FBWA few corrections to the OP:
The YF-23 was alleged to be faster than the YF-22 (the F-23 emd would have added volume and less adherence to area rule, the F-22 was considerably different from the YF-22 including better area ruling and less draggy tail/nozzle). Hence there is no real evidence that a production F-23 would have been faster.
Second, the Yf-23 RCS pole model was alleged to have a lower RCS than the YF-22 pole model. Neither flying prototype had LO treatment, and had numerous features that wouldn’t have been congruent with LO features.
The YF-23 was beautiful, and raw. The development would have been torturous and the USAF was in no mood for assurances after the A-12 and B-2 debacles.
Not sure why you think the YF-23 had a higher ceiling, no mention of that in any of the numerous “rumors”.
The USAF made numerous mistakes in the 90’s:
Cutting the F-15E program numbers, slowing down the F-22 procurement schedule, piecemeal F-16 block 50/52 procurement after ‘95. Choosing the F-22 wasn’t one of them. The F-23 wouldn’t have made it, we’d have zero aircraft from the ATF program instead of 187.
FBWs and you know why. Relatiively AdA is much more involved in OPEX than USAF and need to smooth down utilization between aircrafts within Sqds. Back to Red Flag 17-3, how many planes for how many flight hours within 3 weeks? IOn Lybia, Rafale M flew up to 40 hours/week/plane…
– bulls**t!, cough bulls**t! The AdlA readiness across the board in 2015 from C-130 to Mirage 2000 was barely 50%.
See Hallow, the funny thing is, the French and US armed forces are facing the same issues: lower readiness due to shortfalls in retaining skilled personnel (especially maintainers), spares and maintenance budgets underfunded to meet operational requirements, and the impact of a smaller fleet (periodic upgrades take a significant chunk of the available fighter force).
The F-35A has been in service for just over a year, how mature do you think the maintenance procedures are? How reliable do you think the supply pipeline should be for an aircraft that has been operational for a little over a year?
And please, let’s stop pretending that the Rafale’s high availability rate in Libya, or Syria was special. Look at the USAF availability during DS or even the F-22 availability during it’s Syria deployment. Aircraft on operational deployments tend to have very high mission capable rates. What do you think happens when that deployment ends?
But why bringing Rafale here Tomcat? Your old obsession about french flying machines?
The reason why Tomcat points this out is obvious, your obsession with any negative press on the F-35 and your previous shaky relationship the facts regarding F-35 costing measures.
Perhaps you should use the skeptical analysis on “True costs” and availability that you reserve for the F-35 on a product closer to home as there are problems obvious to anyone outside of France.
Not to say that the F-35 doesn’t have issues, and I will be reading lifetime O&S cost estimates with interest over the next few years.
FBWMission capable rates for FY 16 (USAF only):
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2017/04/02/growing-readiness-woes-only-7-in-10-air-force-planes-are-ready-to-fly/
F-35A= 65%, F-15E= 73%, F-16C= 73%
Without having the full GAO report yet, this isn’t even worth discussing.
FBWF-35s Hobbled by Parts Shortages, Slow Repairs, Audit Finds
– Honestly, the same could be said for every fighter in every NATO inventory right now. Most of the USAF fighters are old, and the F-35 program isn’t mature yet. So, what’s the excuse for the Rafale having poor availability and parts shortages for the AdlA?
FBWI believe the ratio was closer to 1.5:1 in “many vs many” but yes the difference was marked. I think I have the files saved. Will post later if I have time. You can also look on my profile for a thread called “what metrics of manuverablity matter” I posted some ACEVAL/AIMVAL literature there I believe.
FBWwith the F-35, the USN does what it can not to buy it but in the end, chances are that they’ll have no choice this time
Yeah, that’s just what the USN has intimated. Or the exact opposite. While I’m no “fan” of the F-35C, the USN is trying to play a game of “chicken” with Congress. They need the F-35C, they just don’t have any idea how to pay for it, CVN, Colombia class, ship maintenance, and a plethora of unfunded requirements.
I admit that there is a faction that would push for whatever comes out of the Navy’s “Next Generation Air Dominance” AOA, formerly F/A-XX at the expense of the F-35C, but realistically don’t see the Navy getting a new manned platform independent of whatever comes out of the Air force PCA AoA, or NGAD family of capabilities.
So, it’s not the Navy doing whatever it can not to buy the F-35C. It’s more indicative of funding shortfalls causing the Navy to become increasingly schizophrenic with their procurement and sustainment. They pushed back F-35C procurement, cut maintenance on aircraft and ships, sacrificing numbers within air wings, and deferring ship repairs, all while refusing to give up any future shiny new toys, and planning a major fleet expansion.
Not going to happen, very soon they will be faced with the problem of SLEP on the Super Hornets that are burning up airframe fatigue life, or ramping up F-35C. If they want their Ford class CVN to be anything more than a 11 billion dollar helo carrier, they will have to start budgeting F-35C procurement.
B-I-O would be able to provide a better insight into the NGAD initiative and PCA AoA, as well as the Navy’s recent air dominance AoA.
FBWWhen an article from “SouthFront” brings several of our more outspoken critics of the F-35 jumping on to embrace a rumor, it is time to take a step back and regain some semblance of objectivity.
