact, than there would be necessary ? All covered by politicians coming just from those big business arms companies ? From Wolfowitz to Cheney and all those others ..


"My feeling is that some are listing the total planned production based on current orders for all nations that currently plan to buy F-35s 8 and the US makes 9 and are making a good story by listing that as the desired amount for the US military."

Well most certainly, if i where responsible for my air force i would demand 10 to receive 5 :-?

There has to be some progress, and the airforce has to get new jets, but the whole concept of being capable to do all and press this into one jet projected in the 1980ies and in such numbers seems obsolete and plain wrong.

Greetings,
Catfish

Catfish,

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4583/fsscr001.png

white letters on light-grey background is extremely difficult to read. ;) You cannot even invert other people's posts.

---


German Wikipedia site has a table listing the so-far planned orders by nations. 2400 is for the US alone. In dece,mbre 2010 Lockheed planned with a total production number of over 3100.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7802/fsscr000fg.png

Note that the British change is not included.

Huh, in my browser the text is just the usual white on black ?!
Anyone else can't read it ?

edit: changed the post above hope it's ok now ?


Thanks Skybird, so planned production is even higher (?) :o

It depends on the colour scheme in your profile. If you do not use the default ink colour, than the ink does not get changed when you change the background colour.

It will melt considerably, I'm certain. That thing simply is too expensive. The ordered numbers cannot be afforded, even more when considering that the plane is under such heavy fire. What has not been mentioned is the immense doubts on the structural solidity of the cell and the longevity of the used surface materials. These could be reduced due to wear and tear and micro-fractions setting in sooner than expected. Just ask Airbus with their 380's hair-fractions about it.

Those 3100 planes will never be build, no doubt. Look at how the F-22 project has been molten down! ;)

My approach: go for stealth air superiority fighters like the F-22. Keep the ground runners conventional. I cannot see how the F-35 will ever be able to replace the immense capalities of the A-10C, for example. NEVER. Not even when loading the external hardpoints. You cannot load them to the max if you do not want to fly a flying brick. Even the A-10 does not get loaded full, for the same reason.

This article is February, but it points to the year 2015 as a date for final decision. http://www.canada.com/Canada+convene...945/story.html

I can not see why anyone would even think of using f-35 same way as a-10 currently.
I should think that one would rather use f35 and f22 to achieve situation that allows use of more conventional planes.
But again... question is what will be conventional lets say in 20 years and what air defences will exist and who will be able to afford them.

4th generation fighters like f-16 f-18 or the expensive f-15 turned out to be very good multirole platforms.Good in a/a or a/g roles therefore trying to crate something similar bases on 5th generation technology is logical move.

When it comes to the costs i wonder...in American tradition there was this things about all different designs for the navy and air force with all different bunch of airplanes to be maintained or coming in and out of service.
F35 is trying to unify it all in terms of development maintenance and functionality.
It turned out to be more expensive than planed but in long run it may not be that bad.
May also lead way for the future development with all the lessons learned.

Not sure it is good idea to follow the old Russian doctrine of building a lot of cheap fighters and relaying on air defences.
Historically based on some proxy conflicts it did not turn out to well.



.....

You mean the same F-22 that makes it's pilots sick?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...oblems-public/

Picky...
There was similar problem with new F-16s:O:

Even the F-22 costs half the GDP of most European countries to produce, what happens when one crashes? Has the USAF replaced the B-2 that crashed a few years ago yet?