The US Air Force has concluded that the short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) Lockheed Martin F-35B- model aircraft cannot generate enough sorties to meet its needs; therefore the service will not consider replacing the Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog close air support jet with that variant.
And by design, no F-35 variant can achieve high-sortie rates. With things like an integrated power pack (IPP) which is having up-time problems, there is no way the F-35 will meet its high mission capability (MC) rates in the plus-90 percent region which are a key performance perimeter (KPP).
But then the leader of the absence of air power knowledge has this to say:
"The F-35B is well-suited to support of the Marine Air Ground Taskforce (MAGTF) in very austere locations," says USAF chief of staff Gen Norton Schwartz, speaking at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "But the reality is, is that scenario is not a high sortie generation scenario."
I'm glad this guy is leaving. He contributes nothing on this topic. The whole idea of USMC STOVL ops is high-sortie rate and being close to the battlefield. On other point, the F-35B is not "well-suited" for this mission because it is unreliable, expensive, faulty, and is yet to prove it can operate in such an environment. Faith-based PowerPoint is not real.
A retired member of the United States Marketing Corps chimes in:
Retired Lt Gen George Trautman, a former US Marine Corps (USMC) deputy commandant for aviation, disputes Schwartz's assertion that the F-35B cannot generate as many sorties as the A or C model aircraft.
"The F35B has highest sortie generation rate among the three JSF [Joint Strike Fighter] variants," Trautman says. "There may be other reasons the air force doesn't want the B, but sortie rate isn't a factor."
No it is not the "highest sortie generation rate among the three JSF variants", (or any variant) because there is no proof to back up the faith.
The key performance parameters (KPP) for the F-35 require higher sortie rates for the B-model at four sorties per day. The A and C models are only required to generate three sorties per day.
Good luck with that. And 7-tons of gas for every sortie out of an "austere" base.
2 comments:
The F-35A or F-35B variants will be a terrible replacement for the A-10 Warthog for CAS (Close Air Support)asset.
The F-35 is totally incapable for that mission which the aircraft has thinned skinned fuselage: Lockheed Martin has done very little with major safety pre-cautions on the aircraft to protect against fire.
If the F-35 ever attempted to discriminate tanks, convoys, surface-to-air missiles and anti aircraft artillery it will be an very easy target to shoot down, because it’s a very delicate aeroplane which means the aircraft has a huge F135-PW-100 turbofan engine surrounded by fuel wrapped around entirely in the fuselage and engine. Very little they can do because the .22 Rifle or any form of gunfire can very easily penetrate the skin on the airframe and causes it to catch on fire like a “blow torch”.
Fire : Significant Threat (as you probably read Aircraft Survivability 2012 PDF profile). As with most aircraft, fire is the primary vulnerability to the F-35.
Fire extinguishing is limited to the IPP (Integrated Power Package) bay.
If the aircraft suffers a electrical fire from one of the wiring systems or engine fire, how can the pilot put out the fires when the aircraft has no fire extinguishing system on board the aircraft?
The F-35 doesn't have an ability to stay and wait over the battlefield until the situation develops when its needed with huge fuel flow very inefficient and no loiter time and also certainly doesn't have a hefty 30mm (1.18 calibre) cannon to do the job.
Plus the F-35 will expose more heat (in full afterburner, like an exploding volcano) this will make the adversaries to detect the F-35 at BVR range, using medium range AA-12 (R-77) Adder and AA-10 (R-27) Alamo heat seeking missiles. Its a very vulnerable aircraft.
Regards Peter
If you watch on YouTube type in 1/5DOCUMENTRY ON F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER - Pierre Sprey, a former founder and designer of the F-16 & A-10 Warthog aircraft, Explains why the lemon F-35 will not cut it on the modern battlefield and Winslow Wheeler also explains the same issue too on 2/5 one.
Regards Peter
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