Israel has seven F-35 in country. Two of which are newly arrived. Those seven aircraft are engaged in qualifying pilots, forming an operational doctrine, and being integrated into IDF. What they are not doing is going after 50 year old missile technology when the service has F-15I and F-16I with fully trained pilots and integrated weapons specific for that mission. Posting the rumor is fine, as even dubious rumors sometimes have a grain of truth. This one does not meet the smell test one bit.
GET A GRIP
FBWi do not know this site so i donnot endorse. However, it seems that a F-35 is grounded either due to bird strike or SA-5
It’s a junk site. I saw that reported on twitter via “Southfront” too. Like the earlier reports of Israeli F-35’s bombing S-300 sites in Syria, there is little chance that Israel is using their small F-35 fleet operationally yet, and even a lesser chance that an unrelated “bird strike” claim was really a missile hit.
FBWThere is considerable nuance to this:
1. There were reports in the early 70’s that the U.S. had tried to kill Concorde to protect it’s aircraft industry. Several British officials refute those reports. Here is a NYTimes article from ’76 related:
http://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/07/archives/briton-says-us-tried-hard-to-halt-concorde-project-in-1964.html
2. As far as the CIA trying to kill the Concorde, that is a bit exaggerated. The U.K. was in a financial pinch in the ’60’s and relied on US aid. The CIA repeatedly warned the UK that the project would be a financial failure due to the technical hurtles they had already identified. Basically warning the UK that the project was going to be more difficult and more expensive than envisioned, that the U.S. would be unable to aid in overcoming the technical hurdles due to the wording of the agreement between France and UK, and that even if the project succeeded, it would be of dubious economic value.
FBWBut none of those engines were super sonic.
TF-30 (The TF30-P-111 had 25,000lbs of augmented thrust), the TF-30 series started development in 1959. The Soviets had the RD-7 on the Tu-22, the R-29 series on the Mig-23, and don’t forget the RR Olympus series (MK. 320) on the TSR.2. A modernized version of that same Mk.320 formed the basis for the Concorde’s Olympus 593.
Edit- Forgot the Orenda PS.13 Iroquois, don’t want to offend any Avro Arrow “truthers”.
FBWThe GE J-93 engines were in the near 30,000 pound class. If the B-70 had not been cancelled Pratt and others would have developed their own engines of that power. How much longer was it before engines that powerful became generally available?
Question 1- How many airliners are flying with Turbojet engines currently?
Question 2- Why do you think that a 30,000lb thrust class engine, one that used special fuel, was that advanced? There were several nearly as powerful, more fuel efficient engines that didn’t need special fuel already under development in ’64.
FBWIt still remains that the leap forward that the B-70 would have generated in aviation was lost. Cancelling it set aviation back decades.
– you’ve stated this twice without any evidence to support these claims.
How did it set aviation back? There were better, faster aircraft testing high speed flight in the 1960’s, the concept itself was dated by the time some of the technical hurtles were overcome.
Even if the US had continued with the B-70, it wouldn’t have survived into the late 1980’s. The USAF divested itself of high speed strategic bombers starting in the 70’s, even the FB-111 was turned over to TAC starting in the mid-80’s. The technical/logistic challenges of providing refueling to give the B-70 intercontinental range would have been insurmountable. It was a beautiful aircraft that would have been an expensive white elephant had they procured it.
FBWNational Interest…. Does anyone actually read that site still?
“The F-14A was underpowered for a front-line fighter, and guys like me began referring to it as the twin-tailed turkey,” as former F-14 test pilot Mike Williams wrote.
It was underpowered, but performed quite well in ACEVAL/AIMVAL against the F-15A and F-4. It was also an excellent supersonic performer, the F-15 by comparison, was brute force triumphing supersonic drag.
While the reengined F-14B and the F-14D were excellent dogfighters—though limited by a paltry 6.5G-7.0G-load limit, the F-14A was hampered by its underpowered engines in a within visual range fight. Experienced aircrew could still make the F-14A perform well with exceptional energy management skills and making good use of the jet’s variable geometry wings, but the Tomcat was at a distinct disadvantage against newer aircraft such as the F-15C, F-16 or something like the MiG-29 or Su-27.
The F-14’s g limit was self imposed by the navy to preserve airframe life, the aircraft itself was supposed to be a 7.6g (edit- actually 7.33g) airframe, there was no limiter and pilots flying new F-14 at ACEVAL exceeded 9g (one pilot claimed 11g) without the wings falling off.
It wasn’t the super fighter burned into public lore due to it’s looks and “Top Gun”, but it certainly wasn’t a dog by 1970’s standards either.
FBWAs long as Erdogan is in control, I wouldn’t be surprised if Turkey never sees an F-35 inside its borders.
Personally, I wish that were true. Unfortunately, I don’t think this Congress will piece together a coherent response to the noise coming out of Turkey. A pause in cooperation would be a welcome measure right now (something short of a complete arms ban, or suspension from NATO, or the usual sanctions that would be toothless due to EU resistance).
A pause in deliveries and cooperation of Turkey in the F-35 program would send the right message.
FBWSo who thinks the Saudi MOU will actually lead to a firm contract for the S-400? Russian perspective please (not JSR thank you).
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