History will show just how clueless you are. I won't bother to post statements about how the f-35 will be the cornerstone. You also left Australia out of the list. We too are looking at getting 6th gen. Also you forgot France, spain and Germany developing their own. If you think the F-35 is dear, wait till you see the price tag on a 6th gen.

Mr Smith is undoubtedly in a good position to know, but I dare say his public pronouncements maybe heavily influenced by the commercial interests of his current employer Leonardo, who have a vested interest in suggesting the GCAP aircraft program and purchase is vital as F-35 is yesterdays aircraft.
Perhaps I am too cynical.

And every military aircraft ever built is heading toward being obsolete as soon as the design is finalised.
Even if the F-35 was the greatest aircraft ever it would still be heading to obsolescence.
What lessons learned from the F-35? Dont make 3 versions? Or faff with VSTOL .

Not cynical enough.:)

Smith can say what he likes. It was Jackonicko who did the hit piece. The truth is that if the euro 6th gen (I still haven't seen the tech that would qualify it as 6th gen yet) is as good as the F-35, compared in the same year. They would have achieved something, I though they would struggle with. As to it being as good as the USAF 6th gen, they would be dreaming.

Anglo-Japanese, the European 6th Gen is FCAS…..

Well one lesson is to design for rapid upgradeability from the start, as Saab have done with Gripen E, for example. Segregating flight control and mission software. Making provision for adding apertures and antennas.

Anglo-Japanese-Italian and flowing from the Anglo-Italian-Swedish work on Tempest/FCAS, so it's understandable that someone should think of it as being European?

The Franco-German-Spanish programme is perhaps best referred to as SCAF to avoid confusion?

I would hope that it isn’t a ‘hit piece’. Smith has an interesting perspective, and his background lends his views a certain weight and credibility. What he had to say challenged my preconceptions, and was, I thought, very compelling.


Smith justifies his claims in the piece and he really should know, as a former F-22 and F-35 pilot, ex-CO of the TES, former F-35 Requirements Manager and F-35 tactics honcho with the AWC. If he says that the F-35 will not be sufficient by the mid-2030s, I’d be inclined to at least consider his point and not reject it out of hand.


Nor was it an exercise in 'knocking' the F-35. Smith himself says that the F-35 is the best fighter out there as of right now (and will remain so for some years), but says that it's not going to remain well suited to the emerging and evolving A2/AD threat, and that its upgradeability is limited (look at the problems with integrating TR3/Block 4), not least by the avionics architecture, vendor lock, and its LO airframe. You can't even iterate new mission data with anything approaching agility.

Were the F-35 likely to be adequate in the mid-2030s and beyond, no-one would be spending money developing new sixth gen platforms and systems of systems. The USAF clearly doesn't think the F-35 will be the 'cornerstone' in the future – if it did it would not be developing NGAD and CCAs (and B-21) at huge cost.


I’d also very respectfully suggest that it would be a mistake to assume that the UK, Italy and Japan will ‘struggle’ to do better than the F-35 by 2035, or that Euro industry can’t come up with a step change in technology – that’s exactly what JAGUAR and ISANKE promise. Bear in mind that the ISANKE system will include a radar from the same people responsible for ECRS2 – a bleeding edge AESA with a repositioner and formidable EA capabilities – a radar that is in some respects better than APG-81, and part of a programme (with ECRS Mk 0) that suggests that it would be a mistake to under-estimate Europe. Just occasionally, Europe can and does come up with the goods - Meteor, Brimstone, Storm Shadow, the A330 MRTT all spring to mind as perhaps being unequalled by any US product? Nor should one write off the Japanese, remember that their F-2 was probably the first operational fighter with a purpose-designed AESA, and they have produced some interesting missiles, too!

"Were the F-35 likely to be adequate in the mid-2030s and beyond, no-one would be spending money developing new sixth gen platforms and systems of systems. "

Not so - even LM would be spending cash (preferably taxpayers) to keep their design and development teams busy

And there are always armed forces who will specify a new threat that requires new and better and more expensive kit - if only to create jobs in planning. mission offices and contractor liaison. The whole system is set up to keep the production of new stuff running. It wasn't called the Military-Industrial Complex by Eisenhower for no reason

Look at the cash being expended on the Tempest - when the RAF can't even afford to buy the F-35 in penny packets

‘True sense of fear’: US military expands pilot training at virtual test range created for F-35 By Jan Tegler 13 April 2024
https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-w...157737.article
"US Navy (USN) officials revealed this week that a virtual test range originally created to assess the mission effectiveness of Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters has also quietly been in use since 2022 to provide American and international fighter pilots with advanced training that cannot be replicated in the real world....

