The timing isn't brilliant, but then, he USAAF needs to save money so something has to go. Personally what I think is crazy is that they're not just being given to the USArmy, but that's old politics at play. The bottom line is though that they're old, expensive, and pretty much only useful for fire support in insurgencies and taking out tanks, neither of which are seeming like they're going to be the core focus of future warfare. Not to mention that 4th Gen MANPADS will make them fall out the sky faster than ducklings.
I freely admit that I don't understand the fascination with military technology, but I struggle to see how people can genuinely think that a piece of military hardware is cool.
As an instrument of death I don't approve of most war apparatus, I would much rather that war was relegated to the pages of history. However, what I do admire/enjoy is the amazing engineering that goes into aircraft and other weapons. As a technical achievement they are truly stupefying.
I'd say the F-35 is precisely suited to the type of warfare the US was thinking of preparing for 25 years ago but it takes a long time to get these programs from concept to active service.
I partially agree. The F-35 as a concept in '88 has changed a great deal to become what it is today. Today the US is focussed on Asia, with a possibly highly spread out naval focussed war over tens of thousands of square kilometres. The F-35 is actually a remarkably good plane for this possibility.
The U-2 is also being scrapped - but don't worry you need 2 top end drones for the capabilities the U2 has
The DoD have form on this, they periodically try to kill off the close support aircraft in favour of more glamorous 'fast movers' and then something always happens to reverse the decision. Like when CAS aircraft all but disappeared from US inventory after WW2, only for Korea to return the A1 Skyraider to the role, then they tried to kill the Skyraider, only for Vietnam to happen and extend it's life by another decade. The A-10 was supposed to have been replaced entirely by F16s and/or F15Es around 1990. Then the Gulf War happened, then Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq again, the A10 has been in daily use for two decades. The F35 won't replace the A10, even if they scrap them now, within the decade they will be making new builds, shaving ten aircraft off the F35 order would pay for one hundred and fifty-ish brand new A10s, wherever the US fights it's next war they'll be needing them. Yay politicians. A dedicated CAS Drone fleet would make more sense than F35s, way back when the OV10 was in service the CAS version had a 20mm gun turret borrowed from the AH1 on it's underside so it could make stand off attacks from an orbital position. A remote version of that would be a pretty valid replacement.
Unfortunately, the type of warfare you prepare for is not always the type of warfare you find yourself in. Most of ours and the US military equipment/tactics are, and still is, set up to defend/attack the USSR. Updating military hardware is a long and slow process which doesn't keep pace with the changing political climates Anyway, the Warthog is awesome
Well, to an extent yes, but the UK and US are still vastly more capable at fighting a naval sea-control war than most if not any other nations right now.
What I want to know is why there isn't any investment into Macross/Gumdam style transforming planes/robots? Projects should be ratified on 'cool' factor.
Air Force got the Skyraider from the Navy who originally wanted them to carry atomic bombs (yes, really!). The first air-to-air kills of the Vietnam War occurred when a pair of North Vietnamese MiG-17s made the mistake of attacking a pair of US Navy Skyraiders at low altitude in a turning engagement. The propeller driven Skyraiders were able to turn inside the jet powered MiGs and shoot both down. So long as we have boots on the ground we will need survivable close air support, flying low and slow over the battlefield with dumb bombs and rockets. A lot of the blame for this needs to be fairly placed with the Air Force leadership who have always hated the close air support mission, but refuse to let the Army have it or the funding that goes with it. Air Force planners still dream of reliving their glory days of air to air combat and strategic bombing over Germany. The problem is that the US, and now a lot of other countries too, have WAY too many eggs in the F-35 basket. Despite the fact that the program has been a huge cluster from the word "go" and may never produce an aircraft capable of performing any of the missions assigned to it, much less all of them, we're stuck with it. The OV-10 is more of a forward air controller than a true close support aircraft. It just doesn't carry the payload to be effective in that role. It only has two wing pylons and they are only rated to 500 lbs each, whereas the A-10 has 8 wing pylons, at least some of which can carry 2000 pound bombs. The role of the the Forward Air Controller really came about during Vietnam because the Army and Marines on the ground didn't have radios that could talk to the Air Force aircraft supporting them. The Forward Air Controllers could talk to both and could mark targets for the fast moving jet fighter-bombers. With the retirement of the propeller driven observation aircraft that role was passed largely to the A-10s, and so a replacement FAC type is probably unnecessary. The FAC mission is very dangerous and even the current generation of drones would probably be well suited to it. Which still leaves us needing a slow, ugly bomb truck...
Because we can't even make things work as planes without killing their pilots, much less get them to transform.
F35 has 6 (and those silly bays) hard points and using them will make it very non stealthy warthog has 11 + the gun. A-10 is designed to fly low and slow and get shot at , the films of the aircraft rturning from missions full of holes or missing parts is testament to that, don't see any other jet surviving that damage. so no the F35 will never be a proper CAS aircraft. its designed as a day 0 door knocker to get passed radar and hit C3 so the day 1 bomb trucks can come in safer. which is nothing like the wars the usa are fighting now.
