The F35 exists because the F22 is so much better than every other fighter jet in the world that the US does not want to sell it to anyone, not even our closest “5 Eyes” partners (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).
The F35 is a less capable, and therefore “second best” fighter jet. The F35 can be exported, and the export market combined with the US market means enough of them can be manufactured to get the price per plane down to something “affordable” (the price of the F22 per plane is enormous which is why we made so few of them).
Since China and Russia will be making air defense systems and air superiority fighters designed to fight the F22, those systems will, by definition be able to beat the F35.
The F35 is ugly. To meet the needs of the Marine Corps it had to have VTOL capability. That required compromises in the shape of the plane which made it less than aesthetically pleasing. Could have been worse – the Boeing entry in the F35 development program was even uglier.
The F35 is going to be a lot more expensive than anyone wanted. Despite the idea that producing it in volume could control costs it has proved to be a bitch to make work and the program is vastly overbudget and behind schedule.
It has no legitimate strategic role. The missions against targets that are not in China or Russia being flown today by F/A18s and F16s aren’t likely to change. With the F22, drones and cruise missiles to knock down air defenses, the existing planes could continue to do what they do for the foreseeable future.
A war with China or Russia where massed fleets of F35s would actually have to engage in air superiority missions is so laughably unlikely as to be not worth really considering. Assuming it were possible to have such a war without a nuclear exchange, F22s, drones and cruise missiles would be the weapons of choice until the air defenses were knocked aside (if even possible) and after that was done, the F35 would be no better or worse airframe to conduct follow on ground attack missions than the FA18 and F16s we have now.
The F35s range is insufficient to allow it to operate over enemy territory without refueling, which cannot be done unless air superiority has been achieved. Therefore its essentially useless against China, as there’s no way to conduct sustained air operations within range of China’s carrier-killer antiship ballistic missiles, and essentially useless against Russia unless a ground invasion allowed NATO forces to base from inside Russian territory for attacks on the Moscow region.
So we’re going to spend an insane amount of money on the F35, instead of more FA18s and F16s, but we’ll never actually use any of the capabilities that make an F35 better than an F18 or an F16.
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F-35B战斗机悬停状态下发动机尾喷管进行偏转操作
荷兰皇家空军作战部队11月1日正式接收首架F-35A的欢迎仪式上过水门的F-35 F-009战机被泡沫覆盖。此前F-16A J-197的飞行员在驾驶舱中发现烟雾而紧急着陆，一辆消防车前往待命应对，并将喷水模式变成喷出水成泡沫。 任务结束匆忙回来后，忘记将泡沫模式改回喷水，结果糊了FA一脸。
http://slide.mil.news.sina.com.cn/k/slide_8_294_74346.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9282274/raf-f-35-stealth-fighter-jet-crack-pentagon/
elephant walk
F-35B
http://slide.mil.news.sina.com.cn/h/slide_8_198_67364.html#p=7
What went wrong with the F-35? Expert reveals why jet is ‘one of the greatest boondoggles in history’
Pentagon argues too much money has been spent on F-35 program to stop now
Experts say it can’t successfully carry out air combat and ground target missions
F-35 is not so stealthy, making it easily tracked and shot down by other weapons
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4608340/Expert-reveals-F-35-isn-t-ultimate-fighter-jet.html#ixzz4nZiGjr7F
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“I want to make our USAF amazing- here’s how: I was watching RT the other day, and even a Russian TV station, a RUSSIAN TV station knows more than us. They know the F-35 is trash. I want to fire the F-35.” – Donald Trump
It just does not look right
Good read: Here is a summary of what went wrong with the F-35 : No matter how much the US Air force tries to sell the F-35, it is short legged. So much stuff is needed to squeeze into a small airframe, there is little room for extra fuel. It cannot run or turn quickly enough to escape from enemy air superiority fighters. Once unmasked en route to enemy’s position and this is highly likely, the F-35 will lose out to more agile planes like SU-35. The idea behind the design of F-35 is unrealistic. The F-35 airframe was designed… Read more »
The F-35 is still horribly broken
http://theweek.com/articles/605165/f35-still-horribly-broken
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The footage above illustrates why the F-35 is easily detectable despite its much-hyped radar “stealth:” it generates so much heat that it is visible at long ranges by thermal imaging sensors, such as the infra-red scan and track (IRST) sensors fitted to most combat aircraft made outside the US. It also begs the question of how Lockheed designers – and the Pentagon — can have believed their own “stealth” claims to the point of ignoring the F-35’s infra-red signature, which negates all gains made in the radar spectrum. Incidentally, it also makes one wonder how US military aviation… Read more »
报道称，这名晕倒的军官名为James Martin（音译:詹姆斯·马丁），詹姆斯是美国空军的一名少将，当他在发布会上谈论美国空军预算以及空军未来的F-35项目时突然晕倒。
No, the F-35 Can’t Fight at Long Range, Either Stealth fighter can’t see, shoot or survive The Pentagon’s new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is dead meat in a close battle against even a dated two-seat F-16D fighter jet, according to a scathing test pilot report War Is Boring obtained. Don’t sweat it, JSF-maker Lockheed Martin responded. “The F-35’s technology is designed to engage, shoot and kill its enemy from long distances,” Lockheed’s F-35 team wrote in a press release on July 1. As a rebuttal to the test pilot report, Lockheed’s claim is a cynically useful one — it sidesteps the criticism… Read more »
Compare the size
F-35