Will Trump continue the F-35 program? Will it ever be close to budget...

Will Trump continue the F-35 program? Will it ever be close to budget? Why are we still focusing on manned fighters anyway?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=1Hstu4mUsPU
youtube.com/watch?v=y44lftPGWvM
youtube.com/watch?v=_xHIpTQx49c
youtube.com/watch?v=_p_90T-aYO0
youtube.com/watch?v=5Pu_PKpEhqU
youtube.com/watch?v=ScM_rN9a-js&ab_channel=Mparovios3000
heritage.org/research/reports/2011/01/how-to-save-money-reform-processes-and-increase-efficiency-in-the-defense-department
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

>Will Trump continue the F-35 program?

Not even God himself could stop the F-35 program.

>Will it ever be close to budget?

It's a small price to pay for air superiority in future conflicts.

>Why are we still focusing on manned fighters anyway?

Because why wouldn't we? Nobody has proven a definitive advantaged for unmanned fighters yet. And if unmanned fighters do become popular? Then all we have to do is convert the aircraft into drones. Simple.

The f35 hate meme needs to stop.

Interesting question OP. I do agree that we should be focused on unmanned fighters and shit. That shit would be cool. Perhaps there is still a reason for manned missions though.

>air superiority in future conflicts
>f35

pick

one

nigga

THE F35 IS BASICALLY A REPLACEMENT FOR THE F117

THERE WILL BE A F15/F22 REPLACEMENT WITHIN 10 YEARS

F15/F22 COMBO RULES THE SKIES FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE

STOP TALKING OUT YOUR ASSES

there's nothing inherently wrong with it

Does Sup Forums even have any experts on military aeroplanes or just article readers that say it's bad?

youtube.com/watch?v=1Hstu4mUsPU

Just look at this. It's so futuristic.

I think it's sexy
However America is getting scammed, it should be built at 75% the cost it is now.
youtube.com/watch?v=y44lftPGWvM

>Does Sup Forums even have any experts on military aeroplanes or just article readers that say it's bad?

It's a blatant scam though, it can barely even fly.

The F22 would be a better way to throw money at MIC

Depends but he will probably say do it for free and cut the red tape bullshit or we drop it and have someone else do it

>air superiority

The F35 is a piece of shit comparable only to the clusterfuck of a development the M2 Bradley was. Dont give me any shit about "The Bradley was responsible for the most vehicular kills in the second Gulf War" - the Iraqi army were basically sitting ducks devoid of any combined arms experience or effort.

My former college roommate is a project manager for LockMart on the F-35 program

He was overjoyed when Trump won. The defense industry is looking forward to the next 4 years.

Damn, triple 3s. Regardless, the F-35 seems sweet and I'm sure there's 9001 derivative products from the R&D, but it seems like a massive money sink.

Kek the f35 is a piece of trash . F22 is superior .

>Not spending half of your GDP on building one of these

Come one burgers step your game up

Nobody wants your Gripens. Get back in the shed

The sheer size of the program (thousands of jets, decades of active service) make it more cost-effective than any 4.5 or 5th Gen fighter program to date

I doubt he will personally cancel the program but say something like "don't get the F35 done by X and with Y budget or the next contracts go to Z"

No. What will might happen is that there will be another contract for a cheaper plane and buy less of the F-35.

>F-35 has a program flyaway cost of 85 Million per plane

user...

>F22 is superior

Kek. No other country even has the F-22. Besides, the F-35 still has lots of cool thermal scanners that the F-22 doesn't have. The plane's helmet even lets you see through the floor!

my hypothesis is that the F35 platform is a proof of concept for different systems.

New gun? Try it out on the F35!
New nav-system? Test it out!

Not sure if it's supposed to be complete but be a way to test out prototypes.

>What will might happen is that there will be another contract for a cheaper plane and buy less of the F-35.

There is no cheaper plane that can do what the F-35 can do. You get what you pay for. No, the F-35 isn't cheap, but that's just the price of freedom. One F-35 is as effective in combat as 4 other models of jet. So unless you have quadruple as many airplanes, you can't win. Game over dude. Game over.

>Perhaps there is still a reason for manned missions though.

