Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Sandboxx" channel.

  1.  @Fng_1975  I’m not sure what Navy sources you’re listening to, but the major comments coming out of the current deployed carrier air wing operating F-35Cs is that they finally got long legs back to the strike group. That and the networking are the main things they’re talking about. (MEZ I’m referring to is Missile Engagement Zone common to modern IADS, not legacy IADS where Tomcats, Hornets, and A-6Es were shot down). The F-35B for the USMC and UK has the same mission radius as a 2-tank F-16C or better, and it has the least amount of internal fuel of the 3 separate airframe designs (there isn’t 1 airframe design). F-35B carries 13,500lb, about the same amount of internal fuel as an F/A-18F, but only has one engine and mostly a clean aerodynamic profile for most common configurations. The F-35A carries 18,250lb internal, while the F-35C for the Navy carries 19,200lb, while having very large wing and tailplane area. Senior F-14 pilots who worked on F-14D development praise the JSF program, as do all the pilots who convert into it. The criticism isn’t from people close to JSF, but from people who don’t know what they’re looking at and have very limited frames of reference to it. JSF is legit. I’ve called in CAS as well, so I know somewhat about that mission set and legacy profiles vs the modern profiles for weapons employment. Even the A-10C has gone to SDBs and LGBs as primary weapons, superseding the AGM-65G and CBUs from the A-10A profiles. There is no reason for the down-on-the deck close target eyeball CAS profile nowadays with SDB. The whole re-attack requirement for A-X in the early 1970s is what really pushed the A-7D out, which should not have happened. A-7D had crazy legs better than any of the teen series, including the F-15E. JSF-A and -C bring back the range/radius of the A-7D/E basically, but with better payload and the ability to do A2A better than the Raptor in many ways (IR spectrum sensor fusing with RF).
    5
  2.  @Fng_1975  You'll find National Interest isn't a reputable source for information on any of this, but one of the many ad revenue click-bait sites. With the Super Hornet, Fleet Air Defense sortie generation increased over the Tomcat and with Block II SH with the AESA Radars and JTIDS, the detection ranges and coverage smokes the APG-71 & AWG-9 easily. F-14D doesn't compare well to a Block II Super Hornet in that regard, especially with ATFLIR slaved to the AESA. Regarding CAS with JSF: F-35s can PID from over the horizon in bad weather at night better than A-10 can do in clear wx on top of you, and PID both Blue and enemy forces in ways that really push more into what was traditionally spyplane and ELINT aircraft territory. The resolution of the early Radar Ground Mapping TGT mode was good enough to count windows on buildings at 80 nautical miles, which it fuses with the zoomable EOTS FLIR in the nose. At certain very far distances, they can read your IFF patches. F-35s don't use the legacy omnidirectional data link network like previous gen fighters. They have adapted comms with it, but MADL is extreme narrow beam LPI, so it can't be intercepted between F-35s, and they can specifically direct who they're sending to in a high ECM environment. A-10s have been involved in more Blue-on-Blue dating back to ODS, killed many US, UK, and Canadian forces in ODS, OEF, and OIF, all using visual approaches even against units with VS-17s clearly visible. I've seen the HUD footage with comms traffic. They threw PID out the window with buck fever, slaughtered guys in their APCs on multiple occasions, and stray rounds on danger close runs are high probability with a pilot with less than 1000hrs of experience. That's why A-10C has been focused on using Small Diameter Bomb, GBU-12, APKIWS, and GBU-31 vs the legacy weapons assortment. If you talk with JTACS who have actually employed F-35s, the story is totally different than what "experts" have been saying about F-35 and CAS. They were shocked what the F-35 pilots could see and know around them, while not even being visible or heard from the ground. You can't deceive the MADL networked fused picture from the AESA, EOTS, DAS, and RF sensor suite. You can't get anything in between 2 F-35s linked via the MADL, so now you have triangulation of over 30 different sensors covering the entire signature spectrum, 28 of those sensors being passive. It forces CAS into a new generation of capability that's hard for legacy TACPs and JTACs to understand without a detailed capes briefing. It not only exceeds what is known or expected in a traditional 9 line approach, but opens up Electronic Warfare options that were typically provided by certain fixed wing platforms that are vulnerable to MANPADS and AAA. In many cases, JSF can provide 10 digit coordinates to your organic fires assets and help manage the fight that way without needing to drop anything, while conducting exploitation of the extended threat forces order of battle and TGT their mobile nodes, tunnels, bunkers, Radios, vehicles, and nearby supporting forces. They see and share things that make the EW, ELINT, and AWACS systems officers envious without even breaking squelch. It's a revolution in CAS as we know it. As to airframes, they're all quite different, but share sensors and much of the propulsion to reduce costs from what was being proposed. If you look back at all the designs being explored during ASTOVL, then JAST, almost everyone had settled on the same basic fuselage configuration independently, with different variations in wings, canards, and tailplanes. The McDonnell Douglas fuselage/nose designs looked the same as Lockheed. There were dozens of these designs. Merry Christmas to you too!
