Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning and F-22 'Raptor' : News & Discussion

Hydra said:
The way Chinese advancing in robotics, he is hardly a five years,or 10 years max early.
Click to expand...

Maybe so. Although the Americans are ahead.

The thing about fully autonomous drones is the need to introduce AGI. That's the real drawback. Right now AI is powered by humongous computers, so time is necessary to put that into a suitcase-sized box, and that's at least 15 years away.

With semi-autonomous drones, most of the primary functions will still be led by a human brain, and that's coming in just a few more years. It already exists, just not operational.
 
Below Expectations: A Closer Look At The Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study

Developed from the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program to replace the F-16, F/A-18, and Harrier jump jets, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, supersonic stealth strike fighters. Designed for air superiority and strike missions, the multirole fighter also has intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.

Funded mainly by the United States with some financial input from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members looking to replace their jet fighters with the new stealth aircraft, a recently published declassified Pentagon study revealed that its entry into service has been plagued with issues. After six years of testing, America's most expensive weapons system has been marred by reliability and maintenance delays.

The Pentagon document was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act

The declassified Pentagon document, which the Washington-based Project on Government Oversight (POGO) obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, says the F-35's overall reliability, maintainability, and availability do not meet service expectations.

According to Greg Williams, the director of the Project on Government Oversight Center for Defense Information, the incoming Trump administration should be worried.

When speaking about his concerns about the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II with BNN Bloomberg, Williams said:

“The Trump administration should bear in mind we’ve been flying the F-35 for 18 years, and we still can't maintain it, keep its stealth skin intact, or shoot its gun straight.”

Congress does not understand the F-35's problems

POGO claims that a decision by the Department of Defense to ramp up the production of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II shows that Congress does not understand the issues with the aircraft and lacks the knowledge required to oversee significant defense acquisition programs.

In a highly classified report about the operational capabilities of the F-35, only a few select members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee were given access.

Yet despite the issues, the Department of Defense gave the green light to ramp up production. The four main problems with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II are:
  • A failure to meet the availability of the aircraft
  • Reliability requirements and maintenance
  • A continued failure in the accuracy of the aircraft's 25 mm GAU-22/A rotary cannon.
  • A continued problem with the logistics blueprint of the Marines Corps F-35 B variant.
  • Delays with promised improvements.
Specific problems related to the F-35

Specific problems with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II that the report highlighted are:
  • Systems built into the aircraft to automatically diagnose faults falsely trigger at a rate of one per hour. The minimum standard for false alarms should be one every 50 hours.
  • Compared to the military's requirements, the F-35 takes twice as long to repair due to critical failures in crucial parts. This has led to poor availability rates and the inability to have aircraft available for missions. It is also not a single issue but component failures in all areas of the plane.
  • F-35s are often used for missions even though the exterior parts that make them stealthy need repair. The maintenance of the plane's low-observable system was frequently deferred to allow the aircraft to continue flying. The damming report said that none of the United States Air Force (USAF) and United States Navy (USN) F-35s were fully stealthy while being used for missions.
  • The 25 mm GAU-22/A 4-barrel rotary cannon fitted to the USAF F-35 A's continually failed to hit its targets. Despite years of working on remedying the installation and design issues, the problem still needs to be fixed.
An unredacted portion of the report mentioned the possible vulnerability to cyberattacks on 24 of the F-35's most sensitive systems. The knowledge of actual aircraft vulnerability is limited, urging the program office to provide a jet that allows complete end-to-end testing in a representative cyber threat environment.

Despite the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II being designed to fight China's 5th-generation Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-35 stealth fighters, a comparable 5th-generation fighter has only been used in a single head-on trial.

The United States Air Force (USAF) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) have a logistics nightmare with their F-35 regarding support equipment and spare parts. It is even more apparent when aircraft are asked to be deployed overseas or on ships.

Cybersecurity threats

When addressing the issue of cyber threats to the F-35, the Defense Department said it was looking into the matter and that its cybersecurity testing programs were dynamic and robust. While also commenting about the cybersecurity threat to the F-35, Lockheed Martin said:

"We have also made significant investments in countering cybersecurity threats, and we remain confident in the integrity of our robust, multi-layered information systems security."

