Reading between the lines

Take a look at this video that has a panel of F-35 program test pilots. It is almost an hour long and all of it is must see in order for you to comment on it.

Its goal is to get to the truth about F-35 testing for a gullible audience. It is full of hope and you are observing the guys give you what is allegedly a good snapshot of program status. It is full of hope and if one hasn't observed the program for years, and/or has little knowledge of the systems and things like the state of air power as it is today and into the future, they will get comfort from it.

And listen close, some are trying to tell us some between the lines..."goes without saying"... communication.

It starts off with discussing what the USMC will get when they declare initial operating capability. Not mentioned is that the F-35B will not be able to strafe (no gun); close air support capability will be non-existant; if anything, will be nothing more than a gimmick.

There is the discussion of giving the fleet (re: F-35C) “capability air wings haven't seen before”. I am not so sure about capability. One guy says that F-35 maintenance aboard ship will be addressed by bringing maintenance personnel into the 21st century. Interesting as with so many aircraft problems and their admission of more work involved (stealth cure times) and so on, it is unlikely the aircraft will be competitive with Super Hornet maintenance. This would be a reverse direction.

The team claim that the aircraft is “5th generation” and thus “4th gen” aircraft will not be able to do things it will do. Perspective I suppose. 4-gens cost lest to operate and in the case of the Super Hornet,  will do many more tasks than an F-35C. Buddy-tanking, straffing (always leaves the deck with a gun), Recon pod (SHARP) and a lot more.

They push the F-35 as being able to “go-it-alone” and so on, but given real world (not fantasy) ops, that just is not so. For example, neither the F-35 nor Super Hornet will be good enough to take on emerging threats.

The F-35 is not “steps ahead” of 4-gen aircraft as claimed in the video. It is not meeting ORD requirements (also claimed by the LM guy). How it is steps ahead when it will require more maintenance; more sound production for ship's crews, is less capable than that which it replaces and flying with (what is admitted in the video) the “achilles heel” of US Air-to-air weapons: the AIM-120 AMRAAM?

There will be a paradigm shift in US naval aviation. And it won't be good.

They talk about trapping aboard ship. Much is played of the auto-landing system. Great. Will it be allowed in EMCON? That is, in a war environment where the task group is not emitting, will that landing system be allowed to work.

The NAVAIR guy talks about 6 successful arrestments: “behaving as engineers predicted”.

But doesn't say what engineers predicted. 6 land traps of how many tries in what conditions?

The one guys says that landing aboard ship is no longer going to be the most challenging task a naval aviator has to concentrate on.

Really?

Again, all this is going on to 13 years after LM won the JSF contract. If software is “half-way” through development, should we expect the unexpected? That is that the history of busted schedules due to incompetent program management is a thing of the past?

Trust us but its classified?

Their helmet concerns are standard response. So with that, enjoy the video. And, if things are going as they claim with such confidence, America (like today) doesn't need to field more than one type of tac-air aircraft aboard a carrier.

We can't afford it. We can't afford a lesser capability than what we have either.