F-35 stealth jet 'will not be able to fire its guns until 2019' - Polidicks

[QUOTE=RVFHarrier;46850783]And what's the configuration of that F-15 going Mach 2.5 and how much fuel does it have left when it eventually reaches it? Most combat aircraft never reach their top speeds outside of testing because in the real world they're often, at least if they wish to be useful, laden with external fuel tanks and external weapons (called being 'dirty') which are heavy and create large amounts of aerodynamic drag that make that Mach 2.5 figure purely hypothetical. An F-15 in a typical combat configuration would probably max out at around Mach 1.2 or so. The F-35's listed top speed of Mach 1.6, meanwhile, is in a realistic combat configuration with a full internal weapons bay. The same applies, once you start mounting external weapons that top speed starts plummeting and it does so very sharply. The difference is that the F-35 doesn't need to mount weapons externally, the F-15 does.[/QUOTE] F-35's internal weapons bay is fairly small and limited. It still requires external hardpoints for larger munitions, of which it can carry much less.

[QUOTE=Sableye;46850612]i thought one thing the f-35 COULD do was super-sonic cruising without afterburners, thats one of the big selling points of the f-22 is that its the only plane capable of sitting above the sound barrier without using a massive blowtorch [editline]3rd January 2015[/editline] guess it can't[/QUOTE] Quite a few aircraft can Supercruise, the English Electric Lightning which has been around since 1954 was the first that could. I don't believe the F-35 is specifically designed to Supercruise, but apparently it can maintain Mach 1.2 for around 150 miles without afterburners.

I feel like a lot of people are overstating the necessity of supercruise. Sure, speed is cool, but the only time you [I]really[/I] need it is if you're an interceptor aircraft. You don't need supercruise to bomb a couple of insurgents in a shack. Speed is necessary when you need to get out of there [I]fast[/I]. The F-35 has incredibly advanced stealth technology. What's the point of running if the enemy can't even lock onto you?

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;46850802]F-35's internal weapons bay is fairly small and limited. It still requires external hardpoints for larger munitions, of which it can carry much less.[/QUOTE] My point was that you were comparing an F-15 with absolutely no externally mounted munitions or fuel and with no provision for retaining any meaningful fuel load upon completion of the speed run to an F-35 that could take off from a carrier 400km off-shore on the first day of a conflict and pick apart an air-defence system with guided munitions and claiming that of those two the F-15 was better because it could reach a higher top speed. Once you start putting weapons and fuel on the F-15 to make it useful its top speed falls away very quickly, so the Mach 2.5 figure is completely irrelevant. As for your point about the weapons bay being small. Yes, it is small. But it's there. The F-35 has the ability to carry weapons internally and therefore to be combat-effective without compromising its top speed and its RCS; the same can not be said of the F-15. The F-35 has the choice of whether to use its external hardpoints depending on the threat, if the airspace is contested then it carries its weapons internally in a stealthy configuration. If the airspace is permissive enough and the dramatic increase in RCS is deemed acceptable then it can use the external hardpoints to carry a much higher weapons load which is comparable to most of its peers (The F-35 has 11 weapons stations, which is exactly the same as the Super Hornet for comparison). [QUOTE=FunnyBunny]I feel like a lot of people are overstating the necessity of supercruise. Sure, speed is cool, but the only time you really need it is if you're an interceptor aircraft. You don't need supercruise to bomb a couple of insurgents in a shack. Speed is necessary when you need to get out of there fast. The F-35 has incredibly advanced stealth technology. What's the point of running if the enemy can't even lock onto you?[/QUOTE] Target information could be time-limited. Either the target of interest could have slipped away or the asset that was watching it could have been destroyed in the time it takes for a strike package to form and transit. Time-to-target is always a big factor regardless of whether the target is the Kuznetsov or insurgents in a shack. What if those insurgents kill a couple of ground troops in the time it took your subsonic strike aircraft to get there when a supercruising F-35 could have got there in half the time?

