Don’t forget how they crash along with mishaps, or various fleet wide groundings that also occur. Marines have lost 1/3 of the Harrier fleet:

All told, Harriers have been involved in more than 300 accidents and 900 less serious incidents, according to the Naval Safety Center’s aviation database. The loss to taxpayers exceeds $1.8 billion. And those figures don’t include the plane’s calamitous first decade.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/dec/15/nation/na-harrier15/3

but but the F-35!!

I wouldn’t mind seeing the footage of an F/A-18 taking off or landing on an L-class ship if you can link to it please. An F-18 had a dual engine failure and crashed into a house that killed a family near Miramar some years back. But that F-35B…

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/17/budget-cuts-leaving-marine-corps-aircraft-grounded.html

Not to mention the Marine corps is having to cut Hornet squadron sizes down. by your standard if an F-18 limps across the finish line occasionally that equals “they can perform” but in the meantime they are having issues with spares, deployments, and now even squadron size and you also feel they are somehow interchangeable with Harriers?

but they do “since decades?” quantity and quality are in steep decline.

if the only standard for you is that some Hornets occasionally work and that is ok, I really don’t know why you have an issue with the F-35 at all.

Based on all the DOT&Es extensive combat and aviation experience and comparative analysis with realistic looks at the USMC legacy fleet and its host of problems? how is a crash not an “obvious deficiencies that seriously compromise their actual ability to reliably execute successful combat missions” oh right those are just “unfortunate” LOL

Appreciate you ignoring my first hand experience and resorting to categorizing me in such a manner. Let me get this straight, You are saying fatal crashes that killed women and children are “unfortunate” but I am “downplaying?”

I think its rather ridiculous that you continue to dismiss basic facts about the ability of F-18s/harriers to perform consistently even beyond the crashes and accidents (which again is pretty serious). but even more flabbergasting is you actually describing accidents that really killed people and put others at risk as “unfortunate” yet the DOT&E report is somehow unforgivable? so I continue to watch you absurdly defend an un defendable position that its alright to lose deficient combat aircraft and continue with them, but not employ one that has some deficiency and does not crash, rather than simply admit you are wrong. and that the lose of an aircraft and loss of life is about a ten out of ten on the “bad scale” They are hitting civilian houses for crying out loud. People are getting killed. The Marine Corps is sick of apologizing to citizens that never deserved that. If that makes me a “fanboy” color me guilty. I think your casual dismissal makes you a biased and ignorant armchair admiral who really doesn’t have experience in this field, but is foolhardy enough to think he knows something because he read a report.

Let me put it like this, you are so biased to the F-35 you would rather see Marines flying outdated, unreliable, non mission capable, and even dangerous aircraft that result in actual loss of human life than admit that its ok to get the F-35B in service despite the USMC’s full confidence in it because a government bureaucracy wrote a report. And its easier for you to call names to distract from the fact that you are beyond your depth. And I am a “fanboy” for thinking that Marines deserve aircraft that down kill them or civilians? Maybe if you call me fanboy enough the F-18s and Harriers will suddenly get 20 years younger and spare parts will rain from the sky, and all the problems and work arounds that the F-18s and Harriers have to put with around daily will disappear.

we get it, you don’t agree and will think of anything to pigheadedly justify your opinion, and facts are just collateral damage. which sounds like a fanboy to me but whatever.

To be honest I don’t mind what kind of BS you apparently mean to read in my statements and I don’t care about your alledged first hand knowledge either. If you think that severly restricted aircraft with unreliable mission systems present operational value fine for you. That the USMC needs new aircraft is not being disputed at all, based on the evidence available, however the F-35 at Block 2B is barely mission capable. You seem to believe that not crashing defines operational readiness, great expert you must be if that’s really your position. And just for your information, I have no problem with the F-35 at all, I try to consider the overall picture and weigh pros and cons of each and every design that I’m interested in discussing.

I already explained that availability and reliability are in some cases better than what is being currently used. Very simple. Even more so when we remember that crashed and lost aircraft vastly affect mission readiness and can result in casualties, stand downs and investigations. You basically hand wave that and persist that it does not matter for some reason. It’s better to have 6 F-35s going at sixty percent MC than it is to have 1 crash and 5 surviving harriers at 70 percent MC, and we aren’t getting 70 from harriers as it is, and we are getting more crashes. Broken aircraft we can fix, lost aircraft are lost. You can’t talk about reliability, while ignoring the very real aspect of legacy losses and a continually declining parts supply.

