Jump to content

Recommended Posts

There was a photo of a US F-35B on the elevator of the British Carrier Queen Elizabeth yesterday on Cybermodeler.  The coating looks heavily weathered for a jet that probably has not spent much time at sea, if any.  How well are these special Radar signature reducing coatings going to be with the amount of touch ups needed during  a long cruise?  Increase the ops tempo, war time, how effective will stealth remain?  Nice modeling canvas for future F-35B & C models.🤣

 

John

Edited by Raptor01
Grammar
Link to post
Share on other sites
On 10/15/2018 at 1:51 PM, TaiidanTomcat said:

IIRC the first aircraft to do this was the Yak-38 if you believe that

 

You are correct.   Just stumbled upon this vid on Twitter (it's the lower one, I can't edit out the first).  

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 10/23/2018 at 1:53 AM, TaiidanTomcat said:

Belgium Selects F-35

 

Interesting. Would have thought otherwise despite the NATO membership. Also, considering all the negativety from Trump towards the European allies I would've thought getting a local product would have mattered. I guess Macron mentioned that too. On the other hand, I guess he (Trump) should be happier now.

 

Interesting for us too. Certainly raises F-35's stakes in our HX-program when another European country goes and selects it. 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 10/15/2018 at 11:51 AM, TaiidanTomcat said:

 

IIRC the first aircraft to do this was the Yak-38 if you believe that

Except that once it started down the Yak 38 could not stop or reverse the process such that a few ended up in the water when they screwed up their approach......

Link to post
Share on other sites
21 hours ago, janman said:

 

Interesting. Would have thought otherwise despite the NATO membership. Also, considering all the negativety from Trump towards the European allies I would've thought getting a local product would have mattered. I guess Macron mentioned that too. On the other hand, I guess he (Trump) should be happier now.

 

Interesting for us too. Certainly raises F-35's stakes in our HX-program when another European country goes and selects it. 

 

 

 

 

Trump at most has 6 more years. F-35s are decades of service.

 

The big elephant in the room is F-35 will be B61 capable.

 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
40 minutes ago, TaiidanTomcat said:

 

 

Trump at most has 6 more years. F-35s are decades of service.

 

The big elephant in the room is F-35 will be B61 capable.

 

 

 

Given that we have many more B61's stored in Turkey, any idea if the Turkish F-35's (if they ever get them, which I hope they don't) will be nuke capable?

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

So Navy gonna Navy...

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/12/three-attack-subs-not-certified-to-dive-navy-f-35s-at-15-percent-readiness/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb 13.12.18&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief

 

Quote

Last year, the F-35 typically had a 15 percent fully mission capable rate, Pendleton said. “Early indications incorporating them into the fleet is that we are seeing some challenges there as well,” he testified. “It took months, sometimes six months or more to get parts repaired and back out to the fleet.”

 

15% readiness...at least they are firmly in double digits.   Kidding aside, this is not terribly unpredictable.  Spare management fleetwide will need time to mature for sure.  Nice to see ALIS isn't the obvious bogeyman here.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...

Uh-oh....  got another Hater here!

 

 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/09/defense-patrick-shanahan-boeing-pentagon-1064203

 

Shanahan, this official said, called the plane “f---ed up” and argued that Lockheed — which edged out Boeing to win the competition to build the plane in October 2001 — “doesn’t know how to run a program.”

 

“If it had gone to Boeing, it would be done much better,” Shanahan said, according to the former official.

As the Pentagon's No. 2, Shanahan repeatedly "dumped" on the F-35 in meetings, calling the program "unsustainable," and slammed Lockheed Martin's CEO, Marillyn Hewson, according to the second source, a former Trump administration official. "'The cost, the out-years, it's just too expensive, we're not gonna be able to sustain it,'" this person said, quoting Shanahan.

 

Sad that in this day and age, people still hate on the F-35.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, 11bee said:

Uh-oh....  got another Hater here!

 

 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/09/defense-patrick-shanahan-boeing-pentagon-1064203

 

Shanahan, this official said, called the plane “f---ed up” and argued that Lockheed — which edged out Boeing to win the competition to build the plane in October 2001 — “doesn’t know how to run a program.”

 

If it had gone to Boeing, it would be done much better,” Shanahan said, according to the former official.

As the Pentagon's No. 2, Shanahan repeatedly "dumped" on the F-35 in meetings, calling the program "unsustainable," and slammed Lockheed Martin's CEO, Marillyn Hewson, according to the second source, a former Trump administration official. "'The cost, the out-years, it's just too expensive, we're not gonna be able to sustain it,'" this person said, quoting Shanahan.

 

Sad that in this day and age, people still hate on the F-35.

 

 

 

 

2qr258.jpg

 

 

AWWWW I guess we'll never know 😞 

 

 

 

Hows that KC-46 coming along anyway? Seems like a Tanker would be pretty straightforward compared to a Tri service, STOVL/shipboarde capable 5th generation multinational stealth strike fighter... 

 

 

 

Edited by TaiidanTomcat
Link to post
Share on other sites
38 minutes ago, TaiidanTomcat said:

Hows that KC-46 coming along anyway? Seems like a Tanker would be pretty straightforward compared to a Tri service, STOVL/shipboarde capable 5th generation multinational stealth strike fighter... 

 

LOL   The AF tanker program is probably as worthy of a years long, thousand post thread as the F-35 is.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

You know he's right, though? At least partially.  Lockheed doesn't know how to manage a program.  Could you imagine the train wreck-crashing into the Titanic-with a 747 full of school kids falling on all of it mess things would be with Boing?!

 

Misspelling intentional.

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/10/2019 at 8:16 AM, 11bee said:

LOL   The AF tanker program is probably as worthy of a years long, thousand post thread as the F-35 is.  

 

You're definitely right there,,

 

And the US would have a new tanker in service now, If Airbus had gotten the contract for it 

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

”And the US would have a new tanker in service now, If Airbus had gotten the contract for it ”

 

Oh, puuuuuuuleeeeeeeeeeeeze.  How's that A400M doing?  How hard was it to copy an upscaled C-130?

 

Airbus is not the standard I'd raise.

Link to post
Share on other sites
34 minutes ago, MarkW said:

 

”And the US would have a new tanker in service now, If Airbus had gotten the contract for it ”

 

Oh, puuuuuuuleeeeeeeeeeeeze.  How's that A400M doing?  How hard was it to copy an upscaled C-130?

 

Airbus is not the standard I'd raise.

 

Mark.. 

 

Australia went down that path and besides the OT&E issue with the boom falling off that one time, We've have had no operational issues at all.  Hey at least we have a new tankers.

 

But this is not the thread to hijack.  Lets get back to the F-35

 

Brendon 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...