A-10 Worthless POS

[Manonthestreet]

You simply won't be able to afford them ..

Marines absolutely love it, they are the farthest onboard of any branch. I've seen no indication the Air Force wants to decrease their order.

I think the word "proof" is still lacking here.

AF needs more than 189 high altitude fighters which f35 never will be

 

[Daryl Hunt]

260 for Navy...... Like quantity for Marines .,.....Doubt AF will buy even a thousand ......

You are discounting the rest of the world. While it would be relegated to 2nd class for battle, some of the rest of the world would buy it as their front lined fighter. The kiss of death is for the DOD to reject something. Remember the F-20? But if the DOD accepts it then it's world wide sales in guaranteed.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

You simply won't be able to afford them ..

Marines absolutely love it, they are the farthest onboard of any branch. I've seen no indication the Air Force wants to decrease their order.

I think the word "proof" is still lacking here.

AF needs more than 189 high altitude fighters which f35 never will be

They already have a very high altitude fighter, the F-15. If they need more, they can be bought. But at a whopping 110 mil each.

 

[DrainBamage]

AF needs more than 189 high altitude fighters which f35 never will be

Why? Do you know how much fighting happens above 50,000 feet? Hint = very little.

Go look at history of US air combat shoot downs since the 90s. The stats that stand out most are transonic speeds, medium altitude, and AMRAAM.

 

[Manonthestreet]

You simply won't be able to afford them ..

Marines absolutely love it, they are the farthest onboard of any branch. I've seen no indication the Air Force wants to decrease their order.

I think the word "proof" is still lacking here.

AF needs more than 189 high altitude fighters which f35 never will be

They already have a very high altitude fighter, the F-15. If they need more, they can be bought. But at a whopping 110 mil each.

F15 is old...Not to mention we operate the oldest and least capable version in the world

 

[Daryl Hunt]

You simply won't be able to afford them ..

Marines absolutely love it, they are the farthest onboard of any branch. I've seen no indication the Air Force wants to decrease their order.

I think the word "proof" is still lacking here.

AF needs more than 189 high altitude fighters which f35 never will be

They already have a very high altitude fighter, the F-15. If they need more, they can be bought. But at a whopping 110 mil each.

F15 is old...Not to mention we operate the oldest and least capable version in the world

You hinted we had none. Well, we do. And our F-15s have been upgraded till the cows come home. They still get first look/first shoot with every fighter except the F-22 and the F-35. And the F-15 can almost go into space and zoom to over 100,000 feet. The only one that can beat it is an old 60s bird, the Mig-25 for altitude. Can it fly at 60K, yes. Can it fly at 70K, yes. Can it fly at 80K, yes but the fuel and the pilots blood starts to boil.

Technically, we can build a jet to fly at 100,000 feet. But without a space suit, the pilot can't handle it. Hence the full pressure suits for the SR-71 pilots.

Besides, there is little to trying to fight above 40K. The air gets too thin, the engines start to starve for air, the pilots start having some serious health problems. Most fights are 20k and below since that is where the fighters will have the best performance. You keep looking at the paper performance. The actual performance is different.

 

[westwall]

Now about capability. Let's do the same loadout on a F-16 that a F-35 normally carries. You are going to need two drop tanks, 4 Air to Air, two bombs, all carried externally. While the F-35A is capable of Mach 1.6, the F-16 just dropped to Mach 1.3 or less. The F-35A maintains a 9+ G rating while your F-16 drops to 7.5. Those are the real numbers, not something extracted from an early test.

Might as well thrown in a targeting pod and an ECM pod if that F-16 wants to match F-35 in offensive capabilities.

When flying Red Flag, the F-15 doesn't come off so well. Remember, it's flying against the best of the best. It doesn't even make a 4 to 1 kill rate there. Yes, the real world, it's 105 to 0 but Red Flag is not real world. It's you against the best of the best. For the F-35A to get a 15 to 1 in air to air role, that's pretty damned impressive.

I think we both know Westwall is just going to keep moving the goal posts here. We have F-35 being flown by pilots still learning how to best use the aircraft against some of the best pilots USAF has, and now he would have expected better than 15-1.

F-35 is showing it is a dominant air to air fighter, and he hates it. He hates that he was wrong about it, he takes pride as coming off as the expert so this drives him crazy.

