F-35menot?

[unhappycamper]

Please note this is an artist's conception of a F-35 taking off from a carrier - Lockeed Martin hasn't been able to get this $243 million dollar POS working off a carrier yet.



DoD Buzz: Fighter Gap May Shrink After Wars
By Greg Grant Monday, May 24th, 2010 9:13 pm
Posted in Air, Naval, Policy

The Navy held a conference call with reporters today to shoot down any rumors that it’s going soft on the carrier version (F-35C) of the Joint Strike Fighter in favor of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

The Navy and Marines planned buy remains 680 JSFs, Manazir said. How many of that total will ultimately be the carrier version F-35C or the Marine’s short take-off and landing version F-35B, remains a topic of discussion between the two services.

The Navy intends to buy 124 Super Hornets in a multiyear purchase plan between FY 2010–2013, for a grand total of 515 F/A-18E/F/G aircraft, said Rear Adm. Mike Manazir, head of naval aviation programs. But the fact that the Navy continues to buy large numbers of Super Hornets does not mean it doesn’t plan to buy even more F-35s, a true “game changing” fifth-generation stealth aircraft, he said.

The Navy and Marines planned buy remains 680 JSFs, Manazir said. How many of that total will ultimately be the carrier version F-35C or the Marine’s short take-off and landing version F-35B, remains a topic of discussion between the two services.

The Navy has expanded the capabilities of the Super Hornet to about “4.2-ish” generation capability, Manazir said, which is the limit of how much it can be upgraded. While some 5th generation low observable features are built into the Super Hornet, the fact that its weapons hang-off the wings, it cannot internally store weapons, means it has upper limits of stealthiness.



unhappycamper comment: The discussion at the end of the piece is interesting. It appears that the F-35 is going to be canceled.