More on the F-35

[RED]

Two opposing views.

1. The aircraft is great! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10648250
2. The aircraft is a POS! http://www.pogo.org/resources/nation...29.html#report

On the second report, be sure to scroll down to the POGO report and read the highlighted parts.

BTW here is a quote from yet another (unknown) source:

When the Joint Strike Fighter team told Guy Norris about the jet's first run to its Mach 1.6 design speed, a couple of minor facts slipped their minds. Nobody remembered that the jet had landed (from either that sortie or another run to Mach 1.6) with "peeling and bubbling" of coatings on the horizontal tails and damage to engine thermal panels. Or that the entire test force was subsequently limited to Mach 1.0.

But selective amnesia is not even one of five "major consequence" problems that have already surfaced with the JSF and are disclosed by a top-level Pentagon review obtained by Ares. Those issues affect flight safety, the basic cockpit design, the carrier suitability of the F-35C and other aspects of the program have been identified, and no fixes have been demonstrated yet. Three more "major consequence" problems are "likely" to emerge during tests, including high buffet loads and airframe fatigue.

[Guamsst]

Odd, you'd think they would use the same coating as on the F-22 maybe the shape of the tail assemblies causes more friction or something. Hard to imagine heat problems from speed since we have had faster Aircaraft than Mach1.6 since the 60's

I would imagine the truth as with most planes is that it is a POS and will eventually be great.

[philwilliams]

I'll be honest, I'm a little biased toward the F-35 mostly because I really want to fly it but I have done my research on it. The main reason it is a different stealth coating is because the newer coating is cheaper to maintain. Also he reason it "only" goes Mach 1.6 is because 1 it doesn't matter how fast it goes because it can't out run missiles going Mach 5 regardless so it was better to design it to be more maneuverable; 2 be ause it actually goes a whole lot faster but they aren't going to tell the whole world that.