Renewable Revolution

The F35


The F35 isn't simply horrendously noisy; it is even more horrendously dangerous. No, the danger isn't for the pilot; it's for the people that live beneath flight path.

WHY?

Because the pentagon has had a slight "problem" with fighter aircraft that they can never seem to get over. They made the same costly mistake with the P38 Lightning, P47 Thundebolt, F105 fighter/bomber, F4 phantom, F104 Starfighter and a few others. IOW, the NORM for our MIC is to churn out a unresponsive DOGS.

The successful fighters have been the P51 Mustang, F86 Saber Jet and the F14 Tomcat. The F18 hornet that replaced the F14 is cheaper but has never actually been proven superior in a to dog fight with a Russian, European or Chinese equivalent fighter versions.

The P51 outflew the Messerschmitt 109s that were faster but less maneuverable.
The Japanese ZERO flew rings around the F6F Hellcats we had in the pacific. We won there because we had more stuff, not because we had better stuff.

The F86 had a kill ration of 11 to one over the Mig 15 it fought with in he Korean War. No fighter aircraft before or since has bested the F86 Saber Jet.

The F14, Tomcat, despite it being rather heavy, had a high survival rate in Vietnam because it had two engines and could usually limp back to the carrier as well as do slightly over 1 to 1 with the Russian fighters of that epoch. The Mig 21 and Mig 23 were, in many ways, as good as anything we had then,

Why did/DOES the MIC make lousy fighters?

Because it is always trying to reach what is known as a multiple role war bird. This never works because ONE role (e.g. Ground attack) ALWAYS compromises the performance characteristics need for the other roles (high altitude intercept and high altitude bombing).

The F104 was designed to fly high and fast and shoot a few on board missles from a long distance. It can't maneuver. So it was useless in Vietnam.

The F105 was a "compromise" between a fighter and a bomber. It could carry a lot of bombs but could not really maneuver. Calling it a fighter was done in a fit of imagination. In Viet Nam, they were affectionately called LEAD SLEDS by their pilots. They got shot down regularly by missiles and were dead meat if a Mig got a hold of them. The F4 phantom was also too heavy and dangerous to land on carriers. The F14, with its swing wings, made carrier landing deaths mostly a thing of the past. The F4 couldn't hold its own against Migs either.

The F-16 supposedly took care of a lot of this stuff because it is a pure fighter (light maneuverable and fast) but it can't carry much weight for bombing and is too hot for accurate ground attack (both of these type roles have been tried unsuccessfully by the Israelis for the F-16 and they have come out looking like idiots - yeah, they destroyed buildings but they couldn't protect Israeli Troops from Hezbollah).

But the MIC keeps trying to get an airplane that can "do it all". And instead of saying, well, that's silly. We will have a heavily armored, slow, ground attack aircraft capable of taking a beating, a bomber that can bomb anything from way up there out of ground fire range with ECM countermeasures for missiles and some stealth thrown in and we will escort the bomber with fighters that are as nimble as rocket powered mosquitos.

No, the B2s are too few. They want a fighter, bomber and a HARRIER CLONE TOO!

On top of screwing up the design (decreased maneuverability throughout the flight envelope and greater vulnerability near the ground) with a lot of added weight from a huge engine needed for large armament loads from missiles to bombs to bullets, the engine had to be EVEN BIGGER and HEAVIER. THAT is why the F-35 is SO NOISY.

They have made a modern day version of the P-47 Thunderbolt. That DOG had such a hoge engine that they ground looped on takeoff regularly because the pilot applied full power before he had enough rudder to counteract torque. They were fast but had the glide path of a rock if the single huge engine failed.

But they crowning folly is wanting a vertical take off and landing fighter aircraft (VTOL). The marines loved the English Harrier Jet because it could hide out in the woods with the troops and help with ground attack. So the pentagon was asked for an American version.

Right, ANOTHER role for an already overtasked aircraft. Which brings me back to Burlington, Vermont.

Those F-35 pilots are going to be REQUIRED to perform VTOL exercises regularly. Yes, the plane has all kinds of computers taking care of the aircraft pitch and bank during these maneuvers but all that goes to HELL when the engine fails.

Right now, if an F-16 flying along at 160 mph plus on final to the normal approach path to Burlington (flying Southeast some mile northwest of the airport), they can put it into the Winooski river and eject just before impact (nobody gets killed).

HOWEVER, if they are doing a VTOL exercise a hundred feet or so over the airport and the engine or the computer fails, it WON'T just drop straight down; it will try to vector this way or that and end up on top of a house next to the airport. When you are at nearly zero forward speed, you aren't just a wingless ROCK, you are a computer controlled loose cannon.

The F-35 will kill people in Vermont. I hope the people of Vermont voice their OUTRAGE against this death machine enough NOW before Senator Leahy has to retire in INFAMY.


NOT COOL, highly dangerous, SINGLE ENGINE VTOL planes
[embed=640,380]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwMvEjhoMWU#[/embed]