You are dancing around my question. What makes a $70+ million F-35 with a man in it a better SEAD asset than a drone that would cost half as much at the most? And HARM is proven to be a suppression weapon now after Allied Force. What is the F-35 going to be killing the SAM with? And why does the SAM find the drone but not the F-35?

PD

There is no dancing around the question. What is so hard to figure out that the drone is not stealthy (that is not until Darpa makes its system slated for the mid 2020's, but that's another subject)? The F-35 has as small an RCS as an F-22 - about that of a dragonfly, and will be AESA equpped and it will share data and it will have sensors on its skin, all just like F-22. The only things lacking is the addition of 2 missiles the F-22 can carry, Super Cruise, and thrust vectorng. The MQ-9 Reaper will have 4 HARM's onboard, but current gen SAM's can fire well outside its range, and can probably target even a HARM inbound.

F-35 can carry weapons internally. How much internally is classified for air to ground, but at least 2 bombs or 4 AIM-120D's, but you know it can carry at least 15K lbs total according to the published numbers. And what so wrong with the internal payload of the F-35? You keep talking about it like its pathetic. Not only will the airforce version be beam weapon equipped, but it can carry 4x AIM-120D's and 2x AIM-9X's. Same payload of an F-16. An F-15 carry's what? 2 more AIM-9X's? Remember that.

Not sure why you are so against this aircraft. F-22 only exists because we plan to export F-35. We need a one up on any country operating it. No other aircraft can take on F-35. With exports, it also will make it ultimately cheap to procure.

-S

PS. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have more F-22's than F-35's, but the F-35 is no slouch. An F-15 however will have no chance against it, AESA equipped or not.

Okay, I was not being clear and you misunderstood me. I'm not talking about the MQ-9. I was thinking more along the lines of X-45 and X-47 type UCAV. Which have already BOTH flown and are BOTH fully VLO'd. And the reason they won't IOC before the F-35 is not any sort of tech capability that is lacking. But rather because we have chosen to pursue the F-35 at this point, for reasons having to do with politic$ more than any capability issue. If a fraction of F-35s $300 billion budget was diverted to UCAVs a year or two ago, we'd have them operational BEFORE F-35. And it is VERY clear that Lockheed is lying about how well they are progressing with the F-35 and what the cost will be. And we will see many Key Performance Points lowered by the Pentagon to make sure that F-35 passes. Just like Super Hornet.

Super cruise is the key here. It lets you produce a number of sorties that F-35 NEVER will be able to. Because the norm is more and more so denied access entry into a theater. Which means 6-12 hour flights in transit to/from the target to haul two PGMs to a target area and loiter. Which UCAV will undeniably do better and far cheaper than the F-35. F-22's supercruise also lets you loft super cheap weapons like glide-kit SDB far longer than F-35 will be able to.

This is EXACTLY what gets me about the F-35. There is NOTHING the F-35 can do better than the F-22. The F-22 is here NOW. R&D paid for. And you want to go ahead with the largest weapons program the world has EVER seen. Financed by the US tax payer with the EXPRESS intent to market it abroad. As you said, the only reason it exists is so Lockheed can make a buck exporting it. What if F-22 buys were doubled-tripled? And we axed the F-35 completely. And we sold F-22 ONLY to countries we truely trusted (Australia and Japan, basically). F-22 would be affordable. Just as "affordable" as the F-35 WILL turn out to be. Because there is NO WAY USAF/USN/USMC will be getting its full complement in the aftermath of Iraq-related funding cuts. And in turn other nations won't be able to afford their full orders. And costs will be driven up. Just as they are being done so now, before any significant order cuts, by a dragged out SDD phase.

I will NEVER be in favor of whoring out our stealth advantage to countries like Turkey and Israel so Lockheed shares will go up. There is NO threat that justifies that. It gives away what DEFINES our current airpower advantage to countries who will undoubtedly turn around and sell it to the Chinese. Which guarantees F-35 will be obsolete within ten years of its IOC. EASILY. And there is nothing cheap about that in the long run.

PD

The F-35 exists to give the mainstay of fighter pilots (F-16 dogs) a chance to fight effectively in the 2010s and early 2020s... I do not think exporting it means much because eventually the "bad guys" are going to start getting technology (Optical and thermal aiming system and lasers) that will render even stealth fighters useless (due to unacceptable losses) within 100 miles of a major target.

They have R&D too. Which is why this whole notion of "Man MUST be in the cockpit" is useless.