Oh boy here we go [QUOTE=Grenadiac;46850294]And that's the most frustrating part of it, if you ask me. We're going to be stuck with these ineffective problem-riddled planes while our clueless Congress tries to replace our tried and true single role aircraft with them, and it's going to neuter our air power. There's no reason to replace any of the aircraft we have, they all do their jobs just fine and will for the forseeable future.[/QUOTE] The JSF program was created to replace obsolete single role aircraft for the purposes of long term ease of manufacturing, exports, systems cohesion, and allied usage "Short term upgrades" and "good enough" defeats the ENTIRE POINT of the F-35 [QUOTE=Warriorx4;46850323]Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago now I mean jesus.[/QUOTE] No. This is an absolutely terrible viewpoint when discussing military tech Russia's in the shit and you think they're gonna delay T-50 production? lmao [QUOTE=Grenadiac;46850367]We should've built more Raptors and left the rest of our aircraft alone. Even the F-14 would've been good with another upgrade until at least 2030, but we chopped it in anticipation for the F-35. And plans to retire the A-10 in the same vein have been retracted because the F-35 cannot do what the A-10 does.[/QUOTE] The F-14 was replaced by the F/A-18 Like, what are you even saying [QUOTE=Awesomecaek;46850490]What dazzles me the most about F-35 is how slow it is. According to Wiki, "Maximum speed: Mach 1.6+ (1,200 mph, 1,930 km/h) (tested to Mach 1.61)" "Cruise speed: 1.2 mach for 9.8 min" MiG-21-93 could do Mach 2.0. Su-35 which can be considered a current Russian rival to the F-35 (multirole fighter) can do Mach 2.25. MiG-31, which is admittedly a dedicated interceptor, can go Mach 2.83. [editline]4th January 2015[/editline] Hell, F-15 could do Mach 2.5. Why the hell is the next thing meant to be slow as fuck?[/QUOTE] The MiG-31 can easily hit Mach 3 but I wouldn't wipe my ass with its blueprints

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;46850367]Perform a cost-benefit analysis. At this point, even if it magically met all of its original program goals (and it won't, we've already accepted that), we're still paying too much for too little. It can't even hover anymore, that's been reduced to limited STOVL capability available for one out of three models.[/QUOTE] Blame the idiot Congressmen who cut down the order to a fraction of the original projection and the idiot taxpayers who cheered on the budget cuts and were then shocked that R&D won't get any cheaper so the unit price went through the roof. If we treated the F-35 like the F-16 we'd have a cheap, multirole, next-generation fighter. If we had treated the F-16 like we're treating the F-35, we'd have a shitty fleet of obsolete 1950s fighters with a handful of overly expensive F-16s. Keeping the F-22 and F-35 contracts up to their original procurement figures would have saved a hell of a lot of headache.

Do you people think stealth means painting a jet light blue I'm genuinely curious

[QUOTE=Jund;46851246]Do you people think stealth means painting a jet light blue I'm genuinely curious[/QUOTE] Only if it can change its colour to black during nighttime.

I love the F-16 but during development it was a giant turd that got a lot of people killed We simply have much more access to information regarding development of the F-35 And really these days you can't even argue about the success of the F-16

[QUOTE=Jund;46851279]I love the F-16 but during development it was a giant turd that got a lot of people killed We simply have much more access to information regarding development of the F-35 And really these days you can't even argue about the success of the F-16[/QUOTE] Exactly my point. The F-16 was an extremely high-budget, futuristic fighter that ran into far more serious design problems than the F-35 ever did. The difference is that the F-35 has much more political opposition, no ongoing threat of total war to respond to, and no unified Congress during an economic bubble. So it's easy for politicians to slash funding and cut back on orders and look good for it, turning a comprehensive, cost-effective military project into an expensive, limited, almost-useless one.

