U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brian West watches an Air Force F-35 Lightning II joist strike fighter aircraft approach for the first time July 14, 2011, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. (U.S. Air Force photo by Samuel King Jr.)
National Interest: F-35 Stealth Fighter Prepares for the Unthinkable: War with China or Russia
The Air Force F-35 is using “open air” ranges and computer simulation to practice combat missions against the best Chinese and Russian-made air-defense technologies – as a way to prepare to enemy threats anticipated in the mid-2020s and beyond.
The testing is aimed at addressing the most current air defense system threats such as Russian-made systems and also focused on potential next-generation or yet-to-exist threats, Harrigian said.
Air Force officials have explained that, looking back to 2001 when the JSF threat started, the threats were mostly European centric – Russian made SA-10s or SA-20s. Now the future threats are looking at both Russian and Chinese-made and Asian made threats, they said.
“They have got these digital SAMS (surface-to-air-missile-systems) out there that can change frequencies and they are very agile in how they operate. being able to replicate that is not easy,” Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, Director of the F-35 Integration Office, told Scout Warrior in an interview.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: They can boast all that they want on what the F-35 is capable of, but the 10 million individual lines of code in the JSF system are still causing problems .... Five of six F-35 fighter jets were unable to take off during testing because of software glitches but the Air Force still plans to declare the aircraft combat-ready this year (Daily Mail).
Update: Here is an interesting story .... Commentary: An unusual view of the U.S. Air Force's F-22 (Reuters)
No comments:
Post a Comment