Matteeboy

I don't care if this is a good use of money or not but it looks damn cool

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26124894

RA Dunk

We even import the planes for our Air Force now, what ever happened to building our own?

Bloody nice planes though.

Tidgy

we dont have the trillion pound development cost in the budget

real kicker is gonna be if they actualy get the thing to work

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Or the carriers to land them on

Matteeboy

Its VSTOL...

cster

By the time we get them, they will be out of date and irrelevant to the needs of the day.
Bit like the Euro fighter really.
Can't we bring back the cold war?
Things were so much more predictable then.

RA Dunk

Yes, we made our own planes then, and they were bloody good.

richs2891

So is the F35 better than the Euro fighter ?

Richard

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Thunderbirds are go.

SJ_Skyline

Apples vs Oranges.

The F35 is a multi-role platform geared towards combined ops, the Eurofighter is more geared towards air-superiority.

Matteeboy

It's very very loosely a Harrier replacement.

^Qwerty^

That article doesn't read well and echo's a few of the issues that have been aired on:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...then-what.html

One of the latest concerns is around protection of the fan used for VSTOL activities, it being vulnrable to small arms fire. The stealth technology will be next to useless as well.

Quite how it manged to get the name of LightningII is also beyond me, the original being an interceptor with quite impressive climb and performance characteristics, the other, well who's knows, but the endurance might not be too far apart

Tidgy

issue with the f35 has always been the demands that are placed on it, its expected to be a jack of all trades yet its not as good at specific jobs compared to other aircraft. It's always been the same.

Raptor/eurofighter will kick its *** in a dog fight, it doesnt carry the ordinance of a typical fighter/bomber etc etc

CrisPDuk

The USMC obviously don't agree, they refused to get involved with it*, and bought all of our allegedly worn out Harriers for a knock down price instead

*Editted to say, that article reads like the Marines have finally been compelled to get 'on message'.