>Creates a revolutionary multirole, VTOL capable, carrier functional fighter jet with EW capabilities that will define the next 30 years of aeiral warfare for the USA (and 60 years of aerial warfare for everyone else)
>Gets absolutely shit on by everyone for not being perfect in every way
What the frick kind of military jet does America need to invent for people to be happy?
>VTOL capable
STOVL not VTOL
It is VTOL capable, they just don't do it because it's a waste of fuel.
No, it basically can't carry a useful weapon payload if it takes off vertically.
On TOP of having to reduce the fuel load to also lighten the load, which reduces your combat range significantly.
So in practice, it's simply not capable of VTOL operations for anything but an air show or demonstration.
I hate to defend amerishart tech but airfueling you moron
You're still hung up on that lmao
Seethe and cope, the F35B is better than the Harrier and even the Harrier could do VTOVL
You're just hopelessly ignorant
OP didn't say "VTOL capable with a full combat load" they said "VTOL capable" which is true, the F-35B is VTOL capable.
homie it's literally can't sortie with a vertical takeoff, it's not about a FULL payload it's about ANY payload.
Frick off moron, yes it's THEORETICALLY possible, but why the frick would you bother when you could just fly F-35As along with tankers out from land, or fly F-35Cs from our catapult carriers, or do what they ALREADY do and just do a short take off, and only use the vertical flight mode for landings.
>waaah it can only carry ~7000lbs of fuel and weapons if you want to VTOL
that's still VTOL capable numbnuts
By your definition, "VTOL" does not exist.
for actual combat aircraft? Yeah pretty much.
For any aircraft. Because you're artificially limiting the definition of "VTOL" in such a way that you deliberately exclude all actual VTOL-capable aircraft.
In short, you're being pedantic, and everybody is asking you to stop.
I don't get why everyone jerks off F-35's EW capabilities when the US itself felt it was necessary to create an EW specific plane
We'll never really know because EW is rightfully the most classified offensive capability next to nukes on the planet, but F35 is way more effective than Growler because of the inverse square law. Growler is just going to provide additional jamming from further away.
Ignore him, he's a know-nothing in denial with some kind of autism over the F35's VTOL capability
Isn't the Growler more of a stopgap between the Prowler and the F-35+whatever loyal wingman EW drones they design?
Might be, I don't know how long they'll keep Growler
>how long they'll keep Growler
Probably as long as it's still useful, 30-40 years or more is my guess. And congress will probably keep ordering new ones as long as it gets them re-elected by their constituents that build them. Standard procurement politics stuff.
We've had EW specific planes way before the F-35
One suited to fighting the last war
>nuuu we can't have F22s bring back F15s
>nuuu we can't have F18s bring back F14s
>nuuu we can't have F16s bring back F5s
Every single major US defence project from Aegis to Abrams has been screeched over by defence eXpErTs. Just ignore the tards
>Bro BVR is the future missile warfare will be king
>Bro why train our pilots in dogfighting anymore, its going to be pointless
>Bro why don't we remove the guns from the planes too
Vietnam happens
>Bro why are our planes droppung like flies!?!?
>Bro why can't our missiles hit anything?!?!
Fast forward 50 years
>Bro Stealth is the future and will be king
>Bro why train.....
And after adding guns back again, how many Vietnamese jets were shot down using guns? As opposed to using missiles?
Don't come back without an answer, Black person
The point being they amounted to kills in situations missiles were not useable
That isn't what I said, the point was acting as though all old tech in warfare is pointless the moment something new comes around is fricking moronic. Imagine trying to equip an entire army with hand cannons and not having any swords and tell me how well that would have worked out for that army.
There will come a day where the F-35 isn't invisible to radar and will need to fall back on being a good fighter/cas which it is medicore at being those all in the name of 'muh stealth' and 'muh ewar muthafukka'
They also flew different mission profiles than the AF. But the Falcon was a pile of shit attested by Col. Olds who was on record as having said he had launched iirc 7-8 in combat over two sorties and none ever got close to their targets and had his maintenance crews rig up their F-4s for Sidewinders. But there was a reason the guns were added back onto the planes, they were still important. Also hence why Top Gun and whatever the frick the Air Forces program is called were formed.
