The only serious real-time alternatives to the F-35 will be SHs, Typhpoons, or Rafales.

Study these and see if the cost/benefit analysis outweighs the Lightning. Plain and simple. Short of a dramatic balooning in F-35 costs, they won’t.

As for the Flankers in the area, the F-35 will be an enormously more advanced aircraft with better range than any competitor for the money.

The Lightning is still the best airplane for the country. Continuing to pour money into a degrading airframe like the -111 is a losing proposition. As good an aircraft as it “was”, it’s high time to move along.

Interesting idea, but there is no real info to support this from what I can see.

Should the JSF collapse (not bloody likely) then an advanced SH would be the perfect option for USN/USMC. For the USAF, we’re looking at Block 60+ F-16s.

For RAF/RN? Buy advanced Hornet or Rafale and re-jig the CVF for CTOL ops.

The F-8, for RN carriers, would have been a better aircraft than the F-4. Ultimately, though, the F-4 blossomed into a variety of roles for both services which the F-8 could not have done.

For 1960s RN carriers it was perfect, exactly like it was for the French Navy. But, it was not an airplane to undergo numerous reincarnations and ultimately be both primary air-defense and tactical strike mainstay for the 70s and 80s.

The F-4 is still one of the most influential aircraft in history and the Brits are the better for having taken it on. F-8s flying from Germany or the Falklands in 1985 to provide air defense and attack? Not bloody likely……..

The programs would be redundant.

And, if the USAF is earmarking hard-to-find scratch to field a long-range type by 2018, where in the heck is it going to find the money to procure and “interim” type like the FB-22???

Even if the bomber runs late, does it do any good to divert funding to a stop-gap for a few years? No. Would the Congress, if confronted with two seperate multi-billion dollar programs seperated by less than a decade, keep both running yet starved of the funding they really need? Again, no.

The USAF appears now intent on driving toward a new, true strategic bomber by the early 2020s. Wasting time and money on anything less doesn’t look like a good idea to them right now.

So, the idea that a serious interest in fielding a FB-22 within the Air Force is hope and fantasy. It was a nice idea, but they have shifted gears and it doesn’t look like the airplane for them. The “Skunk Works” had better come up with something better and the arm-chair enthusiasts need to let it go.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Air Force will earmark billions of dollars in its next five-year budget plan to help meet the Pentagon’s goal to develop a new long-range bomber by 2018, a defense official told Reuters on Thursday.

The official said the timetable was aggressive but achievable, given the new bomber would likely include technologies already under development by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. aerospace and defense industry.

“Substantial resources will be dedicated across the future years defense plan from 2008-2013 to get there,” the official told Reuters, speaking on the condition of not being further identified. “It will be billions.”

Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute said it would cost around $20 billion to develop and build a new bomber, unless it was based on an existing aircraft such as the Lockheed F-22 fighter jet.

The Air Force began a formal analysis of the alternatives for long range strike last October that could help shape the requirements for a future bomber competition.

Officials now plan to split the analysis into separate sections addressing the need for new long-range missiles, which could hit targets within a few hours, and the requirements for a next-generation bomber, which would be able to loiter over a given area for a longer time.

Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Northrop Grumman Corp. have already expressed interest in the bomber competition.

The idea of developing an F-22 bomber variant, first championed by former Air Force Secretary James Roche, was still being considered, Thompson said, noting the aircraft’s radar-evading characteristics and its supersonic speed could be attractive features for a new bomber.

He predicted that the new bomber would be manned, despite increasing speculation about an unmanned aircraft that could be remotely piloted like the Predator flying missions over Iraq daily, or fly autonomous like the Northrop Global Hawk, which has also been used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“No amount of software is going to allow you to cope with all the things that come up in combat. You need a real pilot,” Thompson said.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-20T225714Z_01_N20324121_RTRUKOC_0_US-ARMS-BOMBER.xml&archived=False

Thus my point above. The USAF is looking for long range and the FB-22 not this even though they are paying service to it strictly on cost concerns.

As well, there is no intermediate program in the works as I stated above.

Where are you getting this stuff………??? :confused:

Yes, something in this write-up isn’t quite right.

A “B-2” style fuselage would mean something quite subsonic. Unless they are referring to some type of thicker more dramatic “wedge” which they are calling a flying-wing through ease. And ramjets? Why would you build a major new program around 30-40 year old engines whose reliability is questionable at best. Besides, as stated above, they weren’t exactly intended for long term use.

The part about carrying 20,000lbs or more of weapons from the CONUS to any point of the globe sounds too much like the USAF’s plan for a future long-range strike aircraft. But, a serious aircraft project for future global response based upon a few dozen 60 year old (by the time it hits at the earliest) ramjet engines and odds and ends here and there??? A major part of this program is extended loiter times………does a ramjet provide this or low-speed capability? No.

Either two programs are being mixed-up here or this writer is taking his own flight of fancy……

The F-111 was a wonderful aircraft for which no true succesor exists, but it is in its twilight……sadly.

It appears that the RAAF is committed to a single solution for both the Hornet and Aardvark. Now, today, a version of the Strike Eagle is the best of both worlds. More than the F-18, but less than the F-111. Had Australia not comitted to the F-35, I would consider this the best alternative even at reduced numbers. And, the USAF doesn’t have any surplus -Es sitting around so any order would comprise of new builds or reconditioned -B or -D models.

For all of it’s faults, not being an F-111, the Strike Eagle is a wonderful all-purpose aircraft and no one should be afraid to order it since it is still a premier mount for some time to come.

Yes, I’ve always fournd the F-2 an interesting airplane. Unfortunately, politics and poor decisions have turned it into an overpriced system which will now be seen as a failure.

The F-2 should have been Japan’s future “do-all” airplane, affordable and built in large numbers.

Ironic, this plane was a political hot-potato 18 years ago. It was seen as a dangerous technology transfer which could endanger U.S. aerospace to a then seemingly unstoppable Japanese manufacturing sector that would then use the info to best us. Yet, since, we’ve seen practically zero from Japanese aerospace industry and the F-2 is an endangered program.