Donald Trump and the F-35

While the United States military and its NATO partners remain committed to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II program, what incoming President Trump decides to do remains to be seen. During the run-up to his first term as President in 2016, Trump took a swipe at the F-35, saying the cost was “out of control.”

While Trump understood the advantages of having a multirole supersonic fighter jet that is invisible to the enemy from day one of entering the White House, he was not happy with the plane's price tag, believing it to be way too high. He even called on Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson to explain why the F-35 cost so much.

Despite Hewson's efforts to explain the F-35's advantages and the fact that, in a combat setting, it would shoot down 20 enemy fighters for every U.S. plane lost, Trump was not satisfied. His insistence that Lockheed finds a way to lower the price paid off with the American planemaker lowering the price of the F-35 by millions of dollars.

With Trump returning to the White House next January and pledging to cut wasteful government spending, it will be interesting to see how companies like Lockheed Martin react.
 
Picdelamirand-oil said:
Below Expectations: A Closer Look At The Declassified Pentagon F-35 Study

Developed from the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program to replace the F-16, F/A-18, and Harrier jump jets, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, supersonic stealth strike fighters. Designed for air superiority and strike missions, the multirole fighter also has intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.

Funded mainly by the United States with some financial input from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members looking to replace their jet fighters with the new stealth aircraft, a recently published declassified Pentagon study revealed that its entry into service has been plagued with issues. After six years of testing, America's most expensive weapons system has been marred by reliability and maintenance delays.

The Pentagon document was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act

The declassified Pentagon document, which the Washington-based Project on Government Oversight (POGO) obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, says the F-35's overall reliability, maintainability, and availability do not meet service expectations.

According to Greg Williams, the director of the Project on Government Oversight Center for Defense Information, the incoming Trump administration should be worried.

When speaking about his concerns about the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II with BNN Bloomberg, Williams said:

“The Trump administration should bear in mind we’ve been flying the F-35 for 18 years, and we still can't maintain it, keep its stealth skin intact, or shoot its gun straight.”

Congress does not understand the F-35's problems

POGO claims that a decision by the Department of Defense to ramp up the production of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II shows that Congress does not understand the issues with the aircraft and lacks the knowledge required to oversee significant defense acquisition programs.

In a highly classified report about the operational capabilities of the F-35, only a few select members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee were given access.

Yet despite the issues, the Department of Defense gave the green light to ramp up production. The four main problems with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II are:
  • A failure to meet the availability of the aircraft
  • Reliability requirements and maintenance
  • A continued failure in the accuracy of the aircraft's 25 mm GAU-22/A rotary cannon.
  • A continued problem with the logistics blueprint of the Marines Corps F-35 B variant.
  • Delays with promised improvements.
Specific problems related to the F-35

Specific problems with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II that the report highlighted are:
  • Systems built into the aircraft to automatically diagnose faults falsely trigger at a rate of one per hour. The minimum standard for false alarms should be one every 50 hours.
  • Compared to the military's requirements, the F-35 takes twice as long to repair due to critical failures in crucial parts. This has led to poor availability rates and the inability to have aircraft available for missions. It is also not a single issue but component failures in all areas of the plane.
  • F-35s are often used for missions even though the exterior parts that make them stealthy need repair. The maintenance of the plane's low-observable system was frequently deferred to allow the aircraft to continue flying. The damming report said that none of the United States Air Force (USAF) and United States Navy (USN) F-35s were fully stealthy while being used for missions.
  • The 25 mm GAU-22/A 4-barrel rotary cannon fitted to the USAF F-35 A's continually failed to hit its targets. Despite years of working on remedying the installation and design issues, the problem still needs to be fixed.
An unredacted portion of the report mentioned the possible vulnerability to cyberattacks on 24 of the F-35's most sensitive systems. The knowledge of actual aircraft vulnerability is limited, urging the program office to provide a jet that allows complete end-to-end testing in a representative cyber threat environment.

Despite the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II being designed to fight China's 5th-generation Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-35 stealth fighters, a comparable 5th-generation fighter has only been used in a single head-on trial.

The United States Air Force (USAF) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) have a logistics nightmare with their F-35 regarding support equipment and spare parts. It is even more apparent when aircraft are asked to be deployed overseas or on ships.

