AFAIG, him and mills with a fellow simer stillion (who worked for RAND and the sim was unapproved) along with APA, were the guys who did the sim that had nothing to do with RAND pacific vision, but they tagged onto it and used the RAND logo, (stillion got sacked and told clown club to never contact him again) I'd have to look up what their power point was called.. RAND put out a statement saying it was rubbish and they didn't do it.

Whilst the primary focus of this article is about, Sen. McCain tearing Gen. Welsh a new a$$hole over the USAF's perpetual attempts to bin the A-10, there is a few interesting comments relating to the F-35. I hadn't really noticed up until I read this article but, under current schedules, the last F-35 is expected to be delivered in 2040!:eek:

McCain slams USAF chief Welsh on A-10 effectiveness

-RP

Rhino, it is going to be the backbone of strike fighter aviation fro the western world. though I think the F-35 block 73g might be a bit different to the block 3F

Rhino,

This is why F-35 is getting such a hard time in the press, beyond what it deserves. Yes they screwed up the cost estimates, totally blew the schedule, and have had to renege slightly on promised performance metrics in certain corners. That is something nobody will argue against. However, it's gone over the top with such articles because......

This platform could very well push Boeing out of the tactical fighter market for good. If that was the case, and I liked Boeing products, I'd be shouting about how much of 'a little turd' it was, using emotive language, coming on forums and linking negative articles from authors with a track record of biased writing.

Dolby's article is legit, and so is he. He is well respected and with 2000+ hrs in the seat he knows his craft. One hopes that people now realise that not everything reported in the press about the negative aspects of the aircraft is true or in the right context. Like someone said a while back on this forum...sometimes pilots are frustrated with how slowly flight or control law clearances are coming through, so they shout about it and that leaks out in the wrong context, which the hate camp love!

List them one by one and we will debate just what "renege" entails.

Then again the list would probably screw the pprune server....

Here's one for you to start with..

Why did LM promise a specific side LO performance only to screw that up then they eventually added the weapon bays, it's not like they sort of forget about them, was it??

glad rag, that last paragraph tells me you have no idea what you're on about.

Sorry mate.

MSCOS says: The question is do some USAF "Top Guns" actually call the aircraft "The little turd?" Can you refute that? If it is not factual, I'd like to know.

That's not exactly helpful as a contribution to the discussion, is it?

Why not explain why he is wrong and back it up with references?

One of the interesting things that the Navy did this week was to place 14 additional Super Hornets on its unfunded priorities list, along with two F-35Cs. The F-35C is supposed to replace legacy Hornets (they are wearing out faster than anticipated causing a Strike Fighter shortage,) yet the Navy is choosing to purchase Super Hornets over F-35C. It seems like the perfect justification to order additional F-35s when the DoD/OSD is desperate to pump up the F-35 order book. Certainly the Navy (and others) are concerned about losing industrial base, but the department is on record claiming that this does not drive its acquisition strategy. Perhaps it is the cost differential between the F-35C and the Super Hornet: ~135M (+ concurrency costs) vs. ~85M. Or maybe the F-35C just isn't ready for service - it will not be able to employ the breadth of weaponry that the Super Hornet can until later blocks due in the 2020s - which is my personal opinion, and supported by statements by from naval aviation leadership. How many forward sensor nodes do you need?

Tourist.

How about glad rag actually explains his paragraph. I'd consider myself reasonably perceptive. That last paragraph of his doesn't actually make any sense. Something about a side LO profile being affected by weapon bays? WTF?!

If the claim had any scientific background behind it, or if the claim has been raised by a credible body, then fine. Link it and let's debate it.

As far as I'm concerned gr has made it up.

Prove me wrong. Please.

MSOCS, Glad,

Perhaps I can help here - perhaps not....

The JSF/F-35 design had weapons bays right from the start. (So did the Boeing design). There was a clear requirement for internal carriage of specified weapons in the JORD. To the best of my knowledge, they weren't 'eventually' added.

LM certainly had (and have) very good working knowledge of LO estimates - given that they would have factored in the effect of the weapons bays from day one, I'd consider it unlikely that these were the reasons for any failures to achieve signature targets.

However, I must add that all aspects of LO signature performance and some aspects of LO design were very much 'US Only' and I can only provide informed judgement here, not detailed knowledge of numbers.

Then again, I'd very very surprised if anyone posting here has a really detailed handle on what F-35 signature performance is against any requirements. Hope this helps a bit, though.