    5
  3.  @STB-jh7od  F-16 losses were caused by many factors: Wire chaffing on the fly-by-wire system wiring harnesses being rubbed by fastener threads, even though the design called for rivets in that specific wire-through structure. Engine failures. Runway overshoots (it doesn’t like to land) EPU failures after engine failures. Faulty LEF bracket lock-outs. Hydraulic failures CFIT (pilot error) Mid-Air Collisions (pilot error) GLOC (pilot-induced from high G)
    5
  4.  @Karl-Benny  Not sure where you're getting this information but it's terribly inaccurate. F-35s have higher readiness rates than other fighters, with far lower break rates. Maintenance Man Hours Per Flight Hour are lower than any other fighters by a significant factor as well. F-16s can be 11-14 MMHPFH. F-35A is 3.5-4.5, which is unprecedented.
    5
  5. It’s a myth perpetuated on the internet, noting more. It was never about stealth coatings because the RAM is built into the structures and skin of F-35s. There were 2 testbed aircraft from the very initial production lots that had aluminum spars and framework in the tailplanes that showed some temperature levels that concerned engineers because of their effects on RWR sensors located in the horizontal stabs. They tried duplicating the temperatures in the other testbed aircraft running Mach 1.6 sustained up and down the East Coast between 2 tankers, and never could make it happen. Production lots after that had carbon fiber structural members in all the tailplanes, making them lighter and stronger with smaller RCS (better stealth), so it doesn’t even matter. Increased the airframe life too.
    5
  6. It was very similar to Lockheed’s proposals for ATF in the late 1980s. Very shortly before the final designs were due to the USAF, Lockheed wiped the table clean and went back to the design from scratch, because they couldn’t area-rule the F-117 style fuselage to achieve the supersonic speeds for ATF. There’s a detailed history about this showing all their design proposals.
    4
  7.  @brrrtnerd2450  Every time a new weapons system or external store is introduced, it has to undergo a pretty lengthy series of tests starting from ground, and working all the way up to supersonic edge-of-envelope separation tests if it is jettisonable/launchable. You never know how an attached load will behave until you actually test it. A big surprise for me was what they went through with AMRAAM testing on the F-14D. I think it was fine in the tunnel/fuselage stations, but on the wing glove pylons, it created peculiar aerodynamic drag conditions that were unworkable according to a senior F-14D test pilot, so the F-14 is the only teen fighter that never got AIM-120. Even the AV-8B+ and Sea Harrier FA2s got AIM-120 integration. I also find it interesting that the Viper is the only one of the 2 teens with wingtip rails that carries -120s there, while the Hornet and Super Hornet do not. They have so many options for AIM-120 carriage though, it doesn't matter. Back to the XL. They never carried actual AIM-120s on it, but dummies painted white. AMRAAM was just barely in development and early testing then, after the recommendations from AIMVAL in the mid-late 1970s out at Nellis. F-16XL could have made a very capable interceptor with supercruise and long duration with all that internal fuel, didn't need bags. It just needed more thrust.
    4
  8.  @ZbjetisGod  Yup. Turks and Israelis have made short work of Pantsirs as if it were a sport in Syria and Libya. Pantsir is a lot of hype without delivering on many of its promises. Russians even removed them from their host air base in Syria after they failed to engage drone attacks. You can watch video compilations of Turks and Israelis using them for target practice repeatedly. The Pantsir system is the close-in defense layer for critical point TGTs. There are various weapons within the S-300 system that cover medium and longer ranges. Western air powers have been using these systems as training aids in actual conflict for the past 15 years.
