Hey ya’ll, I’m down in Florida covering the Air Force Association’s mid-winter conference for DoDBuzz so I haven’t been able to post a ton on DT.
Lockheed just issued its latest update of F-35 flight tests. Here’s the quick and dirty:
Lockheed Martin’s [NYSE: LMT] F-35 program continues to build on its 2011 flight test success. For 2012, the baseline F-35 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) flight test plan calls for the accumulation of 1,001 test flights and 7,873 test points. However, growth in test point requirements throughout the year is anticipated, and the plan will be adjusted as needed.
As of Feb. 20, the F-35 Lightning II 5th Generation multirole fighter had conducted 114 flight tests and achieved 773 test points. A portion of the earned test points came from work added to the flight test baseline plan. Lockheed Martin has delivered three F-35s to the Department of Defense (DOD) year to date.
Since Jan. 1, the F-35 program accomplished several flight test and production milestones:
- On Jan. 9, AF-4, an F-35A Conventional Takeoff and Landing (CTOL) test aircraft, reached the highest altitude to date in an F-35; 43,000 feet Mean Sea Level (MSL).
- Lockheed Martin ferried the first two production model F-35B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) aircraft to the U.S. Marine Corps on Jan. 11. The aircraft, known as BF-6 and BF-8, are now assigned to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing’s Marine Fighter/Attack Training Squadron 501 residing with the host 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Fla.
- Demonstrating the ongoing maturation of the F-35 integrated sensor suite, AF-3, an F-35A CTOL test jet, completed the first low Distributed Aperture System (DAS) approach on Jan. 17.
- On Jan. 18, the first night flight in the history of the Lockheed Martin F-35 program was completed at Edwards AFB, Calif. Piloted by Lockheed Martin test pilot Mark Ward, AF-6, an F-35A CTOL test jet, took off at 5:05 p.m. PST and landed after sunset at 6:22 p.m.
- With the ferry flight of BF-7, an F-35B STOVL, Eglin AFB, Fla., became home of the largest F-35 fleet in the DOD on Jan. 19. BF-7 was the 23rd F-35 Lightning II delivered to the DOD.
- On Jan. 20, citing the tremendous progress the F-35B STOVL variant made in 2011, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta rescinded probation for the F-35B, almost a full year ahead of schedule.
- The F-35 SDD fleet including AA-1, the original test aircraft, crossed the 2,500 flight hour threshold on Jan. 25.
- On Feb. 16 at Edwards AFB, Calif., AF-1, an F-35A CTOL test jet, flew the first external weapons test mission in program history.
Cumulative flight test activity totals for 2012 through Feb. 20 are provided below:
- F-35A CTOL jets have flown 46 times.
- F-35B STOVL aircraft have completed 45 flights.
- F-35C Carrier Variant (CV) jets have flown 23 times.
From the start of flight testing in December 2006, F-35s have flown 1,704 times, including the production-model flights and AA-1, the original flight test aircraft. For video highlights of the F-35 program, click here.
{ 129 comments… read them below or add one }
That's an impressive list of accomplishments for mere 11 years of development and $40-odd Billion invested (not).
Don't be a hater – at least it makes for a good picture.
The B-70 had pretty pictures too. As did the MBT-70.
The remaining XB-70 still makes for a very pretty picture.
The SR-71 (and its often forgotten sisters YF-12s) made their marks on history, did their jobs, and have very enviable flight stats, to this day.
It is a pretty bird, and the basis of so many ‘wannabe’ imitators, since you see the lines of it, in so much of what is made today.
It did have faults.
Speed and results, were not among them.
Very few projects the DOD does go as planned in the beginning.
I recall Gulf War I. I had heard for many years the Abrams tank was a failure. Sure didn't work out that way.
In the end, many of our systems that started out being trashed turned out to be winners.
Give the F-35 some time.
Failure is normal, just give it enough time to be canceled.
You mis-heard for many years then. (about the Abrams MBT)
huh? the F-35 makes for a good picture??? You've got a weird taste. Most people would agree that the F-35 is one of the ugliest planes in modern history, even worse than the ugly F-22.
And most people would agree that a beautiful, slim blonde, with blue eyes, and long legs makes for a good picture.
Is "most people" your drunken countrymen? Because I've never heard such things about aircraft from "most people".
Although you are right about the blondes.
