Tuesday, December 13, 2016

This Former U.S. Navy Commander Is Saying that This Is What The U.S. Should Have Built Instead Of The F-35

The success of the F-18 Super Hornet program could have been a model for updating legacy airframes across the board. Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Casey J. Hopkins/US Navy

Alex Lockie, Business Insider: Former US Navy commander: Here's what the US should have built instead of the F-35

Lockheed Martin announced the F-35 program in 2001. Since then, hundreds of billions of dollars and 15 years of testing have brought the program to where it is today — on the verge of becoming the world's premier fighter/bomber and the future of the US Air Force, Marines, and Navy.

But while the idea of launching a single advanced stealthy plane for multiple service branches seemed good on paper, and ultimately won approval from US military planners at the highest level, it was never the only option.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: My take has been that they should have focused more on the F-22 and improving the other existing aircraft .... instead of building an entirely new fighter aircraft. But as the above author points out .... it is now too late.

4 comments:

Jay Farquharson said...

A). It's not a fighter aircraft, it's a bomber

B). It's three different aircraft with compromises and commonalities across all three airframes.

Jac said...

Jay is right. At the beginning F22 and F35 was complementary, and it was the time when money was over flooding military budget. Now, making F35 a fighter only because we stop F22 is a complete nonsense. I really don't know how we can go out of this mess.

Caecus said...

It's a multirole aircraft, it can do A2A, or strike ground targets, or both. Like the Rafale or Typhoon.

Blackdog said...

Everybody gets the aircraft wrong. It is the borg. If it works everything will see and hear the same thing. missile shot can come from anywhere not just the aircraft. The ultimate swarm .