    4
  9. F-117A had a classified Air-to-Air mission of anti-AWACS using AIM-9L/M carried inside the weapons bays, with a hung-in-the-wind scissors rail. This was recently revealed in a pilot interview on The Fighter Pilot Podcast. F-111and F-105 were dedicated strike aircraft as well, never meant to engage flying targets, though the F-105D and F shot down 26 MiGs in Vietnam, 24 with the M61 20mm, and 2 with AIM-9s. F-105 was a tactical nuclear strike fighter. F-111 never shot anything down, still nomenclatured as a fighter.
    4
  10.  Chris Pasquale  NASA’s budget has been pretty consistent from 1989-2020, even when you adjust for a 2020 dollar standard. Most of our space budget goes to the US Navy and USAF traditionally.
    4
  11.  @carlosamigosAUS  Su-35's Saturn motors don't have twice the power of a single F135 (43,000lb in AB), nor do they have superior Helmet HOBS. F-35 with HMDS and AIM-9X Block II+ is superior to Russian HMS and R-73. That would in the worst case scenario involve frontal aspect launch at edge of BVR, if F-35 pilots decided to allow Su-35 near them and not kill it at distance.
    4
  12.  @Globalscanningeyes  If you’re seeing any sites claiming the F135 is defective, go ahead and block those from further information consumption. They aren’t valid or informed in the slightest.
    4
  13.  @Grebogoborp  US major weapon systems that have fought against numerically-superior forces and prevailed overwhelmingly: F-15C APG-63(V)1 AIM-7M AIM-9L F-16C/D Blocks 25, 30, 40 F-15E APG-70 LANTIRN, GBU-series F-111F with PAVE Tack and GBU-series F-4G with HARM EF-111A F-111A F/A-18C A-6E EA-6B M1A1 Abrams MBT M2A2 Bradley IFV Iraq had 768 Tactical Combat Aircraft, which exceeded the combined allied air power assets deployed to Desert Shield and Storm. Iraqi Air Force was decimated within days. In the armored warfare tank battles, the M2A2s and M1A1s humiliated the Iraqi tanks, self-propelled howitzers, and BMPs. Every single one of the above systems has been replaced, retired, or upgraded with greater capabilities. If we had F-35s for Desert Storm, the war would have been over within a few days, not 2 weeks.
    4
  14.  @quasimotto8653  It’s physically impossible to integrate the sensors, IPP, internal weapons bays, and VLO features into any 4th Gen platform. The entire mold line and bulkheads all have to change for starters, which means a completely-new airframe design. At that point, you’re back into the design cycle that resulted in F-35. There’s no place for DAS, MADL, and EOTS on the Viper. These technologies were tested on the AFTI F-16 at Edwards, which is the coolest F-16 you will ever see. They put LANTIRN pods in the LEX roots so you wouldn’t have left or right blanking of the pilot’s FOV when trying to lase or observe a ground TGT with the FLIR. That’s more expensive than going the EOTS route, since EOTS is centerline under the nose. The Flight Control System in the F-35s are actually more simple than in the Viper since they have independent ElectroHydrostatic Actuators (EHAs), with their own self-contained hydraulic fluid that doesn’t need to be piped under pressure to them from the central hydraulic reservoir and pumps. This makes safety and maintenance so much better than the Viper, and they’re not fly-by-wire, but fly-by-light. On the Viper, if replacing an actuator assembly, you have to bleed the hydraulics, disconnect the FBW system, disconnect the hydraulic line, unbolt the fasteners, install the new unit, fasten, reconnect the FBW, reconnect the hydraulic line, re-fill the hydraulic reservoir, pressure up the system and measure if it is too full or not full enough, and you have to manually index the actuator position with the control surface to make sure they’re tracking correctly with each other and the DFLCS position cues. With the EHAs in F-35, you disconnect the fiber optic line, remove the fasteners, pull the assembly, install the replacement EHA, reconnect the fiber-optic line, the system automatically indexes the actuator to the control surface position and registers the position with the DFLCS....done. Maintainers complain that it basically maintains itself.
