DoD Budget boosts funds for F-35 ...

[Navy1960]

The Pentagon’s 2011 budget will seek nearly $11 billion for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while also putting $4 billion toward a new long-range bomber and boosting funds for special operations forces, according to a draft overview of the spending request obtained by Defense News.

The Obama administration’s 2011 Pentagon spending request follows a tumultuous 2010 Pentagon budget process that saw Defense Secretary Robert Gates cancel, restructure or otherwise alter about 50 major U.S. weapon programs.

Due to be sent to Congress on Feb. 1, the new budget will call for the termination of yet more programs while doubling the purchase of MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft, according to the summary document, titled “Overview — FY 2011 Defense Budget” and labeled “Draft — Predecisional.” And as in years past, the budget will push to finally kill purchases of the Air Force’s C-17 cargo plane and an alternative engine for the F-35.
DoD budget boosts funds for F-35, spec ops - Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

It's about time that funding went somewhere else and the F-35 did NOT need an alternative engine that was untested and undeveloped as a gift to G.E. . I'm a skeptic of the the F-35 in general and see it as LESS than a good solution to US Navy and Marine Corps aviation needs and this push to develp this aircraft reminds me of the initial reasoning behind developing the F-4 without a "gun". In fact with the development of the F-15SE and the F16IN both of which offer better solutions that the F-35 at less the cost this aircraft becomes even more unattractive. The F-16IN even more so as it has both "super cruise" that the F-22 offers and the AESA Radar that the F-35 has.

 

[geauxtohell]

The Pentagon’s 2011 budget will seek nearly $11 billion for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while also putting $4 billion toward a new long-range bomber and boosting funds for special operations forces, according to a draft overview of the spending request obtained by Defense News.

The Obama administration’s 2011 Pentagon spending request follows a tumultuous 2010 Pentagon budget process that saw Defense Secretary Robert Gates cancel, restructure or otherwise alter about 50 major U.S. weapon programs.

Due to be sent to Congress on Feb. 1, the new budget will call for the termination of yet more programs while doubling the purchase of MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft, according to the summary document, titled “Overview — FY 2011 Defense Budget” and labeled “Draft — Predecisional.” And as in years past, the budget will push to finally kill purchases of the Air Force’s C-17 cargo plane and an alternative engine for the F-35.
DoD budget boosts funds for F-35, spec ops - Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

It's about time that funding went somewhere else and the F-35 did NOT need an alternative engine that was untested and undeveloped as a gift to G.E. . I'm a skeptic of the the F-35 in general and see it as LESS than a good solution to US Navy and Marine Corps aviation needs and this push to develp this aircraft reminds me of the initial reasoning behind developing the F-4 without a "gun". In fact with the development of the F-15SE and the F16IN both of which offer better solutions that the F-35 at less the cost this aircraft becomes even more unattractive. The F-16IN even more so as it has both "super cruise" that the F-22 offers and the AESA Radar that the F-35 has.

I know we aren't going to agree on this, and I certainly defer to your expertise as a pilot over the technical matters.

However, I have been happy with the DOD's realization (have to credit rumsfeld too, as much as I hate too) that we don't need a military that is set up for a huge conventional fight, to include interdiction missions for jets.

The Army was pissed when the Crusader got scrapped, but on the modern battlefield where even howitzers and the Field Artillery branch itself, is struggling to find relevance, I personally think the money is better spent on other items.

 

[Navy1960]

The Pentagon’s 2011 budget will seek nearly $11 billion for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while also putting $4 billion toward a new long-range bomber and boosting funds for special operations forces, according to a draft overview of the spending request obtained by Defense News.

The Obama administration’s 2011 Pentagon spending request follows a tumultuous 2010 Pentagon budget process that saw Defense Secretary Robert Gates cancel, restructure or otherwise alter about 50 major U.S. weapon programs.

Due to be sent to Congress on Feb. 1, the new budget will call for the termination of yet more programs while doubling the purchase of MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft, according to the summary document, titled “Overview — FY 2011 Defense Budget” and labeled “Draft — Predecisional.” And as in years past, the budget will push to finally kill purchases of the Air Force’s C-17 cargo plane and an alternative engine for the F-35.
DoD budget boosts funds for F-35, spec ops - Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

It's about time that funding went somewhere else and the F-35 did NOT need an alternative engine that was untested and undeveloped as a gift to G.E. . I'm a skeptic of the the F-35 in general and see it as LESS than a good solution to US Navy and Marine Corps aviation needs and this push to develp this aircraft reminds me of the initial reasoning behind developing the F-4 without a "gun". In fact with the development of the F-15SE and the F16IN both of which offer better solutions that the F-35 at less the cost this aircraft becomes even more unattractive. The F-16IN even more so as it has both "super cruise" that the F-22 offers and the AESA Radar that the F-35 has.

