:DFrom what I understand the other big Euro countries got cash in on this too, as they will all get a version.

Britain, France, Germany, yeah, it's your pockets too.

Going to Americans, rich Americans, stealing...Go on, declare war...

Come get some...:O:

(teasing):timeout: I love you guys over there.:salute:

But seriously, alot of folks are getting raped here. Not just Americans.

What about argumented reality helmet that allows 360 spherical vision regardless of cockpit visibility.
It is plagued with some serious problems yet.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lay_System.jpg

In before Cybermat makes a HALO reference...

LOL :)

http://de.scribd.com/doc/129003638/D...ity-Evaluation

The original report.

The German Spiegel lists the Highlights of problems and risk assessments here:

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/t...-a-887552.html

It is a list that in principle declares this thing currently garbage, and the lists focusses more on what the thing cannot do in tests, and is banned from doing, instead of what is allows to be tested. And 1.5 trillion for this - still climbing. :har:

That a plane is used in pilot training already that is demanding so many things not to be done with it, due to security concerns and technical inabilities, pilots described to be "very atypical" and "not helpful". That even the airforce version - which is less complex and limited than the Navy and VTOL version - cannot hold ground against much older fighter models, is not encouraging. Many issues there are, also cannot be solved by chnages and repairs afterwards - they are to deeply rooting in the design.

Add turkey to the slwoly growing list of former customers stepping back from buying it. Turkey has delayed buying the plane, giving technical impotence as the reason, with declaring an option to bail out completely from the deal. Before, Canada and Australia have started to slowly shy away.

These three will not remain to be the only three, I'm certain.

True but my point was that a pilot can in fact in many modern jet fighters with a "normal" helmet check his or her six it is in fact a vital part of air to air combat. In WWII first blown and then full bubble canopies came into use because pilots needed to be able to see what was happening behind them.

Some 2nd generation jet fighters where designed with too much faith in the missile technology and went away from bubble canopies.3rd generation designs took the lessons learned and they fully focused on cockpit visibility.In the F-16 for example they designed the cockpit so that the pilot has a very wide field of view.

You can have the fancy helmet technology that helps yes but you still need the "Mark 1 eyeball" as it is called in the US military.It is good to have modern technology(if it functions) but you still need to be able to use the old methods Morphy's Law says that your super advanced helmet is going to malfunction in the middle of a real dogfight and if you cant really check your six without the fancy now none functioning technology you are now at a disadvantage.

I'm all with you about the bubble canopy and when it comes to murphy law , it is great yet usually military systems require certain standards in term of reliability.
Your wing might as well fall off in middle of combat so make airplanes with no wing?.

If your wing falls off it most likely either got blown off or you pushed the aircraft well beyond its limits.

Why not fly at all from that standpoint? In a close range dog fight it is possible for aircraft to collide so why fly at all?:D

Everything has some risk to it.You might fall stepping out of bed and break your neck.

If only it were about bubble canopies. If only it were some thgeoretical concerns on the other issues.

But there are so many other issues. And it is pilots flying that thin g reporting them. Low AOA. Low acceleration (just recently reduced even more). Low G. Poor maintenance record. Engine replacement not taking 2 hours, but 50+ hours. Battery systems failing at temps below 15°C. Randomly failing radar. Certain manouvers essential for dogfighting - unflyable without high risk of damaging the plane, thus permitted. Problems with the turbine blades. Helmet electronics pretty often failing. Flight attitude indicators misaligning. No protection against lightning striking. Mysterious rockings and turnings of the stick. No manouverability that makes the F35 competitive against other fighters of 4th (!) generation. Just recently the allowed acceleration has been reduced again, a change that is meant to stay in the design : the plane can no longer get out of Dodge anymore once it detected a missile launch in an engagement where other, older planes still can.

And many flight parameters cannot and so far have not even been tested, since they are forbidden to be tried. Not bad for a plane that already is used for pilot training: no mid air refueling so far. No 5G+ manouvers. No night flying. No flying in "not the right weather". No speeds in excess of 0.9 Mach. No simulated weapon engagement.

And this is just the AirForce version. The Navy and VTOL versions are even more complicated, and even more handicapped.

Plus operational limitations, namely the short legs. The navy can make use of this plane only by accepting greater risks to its carrier groups or by reducing flexibility in operational planning due to the need to add many more inflight refuelings. The inflight refuelings that until now are banned to be even tried, and thus have not been tested so far. :haha: The positive thing is that the tankers must not take greater rsiks if not being used. :up:

This thing is a dollar grave. Much worse problem than there have been with the Eurofighter initially. And many of them root in the core design of the F35 and thus cannot be bypassed or fixed like they did in the EF.

But the biggest argument against this flying turkey was, still is and remains to be the insane price. Taken for itself, it already is an unacceptable number. Standardising the price by a cost-gain calculation, it even becomes worse.

I would not be surprised that the Chinese not only took something with them when they broke into the Lockheed database and stole code of the control logic - but if they also left something behind.

If you are pessimist you may have nothing done at the end.
Aircraft development is not easy in particular when doing a leap in technology.

http://archive.gao.gov/f0102/114371.pdf

I think in the long term spending billions on something like the F-35 is a waste of money.The technology that will allow much more advanced UAVs to be fielded is not far over the horizon.


It is much more logical to invest in more feasible piloted aircraft programs and keep them in service until the UAV technology can take over.Like it or not robotics is the future of warfare.The way things are by the time the F-35 enters service it will be rendered obsolete within a decade of use if even that long.

Surely that has been taken into account? :hmm2:

Considering the Bag mafia in the USAF, I doubt it




and don't call me Shirley.

And a real man builds what he gotta build - or what? :88)

Hackneyed sayings do not make this disaster project any better. It's a dollar grave, and they will pull the plug on it - the question only is whether they do it earlier, or later. Those 2400 planes will never be built, nor will this fleet ever be able in technical potency to fulfill all the expectations.

Some hundreds get build, mot more. Not sufficient to replace the fleet of dedicated CAS and 4th generation fighters and multi role aircraft. I even forsee a massive life expanding program for existing airplane types, due to the holes the F35 opens in the "front".

Too expensive, too bad in design, too reduced potency, not justifying the immense costs.

^ This.