You know when guns were invented, there were still generals that preferred bows and crossbows.
Do you know why? Because guns were too fancy, had slow rates of fire, expensive, etc. Bows were cheap, fast to fire, simple, and had a proven track record. Sound familiar? Its the exact argument you are making
But guns had a singular advantage, they could penetrate armor. It only took one war with guns to make armor obsolete and make guns the preferred method of fighting.
You clutch your pearls of the dogfighting plane, the CAS plane, whatever bullshit and are too stupid to realize that you are defending the modern equivalent of a bow and arrow compared to a gun.
There are technological developments that change the nature of warfare and make things obsolete. I gave you one, but ill give you too more from the naval world.
You have the dreadnought battleship. As soon as it was built, the dreadnaught turned GB from the most dominant naval superpower to one with one ship: the dreadnought. Every other ship they used to call 20 min ships, a reference to how long they would be able to withstand the dreadnought. A similiar thing happened with aircraft carriers, which after one war made the battleship practically obsolete.
This shit happens all the time, if you cant understand that after i just spoonfed you a crash course in history, then i dont know what to tell you
>There will come a day where the F-35 isn't invisible to radar and will need to fall back on being a good fighter/cas which it is medicore at being those all in the name of 'muh stealth' and 'muh ewar muthafukka'
every fricking country tgat has tested the F35 has come out saying it is better in a2a combat maneuvering than its competitors.
will come a day where the F-35 isn't invisible to radar and will need to fall back on being a good fighter/cas which it is medicore at being those all in the name of 'muh stealth' and 'muh ewar muthafukka'
This is moronic because it can still carry a ton of shit anyway
Yeah, because there's something called "can" and "should consistently over 40 years". Like I said, grit and something sticky that can handle the new heat load gg, the steel underneath with only minimal protection should be fine even after thousands of launches.
Wrong
Pretty much every major Airforce simulation includes BVR as priority.
We're on our way to mostly pilotless planes soon being honest.
>bro we should model our planes based on WW2 air combat
Autism levels overflowing
Ah yes, the advent of the missile where they weren't so reliable or potent in terms of G's and attack angles, and radars were still relatively short range. Face it, BVR is the new norm.
The only reason they even have guns nowadays isn't even for dogfights as a "just in case", but for other utilitarian uses like popping small aircraft, low monetary value low risk targets, and dumb missiles.
The stat that amuses me the most is that the RAF Typhoon has fired a grand total of 26 (twenty six) cannon shells fighting ISIS, as opposed to dropping thousands of PGMs
A 1.5 second burst. Maybe even by mistake or some bong fricking around, who knows. Think of all the money sunk into developing and buying and maintaining that weapon. On a per expended shell basis it's probably a more expensive capability than Zumwalt's shells.
What was it even shooting at lmao
Being fair during the falklands most of harriers kills were from behind in aggressive dogfighting, where guns may have worked, but sidewinders work better.
Shame they wasted 9L's, when the tactics they used to kill the strike aircraft was still stuck in AIM-9G and had not adapted, so those would have worked just as well.
Even the modern US air force doesn’t care for BVR for most purposes. The kill rates for BVRAAMs is atrocious and their main role is for intercepting AWACS and heavy bombers. An important role, but not enough to be the backbone of the air doctrine.
Blame outdated ROE.
>>Bro why can't our missiles hit anything?!?!
The US Navy cleaned house with their missile equipped F-4s
The missiles shot more planes down than guns to the point the Russians made their own Air to Air missile. Go frick yourself.
>muh Vietnam
Frick off, Spreytard
Vietnam was a massive wakeup call that technology will not always win the day. Also you seem upset.
Vietnam was 1975. 47 years at this point. Guns may always be nice to have, but they get more and more irrelevant as time goes on.
Vietnam was a wake up call to keep improving technology and keep developing techniques like SEAD. They were right about missiles just of a decade. If you’re trying to argue against having technological superiority you’re just moronic.