Cybersecurity threats

When addressing the issue of cyber threats to the F-35, the Defense Department said it was looking into the matter and that its cybersecurity testing programs were dynamic and robust. While also commenting about the cybersecurity threat to the F-35, Lockheed Martin said:

"We have also made significant investments in countering cybersecurity threats, and we remain confident in the integrity of our robust, multi-layered information systems security."

Donald Trump and the F-35

While the United States military and its NATO partners remain committed to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II program, what incoming President Trump decides to do remains to be seen. During the run-up to his first term as President in 2016, Trump took a swipe at the F-35, saying the cost was “out of control.”

While Trump understood the advantages of having a multirole supersonic fighter jet that is invisible to the enemy from day one of entering the White House, he was not happy with the plane's price tag, believing it to be way too high. He even called on Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson to explain why the F-35 cost so much.

Despite Hewson's efforts to explain the F-35's advantages and the fact that, in a combat setting, it would shoot down 20 enemy fighters for every U.S. plane lost, Trump was not satisfied. His insistence that Lockheed finds a way to lower the price paid off with the American planemaker lowering the price of the F-35 by millions of dollars.

With Trump returning to the White House next January and pledging to cut wasteful government spending, it will be interesting to see how companies like Lockheed Martin react.
Click to expand...

Trump won't be able to do anything. Any substantial progress in the program is only set for a post-2029 date, he will be out of office by then.

The only way out is to cancel the entire program, but that's going to become a huge problem for all stakeholders, even foreign. So nothing will happen. The program will just muddle along until all the necessary specs are reached. It's become way worse than the LCA program, and the LCA was salvaged.
 
'Flop': Proponents of the F-35 can't tell you that it works
When they've resorted to arguing 'it's a job creator,' you know there isn't much military use

Elon Musk has turned his attention to the F-35 program, and he isn’t impressed. The world’s richest man – who owns SpaceX, the sole provider of reliable American space launches – threw shade at the most expensive weapon program in history in a post on X on November 25.

“The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people. This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes,” Musk posted on X.

Elon Musk is absolutely right…and not just because I have been saying the exact same thing for a decade!

The American people need to come to grips with the fact that the F-35 program is a complete flop. Most leaders of the national security establishment are unlikely to say so in such blunt terms, but some of them are now tacitly admitting the truth probably without realizing they are.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, effectively the hometown newspaper for the F-35 program, recently published an article loaded with quotes from lawmakers, defense officials, and university professors. They all made an economic argument to defend the program.

That should send shivers down the spine of every Lockheed Martin executive. When the best argument that can be made for a weapon program is its economic impact, it is clear the program has limited military value.

For a program in development for more than 23 years, at the expense of nearly $300 billion so far, the American people have received little in return. New F-35s coming off the Fort Worth assembly line have only limited combat capabilities. It will reportedly take years for engineers to complete the hardware and software necessary for new F-35s to achieve full combat capability. The jets already in service have demonstrated an appalling lack of reliability. During all of 2023, the F-35 fleet only managed a 30% full mission capable rate.

The F-35 has proven to be a deeply flawed aircraft that is far from meeting the needs of the services and therefore jeopardizes national security. Focusing attention on the program’s economic impact is simply a desperate attempt to prevent Congress from cutting funding.

Such a strategy has been used by industry before, but it usually just delays the inevitable. National security establishment leaders attempted to save the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship with similar arguments in the last decade. The LCS program was initially praised by its supporters as a revolutionary surface ship capable of affordably filling multiple roles. As more of the ships were built and entered active service, it became increasingly clear the program failed to live up to expectations and Navy leaders wanted to cut their losses. But lawmakers kept the program sputtering along for a few years longer because of its economic impact.

Providing for the common defense is enshrined in the preamble to the Constitution. The American people tolerate, however grudgingly in many cases, the government spending their tax dollars to build weapons for the military. The expectation is that Congress will spend wisely to buy things that work and that fill capability gaps. Lawmakers shouldn’t buy weapons simply to stimulate the economy. There are far better ways to boost the economy with taxpayer dollars than wasteful defense spending. Imagine the effect on the overall economy if just a fraction of the money spent on the F-35 was spent on the country’s transportation network.

The military value of a weapon program is the only valid justification for its expense. If someone does feel the need to defend a program, the argument should be based on the weapon’s demonstrated effectiveness and its centrality to the nation’s defense. If a weapon doesn’t work or can’t be purchased in the numbers the services need, then what is the point?

