F-35 Can't Turn, Climb, Or Run.....
When they put together the list of the dumbest ideas of all time you can be sure the F-35 will be up near the top.
Trying to build one plane to do everything, has resulted in one plane that can do nothing well.
Trying to build one plane to save lots of money, has resulted in one plane that costs more money than any plane (or any weapons system) in history.
Putting that plane into production before it has been properly tested has only heaped stupidity on top of stupidity.
Different tools are required for different objectives.
To think you can build one tool that can do everything is beyond silly.
It is like trying to play golf with only one club. Would that work? Are you going to putt with a driver? Are you going to hit out of sand with a putter? Every club has its purpose, and they are all necessary.
Anyone trying to sell you one club (to replace all other clubs) would be a con man. You wouldn’t fall for that, but the Pentagon has. Instead of just walking away they just keep throwing good money after bad.
It has been over a decade and the plane is still a wreck. Doesn’t look like that will be changing anytime soon.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/07/14/pentagons-big-budget-f-35-fighter-cant-turn-cant-climb-cant-run/
The F-35 — which can avoid sensor detection thanks to its special shape and coating — simply doesn’t work very well. The Pentagon has had to temporarily ground F-35s no fewer than 13 times since 2007, mostly due to problems with the plane’s Pratt & Whitney-made F135 engine, in particular, with the engines’ turbine blades.
“The repeated problems with the same part of the engine may be indications of a serious design and structural problem with the F135 engine,”
Pratt & Whitney has already totally redesigned the F135 in an attempt to end its history of frequent failures.
the F-35 is complex — the result of the Air Force, Marines and Navy all adding features to the basic design. In airplane design, such complexity equals weight. The F-35 is extraordinarily heavy for a single-engine plane, weighing as much as 35 tons with a full load of fuel.
By comparison, the older F-15 fighter weighs 40 tons. But it has two engines. To remain reasonably fast and maneuverable, the F-35′s sole F135 engine must generate no less than 20 tons of thrust — making it history’s most powerful fighter motor.
All that thrust results in extreme levels of stress on engine components. It’s no surprise, then, that the F-35 frequently suffers engine malfunctions. Even with that 20 tons of thrust, the new radar-dodging plane is still sluggish. The F-35 “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,”
two analysts at the RAND Corporation, a California think-tank that works closely with the military, programmed a computer simulation to test out the F-35′s fighting ability in a hypothetical air war with China. The results were startling.
“The F-35 is double-inferior,” John Stillion and Harold Scott Perdue concluded in their written summary of the war game, later leaked to the press. The new plane “can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run,” they warned.
Yet the F-35 is on track to become by far the military’s most numerous warplane. It was designed to replace almost all current fighters in the Air Force and Marine Corps and complement the Navy’s existing F/A-18 jets. The Pentagon plans to acquire roughly 2,400 of the radar-evading F-35s in coming decades, at a cost of more than $400 billion.
Trying to build one plane to do everything, has resulted in one plane that can do nothing well.
Trying to build one plane to save lots of money, has resulted in one plane that costs more money than any plane (or any weapons system) in history.
Putting that plane into production before it has been properly tested has only heaped stupidity on top of stupidity.
Different tools are required for different objectives.
To think you can build one tool that can do everything is beyond silly.
It is like trying to play golf with only one club. Would that work? Are you going to putt with a driver? Are you going to hit out of sand with a putter? Every club has its purpose, and they are all necessary.
Anyone trying to sell you one club (to replace all other clubs) would be a con man. You wouldn’t fall for that, but the Pentagon has. Instead of just walking away they just keep throwing good money after bad.
It has been over a decade and the plane is still a wreck. Doesn’t look like that will be changing anytime soon.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/07/14/pentagons-big-budget-f-35-fighter-cant-turn-cant-climb-cant-run/
The F-35 — which can avoid sensor detection thanks to its special shape and coating — simply doesn’t work very well. The Pentagon has had to temporarily ground F-35s no fewer than 13 times since 2007, mostly due to problems with the plane’s Pratt & Whitney-made F135 engine, in particular, with the engines’ turbine blades.
“The repeated problems with the same part of the engine may be indications of a serious design and structural problem with the F135 engine,”
Pratt & Whitney has already totally redesigned the F135 in an attempt to end its history of frequent failures.
the F-35 is complex — the result of the Air Force, Marines and Navy all adding features to the basic design. In airplane design, such complexity equals weight. The F-35 is extraordinarily heavy for a single-engine plane, weighing as much as 35 tons with a full load of fuel.
By comparison, the older F-15 fighter weighs 40 tons. But it has two engines. To remain reasonably fast and maneuverable, the F-35′s sole F135 engine must generate no less than 20 tons of thrust — making it history’s most powerful fighter motor.
All that thrust results in extreme levels of stress on engine components. It’s no surprise, then, that the F-35 frequently suffers engine malfunctions. Even with that 20 tons of thrust, the new radar-dodging plane is still sluggish. The F-35 “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,”
two analysts at the RAND Corporation, a California think-tank that works closely with the military, programmed a computer simulation to test out the F-35′s fighting ability in a hypothetical air war with China. The results were startling.
“The F-35 is double-inferior,” John Stillion and Harold Scott Perdue concluded in their written summary of the war game, later leaked to the press. The new plane “can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run,” they warned.
Yet the F-35 is on track to become by far the military’s most numerous warplane. It was designed to replace almost all current fighters in the Air Force and Marine Corps and complement the Navy’s existing F/A-18 jets. The Pentagon plans to acquire roughly 2,400 of the radar-evading F-35s in coming decades, at a cost of more than $400 billion.
posted by res17 at
July 16, 2014
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