[QUOTE=Anders118;46850391] Edit: What is with people's fixation on horribly outdated aircraft like the Tomcat? I mean seriously? The thing has a radar signature the size of Venus, and its engines emit an equally large IR signature. An entire squadron would be knocked out of the sky before you could say "S-400."[/QUOTE] That and the Harrier, A-10, and Tornado are made of pixie dust or something and should be used instead of the F-35 FP chair force is weird as hell

Again, the F-35 is a repeat of the F-111. The F-111 was a fantastic plane. For long range interdiction and electronic warfare (like the Wild Weasels). It was not a combat fighter, it was not a carrier-air-group compatible plane, it was not the all-singing, all-dancing plane that it was intended to be. It was a huge waste of cash in the long run, and this is no better (obviously)

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;46851320]Again, the F-35 is a repeat of the F-111. The F-111 was a fantastic plane. For long range interdiction and electronic warfare (like the Wild Weasels). It was not a combat fighter, it was not a carrier-air-group compatible plane, it was not the all-singing, all-dancing plane that it was intended to be. It was a huge waste of cash in the long run, and this is no better (obviously)[/QUOTE] Except the F-111 was never intended to be those things? It was created as a low-level penetration fighter-bomber to counter high range Russian SAMs It just so happened to be that swing wings could be used on carriers, but the actual aircraft itself wasn't built for that, so the Navy developed the F-14 from its swing wing tech instead of continuing F-111B research

[QUOTE=Anders118;46850391]I am curious as to where you got your information that the F35 can't hover. Under full load, no it can not. No VTOL aircraft can. And on an LHD sized ship, STOVL works quite well. And regarding your point of paying too much for too little, Boeing's F-15SE, which is an upgraded F15 with new avionics, reduced radar cross section, etc, costs 100 million an aircraft, compared to the F35A, which will cost 85 million during full scale production. You say we should upgrade our existing aircraft. Well guess what? We did. And the F-15SE is extremely expensive. Edit: What is with people's fixation on horribly outdated aircraft like the Tomcat? I mean seriously? The thing has a radar signature the size of Venus, and its engines emit an equally large IR signature. An entire squadron would be knocked out of the sky before you could say "S-400."[/QUOTE] People love the tomcat, because it gets impressive specs due to being an interceptor. Without realising it doesn't perform as well against air superiority or even multirole aircraft.

what a dumb waste of tax money

I'm not going to quote 1 specific post here, but alot of you guys don't understand that planes DO eventually break down after the tens of thousands of hours the military puts on them, especially with the massive amounts of stresses fighters and attack planes go through in high-g maneuvers. When you put that much use on an airframe, eventually it gets to the point of being cheaper to replace the plane than repair it, so: when an aircraft company comes along and says they can make a better plane at around the same price or slightly more once production starts (after the costs of development and tooling for production), there is pretty much no point in spending huge amounts of money to keep a now last-generation plane flying and in active service.

[QUOTE=Impact1986;46850144][url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11319455/F-35-stealth-jet-will-not-be-able-to-fire-its-guns-until-2019.html[/url][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]The jump jets – 14 of which have been ordered by Britain – are costing US taxpayers nearly $400 billion (£257 billion) and are due to enter service next year.[/QUOTE] Well good thing the jump jets dont have cannons. Only the A variant has an onboard cannon. The other variants opted to only have external gun pods that attach to hard points.

