Admiral: Navy Needs F-35 Capabilities

Admiral: Navy Needs F-35 Capabilities
May 27, 2010
American Forces Press Service|by Jim Garamone

The Navy needs the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter's fifth-generation capabilities, said the service's acting director of air warfare.

Navy Rear Adm. Michael C. Manazir spoke to reporters because he wanted to "completely dispel the rumor that the Navy is soft on F-35C."

The F-35C is the aircraft-carrier version of the joint strike fighter. The F-35A model is for the Air Force, and the F-35B will be a vertical take-off and landing model for the Marines.

The FA-18E and FA-18F Super Hornets are great airplanes, Manazir said, but they do not have the capabilities that the F-35C's will bring to the Navy. Delays in the joint strike fighter program and the cost increases associated with them caused some supposition that the Navy would turn to the FA-18s, he added.

The Navy has had the F-35C on its horizon for more than a decade, the admiral said. In that time, the FA-18's capabilities have grown, with the latest aircraft – the E, F and G models – reaching the fourth-generation airframe's limits. "We need to move into the F-35C to realize our vision of tactical air coming off of carriers," he said.



unhappycamper comment: Good luck with that Admiral. I sincerely doubt you are going to have a quarter billion dollar airplane flying off an $11.5 billion dollar aircraft carrier. (Assuming of course that the F-35 can fly off an aircraft carrier. And that you can build that $11.5 billion dollar aircraft carrier.)

of anything, you know he has gone around the bend and will be retiring soon....

These guys go on to become board mambers of the companies that build the stuff the Navy uses, and the circle continues with the taxpayer in the middle.


Rec.

mark

maintenance/up keep, training, etc etc is another hugh $$ Factor.

In our time of National Health, economic/mental, this new weaponry can wait till situations require them.

their "next generation" air superiority fighters. We can't allow a fighter gap!

The admiral didn't go to bat for that one.

IIRC, the Royal Navy wanted the VSTOL version for their Queen Elizabeth class carriers due to enter service later this decade, however they actually planned ahead with their new carriers they're building to be able to be quickly upgraded with catapults and arresting gear. (Perhaps the Brits saw the writing on the wall?)

The question is, how are they going to train pilots for traditional carrier landings? The Royal Navy hasn't had a traditional carrier since they got rid of the last of the Audacious Class in the late 70s.

I think there were a couple other nations (Italy and Spain, IIRC) banking on the VTOL version for their small carriers

I'm not aware of any firm committment from any other buyer than the Brits.

Highly unlikely to be Italy and Spain, given their current fiscal woes.

And it's almost completed. Slated to go into service Next year. Those Harriers won't last forever...

Perhaps These countries could work together to produce their own VSTOL combat aircraft istead of depending on us?

I'll take my humor anywhere I can get it these days.

That is, the "vision of tactical air coming off of carriers"? To do what? Against whom? For how much?

There's no credible threat to the American empire except its own enslavement to more bigger weapons. A rag-tag bunch of goatherds, ensconced in the proper terrain, are more than a match for our wehrmacht. The weapons they're using to defend themselves they've scrounged from the leavings of the "superior" modern forces that have arrayed themselves against these folks during the last 30 years. They can't launch an invasion against the U.S., though they can inflict a nasty little attack should they so desire. And we hand them the means and the motivation to do so whilst starving our own citizens.

Fookin' brilliant.