CVF and Carrier Strike thread

[tekirdag]

I prefer these figures for the AV8, they tell the whole story...



Max. takeoff weight:
Rolling: 31,000 lb (14,100 kg)
Vertical: 20,755 lb (9,415 kg)

Then do compare like with like:
F35 Max t/ wt:
Rolling 60,000 lb
Vertical 35,000 lb


Again, which has the better thrust to weight performance?
The Harrier pulls 67% of max weight in the hover, while the F35 pulls just 58%. So which is going to be the better STOVL aircraft?


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[sunnoficarus]

No one does VTOL takes offs, not even the now extinct Sea Harrier.

An F-35B can get off the deck with a 15,000lb weapons load, and can self defend and fight its way to the most heavily defended targets.

[Alamo]

What you are doing, is quoting structural weight limits, rather than performance limits. If the F35 underperforms at the rate it is going, its going to miss those payload targets by a long way. Your 8t weapon load may soon become 4t.

And buddy refuelling is not the answer. Suddenly, you are using two F35s for one sortie. And since the F35 is twice the cost, you are now doing one F35 sortie for the same cost as four Harrier sorties. Which then, will be carring the greater weapon load, for the same number of dollars?

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There is lots of talk here of 'lets move on from the 1970s'. I would love to, but with the F35 we are not moving on, we are moving backwards.

As soon as I saw this abortion, I knew it would fail, because it did not conform to KISS in any fashion whatsoever. And of all aircraft, STOVL HAS TO BE KISS.

I am not wedded to the Harrier, if you can find something better, but I have to remind you that when the French came up with an F35 lookalike back in the 1960s, Rolls Royce just laughed and called it a complete abortion. Instead, they drew plans for a fan engine, that became the Harrier.

So what has changed, over the last 50 years, to make Rolls Royce's laughable abortion into a viable military aircraft? Answer - nothing, it is still a laughable abortion.

And they only went down this route, because someone with a flashy promo video (the sort of American propaganda video that Suno just laps up, as if they are real) persuaded the military that a supersonic dash is just what the new navy needed, when in reality that supersonic dash will be a complete fuel-load liability.

They also persuaded the starry-eyed procurement team that if they produced three variants of the same aircraft, that it would be cheaper - and then proceeded to use completely different components on each variant. Cheaper my ass.

They also persuaded the starry-eyed procurement team that their new 21st century jet would be undetectale to radar - and then proceeded to festoon it with underwing stores and Christmas lights.


Admit it, the F35 is another Howard Hughes D2 (or the Spruce Goose, for that matter). Howard Hughes promised the most sensational aircraft ever, but never even got the abortion into production. If the USA had been depending on Howard Hughes' salesmanship and propaganda during WWII, it would have lost to the Japanese is spectacular fashion.

The F35 is exactly the same. It is an aircraft that was sold to gullable military-types, who have never been outside their own internal Communist system, by a typical American Howard Hughes-style 'sell, sell, sell' sales team, rather than by a sober and realistic engineering team.

And so the F35 will never work as advertised. Just call it the Lokheed D2, or perhaps the Lockheed XF-11. That is how good it will be in service.
.

I don't know what info you are privy to, but I am privy to some, and from what I do know you know nothing of the F35.

[rampant]

I don't know what info you are privy to, but I am privy to some, and from what I do know you know nothing of the F35.

Or about any aircraft it would seem.

[benjaminw1]

Or about any aircraft it would seem.

Or about anything at all....

[jagman]

No one does VTOL takes offs, not even the now extinct Sea Harrier.

An F-35B can get off the deck with a 15,000lb weapons load, and can self defend and fight its way to the most heavily defended targets.

Errrr don't you mean should be able too, one day?

[sunnoficarus]

Errrr don't you mean should be able too, one day?

Just add bombs...

F-35B External Stores Flight Test - YouTube

[cokecan]

Just add bombs...

F-35B External Stores Flight Test - YouTube

except that if its using external stores, it can't attack the most heavily defended targets - coz it'll about as stealthy as the London Eye.

if, in 'stealth' configuration, the 'B' is limited to a weapon no bigger than a 1000lb JDAM, will it really be able to do the 'first dat of war' operations that will then allow it to subsequently operate in its less stealthy, but more useful configuration?

genuine, serious question.

[Gassing_Badgers]

except that if its using external stores, it can't attack the most heavily defended targets - coz it'll about as stealthy as the London Eye.

if, in 'stealth' configuration, the 'B' is limited to a weapon no bigger than a 1000lb JDAM, will it really be able to do the 'first dat of war' operations that will then allow it to subsequently operate in its less stealthy, but more useful configuration?

genuine, serious question.

That's a good question - and I'll (not) answer it with another..

The ability to carry out limited stealthy, surgical strikes with precision ordnance is useful - either in the 'first day of general war' context, or from the 'whacking naughty wogs' nuclear capability' - but how much more useful than a submarine delivered TLAM?

Fish-heads and flyboys will no doubt have a better understanding...

[Andy71]

but how much more useful than a submarine delivered TLAM?

neither more or less useful but complementary