LOL. probably because you dropped out of high school and haven't had an opportunity to get into the right social circles and meet with experienced jet designers or aircraft engineers.
Well it IS a little schtubby. Not so much beautiful as awesome, literally awe-inspiring. But your are forgetting that no aircraft is ugly. If it flies, it's flight makes it beautiful. Aaah, flight.
No aircraft is ugly?
- XF-85 Goblin- ugly! Nearly uncontrollable, too.
- PL-11 Airtruck- thank God it had a closed c ockpit, the pilot might die from exposure to that much ugly.
- The X-32 "Monica." *cough*
I rest my case.
I would call her 'voluptuous', which is probably better than a slim blond on a no-carb diet anyway. :-)
It looks like it flies – like a bus.
F-35 pilots – Remember to eject at the merge !
Yes, the F-35 is definitely a turkey. Any fighter jet engineer worth his salt can tell that the F-35 is a turkey.
I'm pretty sure the F-117 Is the ugliest, the Rafale and Eurofighter are ugly as hell too. J-20 looks even worse.
Now come on, The F-35 may be a lot of things. Ugly is not one of them. Personally I'm a dark hair fan, so perhaps I see it differently. Fairey Gannet, Now that was a ugly plane…..
"When pigs fly" – That long-anticipated day has arrived , courtesy of the fine folks at LockMart and the DoD…
43,000 ft. Whoop-de-doo!
My dad's HE-219 Owl could push 30,000. It took 11 months to develope, Total budget to production was $4.7Million US. This is while offices, machine shops, assembly factories, and training facilities were bombed almost daily.But that was 1944. And it was a very ugly aircraft, not as ugly as a F-35 but close.
DICE should take the F-35 program.
They have delivered full operational F-35s to the navy on December 13th (Back to Karkand DLC).
hahaha.
this is a good idea!!!
This aircraft is absolutely terrible.
Please fill the community in on you aerospace experience that gives you the knowledge of what is good and what is terrible?
I may not know everything, but I'm going to school at the United States Naval Academy and I independently study aircraft, war, and strategy with my spare time. It's my goal to be a fighter pilot and when I get the chance to fly my preferred aircraft will be the Super Hornet rather than the F-35.
Sound more like a fan boy instead of an aerospace expert.
I'm assuming you and Mike have a better background. Care to indulge us?
By the way, just so you know it's not aerospace experience that matters. Aerospace engineering is merely the science of making an aircraft. Tactics and strategy are centered on how to use that aircraft in combat relying on the strengths in its capabilities. I'd want an aerospace expert if I was in need of fixing or building an aircraft. I'd want a pilot and strategist if I wanted to use that aircraft to win a war. My studies are centered on being a pilot and a strategist.
USNA? Well, you just jumped a few points in my book. Just keep beating Army in football. Too bad your not a Temple Owl though.
Well, now we know what the Naval Academy fighter mafia have been feeding you. There was a time, not so long ago, when the F-18 was the Naval aviator's whipping boy.
Mike, did you ask the same question to those who liked the F-35??
Looks cool with external pylons.
Where are the Voodoos'? They were awesome and flew pretty well – w/ afterburners on also.
I hope you are being sarcastic.
A Voodoo wouldn't last 1 minute in an air battle today.
Most likely it would be shot down before it even knew the enemy is within 50 miles.
Maybe so, but the distinctive double -boom of those old school afterburners lighting up during a low-level, hi-speed pass will always be missed by some of us…
Big fat whoop. These fluff press releases are BS.
Impress me LM.
What's the status on the tailhook test?
What's the life hours looking like on the IPP?
What plans do you have for the fuel dump on the B and C?
What % of structural testing remains for the B?
What's the status on the helmet cuing system?
The stuff in this press release is meaningless smoke and mirrors.
What's up with fuel dump on the B and C? Didn't hear about that.
It's positioned too close to intakes and gets sucked back into the IPP causing a fire risk. Absolutely no fix in the works at the moment but a fuel mast may be needed and that will add weight and impact the LO of all models if it is needed.
"Absolutely no fix in the works?" When the QLR was written it said that the way forward was still being determined, but the solution WON'T be a fuel mast exactly because it would have a negative effect on LO qualities.
The QLR said, and I quote "The path forward is unknown at this time" I stand by my assessment, no fix is in the works.
