lukosThe tolerances on a Typhoon might be tighter than on a MR2. Something some might have step aside without noticing.
I once drilled a hole in a conker with a meat skewer that had tighter tolerances than the MR2.
lukosThe Invincible-class carrier (singular) Invincible (the only one in service at the time), & the Centaur-class carrier Hermes were smaller than USS America. But they weren’t carrying 1500+ marines & their weapons & equipment, or the helicopters needed to transport them to shore, & because they weren’t flat-sided amphibious ships designed & built to maximise internal volume, they had big flight decks compared to their size – unlike LHA-6. Hermes actually had a bigger flight deck, & Invincible’s wasn’t that much smaller. They also had ski-jumps, enabling them to use that flight deck more effectively for STOVL operations. They were also much faster, enabling ’em to get more wind speed over the deck.
LHA-6 is that it’s designed for amphibious warfare, not fixed-wing flight operations. If you want a carrier, it’s a bad starting point.
According to the great wikipedia, LHA-6 carries 3 times as many marines as HMS Invincible.
lukosBut isn’t that what you have carriers for? Why take them out from 60 miles when you can take them out from 180 miles?(!!)
What is the reason for providing close air support with F-35s when you can get the same air support from carrier based 35s which just have to fly 100 miles longer than the ones you have on the LHA? 100 miles longer will not make or break the amazing F-35 are they? You are not gonna sent marines in without achieving air superiority first anyway and to do that you’ll need a CNV anyway aren’t you?
All this reeks of all branches wanting to have a share of the pie but noone really gave it any thought on how all this is justified…
Other carriers might be deployed elsewhere. Having many carriers makes the carrier force harder to end.
Response time is critical for CAS, which is needed even after establishing air superiority.
Same way Harriers are justified at the moment I suspect.
lukosAnyone who can’t understand that 20 F-35Bs and 2 MH-60s on an America class LHA would be an intimidating force to almost any potential adversary short of Russia or China doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about. There are only a handful of navies in the world that could claim to have a capability even roughly comparable.
Where in the whole of military history is it written that only equivalent force can deter or defeat?
Can you explain to the class how an America-class task group can be sent against modern SSKs, road-mobile ASCMs and a minimal ISR capability (all of that well within the reach of many nations), without a significant risk of losing one or more combatants outright?
Fly from outside the range of the road-mobile ASCMs and destroy them, use submarines or ASW destroyers to destroy the SSKs, or use ASW helicopters to destroy them at range. You might lose someone, but that’s a risk of war.
The Invincible Class carriers that took back the Falklands were small relative to the LHA-6.
lukosI tried to stay out of this, I’ve pointed out the launch of the latest LHA ship, the USS America as an indication of how crazy the F-35 is in whole. So let me elaborate.
The latest and biggest the USS America doesn’t have a well deck which means it can’t launch amphibian operations on its own. It would need to be escorted by other LHDs/As to do that. Fair enough.
Why do you need it then? Simply provide aircover the way the marines need it. Fine, but then why not base a squadron of marine F-18s/35s on a CNV and use them the way the marines need?
Second, the deck on the USS America is rumoured to not be able to withstand repeated use by the high temperature blast of the F-35’s nozzle. It can cope somewhat better than the wasp class but still … (!)
The third and fourth ships in this class are rumoured to have a well deck (!?) …again what? why?
So what the hell? What is going on ? How much craziness are proponents of the F-35 going to turn into some mysterious organized thought and strategy that we the plebs can’t fathom ?
There are two separate issue here, 1 the quality of the final product, (i.e. F-35) and the quality of the program. Even if the quality of the final product comes out decent (or even superb) no one can deny that the overall program has been a disaster, mismanaged, disorganised, with short-sighted goals that keep changing and a somewhat crazy miscommunication between branches of the US military. There wouldn’t have been so much debate if it wasn’t.
I’ve never seen this mentioned anywhere official but the USS America is big enough for the F-35B not to have to use vertical thrust very often, except when operating from rough and ready airfields fairly close behind the front line. I guess the AV-8B and F-35B are dedicated marine air cover, which is a fortunate state of affairs if anything. Not many militaries (none) can even afford a dedicated marine air wing, or even a dedicated naval air wing for that matter.
lukosRather than magnetic bottles containing radioactive material (& if you don’t think fusion reactors will contain anything radioactive, I suggest you do some looking up – not loads of spent fuel, but there’ll still be some hazardous stuff), it might be better to use fusion power to split water & use the hydrogen as aviation fuel.
Water vapour is a greenhouse gas too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_gases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Impacts_on_the_overall_greenhouse_effect
lukosI’ll grant you one thing. You are a tenacious supporter of your case even when it is based on supposition and possible maybe theories. I seem to recall their were only two crashes at airshows (both whilst it was still experimental) Very few losses in service, at least one of which was due to enemy action.
How many times has an F-35 crashed at airshows?
Here are the ‘very few losses in service’ you mentioned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harrier_Jump_Jet_family_losses
http://air-attack.com/page/41/AV-8-Harrier.html
However, by the end of 1991, the cumulative (non-combat) mishap rate was disappointingly high at more than 14 per 100,000 flight hours for its first seven operational years.
Compare that with something like a Typhoon with <0.8 losses per 100,000 flying hours.
lukosactually i did watch it very carefully , the missiles is about 7-8 meter long, the zig zag distance is about 1/4 size of the missile, so the missiles actually only shifting 2-3 meter left and right
Your estimate is way off. You’re looking at the plume and the missile, look at the ship itself.
lukosAgreed and it didn’t need to for its intended role. Because it could operate from short semi prepared strips It could operate from close behind the FEBA A combat radius of little more than 100 miles was more than sufficient and more likely to have been 50-75. That would have negated the need for long range tankage.
