Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "VisualPolitik EN" channel.

From the title-forward, you realize he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
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There is no "the" F-35. There are 3 different airframes, and your development cost figure of $400 Billion is so far off as to be incredulous. RDT&E for the 3 JSF variants was only $62 Billion, or roughly $20 Billion each. This isn't unusual for fighters. The Trillion dollar estimates you see being thrown around are for the life of the program through 2073, which we've never done before.
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F-35A already costs less to operate and maintain than any fighter in USAF inventory, sans the stripped F-16C and low capability A-10C, while demonstrating higher readiness rates than both in 2020.
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@TheMrgoodmanners F-35A Lot 14 unit cost is lower than all of the current F-16CM CCIP Vipers, each of which had $34-$36 million SLEP and CCIP mods done to them, some at 2 different stages. Block 40 Viper unit cost was close to $40 million in the late 1980s. CCIP 1 added another $36m upgrade per jet starting in 2006. Some CCIP was done in 2 stages. A single CCIP could take up to 5 months with 5000 man hours per bird. Now account for the FLIR/Targeting Pods, HARM Targeting System, JHMCS, Towed Decoy Pylons, 800lb ECM Pod, and your well into a $103m to $113m F-16CM, not a 1982 F-16A Block 15 Viper for $16 million. F-35A at $77.9 million with more capabilities inside is a steal in 2021 dollars. The sooner we divest ourselves of the old federated systems birds and replace them with JSF, the better off we'll be.
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It's funny to watch people unaware of mishap rates think that a few crashes equals inherent problems with JSF. F-16s crashed 143 times with 71 fatalities in their first 10 years of service. There were no JSF crashes in its first 10 years. It wasn't until 2018 that we lost an F-35B. Even lumping all 3 JSF together, they have the lowest mishap rate of any fighter in history and the numbers aren't close. If you suck at math, don't make comments or videos about military aviation because your opinion will be invalid.
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@complicatedjason F-35A first flight, Dec 2006. F-35B first flight, Dec 2008. F-35C first flight, Jun 2010. Israeli first combat operations were in 2017, followed by USMC F-35Bs in 2018, followed by USAF F-35As in 2019, followed by UK F-35Bs the same year. IOC for each variant was 2015 USMC, 2016 USAF, and 2019 USN. It has been in continuous combat operations among multiple nations and services for the past 5 years.
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@complicatedjason The F-16 did not exist for Vietnam. F-16A/B entered service in 1978. They weren’t ready for mass production because there were multiple critical faults with the design and changes made without authorization during the manufacturing by floor managers. The engines also had compressor stalls, flame-outs, AB unstarts, and catastrophic failures where blades would fly out of them. APUs failed, control surfaces failed, hydraulic problems, etc. With JSF, they worked these things out before going into higher production rates. Most of these problems were solved before even making prototypes, especially with engines and flight control systems. They tested out the new Electrohydrostatic Actuator and DFLCS on AFTI F-16, VAAC Harrier, and HAARV F-18 from NASA before even baselining JSF control system architecture. JSF has been produced in excess of early F-16 fleet numbers where we suffered the 143 losses and 71 fatalities. Those were from 1978-1988. 762 JSF have been built since 2006, most in the past few years once Lot 14 was started.
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@diaz_Epam100mg F-35A CPFH is down to $13,185 per DoD Comptroller published rates for 2021-2022. That's lower than all 4 F-15 variants including the EX, lower than the F-22A by far, and close to full-up F-16CM.
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ASTOVL began in 1983 as a UK-to-US initiative. The fused sensor helmet program came from a USAP that is unacknowledged to this day, parallel with several other helmet mounted display programs that surfaced in the 1980s with DARPA and USAF. The Honeywell Visual Target Acquisition System was a US Navy F-4J program initiated in 1968 along with the AIM-9G SEAM program.
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@Riptionator We've never seen multiservice cumulative fleet acquisition and O&M forecasts like this before, where GAO pretends to know what all the costs will be by the year 2073. They're actively campaigning against JSF because they're on the wrong side, doing the bidding of the Soviets and Chicoms, most without even being aware of it. It's part of the mantra used to try to build support for killing a program that represents a significant threat to Russian and Chicom interests. There are going to be hundreds of JSF right near their borders in Europe and the Pacific, which is the real story.
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@crowe6961 Yup. 2470 JSF-A/B/C for just the US, and who knows how many for Europe and Pacific allies. The only thing communists do well is tell lies, hence the massive media campaign against one of the biggest threats to them.
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@chasseausanglier3390 SA-3 detection range on F-117A was 13km, using a low frequency range manipulation of the waveform generator. 13km against a VLO aircraft that didn't have any Radar Warning Receivers, ECM, or self protection suite. They flew over 2000 combat sorties in its service life with only 1 aircraft loss to enemy fire.
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@jeffreygreene1042 JSF-A frontal RCS is smaller than F-22A after Lot 4. The carbon fiber structures in the 4 tailplanes are RF permeable with no reflectivity and it has much better RAM and shaping. F-35 pilots reported that they can't see each other at BVR, but they can collectively detect and track F-22s. They also detect and track low earth orbit satellites. That's in the Heritage Foundation independent report where they interviewed dozens of pilots anonymously in 2016, with follow-ups in 2019.
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@complicatedjason I know. I was in the USAF Flight Test Community for 2 decades, which also covered Operational Test and Development, which is ongoing with every program. The numbers I listed are for IOC and combat operations covering 2017-present. That’s way more than 1 year, wouldn’t you agree?
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@AA-xo9uw JSF use a totally different RAM than F-22A. MMHPFH on F-22 are roughly 50% dedicated to RAM. CPFH on F-22A ranges from $40,000-$50,000 per DoD Comptroller hourly rates.
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