It also said nothing about how a fuel mast "WON'T" be the solution. Seems to me if the folks reviewing the issue mention a fuel mast it is a possible fix, but there is absolutely nothing in the QLR to support your comment that it won't be the solution.
quote: "Impress me LM. "
Impress you? LOL. Can you impress LMT with a 1 Trillion dollar Swiss account to pay bonuses and rewards for doing a better job (assuming they can do a better job)??? Guess not.
How about a Pentagon announcement to cancel the F-35 program in 2-3 years?? Will that impress you??? LOL
I do not feed trolls, have a lovely day.
LOL. I'm sure you've been feeding yourself something. You are still posting, aren't you?
Everybody points out the horribly slow rate of testing today, but going faster involves risks that nobody is willing to take today.
Seriously, would the F-14 (which had a crash) have survived if today's politicians and today's media were "on the job?"
I thought you said you don't care about the risks and that pilots die in testing all the time.
Certainly the risks to pilots are minimized since they spend 99.3% of their time on the ground. But it's still considered to risky to train anybody on the aircraft.
Your lies never get old Oblatski. Why'd you have to change your name anyway?
I've got a better hypothetical question: Would the F-14 program have survived if it was taking this long to complete? With the F-35, we're looking at 20+ years to Navy IOC from the RFP in 1996. An equivalent F-14 would have been delivered at about the end of the Reagan administration, at the earliest. Well, it was the Reagan administration, so… maybe?
Let's play it out a little more. Those would have been some awfully geriatric Phantoms shooting down those Libyan Fitters and Floggers. The Navy would have looked pretty foolish when the primary threat the F-14 was designed to counter dried up within 5 years.
Crashes are not always the most serious threat to aerospace program. There are also severe risks in failing to use good judgment in selecting programs, and failing to manage those programs competently. And there is a deadly risk to programs if they don't get completed before the political winds shift.
Yeah, it's the crashes that cause testing to take so long. It has nothing to do with the fact that the USAF pays the contractor $1.10 for every $1.00 they spend on testing. Nooooo. It's the fact that they want to avoid crashes that causes everything to take so long. Coincidentally, back when the USAF only paid contractors $1.00 for every $1.00 they spent on "design, test, and evaluation" (DT&E), the process took much less time. Of course, the "A" model was always a piece of crap and dangerous as hell, so I can't say there's nothing to William's assertion regarding safety. Back in those days they'd just about twist an engineer's arm off trying to get them to limit the amount of testing required so they could get on to production where the company could start making a profit. The pilots of the "A's" were our crash test dummies. It wasn't until you got to the C or D model that the airplane was worth a damn. So many ways to fail…
We weren't the first in space either. but we certainly knew how to do it correctly.
Don't hate on the Soviets. They didn't have enough economic power to devote to space *and* military pursuits. At the heyday of the space program, NASA was a mere 5% of the federal budget, and this while we had troops in Europe and were building out for Vietnam.
America was a superpower without being forced to choose between swords and plowshares. The Soviets made the grim choice of swords over plowshares, which works well in wartime but if the communists had more trust in the free nations, relations would have normalized and the Soviets would be like the China of today: an ominous "competitor", but not one characterized by Soviet Shock Armies waiting on the Fulda Gap.
William C., Lockheed and the Air Force are a couple years behind on a testing schedule that they created. It's a slow rate of testing because the guys in charge told us what the rate was supposed to be.
LOL. Slow rate of testing to avoid taking risks?!!!
They are already PRODUCING copies for "training" even though they are nowhere close to having been thoroughly tested. They call it "concurrency"
And there will not be a thorough testing, because a big chunk of the testing program will be replaced by "expert evaluation" — by the contractors!!!!
You just don't have a clue!!!!
You mean like how the F-22 crashes during testing that never happened 22 and 34 yrs after the Tomcat's crash in 1970, right?
Actually one of the YF-22s did make a crash landing, there's a few videos of that.
The F-14A also suffered from engine problems throughout it's entire career, leading to the loss of a significant number of aircraft. The F-15 also had some lesser engine problems, but enough for some people to shout that it was a failure.
Nice unresponsive response William, but JRL has a valid point. Nobody canceled the F-22 or any other plane I can think of because of crashes. The V-22 is an even better example; several tragic accidents with lots of press coverage and grumbling politicians, but they still bought the thing.
