F-35 Lightning II Discussion

[ExtraSlow]

I'm not shitting on the proud and courageous members of our armed forces, but lets be realistic about what the mission is here. Our arctic operations are basically surveillance. Drones are the right tool for that.

[Buster]

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I'm not shitting on the proud and courageous members of our armed forces, but lets be realistic about what the mission is here. Our arctic operations are basically surveillance. Drones are the right tool for that.

been saying it for years.

Canada has very limited uses for manned fighter airplanes.

[killramos]

With some A-A and A-G teeth floating around up there. Mission accomplished.

[Buster]

Can you imagine some russian bombers flying over the pole, all the way a quarter of the way around the world....then getting to Saskatchewan.

"Hey boss, we're looking for some targets to bomb. But uh...there are none."

[jutes]

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I'm not shitting on the proud and courageous members of our armed forces, but lets be realistic about what the mission is here. Our arctic operations are basically surveillance. Drones are the right tool for that.

That’s what satellites are for.

[littledan]

I disagree that canada doesnt need manned fighters. Technically you dont need any military at all. Until someone is landing on your shoreline and you're fucked. Especially once they make private ownership of firearms illegal. Then you'd have no formal military defence and no armed citizens.

Canada definitely needs manned fighters for certain roles. It is so sad that this thread is 10 years old and we still havent taken delivery of any new airframes. Unless you count 40 year old aussie f18 leftovers.

Get off the pot already and buy these f35. The amount of waste on other govt programs dwarfs the cost for these fighters. And if you want to see something sad, look at the armaments that they put on the new icebreakers. Literally 1 single gun. Wtf.

[Buster]

What are those "certain roles" you need manned fighters for?

[jutes]

Airshows and flybys duh.

[killramos]

You can’t program a drone to do a flyby?

[jutes]

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You can’t program a drone to do a flyby?

Modern aircraft are essentially drones with humans programming commands on-board vise a sea container in the Arizona desert.

[ExtraSlow]

The cost per hour to carry the drone operator onboard is not justified by the benefits.

[Buster]

Manned fighter planes are just porn for flight sim junkies

[AndyL]

Pretty sure we have multiple alliance requirements to own and be able to field a number of fighter aircraft at any time.

Pretty sure we're already not meeting those commitments - I'm sure our allies will be happy to cover that for us.

[Buster]

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Pretty sure we have multiple alliance requirements to own and be able to field a number of fighter aircraft at any time.

Pretty sure we're already not meeting those commitments - I'm sure our allies will be happy to cover that for us.

What are they going to do?

[AndyL]

Sell us to Putin probably

[littledan]

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What are those "certain roles" you need manned fighters for?

Air to air combat in contested airspace

[ZenOps]

There is something to be said for just sending up one drone against a dozen manned enemy fighters:

A) Cheaper, faster, more nimble, larger missile load, and higher kill rate.

B) Can shoot at everything and anything with complete impunity with full force as soon as anything is sighted or heard if passing by (no worry of friendly fire) AI controlled or not.

C) You can take out between 2 and all 10 manned aircraft before losing the drone if each missile is self controlled and shot at the exact same time. Shooting all equipped missiles will probably destroy said drone before the enemy has a chance to shoot it.

I mean, its really stupid to have a pilot that has to pull a red trigger after visually seeing a target, when you can have an AI pull the trigger on sensors that can "see" 20x further than the human eye. Its literally like a man with a musket going up against a man with an artillery piece shooting over the horizon.

Drone vs drone, humans are obsolete for airwar. Could 240 drones take out $1.7 trillion worth of f-35s (assuming they don't fall into the ocean on launch)? Grandmaster chess player says maybe.

[ZenOps]

As for detection of F-35: Its theoretically possible to have drones flying around at mach 3 to 5, simply passing behind a mach 0.7 F-35 trying to be stealthy.

A "backward looking" sensor could be mounted to said drone, looking for heat exhaust signatures after cutting their own engine to glide back down to subsonic speeds.

Yup, might have just been the most expensive and shortest attempt at stealth in world history.

[Buster]

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What are they going to do?

aaaaaaaah!

I was just informed that this is a zenops thread. I feel dirty.

[ZenOps]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/polit...sea/index.html

And just when the thread gets ready to go dormant.

F-35 pilot tries to kamakaze suicide sink own US carrier. Good lord, who needs enemies?