I know we aren't going to agree on this, and I certainly defer to your expertise as a pilot over the technical matters.

However, I have been happy with the DOD's realization (have to credit rumsfeld too, as much as I hate too) that we don't need a military that is set up for a huge conventional fight, to include interdiction missions for jets.

The Army was pissed when the Crusader got scrapped, but on the modern battlefield where even howitzers and the Field Artillery branch itself, is struggling to find relevance, I personally think the money is better spent on other items.

Where I am generally a critic of the DoD and have been for years is that they tend not to purchase "smartly". Let me give you a very good example of this, the comanche helicopter. after expending a lot of money DoD has nothing to show for it other than a cancelled program. I beleive that this notion that conventional warfare is somehow a thing of the past and the need to go with "leaner, mobile, lethal" as the DoD like to make noise about always and I do mean always comes back to bite them in the backside. There should be a balance between the need for current conditions and keeping in mind to be prepared for any eventual type of conflict, this is called buying smartly. You know when I see this big push towards the F-35 for example, I am always reminded of all those in the aviation community who convinced DoD that air superority was a thing of the past and that OTR warfighting was the only way air battle would be fought in the future. So what did we do, we set out to purchase a series of aircraft from the F-4 to the F-104 which were great aircraft but were useless in the battles that came to pass, i.e. Vietnam. So the early years of the war were spent getting out backsides handed to us until we relearned what a previous generation had already known. While there is a LOT of merit for getting rid of the dead wood, but there is a big need for improvement in the way DoD does business in general. I mentioned the F-15 Silent Eagle which is half the cost of the F-22 but yet performs at 92% of its capabilites, when you see things like this and premature retirements of US Navy ships in anticipation of new programs that never happen then you start to see how DoD is not very smart in how it delivers the much needed systems to the warfighter. One that I always come back too is the US Navy Reserve fleet that sits in several locations and the Navy sinking quite a few of those ships as targets, had anyone thought of this in the long term, and smartly, how much of the offset of the cost of Steele would be for a new ship would be if they simply rather than sink a 100,000 ton aricraft carrier used it to create a new one? See what I mean.

 

[geauxtohell]

The Pentagon’s 2011 budget will seek nearly $11 billion for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while also putting $4 billion toward a new long-range bomber and boosting funds for special operations forces, according to a draft overview of the spending request obtained by Defense News.

The Obama administration’s 2011 Pentagon spending request follows a tumultuous 2010 Pentagon budget process that saw Defense Secretary Robert Gates cancel, restructure or otherwise alter about 50 major U.S. weapon programs.

Due to be sent to Congress on Feb. 1, the new budget will call for the termination of yet more programs while doubling the purchase of MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft, according to the summary document, titled “Overview — FY 2011 Defense Budget” and labeled “Draft — Predecisional.” And as in years past, the budget will push to finally kill purchases of the Air Force’s C-17 cargo plane and an alternative engine for the F-35.
DoD budget boosts funds for F-35, spec ops - Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

It's about time that funding went somewhere else and the F-35 did NOT need an alternative engine that was untested and undeveloped as a gift to G.E. . I'm a skeptic of the the F-35 in general and see it as LESS than a good solution to US Navy and Marine Corps aviation needs and this push to develp this aircraft reminds me of the initial reasoning behind developing the F-4 without a "gun". In fact with the development of the F-15SE and the F16IN both of which offer better solutions that the F-35 at less the cost this aircraft becomes even more unattractive. The F-16IN even more so as it has both "super cruise" that the F-22 offers and the AESA Radar that the F-35 has.

I know we aren't going to agree on this, and I certainly defer to your expertise as a pilot over the technical matters.

However, I have been happy with the DOD's realization (have to credit rumsfeld too, as much as I hate too) that we don't need a military that is set up for a huge conventional fight, to include interdiction missions for jets.

The Army was pissed when the Crusader got scrapped, but on the modern battlefield where even howitzers and the Field Artillery branch itself, is struggling to find relevance, I personally think the money is better spent on other items.

