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10 Mind-Blowing Facts About The World’s Most Advanced Stealth Jet

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10 Mind-Blowing Facts About The World’s Most Advanced Stealth Jet There’s a lot you may not know about the F-35. Get up to speed at F35.com. (www.buzzfeed.com) Más...

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TorstenHoff
Torsten Hoff 13
>> The cockpit is almost entirely digital — with a glass LCD touchscreen and “hardly any hardwire switches.”

That's not a good thing. Physical switches can be found by touch, in the dark or without looking at them, and can be operated reliably in turbulence or while maneuvering aggressively. Anyone who has ever tried to change radio stations on a touchscreen infotainment system on anything but a smooth highway will be able to relate.
joelwiley
joel wiley 9
11. These mind blowing 'facts' are presented as gospel.
12. It can't shoot/drop the 9 tons of ordnance yet.
13. The cost and attendant overruns.
14. The pork skips three states, which ones?
upchucked
If you get a chance, what the movie, "The Pentagon Wars" with Kelsey Graham. Perfect explanation as to why we are buying this monstrosity. The best thing we could do with the F-35 is sell it to our potential enemies.
jkudlick
Jeremy Kudlick 1
I was just thinking the same thing. That was an excellent movie based on real life. Perhaps our current military and political leaders need to watch it.
Bernie20910
Bernie20910 9
The only thing "mind blowing" about this aircraft is that we're going forward with it.
skylab72
skylab72 3
1. The F-35B is the worlds first operational aircraft that can land vertically and travel faster than the speed of sound.
>> These are conflicting design goals that only made it expensive and fat.

2. Oh, and it can take off with more than nine tons of ordnance.
>> Which is actually wimpy due to the above conflicting design goals. The Douglas A-4, which came off the drawing boards in the 50’s, could travel near transonic, had a total weight of only 15 tons, and it could carry it’s own weight!

3. The F-35C is the Navy’s very first stealth jet.
>> I am unsure if the Navy really cares. Stealth is problematic at best, as an Air Force F-117 driver learned the hard way in the Balkans. It can usually be defeated by an astute radar tech with a good understanding of his own system. Anti-Radiation missiles are a far more effective and cost efficient way to deal with hostile radars. The Navy took delivery on Block 1 HARM in the 1980s. One of those missiles survived a decade and 100,000 carrier launches and recoveries before it was used. It finally detonated within 5 meters of the hostile emitter on which it was finally unleashed.

4. 300,000 individual parts make up the F-35…
>> I fail to see how this is a positive statement. Seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Part count must be contributing to the weight problem as well.

5. Every pilot receives a custom-fitted helmet which allows them to see through the jet.
>> So, if that technology is unique to the F-35 L-M just wasted millions of taxpayer money, because it should be a modular system retrofittable to any platform with appropriate sensors.
skylab72
skylab72 3
6. The cockpit is almost entirely digital — with a glass LCD touchscreen and “hardly any hardwire switches.”
>> Totally begs the issue, which is good human factors design. As mentioned in other posts, software located touch screen is seriously questionable in a high-performance aircraft. NDA and security issues do not allow me to remark further, but short of a ringing endorsement from a military pilot who has actually flown this beast, I would be very skeptical.

7. The F-35 has recovered 100% of the time from all high angle of attack testing including 90 degrees straight up.
>> Well DUH! It is fly-by-wire aircraft with vectored nozzles! That should pretty much be a minimum spec.

8. More than 1,300 American suppliers in 47 states contribute to the F-35 program.
>> Translation: If we had not put some PORK in almost every state we could not have kept this program alive.

9. 8.6 Million lines of software code give the F-35 its superior capabilities.
>> Meaning over it’s service life you can look forward to finding and trying to fix or work around 86,000 bugs or flaws. I trust most of them will not be mission critical.

