Australia’s First F-35 on the Go

[mik]

Originally Posted by DJR-351

On recommendation I just Googled "f-35 problems", some interesting reading there for sure......

And just to be pedantic, were not getting the STOVL variant in this image, were getting CTOL conventional take off and landing F-35's, journos.....

there was a video on the aircraft some years ago from memory , some fairly cluey people really **** canned the hell out of it for major weaknesses in design, i think the biggest flaws then where it was a bit under powered(should have had 2 engines), and flew like a brick, i think overly complicated might also have got a mention,Edit: i forgot...overly expensive, but other than that it was fine .

[DJR-351]

Originally Posted by mik

.......i think the biggest flaws then where it was a bit under powered(should have had 2 engines)

You can thank the USMC for that, the U.S. Marine Corps wanted a plane that could fly like their venerable Harrier jump jets, they wanted a short-take off/vertical landing ground pounder......

The USMC requirement meant that all three variants of the F-35 would be single-engine. The airframe had to be designed to suit one big-*** boiler, and it's for the convenience of the United States Marine Corps that the rest of America's Aerial Foreign Legion is going to have to bite it and go single-engine with all the problems and risks that entails......

[SantoAU]

The STOVL set-up on these things still gives me nightmares, and I got out 8 years ago

[Perko]

My question is the same one when we bought the F18. "Why are we investing money in this sort of aircraft when we have no aircraft carriers?" Years ago the F16 was a cheaper multi-role fighter or even could have gone the F15. Now we are looking at the Lightning? I know that the Yanks are not selling F22's but surely a close ally like ourselves could have gotten access to something better than this?

[DJR-351]

Originally Posted by Perko

My question is the same one when we bought the F18. "Why are we investing money in this sort of aircraft when we have no aircraft carriers?" Years ago the F16 was a cheaper multi-role fighter or even could have gone the F15. Now we are looking at the Lightning? I know that the Yanks are not selling F22's but surely a close ally like ourselves could have gotten access to something better than this?

The F-35A, the model variant we are getting, is not designed for carriers, it's a COTL (Conventional Take-Off and Landing) designed for the U.S. Air Force and other air forces including ours.....

The F-35B & F-35C are the carrier type variants.....

Edit: The F-35B is designed to be used on U.S. Navy multipurpose amphibious assault ships and the F-35C on traditional full size carriers....

[SantoAU]

F-15 - cost and no ground attack option available at time of order
F-16 - single engine

Would have liked to see us go to the Eurofighter as the Pig replacement, but working on British jets is like working on British cars. ie: nightmare

[wrongwaynorris]

Originally Posted by mik

This very statement worries me, yes it is good to have US as mates and Allies, but there may come a time when they are busy with their own problems and can't bail us out if **** hits the fan.
whether the F35 is good or not, they are so expensive, if we can afford only a small amount them and we where to get invaded by a larger population with shed loads of slightly inferior but still competent military jets, i'm thinking we would be up the creek without a paddle.

We made exactly the same mistake when we originally purchased the F 1-11's , they were way overdue and way over budget . Because of this the Sepos loaned us F 4's . We could have had 75 F4's IMMEDIATELY for what we paid for 24 late F 1-11's .

[wrongwaynorris]

Originally Posted by SantoAU

The STOVL set-up on these things still gives me nightmares, and I got out 8 years ago

It was soundly rejected by Hawker in the early 60's favouring the vastly superior vectored thrust method . These things are as safe as the Yak 38 Forger and Dassault Balzak and Short SC1 which were all a nightmare having separate lift and thrust engines . Trust the inept UK Labour government for scrapping the P 1154 when 70% complete along with the TSR 2 which was decades ahead of anything else in Duncan Sandys white paper stating the days of the manned fighter were numbered .

[2011G6E]

I think the public wonders why...the old F111 was faster, could fly higher, had a higher bomb payload, has terrain following capability, and other goodies that the new F18's just didn't have. It's like selling your old Ferrari for a new Prius...yes it's full of more high tech, but really?

[SantoAU]

Originally Posted by wrongwaynorris

It was soundly rejected by Hawker in the early 60's favouring the vastly superior vectored thrust method . These things are as safe as the Yak 38 Forger and Dassault Balzak and Short SC1 which were all a nightmare having separate lift and thrust engines . Trust the inept UK Labour government for scrapping the P 1154 when 70% complete along with the TSR 2 which was decades ahead of anything else in Duncan Sandys white paper stating the days of the manned fighter were numbered .