Best regards as ever to those making that LO stuff work in service,

Engines

Actually my premise came from discussion in this very thread, Engines is partially correct in his statement apart from the fact the original bays were designed around a bag of sugar...
M-whatever- you'll have to look back quite a bit.

Oh my moniker came from an incident when serving on the RAF's finest fighter Squadron when a engineering numpty ie SEgO decided to prove a point on a det only to find my glad rag was actually stitched via the hip slit pocket to my denims...

This is just laughable melmoth. Swee...err...LO...err whatever he goes by has never been one to shy away from calling people a "Shill" for LM, JPO or whomever else he disagreed with that day. If he wants to chuck it around, he needs to be adult enough to take it!


Interestingly, I note he hasn't been around lately...I wonder if the rumours are true!?

You mean like this one. The one he railed against for years?
"So now he is perhaps a lying, test-pilot-bribing, self-interested shill of the evil, anti-European, 'Merican military industrial complex. A company man that can't be trusted with anything he says..? "

he said he finishes up with AW on the 18th of this month, is that 2 weeks notice?
The trouble with the basement dwellers - General F-35 Forum

It doesn't matter to him what we say here - it's just that it doesn't make a good argument. If people on this forum throw around that accusation then it could also be thrown back at them "if they are adult enough" and then where do we end up? No further forward, I think.

Glad Rag. I'll make it easy for you to understand. The LO requirements were set at the beginning, along with a requirement for internal weapon bays. The size of those weapon bays are limited by design; more so in the B due to Lift Fan dimensions and the poor management of weight growth in around 2005 when the STOVL Weight Attack Team were formed to un-fudge the situation.

My point is this: the side LO trade you speak of is a nonsense and a totally irrelevant/weak claim against the F-35's design. Start with the premise that you have to have internal bays to keep the overall signature down, and read up on the physics of stealth. Then re-evaluate your paragraph.

Engines isn't partially right. He's completely right IMHO

MOSOCS, Glad,

Again, just trying to help - here's some detail on the weapons bay development.

The JORD requirement for weapons bays had a very significant impact on the JSF designs. In any high speed combat aircraft, internal volume is at a premium, and having to include the volume of two bays really drives the design in many ways.

When the modelling was being done by the DoD JSF Team to support JORD development, it became clear that the STOVL variant would face even greater pressure on internal volume, due to the need for the lift fan and other lift system components. As a result, the JORD's internal carriage requirement for the STOVL was set at two 1000 pound JDAMS and two AIM-120. (Not quite a bag of sugar). The A and C retained the 'two by 2000 pounders and two AIM-120' requirement.

Early in the design process, LM's weight and volume estimation tools were very poorly suited to the F-35 (they were derived from experience on F-16, where all stores are carried externally). Reliance on these led to overoptimistic weight forecasts and in turn led LM to (foolishly in my view) adopt what they called the 'common weapons bay', which would allow the F-35B to take a 2000 pound weapon with a change of doors, as well as reducing the differences between the B and the other two variants.'Commonality' of production was a big driver at that stage (around 2001/2). Notably, the JORD was not changed.

Unfortunately, the F-35 with the common weapons bays was an unachievable design. LM could not get the centre/aft fuselage internal layout to work, and badly designed load paths generated even more weight. It may interest some people reading this to note that while the STOVL variant suffered first, weight problems were very nearly as bad for the A and the C. Despite repeated warnings (mainly from the USN's highly experienced weight estimation team within Navair) LM kept going with the design until late 2003/early 2004 when the US Government effectively pulled the plug on them and directed them to redesign the aircraft to get weight back to a sensible level.

The F-35B bays were redesigned to what was called the 'spec compliant' configuration, built around the (still extant) JORD requirement, and the whole centre/aft fuselage was 'restacked' to get items in the right place at the right weight.

Hope all this stuff is of some interest - as ever, happy to respond to PMs if that would help.

Best regards as ever to all those trying to get all the bits in and working

Engines

First Dog on the Moon
 

For a bit of light relief - from The Guardian Australia:

What are these so-called minor technical issues with this extremely cool looking F-35 jet? | First Dog on the Moon | Opinion | The Guardian

:E

For more amusement, go back and read the first five pages of this thread and see posts like this one.


Super Hornet is alive and well, and remains in production. The 2030 retire date is probably good, though, at least in USN Air Order of Battle.

Or you get foolish statements like this.
Wrong all the way around, still, five and a half years later.

.............