F-35 Delayed Again
 

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs...6-e240a4d3e8ee

What really gets me, about a month after Lockheed has a press release that says everything is going great!:
The taxpayers who are funding the overwhelming majority of the project are notified of further major delays by a foreign ministry of defense? Sneaky sneaky, Lockheed.

PD

Seeing that the F-35 is such an advanced aircraft I'm not surprised there have been delays. Some of the tech in there is pretty new stuff... but I think it will be ok in the end. So many things to test with new airframes.

It doesn't surprise there are delays when you have an aircraft trying to be the jack of all trades and a master of them as well.

I heard that it & the F-22 might be the last US fighter aircraft to have a human pilot - is this likely?

Well, there's certainly nothing else new on the table at this moment. I think this is something we'll find out when the government goes shopping for the next fighter, and at this rate that might not be so soon. The longer it takes, the more likely it is.

That said, who knows if developments in things like anti-air lasers don't make fighter aircraft themselves suddenly obsolete and/or unneeded in the next couple of decades :hmm:

Not a chance. What would the yuppy Air Force Academy grads do then. Work for a living? :)

As long as there are ring knockers in charge, there will always be manned planes. They may not do much but you have to keep the bag-hags happy :lol:

Nahh, the fighter jocks will eventually re-qualify to space jocks. The athmosphere is too dense to support their desire for faster and cooler-looking machines for much longer :p

In my opinion, I wouldn't replace the human pilot with a computer, who know if it going to go berserk after watching too much Terminator or somthing similar to that moive.

Solution: don't let military computers download movies :lol:

I think this is what will make manned military aviation go away completely eventually. When hunting SAMs and directed energy weapons make "fighter pilot (can't touch me while I bomb from 25,000 feet)" no more protected than a foot soldier.

PD

Nah we will just have to lower the standards into the Air Force Academy. More Academy grads = Problem fixed.:know:
:rotfl:

And today Canada has decided they don't need 80 F-35s.

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssI...31405420080512

PD

A lot of the problems with the F-35 just extend from the fact that no one knows what they want with it. Do we want a high speed bomber? An interceptor? A CAS jet? A next generation Harrier? Instead of chosing one, they're trying as hard as they can to make the F-35 do everything and it doesn't seem to be working too well. They would probably be better off conceding the "fighter" role to the F-22 and just making the F-35 more an F-15E equivalent high speed bomber. :)

I disagree. The F-22 would make a better "deep penetrator" F-15E type replacement than the F-35. And it is already paid for and here.

PD

The F-35 is going to be the last manned US fighter to be produced. And even so it is only going to last at most 2 decades before the bad guys start deploying lasers and things that can knock them down easier. So a one year delay is fine in my view as long as they actually get some benefit from it and do work to prevent further delays.

I can see Australia not getting the full amount of fighters they put their had up for (up to 100). The RAAF will be selecting recon drone in the near future (the Global Hawk seems to be leading the charge for it). I can see more drones in the future, with a greater range of roles and abilities taking over from manned aircraft.

It makes sese in some respects, do you risk a drone worth $100 million or a plane worth $300+ million with pilot in a risky high threat situation???:hmm:

ultimately it comes down to fewer body bags so its easier for politicians to play their war games without hurting public opinion polls. people need to die in war for it to remain a bad thing, if it was just robots that died in war there would be much more of it which would be a bad thing. It will be a long time before a computer is better than a person.

With drones the inital cost is high but because they can be mass produced and operators do not need to be given as many costly training and supply measures as fighter pilots.. The cost quickly drops.

It is only because the soviet union fell that we are still using manned fighters. Otherwise they would likely have started deploying lasers and they envisioned unmanned drone uses back in the 60s...

And because they can be made smaller. They can start to be transported to the combat zone by transport aircraft. Such as C-130s being converted as carrier aircraft for a small squad of drones.

Add the fact that railguns and stealth would lay waste to any defences beforehand and the drones can come in and clear the entire area with minimal loss of aircraft such as an operation would require.

Are human pilots better at moral judgement? yes. For split second actions to avoid loss of mission or aircraft? no...

To prevent war from happening you do not elect war mongers to president and congress. But the fact is once the railguns and fleets of drones come online the power of the .gov will grow rapidly.

And unless we find a way to get off this rock.. War is going to happen regardless. The planet already can't support 6 billion and the population is still going to climb rapidly. Eventually somone is going to start fighting and we have to be prepared to fight regardless. That is why we need to stop wasting time on dumb wars.

This is true! Now where is my video??? Crud - must be at home. Must post next gen fighter stuff!

-S