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MarkW

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    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Yep, just enough SH to buy some time, but not a complete replacement.  Be interesting to see if Prime Minister Bieber goes through with this for real, or if this is a ploy to eventually buy F-35s and save face.  Either way, I'll believe it when rubber is on the ramp.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks. I have the 1/48 Kitty Hawk F-35C and it doesn't have the APU vent on the top. In fact, where on the bottom is it located on the A and B models?

    It's not an APU, it's called the IPP, or Integrated Power Package. The difference is far more than an acronym; the IPP runs before the engine starts, during MX, and after the main engine shuts down. It provides full time power and cooling to the AC systems AL THE TIME. It also is the emergency power in case the main fails, and can provide the electrical power to keep the flight controls working if the main goes. It is an essential part of AC operations, not just a glorifies start cart.

    The Kittyhawk kits left off both the inlet, exhaust, and the aero "bump" in front of the IPP that is essential to pull the hot exhaust off the jet skin. Probably the biggest detail miss on those kits IMO.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    This guy is priceless. STOVL was a component of the JAST program from the get-go. Oh, wait, the Marines insisted on STOVL in 2008, causing seven simultaneous Nunn-McCurdy breaches. Curse their Vexiness!

    Yeah, that's the ticket.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Heeeeeeee's Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! Messier Axe. Note there are zero calories or new content in this post.

    Copied here in entirety to avoid upping the click bait count:

    Official Thumbs-Up08.01.16 1:00 AM ET

    It Could Be Years Before Billion-Dollar War Toy F-35 Is Ready for Combat

    Don’t get too excited about the U.S. Air Force possibly declaring the long-delayed F-35 fighter jet ready for combat—if history is any guide, it won’t be sent into a fight for years.

    The U.S. Air Force could declare its new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth jet combat-ready as early as Monday.

    The so-called initial operational capability announcement means the F-35—the Pentagon’s latest radar-evading warplane and the product of history’s most expensive weapons program—can, in theory, deploy overseas to bomb ISIS or deter Russia or China.

    “We have achieved all our milestones,” Lt. Col. Steven Anderson, an officer with the Air Force’s Utah-based 388th Wing, set to be the flying branch’s first operational F-35 unit—told Air Force magazine, a trade publication.

    It’s up to Gen. Hawk Carlisle—the head of Air Combat Command, which oversees most of the Air Force’s frontline fighter squadrons—to make the formal declaration. Many observers expect Carlisle to make the call no later than Wednesday.

    That will be an event 20 years and $100 billion in the making.

    But don’t celebrate quite yet. It could take another 20 years and $300 billion for the Air Force—not to mention the Navy and Marines—to get all 2,400 F-35s they currently plan on buying. And even though the JSF technically could deploy to a conflict zone as early as August, it’s likely the Pentagon will hold the plane back for a few more years as it continues to work out its many bugs.

    For while the F-35 might be officially war-ready, that doesn’t mean the military and plane-maker Lockheed Martin have solved all the F-35’s problems. Even with the Air Force’s endorsement, the Joint Strike Fighter is still less maneuverable, more complex, less reliable, and more expensive than its developers promised.

    In many ways, the F-35 the Air Force will receive in 2016 is not the plane it thought it would be getting just a few years ago.

    Originally conceived in 1996 as an inexpensive, multi-purpose warplane—one that could replace almost all the other frontline jet types in Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps squadrons—the JSF proved devilishly complex.

    The Air Force, Navy, and Marines all wanted different things from the fighter. The only thing they really agreed on was stealth—the ability to avoid detection by radars and other sensors by way of radar-scattering wing- and fuselage-shaping and special, energy-absorbing skin coatings.

    The Air Force wanted its F-35s to be simple, cheap, and maneuverable, with one engine, a small wing and a slim fuselage, all striking the best balance between speed, payload, and turning ability. The Navy preferred the redundancy of a twin-engine plane but, at the very least, needed its F-35s to be able to operate from aircraft carriers at sea—meaning a bigger wing generating more lift at the cost of speed.

    Most vexingly, the Marines demanded that their own F-35s have the ability to take off and land vertically so they can fly from the small, carrier-like Navy assault ships the Marines use to launch amphibious assaults. Vertical capability meant adding a downward blasting secondary engine behind the cockpit, which in turn meant a wider fuselage generating more drag than the Air Force was happy with.

