F-35: What the pilots say...

very interesting, seems like its an aircraft like no other. Interesting that they take youngesters from flight training to this aircraft, makes sense as the thought process is so different to what came before.

I can also see why we need those F15's. If the F35 is air defense supression as seems to be the main mission trained for, we still need bonmb trucks(f15)

 

F-35s will be at least triple DOC, with SEAD, defensive counter air, and offensive counter air capability depending on theater requirements. Plus by the 2020s, they will be nuclear strike capable, so quad DOC. Not all F-35 units may do all four, or none may, just like the F-16s were usually limited to three or less.

 

Super article, thanks!

 

designed operational capability and suppression of enemy air defenses

 

Japan has apparently lost an F-35

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-defence-f35/japans-air-force-loses-contact-with-f-35-stealth-fighter-idUSKCN1RL1FJ

 

Just curious, what enemy would that be?

 

Many years ago I was channel surfing on a lazy Sunday afternoon and stopped on one of those C-SPAN defense news shows. There were a couple of defense nerds arguing about whether or not the U.S. should invest a bunch of money in the F-35 or if the F-16s and F-18s were good enough. The Yes We Need New Planes guy was arguing that we definitely need new planes because all of our enemies have F-16s and F-18s. It felt like deleted scene from Dr. Strangelove as written by Dwight Eisenhower.

 

Well that is somewhat of an unknown. In the 80's who would have ever thought we would be fighting in the Middle East? The F-35 would take on the mission of what the F-117 did in desert storm. Just like in desert storm the F-35 would clear the way for the F-15/16/18 to do their jobs. Just like the advanced F-117 cleared the way for the older F-4s.

 

It is my understanding this weapon is meant to fight against other advanced technologies, i.e., Russia, China and so on. Said another way, it is designed to fight the last war. Cyber warfare or economic warfare are not part of the portfolio.

 

While I think a number of our recent interventions have been dumb it seems to me that was the common opinion in 1919 too. Too many crazy people with power in the world to actually think we don't need actual guns.

 

Reasonable people can disagree. The future of warfare will be economic, cyber, and eventually space. The days of tanks rolling across the border are gone.

 

Pretty sure we've heard that before.

 

Frankly, these are billion dollar weapon systems, all in. So who else in the world has anything even close? It is my understanding that our analysis of the Russian planes during the recent Syrian dust up showed they were still in 1990s Desert Storm mode, i.e., junk. So the question becomes does it make sense to spend $25 billion for a squadron of these planes, or should we use that money somewhere else, e.g., cyber?

Finally, without getting P&R - that $25 billion? It is all borrowed money.

 

Borrowed because we are too stupid to spend tax money on things the Federal government is responsible for. It is not responsible for supporting corrupt foreign leaders or feeding and housing the worthless and the illegals and that is just a start. Let me be in charge of the budget and we'll lower taxed and have a surplus.

 

You have my vote!

 

Brian, we could probably get you elected up here in Lubbock, but I am not too sure about Austin.

 

I love the fact that there are real experts here so honest question from a person largely uninformed on the details of these things, but what were the jobs these planes were doing that couldn't be completed by other means now? It seems to me that we could flood the skies with tens of thousands of drones for less than what we're spending on a couple hundred modern planes while accomplishing similar objectives and not putting American lives at risk. If the objective is to blow up some buildings or drop bombs on a group of ISIS guys attacking our troops, do you need to send in a $100m plane or could a few $4m drones drop the same bombs? Are we still getting involved in Sopwith vs. Fokker style dogfights? To Rifledriver's point, I think the argument these days isn't that we don't need guns, but more along the lines of which guns are still useful.

Also it seems that an unfortunate Japanese pilot dropped an F-35 into the ocean so now the plot of For Your Eyes Only is a real thing. If the Russians get to it first, our better-than-everyone-else plane could come unraveled and we'll hear more arguments as to why we need to build something new to stay ahead of everyone else.

 

Killing people with drones is a PR nightmare. For some reason it makes people alot happier if we drop bombs from manned vehicles rather than from drones.

Losing pilots is also awful though, so we spend a fortune to reduce losses further and further. We lost 3 F-16s in the gulf war, so we are spending a $25 billion to reduce that number hopefully to 0. As we get closer and closer to 0 though, it gets more and more expensive.

The US DoD is well aware of the changing roll of the battlefield. They now consider their to be 5 zones of combat, Air, Sea, Ground, Cyber, and Space. All of these are important, and will continue to be.

 

There won’t be a last war. War will go on forever.......some will be tech wars and others will be bloody wars...some big, some small....

 

Sure there will. Hiram Maxim said so when he invented the machine gun.