[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;46850671] [editline]3rd January 2015[/editline] Project requirements in peacetime are much stricter than project requirements in wartime. Planes were flown in WWII with known bugs like "Will overheat within minutes if flown at full throttle", "Engine stalls out under negative G's", and "Pilot may be killed by tail upon bailing from the aircraft". In the peacetime, everything has to be perfect. If we got in a war today, the gun would be operational by midnight.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Sableye;46850343]how can you make fighter plane that no shoot bullets! also when the airforce realised the f-4 needed to shoot bullets they made it shoot bullets in like 6 months[/QUOTE] There's this thing called configuration control. It's basically a system you use to correctly manage engineering changes across across a project, it's a royal pain in the ass to deal with sometimes but it's there for an extremely good reason. It basically ensures every change is correctly reviewed and embodied on aircraft and their designs, correct use of config control means that you can tell exactly what is on each plane and embody the relevant changes as a result, it's massively important in the early stages of a project where there are design changes happening every day [I]independently[/I]. An simplified example would be something like, say I've designed and want to install a new fancy gun pod assembly on this wing, this design was based on the latest up to date blueprints for all the relevant wing structure bits. A quick check thanks to config control reveals that several parts on the wing are outdated and need to be changed before I stick my new thing on. It's a simplified example, sure, but imagine how hard it is to manage the design and construction of tens of thousands of assemblies/components all across different sites and departments. Then remember since it's the modern aerospace industry everything needs to be traceable, On most modern projects you can trace exactly where any part on the plane came from straight back to where the original batch of material sheets/billets came from, loss of traceability basically means the part is scrapped. A lot of people don't realise why the RnD and production costs are so large compared to 50's-80's tech (granted there is definitely some bloating due to companies lining their pockets but muh capitalism, etc). Modern projects often have thousands of engineers working on them these days simply due to how much more crap there is to do. It wasn't uncommon for older planes (60's) to have been mostly designed a team of 70-100+ people all on one site. Production these days isn't as centralised, so managing differences between different companies and sites is a massive ballache that costs money and time, but it's often the only way some modern production companies can compete, by being specialised as hell. Precision and interchangeability is a massive thing, if I took a wing panel off something like a harrier and tried to stick that panel onto another harrier, there's very little chance they'd fit. A lot of parts on more modern projects are designed and tolerance'd so that they can be interchangeable between aircraft for various reasons. There are probably lots more reasons, but those are the main ones that came to mind at 6am. [QUOTE=Jund;46851279]I love the F-16 but during development it was a giant turd that got a lot of people killed We simply have much more access to information regarding development of the F-35 And really these days you can't even argue about the success of the F-16[/QUOTE] This is pretty true, seriously. Having worked with people who have been in the aero industry for decades you get to learn the amount of shit that's gone down. A story one of my friends told me comes to mind, basically he was at one of those fancy air shows where they show off their new plane crap to a bunch of top brass people. He'd got in the night before and brought this new composite nose-cone for this radar pod with him. Naturally the nose-cone didn't fit because 70's design, so the one of the chief designers handed him a bucket of plasticine and he spent all night making up the equivalent of this nose-cone then getting it primed and painted. So the next day it flew on the air show :v:. Personally I think they shouldn't have initially gone for something with VTOL and just gone with a twin engine multi role/ground attack plane, pretty much like the Chinese J-31. But they're too far down the rabbit hole now so what can you do.

[QUOTE=Jund;46851234] The MiG-31 can easily hit Mach 3 but I wouldn't wipe my ass with its blueprints[/QUOTE] "Easily" [quote]The MiG-25's speed was limited to Mach 2.83 in operations, but it could reach a maximum speed of Mach 3.2 or more [b]with the risk of damaging the engines beyond repair.[/b][/quote]

I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in the thread, but do modern air combat aircraft really require guns anyway? As far as I know both air to air combat and ground attack is performed beyond visual range with guided missiles. Nobody uses guns except to shoot down slow defenseless targets like drones anymore. Regardless, apparently the F-35 only carries 180 rounds anyway, meaning that for a gun firing at 3300 rounds a minute it's not going to be firing a whole lot. I don't know if you're ever seen this kind of gun up close, but the thing is almost the size of a car. That's a lot of dead weight they could have just done without.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;46852919]"Easily"[/QUOTE] Yeah it can easily do it Doesn't mean you should, but that's a different matter