Yeah, that's why Russians are doing so well in Ukraine using their cheap and simple weapons. Here's an idea, western weapons cost money because they work
>>Bro Stealth is the future and will be king
>>Bro why train.....
What is your point? What are you proposing as the future of aerial combat?
People were shitting on aircraft carriers when they were invented too anon, including high level military personnel. It will prove itself in time and be obvious in hindsight. Sdaly anyone with a brain has to read moronic comments in the meantime
It's not about building the right kind of jet, it's about identifying the Russian assets and tracing things back to their handlers and enablers.
As well as providing adequate education reform so Congress and media are not full of literal morons.
Only 1/3 are VTOL
Ignore these morons int he thread, VTOL is still useful even on low payload/fuel for protecting small craft it can be based on secondarily, while still being able to full load from a carrier when not so strapped.
Anyone who says "Muh payload" or "muh fuel" seems to think these things need a full complement of fuel and weaponry to be useful when they don't, and it can basically then land on any craft in the fleet or makeshift landing zone when its done.
People look at the gulf as a "proof" as to the "unnecessary need to STOVL" but the gulf was dunking of fricking durka's, there was no retaliation against bases, or nuclear hellfire/total war.
VTOL is valuable until the world becomes only sall hand launched suicide drones, and I am sick of morons pretending it's not.
STOVL is simply more accurate
No one flies the F-35B VTOL, it just doesn't happen outside of test flights and demonstrations.
EVERY single ship that carriers F-35Bs does short take off and vertical landing, NOT vertical take off.
Yes because every ship that carriers F35's in peacetime are carriers you moron. The utility lies in that it can be dumped onto basically any ship that can carry a helo for when your carriers inevitably explodes and you're left there with your dick in your hand.
Arguably you could launch F35's off a conventional cargo ship lmao
Nope, even on the carriers that ARE rated for STOVL landings of the F-35B, if they do a VTOL take off it can actually damage the deck because they're not designed to have the F-35B jet exhaust blasted down on them at close range for a takeoff.
And ships that aren't already designed for the F-35B would have their decks melted by the heat.
7000lbs of fuel AND payload, the F-35B has a 13,000lbs fuel capacity. So that means with NO weapons you can take off with slightly more than half of your fuel capacity.
Wow amazing
>7000lbs of fuel AND payload
Right, that's what I said. That means the F-35 is capable of VTOL
>That means the F-35 is capable of VTOL
You're just arguing semantics, my dear Black folk.
Anon, you're the one who showed up saying "actually the F-35 technically isn't VTOL capable because it can't VTOL with a full combat load"
Can the plane take off or land vertically? Y/N
So it can take off with 1 or 2 AMRAAMs and 200 miles worth of fuel
Sick, how "useful"
again, outside of an end of the world scenario where your F-35 fleet is probably already destroyed why the frick would you EVER want to do a vertical take off? It just doesn't make sense to even list it as a capability when it will literally never in it's 60 year service life do that.
Anon, is it VTOL capable, yes or no? You keep adding all these qualifiers instead of just answering the question.
You tell me, homosexual.
Every military in the world that operates them uses them as STOVL aircraft, it was designed to operate as a STOVL aircraft, and everything officially calls it STOVL and not VTOL
so yeah, it's STOVL.
is it, or is it not capable of taking off or landing vertically
F-35B is capable of VTOL. Harrier was capable of VTOL. Yak-38 was capable of VTOL.
Aside from a few test flights and demonstrations in peacetime, nobody has ever used any of them in VTOL mode, because direct-thrust VTOL is foolish. STOVL (or STOL for ground ops) is so vastly superior in terms of payload that it's not even funny. What's the tactical advantage of giving up most of your range and firepower?
But to claim that the platforms are not capable of VTOL, simply because nobody uses them that way operationally, is equally foolish... and pedantic.
>nobody has ever used any of them in VTOL mode
Not quite correct, picrel
>its weight capacity doing so is insufficient for conducting any meaningful sorties
"Meaningful" is subjective. The RAF and the USMC began operating the Harrier long before it could match the F-35 today in combat radius, and didn't have a problem with that.
