Is there any justification for the F-35 fighter jet?
 

No need to bump this to PARF, because I'm really asking out of ignorance.

Its an expensive program.

Given the rise of drones and missile technology, I don't quite see what the purpose of the F-35 is, given the cost.

export to allies.

rjp

We have an aging fleet of F-15s, F-16s and F-18s.

The F-22 is not built as a strike fighter, it's a long range air superiority platform.

The F-35 is a flexible strike platform. The F-15s were originally build as air superiority but the flexibility of the platform lent it to upgrades that made it a very good strike fighter/bomber as well. Still though the F-16 and F-18 were both built in the same 'age' and in fact competed against each other for the USAF bid. The F-16 won but the Navy thought the F-18 (which was actually the YF-17 during the USAF bid) was an excellent platform. They were right and both have been extremely successful platforms.

The F-16 and F-15 which the Airforce use share parts, mainly they share the same engine. This is good for the airforces readiness and its budget. Common parts = good right?

The Navy and Marines fly one fighter aircraft today really and that's the F-18. So since it's the single platform there is no need to share parts.

Lets take it another step to the F-35 joint strike fighter which was specifically designed as a multipurpose platform much like the F-16, F-18 and F-15 have become. In it we have flexibility in design to do different things for different applications while maintaining common parts which saves money. We also get advanced technologies and update our aircraft fleet. F-1[568]s are all wonderful airframes. I have been in love with the F-16 since I first laid eyes on it.

We need the F-35 and we need the F-22. There is no doubt in my mind about that. We may not need as many of them as we have of the other aircraft but I'm not sure I'd want to live with less. Beyond the self defense issues here (which I don't mean to discount) we need to be building stuff like this because if we stop building it we'll stop knowing HOW to build it and when the time comes when we need the technology we will be way behind the ball. We need these things and we need to keep people building them, designing them and flying them.

But, I also believe we need a shuttle program for a lot of the same reasons...

If we stop putting people in space on a regular basis and go automated we will get too far removed from the lessons learned of the past and make those mistakes again.

Oh, and 'export to allies' - we make money on that ****.

There are a lot of good reasons: Age. F15 was designed in the 1960s. F16/YF17/F18a-d designed in 1970-early 1980s. They have evolved wonderfully, but they are still dated

Harrier: the f35b replaces it. HUGE improvement in performance and safety. Harrier/AV8 is the most difficult plane to fly. It loss rate is high. F35B uses 21st century controls to tame the beast.

Stealth: ....

F22 vs F15 and everything else. No contest.

Cost: i don't like how politians roll up a 3000 engine program, $350b over 20-30 years and claim this is outragous. How much was the deficit this year? But seriously, the capability gained is immense. And it eventually. Will be the same standard as is the F16-F18. It's time to invest in our future 20 years from now. By then the F16 will be 60+ years old.

Historical: all future programs have been "the most expensive ever" inflation, capability, computers and software all increased so this is enevitable. The commonality between the F35a b and c models cost more now, but you got three different aircraft with huge commonality. Cheaper than developing three different aircraft

Competition: the goal is to never lose. Bring the best aircraft/pilots and you have the advantage. Unfortunately, everyone knows this; and are working on it. Time to upgrade is when you don't "have to"

Which have been doing a lot of double thinking lately.

John Ivison: Official report puts price of F-35s at $45,802,000,000 | Full Comment | National Post

Sounds like a very good deal to me... How much would it cost Canada to make their own? How much would a war cost a country that had little enough defense that it was considered weak (Pearl Harbor)? What price limit would one put on defense of their homeland? 5% of GDP? 10%?

How much do they spend on cell phones and video games?

The problem with these large acquisition program take so long, that the government get replaced and the new one cancel program because they can do it... Not the case this time but the opposition is playing the "twice" the estimate cost big time.

I remember back in the 80's when our Seaking Helicopter needed replacement, the newly elected Liberal (anti defence) cancel the EH-101 Cormorant replacement project which was signed and underway. We paid all kind of penalty including full profit only to buy the same helicopter 10 years later. We still have not got the full delivery yet :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

The other problem with these long major acquisitions is "requirements creep." As it gets closer to reality and production, user keep asking for better this and more that. The end item is much more expensive than originally planned, but also more capable.

