F-35 A/B/C Community Mod

[Sierra99]

On 2/29/2024 at 10:26 AM, SkateZilla said:

The only aircraft left that it was meant to replace is the F-16, it was designed to be a connected battlefield aircraft along side the F-15EX (and originally block III SH, but the navy has already decided to move to a pure F-35C Fleet in a few decades). The F-16s is like the Honda Civic of the export Fighter Aircraft market, there are endless variants and addon options .
 

Skate the only comment I disagree with is this one...

The aircraft the F-35B was meant to replace was the AV-8B. The Marines needed a more capable V/STOL aircraft to replace the Harrier but the costs associated with such a small projected production run of F-35B was fiscally prohibitive. The only way to get the F-35B for the Marines was to spread out over all three services. F-35As and F-35Cs exist to bring the per unit cost down to a reasonable level. 

A friend who worked on the Boeing JSF program said there were many internal conversations about "What would happen" and "How much it would cost" to produce a Marine only version of the F-32 vs all three versions. The common understanding was "it's to expensive to do it that way."

 

[popov]

is there an updated link somewhere for their discord or download link if this is still available ?
thanks

[Weed89]

all these people that can fly the f35 in DCS...BUT not 1 SINGLE person can put a LINK to where and get a WORKING MOD  f35 for DCS.  WHY?????

[HawaiianRyan]

52 minutes ago, Weed89 said:

all these people that can fly the f35 in DCS...BUT not 1 SINGLE person can put a LINK to where and get a WORKING MOD  f35 for DCS.  WHY?????

Demanding, entitled attitudes maybe?

[minar]

I think its the dumbest idea yet for the USAF to try to replace the A10 with an F35. They tried this years ago by trying to sack it for an F16 and failed. First of all it can hardly carry anything. Stealth is not needed for TAC air. The guys on the ground want an airframe that can carry a ton of stuff and loiter for hours, the F35 also cannot withstand aa hits either, it also does not have an awesome and devastating cannon. The USAF needs to get its head out of its butt and stop being spoiled brats and thinking that everything has to be high tech and expensive. Its simply not realistic at all. Its ironic because they just chose an overrated crop duster for coin missions. They should just give their a10's to the Army and let them fly them like they want. That or build some updated new ones. The F35 is ridiculous for this type of mission. Its good to see that yet again, they A10 will not die and continue to serve for several more years yet.

 

That said this is a great mod.

Edited April 19 by minar

[SkateZilla]

On 4/18/2025 at 11:45 PM, minar said:

I think its the dumbest idea yet for the USAF to try to replace the A10 with an F35. They tried this years ago by trying to sack it for an F16 and failed. First of all it can hardly carry anything. Stealth is not needed for TAC air. The guys on the ground want an airframe that can carry a ton of stuff and loiter for hours, the F35 also cannot withstand aa hits either, it also does not have an awesome and devastating cannon. The USAF needs to get its head out of its butt and stop being spoiled brats and thinking that everything has to be high tech and expensive. Its simply not realistic at all. Its ironic because they just chose an overrated crop duster for coin missions. They should just give their a10's to the Army and let them fly them like they want. That or build some updated new ones. The F35 is ridiculous for this type of mission. Its good to see that yet again, they A10 will not die and continue to serve for several more years yet.

 

That said this is a great mod.

Problem is, the A-10s are all Old, despite getting new wings, which were already made and sitting in a warehouse when FC shut down operations, the main fuselage still endures stress from the GAU/8.

FC is gone, so is the tooling to build more, the only reason the A-10 is still in service, is because A. there is nothing close to doing that specific job on the same level. B. It would cost more to retire it than to operate it, C. Changes in congress at key times caused indecisions in the USAF Budget.

So I can emphasize each point a little bit:
A. It's obvious, there is no other platform with a GAU/8, they tried to mount one on a F-16, it didn't work out that well. The F-35A, being it's replacement, only because it's multi-role. But the Battlefield in the east, is not the type of battlefield where you can sit at 25K and lob LBGs and GPS Munitions all day, sometimes you gotta get down low and dirty, and I do not see the USAF sending a costly aircraft that has next to no AA Protection down low w/ only 180 rounds of GAU/22, it's like shooting NERK darts at a speeding car, not gonna do very much against armour. But the Airforce is consolidating, they don't want one aircraft specializing in one role, they want one aircraft that's OK at many, good at a few, to replace multiple, the Navy did the same thing, at one point it was the United States Department of Super Hornets, F-14s, A-7s, A-6s, S-3s, all gone off the deck, replaced by the F/A-18E/F/Gs. Shoot, if they could strap a trailer to the plane, it'd be replacing their COD as well.

