Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire F-35 Lightning II

Reading a book on this aircraft and the amount of work involving just the coding is totally staggering! Total amount of coding for the entire aircraft was ten million lines; the engine alone required one million lines! That's 14x the volume of War & Peace! Ten million lines of coding would be a stack of paper 60' high!

how effective would it be in a long war overseas in harsh changing weather conditions? lol

I think this is a classic case of overachievement.

From what I hear problems with current upgrades might bring production to a halt until possibly June 24.

Phil

And a bucket of sand down the intake could probably shut it down. While computers are great, generating amazing amounts of progress and function, they make servicing in the field nearly an impossible nightmare. One stray spark around memory, and workings immediately cease. Airpower is indeed awesome with today's planes having more ability than the pilots. With today's weaponry, interactions and results occur with combatants having 50 to 100 miles of separation with the launch of a million $ rocket. One has not won a war, however, until boots are on the ground.

Be interesting to see reports on maintenance versus flight hours.

If ever sh-t really hits the fan, I'll most likely come to depend on my 1978 Landcruiser for transportation as opposed to my computer bearing Fords.

I talk with pilots who actually fly it in combat. Their opinions differ rather markedly from internet "experts".

+1. Those whose azzez are in the seats are huge fans of that aircraft.

FC

Imagine that.
Hard to believe isn’t it.

They bet their lives on that plane, partsman. That trumps whatever opinion you might have.

I can hear the midday flights of F-35s taking off from Hill AFB as I type this.

I believe that bird is going nowhere. they are close to a dozen countries that have or have on order F 35’s. They have already been proven in combat, the Israelis have been very successful with them…

The Block IV upgrades are pretty extensive. DAS, EOTS, EW, Computer, and Radar plus more weapons internally.

I could see holding off on producing more Block III just to pay for an upgrade to the Block IV spec at a later date.

Incredible weapon system. Incredibly expensive on the whole but per jet it's now below F-15 or F-18.

A lot of the technology on that airplane is twenty or thirty years out of date. It is essentially obsolete already. Not, of course, in its capabilities, but in its modularity and upgrade ability. The next fighters will have update modules that are simply plugged in. Changing roles, capabilities, and raw performance will be as easy as plugging in a zip drive into your PC relatively speaking.

They’re not all vertical take off aircraft.

The guys I know who have personal experience have said it’s magic and has capabilities that most folks can’t even fathom.

A very wise old man once told me "Something that's good for everything isn't worth a damn!" Carter was told years ago not to attempt a rescue of the hostages using the helicopters in the desert because the air filters were not capable of operating in desert environment! With this aircraft, and a version being assigned to carrier duty and the sea environment......it's going to be interesting!

What aircraft anywhere in the world has more current systems in "modularity and upgrade ability".

JSF is currently being updated to the new Block IV standard. Who/what does it better?

Israel wants over 300 of them!

10 million lines of code and it still cannot sustain MACH 1+ without ablading the stealth coating and causing structural damage. The most expensive weapons system in history and cannot meet basic performance and mission capable rates. Only 30% are fully mission capable.

New block airframes are being parked for the foreseeable future because they don’t have the software updates. Now they want another $6 billion (military speak for $50 billion) to repower the A/C.

Not sure how anyone can put a happy face on the F-35 program. But seems folks continue to try. The F-35 is a POS weapons system that will never live up to its promises. The Littoral Class of the skys.

Fortunately in a real shooting war they will be protected in their bunkers waiting for parts.

We have them at Williamtown AFB near where I live. When there is a NE wind I can hear them takeoff, from about 20miles away. They are fabulous to watch and amazing in their aerodynamic capability. And freaking loud!

Was a big joint exercise out of Darwin at beginning of year. Video of a Singapore F15SG pilot flying along and getting the surprise of his life when an F-35 comes alongside.

They certainly wow at air shows. At least it's got that going for it.

A $1.7 trillion dollar airshow queen. Yeaaaa

The Izzys have a sensible chuckle at this post.

Syria and Iran frown.

JSF has been flying real world mission for many years. It does require more mantinance than a F-86.

Flying through sophisticated ADA without a care in the world while Geolocating all the things and dropping bombs on bad guys takes a bit of preparation in todays battlespace.