BradG wrote:Adam the Akrodude wrote:BradG wrote:I hope you're right Adam. Thing is, if it really is a lemon, will we really know about it? I just can't believe that if the F-35 sucks, they will allow anyone who knows to come out and say so. Just imagine a pilot at an airshow saying "yeh so this is our F-35, it's basically one expensive piece of shit that can't do what they said it could, but you know, it flies ok". Not gunna happen lol.
You cannot get thousands upon thousands of people to tell the same lie Brad. There is WAY too much info out there proving it's not just a war winner, but a war stopper. Do you think that both LM and all the various government and military agencies threaten all those involve with some kind of punishment/gaol/torture/death if they reveal all? Professional military officers are very well known for speaking their minds - remember the OBOGS issues with F-22, F-18, F-35 and the USNs T-45s? Two Raptor pilots went on 60 Minutes over the whole "Raptor lung" issue. USN T-45 instructors basically went on strike over the OBOGS issue! So it is wrong to think that professional military aviators don't voice their opinions - they do! I've also spent time watching US Senate Arms hearings on the F-35 - when the military big wigs have to sit down and explain to US senators what is going on with the program. These US generals and admirals are all professional military aviators. These people cannot get the F-35 fast enough. When one watches and listens to what they are saying, it's the complete opposite to that message coming from those wanting to drum up controversy. It's only those farthest from the program that are the most vocally critical. If the F-35 was a lemon, we'd know about it for sure. It's impossible for professional military aviators to lie about this stuff. The F-35 program is probably the most publically open military fighter program ever - that's what's made we all of us on the outside such "experts"! We of course only know but a fraction of what the F-35 is really capable of - only what we need to know. One of the big failings of this program has been both LM and the users themselves failure to adequately address the misguided critique - most of which has only been generated to stir up controversy. Most of this controversy is largely evaporating now. Why has LM got so many nations banging on it's front door for the classified brief? UAE & Germany are the latest. Indian Air Force would love to flick off the Su-57/FGFA program because they've openly said the FGFA isn't competitive against the F-35. You don't need to hope I'm right at all.
Sure you can, I bet people are under UDA's in their lines of work and information deemed classified would hardly be discussed in the open. For example, Bletchley Park was kept secret until sometime in the 1970's, that's why it's never mentioned in the series The World at War. Stealth programs were kept secret for years, people who saw things on commercial flights were made to sign NDA's by the government.
You can't claim that we would know if the aircraft is a failure then on the other claim we only know a fraction of what it is capable of. Is that not still thousands of people keeping a secret? The aircraft has become too expensive to fail, there's not a chance in hell that if the aircraft is bad that anyone who actually knows this will be allowed to publicly say so.
I think you're wrong in thinking that several governments and their respective air forces would continue to sink billions into a program if it was a dud. Yes, the F-35 program is really huge, but never too big to fail. There have been some major challenges to overcome, but overcome they have in large. One of the biggest challenges was in fact the helmet as I understand it- a game stopper if they could not get it right. Examples of larger military aviation programs stopped in their infancy (you know this shot of course!) - F-111B, Comanche scout helicopter, A-12 USN "Stealth" attack/strike fighter, TSR2, Avro Arrow ,etc, etc, etc - I'm sure you can think up a few more too. If the F-35 was a dud, it would not have progressed at all - just too much public money. Trump was boasting he'd can the F-35 prior to the election. He quickly changed his tune afterwards - why? LM is practically having to use sticks to fight off potential customers - recent country's asking for the classified brief are: Germany, UAE and now Saudi Arabia. Belgium, Finland and Switzerland are also potential customers. Gripen-E is for second-tier air forces. Anything Russian is a disaster - ask the Indians! Typhoon and Rafale are way more expensive and offer a lot less capability. Most Typhoons haven't even got AESAs yet! As far as secrets, there are no secrets as to what results the F-35 has been achieving in exercises over the last 2-3 years. The secrets are just how the F-35 has been achieving these extraordinary results - the devil is in the detail and not for our eyes! We're told the results - just not how it's achieved. The F-35 program is probably the most open of any Western fighter program ever - hence the enormous critique and everyone thinking they're an expert. I at the very least openly admit I'm WAY too lacking in brain cells to get my head around all the tech involved - the deeper one looks, the more mind-blowing it becomes.
