Ha. Using a $200-$300 million naval F-35 for Air Command & Control seems silly to me, but that’s just me. You’d think they could do the same thing with a drone carrying a radar and electronics package at one percent of the price. And moreover if AMRAAMs can be jammed and otherwise countermeasured these days, I don’t see why a Standard missile wouldn’t be hosed in exactly the same way…
The AMRAAM has to do terminal guidance with its own tiny radar. Although the SM-6 has its own seeker radar, it can still take terminal guidance by remote command, and the F-35 radar (or a drone radar, or the radar on a Burke) has a lot more burn-through power, so there are advantages to firing them with a platform in position to do/relay command terminal guidance.
I’m no F-35 defender, but it isn’t altogether fair to compare it to what is probably the most effective, most mature piece of modern military hardware. It’s better to compare it to something like the F-16 or F-22, or the Gripen, or the Rafale, and imagine how many more of those we could have got for the same money.
The F-35 suffers from two problems: trying to be all things to all branches (leaving the Marines out would have made for a better plane), and trying to be the aircraft of tomorrow… today! The latter is a great way to pay a lot for something that ends up being behind the curve by the time it enters combat. Much better to design the airframe of today, today, and put in the avionics of tomorrow when they’re done. (cf. F-16, original Hornet, Super Hornet…)
Don’t worry guys, it’s been another year but we’re still throwing away money with no end in sight!
To be fair, in the last 12 months they did apparently manage to make them invisible.
Do we even need a stealth jet to defend a country of LIBERALS?
Probably how Trump got the price to come down, “Oh, you don’t have to fix the problems” (I know, the renegotiation took place before Trump)
All they need to do to get funding is to invite Trump to sit in one and take a photo going “vroooooom”.
Sadly that would probably work.
Just invite him to come to an empty hangar and show him your “invisible” plane while some engine noises played.
4% of UK’s F35 fleet crashes into the Med
Considering the price tag, maybe they should lower the flags to 1/2 mast. Do they do that in the UK?
Who needs enemy fighters when we can just crash our own F-35’s and flush billions down the toilet? I believe this is the 6th active duty F-35 to crash.
Lockheed stock is up 10% on the news! UK gotta buy a replacement!
I feel like if it’s not shoddy maintenance or pilot error, Lockheed should be replacing these for free.
As of 2014, 123 F-15s had been destroyed in crashes. 163 F-14s by 2002. Over 670 “hull loss accidents” of F-16s by 2020.
Between 15 and 20 German F-104s crashed ever year between 1968 and 1972.
The RAAF lost 40 of 116 of its Dassault Mirage IIIs to accidents.
The RAF lost over 50 of 280 English Electric Lightnings.
16 of 31 Indian Navy Sea Harriers crashed. The Harrier wasn’t produced in large quantities like the F-16 was and the Wikipedia page lists over 150 crashes.
TL;DR – Fighter jets crash a lot.
The Harrier is an incredibly unforgiving jet. The USMC Harrier killed a lot of pilots.
They really should never have hired Captain Orr to train those pilots.
And this is why ejector seat technology is so damn good. :)
Pffft. That’s nothing
From 1961 onwards, Germany acquired 916 Lockheed F-104 Starfighters, of which 292 aircraft crashed and 116 pilots lost their lives. …
Well to be fair the F-104 was basically a rocket with winglets. it didn’t have any fancy electronics or stabilizers .
Or wings.