By how far? Well, the latest generation aircraft carrier – the Ford class, which is the first new design since the first of the Nimitz class carriers was commissioned in 1975 – is itself over-budget at $13 billion dollars per ship. In other words, for the money already spent on the F-35 project, you could purchase thirty of the newest, largest and most advanced aircraft carriers in the world.
Recent tests not only revealed that the aircraft caused pilots severe pain on a cat shot. They have just revealed another problem – trifling, really: the Navy’s F-35 experienced “undisclosed” amounts of oscillation and turbulence when carrying the off-boresight Sidewinder. The outer wings fold up on the Navy variant of the Lightning II, and as it turns out, the F-35C will not be able to carry the off-aspect, fire-from-any-angle Sidewinder niner-xray.
And so they will have to replace the wing.
The F-35 has an extraordinary radar and sensor system that gives the F-35 an all-aspect capability. That means that unlike the F-16 and other legacy fighters, the F-35 does not need to be able to out-turn the Snake because it does not need to be behind the target in order to fire its air-to-air weapons. That off-aspect capability was the go-to argument for the jet and the entire program.
The Air Force currently has two main air-to-air missiles: the long-range, radar-guided AIM-120C AMRAAM, and the AIM-9X, the latest in the venerable line of short-range, heat-seeking missiles called the Sidewinder.
Because the F-35 is so far behind schedule, it will not be able to carry the latest generation of these missiles: the AIM-120D and the improved Sidewinder 9X block II. This means the F-35 will have weapons inferior to those aircraft it was designed to replace; and not just in the air. The F-35 will not be able to carry more advanced air-to-ground bombs that can hit a truck while the truck is moving.
So the F35 so expensive that for the same price we could build 30 brand new super advanced aircraft carriers, but the plane can't fly off any of them for at least five years.
Well, it WAS started under Obama, I think. If so, we shouldn't be surprised.
ReplyDeleteThe Beltway loves that aircraft.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's been over-sold to the entire free world.
lessee...the f-111 lancer..the m-1 abrams, b-2 Bradley, ov-22 osprey, f-117 wobbling goblin, b-2 stealth bomber sm-2/3 "starwars abm missle .. just a few of the over priced "it will never work" waste of time and money projects that have failed. ... oh wait...
ReplyDelete@XTRON lessee. F-111 Failed as a joint services fighter. USAF converted it to a light bomber. Declared a "strategic asset" and added to SAC so that it never had to see combat after we lost 1/3 of them in Vietnam. Sold off to Australia in the 90's. M1 MBT: It did real well against 55 year old export versions of the T-55 in the first Gulf War in 1991. Not so much in Iraq ten years later. 98% of them now sold off or in "depot storage". Less than 250 left in service. M2 "Bradley" AFV. 90% all "Bradley's" ever built decommissioned and DRMO'ed or scrapped as of 2010. OV-22. Its an ok taxi ,if you don't mind rolling the fail rate dice. The Corp want's its UH-1's back. You could auto-rotate those. V-22. Not so much. F-117: It has a non-combat pilot fatality rate worse than the F-104. The former all time champ. B-2 "Spirit". So secret not even the Air Force knows if they work. Star wars ABM: Three hits out of 70 known launches is a "success"??? ---Ray
ReplyDeleteI would be careful with stuff like this. There are a bunch of articles out on the net like the this one. They mix truths, half truths and even falsehoods. Even the truths are taken out of context. I've sometimes wondered if they all originate from some office building in China. They're just fishing, we do the same.
ReplyDelete