B. Retiring the A-10, Sending it to mothballs, training and re-assignment of personnel and delegating Airwing roles to another aircraft to train on, would cost more than simple keeping the A-10s in service in a reduced flight hour status.

C. Every time the A-10 retirement is on the docket to be voted on, leadership and priorities change, and it gets dropped off the agenda.

Make no mistake, the days are numbered, as each older airframe even w/ the new wings approaches the flight hour limits, they are being retired one after another, and w/ the fleet getting smaller, the remaining airframes are getting exponentially higher flight time, so their journey to their service life limit is hastened w/ every airframe they retire.

Edited April 20 by SkateZilla

[BlackFalco]

Hi, is this mod still alive?

I joined Discord but its all empty.

[TheBiggerBass]

Am 20.4.2025 um 23:45 schrieb SkateZilla:

Problem is, the A-10s are all Old, despite getting new wings, which were already made and sitting in a warehouse when FC shut down operations, the main fuselage still endures stress from the GAU/8.

FC is gone, so is the tooling to build more, the only reason the A-10 is still in service, is because A. there is nothing close to doing that specific job on the same level. B. It would cost more to retire it than to operate it, C. Changes in congress at key times caused indecisions in the USAF Budget.

So I can emphasize each point a little bit:
A. It's obvious, there is no other platform with a GAU/8, they tried to mount one on a F-16, it didn't work out that well. The F-35A, being it's replacement, only because it's multi-role. But the Battlefield in the east, is not the type of battlefield where you can sit at 25K and lob LBGs and GPS Munitions all day, sometimes you gotta get down low and dirty, and I do not see the USAF sending a costly aircraft that has next to no AA Protection down low w/ only 180 rounds of GAU/22, it's like shooting NERK darts at a speeding car, not gonna do very much against armour. But the Airforce is consolidating, they don't want one aircraft specializing in one role, they want one aircraft that's OK at many, good at a few, to replace multiple, the Navy did the same thing, at one point it was the United States Department of Super Hornets, F-14s, A-7s, A-6s, S-3s, all gone off the deck, replaced by the F/A-18E/F/Gs. Shoot, if they could strap a trailer to the plane, it'd be replacing their COD as well.

B. Retiring the A-10, Sending it to mothballs, training and re-assignment of personnel and delegating Airwing roles to another aircraft to train on, would cost more than simple keeping the A-10s in service in a reduced flight hour status.

C. Every time the A-10 retirement is on the docket to be voted on, leadership and priorities change, and it gets dropped off the agenda.

Make no mistake, the days are numbered, as each older airframe even w/ the new wings approaches the flight hour limits, they are being retired one after another, and w/ the fleet getting smaller, the remaining airframes are getting exponentially higher flight time, so their journey to their service life limit is hastened w/ every airframe they retire.

Good points.

I love flying DCS. But as we see IRL in near east or Ukraine etc. I guess the future of airforce IRL will be huge numbers of low cost unmanned fighter drones anyway. It allows missions where you cannot send human pilots anymore and use much higher numbers of drones.

[SkateZilla]

7 hours ago, TheBiggerBass said:

Good points.

I love flying DCS. But as we see IRL in near east or Ukraine etc. I guess the future of airforce IRL will be huge numbers of low cost unmanned fighter drones anyway. It allows missions where you cannot send human pilots anymore and use much higher numbers of drones.

Still have to train the human drone pilots.

[TheBiggerBass]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb SkateZilla:

Still have to train the human drone pilots.

DCS might not be the worst preparation for this ...

[SkateZilla]

9 hours ago, TheBiggerBass said:

DCS might not be the worst preparation for this ...

There's already a Drone Station platform trainer made by ED for the Pro market.

[H60MTI]

I downloaded and installed the VSN F-35 mod but when I jump into it in the game, I have no cockpit, like at all...I know the F-35 is supposed to be able to "see through" the floor but I think this is pushing it a bit much.

[NOYB]

On 2/29/2024 at 7:49 AM, Ithronwise said:

The F-35 was never intended to be an air superiority fighter. Its advantages lie in its superior sensor equipment and its ability to operate in a datalinked network of different units. This creates a superior situational awareness for the pilot. 

 

The battlefield is dumb.  No 'instinct' as programmed autonomic behaviors.  No self-cognizance of environmental drivers on specific if-this-do-that response.  No MQ-9, RQ-4, RQ-180, MQ-20.  So whatever is low-value up ahead, getting shot at by everything from MPADS to Pantsirs, isn't there to tweak the enemy's nose and get an emission.  Of course, there is no network centric surveillance radar system, blinking on and off, like a Christmas tree, either.  And threat vehicles don't skedaddle and aren't dispersed with protective revetments, decoy pits, APS rockets or multi-battery cross coverage to continue to fight, once the basic acquisition and engagement radars are down.

