Tuesday, August 26, 2008

F-35 = F-105

Oh yeah, I can see it definitely.

Is the new F-35 currently under development actually a new age F-105?

That's the question that is asked HERE.

Here's a taste...

Where does the F-35 / F-105 comparison come close? Those that believe there is a comparison say weight and wing-loading: Lots of it when you load up the F-35 design. Yet there are some other comparisons: Long development time. For the F-105, a very long way to get from the drawing board to operational capability. And like the F-35, an over-sell in it's ability. Here early fielding of the F-105 chalked up 125 maintenance man-hours per flight hour because of all of the untried Buck Rogers avionics. Today, the F-35 is a long way from proving it is easier to maintain than an F-16.


Personally I don't know, I flunked out of engineering school and I'm not an experimental test pilot, so I will refrain from passing judgement on an F-35s manuverability based on the way it looks. Secondly what aircraft being made today doesn't have a long development time? Go back in time and look at the development period for the F-15. It's not like we are making P-51s that go from a drawing to production in less than a year anymore. These are expensive complicated projects that take billions (that's right BILLIONS) of dollars and thousands of people to design and build them.

But I guess it's nice to speculate and since it's (F-35) coming whether we like it or not, hope for its failure...so they can be right and say, "I TOLD YOU SO."

And as one of the commenters stated you could do a lot worse than have a legacy like the F-105.

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