JF - I have seen a lot of people afflicted by that confusion. Some of them wearing stars and wings.

Perhaps it is desperation as this will be the 'air superiority' aircraft of choice for almost all the western world for no other reason that it is the only LO aircraft in 'production'. The USAF may have the F-22 (not that many of them either) but for a good part of the world it is the F-35 or bust.

The western world may have many years to regret the path it is on. If potential adversaries do manage to arm themselves with an LO, supercruising, M2.3+ capable, 9G pulling heavy internal AAM capability the single engined, limited internal stores sub-mach cruising and limited to M1.6 (they hope) and (for B & C) 7G capable F-35 may look a little pants.

Just this once wrote:-

"If potential adversaries do manage to arm themselves with an LO, supercruising, M2.3+ capable, 9G pulling heavy internal AAM capability"

And just who is going to build this fabulous aeroplane?

the Russians are stuck upgrading 1980's aircraft and have been trying o build a new design for 15 years

the Chinese can't even build a competitor to the A 320

The Brits & Frogs can't afford to fuel the planes they have

Chengdu J-20

Chengdu J-XX [J-20] Stealth Fighter Prototype - A Preliminary Assessment

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...h_1809524c.jpg

What's the yellow disc in what looks like a small air brake on the dorsal spine of the aircraft?

Mr Kopp isn't a single issue bloke then.....

HHarry, i'm as dismissive of all this 'OMG, the Russians are coming' crap as the next man - but F-35 is supposed to be in service for between 30 and 50 years - its not really pushing incredulity to suggest in that time that someone (but certainly not the Israeli's, oh no sirree...) will flog them or the Chinese the LO/Avionics of the F-35 and they'll just build an airframe that doesn't have to do the carrier and STO/VL tasks and therefore will probably be faster and more manouverable than the A/B/C.

Yellow Disk
 

Looking at the picture in the Kopp article with what looks like the drogue chute of the braking chute deployed and the another picture where the yellow disk appears to be off-set from the centre of the airbrake, I'm guessing that the yellow disk houses said chute.
Only guessing mind.

Writing in defense-aerospace.com, Giovanni de Briganti reports that the average price of the 30 F-35s of LRIP 5 (low rate intial production lot 5) has now passed $200million each.

He adds that it isThere were originally 42 aircraft in LRIP 5, but there are now 30:
-- 21 Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) aircraft for the USAF [F-35A];
-- 6 Carrier Variant (CV) aircraft for the USN [F-35C], and
-- 3 Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) aircraft for the US Marine Corps [F-35B]. The cost breaks down like this:He does add that production aircraft are unlikely to cost anywhere near this much, but of course full production is still some years away.

You can see all the gory detail at ANALYSIS: F-35 LRIP 5 Contracts: Unit Cost Tops $200M for First Time

airsound

Edited to add:
I've just checked the maths, and I think he has mixed up the prices of the B and C versions - and the true average (if the individual prices are right) is just less than $200million, rather than just more. I have no means of checking his supporting data.

If the included table (which is also matching the figures given in the written paragraphs at the end) is correct than the original math is OK.

NaB:

"Mr Kopp isn't a single issue bloke then..... "

Indeed not. APA is full of fun facts on radars, SAMs and peculiar EW-type thingies, and is held in some regard by people who count for more than the Australian trolliverse.

Airsound:

Scary, isn't it?

but take those 'fun facts' carefully, it's said as an example is the use of targeting range of US and detection range of Russian radar on the same chart.
Russian r-77 type missiles at 60+k ft and US missiles at ~30k ft, as well as exceeding even the Russian disclosed missile range on a fighter type target by about 2 times the range.
I would look for a second source before I accepted anything on APA at face value.

There is a reason why when you enter carlo Kopp into google, it suggests "carlo Kopp idiot"

The point is about the J-20, not Kopp.

The Chinese have been industriously hacking into systems and have acquired an extensive knowledge of F1-5, F-16, F-22 and F-35 technologies.

They been building and reverse engineering Flanker technology for years and have acquired modern civil technology in the A320programme etc.

They're no mean slooches at electronics, just about every phone or modern bit of telecom equipment is built someone in China.

Underestimating the capability of their engineers and products is akin to the view people had of Japanese cars and technology back in the 1970s with the Nissan Cedric.

And by the 2020-2030s the DOD may end up with the same shock that Detroit did in the motor industry.

It would be nice to think that because the West has been aware of this situation for several years the information that is being stolen might be 'doctored' in a subtle, undetectable manner.

GloJo,

It would be nice to think that. But it's not a question of handing the spy a thumb drive full of doctored information. The Advanced Persistent Threat gets inside your system and extracts the same data that your own people use.

JSFfan.

Three posts and a personal insult already? :mad:

Also didn't Boeing transfer composite and hitech with Dreamliner? I think anyone who dismisses china's future potential does so at their peril

Hi Low Observable,
I totally agree and by the time the breach is discovered the horse has not only bolted, it is stabled in a new country, but it is nice to dream evil thoughts :)

At what stage do the risks, costs and delays of this project pass the point where it is no longer fit for the UK's purpose? As my kids used to ask "Are we nearly there yet?"

Where we are v. where we originally intended to be

£16bn(?) v. £10bn
One carrier v. two
50(?) jets v. 138
Fully operational (12? Jets) 2025(?) v c.2018
Key Performance Parameters: Less than promised.

OK, many of these numbers are hard to pin down as details are still to be finalised (nobody knows). However that doesn’t invalidate my point: we are getting a lot less, less capable, for a lot more money, a lot later than we wanted. No wonder we get so little equipment for the amount of money we spend on defence. I don't know which component of the military/MoD/government/defence companies is/are to blame. I expect each can find convincing reasons why it's someone else, but whoever it is this amounts to monumental incompetence. There is work underway to sharpen up our procurement processes. It is sorely needed. I hope it is effective, as we appear to be doing an excellent job of defeating ourselves long before we come into contact with our enemies.

One could write a thesis on the project, entitled "How not to procure a capability", with a whole host of examples of (in no particular order), wishful thinking, technical ineptitude, wilfull obstructionism, parochialism etc.

The sad thing is this. The ship (in itself) is pretty uncomplicated and low-risk. Until the addition of EMALS/AAG (which I would currently categorise as low-risk, based on the Lakehurst trials), the only really novel thing on the ship was the Highly Mechanised Weapon Handling system, which, having been demonstrated by now is also low-risk. The IPMS will retain some risk until accepted, but is not anything that is not yet at sea (albeit not on a warship).

The aircraft on the other hand, is higher risk, but the option we originally took has no fallback, increasing risk associated with the overall project. The switch to C, while perceived by the PAC as high risk, should actually be less so, but only if the ability to have a fallback is counted as a positive.

The costs for the ship are frankly ridiculous, but we have got here through the perception that the significant increase in size over CVS would make the ships "unaffordable" without much evidence to back that perception up. The delays incurred by this obsession that size is exorbitantly costly, have actually resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

All of which comes back to MoD inability to independently assess cost vs risk to any sort of competence. I include in that the numerous studies by RAND Europe and the chucklesome Hans Pung, which although nominally independent, did not actually question the build cost assumptions, which were generated by BAE (and the ACA) from a bottom-up perspective.

The aircraft story is yet to pan out, but at least there is a fallback to deliver most of the required capability if F35 goes t1ts.

It would be a lengthy thesis, that's for sure.....