Will the F-35B fit six Amraam?

Most likely, no version will. The rhetoric around the six-AMRAAM fit has been toned down since 2007.

How many internal air-to-air missiles with the F-35 carry? Will the weapons bays be designed to carry six AAMRAAMs?

Four internal air-to-air missiles is the current requirement and capability. New, smaller developmental weapons and suspension and release equipment may increase the capacity in follow-on development, but no firm weapons and suspension and release equipment candidates to accomplish this have been identified to date.

Source: https://www.f35.com/resources/f-35-town-hall/q-and-a.aspx

Overall, the concern about F-35 effectiveness/survivability is simple: that it appears to be heavily reliant on one aspect of survivability (one layer of the Swiss cheese, to use a security analogue): that aspect being reduced radar detectability. This is also a parameter which can’t be easily changed during development (a point that LockMart hammers on all the time).

By the time F-35 is in service in large numbers, the adversary will have had 25-30 years to work on the problem of defeating F-35-level stealth.

By the way, the Japanese report referenced above lets itself down with the argument that:

Although the F-35A was second to the Super Hornet in purchase costs and second to the Typhoon in lifetime fuel costs, it actually won on a cost basis owing to the fact that it is already compatible with Japan’s air-to-air refuelling fleet.

Can anyone explain why EF and Boeing would not have cheerfully slapped a receptacle into the Typhoon or SH if that was what it took to compete in Japan?

But remember that even if they changed the elevators on the Americas, they’ll still have a mostly-Wasp fleet for a long time.

Anyway, after the F-35B is cancelled they’ll just buy Sea Gripens and go all SCB-125 on the LHAs and LHDs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCB-125

Anonymous forums serve a purpose in that they allow people to contribute to a discussion when they otherwise could not. Most companies have rules that say that employees shouldn’t talk in public about their employer or its business, its customers or its suppliers, and in an industry as tightly interwoven as aerospace, that’s a pretty broad ban.

But along with this comes another very simple issue: You are as credible as the verifiable external sources you cite, and the quality of your posting history. If someone is pulling “facts” out of his ear, sooner or later those will turn out to be wrong.

And it makes no difference if you send the Mods your life history, tax returns and DNA analysis, because there’s no way to verify that. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “there are a lot of fake quotes on the Internet.”

So when you pop up with no history whatsoever, claiming unverifiable insider knowledge, and slagging off anyone who challenges you, you look like a complete idiot. Because that’s what you are.

Clearly, Mercurius is Sweetman.

I’m not, for sure.

Who “Dick-son” is, we don’t know.

What he is, we do.

Shhhhh. Don’t be coming out with such logic! Thats an absurdly sensible idea.

The F-35C is heavy – 4500 pounds OEW above the A, and that’s without a gun. If you wanted a landbased aircraft with the C’s range, take the gun out of the A and go probe-and-drogue (the boom receptacle eats tank volume too). Note that the Canadians will probably want probe-and-drogue anyway on the A. It should not cost much because the front end is probably one of the highest-commonality bits of the jet.

Spud – “and the naysayers crawl back under the rocks from which they slithered from” [sic]. Cranky pants a little tight today? Yeah, I know the critics got it all wrong. After all, none of them predicted in 2008 that we’d be here in 2012, with neither the AF nor USN trusting the program enough to quote an IOC date…

I don’t think that there is anything the matter with the Jane’s report. As some have noted, the plan was always to buy in two batches with a nominal two-year gap. However, Hammond’s comments and the MoD’s response did appear to differentiate between the (new) 48 number for F-35Bs – enough to surge one boat with a full-capacity air wing – and a second batch that is TBD.

The MoD was (I believe) asked to confirm that it was still an all-F-35B plan, but did not respond. It would not be at all surprising if the RAF might be hankering after a 2025-model, probe-and-drogue F-35A, with greater range (less tanking requirement) and lower acquisition and operating costs.

It’s deja vu all over again…

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showpost.php?p=1839815&postcount=226

Can anyone point to a single positive, pertinent, accurate post from any of his personalities?

What MC said.

Mildave, I’d ask you to read my original post to Aussienscale in context. Since he seems to be trying an “appeal to authority” argument based on his personal knowledge of “signal management”, he does owe the group an explanation of what it is. And if you can find relevant references somewhere with your powerful Google-fu, clearly it would be enlightening to MC and myself.

But when Aussienscale is pressed he simply gets abusive and says that he is privy to all sorts of secrets we don’t understand – and yet, I don’t see too many posts in his history on this forum that contribute positively to the discussion.