>It just would never be flown for a combat sortie from a vertical takeoff
There is every chance that it will and you are a pedantic Black person
Listen here you smug morons, shut the hell up. Yes it can VTOL, but its weight capacity doing so is insufficient for conducting any meaningful sorties. After spending it's full payload and half it's fuel capacity it can VTOL land no problem. Now shut up, shut the hell up, both of you.
>Source: my ass and this thread, whichever is more credible is up for debate.
>2 AMRAAMs and 200 miles worth of fuel
Dude that's not even that bad, add a bit of forward STOV push off the edge of the deck for a few kg of extra lift and you might get 350 miles in it.
>B-but it sucks
Yes, the risk of losing your carrier and thus your entire air fleet does suck chinkoid, but unlike America that can still land and launch off of nearby ships if its carrier does down, you will have to make do.
>Dude that's not even that bad, add a bit of forward STOV push off the edge of the deck for a few kg of extra lift and you might get 350 miles in it.
Oh wow, look motherfricker, it's literally what it's designed for STOVL.
have a nice day and stop calling it VTOL capable.
>stop calling it VTOL capable.
but it is tho
It wasn't designed to be, and no one will ever use it as one.
Cry all you want, but VTOL it is not.
Yet it is capable of taking off vertically, curious.
Not curious at all, just a neat trick to show morons like yourself and get your pants creaming over nothing.
It isn't useful in any capacity and it will NEVER happen in a combat situation even once in your pathetic lifespan.
Brother you’re dancing around the question like you’re Beyoncé
He also forgets you can A2A refuel with long range fuel takers after transporting fuel inefficient jets in somewhat marginally more safety via hundreds of frigates than one super carrier.
A carrier has a value in that a nuclear reactor is keeping it up and fueled for months on end, as well as being more cost and personnel efficient.
But it's also vulnerable to attack, and most of its major enemies center on removing carriers out of the equation as soon as they can even at the cost of a ton of resources, because of the sheer value of a carrier and its carried load.
Thus spreading out your air fleet into your small ships not only spreads your risk, but you can also launch more, faster, from multiple ships, and VTOL means you don't lose your entire jet fleet once your carrier burns in hostile seas.
Yes, they wont have the range till they're refueled,but planes in the air is planes in the air.
checkd
wasted dubs on baka post
Oh, it could certainly happen, if, for example, a F-35 had to make an emergency landing and the only ship it could reach was a Burke. The benefits of conducting normal operations like that would be far outweighed by the benefits of bringing along an actual flattop, though, and every operator of the F-35B seems to agree on that point.
STOVL is short take-off and vertical landing
VTOL is vertical take-off AND landing
So when I call it STOVL, I fully agree it can land on a burke or similar flattop if it needed to in an emergency.
It just would never be flown for a combat sortie from a vertical takeoff. Which is why operationally it is STOVL and not VTOL.
"Operationally". Do you honestly not see the difference between having a capability and using it? AH-1s have the capability to perform CAP missions; but, nobody in their right mind would use them as such outside of extreme circumstances. And yet, the Marines insist on training with Sidewinders on occasion, just in case.
It vertically lands all the time, it will NEVER vertically take off in an operational capacity.
But it's VTOL capable.
The F-35B can do VTOL in emergencies, but it wasn't designed for this and isn't used doctrinally either. It can't do VTOL with a full weapons load either, that being said that VTOL capability is probably for if it needs to do an emergency landing.
You don't need a full weapons or fuel load anon, spreading your risk across multiple ships and backup dependency is the value.
Over dependence on carriers and static air strips is fine till it's not and you're launching from tiny island land strips that can only handle STOVL, or small frigates.
With the Harrier, a return store rating. (That is the max fuel + weapons allowed) for a vertical landing is 2,500 lbs.
For the F35, it is double at 5,000lbs.
If they did it and found it useful with harrier, for frick sake they can do it with the F35B.
Please, shut the frick up you utter embarrassment.
