"Gutting the US military aerospace industry" Topic

An article from respected aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia.

link

Basic argument is that the F-35 is killing US industrial capability by removing competition.

It's also killing general Western defence capability by muscling out Eurofighter and Rafale from any significant exports – countries would rather wait for F-35 than buy Eurojets.

Killing industry? I dont think so. Killing variety of models? Maybe. But its not f35 fault. Rather, its the increased price of hi tech. In the 60, 70, 80, several companies and second rank countries could allow building their own airplanes because they where relative more cheap than today. Or for political issues, like dont be at the hands of the political interests of foreigners weapon makers.
That isnt a issue anymore, because modern air tech is so overpriced that not even the US can allow to design and build airplanes that wont be selled by hundreds. So only the most advanced airplanes are selled, because today the the edge of.a fighting airplane rest in his tech. A figther with a smaller rcs and a better radar will win the combat ten of ten times. In the 80s or the 70s the tech was important but least decisive.
Survival of the fittest (sorry about my english)

Not sure about the industry being gutted, but imagine it is definitely weakening both it, AND our military capabilities.

Much like all the money being spent on the LCS boondoggle as well, so certain individuals may cruise around in overpriced yachts, on the taxpayers' quarters (used to be dimes, but we're now paying in quarters, due to currency devaluation).

Isn't this what has happened to the shipbuilding industry already?

"Respected" aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia is wrong. F-15, F-16 and F-18 lines will be shut down not because of the F-35 but because they're legacy fighters designed over 30 years ago that are becoming obsolete. These planes are called 'legacy fighters' precisely because they're only stop-gaps until the next generation becomes available.

And there will always be competition even with all the post-Cold War mergers. Lockheed-Martin's X-35 beat out the Boeing X-32 in the JSF competition, just like its YF-22 beat the Northrop-McDonnell Douglas YF-23 in the ATF contest. You can bet Boeing-McDonnell Douglas and Northrop-Grumman will submit prototypes to compete with Lockheed-Martin again when the Pentagon calls for another fighter or bomber competition.

The argument that it's killing European sales doesn't wash either. Countries always have preferences from where they buy their hardware, and mostly it's political. India will not buy American planes, and Brazil hasn't since the F-5E. Asian countries like Japan, S. Korea and Singapore always buy American, no matter what. As does Israel. It doesn't matter if it's the F-35 or not.

Actually, I'm not so sure the F-22 BEAT the F-23.

If I recall correctly, the Air Force decided the F-22 was less radical, so the safer bet. That always sounded like the F-22 was not quite as good as the F-23 to me, but they thought Lockheed was a bit more stable.

The aerospace defense industry has been shrinking/consolidating for decades. Blaming any of it on a single aircraft is silly.

I agree the industry is shrinking, and it is potentially a problem, but I also agree with Dynaman8789 that blaming it on the F-35 is incorrect; it's been trend for at least 20 years, if not longer.

-Will

Which would you rather have, one F-35 or 10 F-5Es?

Which would you rather have, one F-35 or 10 F-5Es?

Considering that F5s are 40 years old, I'd rather have the F35. Better chance of keeping the F35 in the air, you'd probably have to cannibalize 8 of the Tiger IIs to keep 2 in the air.

If you meant F15Es, well, that's not a valid comparison of numbers. F15E is ~$100mil per bird, and the F35A is $120 USDmil, so it's a question of 5 F35s or 6 F15Es.

I'd say it's already gutted … the US military aerospace industry I mean …

The main 'problem' right now is that Lockheed-Martin, by winning both the ATF and JSF contracts, has a virtual monopoly in the combat aircraft market right now, at least in the US.

And yes, most people thought the YF-23 should have won, but the USAF picked the YF-22 for 'political reasons' that have been well documented.

Back in the old days, we have several manufacturers' planes, like McDonnell Douglas with the F-15, General Dynamics with the F-16, Grumman with the F-14 and Northrop with the F/A-18, in service at the same time. Those days are over thanks to the skyrocketing costs of modern technology.

But we're still better off compared to other major nations like Britain and France, which only has one aircraft manufacturer. Even Russia still has both Mikoyan-Gurevich and Sukhoi making combat aircraft.

F-35 is really a $200 USD+ mil a copy bird, if you add the research costs.

You don't get the jets without paying for the R&D, which I'll note, we're still paying for now, with very few, if any flying regularly, other than test-bed jets, last time I checked.

867 F-15 'Air Superiority Fighters' (A and C variants) were built for the USAF, and only 187 F-22 'Air Dominance Fighters' could be afforded to replace them as the next-gen aircraft (not completely, of course, since F-15's will serve til at least 2025). That's barely 21 percent. You do the math.

There won't be many F-35's in any air force, including ours, but technology marches on.

I wonder how much the Russian T-50, or the Chinese J-20 and J-31 costs by comparison, even though they're supposed to be inferior. Maybe we can utilize 'cheap' Chinese labor to build our F-35's.