Yes I have. The difference is that the Harrier worked by the time it went into service. When (if) the F-35 makes it into squadron service they’ll spend the first 5-10 years ironing out the wrinkles. They’ll probably also find it won’t lend itself to midlife upgrades and development as well. Before you try to shoot that remark down by saying it won’t need to just remember that no plan survives contact with the enemy. I spent long enough in the military to see quite a few cases of “we can leave that out, it’s not needed in modern combat”. The decision being based on the minor skirmishes of the previous twenty years then the first it’s used in anger the thing it really needs is the one thing they said it didn’t.
One thing I will grant you is that the Harrier was by no means perfect but still turned out bloody good at doing what was asked of it.
That’s a matter of opinion. Some serious crashes at airshows and lots of losses in service. Probably took 15 years to half-way iron out the crinkles.
lukosIt’s hard to think positive when all the deatails emerging point to it not being fit for purpose except as a land based aircraft.
Perhaps you should watch some old black and white video footage on the development of Harrier.
lukosNot necessarily, the Harrier didn’t burn holes in the ship and if the F-35 needs afterburner as well as lift engines to get off a carrier it’s an even more flawed concept.
Harrier was subsonic, had no internal bays and had pitiful range on internal fuel.
lukosEADS left required items off of the bid, so they did not meet the price for the required number of planes & R&D.
The F-35 did not need dual-seaters therefore none were required (the same goes for weapons integration R&D). This was not a freebie however. The F-35 can get away with no trainer F-35s because it’s an easier plane to fly and it has a more robust training program that includes better simulators (which were part of the bid).
Read the links I posted. The F-35 was eliminated on cost alone whilst offering 60 single seat fighters, whereas the Typhoon was eliminated because it only offered 6 twin-seaters as opposed to 15. That left the F-15SE, which was then eliminated simply because it was ****.
http://defense-update.com/20130819_boeing-f-15se-silent-eagle-for-korea.html#.VD5b0fldVWI
Earlier it was reported that the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) has been eliminated from the selection, after ‘abruptly changing its contractual terms’. EADS submitted an offer for 54 single seater and six twin-seat Eurofighter Tranche 3 fighters, while DAPA required 15 twin-seat and 45 single seat planes. South Korea’s decision to eliminate EADS and the fact that the costlier F-35A is available only in a single-seat version has left left Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle as the sole final candidate, government sources said Sunday.
“A bidder submitting a price over the budget won’t be selected as a winner. We can’t make a contract over the budget. That’s the bottom line,” DAPA spokesman Baek Yoon-hyung said.
The spokesman would not specify which bidders were in or out. But multiple sources privy to the bidding confirmed only the F-35 price was over the budget.
Nah, flying it once trained might be easy but learning all the functionality from square one is still pretty tricky. The simulators aren’t better either, I’ve seen the Typhoon ones at Warton, it doesn’t get any better. SK simply made life easy for LM because it was the aircraft they really wanted and they knew there was no chance of a twin-seater. Let’s at least be straight-up with the facts please.
lukosGripen NG ticks more boxes of the defining 5th gen ™ attributes than F-35,
the initial capabilities are guaranteed by the Swedish state, as in they will pay penalties if it isn’t up to spec,
are you deriving purchase & operational cost from dividing package cost ?
over a lifetime, the gripen will cost less than half that of F-35.there is also a difference in what US is wanting from an AF vs most smaller nations with regards to defense,
per definition most customers are looking primarily at defending airspace, while the US primarily wants a strike asset
Gripen NG is nowhere near as close to being ready (haven’t had first pre-production flight yet) and sadly it’s not a matter of simply counting boxes, as some boxes are just far more heavily weighted than others. Gripen NG is a single-engined Typhoon/Rafale equivalent except 20 years late.
lukosPentagon Resumes F-35 Deals as Engine Problem Fixed
http://online.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-resumes-f-35-deals-as-engine-problem-fixed-1413325294
Good news.
lukosThey are not very good examples, the Rafale is being built at a rate that can be described as “craftsmanship”, the Typhoon on the other hand is being built in decent numbers but the industrial setup is a freaking nightmare, four diferent lines… Even so, “Airbus” was prepared to deliver to the South Korean Air Force 50% more airframes than LM for the same price (and most of the ROKAF F-35´s wont be LRIP examples), so, this isnt so clear cut, it would be expensive, yes, but ditch the STVOL requirements, shed two or three tons, use the F119 and they might be on to something.
Right so you’d get maybe 3 of these hypothetical non-stealth fighters for every 2 F-35s. So for countries that can only afford 24, that’s 36, not really a massive improvement.
IRC the SK Typhoon bid was also over budget. That combined with the 40 F-35s for LESS than the budget means that the Typhoon bid was NOT 60 for the price of 40 F-35s.
I have to contest that point. The F-35 was eliminated on cost alone. The Typhoon bid was less but didn’t offer as many twin-seaters as were requested, however, the F-35 bid didn’t offer any.
http://defense-update.com/20130819_boeing-f-15se-silent-eagle-for-korea.html#.VD5b0fldVWI
Earlier it was reported that the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) has been eliminated from the selection, after ‘abruptly changing its contractual terms’. EADS submitted an offer for 54 single seater and six twin-seat Eurofighter Tranche 3 fighters, while DAPA required 15 twin-seat and 45 single seat planes. South Korea’s decision to eliminate EADS and the fact that the costlier F-35A is available only in a single-seat version has left left Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle as the sole final candidate, government sources said Sunday.
“A bidder submitting a price over the budget won’t be selected as a winner. We can’t make a contract over the budget. That’s the bottom line,” DAPA spokesman Baek Yoon-hyung said.
The spokesman would not specify which bidders were in or out. But multiple sources privy to the bidding confirmed only the F-35 price was over the budget.
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