Not only that, AV-8's are irreplaceable in the truest sense of the word.

Are F-15's still being built? F-16s? Or are they just being refurbished?

+1000

By the time they finished, the original engined were not good enough with the added weight...

Reasons for F35
 

Everything the Mikester said plus the F35 may well be the jumping off point for a pilotless fighter plane! That would not be so far fetched considering the recent advances in R/C and AI (artificial intelligence) designs. Now, if they could just make them into transformers..................

For what prospective enemy and when, are they designed?

Money probably better spent on drone and cyber warfare. Better, cheaper to make the logical jump early.

The F15E Strike Eagle is one our most capable multi role fighters, with a cockpit straight out of 1985. I had the opportunity to poke around one last year and was staggered by how antiquated it was. With the exception of F18 Super Hornet, our fighter fleet is aging and in many ways inferior to other modern fighter aircraft. Aging aircraft increasingly require more time and money to maintain, increasing budgets and decreasing readiness. In my opinion we have done a fantastic job of upgrading aircraft in capability over their lives, in many cases utilizing them for decades past their intended design life. But at some point you have to shed the limitations of an old platform and start over.

As for drones and other technology, they all have their limitations. Right now you simply can't replace a well trained pilot in a capable aircraft.

Q and A. It's hard enough to tell who the good guys are when you have eyes on them from overhead, harder still when they're just IR images in your trailer 10,000miles away.

Not really, and this is the problem with this country. Let's try to think further than 5 minutes into the future.

Sure, March 1, 2013 manned aircraft are superior.

We aren't at war right now.

The F15 is doing a fine job right now.

The nature of war itself is changing.

Technology is changing the way in which the U.S. wages war.

Logically and cost effectively, the combination of F15s and putting money into further developing drones is the right way to go.

Or you can blow our tax dollars on a plane that will be obsolete. Sure, they're really cool, imagining all the dogfights they'll be in, shooting down our enemies. That's awesome! So much better than a guy sitting in a room in Virginia with a control board and some joysticks. Certainly worth the expense for a plane we don't need. You will be entertained!



Who is the enemy they are designed for, and when?

Wasting tax dollars is fun, isn't it.

The impending alien invasion Ronald Reagan hypothesized about more than once in his speeches.

It's just more 1950's thinking, and it comes at a very high price.

Canada will likely buy them. Canada buys the UK's old submarines. The Govt. spends money foolishly because it is the tax payers' $$$. We pay too much for everything here and that includes Porsches. Grrrrr....

QUOTE: "Who is the enemy they are designed for, and when?"
____________________

China.

For when they start wading ashore in massive hoards, waving hand-fulls of IOU's.

Let us please not forget WE ARE AT WAR RIGHT NOW! Our sons and daughters are over in Afghanistan right now killing and getting killed. It really rubs me the wrong way how the group think is "we arent at war".

Retired vet. Rant over.

Do you believe that a fully unmanned air power is the proper way to go? I am unaware of any unmanned vehicles currently providing close air support. Fighting wars from a video console sounds like the perfect method, but there is no substitute for boots on the ground. And when there are people on the ground, sooner or later they will need air support.

With that being said, F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, A-10s and the rest cannot fly forever. As far as F-15s doing a "fine job," it wasn't THAT long ago that their wings were cracking/failing in flight. They will need to be replaced at some point in the future, and combat airframes can't be slapped together in nine months like the olden days.

If we are going to talk obsolescence, you could argue that everything in the military inventory is obsolete from the second it is fielded due to the gestation period of that product and the rapid advance in technology. What are you comparing the F-35 against when you call it obsolete?

Now with that being said, I do find the cost of the program appalling. I believe the fact that they made this one airframe be the ultimate "jack of all trades" has led to this grotesque cost, but unfortunately it is too late now. The best we can do is minimize the damage and learn from the mistakes.

Point taken.

