Siberian
Gold Member
- Banned
- #2,441
super lame duck
it costs a billion, maintainance costs another billion an hour, it requires a month of maintainance works after an hour of flight..
in a week of war allF-35 will stay on ground
It still has a 70% sortie rate, one of the best in USAF. It's replacement is for the same reason the B-21 is going to replace the B-1; Cost. To be specific, the RandD for the B-1 and the F-35 to "Invent" many systems that cost hundreds of billions by itself. That means the next gen will not have to spend that again.
This doesn't take away the capability of the F-35. It still means that if you go against it in combat you are going to die quickly. But the next gen will just do it cheaper and better. In a dogfight (guns only) the F-35A isn't a great threat but when he fires up his BVR the only bird that might defeat it is the F-22. That is the only deficit of the F-35A. It was originally supposed to be able to equal the F-16 in a Dogfight (guns only). And that was (and still is) a tall order. To date, only the Superbug can fly with the F-16 in a gun only fight and hold it's own out of all the production Fighters.
The problem with the F-35 isn't it's sortie generation it's the fact it was short changed to make the F-35B. USAF has it's own needs. And the new Fighter will meet those specific needs.
It reminds me of how Russian military say that Su-30 can beat all F-s with one finger except maybe F-22 and F-35, which have certain chances at long distances but will be done in dog fight in minutes...
i. e. until there's no real experience fighting capability is still unclear, but financial figures are already a fact...