TooCool_12fThis is a perfect demonstration of the ignorance surrounding this topic.
First off arrested landings hve been done for decades but the F-35 is far from the first aircraft to have issues catching the wire.
It was an adapted Super hornet design.
NAVAIR approved the LM tailhook design an said it was good to go for manufacture therefore NAVAIR is the one to point the finger at, not LM.
And relocting the hook? That’s the sort of hysterical suggestion i’d expect a tabloid journalist to come up with, honestly, i’ve not heard such a silly and unnecessary idea in a long long time but I guess I should have expected it.
It’s hook-skip issue that needs an adjustment of around 3/4 of an inch.
And Lockheed does have a history of carrier aircraft, they even put a U-2 onto the deck of a carrier.
And due to slow typing i’m beaten to it by the above poster… lol.
talking about ignorance, when it comes from you is rather funny… (besides, isn’t it you who said I was on your ignore list?… or maybe you ignore how to use a button on a discussion board? 😀 )
anyway:
if that was a hornet adaptation, they obviously were unable to adapt that hornet design properly… and considering the stress you’ll put on that super-short hook even when you’ll be lucky enough to catch a wire, your airframe will love it… relocating the hook would require big structure modifications, which is why I said that it would cost you an arm to do it.
and talking about LM’s history of naval aircraft, can you point us to a single naval design that they made operational? (and no, U2, C-130 hercules and other ground based designs that have made it once on a carrier, more like a test don’t count)
TooCool_12fIn the 2008 replan, 33% more flights were added to the test schedule, extending testing by 1-1.5 years. Were the tests really needed to verify a capability? Or were the tests added to mollify OT&E whining about analytical modeling replacing their jobs?
or more realistically, the additional testing flights were added because analytical modelling proved too inaccurate as soon as reality checked in (roll instability, parts cracking, weight problems, hook inoperable, etc, etc…)
everything was supposed to be modelled accurately and flight test was to be passed flawlessly as it would consist merely of just ticking boxes as predicted by computers during conception, which is also the reason (excuse) to push forward the production even before the tests proved the concept was ok. those who, like me and others, pointed out the fact that it was completely idiotic to start production before even knowing the thing worked were accused of being “F-35 haters”, “US haters” and I don’t know what other nonsense because “LM know their stuff” and so on… today, even with those additional flight test hours, a second or third “reworked” (“delayed” would be more accurate) schedule, the aircraft is again announced to probably be late… again…
but, hey, why bother? there are still plenty of guys who keep wearing “pink glasses” (made by LM of course) and believe everything is all right, the plane is fine, does wonders, is cheap to operate, on schedule, etc, etc…
TooCool_12flet’s see:
– it’s been done for decades
– LM could have used available data from previous fighters to reach its goal (lentgh, hook angle, etc…)
– they made a “solution” that could’ve been drawn by a 5 year old kid… (supershort almost vertical hook)
-> it doesn’t work
the complexity is in the fact that THEY (LM) decided they knew better than anyone, even if they built no naval aircraft for decades (if ever)…
redesign the aircraft’s bottom to move the hook fixation more forward, and you’ll have a better chance of catching the wires… your “only” problem is that it will cost you an arm… the price of bad design in the first place
TooCool_12fDepending on how open the Korean and Canadian decisions are, we may finally get an apples-to-apple comparison of the F-35 with other systems.
No partner “right now” is buying large amounts of F-35s for their fleets, so LRIP pricing is not relevent. A report due out this fall will finaly shed some real-world light on the long term costs of hte F-35 based on real-world values instead of 4th gen assumptions.
I’m glad we finally agreed on something 🙂
TooCool_12fright now, any fighter aircraft, except maybe the F-22 is LESS expensive than the F-35 to operate… and the promise that the F-35 will see its running costs come down is just that: a promise, like many they’ve made already and were unable to keep, btw…
only time (after the F-35 comes into service and start being used on a daily basis in significant numbers) will tell how much the F-35 operation costs can come down, until then, it is promises against proven numbers of other aircraft
TooCool_12fProbably because both are optimized for high altitude supersonic flight where they excel. besides, once in air combat configuration, they have pretty similar characteristics:
– T/W slightly better for the typhoon
– 15% better wing loading for the M2k…
the Rafale being better at medium to lower altitudes that may explain why the comparison of the Typhoon to the M2k may be appropriate (in WVR at least, it is obvious that, as far as electronics go, the Typhoon is clearly more advanced than the Mirage in pretty much any version
TooCool_12fI wonder why they even consider the F-35… we’re talking about countries that are pretty rich, have low population( especially Canada) and, therefore, have no need to go around the planet attacking this or that remote country for some more or less dubious reason…
What they need is an interceptor for air policing, with long range and, eventually, a secondary air to ground capability. The ideal aircraft profile for Canada would be something along the lines of the Su-30, but being Russian-built, they most certainly won’t go that route. That leaves them with other, more proven (and better suited) possibilities like the F/A-18 (maybe even the F-15), Eurofighter or Rafale.