How is the F35 going to help us win over what is in use right now?

As I said, Combination, see above.

Current fleet is doing a fine job.

War is changing. Combination, see above. Don't spend money we don't have to.

Agreed, but the F35 is not the answer. it's a plane for yesterday's war. it's too expensive.


Obsolete in terms of what will be needed in the future agains the cost now.

It's a corporate welfare jobs program that gets politicians re-elected.

In another life, I did DoD billing. The only greater waster of money than DoD contracting is DoEd.

The question that must be answered before gobs of taxpayor money goes down the tubes is "What real (not made up) threat requires this expense?" What cannot be done with our existing equipment? I find it ridiculous to get this far out on spending when the Def Dept et al. has chewed up so much money for so long.

Make us money? Who sees that money? A limited number of shareholders, and a small percentage of the populace that works for mfr. / contractor. The gen public will not see any benefit on sales of these planes.

How about putting that money into college scholarships to our kids? Lessons can be learned from other countries that do not believe a massive military budget is necessary for quality of life the people.

Patriotism does not equal militarism. Nor the opposite. Lest one gets jiggy and fires off comments of naive or wuss, I am ex Army brat, father first in that branch to have his name on the fuselage of an F15; and am also ex Airborne Infantry myself....

So if we axe the JSF program, what fills the void when the current fleet is no longer viable? You advocate a mix of manned and unmanned; what will the manned portion look like?

Shaun, do some deeper research into our current fleet. Most are decades old, with some support and cargo aircraft dating back to the 1950s. Aircraft have a design life, some of these planes have exceeded it several times over. Eventually you reach the point of diminishing returns, sinking millions into repairing and updating an aircraft that will remain obsolete, even post upgrade.

slight hijack

The last thing in the world we need are more kids going to college who would be better served by going to trade school or digging ditches or working at Starbucks. College is not for everyone and student loan debt in another shoe to drop in the near future. College tuitions are outrageous and climbing way faster than inflation precisely because no one pays with their own money. Taxpayers should not be furthering this trend.

What do you want the manned aircraft to do?

Who will it fight?

How much tax dollar money is in the F35 program to date?

How much does each plane cost?

in my past life i had a secret clearance to go into project mercury/los alamos/sandia labs/white sands missile range/yuma proving grounds/ and every A.F.B. here in the S.W. right on up to the flightline yellow line OF DEATH! aka "if ya cross that yellow line YOU WILL BE SHOT!"


we built nuklar bomb triggers/machined RADIATED PARTS/built nuklar icbm nose cones/fuel cells for patriots/f-117 wing flap actuators/tomahawk components/phlanx mini guns and on and on and on all the way down to seal team suppressors and .45 frames.


if it went BOOM or BANG we had our fingers in to it.

my take on this.....................


THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN OVERWHELMING SUPREME BAD AZZ SHOCK AND AWE FIREPOWER SO WE CAN BLOW THE LIVING SHEET OUT OF OUR ENEMY AND BOMB HIM BACK INTO THE STONE AGE!



and yes.................I LOVED GENERAL CURTIS LEMAY AND RONALD RAY-GUN!



and there aint NOTHING BETTER THAN SONIC BOOMS.............."THE SOUND OF FREEDOM!"



and i LOVE MOABS!



and i made a BOATLOAD OF $$$$$$$ OUT OF ALL OF THIS!



and we(the u.s.a.) are THE BADDEST AZZ'Z THAT EVER WALKED THRU THE VALLEY OF DEATH!



and that gives me a nice warm fuzzy when i go to sleep at night next to MY HK!


I LOVE F-35's and they are stationed at LUKE A.F. B> and their flight path northbound to nellis a.f.b. is just west of where i live. and i work with an ex F-15 CREW CHIEF and the stories he has to tell will make yer sphincter slap shut a MACH 10!



and i like PUPPIES!

Precisely what they are doing now. Unmanned aircraft have the greatest benefit in the first strike/high risk arena (Wild Weasel roles, Shock and Awe, that type). Once you have Americans and allies on the ground, I'll take a pair of human eyeballs over a long-lense with narrow veiw.

