Decades in the making, already the most expensive military project in history – and still US F-35 figher jet isn’t ready. Some are now pointing to signs that the plane’s appeal is wearing off, despite the efforts of its manufacturer.
Leaked: New F-35 fighter jet beaten by F-16 from 1970s
The US Air Force needs a modern day John Boyd.
Not all that remarkable. In the early days of the F-15 Eagle’s adoption by the “regular” Air Force, the New Jersey Air National Guard used to regularly whup the snot out of the so-called “best of the best” while driving F-106 Delta Dart aircraft (a 1950s-era fighter interceptor) in Florida exercises from the mid-’70s through the late ’80s.
A good Viper jockey, well-trained and experienced in handling his F-16, really ought to be able to trounce guys who haven’t yet gotten good confidence in (and proper “furball” doctrine for) exploiting the characteristics of the F-35 while still working the kinks out of the platform.
Of course, if the wing-wipers ever got “a modern day John Boyd,” the chair-warmers would RIF him out of the service so damned fast you’d think somebody had pulled the “Eject” lever.
What is it about the Iron Law of Bureaucracy people don’t understand yet?
The Learning Curve issue mentioned by Tucci up above makes perfect sense. Additionally, I understand that the F 35 used for the test was a basic prototype NOT as fully equipped to maximum potential as the F 16 was.
Tucci78 / Russia Is Strong
It sounds like you two are trying to defend the biggest boondoggle piece-of-crap weapon in history.
Stucky, whether the F-35 is a boondoggle or not is yet to be demonstrated. The theory behind designing a “one-size-fits-all” fighter/bomber for the wing-wipers as well as the naval aviators is admittedly a fuckjob right out of the McNamara era playbook (see the F-111), and represents a shitty planning and procurement policy from root to twiglet, but even the Aardvark proved useful within its capabilities and liabilities. With regard to the potential and actual value of the F-35, I suspect that whatever technical advantages it might embody have already been sold to the Red Chinese and the Russians by the Clintons.
Russia Is Strong says:
The Learning Curve issue mentioned by Tucci up above makes perfect sense. Additionally, I understand that the F 35 used for the test was a basic prototype NOT as fully equipped to maximum potential as the F 16 was.
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I read about this a few days ago. The F35 was flying “light” with no ordnance while the F16 carried two drop tanks on its’ wings.
The problem is that they attempted to save money, like that ever fucking happens, by designing and building one aircraft with multiple variants to meet the needs of each branch of the military. Each branch wanted a bird with very specific capabilities so many compromises had to be made from the beginning. That’s no way to design anything let alone what is intended to be the most advanced fighter in the world.
Personally I thought they did a better job in the old days with slide rules and seat of the pants test pilots.
Morons in charge today want to do away with the A-10 before they even have a replacement on the drawing board. The A-10 might not be pretty, might not be fast but it can take one hell of a beating while providing close ground support and continue the mission. Besides that, the last thing any tank commander wants to see coming over his horizon is an A-10 Warthog!
Who cares if it works? Lockheed Martin-paid. Lobbyists-paid. Pentagon brass-paid
“The problem is that the F-35 has been a disaster. Bursting into flames is just the latest mishap — it’s been so unreliable that at various points the planes have been forbidden from flying at night, or in the rain, or too fast, or too steep. There have been problems with hardware and software and everything in between.” ———————– http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/25/how-the-f-35-boondoggle-shows-that-deficit-hawkery-is-a-sham/
When the war-loving deficit-loving WaPo calls something a boondoggle THAT’S saying something. lol
And the point that the F-35 was flying light makes it even WORSE … because had it been weighed down it would have been even less maneuverable, and the dogfight would have been even more lopsided.
I am not surprised.
Back in the 1950/60’s, the US wanted a new tank. They came up with the M60 main battle tank.
This thing.
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It wasn’t a bad tank. Not at all. It was actually a pretty good tank.
I was down at Knox and one old timer related a story to me. Don’t know if it’s true or not, but here it is.