>they did it and found it useful with harrier, for frick sake they can do it with the F35B
Precisely
anon calm down, I'm not even the guy you were arguing with. You were just going back and forth on if it could VTOL or not so I put my two cents in
Naruto calm down yourself I am just very enthusiastic about aircraft and unlike most enthusiasts I respect modern planes for the value they provide
A Navy F18 landing on a USA super carrier is rated for 4,000 lbs using a cable trap. Which is less than a 1500lb F35 doing vert landing, just think about that.
The only autist I'm actuallly mad at is the one that said the F35B can't take off from anything besides specialised carrier flight decks lmao.
>1500lb
I meant to say 5000lb F35B, shit.
>Ships that aren't already designed for the F-35B would have their decks melted by the heat.
Black person now I know you're talking shit
I don't recall any issues with the harrier on even non carrier launches, and even in your theoretical dreams you can still place and bolt down thermal protectors on any deck. Brainlet.
Yeah im sure this is why japan is spending hundreds of millions to replace the deck of their helicopter carriers in order to operate the F-35Bs.
>helicopter carriers
>not fit to operate jet fighters
no way
They're replacing it so they never have to worry about wear and tear. Are you moronic or do you just read F35 hate threads on moron military forums?
The metal flight deck of an aircraft carrier has a urethane bonded, grit sand loaded antiskid coating on it, that can handle all types of insult including a minute or two of a jets downdraft or fuel fire.
I don't think you can cook a chicken in that downdraft so I'm sure the deck coating can take whatever jet butt heat is pointed at it. The metal under the non skid coating sure doesn't care for 60 seconds.
>I don't think you can cook a chicken in that downdraft so I'm sure the deck coating can take whatever jet butt heat is pointed at it. The metal under the non skid coating sure doesn't care for 60 seconds
You'd be wrong because that's actually full blown jet exhaust that keeps an F35B hovering over the deck for a few minutes, so yes the decks need reinforcing in order to have an appreciable lifespan - an untreated deck might survive a couple of landings but might have structural damage
That moron is however wrong because he insists that F35B being able to land vertically is TOTALLY DIFFERENT YO from being able to take off vertically. Any non-moron with a basic understanding of physics would know that this isn't true.
And this other moron joins the party
Don't be disingenuous, you know very well the tests were for hours at a time and it wasn't structural damage but merely bubbling of the RAM coating that occurred
Ah, so you finally admit that it can in fact VTOL regardless of its designation? Dipshit.
Actually it's four AMRAAMs and more like 300nm combat radius, which is about twice more than the Harrier was rated for.
>That moron is however wrong because he insists that F35B being able to land vertically is TOTALLY DIFFERENT YO from being able to take off vertically. Any non-moron with a basic understanding of physics would know that this isn't true.
Think about it
A full loaded jet with fuel, weapons, taking off vertically requires more thrust, OR the same thrust for a longer duration than that SAME aircraft landing with almost no fuel left and the same weapon payload.
So clearly take off is more damaging than landing due to basic physics.
It's not about damage it's about weight, which anyway has been tested and although not part of SOP will be used in combat if need be
The point is that F35B whatever its designation can perfectly well carry 4 weapons, VTO, fly ~150nm and recover with 4 weapons if needed. This has been tested by LM. It's KNOWN.
and it will still NEVER happen because you can double the range by just using the deck to take off normally.
>it will still NEVER happen
That wasn't the point, the point is that contrary to what you say, it's perfectly doable
>NEVER
is a very long time by the way. Don't be so sure about that one. Especially if they do end up putting in the new engine after all.
So it IS VTOL capable then.
>Structural damage
LMAO
Black person you just spray that shit with high heat bondo and sand grit and call it a day. Any heat stress on the STEEL hull underneath will be frick all, since THICK steel spreads heat fast and they're usually designed to not die just from a bit of temperature change, and over several tons of steel it WILL be minimal for the wartime expectancy.
You have no idea how ships work at all.
Shut the frick up.
He's not *completely* wrong here; the LHDs had to get their landing spots refurbished in order to handle the heat from the F-135, which is a lot more powerful than the Harrier's output. It *was* an issue, but a few million dollars fixed it.
