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Pax River quietly doubles its F-35B "population"
- Thread starter HeyJoe
- Start date
When I was a JO they were telling me that I'd be flying the Romeo and Sierra for my department head tour. I finished my DH tour 5 years ago and HS still hasn't finished transitioning yet, therefore I'd say it's a very good chance that the program will be delayed.
Clux4
Banned
I wondered the same... But how would the Growler help with the fighter gap? Something isn't clicking...
It says 26 E/F variants, but appears writer confuses that with he G model as he added the comment that the E/F has an ability to jam threat radars. Bottomline: consider the source.
Funny part was I spotted an old friend in the cold long walk to the Pentagon yesterday with a big box under his arm. He works for LMCO. Any guesses what it was?
Clux4
Banned
An F-35 model(wood).
Close, it was high end resin with all the wing stores mounted with weapons, which is unusal as they like to show it in stealth configuration (and they confirmed it was first they've brought to building like that; it was for an admiral's office).
Thanks for the link HJ. My info on the JSF being delayed came from a couple buddies, one at BAE & the other at LM. The F-35B is dragging & slowing the whole JSF acq. process down.
I just wish the Corps would wake up and realize it's gonna be delayed for a couple years. There are a lot of dudes with wings who are gonna get f'd over the next few years because of the current fixed wing situation in the Corps... less jets, too many pilots...
SF
Believe me, they know and they saw this coming. One thing Marines did was make sure they had representation in the JSF front office from General Hough to now "Duncan" Heinz (who as PM for Harriers made sure Harriers were SLEPed and upgraded for potential delay in F-35B IOC). I was in N88 yesterday and NOBODY was surprised.
If they saw this coming, why are we having the manpower and aircraft issues we have now (which are only going to get worse.) The problem we have is way too many pilots, and fewer and fewer airplanes. We are shrinking in squadrons, I have friends who are Hornet pilots that haven't seen a Hornet in 4 years (and are now coming back to the fleet basically as very senior new guys, round 2.) We hemorrage new guys to IAs, so they never get any experience. The quality of our aircrew is getting worse and worse, the aircraft are getting older and older, and there are a lot less of them. We are now buying so few JSFs that we will not be able to replace all the Harriers and Hornets (and likely maintain the same op tempo), and the fighter gap is becoming very real. So if they saw this coming, why are we here, and why does the future seem so bleak?
Where am I when all this is going on, seriously someone needs to PM me on AW so i can head over to the line and drool. I have yet to see the JSF fly around pax and i live under short final to runway 6 and am always averting my eyes to the sky at the sound of jet noise.
So… higher already knew this so they stood up a RAG anyways? There’s a CO and a cadre of Marine pilots in Eglin that think they are getting a jet by the end of this year and eleven more jets next year… really sucks to be them - DIFOP only to fly a sim.
(Ear-muffs for you young motivated wanna-be’s)…
I'm not surprised though, it’s all about perception I suppose … higher has probably known for a few years that the F-35B was going to slide but has put up a front, a “smiley face that things are great!”, in order to keep funding, etc. If that’s the case, the Corps has fucked a lot of dudes in the Harrier & Hornet communities ‘cause those fellas have become expendable…not just the young pilots but maintainers included. The jets are falling apart and are maintenance nightmares. Unless you’re deployed, you’re barely flying… a lot of dudes coming off their first fleet tour have an IA under their belt and only 400-500 hours in over-populated communities … maintainers are working their ass off to keep a handful of jets up. I know of several dudes in the last couple years who had to get waivers because they didn't meet their 100hours a year 3710 requirement- that's Third World AF shit IMO.
Just look at this FY billet slate for fixed-wing O-3’s… in the past, fixed-wing O-3’s coming off their first fleet tour had a multiple choice of billets that were only 12 months long (enough time to go DIFDEN & then return to their MOS for their 2nd fleet tour without losing their NATOPS qual) … but majority of the billets this FY are 24-36 months. WSO to Pilot transitions getting passed for O-4… dudes on their first fleet tour getting soaked up for IA billets! WTF?
There’s more but shouldn’t be discussed here… it’s a train wreck for sure though and I think it’s going to culminate shortly.
I got mine though. It's all timing, for sure. On topic, it is a beautiful jet... of course it'll look a lot different after the Corps gets a hold of it ... the jet will be dirty, the paint will be jacked, there will be pylons hanging from it and it'll rarely be FMC.
SF
Very little of that has anything to do with the F-35B model being late. Every facet of Naval Aviation is feeling that kind of pain, and it's not a result of anything that big Navy/Marine Corps is doing. This is a big picture budgetary reality imposed on all of us by Congress and OSD which will probably last through FY11.
Suck it up, buttercup.
Brett