It says a lot about how advanced the TSR design was that it was briefly considered for resurrection pre-eurofighter. With the benefit of hindsight everything comes up Millhouse, but there were a lot of strong objections inside the RAAF to the F-35 just prior to and after we stumped up the cash that were on the ball

[tweeked]

Originally Posted by wrongwaynorris

We made exactly the same mistake when we originally purchased the F 1-11's , they were way overdue and way over budget . Because of this the Sepos loaned us F 4's . We could have had 75 F4's IMMEDIATELY for what we paid for 24 late F 1-11's .

Lucky we didnt - those F4's would have been junked 30 years ago

[SantoAU]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

I think the public wonders why...the old F111 was faster, could fly higher, had a higher bomb payload, has terrain following capability, and other goodies that the new F18's just didn't have. It's like selling your old Ferrari for a new Prius...yes it's full of more high tech, but really?

The maintenance hours on the f-111's were the killer in the end, almost spending as much time in the hanger as they did on ops. The yanks can get away with it on their 50+ year old B-52's due to the economies of scale they operate on. We just don't have that kind of flex in our system. Ultimately, the ADF has to play smarter than your average big military player, and we often give others a bloody nose at exercises... I recall a number of stories about our regular ***-whoopings of all and sundry at Red Flag

[Bill M]

Originally Posted by mik

This very statement worries me, yes it is good to have US as mates and Allies, but there may come a time when they are busy with their own problems and can't bail us out if **** hits the fan.
whether the F35 is good or not, they are so expensive, if we can afford only a small amount them and we where to get invaded by a larger population with shed loads of slightly inferior but still competent military jets, i'm thinking we would be up the creek without a paddle.

Exactly, and that is why we need a strong industrial base capable of sustaining ourselves because you cannot rely on other "friends" to bail you out.
While the Japanese were on their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere phase in the 1940's Britain and the US decided on a Germany first policy.
We had to support ourselves and we built up our industrial capacity to world class in a very short time.
We have now lost it but that is another story.
Bill

[Bill M]

Originally Posted by wrongwaynorris

You should be on the stage . They can still be heard 7000 miles away by a deaf woman dipping her hearing horn in the water .

Are you Navy or a newspaper reader?

[Moby Vic]

Originally Posted by Perko

My question is the same one when we bought the F18. "Why are we investing money in this sort of aircraft when we have no aircraft carriers?" Years ago the F16 was a cheaper multi-role fighter or even could have gone the F15. Now we are looking at the Lightning? I know that the Yanks are not selling F22's but surely a close ally like ourselves could have gotten access to something better than this?

Lest you forget, the US is buying F-35s, too.

Don't believe all the criticism you see on the Internet. You see lots of criticism of Falcons and the upcoming Mustang on the Internet, too. Is it all valid?

[mik]

fair comment Moby, it might well turn out a ball tearer,
but on the off chance it is not, i suspect US probably has a hell of a lot more air craft in reserve if the f 35 doesn't pan out,
i might be out of line, but i suspect with our budget if the F35"S end up spending more time in work shop than in the air and a lot more dollars need to keep getting pumped into them ,we won't be buying any more air craft for while, and we might have to pull those wirraways out of the museum .

[BHDOGS]

It wont matter how many aircraft you have with a million Chinese man running at you.

[ford man xf]

Originally Posted by BHDOGS

It wont matter how many aircraft you have with a million Chinese man running at you.

They have to get here first.

[SantoAU]

Again, the Americans can afford to keep throwing money at the F-35 until they get it right. Just like they have with the V-22. But with costs blowing out to $200+ million per unit (which is what many in the industry said would happen BEFORE we signed on the dotted line) we're the ones who will be left scrounging out a few more tonnes of Pilbara dirt to pay for them. And that's before they spool up an engine.

This has already become one of, if not, the most expensive military projects in history, and doesn't look like climbing out of the money pit any time soon. It's had it's capabilities downgraded, it's stealth rating dropped, poor quality control and has a raft of untested systems still yet to make the grade. It's still under risk of being cancelled.

We got suckered in to buying something that looked shiny.

[Moby Vic]

You don't think Australian F-35s will receive the same fixes American F-35s receive for any design flaws?

If not, the ADF did not negotiate its contract very well.

[Dash_XR]

Originally Posted by ford man xf

They have to get here first.

They are already here, go have a look at any Australian University haha.

But seriously how often will these actually be used to defend Australian airspace from invading forces? My guess is never, our current planes are more then capable of sitting in the hanger doing that.

The US war fund is gargantuan compared to ours, they can afford to waste money on flops. Actually "afford" is probably the wrong word, they can print more money to pay for them when they need too.

[dannyxm]

I read somewhere that the US offered us a whole bunch of F1 11s if we didnt want the F 35s.