The American people today spend far more on defense than they did just a generation ago. Pentagon spending levels are nearly 50% higher than they were in the year 2000. That extra money has been sunk into numerous acquisition failures. The Littoral Combat Ship, the Army’s Future Combat System, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, the KC-46 aerial tanker, and the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle are just a few significant disappointments from the past 25 years.

The system is clearly broken. The incoming Trump administration will have to take drastic steps to rein in the excesses of the past 25 years. With influential people now at least unwittingly admitting the F-35’s failures, it could be a good starting point. Cancelling the program outright would be very difficult because of all the foreign entanglements that were baked into it from the beginning. But limiting production until engineers complete the F-35’s design may send the proper signal to the defense industry that the status quo is intolerable.
 
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Picdelamirand-oil said:
'Flop': Proponents of the F-35 can't tell you that it works
When they've resorted to arguing 'it's a job creator,' you know there isn't much military use

Elon Musk has turned his attention to the F-35 program, and he isn’t impressed. The world’s richest man – who owns SpaceX, the sole provider of reliable American space launches – threw shade at the most expensive weapon program in history in a post on X on November 25.

“The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people. This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes,” Musk posted on X.

Elon Musk is absolutely right…and not just because I have been saying the exact same thing for a decade!

The American people need to come to grips with the fact that the F-35 program is a complete flop. Most leaders of the national security establishment are unlikely to say so in such blunt terms, but some of them are now tacitly admitting the truth probably without realizing they are.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, effectively the hometown newspaper for the F-35 program, recently published an article loaded with quotes from lawmakers, defense officials, and university professors. They all made an economic argument to defend the program.

That should send shivers down the spine of every Lockheed Martin executive. When the best argument that can be made for a weapon program is its economic impact, it is clear the program has limited military value.

For a program in development for more than 23 years, at the expense of nearly $300 billion so far, the American people have received little in return. New F-35s coming off the Fort Worth assembly line have only limited combat capabilities. It will reportedly take years for engineers to complete the hardware and software necessary for new F-35s to achieve full combat capability. The jets already in service have demonstrated an appalling lack of reliability. During all of 2023, the F-35 fleet only managed a 30% full mission capable rate.

The F-35 has proven to be a deeply flawed aircraft that is far from meeting the needs of the services and therefore jeopardizes national security. Focusing attention on the program’s economic impact is simply a desperate attempt to prevent Congress from cutting funding.

Such a strategy has been used by industry before, but it usually just delays the inevitable. National security establishment leaders attempted to save the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship with similar arguments in the last decade. The LCS program was initially praised by its supporters as a revolutionary surface ship capable of affordably filling multiple roles. As more of the ships were built and entered active service, it became increasingly clear the program failed to live up to expectations and Navy leaders wanted to cut their losses. But lawmakers kept the program sputtering along for a few years longer because of its economic impact.

Providing for the common defense is enshrined in the preamble to the Constitution. The American people tolerate, however grudgingly in many cases, the government spending their tax dollars to build weapons for the military. The expectation is that Congress will spend wisely to buy things that work and that fill capability gaps. Lawmakers shouldn’t buy weapons simply to stimulate the economy. There are far better ways to boost the economy with taxpayer dollars than wasteful defense spending. Imagine the effect on the overall economy if just a fraction of the money spent on the F-35 was spent on the country’s transportation network.

The military value of a weapon program is the only valid justification for its expense. If someone does feel the need to defend a program, the argument should be based on the weapon’s demonstrated effectiveness and its centrality to the nation’s defense. If a weapon doesn’t work or can’t be purchased in the numbers the services need, then what is the point?

The American people today spend far more on defense than they did just a generation ago. Pentagon spending levels are nearly 50% higher than they were in the year 2000. That extra money has been sunk into numerous acquisition failures. The Littoral Combat Ship, the Army’s Future Combat System, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, the KC-46 aerial tanker, and the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle are just a few significant disappointments from the past 25 years.

The system is clearly broken. The incoming Trump administration will have to take drastic steps to rein in the excesses of the past 25 years. With influential people now at least unwittingly admitting the F-35’s failures, it could be a good starting point. Cancelling the program outright would be very difficult because of all the foreign entanglements that were baked into it from the beginning. But limiting production until engineers complete the F-35’s design may send the proper signal to the defense industry that the status quo is intolerable.
Click to expand...

