Trump is talking about trimming (or deleting) the F-35, after going after Boeing's AF-1. Trump targets Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet costs - AOL News
I do not know how we can afford significant numbers of the F-35. We also need an Army and Navy fielded with modern equipment. AFAIK, the current stealth technology will prove ineffective in five to ten years. What advantage in five to ten years, will the F-35 offer over proposed new build advanced F-15 and F-16's equipped with AESA radars ?
The A model is probably the most vulnerable because its main advantage over the F-16 is stealth, and the USAF already has other stealth assets, namely the F-22. The B model is far superior to the Harriers it is replacing, and both the USMC and the British need the new airplane. The C model is in a similar situation to the A: its main advantage over the F-18 is stealth. But the USN has no other stealth assets, and the C model is needed on the carriers. Remember that with each production lot, the price per ship drops. And, unlike the F-22, there are many foreign users who need or want this airplane. Sorry, Donald, but you're too late; the genie is out of the bottle. Terminating the program now would be far worse than allowing it to continue.
The production options can be cut, they are not etched in stone......and move in a different direction...
I would buy advanced new-build F-15 and F-16 airplanes with standoff weapons and AESA radars. The production lines for the F-15 and F-16 are both producing new-build aircraft. The stealth advantage will not last past ten years. I do not have an answer for the Navy dilemma. The Navy does not want to purchase an Air Force airplane . The F-35B is an awesome platform - but expensive. This can escort TACAIR to the targets Boeing: EA-18G Growler
There are at present 7-8 other nations that have signed up (Canada with Kid Trudeau may be bailing). Israel apparently picked up their first F-35... today, I think. They have plans to help develop a 2-man version and are going to modify the standard planes' software, jamming and weapons systems.
IMHO, the F-35 project was a flawed idea from the beginning. It was a myth that there would be cost savings in combining the production of 3 very different types of aircraft into one shared design. The USAF needs a different fighter jet than the USN and the Marines need a VTOL fighter that is even more different than the other two services. A jet for the USAF can use much lighter landing gear than a jet for carrier landings. Plus, the Navy jet needs a tailhook connected to a strong structure. We ended up with 3 very different F-35 jet designs with the A, B, and C model variants of it. In hindsight, we should have had a unique clean-sheet design for each one. .
Once the US doesn't move ahead with production options, the others will bail...with all the press on air force one, and this, I see both of them being cut back after Jan 20th...just my observation and experience over the years..
So everybody wants to see a repeat of Pearl Harbor and the early phases of the Pacific war, where the Zero outclassed all our fighters by a wide margin until the Hellcat and Lightning appeared? The Chinese are building two stealth fighters, one air-to mud optimized and the other air-to-air optimized, and the Russians are in pre-production on another. Cost on the F-35 is coming down to $80-85M on upcoming production batches, while a new F-15E variant will cost ~$110M and other comparable 4th generation plus fighters are over $100M (Eurofighter and Rafale). Value of stealth? So far in engagements against the F-15, the F-22 is 108:0 in kills, and that is old generation stealth. Coatings on the B-2 and F-22 are very fragile, but the F-35 coatings are as tough as regular paint, and stealthier. Low observables never become obsolete. Countermeasures so far do not include any target tracking radars, only low frequency radars that say "something is out there". IRST systems have short ranges well below the range of MRAAMs. So the geniuses in DOD and congress always target USAF modernization efforts and cut off production just as economies of scale are being realized. Then they roll up all the RDT&E costs, divide them by the reduced number of airframes and say that is why we canceled. Spend all the money upfront and then cancel just when the program would have started to return real benefits. So instead of 132 B-2s, we end up with 22, now 21 and instead of 750 F-22s we ended up with 187 production models and 8 prototypes and all the RDT&E costs were divided by 187, not 750. Because we will never fight a near peer, right? Now everybody wants to do the same thing with the F-35, even though the average age of our fighter fleet is the oldest it has ever been and we are band-aiding all of them to extend service life. And they will still get their rear ends kicked in a fight with near-peer 5th generation fighters. Marines are IOC, USAF is IOC, USN is next and the bugs are going away rapidly, just like we knew they would. All the pilots who have flown the F-35 much prefer it to the F-16 or F-15E and the sensor fusion the F-35 offers is orders of magnitude better than even the F-22. We need the F-35 and we need the full complement so we can maintain an edge against the Russians and Chinese. We will not always be fighting in a permissive environment where you can loiter in the target area with no fear of being engaged. What do I know. Not much, just a USAF Fighter Weapons School graduate who has been to war and knows what we need to win an air war.
The 'B' Marines plane is a STOVL plane, not VTOL. (Short take-off vertical landing.) The Navy plane does have beefed up gear (dual nose wheel) and a hook (just re-designed to be more fail-safe). It also has larger wings than the A and B for longer range and heavier payload.
Taz, you need to send this, just as it is, to Donald J. Trump!! (And send a copy to "Mad Dog" while you're at it.)
Unfortunately continuing this conversation will get us booted to P&R. While I have the utmost respect for those with boots on the ground, the command staff marches to the beat of a different drum. Not only are we always fighting the last war (last I checked, ISIS doesn't have an air force), but the budget discussion always includes comments like - almost 150,000 people work on the F-35.
Taz --- Pearl Harbor was not caused by our poorer fighter aircraft or being in fewer numbers. We had more planes in Pearl Harbor than those who attacked us. What caused Pearl harbor was an intelligence fail and poor military decisions. It wouldn't matter if we had jets at the time if they were killed on the ground. I would like to use more of the comparison of the Russian T-34 tank vs anything the Germans had. The T-34 was a really well built and rugged tank. BUT it was also crude, cheaply made, easily repaired, could be used by someone without massive training or education, and was built in HUGE numbers. Many forget that we won the war in the Pacific by having many small carriers that shuttled aircraft to the larger ones and supported missions in island hoping. Cheap and built quickly in huge numbers during WW2. The big carriers are the ones we celebrate. The little ones we don't even know about. Why can't we build a fleet of fighter drones that do that role? I'm not saying all fighter pilots will be history but can't we find a way to make something robotic that can pull down more G's than an human can stand, not have safety and live support systems, have a lower radar signature, stay up longer, and if shot down doesn't lose a pilot to be tortured and burned alive in a cage? I am not against the F-35. But I think the military resists this because it's uncomfortable to think real pilots can be replaced by automation.
Being ex Army I know very little about fixed wing modern aircraft. Appears to me we need some of these $100 Million plus dollar aircraft, how many I have no clue. How effective are these high altitude, high speed fighters for close in ground support ? When you watch YouTube footage of a Billion dollar B-2 crashing you think ..... OK that was expensive If I was a grunt on the ground I would prefer a A-10 Warthog as close air support ( less than $20 M a copy) I guess if your ass was saved by either, that might taint your position
The Japanese also had the early advantage with combat experienced pilots. After Stealth is no longer effective, what advantage would the F-35 offer when compared to a proposed new-build advanced F-15X and F-16X. The airframes are most likely projected to have at least a fifty year life cycle.
Add in the procurement staff to the command staff. I think another thing is that following the development of the F-18 the perception changed wrt weapon system procurement. Before the fall of the USSR there was this sense of impending conflict. There was a need to get weapons systems fielded in sufficient numbers to fight this impending conflict. After the fall the urgency decreased, or disappeared, and then the procurement process became a never ending cycle of wanting to always have the latest and greatest before committing to bulk buys. So instead of beginning to buy the original spec in numbers we delayed buying anything. The length of time from prototype to IOC has more than doubled since the 70's/80's. This adds considerable $$$ which then leads to various factions calling for cancellation.
