In it you will find numerous statements to the potential customer that are misleading and over-simplified. Of interest:
Slide-3: Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) batches past 9 are labled TBD.
DT Flight Test over by 2016? Interesting becuase TR-2 hardware jets (starting with LRIP-6) are needed to run Block 3 software. By 2016, if the schedule holds, these aircraft will still be a big question mark in capability before an operational test squadron touches them.
The slide does say "F-35 Master Schedule" at the top so it is worth a comparison down the road.
Slide-4: It says "Mission Effectiveness with an "*" for, "USG & Partner Validated and Verified Results". This is an incredible claim with so many things not proven on the aircraft.
I like the 10-1 thing on the electronic warfare category. For an export-tech-friendly aircraft, it will be interesting to see what capability the F-35 does not have.
Given what S.Korea faces in the coming years, if they think real stealth is important, best to have something with F-22 capability.
Like previous briefs, all through the briefing you will see the F-35 as a "fifth-generation fighter", meme. The aircraft is not a little F-22.
Slide-5: Ponder. And then look back at slide 4. Interesting as the outgoing LM F-35 front-man admitted that weight assumptions in the design were wrong. Not an easy fix.
Slide-6: There; with no substance of what it means.
Slide-7: Not mentioned is the watering down of Block definitions and that anything before a TR-2 hardware jet isn't of much use. That is being generous to the program.
Slide-8 & 9: Two whole slides dedicated to noise issues. This must have been a big issue in the S. Koran press.
Here is something from a few years ago for comparison.
(click image to make larger)
Looks like the same source. Of interest, those chevrons on the back of the F-35 motor may help some.
Slide-10: This is a monument which shows the fact that we are kicking out a lot of mistake jets with little credible knowledge about the F-35's capability.
Slide-11: Using a DOD hack to hell sell aircraft. We are parking ships and aircraft and cutting numerous other operational communities but somehow this is what counts.
Slide-12: This is not unlike Slide-4 in its' message.
The rest of the slides are a nonsense claiming that the F-35 can take on emerging threats. Highly doubtful.
Slide-15: grossly oversimplified. A real shocker. According to the F-35 sales-force (an important distinction vs. credible analysis) our allies need to buy this defective, weak and expensive aircraft to take on the red forces of evil.
I like slide 22. Funny as without Blue-Force-Tracker and ROVER, the United States Marketing Corps hope of a early deployment to Japan could mean that the very incomplete aircraft, would need a external electro-optical pod strapped to the outside to give a better orbiting field of view and proper connectivity for low-intensity close air support missions. Too funny that someone would be dumb enough to use this aircraft (where the U.K. expects that the F-35B is 20 percent more to own and operate than an F-35C) at $30k-$40k (or more) per flight hour.
The F-35 is too weak to take on emerging threats. We have two platforms that may be able to have an effect on some anti-access situations: The F-22 and cruise missiles. For everything else, existing technology does the job better-cheaper.
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-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Aviation Week (ARES blog) F-35 posts (2007 to present)
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
4 comments:
Just some interesting points on noise, the threshold of pain is 120-140dB depending on the frequency. So, whether the F35 is 138dB or143dB, its painful!!!. So the point is really mute, sorry pun not intended.
Wit regard to capability in air to air combat, in the BVR spectrum the kill ratio is based on the missile capability rather aircraft dynamics. And yet 4th Gen aircraft do carry the same missiles as the F35 so how does this ratio become so impressive?
Must be the amazing stealth or that classified feature that only LM and US knows about that no one else can understand nor grasp.
Why all this guesswork? Let an F-15 SK with AESA and IRST fly against a F-35. If the F-15 cannot detect the F-35 before its own detection, then the F-35 may have some rationale. Otherwise it is a waste of time. These data should be out there, but of course would be classified.
Superraptor,
It would probably be a fair guesstimate to make that a sub-sonic cruising F-35 could detect an F-15K first. Especially if the F-15K was not equipped with the upgraded (V)3 radar.
But perhaps a more interesting evaluation to make would be to test an IRST-equipped F-15SA (w/ DEWS and (V)3 radar) against an F-35; and then an F-35 vs another F-35. See which platform could detect the other 'Aggressor' F-35 first. The F-15SA or F-35.
Also, even if F-35 will be detecting the F-15K+ first (I wouldn't doubt it), the question might be if the F-15K+ could at least detect/track the F-35 at a combat significant range, prior to actual engagement?
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