Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

[Colonial-Marine]

Manned aircraft likely are a dead end, especially for anyone cost conscious.

If engineering advancements are supposed to be applicable to make high-performance unmanned aircraft cheaper, there is no reason they shouldn't also apply to manned designs. Of course they would be more expensive than their unmanned counterparts, but there is no excuse for them to be unaffordable.

If you're talking about designs with lesser performance goals, those are useful, but to build an entire air force off of them seems like a poor choice.

 

[Josh_TN]

I think it's a bit premature yet to make that prediction.

Over three years yes. Over thirty years?

 

[Ainen]

Over three years yes. Over thirty years?

Thirty years is a lot of space to lose big by underinvestment into manned. Like two world wars can easily fit in.

It was obvious after American civil war that guns>swords. It didn't prevent Mars-la-Tour to decide fate of France(and arguably launch the whole endless disaster of XXth century), courtesy of Prussian cuirassiers doing their job the same way it was done for last 30 centuries.

And now we don't even have a single LW yet(the closest thing to one "rebelled" during operational test just a couple months ago)

Future will happen at an appropriate moment, but no need to go full Musk. Not because he's necessary wrong. But his ideas are very risky, and one doesn't risk the fate of the nation easily.

 

[Elysium]

I’m not sure what you mean about using fuel as a working fluid as being experimental.

Many aircraft use fuel as a cooling medium, discarding/using the waste heat in the engine burn flow. And engines have been using fueldraulic actuation systems since at least the J58 on the A-12/SR-71.

You're probably far more of an expert on this than I am, but I distinctly remember reading articles about the disadvantages of using jet fuel for cooling/hydraulics. For example, the F-35 afaik requires a higher grade of fuel than other jets do, owning to the fact that regular jet fuel can gum up the cooling/hydraulics, complicating logistics. And at the end of the day, due to fuel being used for other purposes, a certain fuel fraction is not usable anyways, so I don't see any practical difference between having dedicated cooling and hydraulic fluid.

And I wouldn't be surprised, that due to these additional use cases, the fuel requires additives just like the gas in my lawnmower .

The SR-71 example might be an outlier as that was a low-numbers exotic airplane (running on special fuel no less), not meant to be a main workhorse.

You've made an interesting point about the SR-71 dumping the heated up coolant into the engine, is there any indication that the F-35 does that?

Ainen, interesting point about the Russians going for electric actuators, from what was written about the F-35, they haven't worked out that well, mainly due to the increased cooling requirements, hydraulic lines had to be replaced with cooling lines, gaining very little from the process, and the actuators still suffering from heat buildup restricting the time the aircraft can perform demanding manuevers.

 

[TomcatViP]

The fuel used for cooling can be burned in the engine. It's not like there is a differentiation or an additional tank. Idem for the actuators except for a very low fraction but the qty at play are marginals.
In effect, when the jet is burning the fuel that would have been otherwise required for cooling, systems that can't sustain the inherent increase in temperature are shut down gradually. But when this low fuel level is reached, the plane is already reaching its standard mission reserve, hence close to the base.
We obviously don't know what systems are impacted first but it would be dubious that those are the most combat critical ones.

 

[Geo]

Manned aircraft likely are a dead end, especially for anyone cost conscious.

Cheap Reapers have done very cost-effective service against the Sandal Warriors in Yemen.

 

[F119Doctor]

You're probably far more of an expert on this than I am, but I distinctly remember reading articles about the disadvantages of using jet fuel for cooling/hydraulics. For example, the F-35 afaik requires a higher grade of fuel than other jets do, owning to the fact that regular jet fuel can gum up the cooling/hydraulics, complicating logistics. And at the end of the day, due to fuel being used for other purposes, a certain fuel fraction is not usable anyways, so I don't see any practical difference between having dedicated cooling and hydraulic fluid.

And I wouldn't be surprised, that due to these additional use cases, the fuel requires additives just like the gas in my lawnmower .

The SR-71 example might be an outlier as that was a low-numbers exotic airplane (running on special fuel no less), not meant to be a main workhorse.

You've made an interesting point about the SR-71 dumping the heated up coolant into the engine, is there any indication that the F-35 does that?

Ainen, interesting point about the Russians going for electric actuators, from what was written about the F-35, they haven't worked out that well, mainly due to the increased cooling requirements, hydraulic lines had to be replaced with cooling lines, gaining very little from the process, and the actuators still suffering from heat buildup restricting the time the aircraft can perform demanding manuevers.

The F-35 uses standard USAF Jet-A or JP8.

