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It's now official
By sorry dog on 1/13/2011 11:37:12 AM , Rating: 2
jack of all trades...master of none... also applies to fighter aircraft... even if you throw a few billion at it.

RE: It's now official
By rcc on 1/13/2011 1:17:11 PM , Rating: 2
Yup. But at least it's smaller than the F-111, which they tried to get the Navy to use as an interceptor.

RE: It's now official
By vol7ron on 1/13/2011 2:36:25 PM , Rating: 3
Maybe they can make a new Top Gun movie out of this.

RE: It's now official
By MasterBlaster7 on 1/14/2011 2:51:00 AM , Rating: 3
"Jack of all trades...master of none" makes no sense when talking about the f-35. All 3 designs are sound and do not lose much in engineering terms. Actually, they save money because they were designed this way. So the whole "throwing billions at it" doesn't work either.

RE: It's now official
By Amiga500 on 1/14/2011 10:51:32 AM , Rating: 3
Not true. Simply not true.

You obviously aren't an aero engineer.

A massive compromise* in the Mach area rule has been made for the F-35 to house the lift fan.

*By compromise I mean pretty much complete dismissal.

RE: It's now official
Do you have a link for that?


RE: It's now official
By Amiga500 on 1/13/2011 5:42:24 PM , Rating: 3
Well... if they made the damn thing big enough to take the bombs and missiles without have a catastrophic effect on wing loading... it might work.

For instance, the F-15E is great. OK, a -15C will marginally beat it in A2A by dint of being a touch lighter, but you can have your cake and eat most of it if your careful. But, the silly bstards compromised everything by insisting on having STOVL capabilities. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

They would have been safer updating the A-10, making it carrierborne in the process and giving the marines a squadron of A-10 (Ds?) on each Nimitz carrier. Far cheaper & far more effective. The stall speed of an A-10 is similar to a legacy Hornet already.

Its so obvious, but then Lockheed etc wouldn't be able to fleece the DoD by just building the basic and functional A-10s, would they?

RE: It's now official

RE: It's now official
I think the A-10 is cool as hell.



RE: It's now official

RE: It's now official
By Jeffk464 on 1/13/2011 7:38:05 PM , Rating: 2
Fleecing the DOD, I don't thinks so. You mean fleecing the american tax payer. No doubt there are plenty of senators getting their pork projects for this. What stinks even more is when senators go on to work for the company after they were sitting on the boards that approved the projects.

RE: It's now official
By yomamafor1 on 1/13/2011 10:03:18 PM , Rating: 2
Here we go with the "Marines are better off with A-10s than F-35Bs" nonsense again.

The answer is simple: A-10 can never perform the role F-35B does, therefore does not satisfy the requirement of Marines.

RE: It's now official
By MasterBlaster7 on 1/14/2011 2:58:10 AM , Rating: 2

Seriously, did you get a torch and pitchfork and chase Frankensteins' monster too?

If you make a vertical lift aircraft "bigger" you run into the "volume x3 increases faster than area x2 problem" The bigger you make it...the harder it is to lift. Lungs and the heart work the same way...thats why you dont have a 100 foot person the heart and lungs would give out at that scale.

RE: It's now official
By Lerianis on 1/14/2011 3:20:06 AM , Rating: 1
Actually, only the heart and lungs as WE know them would give out at that scale.... now, if a 'giant' had REDUNDANT hearts/lungs spread throughout their entire body.... THEN, they would be conceivable.

RE: It's now official
By Amiga500 on 1/14/2011 5:28:32 AM , Rating: 2
The post you quoted did not castrate the STOVL version. A post of mine on down the thread has done so.

Short version: They should never have commissioned the F-35B. It is already a massive ball and chain around the A & C variants, and will remained so even if the B is cancelled.

