F-35 news roundup

[Exhausted]

Even LEGO's hopping onto the F-35 bandwagon...

Though it's been modified into a two-seater, and the colors are a near-ripoff of 1984 Transformers Thundercracker... LOL

What's the orange piece on the left?

[Berkut]

It is a lego tool that would have saved many teeths in childhood...

[GreyGhost]

you do realize these pictures were selected to be released and many other weren't for just those reasons?

<....>

Wait, they released photos just about a year after the fact ... and they were sanitized?

No way Dude...! YGBSM!

-Gregg

[MarkW]

Waco, rather than argue with you point by point, peace. I keep hitting a nerve with you, apologies. You are 100% correct.

The irony of your post is all the 3rd party systems you bring up to give the F-22 a basic A2G capability. Or basic interoperability. I've worked on all three major stealth systems, and while you were flying TDEs I was on Air Staff working with the rest of AQ and later A5 to figure out what the frack had to die on the altar of F-22. To be fair, both F-22 and F-35 were considered radioactive in budget terms, but this was also before the Nunn-McCurdy hits on the JSF program. And yes, JSF is eating up the budget, but considering it (right or wrong) is essentially TACAIR for the next couple decades, it won't be cheap. All the crap you have to do to drop an SDB from a F-22 is reminiscent of the 100,000 lbs of fuel it took to have a two ship of F/A-18s hit targets in Afghanistan. They hit the tanker on the way in, on orbit, and the way home JUST so the Navy could say they were relevant in a land war in Asia. Was it ridiculous? Absolutely. But God forbid we didn't play Joint nice nice. Same deal with the F-22 now. Yes, there is some value in actually dropping bombs in anger in a no threat environment. But is the F-22 the only, or most cost effective platform to do so against ISIS? Hells no. But hey, it's your guys "turn".

I get it, the F-22 is a kick a$$ fighter. But it wasn't built to play nice with others, hence the costly retrofits and kluges to give it basic LINK-16 capability (I also worked on BACN, so I'm intimately familiar with exactly how "anti access" proof relying on a gateway is). The F-35 is going to be better, out of the box, than the F-22 at some of this stuff--more maintainable stealth than either the B-2 or F-22, better interoperability, inherent A2G, complete 4-ship fusion, etc. AS IT SHOULD BE, being a decade later and a lot of painful lessons learned down from the F-22.

I'm glad you are proud of the F-22, and happy for you that you get to fly it. But maybe you are the one needing to take the rose colored glasses off.

[Waco]

MarkW - Peace? You don't get to say, "peace," and then continue to insult me. Hit a nerve? You go out of your way to hit a nerve, or at the very least, to be as disparaging of "my type of blue suiter" as frequently as possible. I don't spend my time finding ways to insult the acquisitions or engineer career fields, or whatever the hell field it is you like to vaguely hint at carrying a level of expertise. I don't go around calling Lockheed Martin a "jobs program for socially challenged autistics," yet that's EXACTLY what you referred to the USAF fighter pilot corps as.

Your claims to expertise in all three LO programs belies the fact you made a ridiculous statement regarding F-22 capability against an S-300 (a system which, by the way, the F-22 was ALSO designed to defeat). So you are either at worst: a lying liar and making up all this to seem like an expert when the reality is you don't know a goddam thing about 5th Gen operations concepts. Alternatively, you are, at best, a completely disingenuous individual using debate tactics and statements you KNOW are false to try and discredit others ideas, concepts, and backgrounds. Frankly, I find the first one more palatable, because somebody who knows fact but intentionally misleads and makes fallacious statements is merely committing a different type of dishonesty.

"All the crap you have to do to drop an SDB from the Raptor." Geolocate target...using onboard sytems. Take a SAR map...using onboard systems. Identify targets, designate impact points and weaponeering...using onboard systems. Fly aircraft into a Launch Acceptability Region, and release weapon within parameters. Jeez, you know, sounds an awful lot like any other fighter. We've gone a long way from the initial air-to-ground capability of the Raptor. Was the initial mounting of 2xGBU-32 a bolt-on capability? Hell yes it was. In the original version of the A/G software, when you released a JDAM, the displays showed the BRU pushing it THROUGH the weapons bay doors. The engineers assured us the doors would open when we did it for real, but when my squadron went out to drop our first weapons, that first 4-ship was sweating it more than a little. Everything we've done in the past 10 years, however, has been a planned roadmap to get to "Global Strike-Full," a descriptor which has long since lost any meaning. However, it is certainly not "kluged on," and it works exceedingly well. And there's a reason why they're using the F-22 in daily ops in Syria, and it ain't just because it's "the Raptor's turn," no matter how that story plays in the hallways of the F-35 workspaces.

