Boeing goes to the Tribunals in Denmark, I wouldn’t be surprised if EADS do the same.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-protests-denmarks-f-35a-decision-429397/

Boeing are wasting their money and would be the same for EADS as well. Publically it was the most informative and open process we have seen, I doubt there is anything hiding in the shadows that would make F-35 win null and void.

:confused: If I knew, I would not ask…

That’s not EXACTLY what I am after.. The question is not whether the capability is there but whether it has been exploited (assuming that 0-24 score)..
For instance, all MiG-29s are equipped and wired for the HMS, yet until you know the mission requirements, you can’t say if the sights were used or not..

As said, I was not looking to find a pic of some F-15C equipped with JHMCS.. In that case, a vid from that specific exercise would reveal much more..

So far it looks like blue units had HMDs during the day and had none for the night ops due to AN/AVS-9.. At the same time I have not seen red units carry JHMCS.

No western air force flies with JHMCS at night, there is no value compared to flying with NVGs. The JHMCS dark visor significantly impacts visibility at night.

As for red units flying with JHMCS, it really depends on who is simulating the threat, how they are simulating the threat and where. If it is the 64th at Nellis, I don’t believe they have JHMCS but they do get other units other than the dedicated aggressor. Now the 65th Aggressor squadron has been deactivated I believe there are no dedicated aggressor squadrons flying F-15s. Hence USAF and ANG F-15 units do fly red air when required.

Question is what threat were they simulating, if any. They could have been simulated vanilla Mig-29, Su-27/30 airframes, J-20s or flying all up F-15s.

LOL, no prob with that, I would not even dare to think otherwise 🙂 🙂
The little ironic dwarf in me tells me that Mike’s credibility would be vastly higher if he had the “politically proper” opinion about the F-35.. :eagerness:

No, Mike’s credibility would improve if he could provide fact based assesment/reporting. Instead he destroyed his own argument by making simple mistakes even a high school newspaper editor would get right…

We’ve had Carlo Kopp, then Bill Sweetman, and finally David Axe.. Now there is another representative of the evil globally reaching anti-F-35 conspiracy, a certain Mike Sweet, who doesn’t seem to be “properly impressed” by the latest achievements of the pig..

http://www.stripes.com/opinion/f-35-a-pig-in-a-poke-1.422461

And just like Kopp, Sweetman and others we can ignore this guy who straight off the bat provides an incorrect statement to support his claims.

In fact all the test over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast proved was that the very complicated high-tech fighter with its legendary glitches could launch a conventional air to air heat-seeking missile that shot down an unarmed target drone. A second drone escaped a second missile the F-35’s pilot fired at it.

Since we know for a fact that one missile was intentionally self-destructed before impacting the target we know that Mike is not telling the truth. Below from FlightGlobal makes that very clear…

On 28 July, the pilot of the AF-3 test aircraft declared “Boola Boola,” the traditional radio call made when a pilot shoots down a drone, as a Raytheon AIM-9X Sidewinder missile scored a hit on the subscale target. The fighter identified the drone using its mission system sensors, passed the tracking information to the wing-mounted missile and allowed the pilot to verify the targeting information using the high off-boresight capability on the F-35’s Vision Systems helmet mounted display, the service says in the news release.

The F-35 can carry two of the short-range, heat-seeking AIM-9X missiles on its wings. In previous tests, the AIM-9X guided close to the target before self-destructing as part of the test plan.

The aircraft also carried an internal Raytheon AIM-120C AMRAAM missile, which the pilot employed on a separate target drone before launching the AIM-9X. The drone was beyond visual range and the AIM-120C was directed as planned to self-destruct before impact.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/f-35a-takes-down-target-drone-428085/

So, in that context, why should we believe anything else he says?

Just for fun, Mike also made this claim,

The question not being answered is what does combat-ready really mean.

Easy Mike, the USAF has stated this a number of times and it is contained with just about every listing of what IOC means for the USAF. In fact here is a reference from 2014…

F-35A initial operational capability (IOC) shall be declared when the first operational
squadron is equipped with 12-24 aircraft, and Airmen are trained, manned, and equipped to
conduct basic Close Air Support (CAS), Interdiction, and limited Suppression and
Destruction of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD/DEAD) operations in a contested environment.
Based on the current F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) schedule, the F-35A will reach the
IOC milestone between August 2016 (Objective) and December 2016 (Threshold)…

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30563.pdf

Sorry MSphere, the credibility of Mike Sweet is poor to say the least.

Onboard diagnostics are fine, but there is a lot more about aircraft maintenance than this. ALIS allows for limited autonomous operations before a connection is needed, in general you need a lot of computers these days to keep such aircraft in a serviceable condition, to plan and debrief missions, to generate mission data files and to manage the fleet in the first place which includes configuration management, scheduled maintenance task tracking and execution, managing unscheduled maintenance and ensuring a proper spare parts flow etc. There are typically dozens of support equipment needed to support an aircraft in the field, some of them are frequently required, others might be special purpose equipment that is rarely required.

Btw Israel’s experience is of limited relevance here anyway as the aircraft was designed to match US requirements in the first place. As said “let’s hope”. I don’t know the details and how it works out for the F-35.

You are over complicating the issue significantly. There are many examples of nations that take small fleets of aircraft to foreign locations and have no problems generating mission sorties for days/weeks. The RAAF is an excellent example. They deploy 8-10 F/A-18s every year and sometimes twice to Butterworth in Malaysia for Five Power Defence Arrangements exercises. There are no spares or mission equipment held at Butterworth but somehow the RAAF can generate sorties for the two/three weeks of the exercise. They have sufficient comms at a deployed location to receive all the exercise mission information required, just as a deployed in the field squadron of Bee aircraft would.

All the Bee really needs in the field is deployed comms, fuel, ordnance and a very minimal load of spares/consumables. In the Israel context, we are talking about a combat deployment of aircraft to a dispersed location, a location that, given the size of Israel, is probably less than 150km from the parent base or an IAF logistics node.

there is no telling if and when an F-35B replacement will ever be built, it makes 100% sense brits want to have a very good stock for as long as they want a carrier

There is plenty of time to make that determination. The UK currently plan on acquiring the F-35B until 2029 and the USMC to a similar time.

Export orders, continued interest and LM wanting to sell the F-35B for as long as possible will ensure the variant will be procured at least until 2035 and probably until F-35 ends production.

The interesting question is whether the F-35B will receive the upgrades expected in the middle 2020s, such as AEDT, or if commonality will be more important to the three big operators.

Lifted from another forum…

http://aviationweek.com/defense/measuring-stealth-technologys-performance

So according to Aviation Week’s calculations… in a best case scenario with a cued search and no jamming the latest Russian radars will struggle mightily to detect 5th generation aircraft at tactically useful ranges.

Those ranges are consistent with this Journal of Computations & Modelling article from 2014 I posted on the forum a couple of months back, http://www.scienpress.com/Upload/JCM/Vol%204_1_9.pdf which uses an Air Power Australia 3D model for F-35 RCS calculations (so clearly not bias towards the F-35…).

Another important point: the C-17 is out of production, so the only way an interested party could get one is second hand (I believe the US has acquired substantially more than initially intended to keep the line open as long as they could, so the possibility cannot be entirely discounted I suppose, but thus far they have shown no signs of wanting to retire any).

Never say never but the USAF C-17 fleet ran up more time supporting the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan than expected so the fleet, with the increased numbers, at the moment is relatively well balanced on hours remaining over required life expectancy. Hence I doubt we will see any exports of 2nd hand C-17s anytime soon.