And so the F-35 is supposed to play the role of fighter, tactical AND strategic strike, SEAD, and close support? Plus a VTOL version for the Marines, all in the same airframe? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, it's a multi-role aircraft, what do you expect? The F-16 is a successful multi-role aircraft, and the F-15 has been developed into what is arguably one too, at least in it's F15-E variant. I don't get all the sarcasm that floats around about the fact that it's a multi-role fighter, it's as if people seem to think they've never existed before, or that there was a better solution to a single tri-service 5th gen fighter.
its swiss army knife - Jack of all trades, master of none. the A-10 is a CAS aircraft , built to stop the hordes of Russian tanks , later developed into a muntion carrying CAS aircraft. Arguably it is whats needed - a slow aircraft that can stay on station and drop a lot of weapons where needed. Remember the F16 was supposed to replace it as well! as for SEAD , well just about any airframe can do it now - heck even Tonka ADV can SEAD (it can carry ALARM , so you could say with pods and good weapons do you ) wont be in the strategic role - doesn't have the legs for it - who wants to send a 1 man fighter with limited payload , when you have a huge ass bomber (B-2) that can flatten a bigger area? fighter? just about anything built for turning can kill it - ultra long range IR can see it , PIRATE can see it (its not invisible) , Rapier can track it (its got a huge ass IR signature). its a day 0 door knocker - to replace the F16 and F15E (eventually) , drones are replacing man in the sky intel assests. you also forget this can ECR , replacing the squadron of Tornado`s set up for it (Spark Vark class) but again its the equipment (non stealthy pods) and range - the Growler has longer legs and more hardpoints!
Nothing wrong with the idea of a multirole plane. But there is a nagging feeling that it stems from the desire to have a fighter for air superiority battles against technologically advanced opponents. That just isn't what the US needs now, you can argue that they need to have streght to deter China but that is still somewhat over the horizon and but the time you look that far ahead, will manned fighers really be where it's at? It looked right in the late 80's but would this be what you would spec out now? The problems is that the whole project smells of to-big-to-fail and airforces clinging to their old role, much in the same way as navies want large numbers of ships not particualrly designed for current situations, because taking command of a ship is a key part of career progression.
This line is trotted out a lot, but what does it mean to be a "master" of any single role, what metric does one use for that? The F-35 is replacing three multi-role aircraft and the A-10. Is is without serious question that by 2020 or so the F-35 will be superior to the multi-role aircraft it replaces. Will it be superior to the A-10 as a bomb truck? Well probably not no, but then if it's a choice between a highly capable multi-role aircraft and a bombtruck, the former is probably a wiser choice. Critics often seem to ignore budgets when it suits their argument. I'd argue you're making gross simplifications and either intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting this. To claim that anything built for turning can kill it is utterly spurious, firstly because that particular thing which was built for turning would first have to know the F-35 was there, then would have to close within WVR range of it, and *then* would have to out dogfight it. There have been lots of claims about L-band radar, and while there's definitely some convincing evidence that they can say "there's something out there", they are not comparable in accuracy to say, a modern AESA radar. Furthermore they need to be huge to actually be remotely useful. Why the Russians are bothering to stick L-band radar in the wings of the PAK-50 has been the cause for quite a bit of bemusement and speculation, because those things are going to be far too small to actually do anything useful. IRST is indeed a threat, although one which is equally potent against any bird flying right now, and again the tech just isn't as developed as modern radar and while the F-35 may, as all aircraft are, be vulnerable to IRST, almost every other bird out there is vulnerable to IRST and also lacks any radar stealth. I'm glad to hear the Rapier is still effective enough to track an aircraft, then again the F-35 has far lesser rear stealth than frontal so I'm not hugely surprised that advanced western miltech can track it once it's passed. It's easy to talk of drones, but they're in their infancy and until you have one ready to deploy for the job you can't just stop all development on everything else.
what does it mean? really? the Tornado GR4 was built from the ground up as a low level strike package. The Typhoon was built from the ground up as an air supremacy fighter. the F15 was also the same. the A-10 was built as a low level in the weeds tank killer , and the spark vark was built as the `premier` electronic warfare aircraft - no aircraft was lost during deseart storm to a radar guided missile whilst a spark vark was on station. the F35 is trying to do all of the above and more THAT is the problem - you cannot make 1 aircraft do the role of 3 dedicated platforms there has to be compromise , even so the costs have more than doubled and the $60 million aircraft is now $130 million without spare or anything else , and that wont get cheaper - countries are already scaling back purcashses - inc the USA , and the costs were for 3000+ airframes ; I already suspect they wont make 1500 airframes , maybe even less... BVR combat? every dogfight ever has been WVR - its great in games , but real world they don't shoot at 40 miles , its all less than 10. just ask the israelies IRST tech is 30 years old - just because the USA doesn't use it , doesn't mean its rubbish, L- band? that's joined with irst - the l band see`s it , the irst tracks it. really you need to get away from USA tech and think outside the box - the Russians are trying to get LIDAR working on aircraft anyway.
