BUMP
Looks like Trump is inclined to cancel the whole thing.
It’s obviously outside the conventions what Trump is doing by seemingly meddling so intimately in the economy, but I think this is one area in which I probably don’t mind. Contractors have been fleecing this country for years – it’s about time someone hold them accountable.
I asked the same question when I viewed a YouTube video of a plane (F4 Phantom in this case) claimed to be an Air Force Phantom flying by with it’s tail hook down. I was ready to claim that it must have been a Navy or USMC plane.
I received comments from 2 different people, both Air Force mechanics, describing how Air Force planes really did have tail hooks. Seems there are times they use them to arrest landing distances other than on a ship. One even described the noise made when a hook was dropped while a plane was in a maintenance hangar. So strange as it seems, many AF planes have tail hooks.
ETA
I see LSGuy already hit this…
Putin wins again!
Trump probably knows that Congress will keep the F-35 program alive. He gets to sound brash and strong, and gets to blame Congress for the spending.
The F-4 was an intermediate case in that it was a 100% Navy design that the Air Force belatedly decided to buy.
As such it had many Navy standard design features: nose gear with dual wheels & catapult connector, long travel monster main gear, extra corrosion proofing, etc. And relevant to this hijack, a USN standard heavy-duty hook rather than the USAF standard occasional-use hook.
Complete hijack, but I once read that of current airforce planes, the F16 was the only one which could readily be redesigned as a carrier plane. (By which I mean, a carrier version made, not that existing airframes be retrofitted). This is unlike Russian and French practice, where carrier planes are basically models of existing airforce planes.
Not to pick on the quoted poster, but it’s amazing to see people who have been calling the F35 a piece of shyt for years suddenly learning to love it when Trump expresses that same opinion.
The Guardian newspaper for one.
[QUOTE=scr4]
Trump probably knows that Congress will keep the F-35 program alive. He gets to sound brash and strong, and gets to blame Congress for the spending.
[/QUOTE]
Either way this is the first real political pushback Lockheed has had. Earlier, the criticisms came from middle managers, everyone in power in the US and abroad has been busy fellating them to actually do something.
Unfortunately, I’ve been a supporter of the aircraft. I’ve accepted the “if we could only tell you all the classified capabilities of this aircraft” as reason enough to give it a chance. I’m not privy to classified information, so I’m stuck listening to the experts/pilots who flew it when they tell me it’s awesome.
But again, Putin will love it if Trump cancels a major threat to his potential air-superiority in any conflict.
ETA, even the Chinese are copying it, but the Chinese think just looking like it is being it. (China’s J-31)
I’d be curious for a ref to that if you have one. It seems to me … implausible.
The airplane was built very lightly wherever it wasn’t needed to carry Gs. That’s part of how it performed so well.
The main gear’s gross design was akin to that on the A-7, another joint USAF/USN aircraft. I could imagine some non-expert writer observing that similarity and writing something along the lines of “With its Navy style main gear and its hook it could easily be adapted for carrier use.” Which IMO would be bunk. But externally plausible bunk.
OTOH, there’s no guarantee I’ve got it right here either. I just worked there; I sure wasn’t involved in the design stuff.
I did a quick search of F-35 related articles on the Guardian and didn’t see any old articles that called for it to be canceled, or any new articles saying it should be continued. Got links?
:smack:
I feel like an idiot. I went back and found the article in question…and it turns out the plane they considered was the F15.
ETA: Although in my search I just discovered that a carrier capableViper was planned at one time.
I did’n say they called for it to be cancelled, just that it was shyt.
But here.
Australia’s F-35 jet acquisition has hallmarks of Ponzi scheme, inquiry told
British U-turn on US jets damages credibility of UK defence chiefs
Cool. Thanks. The rest of that link is interesting. The carrier F16 would have been 25% heavier at empty weight, need all new landing gear, etc. It might better be described as a whole new aircraft derived from the F-16.
No need for a :smack:.
The more I learn and the older I get the more I recognize that a huge memory such as yours or mine contains a lot more inadvertent cross-links than I wish it did. 
Thanks for the kind words. 
Do you think the Navy’s objection re the carrier F16 (as related in the article) were valid or were a case of “will take an Air Force fighter over our dead bodies”.
After the F-111 fiasco which set the Navy’s acquisition for that mission back about 10 years I bet politics had a lot to do with it.
But more legitimately …
The YF-16 vs. YF-17 fly-off showed two excellent aircraft which nonetheless had significant differences. The Venn diagrams were each large, but so was the area of non-overlap.
USN & USAF have different metrics for what they valued. One thing USN particularly valued / values is twin engines. Something that was a non-starter from the git-go for the F-16.
USAF found the YF-16 scored best in their metrics. USN found the YF-17 scored best in theirs. Both production -A models were a lot different from their YF- prototypes. Mostly because both YF-s were built unrealistically small to boost maneuvering performance which USAF said would score very highly.
Once GD won, the practicalities of getting enough radar, fuel, and ordnance on board led to a 15%-all around stretch from the YF-16 to the F-16.
Last of all, there was plenty of politics on the USAF side too. The F-16 had to be mildly crippled to avoid encroaching on the vaunted F-15. Had they not done so, the project would have been killed by the so-called F-15 Mafia as a threat to their numbers. The Navy at that point in history didn’t have that issue; the F-17/18 was to be a replacement for, not a supplement to, their then-current premier F-type, the F-14. So USN didn’t want to buy as their front line F-jet something that had been partly crippled to satisfy USAF internal politics.
Interestingly the blog War is Boring said on the whole Trump v F35
Emphasis mine: Takes one to know one I guess. 
Trump cannot unilaterally “cancel” the F-35 program, or any major defense program, for that matter. Government and government contracting simply doesn’t work that way. There is a very small chance the new administration could spend political capital stirring up trouble on this front by soliciting contract modifications for things like the Presidential transport and the F-35. But everybody knows those forays into fiscal stupidity always end up costing more and providing less capability. Rampant speculation fomented here and in the media is somewhat amusing, if basically irrelevant.
Were you under the impression anyone (any"thing") other than Congress is to blame for Federal spending?
And what’s this nonsense comparing 4th generation aircraft? Anyone flying or buying 4th gen fighters today is doing so either because they cannot get F-35s in service quickly enough, or simply cannot or will not buy them for any number of reasons.* It is not because they don’t desperately “want” or “need” them. It is simply because for whatever* reason they cannot have them - either now or ever, in some cases.
What do you mean he can’t cancel the program? There’s always the chance that Congress can step in and reverse the decision - more or less what happened with the V-22 Osprey. But I’m not following how the program can’t be terminated for the convienece of the government.
Contracts.
I’m assuming that Trump is well accustomed to breaking contracts whenever he feels like it but I’m assuming the President can’t just order a contract canceled on a whim.