In a word? Jamming. While we could probably build a UCAV that could fight just fine under remote control (from in-theater; any range that requires satellites is right out) we're a long way from being able to build a truly autonomous combat drone, and even further from such a thing being politically acceptable.

The problem then becomes the possibility of control being disrupted. Electromagnetic waves (radio, microwave, light, etc) all lose strength with the square of the distance from the source. This is why sunlight on Mars is less than half as intense as sunlight on Earth, despite Mars only orbiting about 50% further from the sun (~1.5 AU).

This also means that if your drone control signal is just strong enough to burn through some jamming while it and the jammier are the same distance from a drone, it needs to be four times stronger to burn through the same jamming at twice the distance to the drone, and 100 times stronger at ten times the distance to the drone.

There are some tricks to make it work out a bit better, but the fundamental problem remains. That's the big issue with an all-drone air force. Do UCAVs have a major role in a future air war? Absolutely. But almost certainly not the only role, at least for now.

The f35s magic comes from it's skin.
It's made with something that cuts through the air from any angle.

Pretty sure it's also like graphene aerogel & is seven times lighter than air itself.

Not to mention stealth & anti radiation protection

The F-35 could be cheaper if we didn't give a handful of companies a virtual monopoly on its production.

Ehh you're kinda on the mark. The jet is designed to be "scalable" so that it can integrate with future technologies more easily.than fighters do today. That's why almost every new weapons technology developed since the Gulf War has to be strapped to the plane on a pylon rather than built into the body. Re configuring a plane to carry something it wasn't designed around in the first place tends to make them not fly so good.

>Dont give me any shit about "The Bradley was responsible for the most vehicular kills in the second Gulf War"

>Why are we still focusing on manned fighters anyway?
Yeah, let's build a bunch of killer robots.

What could possible go wrong?

Lockmart fag ask me anything

>inb4 jews
>inb4 super secret club

I used to be conflicted about the F-35 because I was worried about what Clinton would do with it. Now that we know Donald J. Trump will be President, we have an obligation to support the F-35 100%.

What state?

There is. Basically, if they'd made the F-35A and the F-35C it probably would have gone fine; taking off from a carrier is basically the same as taking off from an airfield, except harder.

However, trying to force the F-35B was a mistake, and doing so requires anally raping the entire program. VTOL is nothing like carrier flight or normal operation, and has its own suite of design demands. This forces the other two models to eat the trade-offs that have to be made for the VTOL model to work, and then find some way to push them back up to full capability.

Thank you for your service.

Are bees really not supposed to be able to fly due to their small wing area?

I hope not. What a fucking dog and waste of money. Terrible performance and cost overruns. Just finish off the bare minimum of the overseas contractual requirements and bow the fuck out. Throw the rest of the money that earmarked for that shit towards drone tech, and then do the right thing and pivot towards funding NASA instead of bullshit Jew wars to run interference and a private security firm for fuggin Israel. I'm reeeeal tired of that shit, I tell you. Make NASA Great Again (MNGA).

Texas

Could you really re-start F-22 production? I've heard it would be easier that, say, making more Saturn Vs.

DFW? Know a guy with initials WO?

>Because why wouldn't we?
We could build 20 auto locking drones for the cost of one f35.

All the weapons are computer guided anyway

you're a fucking moron

the 22 has a radar signature an order of magnitude smaller

>Could you really re-start F-22 production?
I used to work for the final line in Marietta before they shut it down in 2011

No it wont happen. Coatings and I/R will happen

F22 is a super expensive f35

>We could build this made up bullshit for the price of 1 real plane!

No I work at body mate in the plant.

The F-35 and F-22 have completely different missions. F-22 is air superiority, F-35 is multi-role. The F-35 has more weapon configurations than the F-22, and can carry larger bombs than the F-22 can.

COmparing the F-35 to the F-22 is like comparing an A-10 to a F-15.

I seriously doubt it. I work in Aerospace at a defense contractor and dealing with suppliers is like herding cats. The tooling changes to start producing F22 parts again would probably make it prohibitively expensive.

