The F-35 was to be an F-16 replacement with similar purchase price and lower maintenance costs (in real terms). Thus far it has proved to be anything but so and there is no reason to believe that it will ever become so. It is a heavier MRCA aircraft with focus on a first day strike capability against adversaries with defended air space. That is its raison d’etre – US air superiority was to be handled by a large number of F-22 aircraft.

There are many who argue that in spite of F-35 costs being far higher than projected, NATO members should nevertheless order F-35 for the purposes of commonality with USA. Among issues that the advocates of universal adoption of F-35 by US allies do not address are:

(a) The cost. This promises to force those nations to cut back on other military capabilties ie skewing their overall military capability towards first day aerial strike capability.

(b) Some countries see their priority as defending their own airspace. All available western fighters also include a strike capability. Choosing an aircraft based on air defence needs does not imply that the country concerned must then buy an additional type in order to have an air strike capability.

The experience of the Libya intervention has led some to observe that the cost of tasking high end fighter/strike aircraft to pursue targets once enemy air defences are degraded is too high. The use of such costly resources is neither necessary nor sensible in a low threat environment.

I think that NATO/USA ally nations should organise air power interoperability on a two tier basis: F-35 for those who choose to pay the price and an F-16 class aircraft for those who either do not want to participate in US-led interventions around the world or simply cannot afford F-35. For the foreseeable future Gripen is the only F-16 class aircraft with a long term development path visible ahead of it.

First tier F-35 nations could participate in day one strikes and second tier Gripen nations could then take over. The strategy would be to use the right tools for the job at an appropriate cost.

I would also advocate pooling of resources for such an aircraft. Multiple independent training/maintenance resources do not make financial sense.

?!!!!

Have you lost your mind?!!!!
A sensible solution for a real problem!
Its the end of the world, i say…

An inaccurate simplification, to put mildly.

And you are being polite…

The new targeting pods and AESAs added to Gen 4 do not fuse data in a manner to counter CCD, nor do the upgraded mission computers. They simply do not have enough computing power to do so. Their key constraint is electrical power and cooling limitations of the 1970s vintage airframes. A major consideration in the new mission computers was to get around obsolescence. There simply were not enough repair parts to keep 25 year old systems operating.

We are talking of the Tornado´s built two decades ago, right?
(And even those have been sucessfuly been doing precisely that job by being cued by offboard sensors present on the likes of Sentinel and Predator)
Because if we are talking of Strike Eagles and Rafale´s built last year…

lol

Everybody knows that whithout that probe the Rafale would have half the RCS of the F-22. But the French are so arrogant that they wont remove it no matter what.
In fact, I think we should add a second probe on the left side just to annoy aviation forum readers a bit more.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLL

😀

The APA stuff about Radars and SAM is excellent and in my opinion a good starting point for the layman. On the other hand anything about fighter aircraft is dripping with agenda and bias!

Some of the stuff they come up with about fighter aircraft and bombers reads like a Dale Brown novel!

Not disagreeing here (cant quite seem to forget the USMC, US Navy and RAF Raptor fleet) but for all their agenda (and they are entirely candid on it) if i had to choose between Tom Burbage, the JSF Team on one hand and Carlo Koop and Peter Goon on the other hand about JSF program costs predictions…

The Achilles heal is the operational cost,
and in theory at least, the F-35 should cost no more than Rafale to operate,
(less thrust, half the nr of engines)
yet it cost nearly twice as much to operate !!

The instaled thrust of a F-35 is superior to the one on a Rafale (its actualy slightly superior to the one instaled on the Typhoon).

Cheers

J
Sintra – You are correct that the JSF is not dead in Canada. However, it looks as if the original process by which the Harper government attempted to buy the aircraft is very much dead.

Has it should.