Talk:Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II

Squadron service

This [1] suggest that there are 63 completed F-35s. Even if half of them are trials and testing, that leaves around two squadrons worth of aircraft. Has anyone seen anything about squadron formation with numbers of aircraft assigned, as it needs to be added. Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The link is dead or has problems. I was going to propose add a table on construction rates/ currently complete to article. I have seen nothing on any squadrons having F35 assigned. I also think by US Navy and US Air Force are doing separate activities for test/trial/ and certification. perhaps for US Navy some are technically assigned to VX-23 squadron at Patuxent River, MD. Could some aircraft be completed and not yet turned over or accepted by the DoD? Could some aircraft have been completed- and now not longer operate due to planned destructive/ now non airworthy status? Wfoj2 (talk) 14:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• There may be some 63 assembled, but they probably have to be modified to incorporate fixes and changes from flight testing. Aircraft are usually checked-out and test-flown before being ready to be hand over to the customer. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:46, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Top Gun 2

Top_Gun#Sequel Worth a mention yet? Hcobb (talk) 02:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

By consensus this sort of thing would go in Aircraft in fiction, not in the aircraft type article as per WP:AIRPOP. - Ahunt (talk) 13:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for adding that along with the ref to Aircraft in fiction. As per WP:AIRPOP I have added a section on "Notable appearances in media" to this article, which contains only a link to the "Aircraft in fiction" article. - Ahunt (talk) 15:42, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

FMS shields LockMart

The point of the linked to FMS-related article was that the United States government was shielding LockMart against penalties for non-performance that foreign governments might want to hold that company to. So why not indicate this in our text? Hcobb (talk) 15:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Your wording claimed/implied LM is late on export orders, which is questionable since they have not been any finalized contracts yet. It be better to state possible penalty payments, etc. We're not supposed to be forecasting here. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:54, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Helmet-mounted display system

I have re-edited the section on the BAE helmet to reflect what is actually written in the article cited, that if successful the helmet could incorporate the remaining features and be the final helmet even if a minor cockpit re-design is required. Twobells (talk) 20:13, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Photo of the new alien-looking BAE helmet replacement http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p284/keanfatt89/44229147helmetpa300bel3.jpg

82.31.236.245 (talk) 22:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

While I personally believe that Venlet will go with the British Aerospace version there is some news on a potential fix for the VSI solution. Twobells (talk) 13:10, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Cost Reporting

I altered the summary table to show the "fly-away" costs for each of the variants (to make it more easily comparable to similar statistics about other aircraft, which are most always given in these terms). One annoying thing is that the Navy / USMC has clearly played with the "fly-away" costs in the 2012 budget. The 2011 fly-away cost of a F-35B was $246m, the 2012 projection is $173m, and 2013 is back up to $197m which rises to $220m in 2015 when it begins to fall again.

It is hard to understand why the unit fly-away costs would rise over the life of an aircraft (unless it has something to do with a phase-in of the refit cost-sharing agreement the DoD forced down Lockheed's throats). Especially since the most expensive year is when the aircraft is expected to enter combat service.

So I have two questions: (i) what is driving these huge non-monotonic cost changes? and (ii) is there a smart way to see past the accounting and get a more correct measure of cost that is comparable to similar measures for other aircraft? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.143.194 (talk) 18:35, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the unit costs reported are so convoluted by a myriad of factors, including training, spare parts, weapons and, of course, politics, that the dollar figures are essentially meaningless, or at least not comparable from one order to the next. - Ahunt (talk) 11:50, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, the lack of a comparable raw unit cost measure is understandable in such a young and contentious aircraft (though I'm not sure its as true when comparing more mature planes). And there is substantial aircraft specific maintenance cost variation, as in the F-22. But, I'm not certain that training costs actually vary that enormously across aircraft: aside from initial set up costs, how does this vary across aircraft aside from unit cost? Similarly, aside from niche weapon systems that can only be fired from certain planes (which have grown very rare) how do weapon costs vary across similar combat aircraft? Why should an F-18 be more or less expensive to arm for combat than an F-15 or F-35?

Regardless, there must be some substantive measurement of cost that is informative, however imprecise. It is difficult to argue that an A-10 is cheaper than an F-15 which is cheaper than an F-35 when considering the DoD's choices about close-air-support alternatives. Is there no meaningful numerical measure of this ordering? Would using the federal budget's reporting of fly-away and gross weapon system unit cost be so unreasonable? If this is obfuscated deliberately, does that mean we should abandon our efforts to measure cost?

Perhaps giving support to Ahunt's concern, the question troubling me is comparing the "B" and "C" variants. The Navy budget puts their gross unit costs within a million dollars of one another, despite the fact the "B" is the source of most of the design trouble and contains lots of extremely unique parts. Will these planes really have such similar costs going forward? Or is this an accounting ploy by the Navy? Do we know what the offer prices of the two variants are to the British (the only country likely to buy both)?--Sjk81 (talk) 14:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Trillion dollar jet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkcHT9FZohA&feature=g-user-u