And in all likelihood the F-35 won't be cancelled despite the grumbling, press coverage, and development problems. The F-22s development was not at all pretty due to a variety of issues.
the F-22 never crashed? Pilots have been killed in two widely reported crashes. It's not like the propaganda apparatus (the mainstream media) was hiding the crashes. If you don't read news, and don't watch news, and don't listen to news. Fine. Just don't come up here and BS. OK?!!!
A quick search indicates there was a crash in '92, 2004, 2009 and 2010. The 2010 one is the one we all know (the Elmendorf crash).
"As of Feb. 20, the F-35 Lightning II 5th Generation multirole fighter had conducted 114 flight tests and achieved 773 test points"
In other words they are already 30% behind schedule and they expect to get even further behind later.
Hardly surprising as the average F-35 only ever flies once every two weeks.
What schedule? The 2012 test schedule or the entire program?
If based on 2012 announced schedule, and considering it is only less than 2 months into the year, how could that be 30% behind schedule?
Given that the F-35 program is already YEARS behind schedule and tens of billions over-budget, you aren't really expecting its development and testing to be on schedule ever again, are you.
I'm pretty sure the rats in Congress know that nothing is going to be on schedule with this program. I'm also pretty sure that LMT and other contractors have neither the intention nor the capability to execute F-35's development and testing on schedule.
Finally, I speculate that Russia and China will be laughing their asses off if this piece of crap ever progresses to serial production. Heck China might even help fund the production by buying some more worthless US treasuries.
So, how's that J-20 piece of junk truck pretends to be a stealth fighter coming along for you? When will the T-50 get its supercruise engine and super hi-tech avionics as promised? Oops, we forgot to mention the temporary equipped engine backfired not once but twice at recent airshow…
go back to junior high and graduate first.
Not that it helped your worldview much anyway….
you should follow your own advice
Its reached airliner cruising height that is some milestone. Now if it could just go as fast as one without the skin peeling maybe it could catch an airliner one day.
I read about the history of the B17. The prototype was completely self financed by Boeing in a time of severe government budget cuts for an amount of money that could have destroyed the company if no orders would have come. Then the prototype crashed! That it worked out ok, shows that both the government, the military and the industry had vision and guts. The F 35 is not the problem, it's the system.
On topic with that, Boeing is still carrying on private projects without government funding. Their drones are some of the top of the line. The Phantom Ray went on its first flight only two years after the drawing board, and it was rejected by the government. Hooray Boeing!
Rejected by the government or rejected by the LM bought government drone?
If you ask a contractor fanboy he will tell you that it was impossible that the B17 was ever built.
You are exactly right. If the DoD would stop paying for development you would again see the cream rise to the top in our weapons. This is how the federal government did business for centuries, and yet now it is too risky? That is nothing more than a campaign of misinformation and propaganda. The contractors like the current system because it maximizes their profit. The DoD likes it because it maximizes the size of their bureaucracy. Congress likes it because it puts plenty of money in their districts.
A big pile of doo doo , and that comes from senior USAF and RAF friends .
exactly right.
I think some of you guys are grads of the Simon Cowell school of commenting. I could picture you many of you sitting in the hanger next to Paula Abdul & Randy Jackson. Dissing the The plane and saying how in Tim Uk's words, it is "A big pile of doo doo."
Paula would cry for the test pilots & Randy would just go, "Sorry dog."
Then the plane weeps As Seacrest goes for the interview……
Nice
And the F-35 is one of those fat disabled kids that everyone feels sorry for.
No the F-35 is the future so except it
Nice. Speaking from experience, didn't we?
Well, it's not like JSF has any competition at the moment.
Maybe we should've given Boeing a second chance.
Just read this on Flightglobal : F-35B flies with gunpod
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pictures-f-35b-flies-with-gun-pod-installed-368756/
There is a problem here. The Aim9X is supposedly there for self-defense of stealthy F-35s attacking difficult targets. If it is not internalized, there won't be any stealth. Why are we tolerating such non-sense. When will the F-35 be able to carry the Aim9x internally or 6 AAMs internally as shown in multiple power point presentations?
here's the answer: NEVER.
The F-35 is already in such grave weight trouble that they are now doing away with a lot of the planned fire-prevention measures.
A 22 caliber firearm can penetrate its skin and light the whole thing on fire.