10. The F-35’s unprecedented stealth capabilities can render it “virtually undetectable” to radar.
>> Sure, keep pushing this myth. An aircraft’s radar profile varies with every different angle from which you can view it. It is hard enough to attenuate most of the signals coming from below, but when you attempt all angles there are lots of compromises. I’ll take an AGM-88 or two hung on an aircraft with optimized aerodynamics any day over any passive stealth technology.
skylab72
skylab72 1
full disclosure - yes I worked for L-M competitors, but I also spent time at Lockheed.
joelwiley
joel wiley 2
My first reading of #1 came up with "landing vertically faster than the speed of sound". Maybe it can, once.
priles
Les Price 3
The f-35 Vista.
Bernie20910
Bernie20910 3
Shhh...! You're not supposed to talk about the operating system running that glass cockpit.
lynx318
lynx318 1
I thought they'd gone back to NT¿
patpylot
patrick baker 3
what we got here is apologist mularky. The author rattled off some items, as if that represents progress. This albatross was politically insulated by spreading the construction throughout 47 states, but was never thought through by anyone in any of those states. The air force has gone all in with a pair of 7's, pre flop, and this is not smart.
tcmarks
Tim Marks 3
Like it or not folks, the program is moving forward and the F35 will be operational with the Marines and Air Force in short order. All the wailing and fingerpointing will not make this program go away and what would you replace it with? There is no other gen5 aircraft in the pipeline and pumping out more gen4 aircraft to 'fill the gap' is right where China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and all the other bad guys want us to be. It is possible the Navy could still try to back out of their part of the deal and/or cut the total number of aircraft delivered, but this platform will be defending our skies by the end of next year.
joelwiley
joel wiley 5
My concern is 'operational' may well not mean successful. This a/c may earn MVP ( most valuable plane) by our nation's opponents. ( more fun than a target drone). Just because it is goog for Lockheed does not mean good for the country. I remember when the M-16 became operation with the marines in Vietnam.

BOHICA
adfox1
Andrew Fox 3
I would soundly say these folks beg to differ!

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/08/11/report-f35-inferior-to-older-us-foreign-fighters.html
davedoc
So this is what they plan to replace the A10 with? They're smoking something.
davedoc
As was mentioned elsewhere, I want to see them trying to do something on a touch screen while pulling a 3G turn.
chalet
chalet 1
Don´t forget that the Air Force types are always demanding the latest and most expensive toys properly adorned with the latest bells and whistles available and after a contract is signed new additions/modifications/enhancements are tacked on shooting the cost up even higher. See they don´t have a clue that money does not grow on tres or fell from the sky. Naturally dancing this tango also requires the appropriate collaboration of high-priced lobbysts cultivating congressmen of the states where the weapon system is to be built and of course the so patriotic and accomodating defense industry who wil continue laughing all the way to the bank.
joelwiley
joel wiley 1
Yep, your tax dollars and national security.
jdriskell
James Driskell 2
Ya! Bring back the P-47!
geroldn
geroldn 2
Is this a Lockheed-Martin commercial or what? Why don't we just hand every man, woman and child in the United States $1000+ and skip Lockheed-Martin?
Decibel
Jim Nasby 1
Actually, it is a post from Lockheed. Look near the bottom of the page.

[This poster has been suspended.]

[This poster has been suspended.]

joelwiley
joel wiley 1
Send in a dollar ninety-eight.
flo1211
flo1211 2
The 1 is wrong, the first one was the Dassault Mirage III V in 1966 !!!!
BoeingsBoss
BoeingsBoss 1
Not so sure these are "mind blowing" although I would think the plane itself is if I could see it in person.
devsfan
ken young 1
I read from several sources the F-22 is a much better aircraft. Yet that project was scrapped in favor of the Three-Five....I guess that was due to politics.
joelwiley
joel wiley 1
Now that we are seeing the Russians in Syria playing the same role as the Germans in the Spanish Civil War - that is ground truthing their strategy and tactics and gaining practical experience, it occurred to me to wonder how long it will take to replace an F-35 lost in combat? In WWII it took 2 -3 days to build a B-17.

lynx318
lynx318 1
300,000 potential things to fail made by the cheapest tender.
chalet
chalet 1
Another dog/lemmon Weapons Systems blackhole sucking zillions of dollars for nothing, or shall we say the bomber equivalent of the ruinuous F-35 fighter sink hole. Them Airforce types in cohoots with certain congressmen sure do you know how to screw the US Taxpayer, don't they, and them defense contractors laughing like the very hell all the way to the bank. Good going jerks.

[This poster has been suspended.]

joelwiley
joel wiley 2
Sure, and he's planning to donate them to his Kenyan airforce, eh?
Bernie20910
Bernie20910 1
Martin & Lewis you two ain't.
joelwiley
joel wiley 3
Stan and Ollie maybe?
I heard FA was going to have that sarcasm font implemented any day now. (But that may just have been the voices...)
lynx318
lynx318 1
More likely the Hawaiian Air Force.

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