I guess I didn’t make all this cLear enough. From my perspective it’s a tad ridiculous to make such complaints and even go so far as to bring up troop welfare and effectiveness while dismissing or ignoring no joke crashes

Cool story bro. When one of Yuma’s harriers crashed behind a wal mart (with bombs that luckily didn’t go off and obliterate the store) along with standard procedures like urinalysis, and putting computers under guard, once EOD cleared the bombs they bussed out the squadron to pick up the pieces of their lost jets. And you want to talk about the difference between paper capabilities and real life? How does that affect readiness? Or the relations between the military and the locals?

In order for it fly it must not crash, harriers are failing that and they don’t grow back. That’s why I get such a kick out of this. The safety record of the harrier should have people up in arms, but harrier crashes are “normal and acceptable” but God help an F-35 that needs more contractor support than we prefer

Sounds like box checking that doesn’t matter when confidence Is applied. We still want it both ways I see. We should go on confidence and not box checking, unless you disagree with the confidence, in which case here is a list of boxes that should be checked as per what the civilians think.

You talk about Harrier crashes as if it would be a weekly or monthly event. There were 7 in total over 6.5 years. Still unfortunate, but it’s not like these or the F/A-18s cannot perform their intended missions, they do since decades. The F-35 at Block 2B has some obvious deficiencies that seriously compromise their actual ability to reliably execute successful combat missions and its not me wh says so, but the DOT&E report. Not that I’m surprised that the die hard fanboys go ad absurdum to downplay these deficiencies…

Rafale introduction in the French Navy, nobody to refresh us?

Was a clear necessity as the FN lost its airdefence capability when the F-8s were retired in the late 90s leaving an unconfortable capability gap that had to be closed quickly. It was the sole reason why the F1 AA only standard was conceived in the first place and they were wise enough not to buy too many of these due to the apparent high costs associated with their later conversion to the F3 standard. They declared IOC in October 2002 for the AA role and had modified three by that time to fullfil the tanker role using buddy-buddy pods.

Once Block 3F is deployed the F-35 will be capable of undertaking the full range of missions against any threat level…

…At FOC the F-35 will be capable of undertaking all but a handful of missions already covered by other types.

You are contradicting yourself within a single post, either you can perform the full range of missions or not. Block 3F will hopefully enable the aircraft to perform the missions that are demanded of it at that stage. It’s a broad mission spectrum for sure and yes it’s more missions than what the Rafale or Typhoon could perform when being declared FOC, it’s nonetheless not the full range of missions and even a handful is plenty enough, given that there aren’t that many mission types available. The 1% figure is pulled out of your hat and has nothing to do with reality, albeit I fully agree that the missions the Block 3F should be capable of are realistically those that make up the bulk of missions that the aircraft will be assigned to perform.

Pre- and post-strike reconnassaince and SEAD are important tasks in any medium to high level threat environment, naval strike is important against opponents with a credible naval force, cruise missile strikes are a necessity and there are other mission restrictions that haven’t much to do with the aircraft itself, but with the inherent limitations of the weapons integrated at Block 3F.

A GBU-12 or GBU-39 SDB I are fine for maybe 70-80% of the CAS scenarios, but when you have to deal with multiple vehicle coloumns or fast moving surface targets a rocket powered, fire & forget capable supersonic AGM is a much better suited weapon, as is a supersonic or subsonic sea-skimming ASM in comparison to a JSOW-C1 and that assumes the F-35 will be capable to provide MCG to the later at Block 3F. Likewise a dedicated ARM is a better match against airdefences than a SDB I and I can easily bring up more examples than these alone.

Ofcourse the US armed forces have several platforms to take care of these missions, there is subsequently no hurry to get all those capabilities onboard for FOC timescales. This is not even a critic at all, it’s a reality check!

Even at IOC the F-35 is substantially better suited to strikes in defended airspace than the aircraft it is replacing.