Can someone confirm which F-35 is costing 1 trillion dollars, and is considered a massive failure (except for the defence contractors making the money) as an operational military aircraft and deadly for the pilots . -G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.153.78 (talk) 01:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Which F-35, huh? Read the article in the reference [in Lead of this wiki article]. The $1 trillion number include R&D, procurement, maintenance, and other costs over a 50-year life, and includes inflation. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The video is fun to watch, but it confuses a number of issues and shows that the reporter doesn't have a good grasp of the money issues involved. He also confuses the F-22 oxygen system woes with the F-35, so while his sentiments are not far from reality this doesn't add up to a WP:RS. - Ahunt (talk) 17:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Military–industrial complex Apologist LBT sez: "The trillion-dollar cost projection was in what the Pentagon calls then-year dollars, meaning with inflation included. That’s right, the Department of Defense really thinks it knows what the inflation rate is going to be in 2035, so it’s included in a cost estimate that stretches from 2015 to 2065. Try applying that same methodology to the four-dollar latte you buy each day, and you’ll discover that over the next five decades it will cost you more in nominal terms than a typical house currently sells for in Cleveland." Hcobb (talk) 13:28, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

And I just updated the article with the new $1.45 trillion number. Hcobb (talk) 13:09, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Double check the buyers

I removed the claim that Denmark had committed to buying the F-35. Denmark has postponed its choice of new fighters until 2014 (basically a cost-cutting move), and the link only states, that the countries mentioned are involved in the development of the F-35 (through subcontracting of various components). Norway has signed up, and in Denmark the F-35 is favoured by the airforce, but politicians are concerned by the F-35's high unit cost and undefined final price tag. This is why there is still a debate on the possibility of buying the Swedish Saab JAS 39 Gripen, or perhaps the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, while the consortium behind the Eurofighter Typhoon withdrew from the bidding process in 2007. Have the rest of the buyers listed officially signed up?

Mojowiha (talk) 14:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

three variants don't share one combat radius

This wikipedia page lists a single 584 mile combat radius (presumably the original 590 A variant minimum that has since been reduced to either 585 or 584.) I'm linking to an article that states that the contract minimum combat radius for the A variant is 590 miles, while for the B it's 469, and 615 for C.

http://defensetech.org/2011/05/13/f-35a-combat-radius-fails-to-meet-minimum-requirement — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.60.130.94 (talk) 20:15, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean, are you saying that the 584 miles in the spec section for the "A" is wrong, or the comparison that says the A is 584, B is 383 and C is 640 is wrong, note all the figures are referenced. MilborneOne (talk) 20:20, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

External fuel tanks

Norway brief sez external fuel tanks: http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FD/Temadokumenter/JSF_RBI-svar.pdf

Israel sez conformal fuel tanks: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/israel-to-boost-range-of-future-f-35-fleet-220748/

This article sez: Nada. Hcobb (talk) 02:51, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Britain will now order the B variant instead of the C variant

According to an article dated 10 May 2012 the Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced that the Royal Navy will order the STOVL 'B' variant in preference to the carrier capable 'C' variant. His reasoning is that to convert the Queen Elizabeth class carrier to 'Cat and Trap' configuration would delay service implementation and double the cost of the carriers.

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2012/May/10/120509-F35B — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djandersonza (talk • contribs) 16:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Parliamentary Committee text

The following was challenged on grounds of copywrite because it's a quote, I think it is fair use from a public document, can we have a decission please?

Australia's Air Vice Marshal Osley said, Air Power Australia (Kopp and Goon) claim that the F35 will not be competitive in 2020. Air Power Australia's criticisms mainly centre around F35's aerodynamic performance and stealth capabilities. These are inconsistent with years of detailed analysis that has been undertaken by Defence, the JSF program office, Lockheed Martin, the US services and the eight other partner nations. While aircraft developments such as the Russian PAK-FA or the Chinese J-20, as argued by Air Power Australia, show that threats we could potentially face are becoming increasingly sophisticated, there is nothing new regarding development of these aircraft to change Defence's assessment. I think that the Airpower Australia analysis is basically flawed through incorrect assumptions and a lack of knowledge of the classified F-35 performance information.[2]

and I added a Parliamentary Inquiry quote to the LO vs VLO in response to goon

In 2006 the F-35 was downgraded from "very low observable" to "low observable", a change former RAAF flight test engineer Peter Goon likened to increasing the radar cross section from a marble to a beach ball.

A Parliamentary Inquiry asked, What was the re-categorization of the terminology in the United States such that the rating was changed from Very Low Observable to Low Observable? Department of Defence said The change in categorization by the US was due to a revision in procedures for discussing stealth platforms in a public document. The previous decision to re-categorize in the public domain has now been reversed. Publicly released material now categorizes JSF as Very Low Observable (VLO). [3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.146.250 (talk) 22:53, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It still needs to be marked as a quote so there's no plagiarizing and to indicate who actually said/wrote it. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Because it wasn't indicated as a quote I rewrote it so it made more sense and formatted the ref. Feel free to tun it into a quote if that needs doing beyond what is there now. - Ahunt (talk) 23:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that, the VLO LO reads fine, I reworded the Osley quote, see what you think of it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.146.250 (talk) 08:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

A-10 replacement

The Air Force determined that the F-35B will not replace the A-10. If the F-35A is a fighter-bomber meant to replace the F-15E and F-16, is this still supposed the "replace" the A-10? (America789 (talk) 19:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC))

Yes, it is also meant to replace the A-10 in addition to the F-15E and F-16. Our sources state that very clearly. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 21:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The actual current A-10 replacement is the A-10

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2011/February%202011/0211fighters.aspx

Twenty years from now the A-10 will be retired and the USAF will "suddenly" notice that it has no aircraft for CAS and so stop doing that mission, sorry. Hcobb (talk) 21:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

A interesting question from me... How the USAF pretends to use F-35 to close air support? The A-10 have the Avenger, can carry a big load of ordinance and can fly even damaged. [i]How[/i] a F-35 can do the same?200.189.118.162 (talk)