Delivering without radar is a bit too much. At least they should’ve made it backwards compatible in case a delay happened.
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
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This won't be 1st or second case tbh.
For example, flankers for first few(3?) years were delivered into parking lots without radar fitted as well, until it finally worked.
Neither really. The airframe was written off in an accident a while back so it is used as a training tool. If you actually takeoff with gym weights attached they are gonna break the radome if you maneuver a little bit.
My guess as to why this image became so popularly conflated with the TR3 fiasco is because 1) we don’t have real images of counterweight on F-35 and 2) the contrast of state of art stealth jet using 5 dollar gym weights is naturally amusing.
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Yes, I was going to mention the same thing. It was very obvious from the pictures themselves as you could see damage to the cockpit canopy along with the hoist and ropes hoisting the aircraft in the background.
TWZ has picked up the news and the result is not pretty…
To be fair early block J-8 also had no radar and could intercept targets perfectly well with PL-2 and auto cannons…
I can’t even…
The real question is are they really going to not have any radar installed till 2028???
To be fair early block J-8 also had no radar and could intercept targets perfectly well with PL-2 and auto cannons…
I can’t even…
The real question is are they really going to not have any radar installed till 2028???
There's a reason why orders to US customers are relatively low for these couple of years, while deliveries to non-US customers continue.
It's because US customers want APG-85 while non-US customers are okay with APG-81; and as the current mounts are intended for APG-85 (not back compatible with APG-81), and it'll take a couple of years to have a back compatible mount ready that can be used for both APG-81 and APG-85, and it'll also take a little while for APG-85 to be ready, the way I see it is the US wants to have the airframes ordered for these couple of years to at least be able to fit a newer more capable radar once it is ready.
The least bad of a series of choices.
This makes sense if USAF isn’t in the midst of retiring old planes… if it were up to me I’d rather have older airframes with APG-81 than advanced airframes that won’t have radars for two years…
I mean, is it too naive of me to think that radar mounts should be a more trivial technology than the radar itself? Or decisions were made purely based on confidence in APG85 timeline?
I think you underestimate the capability improvement APG-81 will bring as well as how competitive (or non competitive) existing APG-81 is versus the pacing threat.
If we look at the way the US talks about Block 4/TR3 F-35, it's apparent that it is what they really want and current F-35 capability is somewhat interim. If it means a couple of years of reduced rate F-35 buys and having those F-35 buys to be radarless for a few years until the target sensor is ready, I can see how it makes sense.
Radar mounts may not be a sophisticated piece of technology, but it still requires time for the engineering to happen. If they had planned for APG-85 to be ready by a given time and designed a mount around APG-85 rather than both APG-85 and APG-81, then one can see how it isn't necessarily a technology issue but a program management issue.