[QUOTE=ScumBunny;46853156]I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in the thread, but do modern air combat aircraft really require guns anyway? As far as I know both air to air combat and ground attack is performed beyond visual range with guided missiles. Nobody uses guns except to shoot down slow defenseless targets like drones anymore. Regardless, apparently the F-35 only carries 180 rounds anyway, meaning that for a gun firing at 3300 rounds a minute it's not going to be firing a whole lot. I don't know if you're ever seen this kind of gun up close, but the thing is almost the size of a car. That's a lot of dead weight they could have just done without.[/QUOTE] The one time we sent out aircraft without guns thinking missiles were the end-all A2A weapons was in Vietnam with the F-4, and that turned out to be such a disaster that they even put guns on hardpoints until they could add an internal one. And yes, they do still get used often and can offer cheap options to take out light targets like APCs and such. They also do offer a good assurance in close range A2A combat as missiles can be defeated in few different ways.

[QUOTE=Jund;46853186]Yeah it can easily do it Doesn't mean you should, but that's a different matter[/QUOTE] I can also easily jump in Lava, not really worth mentioning it though. When you talk about things that can be done easily, in the context of a comparison, it usually means "without dying." Like if a jet can go above mach 3, but destroys itself in the process, I wouldn't really say "it easily goes above mach 3."

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;46853212]I can also easily jump in Lava, not really worth mentioning it though. When you talk about things that can be done easily, in the context of a comparison, it usually means "without dying." Like if a jet can go above mach 3, but destroys itself in the process, I wouldn't really say "it easily goes above mach 3."[/QUOTE] Going mach 3+ for extended periods of time damages its engines and airframe, what's so hard to get It doesn't get obliterated into a fine dust the second it goes past mach 3

[QUOTE=Jund;46853262]Going mach 3+ for extended periods of time damages its engines and airframe, what's so hard to get It doesn't get obliterated into a fine dust the second it goes past mach 3[/QUOTE]I'm pretty sure the airframe could get to mach 3.5 if it really had to do it and the engines could push hard enough. I'd scrap that airframe afterward because the wings would be ready to tear off if somebody sneezed at it, but I'm pretty sure the plane could handle it for a couple minutes.

Everyone seems to hate this plane and nobody can explain why. It's a bit insane to believe that the US military doesn't know what its doing in this regard. Reading a Wikipedia article and making shit comparisons while beating off to the A-10 is just childish and cringeworthy.

[QUOTE=Kickasskyle;46852793] Personally I think they shouldn't have initially gone for something with VTOL and just gone with a twin engine multi role/ground attack plane, pretty much like the Chinese J-31. But they're too far down the rabbit hole now so what can you do.[/QUOTE] Too bad the Brits, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to install tailhooks on their Sea Harriers and arresting gear on their carriers, and the USMC was smart enough to follow suit with their Harriers and assault ships So now here we are looking dumb while trying to fix the million problems of the B's LiftSystem so it's suitable for export [editline]4th January 2015[/editline] TBH there's no reason the A and C wouldn't have had twin engines if we weren't making the B [editline]4th January 2015[/editline] Fuckin hell, the J-31 is literally a twin engined F-35 because they don't have the deal with stupid vertical landing bullshit once the PLAN adopts it China's laughing all the way to the bank

[QUOTE=Explosions;46853352]Everyone seems to hate this plane and nobody can explain why. It's a bit insane to believe that the US military doesn't know what its doing in this regard. Reading a Wikipedia article and making shit comparisons while beating off to the A-10 is just childish and cringeworthy.[/QUOTE] People love to hop on the F35 hatewagon.

4 years to fix a bug lol good work america

[QUOTE=Explosions;46853352]Everyone seems to hate this plane and nobody can explain why. It's a bit insane to believe that the US military doesn't know what its doing in this regard. Reading a Wikipedia article and making shit comparisons while beating off to the A-10 is just childish and cringeworthy.[/QUOTE] I think it's reasonable to expect that the F-35 would have come across problems in its development, and we probably know more about this than problems with developing any other aircraft in the past due to how open and publicised this one is. And while I agree that the military know what they are doing, that the F-35 should enter service, and that the circlejerk around the A-10 is stupid, I do think that this one has gone over budget much more than under an ideal scenario.