>how to tell people you have a <95 iq without telling people you have a <95 iq
landing zones can be refurbished for cheap if they have to, so stop over exaggerating totally solvable problems just for the sake of an internet argument
you mouth breathing Black person
You quoted the wrong post.
>magical deck can sustain F35B jet exhaust for landing but not for taking off BECAUSE I SAY SO
moron
>Oh no not the deckerinos being damaged for a year of war that gets "repainted" with new grit after 5 years of wartime use
Yeah, you're a moron but it's ok
Sweaty, just because they don't show you doesn't mean it doesn't happen
You never saw Harrier doing VTOVL missions either yet they often did
The reason is because you are a smart aleck ignorant moron in denial
VTOL for land based operation is not worth the crippling penalties it inflicts on the airframe. STOL performance with start and landing within 800-1000 feet is good enough, particulary if the aircraft has large diameter wheels that can handle non paved surfaces. With the huge amount of air bleeding from a turbofan it should be possible to make a very short take off and landing aircraft that can go airborne in 500 feet by redirecting bleed air over the wings. And landing, just use a thrust reverser like swedish jets. This would enable forward basing in very "ghetto" settings.
The VTOL jet would have to be made completely different so it could take off with an useable payload. Then it could even be forward based on an LCS. Its just that you have to accept that such a jet may not have the same performance envelope as a conventional fighter jet. F.ex a turbofan with higher bypass ratio than usual = more air to blow downwards = no supersonic speed without afterburner, but long time on station and good range.
The F35 is so expensive to buy and operate that it has shrunk european airforces more than Luftwaffe ever did.
it's the nature of armchair generals. the burgers could unveil a 9th gen space fighter with an A.T. field and mass drivers and they would complain that if it had particle accelerators instead it would have glassed china in 10 minutes instead of 15
>What the frick kind of military jet does America need to invent for people to be happy?
Basically next time exclude the Marines from the process.
posting in (yet another) state sponsored propaganda thread
wait you guys are getting paid for this shit?
upvoted
Max speed mach 1.3 for less than 60 seconds in peacetime => jet is useless as an interceptor.
Using supersonic speed for too long and the hull starts to break down.
The F-35 is gimped because it tried to do too much at once. It should have been designed as a carrier STOL aircraft first, then make a land version without foldable wings. The VTOL version should have been a completely different aircraft. Because this was not done, the aircraft is too short and stubby with subsequent loss of performance.
>jet is useless as an interceptor
good thing it's not an interceptor I guess
>good thing it's not an interceptor I guess
Every jet must work as an interceptor chasing down unknown aircraft. The F-35 has the performance of a Mig-19 or Super Sabre in this role.
The trick is to detect the unknown aircraft and scramble your F-35s earlier then I guess.
> gets deleted by AMRAAM
>The F-35 has the performance of a Mig-19 or Super Sabre in this role
Ah yes, the moron reveals himself
How fast does the missile go
it wasn't designed to be an interceptor
>supersonic speed for too long and the hull starts to break down
hasn't this been debunked numerous times?
Yup, and in combat missions pilots are allowed to go supersonic for as long as they want. There is no imposed limit to the speed except in training and normal non-combat patrol type shit.
>hasn't this been debunked numerous times?
On the contrary, it turned out that the supersonic limit was measured in tens of seconds, and that it was impossible to do loft bombing exercises because of this. And the supersonic damage turned out to not be just ram material disintegrating, it was also some antennas breaking down from heat.
Literally lying
https://www.defensenews.com/smr/hidden-troubles-f35/2020/05/22/the-inside-story-of-two-supersonic-flights-that-changed-how-america-operates-the-f-35/
Jokes aside though everyone always discusses the maneuverability, stealth, and weapons load when these F-35 debates come up, I almost never see anything about it's actually pretty good EW system and it's towed decoys which give it a big boost in survivability
Lockheed is the Sig of aviation.
I don't know why people keep bashing F35. If multirole have a tech tree, F35 will be straight level up from Rafale. It was omnirole that is good for everything plus stealth and better EW. This the greatest multirole/omnirole fighter ever. Why people hate it?