F-22 is superior in air to air. Everything else, F-35 is better. It is a "strike" fighter. Meant for deep interdiction strikes to take out enemy C2 networks, radars, bridges, tank columns on their way to the front lines, etc, while also given an air to air capability second only to the F-22. That's why the internal fuel only combat radius is huge and why it has stealth to sneak in between radars. Yes, radars can detect it, but when they can only see it at ~5 miles as opposed to a strike eagle being seen at 150 miles, you can sneak in between the the radar "blind spots" if you will.

Other than it makes the thing twice as hard to engineer

> air superiority fighters are the same as multi role platforms, just a price difference

F35 is not an interdictor like f22 its a manned drone on steroids

lol, you unironically think that the entirety of F-35 budget went to making that jet?

The F-35 is just a cover for funneling huge amounts of development funds into projects that are more secret than the "supposed" shit at area 51.

Why the fuck does the F35 look so goddamn ugly? The F22 and PAK FA look beautiful

I do think that in a perfect world....we'd have ~400 F-22's working alongside ~800 F-35's, plus ~200 stealth bombers.

youtube.com/watch?v=_xHIpTQx49c

I hope we don't buy anymore of that crap and invest in taranis drones/carriers

How dare you compare the F-35 to the A-10? Goddamn.

one of the distinct advantages of the F35 is that it can teleport behind the enemy before it draws it's katana.

Better looking than it's alternative

I never said the f22 wasn't better
But the f35 is a brilliant machine that uses modern technology & engineering to offset it's problems.

>Why are we still focusing on manned fighters anyway?

Because it's harder to hack a pilot, than it is to hack a computer.

We have no obligation to keep handing the same (((defense contractors))) obscenely large amounts of money every year for inferior products that sometimes the Pentagon doesn't even want or need.

Thanks for Correcting The Record.

In a perfect world, we'd have giant fucking lazers that could target and kill a single pigeon in Times Square with zero collaterals from orbit.

And railguns. Daddy needs a railgun.

Well now we have 200 F-22s and 2400 f-35, with 18 bombers.

Russia has taken note of these programs since the 80's.

Meet the S-500-X missile system that's about to replace the S-400. One missile costs less than 1.2 million while an F-35 costs around 98M without the engine.

One launch system can cover half of a country like Syria, and it can detect sure enough detect an F-35 signature.

There goes America's air superiority against any nation who deploys such a system.

I think the money would be better spent building space jets that can fly into orbit around earth & come back.

>Lasers
>Railguns

Time for bed, kiddo.

>Nobody has proven a definitive advantaged for unmanned fighters yet.
Not having to worry about exhaustion from G-forces is yuuuge. You can also cut out a lot of weight by doing away with the cockpit/climate control/ejection system/etc.

We probably have the technology, but the no space weapons treaty prevents it.

youtube.com/watch?v=_p_90T-aYO0

It's been done better before.

I hope not.That thing is a boondoggle of the worst kind. The fuckers should be sued

UNDER BUDGET AHEAD OF TIME
U
N
D
E
R

B
U
D
G
E
T

A
H
E
A
D

O
F

T
I
M
E

The thing is, the first automated fighter will beat any man operated one when it can pull 20g's without having to worry about a meatbag inside.

It makes more sense when you realize that our Defense budget is basically a corporate welfare scheme. Back at the height of the Iraq war we struggled to get our infantry the appropriate armor for their vehicles while shit programs like the F-22 were getting billions.

In actual combat situation Russian radar systems would be useless.
MALDs would be popping out of destroyers & being launched from bombers all day.

That's how these f35's obtain tactical advantages.

They don't just go out without any support and level entire countries.

youtube.com/watch?v=5Pu_PKpEhqU

Actually, I think that treaty only covers NUCLEAR weapons in orbit. It's still totally legal to drop huge steel beams from orbit. Which would cause immense destruction

Will only happen if you start threatening to hand the contracts over to other companies (which they never do.)

I interviewed with LM last week. They flew me out and everything. When the fuck are they going to get back with me

Cutting the F-22 numbers short has really crippled us. In a time where we thought China and Russia were not a threat. Now both are in early development stages of fighters which might be formidable against the raptor, definitely formidable against all our 4th gen fighters (J-20 and PAKFA.) Hell, the Su-35 is better than any 4th gen fighter we employ.

