it is a follow up from the test department warnings about the insecurity of training of pilots, which would be, by definitiion insufficiently trained in the beginning to handle eventual problems of an unfinished platform.

@ Bager1968

it was a prototype. the “thrust+fan” system may seem to provide a better solution at first, but it costs you much more weight, makes you loose space onboard and is a complex system that has much bigger chances of failure. Similar systems were tried in the 1950s’ with little success before the only workable solution was found: the harrier.

The X-32 had weight problems (not unlike the X-35), but, as the engine would mature (and increase its thrust) and with airframe modifications on the way, the simpler solution would have been proven more viable over time.

But now you make it sound as if the main priority in strike aircraft design is to make the aircraft as survivable as possible, even if 99% of combat sorties end with prematurely dumped warloads (the plane has been mission killed), when in fact the main priority is to successfully complete its strike mission.

A strike plane entering the heavily defended target area at M1.2 is always going to have a greater chance of completing its mission than a striker entering the danger zone at M0.85. True?

An aircraft flying at M1.2 and 40,000 feet presents a very difficult target for a MiG-29. Can you tell what the combat radius of a MiG-29 is, flying at mach 2? I think it would be measured in only tens of miles?

Well, I pointed out the fact that if they get into contact they’ll have to dump their unnecessary loads. You won’t ever have a pilot going to fight his way out with unnecessary weight onboard, unless he wants to die. Simple matter of physics, you need to get all the performance out of your aircraft. You talk about the Mig29, but, by the time the F-35 reaches anything resembling useful operational service,; we’ll probably be around 2025, and by that time, you won’t find many Mig29’s around, or they’ll all be upgraded with increased fuel capacity, giving them a much better range. They’ll most certainly also have improved IR and radar systems, all accounting for better detection capabilities, so “getting in contact” will probably mean being less than 100km away from the threat. You can also imagine that some nice guys buy, say the Typhoon or the rafale, and then turn “not so nice”.. if the F-35 gets into a war against these guys, what wil it do against a, say, rafale, armed for interception, able to go supersonnic for some time, pull 10G (rafale’s software limiter) in A2A configuration and, overall, is able to run circles around the F-35?

Not to speak of guys like the PAK-FA or the J-20 that you might encounter as well around 2025-2030.

@ Sens

yes, you can try to keep your distances, but if the “bad guys” run after you, you still need either speed to get out of harms way, or accept the fight, or have buddies to clean the way for you. now, having buddies works for any aircraft, be it F-35 or F-16. Accepting the fight means dropping all unneccessary weight and having speed, well, that’s precisely what we talk about. You can “supercruise” only for a short time, and staying in transsonic regime (as the F-35 won’t go much higher anyway) will give you a too high fuel consumption to be viable.

It’s easy to avoid contact in a scenario like the mast wars fought, where there was no air force to speak of in front, but if you have a real opposition in front of you (justification for the so called “next gen aircraft”) the F-35 doesn’t bring anything significant over the previous generation of fighters, as anything it uses as electronics can be stuffed into other airframes to make the part of the same network. The best illustration is the F-16/

It started as a light dogfighter with no real radar, and only the Gun and sidewinder capability. No electronics onboard to speak of. today, it is a fully multirôle fighter stuffed with electronics to be able to do all the missions that it is required to perform. What would prevent it from being equipped with various gadgets the F-35 is supposed to use (once they’re ready and operational, of course), except politicians, that is?

now, that is something we agree upon, and that’s also the major problem we talk about when we say that it’s too slow for a fighter.

You see, let’s imagine they come into contact. be it the F-35, or the F-16, they’ll both drop their A2G ordnance in order to get lighter and be able to defend themselves, but as the F*16 can drop its external stores, including drop tanks, and get out of there at its top speed (around M2) allowing it to escape, the F-35 will have to make do with a poor top speed which won’t allow it to escape as easily, if at all.

You shouldn’t forget that fighters coming after him are supposed to be inteceptors armed and configured for that role (a2a armament only).

You can argue that the F-35 can call for help, but that would be true for any fighter in its position…

for now, no, s it still has to be tested, so anyone can have something approaching an idea on the subject

one last thing about “How long would it take a MiG-29 or J-10 to catch up on a F-35 flying at M1.2 and 40,000 ft+ in a tail chase anyway?“

it depends on several factors: how far behind they are at the beginning and how much fuel they have before starting the chase. providing they’re over their homeland, they’ll go above mach2 and the F-35 would better have a very big headstart, or he’s toast

ELP, I’m not sure your chart is very relevant for most of the F-35’s attack profiles anyway. why would the F-35 be doing Mach 0.8 while cruising to the target, if it could be crusing at mach 1.2 instead? How long would it take a MiG-29 or J-10 to catch up on a F-35 flying at M1.2 and 40,000 ft+ in a tail chase anyway?

for a simple reason that going at M1.2 would burn its fuel at a rate that’s impossible to stand for a long time. even the F-22, for which it was touted all around the place how it could supercruise for long time doesn’t do it unless he’s already in a combat zone, and for a limited time (as the engagement already started). The rest of time he’ll stay subsonic to save fuel.

The F-35 even more so

the X-32 had two weaknesses:

– the whole top is in one piece, very difficult to make properly, which delayed the prototype and would probably hamper the serial production unless changed.

– the boeing’s “honesty” – they realizd it wouldn’t work as expected the way they did it and they said so (they had modifications in the pipeline but these would take some time to implement. LM had no hesitation to say their aircraft was “great and all that” and won the deal.. and we see where it goes now

but the X-32 had several advantages

– high internal volume available with that big wing (even if it got reduced from the initial delta design) allowing for great amount of fuel

– very efficient way to insure vertical take off with only a couple of pipes on the side of the engine fan, much simpler, lighter and more reliable way of doing it (what’s more, it was similar to the harrier’s way which boeing already knows)

overall, I think that boeing should have had continued the study, even if that meant investing a certain sum… with the F-35 continuous slippages, they could counter the argument that the DoD took a couple of times “that’s all we have” to save it after it breached the Nunn McCurdy law (actually, it was the only way to save it, as it had to be legally terminated unless critical to the national security)

anyway, now, it will take some guts from the politicans to get out of the F-35 trap… but as long as they keep pumping money into it “because we’ve spent so much already”, it won’t get any better