F-35 looking more like white elephant

[Tom H]

CS

Neat stuff...love to be doing that!!!

Mind you I would like to have the practice to do that!

My world is now all pretty low and slow flying the museums Bi Plane (non aerobatic)
"The Spirit of Edmonton"

Tom

[Colonel Sanders]

Biplanes rock! http://i.imgur.com/bBBms.jpg
This one has an R-985, and does an awesome airshow.

[JMACK]

http://tinyurl.com/7xh5lmk


OK Im guilty of thread drift! But! Pretty cool CS. I remember as a young fella reading Bud Davidson's stories in Air Progress of the Pitts and Bud saying if "you ain't been outside you ain't been anywhere"

Amazing stuff!

[Old Dog Flying]

Jmack...It's about time someone derailed this thread after 26 pages of nonsense, instead of "White Elephants" I'm beginning to see "Pink Elephants" lead by Col Sanders...sorry Boyd but I couldn't help myself.

[azimuthaviation]

Canada should reexamine how it allocates its resources and how the result is utilized. Putting the current Canadian goivernment in charge of dangerous weapons it simply doesnt know how to use. After having canadas airforce and taxpayer money invested in a civil war in Libya, take a look how the "peaceful protesters" unleashed their thanks on the graves of British and Canadian graves in of all places Benghazi.



Time to start thinking on behalf of Canadas best interests, which I dont think are best served by providing the means to support our enemy's enemies on poorly thought out opportunities.

Some translation from the video: "break their cross those dogs, god is great, look at the flag on this, its israeli, break it in half"

[frosti]

^

How is this related to the F-35?

[azimuthaviation]

How is this related to the F-35?

Thats a direct result of the only use of canadas fighter aircraft this century.
It didnt bring good results. Canada should invest in disaster equipment aircraft for use in canada, SAR, fire suppression, heavy lift helicopters for flooding, etc..

[frosti]

Thats a direct result of the only use of canadas fighter aircraft this century.

Whatever you say.

[Expat]

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... on-369287/

[ch135146]

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/To ... 283-1.html

[frosti]

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... on-369287/

5 miles. They wrote that article based on 5 miles. The anti-jsf [Sticks and stones..] must really be getting desperate.

[Expat]

In May 2011, Flightglobal reported that the conventional take-off and landing F-35A's combat radius had dropped to 1,080km, or about 11km short of the requirement. The combat radius for the other two F-35 variants had also declined, but remained above their minimum thresholds.
The range was reduced after Pratt & Whitney diverted more bleed air from the F135 powerplant for cooling purposes, as the engine was running hotter than expected. The USAF also accepted new estimates that reduced the F-35A's fuel capacity and added the weight and drag of the Lockheed electro-optical targeting system.


11 kilometers!
So, lower specs, and higher price, and later deliveries...
What we been saying all along.

[trampbike]

You can't be serious. This kind of news is no news at all. The development phase of any complex system goes through tiny adjustements, some are good, some aren't, and most are pretty insignificant, like that 11km combat radius thing.



Let's play a little game called "Guess the aircraft"


A GAO report revealed that while the original budget was $X billion for 210 aircraft, the 120 aircraft already ordered at that point had already cost almost $X billion, almost doubling the original unit cost.
A static wing test resulted in the total destruction of both wings, 22% below the requirements.
The redesign of the wings cost 250M dollars
The aircraft project was many years late and far over budget. Congress tried to kill it on many occasions.
The LRIP aircraft did not meet weight, fuel burn, payload and range specifications.
There were technical problems with mission software and landing gear.


Here are a couple of hints for you:
- The RCAF operates this aircraft and it is a very successful one
- It was aquired without a competition, sole-sourced
- It wasn't on budget... it was below budget.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Tramp

Since every major military aircraft program has been over budget, late and unable to fully meet the initial design specs you pose a pretty hard question to answer. There is however one point you missed.

Every new military aircraft procured by Canada in the last 40 years was already in service with another Air Force when the contract was signed and thus there was a measure of cost certainty, except for one, the Cyclone helicopter. That program provides a nice case study in the dangers of buying the Mark one, Mod zero of any aircraft...........

[trampbike]

BPF, I agree with you and am not saying the F35 is a sure thing nor do I say it is the best and only choice available to Canada. On the other hand, most arguments against that purchase are generally very weak, sometimes just plain wrong, so I try to point it out when I can.

The government sure does a terrible job when comes the time the explain and justify that purchase to Canadians, and it looks to me like the medias jump on every occasions to tell a bad story about the F-35, but are pretty quiet when good news come around (ex: we don't hear much about Japan and Israel plan to buy F-35)

Anyway, back to "guess the aircraft"!

[ch135146]

A: C-17

[Colonel Sanders]

EH-101

[trampbike]

Yep, C-17. It's hard to find something bad to say about this aircraft now, yet it was very different when it was under developpment.

CS, don't talk about the EH-101, it's going to make me cry!

[North Shore]

The plot thickens...Fantino this time. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... -f35s.html

[Flightman7]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kssZua8 ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0rZI

Here are a few gentlemen who have a clue what there talking about. Not sure about he first guy but the second guy is the designer of the f-16, one of the most highly menouverable and capable Air force fighter, and the A-10, the top close air support aircraft in the Afghanistan war.

Now, based on what these guys have to say, Im scared shitless for canadas future.

Anyone with me?

[Colonel Sanders]

There's an old saying that people who ignore the lessons
of history are doomed to relive the same mistakes.

So. The F-35 can't turn, which means it can't do air-to-air,
or can't avoid surface to air missles very well, or air-to-air
missles for that matter.

And it can't do close air support. And it's got one engine that
will never fail. And the price keeps going up and up, and
the delivery date keeps getting pushed out further.

What could possibly go wrong?

[YYZSaabGuy]

The plot thickens...Fantino this time. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... -f35s.html

About time somebody in a decision-influencing capacity acknowledged publicly what common sense has been indicating for a while now. This program is only as strong as its weakest link - to the extent that any of the partners decide to pull out, either because of escalating costs or delays in getting the aircraft into service, the unit cost increases, making it more likely that other will re-think their participation as well. This is quite apart from the issues around suitability of the F-35 for the RCAF's requirements. Now that we have a public acknowledgement that the program isn't as sacrosanct as we've been lead to believe, we can start having an informed discussion around CF-18 replacements (either interim or permanent), which will apparently need to be in place by 2020 at the outside.

There's not a lot of time left here, folks.

[Beefitarian]

That could be something Canada should position it's self to take advantage of. If any other supply country drops out step up to make that part. More work for it's citizens and the cost goes down for Canada. But no, Canada can't make planes this good so forget about it.

[frosti]

The plot thickens...Fantino this time. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... -f35s.html

Looks like pre-negotiating before a contract is signed. Lockmart is listening.

Anyone with me?

no.

[YYZSaabGuy]

Anyone with me?

no.

Don't be so sure about that...........