Yes, many aircraft use fuel for cooling systems, then burning the heated fuel. There is a limit on how hot the fuel can get before it starts breaking down and causing coke deposits in the engine fuel system. The F-22 and F-35 engines have a system to increase fuel flow thru the coolers as needed independently from the burn flow, and return the excess thru a fuel / air heat exchanger to the fuel tank. At low fuel states and low airflow conditions, this can result rising fuel tank temperatures that have to be mitigated either procedurally or activating additional cooling systems.

 

[snne]

Actually, no. Those 6 already built, delivered and still TuAF-owned F-35s need to go under a deep maintenance, update and be used for extensive training again. And the production slots for the rest of the ordered planes were given to USAF so imo Turkey will have to wait at least until 2032-33 for new planes.

So TuAF might as well bite the bullet and wait for Kaan. The Navy OTOH would benefit greatly from having F-35Bs at their disposal but as I've mentioned, they are already commited to 3 different -indigenous - aircraft types as replacements (which is not ideal but fine enough):



All of this meaning: Hold your horses...

3 instructor pilots have already been trained but obviously since it was long ago they'd have to go back to training again if Turkey ever returns to the program.

As a fun fact, the similators were already shipped to Turkey when it got kicked out.

Update:

Turkish MoND Güler:

We have 6 (TurAF-owned) F-35s in the US. When they saw that we made KAAN, their thoughts changed. They say they can give it. We have re-sent our offer to buy F-35s from the US.

We insist that our production share of the F35 aircraft be returned to us. We have submitted out proposals and stated our desire to purchase a total of 40 F-35s.

We cancelled 79 F16V upgrade

Now, in our last talks with the Americans, regarding the S-400s, we rejected all of them, 'You will do this, you will do that.' Right now, the Americans do not have any objections regarding the S-400s, provided that they are in the center that we accept."

https://turdef.com/article/turkiye-changes-its-f-16-block-70-and-f-35-strategy

FFS not this sh.t again...

Choose one, dammit. You can't buy 40 F-16s, 40 Eurofighters and an unknown number of 40 F-35s all at the same time TurAF's maintenance personnel are having their lives flash before their eyes upon seeing this news right now...

To add, American law is clear. There is no F-35s with S-400s still in Turkey...

 

[NMaude]

To add, American law is clear. There is no F-35s with S-400s still in Turkey...

Maybe Turkey could give their SA-21 Growler batteries directly to Ukraine.

Choose one, dammit. You can't buy 40 F-16s, 40 Eurofighters and an unknown number of 40 F-35s all at the same time TurAF's maintenance personnel are having their lives flash before their eyes upon seeing this news right now...

That would be maintanence nightmare for the Turkish AF's ground crews.

 

[snne]

Maybe Turkey could give their SA-21 Growler batteries directly to Ukraine.

I'd hate to beat the dead horse again, check my post below:

Military Equipment Sales are very meticulous deals and there are all kinds of export controls in place for potential resales of equipment; simply put you can't give the equipment to a 3rd party without Russian blessing. Remember all that noise about (ex-East) German howitzers (or was that some other kind of artillery equipment?) that Lithuania wanted to provide to Ukraine in the first year of the war?


Secondly but most importantly, Turkey and Russia actually share not just borders but also a long history of bloodly conflict and rivalry. The fact that Turkey isn't located at the western end of Europe like France, UK or Germany (Central-West) means that they don't get to be reckless with their actions against Russia because no one else will have their back as seen in the 2015 Su-24 shoot-down incident.

And lastly, international politics. The whole reason Turkey purchased the S-400s in spite of the US in the firs place was to give them a political middle finger due to their meddling in Turkish politics and also American actions in Syria that affects Turkish security (because unlike the US, Turkey doesn't come from thousands of kms away to right down its border with Syria, what happens there actually has consequences for Turkey)

View attachment 737025

To that effect, maybe check these as well: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/search/1232230/?t=post&c[thread]=17732&c[users]=snne&o=relevance

 

[NMaude]

Well Erdogan wants to have his F-35s AND SA-21s, he can't have both so he has a choice to make.

Erdy is, as the saying goes, trying to have his cake AND eat it.

 

[donnage99]

That's pretty much Turkey's role in NATO though, the broker between East and West. Yes, from a Western perspective, sometimes their decisions create headaches but they also do tasks no other western country could at times such as negotiating prisoners exchange between Russia and Ukraine.

Pete Hegseth, trump's new defense secretary pick, might change all of that given that being a armageddon christian nationalist (a sect of christian nationalism that thinks America has been positioned by God to be the protector of Israel and helps ushering the end times by destroying Al-aqsa and rebuild the Jewish temple for the Jews). He thinks of Erdy as nothing more but an ISIS leader in suite. If trump let him run wild, certainly no f-35 for turkey or any high end weapon sales.