    4
  15. YF-23 cracked several windscreens in supersonic tests, so it never exceeded Mach 1.82 if I recall the graphs correctly. It also had problems with the intakes and boundary layer control systems at supersonic speeds. It also had dual actuators laid sideways for each control surface so they could keep the thickness of the wings as thin as possible for VLO, but added mechanical complexity to the FLCS. It still didn't have a solution for its weapons bay storage and ejection racks, and couldn't carry as many weapons as the YF-22. All of these issues represented serious cost risks to the whole program, so even though it met the requirements, it was a much riskier option from a company that had already demonstrated massive cost overruns with the B-2A in production and delivery to USAF. The YF-22 PAV-1 (GE YF-120L motors) was the only ATF prototype that exceeded Mach 2. They already had weapons bay solutions for AIM-9 & AIM-120 with demonstrated separation capability, and had an excellent bowless canopy with all-around view. The one area the YF-22 failed was weight. It was too heavy for the desired 1.2 T/W ratio on take-off, so engine performance increased to 35,000lbs per in production. As a result, the F-22A has monstrous T/W ratio and excess thrust throughout the regime. If the YF-23 had gone onto the F-23A, it was going to grow even more in length to accommodate another forward weapons bay and still not have the weapons load that the F-22A has. There were aspects of the YF-23 test pole model that had better VLO, but others on the YF-22 test pole that were better, especially looking at serpentine intake ductwork vs the YF-23's partially-exposed cold stage turbofan inlet guide vanes from lower frontal-oblique angles. Best thing going for the YF-23 was combat radius/range.
    4
  16. 8:28 “Today’s F-35s fly with a maximum capacity of just 4 weapons stored internally...” It’s actually 10 internal weapons total currently and will remain that way when looking at 2x AIM-120 + 8x SDBs. Sidekick will increase the internal AAM count to 6x AIM-120/BVRAAM class missiles for an A2A focused load/mission profile.
    4
  17. F-117A had zero ECM, RWR, or Radar. It relied entirely on RF and IR VLO signature to avoid detection or weapons-grade tracks. Only 1 had a missile proximity detonate near it enough to cause catastrophic damage in over 2000 combat sorties. The F-117A also underwent 3 generations of RAM during its service life. They were always working on improving features of the RAM, to include RCS reduction and durability. The IR signature reduction on the -117 is very cool.
    4
  18. F-35 and F-22 pilots have said that F-35s have been defeating F-22s in large force exercises since 2017. F-35 pilots refer to F-22s as “legacy 5th Gen”. F-22 pilots who have converted to F-35A say everything for practical purposes is better except A2A weapons count, where they had 6x2 in the F-22A, and 4x2 in the F-35A for typical A2 loads. They’re looking forward to Sidekick/Block 4.
    4
  19. I love the Saab J35 Draken. It would be such a fun airframe with modern composites and a turbofan. Look at the Fairey Delta 2 as well from the Brits, which had blended inlets with the leading edges of the delta wings. There’s a company in the US that flies Drakens for contract red air.
    4
  20.  @Cythil  The Draken was well ahead of its time, although there was a lot of delta wing development going on in multiple nations in those days. The Germans did a lot of delta wing experimentation even with gliders, and the US, France, and UK all developed delta wing fighters. The Draken sets itself apart by having more blended wing with the cranked leading edge and inlets, while still being pretty lightweight. There was a lot of US fire control and missiles, with British Rolls Royce Avon engine in the Draken.
    4
  21. @Dumb User name checks out 100%. Don’t post anymore.
    4
  22.  @koori3085  I spent the better part of 2 decades at Edwards AFB/AFFTC, but we weren't involved with ATF. I only learned about those issues with the YF-23 from Paul Metz's interviews. They would have been solved, but it was going to cost a lot more and they weren't a problem on the 2 YF-22s. YF-22 PAV 1 with the GE variable cycle motors is the only ATF prototype that broke through Mach 2 from what I could gather from all the test pilot interviews. It accelerated through the Mach at a steep angle, reached its service ceiling, and exceeded Mach 2 all in one flight. The only main issue with the YF-22s was weight. They couldn't get them under the target empty weight, so the thrust requirements were increased. The YF-23 made weight, but it only had 1 internal bay with no real way to carry missiles ever demonstrated. The 4 weapons bays on YF-22 with their actuators and structures added just enough weight to push it over. Another contributor to weight on both designs were the large engine cowlings for thrust-reverser provisions for STOL, which were dropped from ATF requirements. If you look at a side view of the YF-22s vs F-22A, you see how they made the Raptor much sleeker and streamlined in the rear, which also allowed them to decrease the leading edge wing sweep angle and still achieve Mach 2+.
