Come on people. This is the 21st century. Modern fighters can literally fly themselves (without command from the pilot they will maintain course, altitude & speed) & with today’s MMI the pilots ‘work load’ is much reduced. Plus it is not like a modern fighter is going to be flying all by itself over unknown hostile territory without CONSTANT contact of some kind with friendly forces.

Accounts of real 21st centry AH-64D pilots make clear that these brilliant 21st century systems are too much to handle for any human being in a combat situation;

there are even clear suggestions that the UK is currently still unable to put a crew together in one apache able to handle all systems, they always work in a two-ship formation so that the 4 crew members TOGEHTER have all competences needed.

and don’t reply now that the F-35 is changing all that please, we all know already how much you love that disaster

Using my best puzzled look – The F/A-18E have a similar combat range – using the all so reliable wekipedia it says it is a shade under 400 nautical miles so 600 NMi seems a real step up

While I get what you are suggesting – that the stealth feature is less than useful if you have be close to enemy airspace but 600 NMi seems to be sufficient, especially on first day of strike as you could operate your carriers 2-3 hundred miles outside territorial waters and still have a reasonable penetration distance.

I think the real problem of suggestion of the QE + 36 F-35 is the belief that the RN would be operating a carrier capable of carrying out full blown strike operations. Once you put you your rotating screen of F-35’s for air defence of the task group you would have relatively few available to carryout strike operations and I would be surprised if we could carryout more that 2 – 3 sortie’s per day with maybe a couple of F-35’s per sortie (someone with better understanding of carrier ops please feel free to correct me). I guess that is why the USN prefer super carriers with much larger fighter complements (and why I have seen the Charles de Gaulle referred to as an escort carrier for example with its 36 Rafale’s!).

Your reasoning seems logical but my main point was that national defence itself is outdated. The escalating costs of defence equipment and the much stronger international community and public opinion make it more and more difficult to launch lone ranger actions.

the way forward is a closer alliance, probably in Nato context, if not in EU context.

Even the US are asking themselves these questions now wondering if they really need 11? aircraft carriers, and a very large marine force, and a huge army and… or if they could live with a smaller national force for their own defence counting on international cooperation to give rogue states a run for their money

On another point, nice though navalised typhoon is as an idea, there isn’t a realistic F35 replacement if the UK has ambitions to operate advanced fighter sized aircraft at sea.

What advantages does the f-35 have except for stealth?

It seems to have a combat range of 600 nautical miles without extra tanks (which would compromise that stealth). Is that sufficient on the ocean?

Or are you prepared to bring your very non-stealthy carriers within 600 nautical miles of an enemy position that can only be attacked by a stealthy craft?

Is “national defence” still realistic or should we go for “European” defence or “nato” defence? You know, have a EU NAVY with Rafales, have a EU air defence based on Typhoon, a transport fleet with A400M…

How much economy of scale would we make with this?

How good would it be for the EU industry that would then finally be able to develop equipment on the same basis (and procurement size) of their US competitors?

The “disadvantage” would of course be that a single prime minister would be unable to decide to go to war on basis of false evidence but would that really be a disadvantage?

from the nov. 2008 senate report, the total estimated price is 39.6 billion euros for the whole rafale program (including buying 286 airframes), which, depending on the euro/dollar parity which vary on a daily basis, can be considered as going from ~30 billion up to ~60 billion dollars

http://secretdefense.blogs.liberation.fr/defense/2009/06/rafale-la-france-a-fait-le-bon-choix-celui-de-voler-de-ses-propres-ailes.html

according to this site:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/05/benchmark-contest-f-35-cost-vs.html

by the end of fiscal year 2011, the F-35 program would have costed 67.9 billion dollars, for about 101 contracted airframes and between 28 and 58 built

Which leads to the conclusion that the Rafale would be a bargain if development costs could be spread over 2400 airframes.

But it does not have STOVL of course

Even so an F22 at 200ft, has much better chances of surviving IADS than at 15k ft,

Any commanding officer that would task his F-22 crews to fly in at 200 feet is a moron why go down to 200 feet when you can travel at 50K+ feet and fire weapons from 100 or so miles away? why purposely get in detection range? .

Any commanding officer sending an f-22 at any altitude to such big and fixed target could be considered a moron.

It can all be done very safely with much cheaper drones or cruise misiles today.

With regard to the performance point, for me the program was supposed to deliver the capabilities at a low cost, this is a key element of the “performance” for me.

No low cost, fewer airframes, fewer capabilities = ultimately lower performance.

The F22 wasn’t canned due to performance issues. (unless theres something the USAF ain’t telling people :eek::diablo:)

Snafu, this is an excellent remark, really I am impressed, bamboozeled, flabbergasted, astonished…

YOU ARE RIGHT!!!!

By the way, a certain Mr. Gates has recently asked a number of very painfull questions starting with: “do we need… ” refering to (aircraft carriers, F-35,…) and “can we achieve the same or better at lower cost”

Here I would like to remind this forum (again) of the recent testing of mach 6 missiles, airborne laser target practicing, network centric warfare, drones…

Do we really need an F-35 (or F-22) for the next 30 years or will this technology (and related military approach) be obsolete in a few years time?

Why discuss the need for a mach 1.5 stealth airplane costing billions if much cheaper mach 6 cruise missiles can deliver the same load faster and equally precise? (and an old b-52 can be used as launching platform).

Considering that there is no need for an f-35 TODAY (by lack of enemies) we do have the time to fully test alternative technologies with a potential for the next 100 years.

@ pfcem

I’ve seen your reactions to my post

I can only hope that you are right !!! 🙂

this whole f-35 debate seems mainly to be had by believers who throw accusations and arguments at each other.

I don’t believe but:

– i do notice that the f-35 is facing Nunn McCurdy for the second time
– the progamme has severl years of developments delay.

Does that mean that the f-35 is a bad plane by default?

No, it only indicates that LM is not managing its development all too well and this may mean that the product itself (the f-35) is not going to be very “stable” and will include a few solutions that are not totally mature. This could compromise its performance, reliability and battle performance.

We (the general public) will only find out what it is word the day it id fielded against a serious oponent (let us hope never).

And watching all this, if I were a client of this thing, I would already have become very very suspicious and be searching for alternatives.