Canada buys F-35s

[Mud Buddha]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/16/canada-jets.html

Canada recently bought some new F-35s, and im curious on peoples opinion of the aircraft.
Waste of money? Or valuable purchase?

Here in Holland we're kind of obliged now to get the F-35 too, since we've invested such a large amount of money in the project (@ S. Thieman: it's almost just as european as the Eurofighter), but personally I think it's gone out of control. With this recent financial crisis there's a lot to do about cutting costs. College-grants, healthcare, pensionfunds, everything gets the treatment, while all they have to do is just dump the F-35 program and save piles of cash. Just get a couple of Gripens and were good (no Eurofighter please, it's hella ugly). We're a small country and simply don't need such an overly expensive sci-fi fighter. The whole JSF thing is just the dutch sucking up to big brother US of A.

Same goes for Canada, they don't need it and getting the F-35 can only be described as a political choice. Even if they build it themselves (good for local economy) why not just build some Dassaults or some Saabs?

[THeTA0123]

its gonna be very very expensive, i hope Belgium will buy Eurofighter or Rafale next, i feel sorry for you Canadians.

Hahaha! My dad works in the Belgium airforce (well, he is retired since 3 weeks ago) and everyone their knows that their wont be any new planes after the F16 

[Kelmola]

I think the F-35 is a true "Jack of all trades, master of none". Or rather, a brave but futile attempt to downscale F-22 in size and in cost, at the cost of capabilities.

Sure, it's stealth, but it's still no F-22 or F-117. It carries a pitifully small weapons load internally (four AAM's, but only of certain size - can't fit four AMRAAM's, has to be two plus two Sidewinders). Add weapon pylons, and suddenly it's not so stealthy anymore. And even with the extra pylons, it still can't carry very much compared to the planes it is supposed to replace. The 25 mm cannon might be more powerful than the venerable M61 Vulcan, but it's still no tank-busting cannon like the GAU-8/A of Warthog. Without drop tanks, the range is also nothing to write home about. No supercruise, although the thrust/weight ratio is decent in the CTOL version. Instead of having completely vectored thrust like the Harrier, the STOVL versions use a liftjet which is just so much dead weight when not taking off or landing, plus makes the plane bigger than it would be without.

Unfortunately, there has been few reports on mock dogfights against other modern jets, but on paper it would seem that it is clearly inferior to the F-22, and that the Eurofighter would be better in air-to-air role (maybe also in strike role). I hear the manufacturer has been claiming that with the helmet-mounted display (and supposedly "360 degree view") and such, manoeuverability would no longer be an issue, but I think we heard pretty much the same story slightly before Vietnam War. Less wealthy nations would probably ignore both and go for Su-35BM or the "future aircraft" MiG tries to build for the Indian Air Force.

The wild card is the development of next-generation UAV's, which could potentially become operational around the same time when F-35 enters large-scale service. Interestingly enough, there has not been "mock dogfights" between combat UAV's and manned aircraft yet, depending on what the results of those would be, the entire F-35 program might be simply too late.

[THeTA0123]

Planes like the Gripen, rafale, eurofighter or a new block F16, F18 and F15 have same or even better performance, payload, 3 times less costs and maintance needed

With only a sacrifice in an amount of stealth capability, wich btw doesnt make the F35 fully stealthed.

[Mud Buddha]

[...]  the entire F-35 program might be simply too late.

Yeah, I think the F35 is one of the last gasps of breath of the cold war. The world has become such a different place the last 15 /20 years or so, compared to 50 years of polarized Cold War, and decades long development periods for billion dollar airplanes simply don't fit into this day and age anymore, no matter how versatile they are.

[THeTA0123]

Airforces around the world will probaly invest more in Small counter insurgency aircraft then billion dollar jets. Simply because the main threats atm are terrorism. Not gaint armies

[Nerdsturm]

The wild card is the development of next-generation UAV's, which could potentially become operational around the same time when F-35 enters large-scale service. Interestingly enough, there has not been "mock dogfights" between combat UAV's and manned aircraft yet, depending on what the results of those would be, the entire F-35 program might be simply too late.