As far as "rose colored glasses," I'm sorry, but I don't have those. As a matter of fact, I'm one of the few people both on this board and in the F-22 community who is fully supportive of the F-35. I have LONG argued it is not only useful, that it is, in fact, the future of Tac Air...for all services. Like it or not, that's the way it's going to be. You'll note that, in defending the Raptor, I've not once slagged off on the F-35. I find such arguments tedious. They're two different platforms, with two different roles....even with the F-22's air-to-ground role, it's going to be working a different problem set than the F-35 in any of the OPLANs where it truly matters. And the Raptor production line is closed. It was a stupid decision, not based on actual, real world operational requirements, planning, or strategy, but there you go. I sincerely hope we don't regret it in the next few years, but at a recent tactics conference, one of the briefers had the F-15 guys stand up, and said, "You boys had a good run...but you're done." And then outlined exactly WHY it is highly unlikely we're going to be able to use 4th Gen fighters in the next several years. It was compelling. And if you're at all familiar with the most recent STARS (which, based on loosely alluded to supposed levels of expertise, you should be), then you know exactly what I mean.

We need the F-35. We HAVE TO HAVE the F-35. And we need the goddam thing to work. And it will, eventually, because we have to have it. And yeah, out of the box, the F-35 will certainly have all those better capabilities than the Raptor had 10 years ago. But when I sit in briefings or watch mission playback and debriefing with the F-35 guys, it infuriates me to no end to see them having THE EXACT SAME PROBLEMS we had with the F-22 back in the early days. There are a reeeeee-diculous number of parallels. And unfortunately, Lockmart did NOT learn a lot of those lessons....or they did, and chose to ignore them, because hey! Why solve a problem for the government once, when we can be paid to solve the same problem twice?

I am fully onboard with the F-35. Ask Trigger, or TT, both of whom I've had extensive arguments/discussion with to prove to them the requirement and justifications for the -35. I look forward to seeing the thing in the sky, in force, getting the J-O-B done. I'd love to say that I look forward to flying a mission alongside the thing, but I think that day is too far off and I'm too old to believe the AF is going to keep me around much longer, let alone let me keep flying expensive toys. Besides, us socially challenged autistics eventually have to start thinking about outside employment eventually. I think it has tremendous capability, and once it is up and running, it will bring great value to the Joint fight, and will enable us to maintain advantage in several key theaters, particularly the critical hotbed we've directly embroiled ourselves in with this "pivot to the Pacific." So don't accuse me of trying to one up the F-35.

However, am I going to jump in when somebody makes an asinine statement like, "What's a Raptor going to do, fire an AMRAAM at it?" You bet I am. Especially from somebody who ALLEGEDLY knows exactly what the F-22 is capable of in a F2T2EA kill chain. So your choice. If you continue to make disingenuous or flat out incorrect statements, you can expect me to call you on it. You're the one who looks ridiculous, not me.

As for why we might need more Raptors, welllll....that's a topic for another post. But I strongly believe it's entirely possible that might become a foregone conclusion in the next several years.

[Trigger]

[Trigger]

Edited June 8, 2015 by Trigger

[Don]

Whomever built those Hornets did a completely unrealistic paint job. The pre and post shading is far too exaggerated and heavy handed...

As usual...nice pictures Trigger .

Regards,

Don.

[Trigger]

Edit. Just noticed that the vents on the F-35B/C gun pod make for a smilie face.

Edited June 8, 2015 by Trigger

[GreyGhost]

-Gregg

[Check Six]

True!

[Diamondback Six]

Edit. Just noticed that the vents on the F-35B/C gun pod make for a smilie face.

Is that like that sniper meme about "Smile... Wait For Flash"? :) lol

[Trigger]

[TaiidanTomcat]

I am fully onboard with the F-35. Ask Trigger, or TT, both of whom I've had extensive arguments/discussion with to prove to them the requirement and justifications for the -35.

Waco has been fair to the F-35, and never turned it into some kind of urination contest that I have ever seen. I think a large part of that is the operational planning background he has, and his knowledge of what different aircraft bring to the fight. IE the big picture.

