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F-35 Lightning info

HiFlyer

By HiFlyer
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Clark Griswold Gray Beard

Clark Griswold

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Posted (edited)

Had a Experimental Test Pilot in flight school that had been on the program. More things wrong with that aircraft then right, and it's smaller then the Zulu Cobra as far as gas and guns it brings to the fight. It could perform the eyes forward recon/screen ops needed, but it's still gonna be much to short in standoff capability and overwhelming Firepower to be much help against an Enemy main body. It has an amazing flight envelope for a helicopter, it's just not a hitter.

And as far as cost goes...When we cx'd the program the money the Army saved paid for the M model Blackhawks, the F model Chinook upgrade, and the retiring of all the A model Apaches from Active and are units.

Makes sense on why the plug got pulled.

Not to detour too far off from the F-35 topic of the thead but googling more on the Comanche after your comment, I found this Time article here.

And these two paragraphs seem particularly relevant to the F-35 saga:

They continually piled on requirements by the bucketload and relied on technologies which did not actually exist – so many gadgets that the engines couldn’t get the thing off the ground and so many design changes that the ink never really dried on the blueprints. And then they tried to fix these problems by adding more time and money (see above).

Perhaps the lesson is that military tech programs should exercise design restraint, establish strict budget and schedule constraints, and rely on proven technologies to deliver necessary capabilities on operationally relevant timelines. This formula is much lauded among defense acquisition experts and leaders, but was clearly not implemented by the Comanche team. They spent 22 years doing the opposite.

As before, the dye is cast for better or worse.

Edited by Clark Griswold
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HiFlyer
HiFlyer

Here's my input to the "great debate"... I admit that if I had a choice, an A-10 (or A-10-like) capability for a CAS mission would usually be my first choice in a survivable environment. However,

brabus
brabus

“While the F-35 was designed from the start to accommodate a short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) version, this requirement is absent from the Chinese design” Dammit, they didn’t take the b

Jaded
Jaded

It could hover over the top of the armor with its deck melting engine.

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Fuzz Gray Beard

Fuzz

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Posted

F-35 or F-18 Super Hornet: It’s really not that complicated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWJeqrvoF6M

WABoom Crew Dawg

WABoom

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Had the pleasure of refueling the JSF today. Cool plane, but I also learned what "Cold Iron" meant a couple of times this week too.

  • 4 weeks later...
JarheadBoom Gray Beard

JarheadBoom

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Had the pleasure of refueling the JSF today. Cool plane, but I also learned what "Cold Iron" meant a couple of times this week too.

Never heard that one before. A brief Google-ing revealed nothing related to AR. What's it mean?

JarheadBoom Gray Beard

JarheadBoom

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Nice.

I wonder how much extra LockMart charged for that feature...

Hotdogs SNAP

Hotdogs

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Posted

All this talk about the F-35B providing CAS for the Marines... I fail to see how being able to drop a JDAM is CAS. That does not provide a complete CAS solution. What happens when you run into a TIC inside 95m? Is that when you slap on the gun pod? Good luck employing close to friendlies without a HUD.

AH-1Z and UH-1Y crews aren't having issues with out a HUD. Not sure why it would be a big deal for the F-35. I haven't heard any point articles on the use of a HMD with regards to the accuracy of a weapons system. Haven't the use of HMDs been used in the air to air arena with good effects? The weapon has nothing to do with CAS, it's about the target. If dropping a rock out of your aircraft and hitting the dude in the head satisfies the ground commanders intent for fire support with in the doctrine of CAS - Then it's CAS.

Fuzz Gray Beard

Fuzz

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https://ca.news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-waived-laws-keep-f-35-track-204531422--sector.html

The Pentagon repeatedly waived laws banning Chinese-built components on U.S. weapons in order to keep the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program on track in 2012 and 2013, even as U.S. officials were voicing concern about China's espionage and military buildup.

I'm sure this won't add anymore delays to the production.

HiFlyer Flight Lead

HiFlyer

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Here's my input to the "great debate"...