    To satisfy all three main customers, Lockheed devised three versions of the JSF—the F-35A for the Air Force, the F-35B for the Marines, and the Navy’s F-35C. To keep the cost down, the military and Lockheed wanted the three versions to be as similar as possible. That meant compromises—largely dictated by the F-35B’s extraordinary vertical takeoff and landing ability. The F-35A has a fatter fuselage than it really needs. The F-35C possesses just one main engine, even though most Navy fighters have two.

    But the compromises failed to keep the cost down. Indeed, the combination of competing requirements added complexity to the JSF that drove up the cost. In October 2001, when the Pentagon chose Lockheed to build the JSF, officials expected the design and production of about 3,000 F-35s to set back U.S. taxpayers around $200 billion.

    A few years later that figure had ballooned to $400 billion, plus another $600 billion for fuel, parts, and pilot-training over another 30 or 40 years of flying. And that was after the Pentagon cut hundreds of F-35s from the production plan as a cost-saving measure. Engineers struggled to accommodate all the competing demands on the F-35—and ran into trouble. In 2004, the government and Lockheed admitted the JSF was simply too heavy and needed a costly redesign.

    What followed was a drumbeat of bad news lasting more than a decade, as the various versions of the F-35 slowly took shape and, starting in 2006, began a lengthy period of test-flying.

    The F-35’s power system and engine frequently failed. Its pilots’ high-tech helmets were bulky and buggy. For a while, it couldn’t fly near thunderstorms because it lacked the equipment for channeling lightning strikes. The new plane’s gun wouldn’t be fully operational until 2019. Its software was taking too long to write. Its radar often had to be rebooted mid-flight. And sometimes the F-35 just caught on fire while on the ground.

    Perhaps most damning, in mid-2015 someone inside the JSF program leaked a test pilot’s official account of a mock dogfight pitting an F-35 against an Air Force F-16, one of the older planes the F-35 is supposed to replace. “The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the pilot wrote. In layman’s terms, that means the F-35 couldn’t match the F-16 maneuver for maneuver.

    The military and Lockheed claimed the media took the pilot’s report out of context and insisted that, in combat, the F-35 would never need to engage in a close-range dogfight, anyway, as it would either shoot down enemy planes at long range or merely avoid them.

    In the aftermath of the dogfight report’s leaking, the F-35’s boosters went on a public-relations counteroffensive, frequently highlighting the plane’s supposed superior performance during war games. And in July 2015, the Marines declared their first F-35B squadron to be combat-ready with 10 planes—but then scheduled the unit’s first deployment for 2017, all but admitting that the combat-readiness declaration was a P.R. ploy.

    The Air Force had predicted it would designate its first dozen F-35s (out of 180 that Lockheed had delivered to the flying branch) operational between August and December 2016—and was clearly determined not to miss that self-imposed deadline.

    Indeed, with the F-35’s software development falling farther and farther behind schedule, in 2013 Gen. Mike Hostage, then the top officer in Air Combat Command, had to make a choice—either give the developers an extra couple of years to work on the F-35 or water down the official definition of “operational” in order to suit the new plane’s condition.

    Hostage chose to water down the F-35’s requirements, limiting the range of missions the plane would be capable of undertaking and reducing the variety of weapons it would be able to carry.

    The decision was politically motivated. The general “began to realize the overall negative repercussions associated with waiting,” according to an official Air Force account of the decision-making process.

    Feedback from lawmakers reinforced Hostage’s concerns. “The read on Congress…was that there was more support overall for an early declaration,” the Air Force recalled. “These opinions came from the negative connotation with having over 180 F-35A aircraft parked on runways without [initial operational capability] and also being two years behind the Marines.”

    So when Carlisle gives the 388th Wing’s first dozen F-35s the official thumbs-up, don’t get too excited. Even if Carlisle expects you to do so. “The minute I declare initial operational capability, if the combatant commander called me up and said, ‘We need F-35s,’ I would send them,” Carlisle told reporters in July.

    But in reality, it could be years before F-35s see combat. The Air Force wanted until 2018 to keep refining the JSF—and it might just take that time despite the official war-readiness nod.

