The F-35 thread

"our" GPS signal is not what the US military use. It's degraded for a specific reason, that's accuracy.
Everything in the world has some sort of vulnerability, but don't think for one second that the US haven't thought about that and are even concerned about it. when you have $700bn each year to tinker on things, then you're in another level to all the others. Inertial nav has been around since the 50's. If there was some magic blocking machine, then every country that had them would turn them on 24/7 to protect themselves. All these modern US machines will have multiple redundancies (which GPS has through 'spare' satellites) they would just hop/compare from one to another, any issues found then it would use something else, as in inertial / celestial etc and who knows what else that have up their sleeve.
 
Cute that you think GPS is so safe ;) They don't even need to shoot them down. Comprehensive GPS blocking technology is already available. Why do you think Russian and Chinese fighter jets have independent navigation systems that use inertia along with magnetic field monitoring? (a lot like homing pigeons). You simply cannot rely on GPS.


I worked in drone tech for a while and attended a few symposiums in Israel. I can try to find a few pictures of me at one of them and with signal blocking devices that could create full communication deadzones (No wifi, cellular, GPS or HF radio transmissions) over a large area, but were small enough to be carried by consumer quadcopters.
Our charter planes often get cancelled if it's not VFR conditions when flying to airports close to the Russian border, because they notice their GPS getting scrambled. It's quite amazing how brazen they are about it as well.

That aside, to get back to the F-35s ... I had 4 of them do a below-canopy flight past my office last month. They even teased me by banking into another fjord and showing their bellies. Amazing planes.

Another two flew overhead this week as well. I'm keen to see them more often now that the Air Force has officially retired the F-16 here. They even made a commerorative video about the transition if anyone is interested (mostly F16 stuff, with some F-35s thrown in there)


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"our" GPS signal is not what the US military use. It's degraded for a specific reason, that's accuracy.
Everything in the world has some sort of vulnerability, but don't think for one second that the US haven't thought about that and are even concerned about it. when you have $700bn each year to tinker on things, then you're in another level to all the others. Inertial nav has been around since the 50's. If there was some magic blocking machine, then every country that had them would turn them on 24/7 to protect themselves. All these modern US machines will have multiple redundancies (which GPS has through 'spare' satellites) they would just hop/compare from one to another, any issues found then it would use something else, as in inertial / celestial etc and who knows what else that have up their sleeve.
Keep following the movies and propaganda. Point out a single US victory and I will agree with you.

Those smaller less well-funded militaries often have decisive modern victories to their credit. The UK can stand tall in this regard even with a fraction of the budget.

Now let's stick to the F-35 topic which in itself is a decent aerial platform, but how it will hold up in actual combat is yet to be seen.
 
There's really no one that can touch the US armed forces with numbers, training, technology etc. And before you say China & Russia, they don't even come close to the numbers the US has. With any start of a war the B2 bombers will go first, they'll decimate all their SAM and radar sites, then the air force goes in and wipes out any airborne threats. After that it's up to either the Navy (depending on position of their aircraft carriers) or the air force again in destroying key command buildings. Finally once most of the threats have been neutralized they'll send in the Marines + Army to clean up the ground.

China has an up and coming modern air force, but it can't hold a candle to the US.
Russia as well (they might have a couple of hypersonic low level missiles) but they're not ready and you must be joking to think that the US doesn't have something better or can eliminate them. Hell the US has 1,000 F-16's, 300 F-35's, 450 F-15's, 200 F-22's (which can take on 3-1 F-15's and win) 1000 F-18's, 2000 UH-60 helicopters, and about 200 heavy bombers etc available. And those are just ACTIVE.. that excludes stored aircraft. The numbers are mind boggling!

This is why you can't compete:
Military budgets: (and the US has been like this since WW2) in fact you could add up every country under the US and they'd be about the same! lol

US : 738bn
China : 193bn
India : 64bn
Russia : 60bn
UK : 61bn

This is why it is pointless to have an armed force when the US is here. It's like throwing a hamster into a cage with a lion and thinking the hamster can win...
...surely they could fire up a couple of Tomcats if they needed extra firepower as well? You also forgot the A-10!
 
A norwegian reporter did an F-16 flyalong during a combat simulation with F-35s while doing a piece on the cost of the planes purchased and what the country is getting. Most of it is in norwegian, but it's pretty cool stuff!

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The actual flight starts around the 30min mark.

 
Our charter planes often get cancelled if it's not VFR conditions when flying to airports close to the Russian border, because they notice their GPS getting scrambled. It's quite amazing how brazen they are about it as well.

That aside, to get back to the F-35s ... I had 4 of them do a below-canopy flight past my office last month. They even teased me by banking into another fjord and showing their bellies. Amazing planes.

Another two flew overhead this week as well. I'm keen to see them more often now that the Air Force has officially retired the F-16 here. They even made a commerorative video about the transition if anyone is interested (mostly F16 stuff, with some F-35s thrown in there)


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Where are you based? Norway?
 
Keep following the movies and propaganda. Point out a single US victory and I will agree with you.

Those smaller less well-funded militaries often have decisive modern victories to their credit. The UK can stand tall in this regard even with a fraction of the budget.

Now let's stick to the F-35 topic which in itself is a decent aerial platform, but how it will hold up in actual combat is yet to be seen.
 
It's sounding like the F35 crash last week was human error, it's now suspected a blanking over one of the intakes wasn't removed (or rather had been used as a knee pad and then not noticed it was lying flat in the intake).

The rumour is that the ground crew fold the cover over and kneel on it when working around the cockpit and lift fan. It was left flat and wasn't noticed in the walk round preflight checks. Of course as the pilot throttled up it was sucked into the engine.

Someone will likely be on the naughty step if true.
 
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It's sounding like the F35 crash last week was human error, it's now suspected a blanking over one of the intakes wasn't removed (or rather had been used as a knee pad and then not noticed it was lying flat in the intake).

The rumour is that the ground crew fold the cover over and kneel on it when working around the cockpit and lift fan. It was left flat and wasn't noticed in the walk round preflight checks. Of course as the pilot throttled up it was sucked into the engine.

Someone will likely be on the naughty step if true.
When "remove before flight" gets ignored. Missed by ground crew and pilot preflight is big Oops.
 
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umm no Norrad I think you''ve been watching too many movies like James Bonds Moonraker lol.

you cannot "knock out" the satellites that are used for GPS navigation. Those satellites are sitting in a 20,000km high orbit and have multiple "spare" satellites. No missile or technology on earth can knock them out. No military satellites which are vital are in a low earth orbit, none, nada, zero.

Big difference between a proxy / political money making war and a war of survival.

Remember that "stealth" doesn't mean completely invisible, they still have to evade enemy radar, but their RCS is a million times smaller so harder to track.
The Russians claim they can take out GPS satellites -

 
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So busy these days, only get a peek at myBB, so yip, missed it.

He only moved there in 2015, so easily missed :p

 
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