    4
  23.  @termitreter6545  Unit flyaway costs should never be confused with unit program or O&M costs. Operations and Maintenance costs are typically 3x the acquisition costs with legacy fighters over the life of those fighters, not counting total airframe losses. Pentagon has been assuming that the F-35 fleet will follow the F-16 fleet trends in O&M, even though F-35s are easier to maintain, are designed with open architecture both from software and hardware standpoint, and are far safer aircraft.
    4
  24. If you look at the average life of carrier aviation jet platforms, the F-14 series had a nice long run of 32 years, which was pretty normal compared to the F-4B/J/N, A-4, A-6, A-7A/E, and even the F/A-18A-D. All the A model airframes were trashed/timing out by the 1990s. The flight control system problems still remained in the D until it dealt with them with the DLFCS upgrade, but the mechanical architecture still had all the same issues. Wing sweep mechanism box was Titanium, and required electron beam welding. The Navy spent $369 million on development of a new engine for the F-14 in the early 1970s (1970-1973), the Pratt & Whitney F401-PW-400, which was an F100 variant to share commonality with USAF engines in the F-15 for better management from an industrial perspective. That engine never got put into the planned F-14B, and all that money was basically blown very early in the program, leaving the Tomcat with the temporary stop-gap TF30 engine from the F-111 program. The costs seem to have robbed the F-14 of additional upgrades that all the other teen fighters got. AWG-9 was a nightmare too, with disconnection issues, tubes, antiquated display for the RIO that burned images into the screen, and the system suffered from lag and drag when offsetting for better angles at BVR. F/A-18s regular out-performed F-14s even in the BVR fight, and that was before the Super Hornet. F/A-18 had a Radar that could look-down/shoot-down over land and sea, whereas AWG-9 only worked over the ocean (when it did work). There wasn’t enough processor memory to handle ocean and land background clutter when the F-14 and E-2 Hawkeye were developed. That changed in the mid-late 1970s with the solid state electronics and digital revolution, which hit at just the right time for the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18. F-14 just barely missed the boat on that one, and had its whole combat avionics architecture built on the AWG-9.
    4
  25.  @ericpotter4657  If they even delivered 75% of what was claimed with ASF-14/ST-21, it absolutely would have been an improved Fleet Air Defense and Multi-Role Strike platform with excellent range, payload, and endurance. I still don't think they could have improved the maintainability enough to see significant increases in readiness rates though. The Super Hornet with its far less complexity and even reduced control surface count compared to the legacy bug (no speed brake) still hasn't had a stellar FMC/MC rate, which is really a challenge with any carrier-based fighter. I looked at FMC/MC rates from the 1970s-2000s and was disappointed by what I saw in NAVAIR compared to what was advertised in the 1980s. The F-14 would require significant redesign for engine replacement for starters, taking into consideration maintenance crew procedures, access, reach, and touch points. The Super Hornet uses a lot of composites and better design in this space compared with legacy, and still suffers pretty lackluster readiness rates, which the Navy now hides. Ancillary systems go down all the time too. That F/A-18E that was used to shoot down the Syrian Su-22 had its ATFLIR fail during the mission, so he swung into a Defensive Counter-Air profile while the rest of the flight did their mission. That's why he ended up on the Su-22. His AIM-9X went off the rail and disappeared as well, which is likely a result of continued carrier ops beating up the guidance electronics.
    4
  26. F-35A carries 18,250lb of fuel internally. How much more do you want? F-16 carries 7,000lbs internal for comparison. F-35A has more combat radius and persistence than any other 4th Gen fighter in the US or Israel. It gave Israel a strategic reconnaissance and strike range capability increase they never had.
    4
  27. Effective range and pk is significantly reduced by low velocity separation speeds. HARM typically flies with a high ballistic arc up to 80,000ft, then descends on SAM Radar emitters.
