There have been debates as to the viability of the fleet carrier due to increasing range of AShMs. Even former Secretary Gates acknowledged this and stated carriers were threatened with obsolesence due to increased vulnerability. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/gates-takes-aim-at-navy-questions-carrier-fleet/

Hence F-35 doesn’t meet the requirements. To keep carriers out of harms way, you need long range aircraft.

Of course the F-35 guys aren’t going to say this. Neither is the US leadership going to say “hey we spent billions on a jet that doesn’t solve the problem of our carriers’ vulnerability.”

Not to mention that Chinese have apparently been working on anti-carrier Ballistic Missiles.

Bear in mind the USN’s total requirement for F-35 is 260 a/c (+80 for Marines) and the Navy has recently come out stating that orders might be cut.

If F-35 is a wunderwaffe one would think the Navy would be scrapping other programs to keep up F-35 numbers.

Nobody said the F-35 was in operational service with combat squadrons. Yet, the article said 99 F-35 came off the production line and none were is service. Which, is hardly the truth. Which, is typical for the media. If, they don’t flat lie they tell only half of the story.

The Marines will tell you the F-35 is operational with VMFA-121. :dev2:

Other than basic familiarisation flights, those training units seem like a waste of time.

You seem to want to disparage the F-35 somehow because it’s not in “full” service. While, no other country beside the US even has a 5th Generation Fighter near production.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:[/I]

Not disparaging F-35.

I am disparaging concurrency. Building hundreds of jets who require millions of dollars each of upgrade to even be flyable at levels more than a MiG-21F-13 seems ridiculous.

F-35 will be fine in 2018-20.

What they should’ve done is built a test fleet of about 30-40 aircraft and kept it at that until they could field an operational fleet.

Would’ve been much cheaper I suspect than having to constantly upgrade lower spec aircraft.

The comparison is misleading, an F-18 probably has twice the availability & sortie rate as A-6/F-14, and therefore can generate as much with only half,
(with exception of attrition)
UCLASS will also take space no later than 2025, i see Navy wants it operational
already by 2018

There’s not only attrition but also more planes = more geograhpically dispersed targets covered.

It all depends on the enemy.

How about of 99 Aircraft produced “none” are in Service! WRONG not even close!

Hey we’re off to war with Iran tomorrow. How many of those F-35s can you deploy? 0

How about in 2014-18: 0

How many of those 99 F-35s will you have retrofit to operational standard? 99.

I think the problem is not the F-35 – it’s the concurrency model.

Wrong even assuming they mean 130 MILLION which I assume they did. It won’t cost that much…..

Some have already cost that much. Average cost is irrelevant if you brought your birds at $130m in the beginning.

And those $130m birds will cost a lot more once retrofit to operational standard is included.

And does the price tag include constant refitting of items to bring up to current standard?

they know it as well, but, as they try to sell it, as any vendor, they claim it’s the best thing out there since the sliced bread.. it’s called “publicity” 😉

Remember how Mc Donnel claimed that cannon is a thing of the past and made the F-4 without it, as everything was going to be done with missiles…

and guess what? once in real combat, they had to manage in a hurry to squeeze a canon inside it after all… but hey, if someone had said “it still is useful to have one” you’d probably have answered: “I guess you know better than Mc Donnel…”

as for the CUDA:

I

Ruskis got burnt too with MiG-21PF/PFM – the Arabs and Indians quickly figured out gun was necessary in close turning work.

Engagement ranges were sometimes less than 500 metres at which point missiles of the day were useless.

Mainstream media article on F-35 in Asia:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/us-asia-china-f-idUSBRE92J1BK20130320

I think it highlights the true risks of F-35 in Asian region:

1. F-35 as low number “silver bullet fleet” with rest of airforce made up of Generation 4 or even Generation 3 aircraft.

2. F-35 range issues in context of China (and also Russia). E.g. it mentions issues of getting carriers into range.