Such idiot comment. The skin on the F-35 is just like other older aircrafts with different kind of coating. If a 22-caliber can penetrate any older aircrafts, it certainly can penetrate the F-35… It goes to show you can never convince haters except for when they put their foot in their mouth.
Which is why the JSF makes such a poor replacement for the A-10, and may they never try it.
You are absolutely right. The JSF can't possibly do the job of the A-10. The JSF is a complete disaster for close combat support. Whoever says the JSF can replace the A-10 is either a retard or a liar.
Don't bother to reason with Oblah-blah. The guy is a complete babbling idiot. He doesn't know a thing about aircraft.
LOL. amazing you idiot have the audacity to call anyone else that.
Yeah, a .22 round can penetrate the skin of those older aircraft, but at least they weren't so porky that they had to remove fire suppression systems to get them up in the air.
But then, the Joint Strike Lighter does have to get by on less than 44,,000 lbs of thrust, poor thing…
Like all of the fire-suppression systems of the F-16? Oh wait…
I didn't like the cutting of some fire-suppression systems and still don't support it, but it's still better than what's on the F-16 but several oversight boards representing all nine partner nations agreed to the change.
"Only" 43,000 lbs of thrust from a single engine? Find me a single afterburning turbofan of similar weight that compares. In tests it has done more than that, but it's probably going to be kept at 43,000 due to lifespan concerns.
You can complain that Lockheed Martin and others haven't done enough to keep the F-35's weight in check. I agree. But you cannot complain that P&W haven't produced a powerful enough engine.
Let the F-35 fly against an F-15 with AESA and then make the results public. Maybe this type of real world information could enlighten supporters and opponents of the F-35 and provide some guidance continuation vs discontinuation of the F-35 program
When will the REAL A/C at Eglin actually take to the air? There is only so much training you can do while taxiing!
We are waiting to get the C version back for what should be roll in arrestments, but probably just going to be roll throughs like last time. We were told end of march, but that was changed to maybe April, didn’t know it took that long to swap out a tail hook.
Oh, but it's not just any old redesigned 'legacy' tailhook we;re dealing with here.
This, my friend, is a very special Netcentric Sensorfusionated 5th gen Very Low Observable Cost As an Independent Variable ALISiferous tailhook!
WHAT?!
Nothing is exactly "simple" on a jet fighter. Same goes for the tailhook. Though I laughed at the netcentric sensorfusioned part.
It does have to be LO however, that's a requirement.
Maybe they should rapid-field the -B's. If the Marines want to replace their Harriers early and risk a few manpower losses (like they did the Osprey), more power to them. The Marines don't have any other LSD/LPDable options short of helicopters and light aviation?
The 'Bees' aren't even allowed to make routine vertical landings due to the variety of issues with the propulsion system. And since they just purchased 70 (IIRC) serviceable Harriers from the Brits, there is little reason to risk the lives of highly trained aviators just so the LHA flight decks can give the appearance of being '5th Gen'…
The USMC Bought 78 used RAF Harriers as a stop gap. Remember last year?
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Actually I've always thought the Rafale was quite handsome. You might be one of those Super Hornet pilots from the Stennis or Teddy R. Even they admit to not getting a good view of the Rafale(visually or on radar), because it was always on the 6. Hard to get think about a good view when your earphones are blaring your in someone elses Missile Lock.
People should stand stand behind our military projects so we actually get something done
The politicos are standing behind it. That's what counts. And that's why JSF isn't going anywhere. JSF survived when FCS, Land Warrior, Crusader and Comanche didn't, and that should count for something.
i had seen a view of another a/c that was doing carrier testing piloted by female pilot that looks like quite the a/c. if so why are we even considering the f35 when a new type of a/c is already being tested. sounds like lots of money spent on the already obsolete a/c could be used elsewhere toward the f35's replacement and just skip the problems with it.
Sorry, We have no other "New" planes. Your sadly refering to a still picture of Actress Jessica Biel in a movie prop. The film is "Stealth." A crappy b movie from 2005 with Jammie Foxx. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382992/
i have been wrong on lots of things in the past but; if my failing memory serves me at all it was a 37 model. i do not profess to remember where i saw the picture. wish i did as it was really cool
That reinforces tiger's comment.
A google search of "F-37" points relatively quickly to Wikipedia, the movie Stealth and this snippet.