I don't "hate" anything. What I desire is an aircraft that will do the job at a cost that is commensurate with it's capabilities. The Marines have a F-35 detachment in Japan with a 70-80% serviceability rate. Red Flag had 13 JSF's and they only managed to get 110 sorties in over the two week period. That's .6 sorties per day. Not exactly a blistering pace.

70 to 8o% against a F-15 at 70. Sounds like an improvement. BTW, the AV8B has a much lower rate that that.

Here is the rest of that writeup you cherry picked

Since the exercise began, Hill’s Airmen have generated 110 sorties, including their first 10-jet F-35A sortie Jan. 30 and turned around and launched eight jets that afternoon. They have not lost a single sortie to a maintenance issue and have a 92 percent mission-capable rate, said 1st Lt. Devin Ferguson, assistant officer in charge of the 34th Aircraft Maintenance Unit. Legacy aircraft average 70 to 85 percent mission-capable.​

You are a lying piece of garbage. Stop lying or we will have the Moderator ban you.

I see figures of 80% for the F-15 and the main reason for that low rate is the fact that the obama admin was not funding maintenance programs. The F-22 as of 2015 had a 62.8% rate.

 

[DrainBamage]

Besides, there is little to trying to fight above 40K. The air gets too thin, the engines start to starve for air, the pilots start having some serious health problems. Most fights are 20k and below since that is where the fighters will have the best performance. You keep looking at the paper performance. The actual performance is different.

Exactly, I'm baffled at this fixation with fighters zipping around at 60k feet. F-16 and F-35 have similar specs 50k+ feet yet many countries use F-16 as their primary interceptor. I believe Rafale is 50k+ as well. Up that high you have a turn radius about the size of Texas, it isn't practical. I forget exact but median altitude where air combat occurs since 90s was in the 20ks, and speed mach 0.8. Being over 50k is useful if you're a recon plane going in a straight line.

Also this isn't the days of an F-4 trying to hit a Foxbat way up high using a Sparrow missile with 25 mile range. AIM-120D is going 100 miles and doing it on a smarter ballistic trajectory, being 10k feet higher with a head start is no longer a free pass.

 

[DrainBamage]

Red Flag had 13 JSF's and they only managed to get 110 sorties in over the two week period. That's .6 sorties per day. Not exactly a blistering pace.

Aside from your obvious math fail, there is this:

F-35A proving its worth at Red Flag combat exercise
Since the exercise began, Hill’s Airmen have generated 110 sorties, including their first 10-jet F-35A sortie Jan. 30 and turned around and launched eight jets that afternoon. They have not lost a single sortie to a maintenance issue and have a 92 percent mission-capable rate, said 1st Lt. Devin Ferguson, assistant officer in charge of the 34th Aircraft Maintenance Unit. Legacy aircraft average 70 to 85 percent mission-capable.

 

[Manonthestreet]

You simply won't be able to afford them ..

Marines absolutely love it, they are the farthest onboard of any branch. I've seen no indication the Air Force wants to decrease their order.

I think the word "proof" is still lacking here.

AF needs more than 189 high altitude fighters which f35 never will be

They already have a very high altitude fighter, the F-15. If they need more, they can be bought. But at a whopping 110 mil each.

F15 is old...Not to mention we operate the oldest and least capable version in the world

You hinted we had none. Well, we do. And our F-15s have been upgraded till the cows come home. They still get first look/first shoot with every fighter except the F-22 and the F-35. And the F-15 can almost go into space and zoom to over 100,000 feet. The only one that can beat it is an old 60s bird, the Mig-25 for altitude. Can it fly at 60K, yes. Can it fly at 70K, yes. Can it fly at 80K, yes but the fuel and the pilots blood starts to boil.

Technically, we can build a jet to fly at 100,000 feet. But without a space suit, the pilot can't handle it. Hence the full pressure suits for the SR-71 pilots.

Besides, there is little to trying to fight above 40K. The air gets too thin, the engines start to starve for air, the pilots start having some serious health problems. Most fights are 20k and below since that is where the fighters will have the best performance. You keep looking at the paper performance. The actual performance is different.