The F-35B’s IOC is at least as legit as the first Rafales. It is a limited capability but at least it is multirole…

There is much more about IOC and FOC declarations than the theoretical ability to fire/release this or that weapon. Yes the F-35B is multirole capable at Block 2B, but it’s hardly combat capable applying any realistic measures. Maybe you read the annual DOT&E 2015 report for the F-35 to understand why!
https://de.scribd.com/doc/297548656/DOT-E-2015-F-35-Annual-Report

To post some relevant parts of it:
“Air-Ship Integration and Ship Suitability
• The Marine Corps conducted a suitability demonstration with six operational F-35B aircraft onboard the USS
Wasp from May 18 – 29, 2015. – As expected, the demonstration was not an operational test and could not demonstrate that the F-35B is operationally effective or suitable for use in combat. This is due to the following:
▪ Lack of production-representative support equipment
▪ Provision of extensive supply support to ensure replacement parts reached the ship faster than would be expected in deployed combat operations
▪ Incompleteness of the available maintenance procedures and technical data, which required extensive use of contractor logistics support
▪ Lack of flight clearance to carry and employ combat ordnance
▪ Lack of the full complement of electronic mission systems necessary for combat on the embarked aircraft
▪ No other aircraft, and their associated equipment, that would normally be employed with an Air Combat Element (ACE) were present, other than three MH-60S rescue helicopters – The USS Wasp demonstration event did, however, provide useful training for the Marine Corps and amphibious Navy with regards to F-35B operations onboard L-class ships, and also provided findings relevant to the eventual integration of the F-35B into the shipboard environment. However, aircraft reliability and maintainability were poor, so it was difficult for the detachment to keep more than two to three of the six embarked aircraft in a
flyable status on any given day, even with significant contractor assistance. Aircraft availability during the deployment was approximately 55 percent. Around 80 percent availability”

or

“However, if used in combat, the Block 2B F-35 will need support from command and control elements to avoid threats, assist in target acquisition, and control weapons employment for the limited weapons carriage available (i.e., two bombs, two air-to-air missiles). Block 2B deficiencies in fusion, electronic warfare, and weapons employment result in ambiguous threat displays, limited ability to respond to threats, and a requirement for off-board sources to provide accurate coordinates for precision attack.”

That is untrue, as shown above. The “Omnirole” Rafale was incapable of ground attack at IOC and was reliant on buddy lasing for years until a targeting pod was finally integrated. Those are most certainly “significant restrictions.”

It’s not untrue at all, if you had bothered to read in the first place. The ECDs IOCed and FOCed with a more limited mission spectrum, but they were capable to perform the I/FOC declared missions with sufficient reliability. Something that could at best be described as questionable for the F-35B Block 2B. Hopefully the USAF will do better and hopefully Block 3F FOC declaration doesn’t come with a sh!tload of strings attached either. That remains to be seen and I’m not going to speculate on this, I simply wait and see when the time has come.

At IOC the F-35A will still have some restrictions. Again, how is this news? That was certainly true of the initial Eurocanards.

No one said that this is news or unusual… The USCMs IOC declaration is however.

That isn’t true unfortunately. The first true Rafale prototype flew in 1991. It reached a limited IOC in 2001.(10 years) It finally had a targeting pod in 2011. (20 years)

If you count the time from FF to IOC/FOC then the F-35 beats the Rafale and Typhoon (not the Gripen which FOCed 9 years after its FF despite a 15 months delay due to the FCS related crash during the 1st prototypes 2nd test flight). Big deal if production is authorized only 6 years after the first flight (Rafale) or 4 years (Typhoon), whereas it was within around 2 years for the F-35. Concurrency helped to speed up the process at the expense of building multiple non-combat capable and potentially flawed aircraft that need to be fixed at high cost. From a “handed over to IOC/FOC” PoV all ECDs beat the F-35. It’s to a large extend owed to the approach taken.

The F-35 first flew in 2006. It reached a limited IOC in 2015, with a targeting pod. (9 years) and will reach FOC in 2018. (12 years)

As above and maybe you start to understand that the availability of a TGP or lack of it isn’t defining “IOC/FOC”. The Rafale was always scheduled to received an LGB capability at F3, F2s only got one without self-designation capability to satisfy an UOR, enabling the FAF and FN to somewhat reduce the burden on its heavily strained fleet of M2K-Ds and SEMs resepectively. The French could have integrated the PDCLT TGP, but they waited for the availability of Damocles. It’s very much the same reason why the F-35 won’t be capable to perform ALL missions of its predecessors at FOC, they had types to take care of specific roles and they set priorities for the missions that the wanted the Rafale to perform at a given point, same is true for the Typhoon, which in its “T1 form” was never meant to be employed in AG roles in the first place. The RAF eventually demanded an earlier AG capability for its T1s to allow the Jaguar to be withdrawn from service, earlier than planned. Ignoring actual requirements and priorities is ignorant at best, outright silly at worst.

