Lockheed Martin is a fail company

[0roo0roo]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2008/July/Pages/F-35fact2282.aspx
dunno if this is up to date, looks like they are going to do mass production instead of the slow hand built thing.

 

[sdifox]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2008/July/Pages/F-35fact2282.aspx
dunno if this is up to date, looks like they are going to do mass production instead of the slow hand built thing.

where are the customers?

 

[OCGuy]

OP has no idea what he is talking about.

 

[Bignate603]

According to Wikipedia..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon

90 million euro, which is 125 million canadian.

or 196 million cad including development costs

You are correct. I had gotten my prices from wikipedia but when I glanced at it I didn't notice that the fly away cost was in euros and the fly away plus development was in pounds.

 

[Bignate603]

OP has no idea what he is talking about.

He belongs to the "If I don't understand it it must be easy" club.

 

[Sureshot324]

He belongs to the "If I don't understand it it must be easy" club.

I will admit that my knowledge of how cost effective these aircraft truly are in a war is limited, but so is almost everyone's. All we know is what the they tell us, which is almost certainly biased. We won't really know how good they are until we see them fight in a war against a formidable opponent, because for the purpose of delivering bombs to targets in impoverished nations, they are most certainly overpriced.

You can have the attitude of blind faith that the government knows best, and if they're buying them they must be worth it, or you can question that, and say based on what we do know, they're not worth it, and there's some corruption going on here.

 

[Aquaman]

I think the main reason I am cheesed off with the purchase of the F-35 is because of the way the Harper Government did it. There was no tender for the new fighters!

I think we should have gotten Super Hornets or Gripens. Cheaper to buy & maintenance would also be cheaper then the F-35.

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[0roo0roo]

I think the main reason I am cheesed off with the purchase of the F-35 is because of the way the Harper Government did it. There was no tender for the new fighters!

I think we should have gotten Super Hornets or Gripens. Cheaper to buy & maintenance would also be cheaper then the F-35.

Cheers,
Aquaman

yea old planes you should have bought a decade ago if you were going to get them, getting such planes now is just sorta missing the point.

 

[Bignate603]

I will admit that my knowledge of how cost effective these aircraft truly are in a war is limited, but so is almost everyone's. All we know is what the they tell us, which is almost certainly biased. We won't really know how good they are until we see them fight in a war against a formidable opponent, because for the purpose of delivering bombs to targets in impoverished nations, they are most certainly overpriced.

You can have the attitude of blind faith that the government knows best, and if they're buying them they must be worth it, or you can question that, and say based on what we do know, they're not worth it, and there's some corruption going on here.

I design parts for aircraft engines for a living, mostly for military applications. I can tell you flat out that these things cost money. A ton of money. Part of it is because they are relatively low production numbers (even a few thousand planes is relatively low when compared to consumer products), the materials are massively expensive and hard to work with, processes are lengthy and complicated, etc. When you're looking at the stuff they're trying to do it's amazing that it's even possible. Do you realize that the turbine blades their using are operating in air that's over the melting point of the metal they're made out of? That's insane.

As for whether it's worth or not, the answer is that air power is crucial to modern warfare. These new high tech fighters are used to clear the sky of all competition and allow ground attack aircraft to do their job (sometimes dedicated bombers, sometimes F/A aircraft) so that any organized threat that sticks its head out of its foxhole doesn't live long enough to accomplish anything. Technologies that allow aircraft to out maneuver, out run, out distance, see farther and hide better than previous aircraft all are expensive but can allow them to completely decimate their opponents. You can't hit what you can't see or maneuver against effectively.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Russian fighters are made by private companies, not the government, and they sell them to countries far more likely to use them against Russia than Canada.

Lol. The plane manufacturers in Russia aren't remotely private.

 

[ThePresence]

Can we stop pretending that Canada is remotely capable of defending itself against a sustained attack by a world power?

 

[Scouzer]

Can we stop pretending that Canada is remotely capable of defending itself against a sustained attack by a world power?

Err, who the hell said that?? We aren't pretending that and we aren't under any illusions. We are just trying to pull our weight with our military commitments relative to our size.

 

[ThePresence]

Err, who the hell said that?? We aren't pretending that and we aren't under any illusions. We are just trying to pull our weight with our military commitments relative to our size.

