Again, simply look at WWII and our experience with the German air force compared to ours at the US entrance into that war. How much better were their aircraft than ours?

Sure, when we entered we had the P-40 which was put into service around 1937 I believe. Not dated but certainly behind what the Germans were fielding and developing.

Are there other air forces out there today that could compare to ours? If you think that there are not then you are mistaken. The Chinese and the Russians are still producing very advanced aircraft that could give us a run for our money. They sell them to folks who might one day not be on our side. Plus you never know when an ally my turn. The Iranians have F-14s (though they don't have any parts to fly them). We need to be able to ensure our success by being better. Period. I'm not willing to risk it and the benefits to society by constantly pushing the technology envelope are clear and well defined. Disregard that the peril of the United States' future. If we don't push it then someone else will and they will end up the dominant country from a technology standpoint and our GDP will suffer for it. We're already struggling. If you care about the next few generations of Americans having a viable and superior economy and just want a bunch of waiters and baristas then sure - focus on the 'social programs' and hand outs and forget about national defense and teaching people to fish.

Maybe the F-35 itself isn't the right answer but the wrong answer is doing nothing. I would support a redesign to glass cockpit on the existing platforms if it were more economically feasible than a new airframe.

We've had a lot of concept aircraft built around these existing airframes that make sense and have superior performance. Maybe something like that is the answer but I know that standing pat on existing tech is the wrong answer. It was bad enough when we killed the shuttle - killing something like this without having a viable replacement is just going to make matters worse. We'll lose engineers. If we keep doing this the only thing that will save us is that I'm sure California's AQMD will mandate new fighter aircraft with better emissions. Is that what it will take?

SmileWavy

Huh?
 

True, if the only kids who would get scholarships were slackers. We are way behind other nations in the sciences ... I don't suggest giving them to those who not qualified. And yes trade school could be answer. Yet, many trades have or are vanishing due to the evolved nature of the U.S. and world economies. We are fast becoming a nation of service functionaires. We need to revitalize our education system to become competitive. And that includes helping the ones who have talents. I would rather have my taxes go to educating our populace rather than feeding the defense industry. Call me naive if you will...

Mike, I think the P40 is what we had and not the P47 when we got into the second melee.

There are some "gen 4.5" mods we could do the F15 and F18 to make them stealthier and we could upgrade the cockpit workcenter which may have given us enough time to develop a true lightweight gen 5 multirole fighter instead of the F35. In the long run we need something to counter the MiGs, Chengdu and Shenyangs that will be deployed against us when the cows deficate into the air management system.

"The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft. An advanced technical and aerodynamic achievement for the Canadian aviation industry, the CF-105 (Mark 2) held the promise of near Mach 3 speeds at altitudes likely exceeding 60,000 ft."

After a long protracted & bitter debate in parliament, the project was cancelled in Feb 1959.

"The controversy engendered by the cancellation and subsequent destruction of the aircraft in production remains a topic for debate among historians, political observers and industry pundits. "This action effectively put Avro out of business and its highly skilled engineering and production personnel scattered...."

Most of this huge talent pool was hired within days & went to work for NASA. Canada has never since enjoyed the luxury of having such a large number of highly skilled specialists in one group or team. Therefore, IMHO, Mikester's words have one helluva lot of credence & should be given very serious consideration.

Cheers
JB

Again, remember what we as a general populace know and what some higher up in the governmant know are different. Remember the helo used in the raid on Osama? Maybe the F35 is a red herring.

You are correct - I've corrected my post too. I knew I was putting the wrong number down when I did it too - it was on the tip of my tongue...


Dammit! I almost always make that particular spelling miskate!

Maybe if I had studied English more instead of math and science the world would be a better place and our kids would have a prosperous future.

It is unfortunate that the cancellation of the F-105 had that effect but it's a lesson for us. Not that we shouldn't cancel the F-35 but that we should cancel it and not have another plan to keep those folks busy and keep the folks lined up to come into the business on track. Even if the F-105 wasn't the finest bird of it's time what it represented for Canada is clear and the end result is as well.

These are folks like many on this board who work for some big almighty company and then either do great things in that company or decide to go out on their own with a fantastic idea or as in Red's case - both. We need more of these guys.