Apparently, right before they adopted the M60 as the main battle tank of the US, the weenies who test such things wanted to see how the main gun performed against other armor. So, they dragged a WWII German King Tiger out into the impact area to shoot at.
The derelict King Tiger is sitting there, not moving. The gunners took aim and fired.
“BOOM!”
The round whanged off the hull of the King Tiger. Messed up the KT’s paint job. I think it might have even dented it.
“New” doesn’t mean “better”. Any grunt can tell you that. To us, “better” means you gave us some new shit and despite our best efforts at fucking it up or making it inop, it survived… and it still does a better job as the old shit we used to have.
As far as the A10 is concerned, I consider it proof that you can make a brick fly if you put big enough engines on it. They are pretty cool planes though… don’t know why we’re getting rid of them. They apparently do their job admirably, can take one helluva beating and have a good service record… and we have nothing to replace it with. Abandoning it now is fuckin stupid… but then, if anything in the military made sense, it wouldn’t be the military…
I want them to keep on building overpriced junk ( read ” If I were president”). Those overpaid MIC drones building this crap know that if they fix it the gravy train stops. And if you are the one that does fix it well then “you are outta here”. Ahhh nut’n like being put out to pasture and using your pension to buy a farm. Hey former comrades good luck with your pension and 401k.
Murphy’s Law has been in effect on this program from day one. – [“If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong and left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse”]
Murphy’s Law was born at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949 at North Base.
It was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981, (a project) designed to see how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash.
One day, after finding that a transducer was wired wrong, he cursed the technician responsible and said, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.”
The contractor’s project manager kept a list of “laws” and added this one, which he called Murphy’s Law.
Shortly afterwards, the Air Force doctor (Dr. John Paul Stapp) who rode a sled on the deceleration track to a stop, pulling 40 Gs, gave a press conference. He said that their good safety record on the project was due to a firm belief in Murphy’s Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it.
Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon it was being quoted in many news and magazine articles. Murphy’s Law was born.
The Northrop project manager, George E. Nichols, had a few laws of his own. Nichols’ Fourth Law says, “Avoid any action with an unacceptable outcome.”
The doctor, well-known Col. John P. Stapp, had a paradox: Stapp’s Ironical Paradox, which says, “The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.”
Nichols is still around. At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, he’s the quality control manager for the Viking project to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars.
How Mr. Murphy died:
One dark evening (in the U.S.), Mr. Murphy’s car ran out of gas. As he hitchhiked to a gas station, while facing traffic and wearing white, he was struck from behind by a British tourist who was driving on the wrong side of the road.
Terry Maynard
Lansing, Michigan
Don’t know if this is true but I read it can only fly about 30 minutes before it needs refueling. Not a very good fighter jet in my opinion.
Stucky says: “Tucci78 / Russia Is Strong -It sounds like you two are trying to defend the biggest boondoggle piece-of-crap weapon in history.”
Sounds to me like we’re trying to be impartial and objective.
Hmmm. Some really good comments, especially from Thanduil, Tucci78, Russia is Strong, and Billy (on the A-10).
The F-35 is a trillion dollar rerun of the F-111. Worse, it is designed to fight a war that will never happen. Never. And I’ve been studying and living warfare since I was 17.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkiUCaHaTj0
You just can’t make an airplane do everything. This is just more grift for the military contractors.
I would bet that an Iranian F14 would defeat an F35 in a 1v1 encounter.
Reminds me of the crap about Northrop’s F-20 Tiger Shark. My girl friend dad was an engineer on the project…he used to tell me about dealing with the gooberment/military asswipes .
BUCKHED writes: “Reminds me of the crap about Northrop’s F-20 Tiger Shark.”
The story of the F-20 is pretty much that of the F-111/F-35 in reverse, an effort to further develop the principles of the lightweight, low-cost, reliable, easy-to-maintain 1950s-era technology F-5 (designed in the early ’60s specifically for export to the Cold War client states of the ‘Murrican empire) into a 1970s-technology fighter/attack airframe capable of competing advantageously in those markets with General Dynamics’ F-16 Viper.
Because of that competitive edge, the political maneuvering against the F-20 killed the program a-borning.