It is on track to deliver capability significantly faster than was the case for the Rafale for instance.

Of course, but that is no excuse for misrepresenting the facts. The F-35 program has not moved more slowly than the Eurocanards and it is on track to deliver a far more complete multirole capability far earlier.

It delivers certain capabilities faster, others remain to be seen, such a reconnaissance, nuclear strike, proper for moving surface target engagement, CM strike, proper anti-ship strike to name the most prominent. The “it couldn’t self-designate for a decade” argument is a poor strawman for the several reasons outlined above. So maybe you get real and learn a few facts about other aircraft programs and the rational behind decisions why something was there or not at this or that point.

Even the Gripen NG isn’t slated to reach FOC before 2026… 10 years for an upgraded 4th generation fighter.

That was developed with ~2 bln USD and represents an almost new aircraft, with completely different avionics, a new engine and heavily (structurally) re-designed airframe. Two years to launch production after the first flight, 18 month or so for delivering the first A/C and then you are at ~2020 already, from then on ~3 years to IOC and another 3 years to FOC doesn’t look to unusual at all these days.

Not at all.

A Block 3F F-35 will be a fully functional multi-role fighter that will be able to undertake every mission an F-16/18 or Harrier squadron could realistically expect to be tasked with. (short of nuclear war)

The same was not true of the various Eurocanards. The “Omnirole” Rafale only became operational with a targeting pod in 2011, by which time the Rafale had been operational for 9 years…

Ok you got the point, but twist the argumdnt. The above mentioned missions/capabilities certainly don’t make up only 1% combined. Ofcourse those missions that the F-35 will be tasked with “most of the time” are those that are required most often. Doesn’t change the fact that the F-35 can’t fill all roles of its predecessors at the time of FOC.

The US$55 billion is then year dollars that has been calculated from the latest SAR. As for more mkoney being spent, if you look at the SAR it is very clear that the vast bulk of money has been spent and from today to 2021 are the final tying off of the program. For example, the F135 SDD funding is all but finished and the SDD F135 program closes in 2017.

Is it then year dollars counting in an inflation adjustment for for money alteady spent as well or is it money spent accumulated + estimated cost at completion taking inflation estimates into account?

And that is before we consider one of the three airframes being capable of VL and all three having been designed with an RCS at least two orders of magnitude lower than any of the Eurocanards. While VLO stealth comes at a cost, we see from the Danish evaluation that it significantly increases survivability.

VLO ofcourse costs a price, though I doubt that it accounts for the bigger chunk in the F-35’s development cost. The technology is more mature these days and LM has extensive experience in that field. The STOVL capability is granted, but that’s actually a key point here. It apparently costs at least as much to develope 3 noticably
different variants based on an otherwise common type as it costs to develope three distinctively different types that btw all come in single and twin seat variants and in one case in a carrier variant as well.

While I understand your point I disagree with it. There is very little that is common between the two aircraft, yes some F-35 systems are derivatives of F-22 but the difference between their SDD periods is so much that full new dev programs were required. But where do we stop when counting dev costs for any airframe given the technologies all came from somewhere? Gripen clearly benefited from Viggen, Rafale would not be the same aircraft today were it not for the Miage 2000 and I am sure Eurofighter brought refined technologies from other European programs.

That’s an invalid comparison as the Viggen and Mirage 2000 are earlier generation aircraft that share no commonality with their successors. The F-22 and F-35 are aircraft of the same generation and a number of technologies of the F-35 are directly based on those utilized by the F-22. I agree that additional investment was required and that the final systems are not exactly the same, but one would expect some cost efficiency here. The F-135 retains the F-119’s core for example. The AN/ASQ-239 is based on the AN/ALR-94, utilizing some more advanced technologies, the EOTS is based on the Sniper TGP etc. It’s fair to say, however, that there were some similar synergies for the ECDs in particular the PS-05A and ECR90 radars that took advantage of the Blue Vixen radar developef for the Sea Harrier FA.2. The Gripen utilized some more existing technologies such as the engine and that’s apparently one of the reasons why the development costs were apparently quite low.

You have to define capability somewhere and FOC is a reasonably common method of doing so. Curious to know where you see differences between F-35 FOC and current USAF/USN/USMC 4th gen capabilities? Other than perhaps ALCM, I cannot see any other deficiencies and even with ALCM delivery the F-35 approaches the mission set differently.