    4
  28.  @markwalker3499  JSF production is over 716 airframes, which is more than Rafale, Typhoon, or Super Hornet and built in less time than any of those fleets. Will not be “a couple of trillion soon” since we haven’t even reached the initial acquisition costs of $251 Billion for 2,456 JSF-A/B/C for the 3 services. The worst-case forecasts from bean-counters in the Pentagon is $1.5 trillion by the year 2070 for all 3 variants, upgrades, and operations and maintenance costs over the life of the program. That averages $25 Billion per year from a $767 Billion defense budget, with that $25 Billion divided by 3 services, most of which will be USAF. 6th Gen is meant to integrate with JSF, using JSF data link architecture. They are also meant to replace top-end fighters in USAF and USN like the F-22A and Super Hornet, not in the same track for JSF series. JSF is superseding F-16C, F-117A, F/A-18A-D, AV-8B, EA-6B. There are always multiple fighter tracks in each service. I know you don’t realize this, but F-15EXs cost more than F-35As by quite a bit, and cost more to operate. F-15EX at a minus with its relevant combat systems attached so it can reach a fraction of F-35 performance take it up to over $103 million per airframe/pods/EPAWSS minimum. The baseline stripped aircraft with no pylons, fuel tanks, FLIR sensors, EW system, or the new Legion IRST pod costs $87.7 million. When you add the CFTs, 12 specific pylons that attach to the CFTs, wing and centerline pylons, LAU rails, and ejector racks, the price goes up even more over $103 million. That’s a non-deployable F-15 into the high-threat areas of the world, unless F-35s fly ahead of it and provide EW support. Wherever you got the idea that 10 or 12 F-15s cost what one F-35 does, the math is way off and flipped. You can buy 1 F-35A with its full weapons suite, spare parts, support, and still be less than an F-15EX with no weapons at all.
    3
  29.  @gracemonkeygg5789  The D-SEAD platform doesn't need to be detected when decoy missiles are in-play. Aircraft like JSF don't even need the SAM sites to be active to detect and kill them because they have webbed AESA Radar Ground Mapping in LPI fused with EOTS and DAS, cross-checked with strategic reconnaissance assets tracking of mobile and static IADS nodes. With F-22A and JSF, you can also switch the RCS on and off tactically with Luneberg lenses to deceive SAM sites into coming online.
    3
  30. There was also work being done by NASA at Edwards/Dryden Research Center with an F-111 and boundary layer airflow experimentation for the 1970s TACT and 1980s AFTI F-111 programs. TACT was transonic experimentation. AFTI Vark tested a Mission Adaptive Wing leading and trailing edge flexible materials technology so there weren't the typical gaps between slats and trailing edge flaps. It was more like a bird wing. F-16XL went to NASA after that for more experiments with wing shapes, perforated airfoil boundary layer management, things like that.
    3
  31.  @christoff124  Even the F-35C has dramatically-superior readiness rates and lower MMHPFH than any F-16. F-16 MMHPFH range from 11-22hrs depending on type, airframe hours, and year. F-35A has been 3.5-5.4hrs, which just has never been a thing. CPFH is much lower too, despite what all the legacy media sites claim. Su-27s are maintenance hogs with very low availability, cannibilization for spares, twin engine, failure-prone mech-scanned Radar, garbage Russian electronics, stress fractures in the neck/fuselage bulkhead region due to drunken idiots over-stressing the airframe, already on Serial Modernization 3 to keep them barely relevant. Half of the Su-27SM and Su-27UB fleet isn't even worth upgrading according to internal Russian air force statements. Su-35S is their latest operational 4.5 Gen fighter, already being shot down by themselves or Ukraine due to its huge RCS and lack of coherent IFF among Russian forces.
    3
  32.  @dimbwemazala8978  Israeli-Syrian conflict, Israeli-Iranian skirmishes, US-Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan, UK-Syria still ongoing since 2017.
    3
  33.  @quasimotto8653  We were on the F-16 CTF at Edwards in late 1982, then again from 1987-1990, then on to the F-15 CTF mainly for the F-15E systems integration and test, GPS-guided munitions development (before it was called JDAM), and other things. I love those birds, but they are out-classed by the F-35 in so many ways. Combat-configured, the F-35A will always have more speed and G available compared to legacy birds. More importantly, it has superior SA even to AWACS and linked 4th Gen fighters.
    3
  34.  @Globalscanningeyes  So I've been in the developmental and operational world in this space since the 1970s, with decades spent at the USAF Flight Test Center and deployed abroad. We got used to taking GAO, Pentagon, and "watchdog" reports and just laughing at them, then realized that people that far out of touch are actually influencing or calling the shots on funding. But here's a way any layman can understand how much you're being lied to. In their first 10 years of operational service, here are the airframe loss and fatality rates for the following aircraft: F-14: 73, 19 F-15: 54, 26 F-16: 143, 71 F/A-18: 97, 27 Harrier: 100, 20 A-10: 59, 26 That's 526 airframes with 189 fatalities. F-35, all types: F-35A: 4, 1 F-35B: 4, 0 F-35C: 1, 0 Only 1 person has died in operational service with F-35s, a Japanese Defense Forces pilot who seems to have had a physiological episode, then plunged into the sea from high altitude. This type of safety record is unheard of in fast jets. Over 920 F-35s have been delivered to services all over the world. Pilots who flew fighters before transitioning to F-35 absolutely love the engine, the controls, the flight control system, ease of flying, ease of landing, and the systems interface.
