The New F-35 Is So Stealthy, It's Harder To Train Pilots (airforcetimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Air Force Times: The F-35 Lightning II is so stealthy, pilots are facing an unusual challenge. They're having difficulty participating in some types of training exercises, a squadron commander told reporters Wednesday. During a recent exercise at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, F-35 squadrons wanted to practice evading surface-to-air threats. There was just one problem: No one on the ground could track the plane. 'If they never saw us, they couldn't target us,' said Lt. Col. George Watkins, the commander of the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The F-35s resorted to flipping on their transponders, used for FAA identification, so that simulated anti-air weapons could track the planes, Watkins said.

Comments

As PE said

[Lawrence_Bird]

don't..don't believe the hype!

A very troubled, costly program trying to generate some positive spin.

Re: As PE said

[ShanghaiBill]

It is only "stealthy" if the radar transmitter and receiver are co-located. The Russians and the Chinese are well aware of this limitation, and are already building offset radar. So it is only stealthy if we assume that our adversaries are idiots. This is a good assumption if we want the funding to continue, but a bad assumption if we actually expect it to be effective. The F35 has way too much inertia and sunk costs to be cancelled at this point ... and please don't say that "sunk costs don't matter". That may be true in business, but is not true in politics.

Pointless hype

[HuskyDog]

Yes, well maybe the aircraft's signature was too low for the threat system to engage them, but if you want to increase the signature of the stealthy aircraft there are lots of easy ways, such as:

1) Lower the undercarriage.

2) Many low signature aircraft have corner reflectors which either bolt on or are hidden behind doors and which greatly increase the radar returns. They are used to hide the true signature when flying somewhere where someone may try to measure your radar cross section. I have no idea if the F35 has such a feature, but I would be surprised if it doesn't.

3) Fit external stores. I don't know if the F35 supports this option.

So, a story about something that isn't a real problem and instead suggests a badly planned training exercise re-cast as an opportunity to say how great their aircraft are.

Re:Pointless hype

[Anonymous Coward]

Flipping radar transponder switch sounds much easier ..

Re:Can't turn, can't climb, can't run

[DerekLyons]

So you're saying that there's no truth to this story? Where's you're evidence? You have none? Then why should I believe your negative spin?

Always a clever tactic to demand an explanation and then triumphantly declare that the other person has none before any time has passed for replies to be made. Here, let me help you with that "missing" evidence. Have you missed the news for the past eight years? The F-35 program has been dogged at every step by cost overruns, test failures, design-by-committee creeping features, etc.

Always a clever tactic - to erect a strawman and subsequent to demolishing it pronounce the other person a fraud.
 
It's either that, or you have serious reading comprehension problems - because the grandparent's question wasn't "prove the program is a failure". It was "prove there's no truth to this story". Something that, despite claiming "victory", you have signally failed to so.

Re:Can't turn, can't climb, can't run

[Rei]

Yes, the F-35 absolutely can dogfight - for whatever that's worth these days.

Also, all of these financial comparisons completely miss the point, as if the US wasn't going with the F-35 program, they'd be going with a different program instead. It's not like the US is just going to say, "Meh, I think our fighters are good enough, even though all of our potential adversaries keep advancing theirs..." And they would have again sought to go big, since there's a lot of aircraft to replace, and the more they produce the smaller the unit cost.

Yes, the F-35 is estimated at $1,5 trillion. Total through 2070. Aka, $28B per year, versus the Pentagon's $580B budget. And not all go to the US, there are many international orders as well. Procurement is only a fifth of that $1,5 trillion, or under $6B per year.

Again, yes, you could spend that money on, say, college education for people instead. If you're willing not only to let your adversaries out-tech your airforce, but also to scrap the current airplanes you're with that the F-35 is designed to replace, since that money also pays for ongoing operations costs that you'd have to pay for either way. You might be willing to scrap a large chunk of your airforce. Most Americans would not be, I'm sure.

Is it worth mentioning that many of the design decisions of the F-35 are designed to reduce operating costs, such as large production runs, a single engine design, etc - even though the unit cost is high? Again: production is only a fifth of total costs....

Re:Wait, so the F-35 is good for something?

[Rei]

Because you've been reading sources focused on bashing the F-35? Which might explain the seemingly "inexplicable" interest by other parties who don't read exclusively efforts to bash it?

Re:Can't turn, can't climb, can't run

[NicBenjamin]

Interestingly enough, a few years back it was considered a terrible waste of money and everyone thought that it should be canned and replaced with F-35.

It's amazing how the perception of a weapons system can change among English/Journalism majors when there have been a few years to work the bugs out.

Re:Sounds like ....

[fnj]

25 years of combat, my ass. 24-1/2 years of mugging helpless savages and maybe 1/2 year of combat.