Did the actual plane itself get much hate?
From what I remember the hate was for the delays and budget overruns.
Lol you have no idea anon
Critics said it couldn't dogfight WVR, stealth was impossible, it didn't have enough range, sensor fusion was a meme and EW was vapourware
>The F-35 is a lemon. No amount of smoke and mirrors can change this well known fact this late in the game. The cat is out of the bag. Why not just fess up? When a squadron of these Swiss Army Knives have to face off against a few SU-35’s and a squadron of updated SU-27’s, and our trillion dollar mistake gets face planted on the plains of Eastern Europe, it will be a harder pill to swallow, no?
i almost miss it
Ahh the good ol days, before we knew Russia's best, most modern fighters can't operate within 500km of a western SAM from the mid 2000s, let alone a squadron of 5th gen stealth fighters.
F-35 is cursed by all of the setbacks during its design and testing phase being public to get torn apart by the press. Every combat plane goes through the exact same process when its starting out, but because those records were classified no one knows so they can't fixate and complain about those.
It's not that they were classified, it's just that there was no Internet, so the argument was covered mostly in newspapers and the occasional 60-Minutes-style hit-piece.
And, well, very few of us are old enough to remember what the press said back then about the same 4th-gen planes that it worships today.
So just like the F-16?
What's the ridge on the port side on top and behind the intake?
That's where the optional gun is installed.
>>Gets absolutely shit on by everyone for not being perfect in every way
By who? Military experts? Whenever I've read or heard things from actual military people, I've heard nothing but praises for the F-35. The critique comes from 1. Politicians who pretends to care about the prize to appease to voters and 2. Civilians who saw a negative clickbait article once and pretends to know what they're talking about. Su-57 doesn't even come close. For me personally, I want to have sex with an F-35. It's design is the perfect mix of cute and sexy. Great gf material.
Every negative thing ever said about this plane can be traced back to Pierre Sprey. Luckily hes dead now
Fricking finally. Can't wait for all the "fighter mafia" homosexuals to kick the bucket. Especially that "Gavin" gay
it costs $400m per plane and 3/4s of that comes directly out of my pocket so frick this plane in particular
Well, the original project team assigned to the JSF program was awful, and almost wrecked the whole thing, costing the US several years and several billion dollars in delays. Thankfully, they all got transferred or promoted elsewhere, and their replacements got the program back on track--including dealing with some serious weight issues that the first team had left behind.
So, yeah, everybody "remembers" that it used to be awful, but "forgot" that it got fixed. Just like nobody "remembers" the furor over the F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, and even F-22 programs early on. Heck, I didn't even realize until a few months ago that the F-35 actually has the same maximum weapons payload as the A-6E(!) with >2/3rds the range, because nobody seems to want to talk about its actual capabilities, just its mostly-fixed flaws.
dogfighting is obsolete.
traditional bombers are obsolete.
gunships are obsolete.
Is the future of air combat going be nothing more than shitting out tons of missiles from hundreds of miles away.
>dogfighting is obsolete.
Nah, but stealth is still an extremely useful ability, if you can approach your enemy and fire short range missiles without being detected until the missile launch you’ll probably win the dogfight.
>traditional bombers are obsolete.
Yes, modern fighters are heavy enough to carry any munitions they might reasonably need. Unless you want to carry cruise missiles just stick the munitions on an F-15/16/18/35.
>gunships are obsolete.
Helicopters have some flexibility, but AC-130 and attack planes like the A-10 are dumb.
AC-130s are for sustained COIN operations. The fact that they can circle around locations providing consistent fire support give them some purpose. A-10 isn’t an gunship but is moronic. Attack helicopters are certainly going to replaced by drones in any major military by the end of the century.
>Gets absolutely shit on by everyone for not being perfect in every way
Critique makes you better. Of course, in perfect world it would be only civilised, constructive criticism.
Look at vatniks how mindless fellating your own hardware as best ever works for you.
>What the frick kind of military jet does America need to invent for people to be happy?