If NGAD is actually delivered on time I'll eat my hat. U.S. procurement, especially for big budget programs, tends to be rather late.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Careful, it could end up kind of like the Ford, where it got 'deployed on time' but we all know it was far from ready back then lol.
Or like the F-35 that is not ready even if it's in full production, they are retiring older batch already and it didn't achive the capabilities it supposed to have yet.
If NGAD is signed in 2024, and the program goes well like the F-35, we can see them in small batch production of empty shell without capabilities from 2030.
We can see them build in increment of capabilities for about 10 years, before being somewhat working correctly in 2040 but with still half of promised subsystems not working properly but they will decide to go without most of them in 2045.
2044 is the planified end of production of f-35, it would fit well.
If someone in U.S. sees your bet, they may lobby the congress to forcefully deliver NGAD half-baked just to have you eat the hat.
Does PLA high availability rate also has to do with lack of overseas commitments? Having a global logistics footprint may have led to low overall readiness level for the western airforces. Do we have more spefic data on availability rates with respect to basing location?
Don't see how oversea commitment should be any different from domestic deployment. If anything is deployed abroad, repair and maintainance shop should be deployed or built locally too just like within US. One plan the supply and logistic chain regardless where the weapon is located.
The German and British airforces aren't global deployed and they have very similar readiness rates to the non-stealth manned fighters from the USAF. So just on the face of it, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with global logistic footprints. What taxiya said also applies of course.
It is possible to come to the same outcome via different methods.
USAF F-35s might be run too hard, with not enough downtime/maintenance in between use.
On the other hand, Norway's or other small countries might have too few maintenance personnel/resources, and their readiness rates suffers because of it.
I don't know of course, but something to keep in mind.
Meanwhile, do we know about the (approximate) availability rates for China's non-stealth fighters, i.e. J-10s, J-11s, J-16s? Are they broadly similar to their American counterparts?
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