marcos

More helos

Ooops

EC-121T Warning Star B-58 Hustler More B-58 Vulcan

KC-767-200ER KC-767A KC-767J A330 MRTT

Blohm & Voss BV138 added (Page 4). Catalina added (Page 4).

Wonder if it fits in the bay of an X-37B?

Excalibur shot for first time in Afghanistan.

Gobi Desert

Satellite imagery from China Gobi desert. ???

I thought that was a bayonet in case it runs out of ammunition.

As many as a lift-fan? It's been done and it's a proven technology but even putting the B variant aside, designing a separate aircraft to the F-22 for the F-35A & C, just seems bizarre. All it needs was a bigger bomb bay and CATOBAR mods.

I personally think they just started with the single engine because it seemed to make more internal space for weapons carriage, and then just carried on digging regardless of what problems they ran into, e.g. the 50,000lbf engine ending up with 43,000lbf. I can't help but sit here and suggest that an easier solution would have been to build a Raptor with larger weapon bays and folding wings for carrier use. Fit it with the cheaper to maintain stealth material and the F-35 avionics and design diverter nozzles for VTOL. As an engineer, I can't for the life of me see how that could have been any harder, or produce a worse solution, or taken as long.

Cavour CVH-550

An-124

And that's why we have a STOVL fighter with a hugely complicated lift fan system that's going to be a maintenance nightmare. The lift fan is there because it doesn't have 2 engines and therefore doesn't have enough thrust for STOVL operations without it. With 2 F119s, it could have just used diverter nozzles. And the Russians could have built them one but they correctly recognised it as the silly solution it was.

Well there's an awful lot riding on this 'stealth capability', probably too much. Take away stealth and the F-35 is a bad plane that nobody would want, especially the B variant. When the UK and others signed up to the B variant, they were given the illusion that it would be the same as the other two but VTOL. It turns out to be nowhere near the truth. 1) It's STOVL, providing the problem of recovery landings on aborted mission. 2) Its range sucks. 3) It can't carry any standoff weapons internally. Not the JSOW or JSOW-ER. It can't carry 2000lb bombs internally either. The A and C can do both these. As for JASSMs or Storm Shadows, not even close. 4) Dogfight - can't do it. 5) Survivability - stealth yes, but only one engine (and blows up in lightning). Funny that the Chinese, for all their alleged blind copying, weren't stupid enough to built a single-engined carrier plane. Credit where credit is due. I don't think the BVR advantage will play out as well as it does in training with 90-100% simulated success rates for AMRAAMs and WVR a Rafale M will f*ck an F-35. As regards interdiction and denied access areas. Even assuming the F-35B has the range to reach them, without external tanks, why bother when I can launch a KEPD 350 from 500km away and not even have to access the airspace. Or even a Tomahawk/MdCN from maybe 2000km away. SEAD? Can the F-35 carry HARMs internally? Nope. Certainly not the B variant. Whilst it has all this supposed stealth image thing going for it. I don't see it being the magic bullet, mostly because the people building it either weren't thinking, or made so many compromises to achieve stealth and STOVL that mission capability was sacrificed in a big way. Stealth - yes. STOVL - yes. Capable fighter - no.

Okay nevermind, I was wrong. Why would an aircraft with a Litening pod have illumination rockets though? IR illumination rockets? I've heard they exist.

Are the guided APKWS and GATR versions longer? Extended range? They seem to stick out a bit here.

^Nice.

What?:lol: I'll try keep it going when I clearly have nothing to add to it instead hey? Point out the quote where I said 'shut up' and I will. Everyone here knows that most figures are part speculation at the moment but to say they're wrong out-right you have to have some kind of justification. So when you say: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1654795&postcount=1622 We'd like some hard evidence, not merely some counter-speculation from around the internet. I'm not continuing this circle-jerk any further.