Except F22 got it's ass handed to it by the Typhoon.. which is why they are no scrambling for a new version of the F22 with off bore missile targetting and Aim120D compatibility..

The fact that there is an aircraft out there that can outmatch one of ours so significantly is another example of why standing pat is a mistake.

The Typhoon is another one of those aircraft in life that to see one is to love one. If you look throughout history at every country's fighter programs it is a science that must be nurtured and must evolve but if neglected you simply become a consumer.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...don_Zammit.jpg

Hey, while we're looking at time where the US Air superiority was challenged let us look at where those challenges actually came from?


We already discussed the Germans in WWII, the Japanese had us over a barrel too with their innovative Zeros. We were negligent there; did we learn our lesson? When was our next opportunity? How about Korea just a few short years later. I love the F-86 as much as the next guy but the Mig-15s and then the Mig-17s were so much more nimble. We didn't have an F-86 variant that was a clear match much less superior until a few years into that action.

Then we look at Vietnam...Some of those same MIG-17s were kicking our butts but the MIG-21s in the right hands simply outclassed us.

Lets be real here - the age of war has not left us yet. War is changing and we do have remotely piloted vehicles but when the time comes for us to stop putting feet on the ground and men in the air to defend our borders, our interests and our allies - I believe if isn't worth risking a life what's the point of fighting with robots on a battlefield?

SmileWavy

And don't forget that the Russians have some serious AA missiles, if there ever was a missile gap, now is the time. They got more range, and have put some serious effort into their seekers..
And they carry loads of em.


The Russian Philosophy of Beyond Visual Range Air Combat

The Russian are no longer the threat.

I'm not sure how big is the North Korea Air Force but their planes is not the problem...

From SecAF Wynne speech to the AFA in 2006:

This leads to a point I’d like to emphasize—the absolute necessity to build our fleet of 5th generation fighters. In today’s security environment, the Air Force must continue to secure free access to the world’s globalized nations. The threat which continues to change and grow with the proliferation of fourth-plus generation aircraft and double-digit surface area missiles can limit and prevent our free access to these world trouble spots. It is imperative that we continue to locate, identify, and be able to target our enemies anywhere on the globe at a moment’s notice. We cannot even consider ceding air dominance to any other nation. The F-22 and F-35 provide the combatant commanders a synergistic capability that will ensure air dominance over the battlefield and global strike capability for decades to come. The F-22 Raptor is an air dominance fighter designed with additional speed and air-to-air capability. The F-35 Lightning II is a diversified air-to-air and air-to-ground fighter bringing targeting flexibility and increased range and increased persistence. A combination of these cutting-edge stealth aircraft and their enhanced capability will further enable netcentric operations, ISR, that are all critical to the joint interdependent fight.

Mikester is right.

Can read more on this and other weapon systems herer: http://http://www.afa.org/media/scripts/conf2006_Wynne.asp

I didn't even mention that part of Vietnam. There were many reasons we couldn't break Hanoi - political and technical.

Russian AA technology was one of them.

F-35 is the right aircraft built by the wrong company....tho Lockheed won the fly-off handily over the POS from MCABoeing.
However, Lockheed is the king of cost over runs. The fly away cost (unknown as of now) per plane is probably gonna be about the same as a C-17......which is another gilded lily.

The little guys with big watches want all their stuff to win WWIII all by itself.
A budget to them means about the same thing as to my wife.

It's time for a new fighter. A few years ago I went down on Eglin to help put in a new arresting cable system. I was a little curious and asked the air force inspector if the navy was flying practice landings. He said no. It was to trap the F15's in event of brake problems or other faults. I figured he was BS'ing me but I got to looking at the ones taxiing by and by golly they all had tail hooks. They also worked on them an awful lot. All that being said they were breathtaking on takeoff and climbout. What little I've seen of the F35 isn't enough to say whether it'll be the ultimate plane but the pilots seem to be impressed with it.

Late back to this thread, but a couple thoughts particularly related to Shaun's questions.