...The unique, realistic training provided by the JSE already led the US military to add F-22 cockpit simulators to the system. Officials are also working to bring Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler and Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye simulators online.

“Just two weeks ago, we went over 1,000 F-35 pilots trained in this environment,” Summers says....

...Pilots who train at the JSE come away understanding its value as the only training environment “short of war” that realistically simulates how they would fight peer adversaries in actual air combat, Summers says.

“Often, the operators say this is the first time sitting in a cockpit [that] they have had a true sense of fear,” he adds. “That’s because the threat representation is high quality. That F-35 operator is getting visible and audible warnings. They’re getting engaged with weapons. They’re getting punished if they make mistakes tactically.”"

JPG: https://d3lcr32v2pp4l1.cloudfront.ne...773_789137.jpg “The USN’s JSE provides a “hyper-realistic digital range” and includes actual fighter-jet cockpits (an F-35), allowing pilots to experience a “near-exact virtual environment”, the USN says” Source: US Navy/Terri Thomas

This USN-released video says the Joint Simulation Environment "can create endlessly complex, dense and specific scenarios through a high-speed, adaptive, physics-based environment". Source: Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division

F-35 Joint Simulation Environment - One Night
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....013649682a.jpg

UK contingent at the Australia, Canada, UK Reprogramming Laboratory (ACURL) which prepares the mission data packs for the F-35 is now collectively known as 80 Sqn RAF. Australia's RAAF contingent symbolically also picked their own 80 Sqn as their identity.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles...ian-air-force/

Accepting the B-52 is expected to reach 100 as a high level stand-off bomb truck…. The F-35 first flew in 2006, that means 62 years until retirement.

Thats as if the Soowith Camel flew in front line service until 1979, the Spitfire until 1998 or the EE Lighting till 2016…

I presume the lower annual costs will be achieved by increased simulator use until pilots only fly a monthly check flight….

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024...says-watchdog/

F-35s to cost $2 trillion as Pentagon plans longer use, says watchdog

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s total cost is expected to top $2 trillion over its entire life span given the U.S. military plans to fly it longer, inflation is rising, and the Pentagon’s efforts to rein in expenses are largely falling short, a government watchdog said Monday.….

In the new report to lawmakers, GAO said the Defense Department now plans to fly the F-35 through 2088, 11 years longer than services most recently anticipated…..

The reason services are making progress toward meeting their affordability targets is partly because projected flying hours have been reduced, GAO said.

In 2020, the JPO expected the F-35 fleet would fly more than 382,000 hours per year by the mid-2030s. But that estimate has now dropped to a little more than 300,000 hours per year, GAO said, due to lower-than-expected use of the F-35 so far and revised estimates about how much it will be flown in the future.….

ORAC, I don't really disagree with anything in your post, but as a point of comparison, the F-15 first flew in the early 1970s, and more than 50 years later the USAF is still buying some (granted, considerably changed/improved from the original).

Latest is here:
'
https://armedservices.house.gov/hear...g-tactical-and

The meat is in LTG Michael Schmidt's written statement, but there's more in the video, particularly after 2:11.10.

The tl;dr as the kiddies say is that part of initial Block 4 is now expected in Aug/Sept, almost a year after the Jan 2023 schedule for the complete initial Block 4. And it won't be combat-ready for another 12-16 months after that.

The whole multi-year Block 4 plan has been deemed unattainable and is being "reimagined" (their very word) to be slower and include fewer capabilities.

And don't talk about the corrosion issues. Or the fact that MC rates have been declining since 2020.

Business as usual for the F-35 program: late.

This feat it shares with all bleeding edge projects. If it's not late you can assume you buy old tech.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024...til-next-year/

First upgraded F-35s won’t be ready for combat until next year

The first F-35s to be delivered with a set of upgrades known as Technology Refresh 3 will initially be used for training flights, but will not be ready for combat until 2025, Lockheed Martin said in an earnings call Tuesday.

Lockheed chief executive Jim Taiclet told investors the company is focused on fully implementing TR-3 — a set of upgrades to the F-35′s software and hardware, including better displays, computer memory and contracting power — and has made progress in recent months.