But we still should have the mass spamming of some 4th gen fighters. Mainly F-16s and F-15Es. F-15E is probably the most capable jet against ISIS right now because of the enormous payload and having a WSO in the backseat of each jet controlling all the air to ground sensors.
It won't detect an F-35 at it's max engagement range. That type of system is really meant for large aircraft. The missiles themselves lack the kinematics to hit a fighter type aircraft at long range.

Wasn't the f22 suppose to replace the f15c/d fleet with the E models staying until their end of life and the f35 replacing the f16 as the smaller swarm fighter?

>not realizing that the design would let hot exhaust into the intake when vertically landing

>Both real things the Navy is trying to utilize for anti-surface/air combat.

>no stealth
>hovering requires intense concentration from the pilot
>exhaust literally melting the deck

Yea, much better.

What the fuck do you think guided missiles are you fucking nigger? "fighter" planes in the 21st century are basically just fast gunships that shit out missiles and fuck off. Might as well cut out the middle man and have the entire thinking be auto-locking.

Ya but hes right tho. Working for Lockmart for the past 16 years has made me realize what a shit show defense contract awards are. The reason why Lockheed has the F35 is by design. Boeing has been etched out because they have a healthy commercial business. When it comes down to it, USA is no different than countries like Russia when it comes to DoD contracts. These are big, new, challenging projects in an industry that is slowly dying due to the lack of qualified people and incentives to create new talent. DoD contracts desperately need an overhaul.

youtube.com/watch?v=ScM_rN9a-js&ab_channel=Mparovios3000

heritage.org/research/reports/2011/01/how-to-save-money-reform-processes-and-increase-efficiency-in-the-defense-department

>Not having to worry about exhaustion from G-forces is yuuuge.

It's really not. The limiting factor for most planes in terms of G's comes from the durability of the airframe rather than the pilot. It's hard to make a plane durable enough to withstand super-high G's without using heavy materials that would be unsuitable for a high-performance fighter jet. Sorry, kiddos, manned fighter jets with human pilots will continue to be the norm for some time now.

It's 2016 dude we laz0rs now

>muh stealth

>hovering requires intense concentration from the pilot
Get better pilots

>exhaust literally melting the deck
Get better decks.

if you're not ready to jump when they tell you they won't call back for 6 months. Sometimes longer. Just get a shit job and wait it out

>Let's make a plane that automatically shoots down other aircraft with no human input!

>What could possibly go wrong!

I'm not talking about 20 g meme turns, that guy's an ape. I'm taking about the wear of multiple 4-5 g turns

t. easily spooked faggot who saw terminator once and didn't realize the humans were the bad guys

This is what I've been saying. Swarms of F-35's led by F-22's. They knew exactly what they were doing with the F-35. It was a quantity first design meant to deliver 85% percent performance of the best fighters in the world in a more versatile and abundant platform.

Wow, it's like you can't even make a system that determines non-enemy from enemy! It's not like that exists!

This is true. Humans have been in the centrifuge at 12Gs and stayed awake with the proper straining. THe limit of most fighters is 9Gs and if it goes over it is an immediate "knock it off" in training and the jet has to be fully looked over by experienced maintenance personal before it is deemed flyable again. To make an aircraft 12G capable would require a lot more weight, which means the turn rate of the fighter would suffer really badly.
5Gs is fucking nothing. I spent 7.5Gs sustained in the centrifuge with zero light loss. Yes, it hurts like hell, but a human can take that for awhile with the will to kill the other mother fucker in a flanker.

>Will Trump continue the F-35 program?
It's largely Congress' call. So yes.
>Will it ever be close to budget?
Yes. The whole R&D phase, EMD and LRIP have been very painful and over-budget, but here at the end of LRIP/start of FRP it's pretty much back on target already. It costs less to buy a new F-35A than a Eurofighter or Rafale now.
>Why are we still focusing on manned fighters anyway?
Electronic warfare is a thing. Meatbags are still a necessity, and frankly not that much of a hindrance.

>Yes, it hurts like hell
Okay, now do it ten more times over 30 minutes and tell me you're not ready to sit down