Our Newest Jet Fighter - It is Special!

The pros and cons of the F-35
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/04/f-35-extended-interviews.html

 

Which war is it being built for? The Korean War? Anyone think there will be a new age of dog fighting?

 

If anyone thought there'd be actual dog-fighting, they'd be building these planes around the F-16 concept. The F-22 and the F-35 aren't meant to be fighters; they're meant to be "missile and/or bomb launching platforms."

 

You miss the point. They are claiming they will do away with all other planes and be able to handle every scenario.

 

There have been many weapons systems that congress has pushed on the pentagon against the DOD's desires. Is this one of them?

 

I didn't miss the point at all. I specifically addressed the point. No matter what they say, if they actually thought there'd be a scenario where aerial dog-fighting was critical, they'd be building to the F-16 platform concept. The primary uses of these platforms are to be bomb carriers and/or missile launchers.

Further, the Military Channel had a show where a computer simulation showed the Eurofighter Typhoon (based on the F-16 platform) out-fighting the F-22 in 8 out of 10 engagements.

Little-known history: Col John Boyd was the "father" of the F-16. At the time, the Air Force was leaning heavily on the F-111 platform to become the all-around fighter/bomber. The F-111 used a "swept wing" configuration that helped increase speed, which was touted as the factor for consideration in dog-fighting. Boyd got the engineers to admit that the formula they were using basically translated to: the less wing, the better the fighter. He correctly identified that the ultimate conclusion to their formula was that a missile was a better fighter than an airplane.

 

Nobody seriously thinks any country can match the US in air superiority. Not even China has the ability to go toe-to-toe with out integrated systems. They're entire air force would be in pieces hours after a conflict began. This kind of technology is about platforms and stand off systems that can be more precise but still safely control the airspace.

FWIW, I've got a couple of military strategy experts in our church and they keep telling me that nobody in the world could seriously challenge the US airspace control for the next twenty years as things stand today. There's a reason Iraq and Afghanistan fell in hours and not months.

 

No you missed the point. There will be the possibility of dog fighting and those planes cannot do it.

 

Free - that was exactly my point. Even more so, the short-sightedness of those making the decisions to declare these airframes "fighters." They're not serious about the F-22 or F-35 being fighters; instead, they've looked at the world situation and said, "no one is even close to us, we don't have to worry about dog fights."

Unfortunately, as pointed out in a previous post, we haven't faced that challenge, so those making these decisions continue on in their folly.

 

Sorry I miss-understood you. I agree.