But TR-3 is already a year overdue, and is not likely to be ready until at least the third quarter of 2024. Lockheed Martin is still building F-35s intended to have TR-3, but since last summer the government has refused to accept delivery of those jets without the upgrades.….

The F-35 Joint Program Office confirmed to Defense News in November it was considering a strategy of loading interim versions of the TR-3 software into the jet as a way to speed delivery before the upgrades are completely done.

Schmidt told lawmakers the “truncated” software would lack some combat capabilities at first. The “first realistic chance” at getting an F-35 delivered with a partial version of TR-3 will be this July, he said, though some experts think August or September may be more realistic….

And the significant advancements in the F-35′s capabilities — the jet is intended to receive a subsequent upgrade called Block 4 that will add even more abilities — have proved to be challenging, Taiclet said.

“What we’ve run into on TR-3 is, the level of complexity and executing a [capability] increase that’s pretty dramatic,” Taiclet said. “We are wringing out all of the software through all of the new hardware, and integrating into all of the aircraft’s other systems, and that’s taken longer than our team predicted.”….

LockMart confirming what was covered in Congress a week ago (at which hearing HASC chair Rob Wittman expressed frustration about having heard about the last delivery delay on an LM earnings call).

One major reason that non-combat-capable F-35s are to be accepted is that LM needs the money and the customers don't have a choice.

LM must be running out of space to park undelivered, non-accepted F-35s...

It would be quite a sight somewhere, which no doubt is why they are not saying where they are. And wherever it is, has to be secured.

80 Sqn stands up
 

80 squadron has stood up at Eglin along with 80 Sqn RAAF albeit it appears to be Australia, Canada and United Kingdom Reprogramming Laboratory.

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-an...32hEt_Qb9wTaYr


https://scontent-man2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...nw&oe=66308102

cheers

Oregon Air National Guard Kingsley Field
 

Please forgive me if this been mentioned on here but I thought it was odd that last year's CAF decision to change 173rd Fighter Wing from intended Boeing F-15EX FTU to being Lockheed Martin F-35A FTU. Well one squadron will be the actual FTU within the wing the squadron was F-15C/D FTU...

https://www.173fw.ang.af.mil/News/Ar...ning-squadron/

AFAIK Eglin, Luke and Hill in effect have F-35A FTUs?

cheers

LM solve problem of how to fly F-35 TR-3 trials……

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fdbebd05e7.png

Today, America prizes air superiority in its approach to warfare, but there's a growing sentiment among many within the defense apparatus that dogfights, or close-quarters air-air combat are things of the past

Given that dogfights are increasingly unlikely I find it difficult to be persuaded that small expensive agile fighters - F35 - are needed.

Surely larger less agile ( cheaper ) still stealthy aircraft carrying more weapons and sensors -and able to stay on task for much longer - could win the over the horizon air battle and thus achieve air superiority ?

They could also keep further away from the ever more sophisticated ground to air defences?

Hopefully great minds are worrying about this ( and the Question of whether drones can replace manned aircraft ) but with money short and an increase in defence spending looming the more discussion on defence expenditure the better.

I fear that inter service rivalry ( Navy Carriers for instance ) and selfish interests still influence important and costly decisions.

:} STOP ME if'n I'm droning: RAF stealth fighter jet's 290mph near miss with drone at 14,500ft 28 Apr 2024
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/austr...ft/ar-AA1nMOb3
"Drone was being flown at more than 36 times the legal height for the devices - An RAF stealth fighter came within just 300ft of smashing into a drone being flown illegally over Norfolk, an official report has revealed. The incident, which occurred at 14,460ft, is believed to have been at the highest altitude ever recorded for a near miss between an RAF aircraft and a drone...."

USAF preparing its F-35 pilots to carry out basic maintenance and refueling chores
Posted on April 27, 2024 by alert5
https://alert5.com/2024/04/27/usaf-p...es/#more-99323
"The US Air Force recently conducted a training exercise focused on Independent Pilot Off-Station Procedures (IPOP) for the F-35 Lightning II aircraft. Held at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, on Apr. 1st, the exercise aimed to equip F-35 pilots with the skills necessary to operate in austere environments with limited support personnel.

Pilots from the 422nd and 59th Test and Evaluation Squadrons (TES) participated in the IPOP training. The exercise curriculum included practicing basic maintenance procedures, such as post-flight inspections, and refueling techniques. By mastering these skills, F-35 pilots can potentially extend the operational range of their aircraft and improve mission flexibility, particularly when deployed to locations with limited ground crew support...."