    There’s certainly precedent for a delay. The Air Force declared the F-22 stealth fighter—the F-35’s bigger, slightly older cousin—operational in 2006, but waited eight years to finally send the jets into combat.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Good points. Active is a more elegant solution, eventually the vehicle would be ridiculous given the cat and mouse nature. And ATGM videos posted by ISIS are very easy to find. None if these systems should rely on a single solution, just like the F-35 and F-22 rely on way more than just shaping to do their job.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I find it ironic in a thread where the F-35 was falsely accused of requirements creep the EFV comes up. Literally the text book case at Defense Acquisition University.

    Get it right people:

    EFV = requirements creep, to death

    F-35 = gross/criminal program office mismanagement

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    We (as in the USMC) were never going to ever get anything this nice on our own.

    Quit your whining, baby. You got the latest model M60s didn't you? And those Sheridan's look barely used.

    Dear Lord, Harry Hillaker must be rolling over in his grave right now. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    More accurately, developing technology allowed more capability to fit in smaller spaces. Even then technology couldn't shrink added capabilities so much that they would fit inside an F-16. Witness every pod ever hung off 5A & 5B (Pave Penny, LANTIRN, LITENING, HTS.....) and the dorsal spine, stuffed with technology that wouldn't fit inside the airframe.

    You may have insight into the F-35 program, but please don't try writing revisionist history about the F-16. There are still many of us alive who were there and who know the facts.

    Okay, I've tried so hard to remain aloof and anonymous and yet all of a sudden everybody knows what I'm thinking? And to be fair, the part you cited I was worried would be misinterpreted. Your reading way too much into it.I was referring specifically to the initial radar capability versus later radar capability. Having worked with the tail end of the PEACE MARBLE program, I am intimately familiar with what you can and cannot stuff into the existing outer mold line of an F-16. And as was seen in that case, as in the cases you pointed out, if it doesn't fit strap or scab it on. That's not an option for the F-35 under many circumstances.

    The other point I was trying to make is that unlike the F-16 which was built as a building block program, the F-35 needs to be fairly complete and self-actualized off the assembly line. No CFTS, no spine, minimal pods, etc.

    As for revisionist history let's not forget what the F-16 was originally intended for the first place and how it ended up being a workhorse bomb truck and jack of all trades was never how it was originally envisioned. "Lightweight Fighter", which Hillaker was an advocate for, indeed...He and Boyd both have been spinning in their graves for decades based on what the F-16 has mutated into.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    While every cubic inch is spoken for, not all are being used currently.

    Future hardware upgrades would come to the mission equipment--an EW pod, maybe better EOTS, etc. Flares are always being upgraded, do that could happen too. The biggest changes will come in computer upgrades; faster processing time will allow for improvements in EW and fusion performance. But the outer mold line is set, the volume to play with is fixed. Signature is still king there.

    As for the IPP, the power and cooling budgets are also fixed. The IPP itself is a marvel for doing what it does. But it does have limits. It would be accurate to say there is less capacity left than what has been used.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Wait a minute, you can quote yourself on the Internet and that makes you even more authoritative?! Why didn't anyone ever tell me this before? All I've ever heard is that repeating the same wrong information doesn't make it true.

    The analogy to the F-16 is completely not applicable. Why? I'm glad you asked.

    There simply is no comparison between F-16 "concurrency" and what the F-35 program is going through. The F-16 was constructed as a largely empty jet with significant space available. The fact that it went from the block 10 to the block 30 upgrades so quickly was more about developing the technology to fit into the jet, than fitting the technology into the jet. The F-35 on the other hand truly was in the middle of development for its planned final configuration while that configuration was being built. There were modifications being made to the overall jet during the early LRIPS while the previous LRIP was literally next door on the assembly line. That is a huge distinction which seems to have eluded many people on the subject including you.

    Let me give you a better analogy. Let's talk muffins. F-16 muffins were like this:

    I bake a batch, I know there's something missing, I adjust the recipe, I bake a new batch. Repeat until block 60.

