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MarkW

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Everything posted by MarkW

  1. Mildly surprised this hasn't popped up yet: https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2017/09/20/air-force-could-ground-some-a-10s-as-early-as-2019-as-life-of-wings-run-out/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Breaking News 9.20.17&utm_term=Editorial - Breaking News Gen. Pawlikowski is good people, and this does not appear to be corporate panic mongering to justify more/better F-35 spending.
  2. The aircraft is designed to operate in a NBC environment, to include the pilot and decon of the aircraft after it has been spooged.
  3. Just because you are carrying internal JDAMs doesn't exclude carrying a culture AIM-120s internally. Just because you are carrying external AIM-9X doesn't mean anything at all.
  4. IIRC, the biggest issue with the Gripen of any flavor is integrating the NATO comm suite. And then certifying all the weapons Canada would want...it might have payload and range and sensor issues too. But other than that, it could be a perfect fit!
  5. Same ironic argument applies to the Rafale...not exactly selling like hot cakes in spite of efforts that more than give them away. Didn't the Brazil Rafale deal include subs?! And they still lost to the Gripen. The Typhoons have sold, but are ridiculously expensive (thus sales to oil state hobby clubs). Gripen NG fits a cost/capability niche, I wonder why cost conscious Canada ruled them out so fast...ain't like the Arctic argument makes sense.
  6. I stand partially corrected. We have as much chance of France buying the SuperBug as we do selling them to North Korea... Is the Rafael line still open? I thought all eurocanards were done...
  7. THIS. It's all about production lines. BCA is the big dog, but they will burn a line to the ground if there is better/future profit elsewhere. Look at the history of the 767 line in the early 2000s, and how corporate was willing and eager to ditch the 767 in favor of 777 and other newer models. But it kept limping along if there were easy pennies to squeeze out of the line. Same same with military aircraft. Since both Bugs and Eagles come from the old MD line in St Louis, the viability of maintaining two lines, two sets of tooling, two distinct workforces, etc. in the same fac
  8. Wait, those savage little Canadian btards left their ground support people to be eaten by a giant chicken?! Seriously, WT actual F?! (see part 3)
  9. Never for a second think that Boeing is a monolithic company. BCA rules the roost. They are not only the Cashcow, they are the golden calf of cash cows. BCA will throw their military aircraft division under the bus, and then back the bus up over them if they think they can do more commercial sales. They know their future revenue stream is coming from the 777, 787, and the Dreamliner, not from SuperHornets. Bombardier made the mistake of messing with BCA....
  10. Let's also not take the naïve and kindhearted view that the services were all over this issue when it first arose. F-22 issues were reported for a long time before the Air Force finally took action. Bottom-line, this is a very expensive problem to fix, and the services to some extent have all hoped it would just "go away". When I spoke at length to one F-22 pilot who had flown flight test years before, he commented there be times where he would go over the cockpit recordings, and would not recall actually saying what he said during the flight. This is a trained flight test pilot. A
  11. Right, which is why this happened at Eglin! Oh, wait... The OBOGS issue in the F-22 was well known during F-35 development. It wasn't anticipated that there would be the same problems given the differences in the systems. So on the bright side, once again JSF has shown great innovation.
  12. What the heck FS numbers are they going to now?!
  13. You got it. Sensor fusion is no joke, and the ability to send a high quality track created by the four ship to a 4th gen fighter via LINK-16 is pretty much a no brainer. The only issue is who does the shooting--whether it would be operationally viable for the F-16 to take the shot, or the F-35 would have to do it.
  14. It was done simultaneously while also preparing AND eating a ham sandwich. Yes, it's that damn good.
  15. Aha. You are assuming that would be the weapon of choice for the DEAD/SEAD mission. That would also be an incorrect assumption. The whole CONOPS, from takoff to pilots back home in their jammies, is very different from the current SEAD/DEAD paradigm. That the F-35 has a limited SEAD/DEAD capability right now in IOC would be a clue as to what weapons they employ, but certainly not how.
  16. I'm curious as to what makes you think the DEAD/SEAD capability is "limited" considering it was one of the major design missions for the aircraft? Or are you referring to the current IOC state vs the FOC state?
  17. Y'all are assuming the F-35 is static as well, which is a major flaw in the argument. The basic frequency response of the system is built in and won't change, that is correct. BUT, and it's a BIIIIG BUT, the F-35 was never designed or anticipated to survive on LO shaping alone. The already ridonculous EW suite has undergone a major refresh (for open source reporting look at what our Israeli friends wanted to bring to the program). And it will continue to do so. As computing horsepower increases, the system is getting updates both in the physical and the binary realms. You don't build two
  18. The black sections noted above are unlikely to ever be another color.
  19. They are supposed to be long life LEDs, and the whole unit goes back for repair as a LRU. And yeah, not cheap.
  20. You are correct sir. Nobody's mentioned the Bogmonster is retiring yet?
  21. Would this remotely surprise anyone?
  22. Now you are making some sense!
  23. Where to begin...high g turns won't defeat modern heat seekers. "data link communications/electronic battlefield" isn't a trade off for speed or maneuverability. And what exactly is a 6th gen fighter? Finally, it was convoy tactics and radar, a combination of technology AND tactics, that reduced the wolf pack menace. Stealth has already proven vulnerable to that, which is why the F-35 relies on far more than X band signature reduction.
  24. So this went high and right real darn fast: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-boeing-lockheed-martin-tweet-232939 http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/12/trump-federal-contracts-weapon-000262 Makes Trudeau look like an amateur.
  25. jpk, your best bet is to hit Google images It will be the hole on the port side bottom, near the tail. There is a bump in front of the IPP, which is subtle and would be hard to get right. NEWs: Japan received the first FMS jet at Luke AFB (dedicated trainer), http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2016/12/02/Japan-receives-its-first-F-35-joint-strike-fighter/4121480695126/ and Israel ordered its last tranche of 17 to get to 50 jets total. https://www.rt.com/news/368382-israel-orders-more-f35/ The first Israeli F-35A should be arrivi
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