Differences at Block 3F:
1) SEAD the F-35 lacks a dedicated ARM with the range, speed and thus reaction time to surpress airdefense systems. The F-35 can nonetheless perform this mission in general and take out airdefences combining its advanced ESM, target coordinate generation capabilities and INS/GPS guided weapons.

2) Naval strike. The F-35 lacks a credible anti-ship capability, a mission performed by F/A-18s for example.

3) Nuclear strike. If I’m not mistaken Block 3F doesn’t include the integration of a tactical nuke, like the B-61, which is also a mission performed by its pre-decessors.

4) Stand-off strikes using ACLMs as named by you already.

5) Video reconnaisance, albeit theoretically possible utilizing EOTS, there’s no indication of relevant software development in that field and the capabilities of certain podded systems are unlikely to be matched.

I think that’s enough to illustrate that the F-35 is by no means special in this aspect. It lacks certain mission roles/capabilities at the time it’s being declared as FOC, just as other types did before it, incl. the ECDs.

If there was a 10% difference your point may be valid but the numbers are way too close for that claim.

If we apply the “more expensive” statement then yes, but as said these figures aren’t necessarily correct or up to date. The F-35’s 55 bln USD figure is already a few years old and its SDD phase has yet to be concluded, we have seen further delays and technical challenges which certainly didn’t reduce the costs.

Agree, currency changes and inflation makes the comparison very difficult.

One addition that needs to be added here is that paid for costs are typically not adjusted for inflation, that typically applies to projected costs at a given time vs actual cost at a later time.

I don’t believe that Tranche 2 and 3 costs are moot. The result of the F-35 SDD phase is a multi-role airframe at Blk 3F. Tranche 1 clearly was not that way, nor as we have seen that it can be upgraded in a meaningful way to get to that standard.

They are moot in the way that they mainly relate to sutainement costs, which invitably incure over the life cycle of an aircraft. The principal error people make wrt the Typhoon programme is that Tranches aren’t indicative for capabilities per se. The changes introduced on T2 and subsequent T3 aircraft maily cure obsolescences, address manufacturing defincies discovered during manufacturer or from in-service and add provisions to allow the aircraft to grow further. The F-35 is at a much earlier stage and still within its main development phase, the Typhoon in particular and the ECDs in general are all beyond that phase and well into their in-service stages. If you count in these costs then you can well estimate and add the costs that will definitely incure throughout the F-35s projected production run. As this is almost impossible to estimate with reasonable accuracy it’s possibly moot for this discussion, but for an apples to apples comparison it’s necessary to not mix to much in, while ignoring what’s essential, the timeline!

I reckon the rational behind your argument to count upgrade costs for the ECDs into their development costs, as these upgrades are necessary to make them comeptitive to the F-35 in terms of technologies and operational capabilities. That’s not to say that they will necessarily match the F-35 across all fields, but the gaps will narrow considerably. From this point of view it’s valid to consider the upgrade costs as well, but you have to keep in mind that the F-35 is over a decade younger than any of the three ECDs. Certain technologies simply didn’t exist by the time the ECDs were conceived and developed, so you effectively count in twice the cost for certain systems such as radars. By that token you could also count a portion of the F-22’s development costs into that of the F-35, because without this advanced investment and development the F-35 would either be less advanced and capable, more expensive or a combination of both.

Requirements need to be taken into account as well as the a full fledged multirole capability was not part of the Typhoon’s requirements and the MDC was concluded providing integration of GBU-10/16 and UK PW II 1000 lb and 2000 lb class LGBs only, with no self-designation capability. It costed the UK less than 100 mln GBP to add a self-designation capability and add the dual-mode EPW II to the mix. The F-35 at Block 3F provides essentially a similar weapons capability though it is limited to either LGBs or INS/GPS guided munitions, though it includes stand-off capable glide weapons such as the JSOW-C1 and SDB I. Even at Block 3F, however, the F-35 won’t be capable to perform the full range of missions that are being performed by its predecessors, which puts the often put forward argument of “Typhoon or Rafale not being FOC due to the lack of this or that” into a perspective. IOC and FOC declarations are made on base of the readiness of an aircraft, the logisitic system and the air- and ground crew to execute defined missions. This doesn’t require the aircraft to be capüable of performing all mission types envisaged in the longer term and that applies to virtually all modern combat aircraft. Furthermore requirements evolve and you can hardly call “not FOC” because a mission or capability, not even envisaged within the original requirements isn’t available or can’t be performed at a given time.