    F-35 muffins are like this:

    I bake a batch from a partial recipe, I know there's something missing, I start the 2nd batch will trying to see if I can fix the already baked first batch (maybe I can add some frosting or sprinkles or something) and then I adjust the recipe again as I get ready to work on the 3rd batch. Repeat through LRIP11. Since it is really really hard to unbake a muffin, and all muffins at the end of the line are supposed to be the same, eventually cold hard reality is gonna set in. So instead of selling all the F-35 muffins for a high price, I might have to give the first 3 or 4 batches to my friends and family just to get rid of them. Lookee here, it takes a lot longer to explain F-35 muffins that it takes to explain F-16 muffins. Not an accident.

    I used to have a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass supreme. There were places under the hood of that engine I could hide a basketball or 2. My modern 2015 car, if I were to pop the hood I could roll a marble from one into the other and it wouldn't fall through. That's essentially what the difference was between the F-16 then in the F-35 now. There is no retrofit. There is very little room for preplanned product improvements, or P3I as the F-15 and F-16 were built around. The only way you can improve the EW performance on the F-35 now is to build in what you need. You cannot strap on another antenna, you cannot scab it into the skin. If you hang a fancy new pod on one of the weapon stations, you better be sure it is compliant with the existing cabling.

    Nominally as aircraft model builders we should all understand what happens when you glue a wing together. It generally only comes apart with a firecracker. The way the F-35 is assembled is very similar to a model aircraft, and the ability to fix things on the inside is also very similar to a model aircraft – – very difficult, very time-consuming, which equals very expensive.

    On the other hand, modifying a F-16 or F-15 pretty much took a can opener and scabbed over skin from a Budweiser can. I kid, but not really.

    So no, they are not remotely the same, and retrofitting existing F-35's to current F-35 standards is damned near impossible.

    For you to pooh-pooh it and simply say that it's merely a

    belief that all the fixes necessary to apply to the current crop of F-35's are too expensive
    is simply ignorant of this aircraft, how it is constructed, and what can be done to it after the outer mold line is sealed. Obviously software fixes, that can work with the existing hardware, will simply require a new tape to be loaded to the jet. But many software fixes are tied to hardware fixes that can't be simply changed. This is significantly more complicated than your broad generalizations make it out to be.

    To convert every jet produced prior to the batch with the first Israeli aircraft to that standard would not only require re-winging every single aircraft, it would also require tearing the guts out of the central fuselage. The significant amount of cabling that was run through that modification resulted in substantial rearrangement of internal tubes, pipes and wires.

    Going back to my 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass, I could have just as easily dropped the 350 cc V-8 engine in the space that was occupied by the 305 cc V-6. And much like that exercise was essentially trivial, so was upgrading the F-16. On the F-35 every cubic inch is spoken for which is why future block upgrades will be only software or box swapouts. There's even space reserved for a probe and a drogue refueling probe in the nose of the F-35A, just in case any of our foreign partners want to refuel Navy style. This is how much preplanning and forethought when into every part of this jet, again unlike in any way the F-16.

    Lastly, there was never a plan to retrofit older airplanes as newer capabilities were added. Rather, each airplane configuration was fielded for a mission suited to its performance. And when retrofit was initiated, it was accomplished as part of a scheduled block change to keep the cost low. To date, there are 138 versions of the F-16, as well as 15 block changes, with each block a decisive improvement in capability.

    Read that very carefully, because it explains precisely what should be happening with the F-35. It also makes a very important point that many critics seem to miss - "when retrofit was initiated, it was accomplished as part of a scheduled block change to keep the cost low." Or, once final configuration is agreed upon, all aircraft will be brought up to date with a scheduled block change.

    By virtue of cost, it is exactly what is happening. Sure, the plan was to try to retrofit as much as possible. But that has quickly fallen by the wayside as reality has set in. The services have accepted that there are certain upgrades that will not be retrofitted onto the fleet. And for the most part, that's okay as those jets will be relegated to training roles. So again, the picture is far more complex than you let on or are aware of.

    The problem for the F-35, of course, is the slowdown in production as implemented by DoD & Congress makes it hard for the efficiencies and economies of scale full production would bring. Additionally, it is obviously impossible to put fighter in service in volume if DoD slows the production process. These delays have directly affected the software development insofar as they have "kicked the can down the road" as it were for certain benchmarks to be addressed.