Where I am generally a critic of the DoD and have been for years is that they tend not to purchase "smartly". Let me give you a very good example of this, the comanche helicopter. after expending a lot of money DoD has nothing to show for it other than a cancelled program. I beleive that this notion that conventional warfare is somehow a thing of the past and the need to go with "leaner, mobile, lethal" as the DoD like to make noise about always and I do mean always comes back to bite them in the backside. There should be a balance between the need for current conditions and keeping in mind to be prepared for any eventual type of conflict, this is called buying smartly. You know when I see this big push towards the F-35 for example, I am always reminded of all those in the aviation community who convinced DoD that air superority was a thing of the past and that OTR warfighting was the only way air battle would be fought in the future. So what did we do, we set out to purchase a series of aircraft from the F-4 to the F-104 which were great aircraft but were useless in the battles that came to pass, i.e. Vietnam. So the early years of the war were spent getting out backsides handed to us until we relearned what a previous generation had already known. While there is a LOT of merit for getting rid of the dead wood, but there is a big need for improvement in the way DoD does business in general. I mentioned the F-15 Silent Eagle which is half the cost of the F-22 but yet performs at 92% of its capabilites, when you see things like this and premature retirements of US Navy ships in anticipation of new programs that never happen then you start to see how DoD is not very smart in how it delivers the much needed systems to the warfighter. One that I always come back too is the US Navy Reserve fleet that sits in several locations and the Navy sinking quite a few of those ships as targets, had anyone thought of this in the long term, and smartly, how much of the offset of the cost of Steele would be for a new ship would be if they simply rather than sink a 100,000 ton aricraft carrier used it to create a new one? See what I mean.

I certainly agree that the DOD isn't always efficient in it's budget and that we need to BPT fight a conventional war, but we already have adequate platforms for those missions. I am just glad that there is a realization w/in the DOD that more expensive doesn't always equate to money well spent.

But I was a grunt. If I had my rifle, bullets, MREs, water, and radios that worked, I was happy.

I agree with you that we should be scrapping ships and salvaging steel.

Recycle!

 

[Navy1960]

I know we aren't going to agree on this, and I certainly defer to your expertise as a pilot over the technical matters.

However, I have been happy with the DOD's realization (have to credit rumsfeld too, as much as I hate too) that we don't need a military that is set up for a huge conventional fight, to include interdiction missions for jets.

The Army was pissed when the Crusader got scrapped, but on the modern battlefield where even howitzers and the Field Artillery branch itself, is struggling to find relevance, I personally think the money is better spent on other items.

Where I am generally a critic of the DoD and have been for years is that they tend not to purchase "smartly". Let me give you a very good example of this, the comanche helicopter. after expending a lot of money DoD has nothing to show for it other than a cancelled program. I beleive that this notion that conventional warfare is somehow a thing of the past and the need to go with "leaner, mobile, lethal" as the DoD like to make noise about always and I do mean always comes back to bite them in the backside. There should be a balance between the need for current conditions and keeping in mind to be prepared for any eventual type of conflict, this is called buying smartly. You know when I see this big push towards the F-35 for example, I am always reminded of all those in the aviation community who convinced DoD that air superority was a thing of the past and that OTR warfighting was the only way air battle would be fought in the future. So what did we do, we set out to purchase a series of aircraft from the F-4 to the F-104 which were great aircraft but were useless in the battles that came to pass, i.e. Vietnam. So the early years of the war were spent getting out backsides handed to us until we relearned what a previous generation had already known. While there is a LOT of merit for getting rid of the dead wood, but there is a big need for improvement in the way DoD does business in general. I mentioned the F-15 Silent Eagle which is half the cost of the F-22 but yet performs at 92% of its capabilites, when you see things like this and premature retirements of US Navy ships in anticipation of new programs that never happen then you start to see how DoD is not very smart in how it delivers the much needed systems to the warfighter. One that I always come back too is the US Navy Reserve fleet that sits in several locations and the Navy sinking quite a few of those ships as targets, had anyone thought of this in the long term, and smartly, how much of the offset of the cost of Steele would be for a new ship would be if they simply rather than sink a 100,000 ton aricraft carrier used it to create a new one? See what I mean.

I certainly agree that the DOD isn't always efficient in it's budget and that we need to BPT fight a conventional war, but we already have adequate platforms for those missions. I am just glad that there is a realization w/in the DOD that more expensive doesn't always equate to money well spent.

But I was a grunt. If I had my rifle, bullets, MREs, water, and radios that worked, I was happy.

I agree with you that we should be scrapping ships and salvaging steel.

Recycle!

Here is a GREAT example of what I was taking about..

Stirring the pot is a key part of what Loren Thompson does. Thompson, go-​​to source for many defense reporters and defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, has put out an issue brief headlined: KILLING THE PRESIDENT’S NEW HELICOPTER WASTES $8 BILLION. (Those are his capital letters.…) OSD made the program kill official yesterday when they announced cancellation of the contract. Let the Pentagon and Congress know if you think Defense Secretary Gates is wasting billions by killing the VH-​​71 or is he saving the taxpayers from an even more enormous cock up? Or something more subtle
DoD Buzz | VH-??71 Kill ?Wastes? $8 Billion?