To summarize we have a Ranger who says the US military needed to get back to the ground floor of the GWoT (hence Gates making the right call). An F-22 pilot who feels they were prematurely curtailed and bring more to the fight than most realize, and Mark (I apologize I don't know your occupation) who feels that the USAF was sacrificing too many capabilities in the interest of the F-22.

Its hard to know, lots of perspectives.

[Horrido]

Edit. Just noticed that the vents on the F-35B/C gun pod make for a smilie face.

Is that the "Bob Ross" gun pod?

[Check Six]

Is that the "Bob Ross" gun pod?

:Bob Ross: 'Happy' gun pod :Bob Ross:

[Trigger]

Via Wired

GIVEN JUST 15 minutes to photograph the F-35A Lightning II, most professional photographers would choose a digital camera with a massive memory card and shoot nonstop. Jeremy Blakeslee showed up for his assignment at Luke Air Force Base with an old-school film camera, and made only a few photos.

The San Francisco photographer was given a rare opportunity to photograph the airplane, and brought along two manual Hasselblad medium-format cameras. In addition to granting him very little time to do the job, the Air Force also required Blakeslee to stay 20 feet from the plane. He worked frantically to make every shot count, darting around for the best position and light. A digital camera like the Canon 5D Mark II would have allowed him to fire off 100 or so photos. Instead, he came back with 30, eight of which are published here for the first time.

Blakeslee shoots exclusively on film, both professionally and personally, because he likes the intentionality of it. Every shot counts, and costs money, requiring greater attention to composition. Film rewards precision. “You really have to slow it down and calculate things in your head,” he says. “The whole process of shooting film is very meditative.”

The photographer tried to highlight the plane’s angles and sharp lines. To capture these details from 20 feet away, he used a 120mm lens. He was working in the middle of the afternoon, when the light creates harsh shadows, but the planes were parked beneath canopies the diffused the light. At some point in the shoot, Blakeslee says he went into a trance. He’d figured out his exposure and his approach, and was able to simply shoot. “It was actually pretty zen,” he says.

After the shoot he returned home, scanned the negatives, and sent the photos to the Air Force for approval. Two friends on the base had arranged the shoot, and Blakeslee wanted to tread carefully. He worried the brass might reject some of his photos, but every one was approved.

Still, Blakeslee is cautious about the photos and subject matter. The F-35, already two decades in development, has been plagued by spiraling budgets, production delays and system malfunctions. He doesn’t want the plane’s problems to overshadow his images, which—as a fan of military history—he hopes stand on their own as a visual record of the most expensive weapons system yet created. “There has been a lot of bad press about the F-35, but they are really incredible aircraft,” he says.

Edit: I presume in this last photo, the opening aft of the weapons bay, that's where a chaff/flare dispenser goes?

Edited June 9, 2015 by Trigger

[82Whitey51]

For the model geeks out here...what are these things? I assume canopy breakers/charges??

Edited June 9, 2015 by 82Whitey51

[Dmanton300]

Position sensors for the helmet mounted display? Just a guess.

[Alan in Yorktown]

I wonder why you cannot cut caanopy within 3 inches of the frame?

[MarkW]

Det cord.

[Alan in Yorktown]

Det cord.

That's a pretty good reason!

[MarkW]

The whole canopy/egress design story is pretty interesting. First, the forward hinge was driven by the B model, because the lift fan precluded hardware behind the canopy. So, you have a wind screen/canopy that won't separate because the wind holds it in place. So, they tried a bunch of different set cord layouts, like the Harrier has, to shatter the canopy and eject through. Mostly that would end up decapitating the dummy at certain air speeds that blew the big sheets back onto the pilot.

To be clear, I mean dummy in the mannequin sense.

The program finally settled on this design which maximizes visibility and is safe for egress at most reasonable speeds. By reasonable, the operational community accepted the safe eject limits based on how few people would survive higher speed ejections in the first place.

[Check Six]

Det cord.

Must be the same for the F-22.

I found pics of an F-22 pilot that couldn't open his canopy after he landed.

After trying several things except ejecting, a rescue team came and cut the canopy open with a circular saw while being careful cutting near the canopy using the 3" warning.

Thanks for the info.

[Gregg B]

F-35 Delayed After Fourth Prototype Becomes Self-Aware And Has To Be Destroyed

THE PENTAGON — The military’s problematic F-35 fighter jet is facing more delays related to “software issues,” as project engineers were forced to euthanize the fourth prototype to gain self-awareness on Monday.

<snip>

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/02/f35-delays-sentience/

;)/>