    This doesn't even begin to make sense. What are you basing this on? The software development at this point is completely independent – – oh wait it always has been – – of the production schedule. The amount of resources being dedicated to designing, developing and creating production runs of software on this program are mind-boggling. And those folks are working completely independent of that mile-long assembly line. The 2 have absolutely zero bearing on each other. Software is behind because software is behind, not because of production.

    To be fair, what the services are asking the software on this jet to do is pretty freaking mind-boggling, Star Trek, death from above machine fantastic. Why can't we just acknowledge that all the stuff this jet was supposed to do was a super huge reach for technology in the first place and leave it at that? We don't need to make the software story any more complicated than that. It's not because of scheming LM money grabbers, scheming Congressman, a North Korean plot, or any other crazy explanation. Software is behind because really smart people are working their butts off and trying to do something really, really hard and they haven't achieved it yet.

    Regarding the production slowdown there is also a degree of pay now or pay later involved with this decision. I'm not saying either course is right or wrong, but DOD chose to spend more money in the short term so that it would have more combat capable aircraft in the future. You can argue that they should have simply kept blasting jets out the door full speed regardless of the state of development, I think there's also a valid argument there as well. It again boils down to the recognition that certain retrofits and upgrades will not happen in the earlier LRIP jets, and the finite amount of money available to throw this program with all the other competing federal priorities.

    The final point, and I failed to make it properly yesterday. If you're going to attack certain media for wheeling out the same old tired arguments, lazy criticisms, etc. then please don't be a hypocrite and do the same. You throw out all these broad generalities about programs saying that all programs have this, or all programs have that and we've seen this exact same situation before. It simply is not true. I think you are a fairly strong advocate for the program, but you gotta do a little more homework and provide specific details. I don't know what happened, you used to be able to do that. And I look forward to you getting back to it.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    While all of the above is generally true, none of the above is specifically true for the F- 35. The JORD was set in stone fairly early in the program; so while blaming requirements creep is attractive, it is factually incorrect. And F-35 funding has remained fairly stable; it was a protected program. Capping runaway costs is not the same thing as cutting a productive program. Other than those two point being totally wrong, good conversation so far.

    This is the point I was trying to make, that was so smarmily dismissed. Yes, JSF requirements are changing all the time but the process is not "Can you guys do this new thing?" It is much more along the lines of:

    Warfighter: Hey Lockheed, remember how we said were to fly Mach 2.5 at 80,000 feet? How's that going?

    LM: We can do 480 kn at 25,000 feet.

    Warfighter: Gee, that's really bad. OK. Any other news?

    LM: It costs three times as much to do 480 kn at 25,000 feet as we thought Mach 2.5 at 80,000 feet was going to cost, so were to leave out the satellite antenna we promised as well.

    Warfighter: Looks like we'll have to go back and rewrite our requirements document to reflect what you actually can do. And chop out the parts we now can't afford.

    While the above is slightly exaggerated in cost and impact, it is what indeed has been happening since about 2004 in this program. They have gone through double digits of "Estimate at Completion", or EAC exercises trying to figure out what capability they can still build into the jet given the budget that is left. In the space of just four years they went from EAC 6 to EAC 11, and they certainly did not stop at 11. While doing an annual EAC drill is good program management, it is not intended to be an exercise to figure out which capability annually gets voted off the island or shoved into a later block. The fact that they were doing these EAC drills more than once a year is not routine, not standard, and not acceptable program management.

    And no Virginia, I mean Tony Stark, this is not a common occurrence. At least not to this extent. Yes when the B-1 B was built, capability was left on the table and built in later. Yes, when the F-22 was built some significant capability was left out and it took a decade longer to field than originally thought. What makes the F 35 significantly different in this regard is it has so much capability planned for that cutting half of its capability still leaves it more capable than anything else. As long as Lockheed Martin delivers on the key performance parameters (KPPs), pretty much every other technical requirements and desired capability is negotiable. Everyone seems to forget the government eventually runs out of time and budget to perfect the systems.

    Where's the blame? Overly ambitious iron majors who set extremely challenging requirements for the system? LM for signing up for something they reasonably knew was impossible to do at the budget allowed? OSD for allowing the program to go forward with their own budget estimates indicated it was woefully underfunded? Congress? Pete Rose?