    3
  35. Pratt & Whitney, the world’s leading fighter engine producer makes “crappy power plants”? F135 is the most reliable, powerful fighter engine ever built. Next most powerful/reliable is the F119-PW-100 in the F-22A. Next is the F100-PW-229. Super Hornets with the new GE F414 are having more engine failures than were ever seen in the F404 in the Baby Hornet.
    3
  36. For aircraft that have actual relevant performance (payload, climb rate, speed, range, sensors), it would bankrupt a company. Bird of Prey was a catch-up game for McD/Boeing to go through growing pains they weren't well-versed in as an organization. Lockheed had been developing and producing stealth aircraft since the 1950s. The first operational stealth aircraft was the single seat CIA A-12 spyplane in 1963, which evolved into the USAF RS-71A 2-seat spyplane that carried more side-looking cameras and sensors.
    3
  37.  @soulsphere9242  F-16 costs more than the F-35A, believe it or not. Just within the F-16’s first 10 years of service, we lost 143 of them, with 71 fatalities. Just for the early Blocks 1-25 airframes, that would be $7.82 billion today, not having gone through any upgrades like CCIP. Current operational F-16CMs have over $102 million sunk into each airframe. We’ve also never seen a comparison including all the ancillary systems that the F-16s need to execute their basic mission sets. That includes ECM pods, HARM Targeting Pods, LITENING FLIR/LST Pods, EPIDSU pylons, JHMCS, the sunk costs on older Block 40 LANTIRN NAV and FLIR pods, the SNIPER Pods that were between LANTIRN and LITENING, etc. FLIR pods alone cost $1.16-$3 million each, with about $54,000/year O&M costs for each. These costs don’t get reported or accounted for in both acquisition or O&M, so we’ve never seen a true and comprehensive cost/benefit analysis. The F-35A has been in USAF service since 2006, with only 1 crash after a former Mudhen driver tried to land one with the speed-hold left on at 202kts, bounced it off the runway and ejected. JADF crashed another one, pilot disoriented or incapacitated. We’ve never seen anything even remotely this safe. Safety saves airframes and lives, which are worth billions.
    3
  38. Someone who actually knows the origin of RF stealth. Germans started with pyramid-shaped RAM, then developed the iron microscopic spheres embedded in resin to form another improvement on RAM. There’s a great lecture on this from within the Australian MoD. The US took a lot of those materials and tested them on the P-80 Shooting Star out of Wright Patterson. Performance was so compromised, the aircraft could only fly straight and level with a flight path aligned from Wright Patt to another airfield relatively in-line with the departure runway. They took it through a Radar test range that had been arranged along that path. They later tried using another RF emission manipulating technique on the U-2 in the 1950s, which degraded the U-2’s performance so that it could not execute its mission profile. It was then that they knew they needed another airframe design from a clean sheet, which became the A-12 and later RS-71A. There are a lot of composites on those aircraft, with all leading and trailing edges, plus the vertical stabs made from Lexan type composite materials. The leading and training edges have an asbestos honeycomb matrix underneath them to mitigate thermal loading from high Mach air friction.
    3
  39.  @grndzro777  I don't see the nose/blended fuselage area on YF-23 being able to handle much more than 6.5-7g with its weapons bay right under there. 10g is just not reality. YF-22 wasn't even rated to much more than 7g, and it's a much stronger airframe design.
    3
  40. There isn’t a $3 Trillion program, nor a $2 Trillion, or $1.5T, etc. $1.2 Trillion is an estimate for the entire program costs including operations and maintenance into the year 2074. Find another program with this airframe count, add up acquisition and O&M, adjust for inflation, and see what that number is.
    3
  41.  @koori3085  Paul Metz flew the YF-23 as a test pilot, and later went to fly the F-22A for Lockheed-Martin. He never flew either of the YF-22s. His interviews on ATF are worth the watch for anyone truly interested in modern military aviation and aerospace engineering.