Our F15 not as good as what we build for other nations and they are old and heavily used. Don't have to fly at 100000 if your opponent can only hit 30_35 when loaded....Quite a lot of head room there to exploit.....Course they would never do that nnnnnnoooo

 

[Deleted member 61768]

I witnessed A-10s work the tank tables at Fort Hood above my unit and what those things could do to tank chassis was most impressive. Those 30MM slugs especially at night would light up the area upon impact. The low hum of that gun would be great if you needed fire support as it would tear apart anything. May be it would not be the greatest tank killer ever invented but if I was ever in need of air support in a tight valley high up in the mountains where helicopters lose power I know what sound I would want to hear! It would that buruuup of that 30mm A-10 Warthog backing me up! It has saved many a ground pounders' bacon out of the fire not to mention scares the crap out of the bad guys with good reason!

 

[DrainBamage]

Don't have to fly at 100000 if your opponent can only hit 30_35 when loaded....Quite a lot of head room there to exploit.....Course they would never do that nnnnnnoooo

You have this weird obsession with max altitude. Again I'd invite you to look at stats on where planes fight at in the modern era, it is almost always 25k-30k feet because that is there optimal cruising altitude. It isn't like all these fighter pilots, with aircraft that have been capable of 60k+ feet for decades just didn't think of it like you did. That high up and at high speed your turn radius is Gulf of Mexico.

You do bring up a good point on the load, aircraft with internal carry have a big advantage in performance since the specs are for clean. Drop tanks, targeting pods, ECM pods, external missiles (especially large Russian ones) all impact perfomance, but planes like F-22 and F-35 carrying weapons internally don't suffer the same penalties so their actual performance will be a lot closer to clean profile.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Don't have to fly at 100000 if your opponent can only hit 30_35 when loaded....Quite a lot of head room there to exploit.....Course they would never do that nnnnnnoooo

You have this weird obsession with max altitude. Again I'd invite you to look at stats on where planes fight at in the modern era, it is almost always 25k-30k feet because that is there optimal cruising altitude. It isn't like all these fighter pilots, with aircraft that have been capable of 60k+ feet for decades just didn't think of it like you did. That high up and at high speed your turn radius is Gulf of Mexico.

You do bring up a good point on the load, aircraft with internal carry have a big advantage in performance since the specs are for clean. Drop tanks, targeting pods, ECM pods, external missiles (especially large Russian ones) all impact perfomance, but planes like F-22 and F-35 carrying weapons internally don't suffer the same penalties so their actual performance will be a lot closer to clean profile.

The reason the F-16 carried drop tanks was because it didn't have enough fuel to gauge the F-35. Those two drop tanks dropped it from a Mach 2 Fighter all the way down to a Mach 1.3. And it took the 9G max down to 7.5. The F-35 was the F-35-A2 meaning it was a test bird and could not exceed 6.5Gs. Had it been a production model, it would be a 9+g turn rate and a max of Mach 1.6. In a real fight, the F-16 would have to drop both tanks and have a matter of a couple of minutes in the fight while the F-35 will just outlast the F-16. For dogfighting, the specs read that the F-35A needs to meet the F-16s specs, not exceed them. It does just that and has a longer flight time to boot. Overall, the F-16 may be using it's radar to guide the F-35As weapons.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

I witnessed A-10s work the tank tables at Fort Hood above my unit and what those things could do to tank chassis was most impressive. Those 30MM slugs especially at night would light up the area upon impact. The low hum of that gun would be great if you needed fire support as it would tear apart anything. May be it would not be the greatest tank killer ever invented but if I was ever in need of air support in a tight valley high up in the mountains where helicopters lose power I know what sound I would want to hear! It would that buruuup of that 30mm A-10 Warthog backing me up! It has saved many a ground pounders' bacon out of the fire not to mention scares the crap out of the bad guys with good reason!

In an Uncontested area, you are right. Those tank chassis don't shoot back. Now, arm you ground pounders with a few ManPads and everything changes. The A-10 goes to medium altitude where it can fire it's longer ranged weapons. At that point, it becomes no different than either a Buff or a F-16.

 

[yiostheoy]

... We'll just keep on coming back to find the history of your "wisdom" on the F-35 going forward.

So why on Earth did you resurrect this old dead tired useless thread ???

 

[DrainBamage]

So why on Earth did you resurrect this old dead tired useless thread ???

Because so called "experts" who spout complete bullshit need to stand by their claims.