Thats 8 Billion dollars for a helicopter that will NEVER exist can you imagine how many "blackhawks" or perhaps new F-16IN's the Marine Corp could have purchased with that 8 billion. What really gets to me in all this people wonder why the Govt. runs a deficit , well when you do things like that and dig holes in the Nevada Desert for several billion dollars for nothing , the only people that lose in that sort of situation is the warfighter and the American people.

 

[ekrem]

According to Murad Bayar, Secretary of SSM (Procurement Authority), the participation of Turkey in F-35 project has secured Turkish defence firms already contracts worth 7,4 Billion $:
Türkiye Gazetesi

Turkey will also build the F-35 within Turkey.
There are also reports, that in Italy a "repair" facility will be established for International customers of F-35. But that obviously will not count for members of the initial production consortium.

The initial order of Turkey will be 116 F-35.
According to Wikipedia:

It is also anticipated that TAI after 2013 will also produce 100% of the F-35 under license from Lockheed Martin Corporation, as was also the case with the F-16 Fighting Falcon program Peace Onyx I and II. Turkey also intends to incorporate in the future several Turkish designed and manufactured electronic systems into the F-35 platform.
Murad Bayar, head of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, has said that Turkey may increase its order to 120 aircraft instead of purchasing Eurofighter Typhoons.[136]

F-35 Lightning II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's a good deal for Turkey with most of the money for F-35's staying within the country.

 

[Navy1960]

According to Murad Bayar, Secretary of SSM (Procurement Authority), the participation of Turkey in F-35 project has secured Turkish defence firms already contracts worth 7,4 Billion $:
Türkiye Gazetesi

Turkey will also build the F-35 within Turkey.
There are also reports, that in Italy a "repair" facility will be established for International customers of F-35. But that obviously will not count for members of the initial production consortium.

The initial order of Turkey will be 116 F-35.
According to Wikipedia:

It is also anticipated that TAI after 2013 will also produce 100% of the F-35 under license from Lockheed Martin Corporation, as was also the case with the F-16 Fighting Falcon program Peace Onyx I and II. Turkey also intends to incorporate in the future several Turkish designed and manufactured electronic systems into the F-35 platform.
Murad Bayar, head of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, has said that Turkey may increase its order to 120 aircraft instead of purchasing Eurofighter Typhoons.[136]

F-35 Lightning II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's a good deal for Turkey with most of the money for F-35's staying within the country.

A lot of the F-35's appeal is in these joint production agreements and for nations like Turkey it supports the local economy and the nations defense at the same time.

 

[Hugidwyn]

F-35 - is, in fact, a lightweight F-22, its cheaper is very simple - removing one engine. But what if the normal plane to remove one engine? In the United States itself is sensible voices who claim that the project F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - a major miscalculation of the Ministry of Defense. Known combat aircraft designer Pierre Sprey and director of the Straus Military Reform Project, Mr. Winslow Wheeler noted the following shortcomings of the F-35:

- Overweight and uncompensated thrust weight: at takeoff weight in the form of air-to-air 49500 pounds (22450 kg) thrust is 42000 pounds (19050 kg), and it will be for the new fighter significant step backward in thrust-weight ratio.

- At this weight and wing area of only 460 square feet (43 m) in versions for the Air Force and Marine Wing loading was 108 pounds per square foot (> 520 kg / sq.m). Fighters need to have the wings of a large area in relation to the weight of the aircraft, so that he could maneuver and survive. F-35 is actually less manoeuvrable than the highly vulnerable F-105 Lead Sled, which in large numbers slipping over North Vietnam during the war in Indochina.

- With just a load of two 2000-pound (907 kg) bombs in internal bay - far less than that of any American fighter of the war in Vietnam - F-35 is practically the first in a class of light bombers. If we take more bombs and put them under their wings, F-35 immediately ceases to be "invisible", and the Ministry of Defense does not plan to seriously test it in this configuration for many years.

- As the aircraft for close air support, helping U.S. troops engaged in combat, F-35 is unacceptable. He is too fast to have time to locate and fire on tactical objectives, it is too "delicate and flammable to withstand fire from the ground, it lacks the payload and especially the possibility of stable" hang "over the forces of the United States, while they are maneuvering on the ground. Specialist to perform such tasks and existing Air Force ground-attack A-10 far exceeds the F-35 in this role.