News from Vostochny spaceport

[LePaul]

The F-35 / JSF is a real fine mess.

Lockheed presented an interesting design and thought they might be able to have commonality for Air Force, Marines and Navy.

Well that fell apart fast. What works for the Marines is an obstacle for the other two services.

So now they have less than 20% common parts and essentially 3 very different planes. Navy has bigger wings and landing gear, Marines have the impressive Vertical Takeoff /STOVL and the Air Force has their land based model.

What Lockheed did was get suppliers from about every state...so if cancelled, the impact is big and they've played that political chip well.

I don't like the F-35, I don't like the cockpit layout (no bubble canopy) and I'm not sold on the one plane fits all theme.

Historically they tried this in the past with the F-111. The Navy and Air Force tried to adhere to such restrictions but the F-111 was way too heavy for carrier operations. The Air Force further developed it into the impressive FB-111/EF-111. The Navy got their fleet defense fighter, the F-14 Tomcat, which could accommodate the Phoenix missiles.

Again, different planes for different roles.

[ivan.akapulko]

Here it is impossible not to agree. the master of everything is master of nothing. Apparently they were tempted by the idea to unify the parts of aircraft to reduce costs. But in the end they need to make three different aircraft, and it snapped the timing of delivery and the contract price.

[ivan.akapulko]

Strange, post was doubled. Kill the last one.