The F15, F16, and F18 are still being produced. Having a hot production line means that in theory, we could be replacing our old ones with new ones. For the other models that have been out of production, in many cases restarting would be prohibitively expensive. Not only must the production line be re-certified, but in many cases the tooling to build the aircraft is scrapped when the production run is over. Re-tooling and restarting a cold production line is many millions of dollars, not worth it to build an obsolete jet.

So, we could buy new replacement jets instead of creating a new model. But that still doesn't address the capability gap. I suppose you could argue against the possibility of a major future conflict that pits military powers against each other, but history wouldn't be on your side. Russia has continued to develop new fighter aircraft such as the SU-30, SU-34, SU-35, and T-50 (5th gen multi-role stealth). China is developing a stealth 5-th gen fighter. The Eurofighter Typhoon is in service today. All of these aircraft will be exported to other countries, meaning we could face off against them in combat without being at war with the producing nation. Air superiority has been the key to every major conflict since the dawn of aviation, a fact that would be foolish to ignore.

So the F35 is a royal cluster. It's also nearly done. At this stage in the game, scrapping the program would be foolish at best. All of these past fighter programs went through the same process when they were being developed decades ago - cost overruns, behind schedule, aircraft teething issues. It's a process, and in the end we should have a pretty damn good airplane. It gives us an advanced platform which can be evolved in the future, much as we have done with our current fleet. But give up now?

I might come off as a military industrial complex kinda guy, but it's not the case. I invested three years of 60+ hour weeks developing a light attack turboprop that could take the place of the F16 and A10 for close air support and ISR missions. A cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate alternative that makes a lot of sense for today's wars. But you know what? Even this aircraft requires something with more capability to clear the way first.

dont FOOL YERSELFS one second about iran NOT having parts for F-14 and F-4's/f-5's. due to us after the fall of the shah, not shipping any more support parts, they (iran) started an ENTIRE NEW AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY to make support parts for what they have. and dont think russia/china didnt have their fingers into it.


i shipped COUNTLESS SUPPORT PARTS in my 20's for f-14's and f-4's/f-5's to iran. i mean ZILLIONS of $$$$$ WORTH!


the shah was buying planes parts like YOU/I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYBODY BUY!


each and every part on the shipping box had a 8 color sticker($$$) depicting either a iranian F-4 or iranian F-14 or iranian F-5's.


they have reversed eng. all of them.


wiki stated over 500 aircraft that they have now.


if they close the strait of hormuz, ITS GAME ON KIDDIES!



any crap from either korea or iran and it will tumble out of control SO FAST YER HEADS WILL FREEKING SPIN! and ITS GONNA BE FUGLY X A MILLYON!



if they(korea/iran) start the crap...............I WANT EITHER TO BE VAPORIZED BY 5PM THAT DAY! every last man woman child dog cat goat camel pig worm insect bird fish....................................ADI-FOOKING-OS!



oh yeah lets NOT FERGET those really nice FRENCH MIRAGE fighters with nasty as NASTY CAN BE EXOCETS! please refer to the brits and the falklands war for a little refresher on WHAT EXOCETS CAN AND WILL DO BECAUSE THEY FREEKING CAN!

" I invested three years of 60+ hour weeks developing a light attack turboprop that could take the place of the F16 and A10 for close air support and ISR missions."
Yeah Matt, we had a thread about that awhile back. I posted the idea of a P51 with a turbine engine. Looks like somebody had already thought of it as a picture of a turbo 51 was posted. I know, I'm a day late and a dollar short but what happened to the idea. The military was at one time into the COIN concept. Why didn't it pan out?

It's very slowly gaining support abroad with countries that can't afford to field hundreds of jets. There's a big bias against using anything in combat that has a little spinny thing up front, too many jet jockeys in leadership I suppose. It may take either drastic budget cuts or success abroad in order for our military to adopt them as one piece of the puzzle.

Any *fighter* that does not incorporate effective stealth technology (like the Typhoon) is obsolete.
The F-22 guys call such a confrontation "killing baby seals". They are only inhibited by absurd rules of engagement handed from above.

All makes sense. Don't know if we can afford hundreds of jets any more! I was told if it's not supersonic the USAF doesn't want it. Thinking about it more it would seem to me that the Army or Marines would be more interested in a turbine ground support aircraft anyway.