homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall DoD report on the F-35

Things are not looking good at the moment for the F-35:

Link


Here's a direct link to the report:

http://de.scribd.com/doc/129003638/DoD-D...lity-Evaluation

I'm still willing to give the F-35 the benefit of the doubt for now. I remember several planes from the past that got poo-pooed pretty heavily at first, but ended up being great aircraft.

Well, even if the F-35 is a failure, we still have a HUGE pile of data and experience with systems and ideas that no one has ever tried before.

F-16 and F-18

Danger Room/Wired Link

I wonder why they didn't use a full bubble canopy like in the F-16. That would prevent pilots from complaining and it's not like one single piece canopy is soooo new.

isnt that a problem for most fighters though?

add some mirrors or a back up camera. roflmao

Read the link.

Couldn't use a bubble because of the VTOL requirement for USMC

They do have back up cameras

im aware of the design.

just sayin' in the 70s and 80s there were plenty of fighters that couldnt see behind them.

They act like it's something new.

I can't imagine it's substantially worse than an A-7 or F-8, and those didn't have all the same sensor and camera systems.

Not saying it's not an issue, but it doesn't seem to be something that new.

It's also a stealth thing. Bubble canopies are not stealthy.

However, the canopy bow does seem to be in a poor place, you'd think that would've been worked out in testing before the design was finalized. The headrest is probably a result of making sure to protect the pilot's head and neck, wearing that HMD, in anticipated ejection scenarios.

Besides, I think the emphasis on worrying about a plane on your six is overstated. Frankly, if an F-35 pilot has a bandit on his 6 that he can see, he royally screwed up and would likely be dead before he could see it anyway.




The Jedi Master

I think that's been a big problem with the F-35 all along - the Concurrency process was designed to start building them before the design was finalized.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/12/document-download-the-f-35-con.html

"I'm looking at the Mig in the Mirror, I'm asking it to change it's ways........."

So....

Iranian aerospace won in the cost-benefit ratio competition

with benefit = a good laugh?

According to an interview I watched a couple of weeks ago with the designer of the F-16 and A-10, the F-35 is an unmitigated failure. It's too heavy and too slow to be a good fighter, doesn't carry enough bomb load to be an effective bomber, and is too fragile and (again) doesn't carry the bomb load required for ground attack. On top of that, according to the interview, the stealth technology built into the plane isn't nearly as effective as claimed.

In case you don't know, the fuel tank is a hollow cylinder that wraps COMPLETELY AROUND THE ENGINE. This was done to give the Marines VTOL capability. One compressor blade failure and the pilot is riding a Roman candle. In another brilliant move, the cockpit fire extinguisher system was removed from the design to save weight. The F-35 uses fuel as hydraulic fluid. There are hydraulic lines in the cockpit. One hit to the cockpit and the pilot is toast, literally.

This whole thing is a boondoggle. A top-notch air-superiority fighter will never make a good ground attack plane. A good bomber will never make an excellent fighter. The aircraft designs for these different jobs just don't lend themselves to do all jobs well. Basically, the F-35 is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.

Just wondering if we could have built a proper aircraft carrier for the marines for what their share of the F-35 program is, and how many negatives to the overall design have been forced because of the VTOL spec,

Don't make me look at the numbers................

Have had a bad feeling about this bird for awhile, and am not reading anything of late that tells me I was wrong.

I'm guessing that was Pierre Sprey? I've seen several interviews with him about a variety of aircraft, and I'm not really one to share his opinion. He might have changed his tune recently, but he used to be against radar-guided missiles, and just about any avionics. If it were up to him, we'd have F-86s flying around, and I'm sure he hates what the F-16 has become, even though the original concept wouldn't have been nearly as useful in recent conflicts as the actual aircraft has been.

He's clearly been a force that got some good abilities into combat aircraft, but he seems to feel that anything that isn't a highly maneuverable, simple aircraft with a gun is a bad design, and is very vocal about criticizing them. I think times have changed and aircraft can do multiple tasks and still be good at them.

Also, remember that the F-35 isn't a bomber, it's a strike aircraft. A-4s were dedicated strike aircraft, but they are small and maneuverable enough to be used and adversary training aircraft, so those types of designs do share some common capabilities.

All that is not to say that the F-35 will be a great aircraft, but I wouldn't use Mr. Sprey's opinion to make the final judgment.

Marines fly off of aircraft carriers all the time, and I don't think the STVOL requirement was to work on their smaller carriers as much as it was to allow them to be deployed closer to the troops where there isn't a runway.

I think the biggest problem with the F-35 is the concurrency process, where they started building them long before they had tested everything. I can't see any way that *couldn't* cause problems with a complex design like this. They might even be able to correct some issues as they arise, but it will cost much more than if they'd done it at an earlier design stage.

Plus, of course, news sources always seem more interested in reporting the negative than the positive. They haven't reported that the F-35B, the STVOL version, actually has more range when carrying an internal load of bombs and missiles than a Super Hornet, and is probably more maneuverable than a SH carrying the same load.

I think the F-35 has potential, but the whole concurrency process it was developed and acquired through may either keep it from realizing it, or make is so expensive that it's not worth it.

Hmm well not sure - the F-22 got one - the idea with the F-35 is that the EODAS system gives the pilot a far superior view than even a bubble canopy - in theory

Thats quite old - a lot of what he says just doesn't add up to the claims coming from the test pilots though. The laughable thing is that he compares it with the F-105 - which in Vietnam shot down 27+ super agile MiG-17s (~95% with cannon) in a 99% visual environment only - and that in itself blows his argument out of the water - the F-105 had a best turn radius the size of Ireland.

The thing is also in a test phase that seems to have been highly publicized - most of its nothing to worry about - if you want comparisons the FA-18E/F APG-79 AESA radar still wasn't deemed fit for use about 6 years after IOC I found in a Navy report.


If its replacing the F-16A/C then there is only a few irrelevant things the F-16 can beat it on - thats probably top speed and acceleration (with 4 x AIM-120s) and probably agility in some areas of the flight envelope. But the USAF used the F-16 as primary an A-G striker which is what the F-35 is far superior at - the F-35A carries 18,000lbs internal fuel compared to the 7,000lbs - the F-16C is subsonic in any bomber config with tanks and external pods. In the same config the F-35A is clean and can fly up to M1.6 and is more agile and stealthy!

As for bomb load - I dont see a problem there - its actually not bad - in Vietnam (before LGB/WallEye in 72) you needed lots of bombs just to hit 1 target using manual methods- currently you need 1 or 2 bombs.............