Drones in 2020 are likely going to be insane in ability. Already there is research that will create CPU cores that are able to beat todays quad cores by 20-40 fold. (That means the drone can process it's own info faster and make better decisions MUCH faster) Laser technology is getting well into the blue range with smaller devices.

Radar for drones is a simple process today compared to the 70s think in 20 from now.

So the F-35 is for the pilots.

I understand what you're saying Zachstar. And I think it's spot on. But $300 BILLION of investment as "For the Pilots", when the pilots will be obsolete in less than two decades "either way" pisses me off. It's like medieval kings buying knights mildly better armor so they can survive fire arms for another decade or two. But everybody KNOWS the peasant with the fire arm will win the battle eventually.

It's beyond useless. It risks the future security of the USA on the ego/job security of the fighter pilot. When he will surely be put to (greener commercial) pasture in the near future ANYWAYS.

PD

Remember that it is not just us. But other nations and the Brit Navy.

They will not be getting the advanced drone technology as fast as we can. So they need the F-35 for effective Defence for a few decades.

Besides with the way things are going groups of F-35s may one day be able to be converted into drones for deep strike missions. I highly doubt they will be broken up for scrap for another 50 years.

Also remember that the plan is to eventually give some aircraft the ability to field lasers. That would make them great missile bait to get the enemy to reveal his SAM forces.

Oh, we owe it to the Brits. That's why we should keep F-35. You're kidding, right? Last time they had real carriers they got rid of them _during the height of the Cold War_. If they want to rebuild their carrier force in a time of relatively no threat, let them pay for their own air wing R&D. Not my problem.

I agree with you here. But if we're going to go that route "eventually" we might as well be doing it NOW.

Once we have DEW weapons capable of hard kills, so will the enemy shortly thereafter. And when the enemy has a weapon that travels at the speed of light and destroys that $70 million dollar airframe and the man inside it instantaneously, the man is undeniably a liability. And so is an airframe that expensive.

PD

Brits have paid for a good bit of the F-35, the lift fan on the VTOL subtype immediately comes to mind.
You're still right, PD. Just a thought.

$2 billion IIRC. Out of a $300 billion dollar program and counting. And the Brits are interested in what will be the most deveopmentally difficult variant (and most operationally useless to us). And I don't think the partners absorb any more than their initial investment as costs continue to rise. Which works out great for them. Not so much for the US tax payer.

Oh, and Canada has gone from 80->65->"Not any, neccessarily." All inside of a single week. http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssI...50699420080514

And the rubber hasn't even hit the road yet in terms of a true cost per unit revealing. Not to mention anything of a development schedule that was just dragged out by another year. It is going to get ugleeee.

PD

Everything i've read about the F-35 here and elsewhere just makes it seem like a mediocre aircraft. For it's immense cost, it needs to be more than just average, but it isn't. The F-22 has already beaten it to the punch in every area, including the planned multi-role capabilities it was going to have. It astounds me that development for the F-35 continues while the military throws stuff like the XM8 out the window at the drop of a hat.

But remeber, Military and logic have little in common!

Execs at Lockheed can make a LOT of money with a "mediocre" aircraft like the F-35. Because it is the first widely available fully VLO fighter. That is what sells it. Make no mistake, the F-35 is much more of a product than it will ever be a weapons system. And the execs at Lockheed also happen to have a few "full time" government defense jobs that puts them in a position to strongly lobby for their moneymaker. As if Lockheed didn't have enough of a lobby. It is absolutely criminal what we let these people get away with. The military-industrial demons that Eisenhower warned us about are most certainly here.

PD

Retire from the military, spend a few years as a defence industry consultant, then waltz into a DoD position once an election cycle comes round.
Then make unbiased procurement decisions.

:p

Ah, the same logic prevalent in the M-16's development. Inventions just for the sake of having inventions. Gimmicks just for the sake of having gimmicks. No bother into seeing if anything really works. Just telling the gullible morons in the Pentagon "it's the way of the future!" and KNOWING they'll fall for it.

WRONG the F/A-35 is capable of landing on short fields (unpaven fields too IIRC) and can launch and trap from a carrier. :know:

Got rid of them infavor of ASW carriers. Gee what did the Soviets buy in bulk... could it be Submarines? Plus those ASW carriers were intended to operate in the GIUK gap well with in range of land based fighters from Iceland and Scotland. :yep:

Also don't forget that the RN's last carrier based fighter/interceptor was the F-4 Phantom. BAe and other UK based firms have been out of the non VTOL naval aviation buisness for quite a while so its so suprise that they wan't to buy the same jet the US Navy is going to operate.