As far as the F-35's own sensors...meh.  The APG-81 is a tiny aperture with, I dunno, 1,676 TRM.  Most of the biggies are around 2,000 with the APG-77V1 having 2,300.  APG-85 will be better, except that its GaN is Chinese supplier restricted.

Also, despite being an AESA, with very rapid beam pointing, the total sensor cone, as with all PARs, is limited by the number of degrees you can point it, offboresight.  Somewhere between 45-60`, the amount of phase rotation 'adjustment' needed to steer the beam, starts to radically effect it's tracking qualities.  The one exception to this is the ES-05 Raven, with a repositioner to point the AESA and achieve up to 120` off bore performance.

EO wise, the DAS is really just an extended range MAWS with SAIRST capabilities out to about 15-18nm.  But if you have an enemy on you at that range, and you're not putting effective fires on him.  You're already in trouble.  The EOTS is what is intended to help here but it requires an effective ASQ-239 or AWACS etc. global cue to prepoint and it's not the best when it comes to being a pseudo-IRST, being more intended for A2G point target tracking than large volume search like a PIRATE or Skywards-G (Modern IRST with DROIC and QWIP can scan a volume of sky equal to a mechanical scan radar with similar detection probabilities, out to 50-60nm, not your daddy's AAS-42).

Radar cannot jam.  Stealth is not global but aspect sensitive (which is why blinking radars which come on in your flanks are dangerous) and the APG-81/ASQ-239 do not do cyber stuff to get inside the back end of the radar and mess with it's head.  It is this which allows a (standoff) F-35 to bring in Gen-4s to the target area with 10-20km ranged weapons.

Which brings us back to a 'smart battlefield' since you are carrying two smart weapons or one rack of small diameter bombs plus a pair of AIM-120s on the doors.  Say an AGM-88G and 4 GBU-53.  Sounds like a lot.  But it isn't.  Not when the other side has 4 Pantsir or Tor guarding an S-400V with 22 40N6 and 8 9M96E2.  All of which are active homing off an IMU.  All of which can be silent-fired based on a cue from an A-50U, 200 miles back.

There is a reason the F-35 has an ALE-70 towed decoy.  It is not invisible/invulnerable and, unlike the F-22, it's also not doing Mach 1.35 at 40,000ft where the ability to defeat a threat missile is a genuine possibility.  A 460sqft wing area, 110psf wingloading 25` wingsweep and T/Wr of around .5 IRT and .8 AB does not a supersonic cruise and maneuver platform make.  Take the fight down to 19-25,000ft, tops, depending on whether you want to fight in the conband, and you'd better not be detected because you are kinematically touchable by all the battlefield weapons out there.

This is not the 1994 when the F-35 program stood up.  Buk is now Viking.  Tunguska is now Pantsir.  And the Chinese knockoffs of Russian SA-teens are better than the Russian SA-twenties.

People are going to find that the F-35 is more of a standoff RQ-4 Blk.40 and a VLO EA-18G than a wolfpack leader.  Which is why you're seeing a massive shift from rocket propelled weapons like the JAGM and the Brimstone and even the AARGM-ER towards mini-cruise systems like SPEAR-3, CMMT, Jackal and Barracuda.  The bad guys have a _serious_ Air Defense and EW advantage and the best way to deal with it is to start using Gen 4.5 as bomb trucks which can carry a lot of these new mini-cruise missiles with standoffs of 50-100nm and no threat exposure at all.

The F-35 can do that mission, but only with a 24hr conversion time to bring pylons on the jet and seal up the plumbing (if they have fuel) then take them off to restore the VLO, each way.  This will further crush the Lightning's kinematics.

With this in mind, the F-15EX, with its ALQ-250 and APG-83V1 as well as ATP-XR Sniper can likely equal or outrange the F-35 in most active sensor, ELS and jammer capability related areas.  That is what we might think about as an adjunct to the modern stealth fleet.  Not a dead-and-gone F-15C which is severely over-hours on lifespan and underpowered on engine thrust.

Unfortunately, you have the Razbam F-15E to show how bad this can go.  Which is all the more a shame because an accurate F-15E is not even self-defending with HARM and mixed VLRAAM plus standoffs.  It is typically heavily overfueled to compensate for all the external drag and thus has only 2-4 stations available for droppable ordnance.  The F-15EX (SA/QA/I2 etc.) changes all of this with the outboard wing stations and the BRU-61 multiracks.  And that is the ONE variant which is not adequately (new engines, better radar, LAD, MAWS, Legion Pod, Shield Pod) depicted, though the Spino Mod at least tries hard.