"The F/A-37 Talon is a near-future, single-seat fighter aircraft of the U.S. Navy in the 2005 film Stealth. In the film's fictional world, the only Talons are operating as a three-plane flight for field evaluation, from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (although actually filmed on the USS Carl Vinson)"
I've always wondered if it would make more sense to ask for quicker turn-around, incremental upgrade aircraft rather than hoping for next-generation leaps that take until the next generation to deploy. Through the Cold War we had incredibly quick turnover of aircraft (by comparison); though back then the fear was being invested in overly futuristic programs when a war suddenly happens tomorrow.
The problem wasn't the idea of a next generation platform, the problem was the development method. We invested way too much faith in computer modeling rather than traditional dev methods and we are now realizing the problems with that method in the huge number of engineering changes required on the F35. Once you start working on a bad idea pouring more money into it is insane, but we set the program up for failure by front loading it with so many international partners and the defense companies went all in on their ways of spreading production out over nearly the entire nation to keep Congress in their pocket. It's all come together to be this monumental headache and we aren't going to cancel it, we are simply going to pour the extra tens of billions $ on the back end to fix what we would have caught in a more traditional design method.
Computer modelling being stuff like wind tunnel simulations and FEA?
I thought most of JSF's construction was going to be kept in-house, unless the Dreamliner which got outsourced seven ways from Sunday.
Final assembly may be mostly in-house, but quality control and fit-and-finish are LockMart's problem. If LM has to pay more to fix subcontractor foul ups, the taxpayer gets charged. Like STemplar says, though, a big part of getting this massive program started was spreading the work share everywhere.
Wikipedia alone suggests LM as primary with second-tier NG and BAE, plus GE/PW/Rolls-Royce for the engines alone; and then there's other contractors. Big project.
Edit: more amusingly: http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/fd/forum/pdf/Gill.p…
Go to slide 9.
I know you said you were at some conference but I really think you need to update far more often even when your tied up in a conference have something prepared in advance so readers like me can get something new 5 days is way way too long.
Think about how many you lose over a week of not updating.
P.S criticism to make you better nothing personal.
More ominously, what if there is nothing to report?
I smell six carriers and 200 Naval fighters off in the distance.
What does does that mean?
Isn't it 43 wet? It and the F-22 are probably the most powerful engines for fighter craft on the planet.
I wonder how many of the fine people on those international oversight boards are gonna be flying it into hostile territory? My guess is none.
And sorry I forgot to include my ***sarcasm alert*** – you know, the appropriate reaction to a purported F-16 replacement so durn …umm…'big-boned'… that 43,000 lb of thrust (25-35% more than the Viper's) still isn't enough to get it up into Viper performance territory.
Really? And you do??
Enlighten us, please… since you're so proud of your high school GED certificate to be looking down on the junior high kids…
Nobody ever said the JSF is going to replace the A-10. Only the media and armchair generals such as yourself pretend to be the know it all knitpicking a jet that is still in development stage.
Actually Oblah, EVERYBODY is saying the JSF is going to replace the A-10. Aside from every single news and blog source to include military.com, here are links to the military and contractor program offices for the JSF:
What aircraft is the F-35 intended to replace?
a. For the U.S. Air Force, the F-35A will replace the A-10 and the F-16
b. For the U.S. Marine Corps, the F-35B will replace the AV-8B Harrier.
c. For the U.S. Navy, the F-35C will replace the F/A-18A, B, C, and D as well as the F-14.
https://f35.com/the-f-35/faqs.aspx#faq3
http://www.jsf.mil/contact/con_faqs.htm
Oblah-blah, I'd love to enlighten you but first you need to finish junior high, then high-school, and then an undergrad degree in a technical discipline (one with a heavy mathematics & analytic reasoning component).
The F-14 was replaced years ago by the F/A-18E and F/A-18F.
The A-10 is an aircraft that shouldn't be replaced anytime soon, but just as the USAF tried to replace it with F-16s, they will try with F-35s.
jsf.mil's FAQ page is out of date because most people in the know don't really need it any more at this point.
I think we're no longer as invested in EM theory as we were when Boyd was alive…?
You seem to be contradicting yourself. They have to tiptoe through the test points because they don't want bad press, but it's safe from cancellation no matter what. OK.
well said. the F-35 had better be canceled at home than on battlefield.
I graduated first of my class. Thank you.
Probably because your last name starts with A.
LOL. Actually my last name starts with Z. Not kidding.