Platitude 1:
Carvalho went on to say the group's and squadron's pilots and maintainers "would take the F-35's performance to new heights and define the very tactics the F-35 will one day use to defend freedom around the world."
Platitude 2:
Lofgren expects to see the same dramatic new tactics development with the F-35A as was seen with the F-22.
Platitude 3:
"The aircraft has so much more capability than our current aircraft," he said. "It will be exciting to see our experts develop innovative new ways to use the F-35 that have not been thought of yet."
Platitude 4:
The second priority of the warfare center is integrating the capabilities of air, space and cyberspace to achieve greater warfighting effect in the battlespace.
Dangerous assumption:
The second priority of the warfare center is integrating the capabilities of air, space and cyberspace to achieve greater warfighting effect in the battlespace.And:
"Integration of the F-35's incredible sensors, and its ability to operate anywhere in the battlespace, will make the whole of all our forces more survivable and lethal," Lofgren said.
"No amount of fourth-generation capability is going to be able to survive in the environment that will be presented by our adversaries in the next decade without a fifth-generation capability to open up the way, to basically beat down the threat," he said. "Having the F-35s at Nellis brings the test and evaluation of the aircraft closer to operational conditions. I can't think of a better place to take the F-35 through the steps needed to reach initial operating capability for our Air Force."
The problem with these statements are many. It depends on the "fifth-generation fighter" meme. The F-35 is not just a little F-22. Most of our threats will not be anti access. And we cannot afford faulty $35-55k per flight hour jets in a total tac-air force, where the one that works (the F-22) gets "dog year" airframe life credits when used in a dry environment and also has other serious airframe life issues.
It appears that the USAF is quite ignorant about where it wants to go with its' tac-air flight path. I do not mean "ignorant" in the insulting way. The historical evidence gives the word great weight.
2 comments:
So were should the USAF go from here?Buy more F-22s or more 4th gen fighters?
The infamous RAND study stated that only the F-22 and the F-15 E were capable of surviving in a PacRim scenario...
What would you do Eric?
How about the next genaration bomber?Do you think it will fly,or will it be killed by budget cuts?
And why didn't they welcome 4 F-35s to Nellis as Lockheed's internal press release indicated that they did? Oh yeah, because 1 is still stuck in Lubbock in an FBO's hanger. Seems it took a while to fix the errant flight control wiring, & then they had a slight mishap trying to tow it around. Boys around the Lubbock flying patch say its on jacks now doing landing gear transits. Good ole boy Texans can't make up shit like this.
All this BS welcoming party crap sounds awfully similar to the Yuma story and they're only now getting back to flying those jets. The initial unmonitored STOVL flight is being watched with baited breath. That would be the same breath that had them arrive as a non-4 ship as planned, to include a nav system failure that LM is trying to blame on the pilot. And to think that Gen Amos wanted them to hover for McCain.
You can't make this stuff up. And we keep paying for it while sailors go without toilet paper on the USS Reagan and USAF squadrons talk of multi-month stand downs from sequestration. Wake up 'Merica!
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