Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "" video.

The F-35 was never a F-22 replacement. Without the CALF program developing into the JSF, the F-22 program would have still been axed due to the GWOT.
15
@TheBelrick Nope. The Legacy Hornet will be replaced by the F-35C while the Super Hornet will be replaced later. The F-16 will eventually be replaced leaving the F-35A. The A-10 is getting more airframes approved for retirement. The F-15 was never to be replaced by the F-35. The F-15 is a twin engine air superiority fighter. It was meant to be replaced by the F-22.
8
How are they going to fly it off a short deck/helicopter carrier? The F-35B can replace Harriers. The Saab Gripen can't.
1
The F-22 is an Air Force aircraft and they needed the Navy to do it. You can't always have a ground base within range if the target, requiring carrier aircraft to do it.
1
For what? To get pointlessly close to the enemy? Marines on the ground need to to haul back and load more JDAMs, they don't want you to dick around with the gunpod.
1
@tarn1135 "the more crap you strap on the exterior of the plane the less stealthy it becomes" by the time the F-35 gets stuff strapped to the outside, SEAD/DEAD already made that concern a non-issue.
1
The Saab Gripen is basically a "how to lose a war slower" so that the threat of a Winter War style result was enough to deter invasion. The Gripen is a tacit admission that you can't go head to head with the opponent so you have to resort to guerrilla in the air. The F-35 is meant to knock the doors down. It can go head to head with another nation's air force from halfway across the world. Remote deployment here doesn't mean "we have to hide from an overpowering enemy". It means "we'll use the enemy's own roads as our airbase just in case we don't have a friendly nation nearby that will let us use theirs".
1
The Harrier was woefully outdated and the losses in Desert Storm kind of raised the issue with fielding an aircraft that paints the entire side of the fuselage with the exhaust plume.
1
@r.s.w.k4569 You totally misunderstand aircraft service. They stagger each other. Older F-16s are retired as they run up the airframe hours. Fresher F-16s stay in service. If F-16s remain flying until 2040, that means that in the future they will be replaced by F-35s, which will fly until 2070. That's 30 years of service for that batch of F-35s.
1
@corvanphoenix The fuel needs of a larger fleet (because you're going to suffer many more losses with Harriers) will be worse than operating F-35s. Iskanders? They're the ones at risk that close to F-35s.
1