It's quite ironic but India is much more of a stable system than a lot of Western systems. For example, local leaders cannot hold military production hostage like this. And even presidential pardons can be overturned when it's as dumb as what Biden's done.

I don't think Elon can stop the F-35 program today considering the level of investment already made by the Pentagon and allies. But at the same time, with access to tech like AI and Neuralink, we don't know how much Elon knows about removing the human element from manned jets today, something that even the Pentagon is unlikely to be fully privy to.

It's possible that USAF numbers could be whittled down to 1000 and the remaining 700 could become the cheap version of NGAD. But that could also mean the F-35 will be marketed to the Third World, presenting a new challenge to the Rafale in new markets.
 
randomradio said:
It's possible that USAF numbers could be whittled down to 1000 and the remaining 700 could become the cheap version of NGAD. But that could also mean the F-35 will be marketed to the Third World, presenting a new challenge to the Rafale in new markets.
Click to expand...
Perhaps they should make a two-seat version of the aircraft, because for the moment a Rafale B is a better candidate for being a low-cost version of the NGAD than the F-35.
 
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RISING SUN said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1882167224158621790
Click to expand...
May be the pod will become a stealthy hybrid pylon.

Rajput Lion said:
It's so strange to see veteran journalists like Tyler Rogoway get confused between MAWS and dedicated IRST, lol.
This is nothing but IRST/EODAS upgrade of AN/AAR-56 PMAWS of F-22. It'll still need podded LWIR IRST pods for long range air-to-air engagement.
Click to expand...
Most journalists are not technically qualified.
I'm obviously NOT expert on application of UV, LWIR, MWIR, SWIR. But for example what i've seen on documentaries, expo & videos is that -
SWIR can see through glass but not L/MWIR.
SWIR captures shadows & surface reflections also being closer to visible light.
MWIR seems to provide a balance b/w LWIR & SWIR.
1737626097423.jpeg

1737625872862.jpeg

1737626003671.png


And UV helps in removing clutter.
So different objects & conditions are suited for different bands.
Some MAWS have multiple band apertures like below AAR-47 MAWS, we have 4 apertures behind same glass casing.
Rafale's MAWS is also similar.
In general, it could be something like SWIR+LWIR+UV+LWR.

1737626378692.png


Ultimately, MAWS & IRST both have to perform digital signal/image processing real-time combined with RF sensors data to differentate b/w incoming jets, missiles, b/w flares & exhaust, etc. It depends on avionics programming, degree of sensor fusion.

Now DAS is a generic acronym - a system of apertures distributed across airframe.
Instead of having rotating/sweeping IRST, a DAS of fixed IRST can be imagined easily, just like we have side looking radars & some antennas on spine, belly, wings, tails.
AFAIK, an effort of multi-functional, multi-band, AI enabled EO sensor is being made to perform IRST+ID+MAWS functions & put it in DAS.
 
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Rajput Lion said:
It's so strange to see veteran journalists like Tyler Rogoway get confused between MAWS and dedicated IRST, lol.

This is nothing but IRST/EODAS upgrade of AN/AAR-56 PMAWS of F-22. It'll still need podded LWIR IRST pods for long range air-to-air engagement.
Click to expand...

He's insinuating that an IRST system can replace the PMAWS. So the PMAWS itself will become a full-fledged 360-deg IRST instead of 6 small sensors for MAWS and a main IRST sensor in the front like we have traditionally seen.

The old Mig-35 came with something similar, though it was just one extra IRST at the bottom. I guess they could always stick another one in the spine.
 
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Picdelamirand-oil said:
Perhaps they should make a two-seat version of the aircraft, because for the moment a Rafale B is a better candidate for being a low-cost version of the NGAD than the F-35.
Click to expand...

Does Rafale carry VHF/UHF antennas? For F3R I believe it's still 1-18 GHz on receive and 5.5/6-18 GHz on transmit.

Later model was supposed to get 0.5-40 GHz on receive, unknown on transmit. But an NGAD-equivalent Rafale's gonna have to match the entire spectrum on transmit.

Anyway if Trump's massive increase of the defense budget goes through, he will clear the TE version and they will get all the F-35s they want.
 
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