    3
  42.  @ericpotter4657  Did I say somewhere that they weren’t? I lived through the whole engine evolution and still remember the red and white painted Tomcat with the GE F101 DFE before the F-14A+ upgrade program.   Off the top of my head, F-14 engine development went like this: Initial 18 production F-14As were to be equipped with interim TF30 1970-1972. This was bumped up to 30 airframes as the F401-PW-400 for the planned F-14B was delayed. F-14B/F401-PW-400 received $369 million in early 1970s money for RDT&E, was cancelled due to similar problems with compressor stalls, AB unstarts, slow throttle response, and general problems that plagued the TF30, though it had significant improvement in thrust. This left the fleet with the unwanted TF30. They used the same initial F-14B testbed from 1973 later in the early 1980s to test the F101 DFE motor, around the same time they put it in the F-16/DFE, but didn’t fund it. It wasn’t until the late 1980s when they started doing the F-14A+ modernization program with the GE F110-GE-400. The F-14D came later with a totally new avionics suite based around the APG-71 (derived from the F-15E’s APG-70). I still remember wondering why the Navy never acquired and funded the F-14B in 1981, and why it took so long to get a good motor in the Tomcat. In total, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on engines that were never contract-awarded for mass production, which is crazy.
    3
  43.  @ericpotter4657  Gotcha. I think the only things they changed were the specific connections to plumb the F110s, and that work had already been pioneered on the F101 testbed from 1981. If you ever get a chance to see how the external engine subsystem access was managed, each engine nacelle had several doors that swung down, exposing those. One of those doors even has part of the ventral strake on it. They allow maintainers to get access to the subsystems and lines that are mounted to the exterior of the engine. I've heard some complaints about engine changes on the Tomcat, but it would be better to ask a seasoned plane captain about it. Merry Christmas!
    3
  44.  @nexpro6118  No F-14 variant had anywhere near that low MMHPFH. 15 hours would have been a Godsend for Tomcat maintainers. 15-19 hours is Baby Hornet territory. F-14 was 40-60hrs most of the time, depending on year. It was a beast in mx.
    3
  45. I lived through and tracked a lot of this data from the 1970s-forward at the USAF Flight Test Center and other bases, while we worked on several of these programs. Each individual 4th Gen fighter development budget cost more than each individual JSF variant when you divide the JSF RDT&E by 3 for each variant, but the critics like to lump all 3 together and then compare 3 vs 1 saying it was more in RDT&E. For acquisition (buying airframes), adjusted for inflation, the F-16 and F/A-18 are similar in cost. F-14 and F-15 were more expensive. F-35s were never envisioned or designed as replacements or successors to the F-14 and F-15. One of the costs nobody is talking about is the back-end sunk/lost costs from airframe losses and pilot or surrounding victim fatalities. With the teen fighters, A-10, and Harrier, we lost 515 airframes with 189 fatalities in the first 10 years of operational service of each. That’s a boatload of billions unrecoverable, let alone the lives lost.
    3
  46.  @WembysTRexArms  The US out-MiG'd the MiG-21 with the F-16. Every time the 2 have met, the MiG-21 went down in flaming scrap metal. On top of that, the F-16 can do strike, anti-ship, SEAD, CAS, BVR, and night. MiG-21 is day, short range, within visual range fighter with 4 hardpoints, pilot can't see for squat, strafe rag.
    3
  47. F-35s have quad core CNI/CIP, not dual core. Boards are card-upgradeable and fiber-optic signals connected vs copper wiring like on legacy jets. The fiber optic Databus is generations ahead of everything else out there as well. For example, Gripen E uses 3 generations old Mil-1553B Databus. Rafale uses a hybrid modular integrated avionics core processor set common to Airbus, which is better than what we had in the 1980s, but not at the level of the F-35 avionics core. There isn’t anybody else who has the capacity to manufacture at-scale a comparable avionics set as what was in F-35s back in 2006, let alone 2016 or now.
    3
  48.  @carlosamigosAUS  Who told you F-35s are only good at loitering, have no countermeasures, and aren't built for evasion? Whoever it was, I would recommend blocking those sources from ever feeding information to you again.
    2
  49.  @galvinstanley3235  Yes. Current official Air-to-Air count for F-35 is 3/0, all unmanned targets so far. No Air Force in their right mind would purposely penetrate airspace patrolled by 5th Gen fighters like the F-22A or F-35s.
    2
  50.  @ISAFSoldier  Theater Ballistic Missile interceptors can shoot down ICBMs.
    2