LOTS of JPGs with captions here: https://www.nellis.af.mil/News/Artic...at-nellis-afb/

Well as George Carlin used to say a ‘near miss’ is a hit

Not sure why Nellis thought this was news, as far back as the 70s (maybe before that) it was a basic requirement for all NATO crews that you had to be signed off for turning your own aircraft.

I remember doing the annual servicing certificate on the F4, always a pain, but I used to insist the nav emptied the toilet.

"the exercise aimed to equip F-35 pilots with the skills necessary to operate in austere environments with limited support personnel."

Self-preservation.

Polish F-35A low viz roundel
 

https://theaviationist.com/2024/04/2..._RfE6sKPUjN-Ay

cheers

Is it a roundel if it's not round?

Dave
Well, the article does actually say 'The traditional Polish Air Force’s equivalent of a “roundel”, will be replaced by a low-visibility counterpart' and 'The low-visibility checkerboard (the Polish equivalent of a roundel)......'

regards
Batco

Looks like LM quality control is going the way of Boeing….

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024...-tool-in-wing/

Marine unit found metal shavings in F-35 fuel, plastic tool in wing

Metal shavings in contaminated fuel, incorrectly assembled parts, and a plastic scraper protruding from a wing fold were among the faults discovered in five new F-35C Joint Strike Fighters delivered to a U.S. Marine Corps fighter squadron in California in 2023, according to a memo obtained by Defense News.

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 311, or VMFA-311, at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego discovered an array of problems with its Lockheed Martin-made F-35s that ultimately required more than 700 hours of work to fix and wasted more than 169,000 pounds of fuel, the Jan. 7 memo said.

On Dec. 7, for instance, a plastic scraper was discovered protruding from the wing fold of one of the squadron’s jets, after the jet had flown, the memo noted. The 5.5-inch scraper was discovered during a post-flight inspection on the jet and fell to the ground…..

The memo was written by VMFA-311 commander Lt. Col. Michael Fisher, who described a pattern of “persistent aircraft delivery discrepancies and premature component failures occurring at Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 311.” Fisher’s memo was approved by Col. William Mitchell, commander of Marine Aircraft Group 11.

“F-35 readiness continues to plague the Marine Corps and degrade our ability to be the nation’s stand-in force,” Fisher wrote. “The number of failed components, expended man-hours and lost sorties is unacceptable to maintain a baseline level of proficiency and consistency at the operational level. An F-35 ready room and maintenance department needs to believe in the quality and production of each F-35 aircraft.”…..

The quality problems and foreign object debris discovered in these five F-35s snarled the Marine Corps’ effort to stand up VMFA-311, nicknamed the Tomcats, as its second F-35C squadron. The jets had total flight hours ranging between 14 and 157, according to the memo, which was sent to the commanding general of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Maj. Gen. Michael Borgschulte……

Marine Aircraft Group 11 received the F-35s directly from Lockheed Martin’s factory, and VMFA-311 then conducted acceptance inspections.

All five jets had fuel contaminated with Krytox, a high-temperature lubricating grease, the memo said, and three jets also had metal shavings in their fuel. The jets had to be defueled and refueled two or three times to get the fuel quality up to an acceptable level, with the jets that had metal shavings requiring an extra defueling cycle, the memo added.

Fisher, the VMFA-311 commander, wrote that this meant the squadron had to dispose of more than 169,000 pounds of contaminated fuel.

The seals and segments on multiple jets were not installed correctly, the memo said, and needed to be removed and reorganized.

And multiple parts in the jets — including power and thermal management system controllers, electronic units, and an electric-hydrostatic actuator on a jet’s trailing edge flap — failed, forcing the squadron to remove and replace them, the memo added.

One jet’s left main gear brake assembly also failed, another fighter’s panoramic cockpit display failed and yet another jet’s backup oxygen system bottle was leaking, the memo stated. All components also needed to be removed and replaced.

“This is not an all-inclusive list and other component failures have occurred since this report,” Fisher wrote…….

I think that the term "quality escape" will be used in the memo to LM.

Marine unit found metal shavings in F-35 fuel, plastic tool in wing

IIRC didn't the RAF once find a set of stepladders in a V - Bomber fuel tank?

Yeah, but that was for the austere airstrip maintenance.

A Sea Vixen once had a series of unexplained fuel transfer problems. When all else had failed to trace the snag, they (allegedly!) opened up the tank and found a cut-off Pusser’s chair.

Mog