I'm not even going to go into the potential moral issues of fighting a war and killing from thousands of miles away.

Whomever needs fought. Did anyone think we would be fighting the Taliban in 1999?

We were caught with our pants around our ankles in 1941; thousands died. We weren't ready for the insurgent/IED threat in OEF and OIF and again, soldiers paid with their lives.

Anyone with half a brain (like me) can see the weaknesses in all these techno-gee-whizz weapon systems. You can bet your sweet ass that large nation states are working their butts off to negate their effectiveness. One gets snippets of these defences in the news....if you know what to look for.

A manned aircraft can be navigated to its target area.....if the services still teach that.
Can the same be said of unmanned systems?

I can't tell you, I'm sure dramatically more than it should. Both the F35 and F22 programs are a story of how not to do government procurement. But that doesn't change the need. Just a quick list of active attack aircraft and their EIS dates:

A-10 - 1977
B-1 - 1986
B-2 - 1997
B-52 - 1955
F-15 - 1976
F-15E Strike Eagle - 1988
F-16 - 1978
F-18 - 1983
F-18 Super Hornet - 1999
AV-8B Harrier - 1985

Airplanes don't last forever......

Strictly from a performance perspective, are the current aircraft failing right now?




That's the point. Throwing money at an imaginary enemy isn't the answer, that's what politicians do to get re-elected.

Is the F35 just a fund raising program, or does our Intelligence (all agencies) have an enemy that we need the F35 for. We put billions into Intelligence for a reason.

Take some time, who is this enemy and in what kind of war do we need the F35? Surely if we are spending a few billion $ on this plane, it should be an easy question to answer with definitive facts, not unicorns over rainbows, though they can be formidable.

The bigger question / issue is: Defense spending is a job producer - It also develops allot of innovation that trickles down in other areas.

The F22 was to be the end all be all. The F35 maybe the last of manned aircraft. The US like Russia, China, UK and France are the largest producers of arms that are sold across the world. It's unfortunate that the amount of taxpayer money spent on defense and defense related industries: it could go elsewhere or better yet: saved.

you should look it up.

Sure, planes get old. Do we need to replace them with F35s?

I'm aware there are people who think the Military Industrial Complex is money well spent. Look at how well it performed for the U.S.S.R.

I feel mikester nailed it pretty good in his post early on...

To add another perspective...

I work with tech as my job... computers (tech) F's up every day... if it didn't I (and many other people on this BBS) would be out of a job.

Do we really want robots (drones) flying around with missiles and bombs? "Opps, bug in the software... sorry we blew up your hospital!"

And why is it we never hear about the possibility of someone hacking into our drone and using it against us?

I'm one of the few nutjob liberals on this BBS... but I am also pragmatic (I have a shotspoon in the closet and a 9mm under the bed) and while I would like to see free college and clean energy we NEED the best military in the world.. so keep on building those fighters, carriers, subs, thank you very much.

And I like puppy's

Let's put this another way. If each of these aircraft were brand new today, what enemy aircraft would beat them now.

What enemy aircraft would 5 years from now? In what scenario?

What he said!

You could argue the pilot is both the biggest asset and the biggest liability of any modern aircraft. The machines can fly much harder and turn faster than any human can withstand. We limit aircraft performance for our vulnerabilities. However, humans bring real-time processing that no machine can match (...yet.)

As drone technology matures, I think input gathered from remotely manned aircraft will all but put a pilot in the seat. I've been in a few simulators. They are amazing and simply blur the difference between sitting in the cockpit and sitting in a trailer. In a recent NPR spot, they said "...current drone technology is where the computer was in 1980." If we spent serious money creating a remote vehicle unhindered by human physical constraints, you could really get some bad azz shock and awe performance. My guess is that we are well down that road in some skunks works sort of way.

Just the C130! err....
 

C130 motors strong... Cessna 182 et al... Keep em maintained and they will go forever. Just not as sexy as new....

Drone Hacked By University Of Texas At Austin Research Group

Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones - WSJ.com