Comments by "KK C" (@k.k.c8670) on "How China Stole their J-20 Stealth Aircraft" video.
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@nicholasbrown668 duh...
While Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II fifth generation single engine light fighter has long been the centre of controversy, with its design, performance and cost slammed by analysts, Pentagon officials, presidential candidates and Senators alike - most recently the Secretary of Defence - a recent Pentagon report has shed new light on critical flaws plaguing the fighter program. Following on from reports that some early production variants of the F-35 delivered to the U.S. Air Force and allies such as Australia may need to be scrapped entirely due to the considerable cost of modifications necessary to make the aircraft combat ready, the Pentagon has revealed that the fighters’ lifespan “may be as low as 2,100 flight hours.”
While the F-35 was initially designed with a lifespan of 8,000 flight hours - allowing for approximately four decades in service depending on the intensity of use - recent reports indicate that the fighters may well be set for retirement after just ten years in service. With early production variants of the F-35A costing well over $100 million per fighter, and the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) capable F-35B variant costing over $130 million, this would provide a considerably poorer return on the investment of the stealth fighter’s clients than previously expected - and could if not properly addressed seriously undermine prospects for exporting the aircraft. Fighters with such a short service life, by far the shortest of any high end modern fighter in the world, can be considered essentially disposable. Other flaws in the F-35 highlighted by Robert Behler, the director of Operation Test Evaluation at the Pentagon, included a poor level of combat readiness - “well below the planned 80 percent” - and weapons systems with an “unacceptable” level of accuracy wholly inadequate to “meet the contract specification.” Behler noted that while some improvements had been made to the gun’s aiming cues, “ no software or hardware corrections have yet been implemented to current the gun accuracy errors.”
While the F-35 was first declared combat ready in late 2014 when the F-35B variant entered service with the U.S. Marines, the fighter appears to still have a long way to go before it is capable of carrying out combat missions against near peer adversaries or penetrating contested airspace. The Pentagon report further emphasised “vulnerabilities” in the F-35’s cybersecurity which had yet to be remedied. How Lockheed Martin will respond to mounting criticism of their fighter program, particularly in light of the accession of Patrick M Shanahan’s, a former Boeing official, to the post of Secretary of Defence and Boeing’s marketing of the highly cost effective and in many ways more capable F-15X - a potential alternative for both the U.S. Air Force and America’s export clients to the troubled F-35.
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@nicholasbrown668 another one.. Business Insider Jam 13. 2023. You have to stop your nonsense, dude. You are drowning in stuff you've been making up.. Duh 🙄😂
Years of delays, cost overruns, and technical glitches with the F-35 have put the Pentagon in a dilemma.
If F-35s aren't fit to fly in sufficient numbers, then older aircraft such as the F-16 must be kept in service to fill the gap. In turn, having to extend the lifespan of older planes consumes money that could be used to acquire new aircraft and results in aging warplanes that may not be capable of fulfilling their missions on the current battlefield.
"While service life extension programs are one way to keep current aircraft capable and in operation, they do not guarantee that those aircraft will be available when needed or that they will possess required capabilities to meet future needs," the Government Accountability Office warned in a new report on US tactical aircraft.
The F-35 is meant to be the backbone of the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine fighter fleets, replacing several types of Cold War-era fighters and attack aircraft, including Navy and Marine F/A-18 C/Ds, Marine AV-8Bs, Air Force A-10s, and, most importantly, Air Force F-16s, which are the US's most numerous fighters.
Despite making its first flight in 2006, the F-35 — which costs about $100 million apiece — still hasn't been approved for full-rate production and remains in limited procurement.
The aircraft has been plagued by a seemingly endless series of bugs, including problems with its stealth coating, sustained supersonic flight, helmet-mounted display, excessive vibration from its cannon, and even vulnerability to being hit by lightning.
The military and Lockheed Martin have resolved some of those problems, but the cumulative effect of the delays is that the Air Force has had to shelve plans for the F-35 to replace the F-16, which now will keep flying until the 2040s.
"Over the last decade the Air Force and Navy have funded service life extension programs for F-16s and F/A-18 A-Ds — both originally expected to be replaced by F-35 — to address fatigue of structural components and keep the aircraft capable and in operation," the GAO report said.
The remarkable longevity of some aircraft — such as the 71-year-old B-52 bomber or the 41-year-old A-10 — tends to obscure the difficulty of keeping old warplanes flying. Production lines are usually shut down, and the original manufacturers of components and spare parts have long ceased production. In some cases, they are no longer in business.
Russia's air force has been mocked for poor maintenance that has undercut its airpower in the Ukraine war. But the US military has also long suffered from major readiness shortfalls, as have NATO nations such as Germany. In 2020, fewer than 10 of the Luftwaffe's Typhoon fighters were operational.
Particularly troubling was a November 2022 GAO study that analyzed readiness of 49 US military aircraft models between 2011 and 2021.
"Only four aircraft types, none of which were fixed-wing fighter aircraft, met their annual mission capable goals in a majority of those years," the watchdog warned...............
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