    This program, and the program office are a textbook case in bad program management. If given enough time and enough money, LM will deliver exactly what they promised. Programs need to be built and managed around reality though, and this never was. Things have gotten significantly better since 2010, when Gen. Heinz was fired, Adm. Venlet was brought in, and the last Nunn-McCurdy/technical baseline review was conducted. But they are trying to make up for the prior decade of gross mismanagement where the government let Lockheed Martin run roughshod over the program office business.

    So getting back to Crazy Snap Captain's question, first it hasn't been 50 years of every single program being a terminal failure. It's broad generalizations like this that are just as lazy as the counter arguments being made to the F 35 that you guys rail about.

    The real answer is they absolutely have learned their lesson, and that's why we are where we are. Contractors have something we want (uber cool technlogy), and we have something they want (buckets of cash). It's not a deal with the devil; it's two devils making a deal with each other. The services get into these deals knowing that they may not work out, and many times know just how over budget they will really be but refuse to acknowledge it publicly. The contractors get into these deals because they need business, and they may actually deliver some of the capability or at least enough. If they produce only paper airplanes or paper tanks, they still get paid. Both sides are playing the "a little pregnant" card. It's better to have something than nothing, and something can be upgraded over time if it doesn't fit the bill going out the gate.

    This is by no way limited to aircraft procurement.

    Or you could just read 82Whitey51's post below mine.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Well, I was a bit tongue in cheek too. But when you only attack the negative points, and don't own that the jet still has some growing to do, AND is insanely behind schedule as they whittle away capability to make it fit into what time remains, it strikes me as a bit delusional.

    Comparing it to old crap that wasn't supposed to fix all the sins of old crap makes NO sense. Sure, the F-151617181920 whatever will tear you entrails out if you slip on the boarding ladder. Got that. But the F-35 was supposed to have the first ever nondisembowleing entry ladder, and it still spills guts on the tarmac. That's the whole point. Not to be as good as, or have the same problems as, but be better. And not by a little.

    And by and large, it is leaps better. But you can't pick and choose SUPER AWESOME RADAAAAAARRRRR while ignoring they should have fixed inerting 7 years ago when it was really raised as a survivability issue.

    Just saying.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Before you two lovebirds get your panties any more knotted, there are some real issues here. Sure, the article references War is Boring, BUT (and it is a BIG BUT):

    Internal carriage of the 2000 JDAM is a big damn deal for the AF variant. Because if they can't carry them internally, they can't carry them externally either. It is an IOC requirement they'll let slip if they do it without the 2000 bomb. And there are plenty of time where a 500lb wont do.

    The fuel chiller trucks is another issue that impacts some operations. It is also a fact of life with 5th Gen aircraft that aren't swiss cheesed with cooling vents. Meh.

    The big one to me is the LM support when deployed. We actually do that in the war zone, so that's one thing, but don't blow smoke up my @$$, thank you very much, pretending the "deployment" to Hill proved the F-35 was King freakin' Kong. King Kong with it's hand held by mommy, maybe.

    And the ISIS comparison? Please, stop. Give me a C-130 with a decent load master and a crate full of GBUs. That's all the air power you need. It's working just fine for the Russians.

    F-35 news roundup

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks, makes sense. Do you or any others know how much slower of an approach speed does F-35C have over F-35A? I know B model has a technically 0.00mph approach speed. :lol:/>/>

    Also any info on how the larger wing on C affect maneuverability both short and quick and also sustained? I seem to recall the max. G load on C is a bit less than A or B variants, why would that be?

    The C has a maximum landing speed requirement of 145kts, the others come in around 160-180 IIRC and depending on what they are bringing back. The Brits and Marines were looking at a 20 kt rolling landing to enable them to bring back more weight for the B model. They've already tested that capability, the jet can do it.

    The larger wing should increase drag and lift, so the C is a tad slower than the other two. But keep in mind the 7g versus 9g business is all about what the services do with the jet. It's also why the A has an internal gun, and the B & C carries a pod. The Navy and Corps use it primarily as an attack jet, the USAF as a purer F-16 replacement. The airframes were certified to different g loadings, doesn't mean the B or C couldn't pull 9 necessarily.

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