TooCool_12fThat’s pretty pathetic.
You know too well that the RN Carriers are designed for STOVL aircraft, were always going to go the F-35B route, and that the UK and France will be working together, militarily and politically, for the next 50 years. So how is it “politically unacceptable” in your mind?
er, years ago, I remember that the British were supposed to build three aircraft carriers… two for their own use and one for France. They were to share teh same structure and differ only for the upper part since the French would use a CATOBAR aircraft and the British the STOVL ones….
obviously, the basic structure of the carrier does not prevent the RN to use the CATOBAR aircraft… even after the F-35 ran into all its problems, and the carriers were still in the intial building phase (could be shifted to any version), the UK maintained their aim for the F-35B, closing any possibility to have a backup plan in case the F-35 turns out to be a failure, or too costly, or anything else…
should they have made the CATOBAR carrier, they’d be able to use the F-35C (of they really really want to buy that aircraft), Rafale (even if we know that they don’t want to buy that aircraft) and have the benefit of easier crews exchange with their allies (starting with the US, then France, India…), interoperability and so on…
the fact they didn’t make the carrier CATOBAR, which in todays world would be the only INTELLIGENT decision is simply matter of politics: sticking to a project and making sure that there’s no way to back out of it. So, one may say that for them (UK deciders), the Rafale was politically unacceptable
TooCool_12f@ jackster:
most probably it would be quite the opposite, and for a very simple reason:
both, they don’t want to show their capabilities (especially their radar’s signature etc..), and, as a result, the US requested that SPECTRA stays silent for the BFM and refused anything in the BVR area, (or SPECTRA would record the F-22s radar emissions, allowing for the easier development of ECM adapted to the Raptor)
the main result is, should they go one on one in BVR in an exercise, and if the Raptor can’t use its radar, it can’t do anything in BVR against a Rafale because any AWACS support should be shared and would cancel any RCS or ECM advantages/disadvantages and to detect the Rafale passively, it would need, at least, the Rafale to emit, which the Rafale wouldn’t do as it could just as well use passive detectors (IR, OSF, etc…) to find and shoot at the “blind” Raptor
TooCool_12fWelcome to the club MSphere 😀
a good thing is that, with time, he’ll ignore so many people that he won’t even see the discussions – he won’t post anymore either… 🙂
TooCool_12fDo you still think that in ten years the bad guys in an asymetric scenario will still hve only Ak47, old aden or bofor canons and religious song to throw at fast jets passing by?
in fact.. yes.
first, for the very reason thobbes stated – lack of superpower support should lead to pretty low level in AAA
– nations that go to war around the planet do so with internal politics in mind – they won’t start a war if there’s a danger of heavy losses. all wars in the last 25 years have shown the path: attack the weak and endlessly talk with the powerful…
for the powerful guys, there’s too much to loose in an open conflict between them… it’s just not worth it…
TooCool_12f@ JamesDean
FYI, the speed limit of the f-16, as most of fixed inlet modern fighters isn’t related to the thrust/drag ratio but to the fact that the fixed inlet can’t handle the airflow coming faster than the speed indicated as “the limit” (add to that speed the safety margins and you could pretty consistently reach speeds like 10-15% higher, like M2.2-2.3 for an f-16 before compressor stall)
the result is that the thrust available is sufficient to overcome additional drag from external stores and not loose so much top speed for quite a good number of loads (at altitude, of course)
stalin used to say: “facts are stubborn”… you can refute data fron flight tests, pilot manual and keep dreaming, but I’d say that, between your unsupported claims vs a poster providing factual evidence… you’re just making a fool of yourself
TooCool_12fAnd the US Air Force.
Mig-29s have been giving the first shot to F-15s for a while now. Hasn’t worked out that well before, but now bill says it will work. he’s probably right. The problem with these soviet designs from the 1970s is they have not encountered enough F-22s and F-35s to really strut their stuff.
er, who talked about Mig-29s? anyway, since YOU talk about them (even if I don’t see what they come to do here), most of these were not upgraded for years and had lots of malfunctioning equipment… oh, not all that important, just some minor stuff like radar, RWR… they could’ve been cessnas that it wouldn’t make a single bit of difference
TooCool_12fSo now we do believe everything LM says? This thread just got boring then.
talk about trolling…
it’s not about “believing everything LM says”, but rather the simple logic behind the rule saying that “no seller will downplay his own product”, so, if LM claims 56nm range increase, you can be sure of at least ONE thing: it’s definitely not expected (nor calculated) to be more than that…
TooCool_12fAnd if you want to go into contested airspace to strike tricky targets, hunt TCT’s, perfom a fighter sweep, SEAD/DEAD etc etc? Well you best stay at home and clean the jets as you won’t be coming home tonight.
says LM… the french have chosen another path and they made the aircraft just for that purpose, especially when delivering nukes (one of Rafale’s missions) which you aren’t interested in loosing before it hit its target…
but then, they’ve had aircraft for that purpose for only about 50 years… what do they know about the deep strike missions? :p
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