I work with non-military UAVs at school, including working on ones that compete in military-sponsored competitions, and I honestly can't say I could see these competing with manned jets anytime soon in an air superiority role. Under the current control system, you would need to have a way to track enemy targets and fire on them autonomously, as the controller doesn't have direct control of the UAV(all he can do really is give is preset orders, such as to fly to a GPS location, or in a set pattern, ect. A more direct method would cause problems due to the signal delay between the UAV and controller, not to mention defeat a lot of the reasons UAVs are useful). This creates a problem with stealth fighters, as aircraft would be jumping in and out of radar, and any sort of evasive maneuvers or countermeasures would be difficult to implement.

I can't say UAVs won't improve significantly by the time F-35s enter service, but it would be pointless to have mock dogfights involving UAVs at the current time because they would be mauled by any modern aircraft.

[Stefan]

stealth and uav are good enough for the contained wars against third world countries, but once you fight a war against a worldpower like China or Russia, first thing they do is blow the satelites out of the sky , including the GPS ones, which the US military relies too much on.

[MaJ.P.Bouras]

Well stealth is good but i can recall that F117 which got dropped at Yugoslavia a few years ago.It was stealth and yet it got shot down some way...And the F35 is not exactly sure if it does have good Stealth capabilities .

[Nerdsturm]

stealth and uav are good enough for the contained wars against third world countries, but once you fight a war against a worldpower like China or Russia, first thing they do is blow the satelites out of the sky , including the GPS ones, which the US military relies too much on.

This would be equivalent to nuclear war, no sane nation would do it because it would screw everyone over for a very, very long time. Pieces of debris from an exploded satellite would not fall back to earth, and it's estimated that only a few more cases such as the one where China blew up a weather satellite in orbit would make debris a serious threat to all satellites still in orbit, as well as disrupt some telecommunications. Destroying dozens of satellites at once could prevent usage of all technologies that use satellites, which is a lot of very important ones.

[THeTA0123]

stealth and uav are good enough for the contained wars against third world countries, but once you fight a war against a worldpower like China or Russia, first thing they do is blow the satelites out of the sky , including the GPS ones, which the US military relies too much on.

This would be equivalent to nuclear war, no sane nation would do it because it would screw everyone over for a very, very long time. Pieces of debris from an exploded satellite would not fall back to earth, and it's estimated that only a few more cases such as the one where China blew up a weather satellite in orbit would make debris a serious threat to all satellites still in orbit, as well as disrupt some telecommunications. Destroying dozens of satellites at once could prevent usage of all technologies that use satellites, which is a lot of very important ones.

Actually, if a global war like that would commence, not a single army would dare to launch their nukes.

Nukes are a threat weapon. Just like gas was in WW2. All countries had huge stockpiles, and they never used them

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

stealth and uav are good enough for the contained wars against third world countries, but once you fight a war against a worldpower like China or Russia, first thing they do is blow the satelites out of the sky , including the GPS ones, which the US military relies too much on.

The problem is, other countries also use our GPS for their military operations, including countries that we might be fighting.

[MaJ.P.Bouras]

stealth and uav are good enough for the contained wars against third world countries, but once you fight a war against a worldpower like China or Russia, first thing they do is blow the satelites out of the sky , including the GPS ones, which the US military relies too much on.

This would be equivalent to nuclear war, no sane nation would do it because it would screw everyone over for a very, very long time. Pieces of debris from an exploded satellite would not fall back to earth, and it's estimated that only a few more cases such as the one where China blew up a weather satellite in orbit would make debris a serious threat to all satellites still in orbit, as well as disrupt some telecommunications. Destroying dozens of satellites at once could prevent usage of all technologies that use satellites, which is a lot of very important ones.

Actually, if a global war like that would commence, not a single army would dare to launch their nukes.

Nukes are a threat weapon. Just like gas was in WW2. All countries had huge stockpiles, and they never used them

Italians did.So did American i think and Japanese but not sure about those.For Italy though i am sure they used them against the Ethiopians.

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

Italians did.So did American i think and Japanese but not sure about those.For Italy though i am sure they used them against the Ethiopians.

Italians used gas in the Abyssinian War of 1935-1936, not in WW2.

Japanese did use chemical and biological weapons in China on several occasions.

The USA never used chemical weapons, although they had them on stockpile in case they were needed. A ship carrying mustard gas was bombed by German planes in an Italian port and released the gas into the city, killing a lot of people.

The US also considered using gas against Japanese troops hiding in tunnels on Iwo Jima, but decided not to. The use of chemical weapons was also considered for the invasion of Japan.

[Fuchs]

And if I remember correctly, told to me a long time ago when I asked it, some gas was accidently fired on Monte Cassino.