I admit that if I had a choice, an A-10 (or A-10-like) capability for a CAS mission would usually be my first choice in a survivable environment. However, that doesn't mean that it's an absolute requirement. I know I'm a bit dated, but out of my 250+ FAC missions in the OV-10 (Vietnam), 125 or more of them did CAS support at some point during the 3-4 hour sortie. I don't recall a single one of them resulting in the good guys being overrun due to poor CAS capability. Only one resulted in a friendly fire casualty and that was because the idiot stood up to get a picture of a Mk82 hitting the bad guys about 75 meters away (the ground CC's immediate comment was something like "Never mind, it'll save me the time it would take to beat his stupid ass to death").

The point of this is that we did great CAS work nearly every day with no A-10s. I worked F-100s, F-4s, A-4s, A-7s, A-1s, A-6s , VNAF A-37s, and F-5s, AC-119s, AC-130s, and even some AH-1Gs and UH-1Cs (gunship variants), plus my own pitiful ordnance, of course. Most of the work was in the 100-300 meter range, but some as close as 30 meters. In some cases, the sheer power of the 30mm may have been a detriment...the 7.62 was actually safer to use and plenty good enough in terms of killing power with less collateral damage potential.

Each platform had its good and bad points, and had to be used carefully to maximize impact on the bad guys and minimize threats to the friendlies. For instance, a light platform with small ordnance (like an A-37 with 7.62 and 250lb slicks) I generally started working close with guns and backed up about 10m a pass until it was safe to use the 250s. When I had a couple of A-6s (usually VMA 225 out of Danang...really good at CAS!) I'd put one or two mk82s as close as possible to slow the action, then start dropping sticks of five or six (remember, they has 28 bombs each) behind the bad guys about 300m then march the sticks forward about 25m a stick. It didn't take long for the bad guys to figure out they were soon to be caught between a wall of bombs and fire from the friendlies, and they backed out fast. It might have helped that the first sticks tended to take out upper management, watching from the rear, early in the game!

In general, F-100s were not too bad, since CAS and other close support was a large part of their mission, and the Marine A-4s and F-4s were very good at CAS since that was almost all they did (especially the A-4s from Chu Lai). They averaged between 20-40 CAS sorties a month and were very good because of their sortie rate. On the other hand, the AF F-4s from Danang (Gunfighters) were usually terrible, but that's because most of them only flew a real CAS sortie once or twice a month. I hated to use them closer than 200m. The VNAF guys were pretty good, too, but most of them had been flying for a decade, with the leads frequently having 1000-2000 combat sorties (mostly CAS) over a decade or more. Navy (mostly A-7s) was my last choice, mostly because they rarely did actual CAS, and I saw them infrequently which lowered my confidence in their abilities.

As a matter of fact, my feeling is that good CAS may be less about the airframe than the pilot experience in the cockpit (and maybe about the guy directing the situation (air or ground FAC, or whatever the current nomenclature is). The Marine F-4/AF F-4 comparison is a good example.

Just a thought...

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matmacwc Gray Beard

matmacwc

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AH-1Z and UH-1Y crews aren't having issues with out a HUD. Not sure why it would be a big deal for the F-35. I haven't heard any point articles on the use of a HMD with regards to the accuracy of a weapons system. Haven't the use of HMDs been used in the air to air arena with good effects? The weapon has nothing to do with CAS, it's about the target. If dropping a rock out of your aircraft and hitting the dude in the head satisfies the ground commanders intent for fire support with in the doctrine of CAS - Then it's CAS.

Uh.....no.

HiFlyer Flight Lead

HiFlyer

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Why not??? I recall being diverted to a platoon under attack one night. I was out of ordnance, but at the platoon leader's request I made a low pass to get their heads down, then two more dropping an empty fuel tank and two empty LAU-79 s (7 shot 2.75" rocket pod). The bad guys sneaking through the grass got up and ran away, ending the attack. Not rocks, but close. Is this not a CAS activity???

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HiFlyer Flight Lead

HiFlyer

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Probably, but I can't recall off the top of my head. In those days (1969-70) that was a fairly common activity and not too many stand out as something that immediately comes to mind. I think I posted a couple more a few years ago. I'm leaving for Japan tomorrow so I'm a little too busy to post much right now.

Spoo Gray Beard

Spoo

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Posted

Fairly sure HiFlyer's response made his point a moot one.

  • 2 weeks later...

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