Would not have been a bad idea, but way before my time, everyone complained about how much the F1 11s costed and ended up being a great plane.

Perhaps i am being a bit romantic about them, but war has shown time and time again that quantity over quality always was the winner. Didnt matter how many Tiger tanks the Germans had, whole bunch of Shermans had my bet.

[Road_Warrior]

Originally Posted by SantoAU

The maintenance hours on the f-111's were the killer in the end, almost spending as much time in the hanger as they did on ops. The yanks can get away with it on their 50+ year old B-52's due to the economies of scale they operate on. We just don't have that kind of flex in our system. Ultimately, the ADF has to play smarter than your average big military player, and we often give others a bloody nose at exercises... I recall a number of stories about our regular ***-whoopings of all and sundry at Red Flag

In addition, the F111's primary defence feature - it's speed - was rendered null and void by a number of nations to our immediate north acquiring Flanker-series fighter aircraft that could run the F111 down and destroy it. At least the F/A-18 can actively defend itself.

[SantoAU]

Originally Posted by Moby Vic

You don't think Australian F-35s will receive the same fixes American F-35s receive for any design flaws?

If not, the ADF did not negotiate its contract very well.

What is this negotiate you speak of in relation to the ADF?

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by SantoAU

Again, the Americans can afford to keep throwing money at the F-35 until they get it right. Just like they have with the V-22. But with costs blowing out to $200+ million per unit (which is what many in the industry said would happen BEFORE we signed on the dotted line) we're the ones who will be left scrounging out a few more tonnes of Pilbara dirt to pay for them. And that's before they spool up an engine.

This has already become one of, if not, the most expensive military projects in history, and doesn't look like climbing out of the money pit any time soon. It's had it's capabilities downgraded, it's stealth rating dropped, poor quality control and has a raft of untested systems still yet to make the grade. It's still under risk of being cancelled.

We got suckered in to buying something that looked shiny.

Suckered in? Wow that sounds like you're pointing the finger and that the US was out to reel in AU into a disaster. If this new shiny toy was such a disaster why'd AU buy into it then?

Words of wisdom: just because it's shiny doesn't mean it's the best.

[SantoAU]

Every development partner for the JSF has been stung to the tune of billions of dollars. As I've said a couple of times so far, concerns were raised over the program BEFORE we signed. I've done my time in the ADF and have worked in the industry. These concerns were obviously dismissed, as happens often in defense procurement. Other examples of where we've gone the flashy toy route include the purchase of the M1 MBT & the SeaSprite, where little to no thought of how to integrate or plan the projects in to current operational procedures was given.

I'm not suggesting the US set out to con other partners. I am suggesting due diligence was not given to the project. Especially as it went against the grain of previous RAAF purchases being single engined. It was the reason we dismissed the F-16 when looking for a replacement for the Mirage.

[ford man xf]

Originally Posted by Dash_XR

But seriously how often will these actually be used to defend Australian airspace from invading forces? My guess is never, our current planes are more then capable of sitting in the hanger doing that.

The US war fund is gargantuan compared to ours, they can afford to waste money on flops. Actually "afford" is probably the wrong word, they can print more money to pay for them when they need too.

Modern day warfare is more about a deterrent rather than actually going to war, making your potential enemies think and even know that going to war with you would be a huge mistake is one of the greatest tactics of the modern era, never in human history until the advent of the atomic bomb has there been a deterrent so massive that even the thought of attacking a nuclear armed state would be insane. If you have a Missile Defense system in place this is an even bigger deterrent, especially if you can prove how accurate it is like the USA has done.

Having the USA as our ally is the biggest deterrent of all, it allows Australia to spend less on our Military, you couldn't even imagine the costs Australia would need to spend on the military if not allied to the USA and this is why it terrifies me that some of the political parties that exist in Australia that want to sever the USA-Australia alliance.

[ford man xf]

Originally Posted by danny351

Perhaps i am being a bit romantic about them, but war has shown time and time again that quantity over quality always was the winner. Didnt matter how many Tiger tanks the Germans had, whole bunch of Shermans had my bet.

The Tiger I & II tanks were formidable, I'd put my money on a Tiger over a Sherman & even a T-34 anyday.

[BHDOGS]

i reckon a t-34 would pip a tiger

[XR Martin]

I remember reading a story about a Tiger II coming over a ridge one time and finding a dozen T34s staring back at it.
After about 10 mins all the T34s were destroyed with the Tiger just needing some paint touched up.

Biggest drawback of the Tiger/II was its reliability and range, otherwise no other tank could come close.