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F-35C Unable to Get Aboard Ship, really?

2sr2worry

2sr2worry

Naval Aviation=world's greatest team sport
Brett327 said:
Maybe so, but it's still essentially a bigger (super) hornet.
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To boil the story down simply, the Super Hornet was sold as a mega-ECP to the legacy Hornet--to avoid the "new start" label which would have killed the timeline we needed to fill the gap caused by A-6 retirement and A-12 kill. The logic behind selling the ECP label was that a great amount of "commonality" would exist between Supers and legacies. And we had great success in that arena because as anyone in the logistics arena knows, the Super Hornet is 60% "common" with the legacy Hornet--by weight.

Re YF-17 and the F-18..Congress directed the Navy to embrace the LWF loser and Northrop was directed to find a carrier-aware partner...that's how McAir got involved. Anyone that's curious for all the details needs to read "Pentagon Paradox." For anyone that's followed the design from YF-17 to the present, the early lot Hornets still had the "slotted LEX" that was present in the YF-17 Cobra. And when we filled up the LEX we ended up with the vertical tail flutter--and then we stiffened the tail and shoved the piece of angle iron onto the fuselage that morphed into the LEX fence...and we also had CG and landing gear issues so we needed to move the main mounts aft but still fit the gear in the same spot so we ended up with the wonderful planing link...and then we had to fix the roll issues because the darned aircraft wouldn't roll...and then we had to fix the titanium fires in the engine...and so on..and so on...but we still ended up with a platform that will end up being produced for almost 40 years and serving the Navy well. Not a bad deal.
 
R

RHPF

Active Member
pilot
Contributor
Here are a few more from October of 2011. Including another NG non-winner, the YF-23.
 

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Recovering LSO

Recovering LSO

Suck Less
pilot
Contributor
e6bflyer said:
76 and 77 having only 3 wires and 4 arresting gear engines is a significant weight, maintenance cost, and manning savings over the old 4 wire and 5 engine design. The barricade engine (which is almost never used on older Nimitz carriers).
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Which is all well and good until you lose a wire. Lose one on a Nimitz class carrier for any period of time and its not really a big deal - depending on the wire and you may not even change the target point. Lose on a three wire ship and it sucks - regardless of which one you lose. I've cruised on both types - thankfully CAG paddles gig was on a 4 wire ship (yet we had A LOT of 2 wire weeks and a few 1 wire nights :eek:).

As far as the barricade considerations go - there was (no shit) talk about not installing the old tennis net on the next class of carriers. Some smart engineers looked at how infrequently it has been used (think last one was something like 20 years ago).... That idea didn't make it far before a stack of contemporary HAZREPs were pulled out, several of which showing that the barricade had been rigged (for reals) and the barricade brief was being given when the aircraft malfunction magically fixed itself. Last instance of that sort was just last year (CVn-72 IIRC)...
 
2sr2worry

2sr2worry

Naval Aviation=world's greatest team sport
RHPF said:
Here are a few more from October of 2011. Including another NG non-winner, the YF-23.
Click to expand...

The Torrance Airport does have a few surprises. Pretty neat to see both of these aircraft up close with no crowds.
 
e6bflyer

e6bflyer

Used to Care
pilot
Recovering LSO said:
Which is all well and good until you lose a wire. Lose one on a Nimitz class carrier for any period of time and its not really a big deal - depending on the wire and you may not even change the target point. Lose on a three wire ship and it sucks - regardless of which one you lose. I've cruised on both types - thankfully CAG paddles gig was on a 4 wire ship (yet we had A LOT of 2 wire weeks and a few 1 wire nights :eek:).

As far as the barricade considerations go - there was (no shit) talk about not installing the old tennis net on the next class of carriers. Some smart engineers looked at how infrequently it has been used (think last one was something like 20 years ago).... That idea didn't make it far before a stack of contemporary HAZREPs were pulled out, several of which showing that the barricade had been rigged (for reals) and the barricade brief was being given when the aircraft malfunction magically fixed itself. Last instance of that sort was just last year (CVn-72 IIRC)...
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I was on deck preparing for that last barricade on Lincoln. I had just finished a rant about 2 days prior about how we would never use the stupid thing, blah blah and then a Rhino with a gear issue couldn't get the gas needed for a divert. The good thing is everyone came together as a team just like we practice, and I am a hundred percent sure the thing would have worked as advertised if needed. I am now a convert.
 
navyao

navyao

Registered User
Fog said:
My armchair solution: extend the length of the a/c by 3-5 ft, add more gas & a 2nd seat (NFO, of course), and then we'd have the no-shit all-weather attack a/c this platform was intended to be. Whatever it is, the F-35 is not a fighter first (JMHO), of course).
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And a gun! I said it once, I'll say it twice, it needs a gun.
 
navyao

navyao

Registered User
flaps said:
tomcat coulda been tri-service also if it had the motors it was supposed to have earlier.
it certianly made more sense than mcnamara's tri service f-111.

well, maybe the f-14 needed to be more maintainable and have foreign users to help keep hw/sw development costs down.

excuse me. i got a dead horse that needs a beating.

btw, how does f-15 maint manhours per flight hour compare to the hornet?
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It also would've been helpful to have replacement parts, instead we had to cannibalize to get "up" jets. Politics caused a lot of problems with the F-14, problems I didn't understand when I was 21 and at 41 simply tick me off.
 
C420sailor

C420sailor

Former Rhino Bro
pilot
Brett327 said:
This was always going to be the case for the F-35.

@C420: Everything is a tradeoff. There are times when you want LO, then there are times when external loadout takes priority. Don't scoff, it's flexible.

Brett
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I understand the need for pylons for additional munitions when they're required (and the -9X), I just don't get why it doesn't have an internal gun. I'm sure the 20lb heads could figure out a way to shoehorn one in there. I wonder how many mils we're losing due to external mounting?
 
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