Relative to it's size, Canada is not pulling it's weight at all.
Lets be real here for a minute. Canada exists because the US will defend it.
I think they should probably be buying US military hardware, not Russian.

 

[Bignate603]

Err, who the hell said that?? We aren't pretending that and we aren't under any illusions. We are just trying to pull our weight with our military commitments relative to our size.

Personally, as a citizen of the US I'm all for Canada maintaining an army reasonable for its population and economy. While I think the US should maintain its military its retarded that we should try to be the police of the world. That's what the UN and different alliances are for (NATO, etc). It's bad for our foreign policy and our bank account to do things alone. When multiple countries think that there is something that should be done they all should be willing to pitch in some of their own military assets. For them to be able to do that they actually need some of their own military assets, hence Canada should have a functional air force composed of planes that can succeed against planes that they might encounter.

 

[Sureshot324]

I design parts for aircraft engines for a living, mostly for military applications. I can tell you flat out that these things cost money. A ton of money. Part of it is because they are relatively low production numbers (even a few thousand planes is relatively low when compared to consumer products), the materials are massively expensive and hard to work with, processes are lengthy and complicated, etc. When you're looking at the stuff they're trying to do it's amazing that it's even possible. Do you realize that the turbine blades their using are operating in air that's over the melting point of the metal they're made out of? That's insane.

As for whether it's worth or not, the answer is that air power is crucial to modern warfare. These new high tech fighters are used to clear the sky of all competition and allow ground attack aircraft to do their job (sometimes dedicated bombers, sometimes F/A aircraft) so that any organized threat that sticks its head out of its foxhole doesn't live long enough to accomplish anything. Technologies that allow aircraft to out maneuver, out run, out distance, see farther and hide better than previous aircraft all are expensive but can allow them to completely decimate their opponents. You can't hit what you can't see or maneuver against effectively.

I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, but the recent dramatic increase in cost in Lockheed Martin's aircraft in particular, compared to other fighters of the world, compared to their own original estimates, and compared what what fighter jets cost in the past, leads me to believe they are no longer an efficiently run company. Obviously I don't really know, but no one in this thread knows to the contrary either. It wasn't too long ago that a cutting edge fighter cost < $50 mil. There hasn't been that much inflation.

Russian jets are more maneuverable and equally fast as American jets at a fraction of the cost. American jets have stealth, but the Su PAK FA will as well. It's also the first aircraft to have pitch, yaw, and roll all controllable via thrust vectoring. At $100 mil US it's not exactly cheap either, but a bargain compared to the F22, which it is designed to compete with.

 

[Numenorean]

where are the customers?

Read the article??

"The U.S. military is buying about 2,500 aircraft. Allied nations are purchasing an additional 500 or so."

 

[Pocatello]

If Canada wants a modern affordable jet fighter, the Swedish Gripen is pretty good. Canada already operate CF-18, so upgrading to the F/A-18 E or F with AESA radar is another good option. The F-35 is way over budget and years behind schedule because the Pentagon wanted a jet to do every thing. What they going to have is a jack-of-all-trade fighter-bomber, and master of none. It doesn't have the performance of the F-22, or even the F-15C Eagle, can't maneuver as well as the F-16C Falcon, can't carry as much bomb or the distance of the F-15E Strike Eagle. Its stealth capability is questionable, because there are radar equipments in development or already in service which can detect stealthy aircraft.

 

[davmat787]

Pretty much this. All defense should be in the form of missiles and ICBMs.

Some boats and stuff would be good for stopping illegal immigration from china.

If you don't own the air, your screwed. In almost any post vietnam war or conflict, the first thing that is done is wiping out the enemies ability to control the airspace. You wipe out their SAM's and RADAR, destroy their runways and aircraft. More effective and safer than troops on the ground.

I realize you said defense, and above I used an offensive example, but the reverse applies. Lets say China tried to invade the US, how are you going to stop long range bombers from reaching the mainland with ground based weapons alone? You need interceptors and air superiority aircraft to engage prior to the enemy ever reaching the mainland. Whether or not this will ever happen is another issue of course.

 

[Bignate603]

I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, but the recent dramatic increase in cost in Lockheed Martin's aircraft in particular, compared to other fighters of the world, compared to their own original estimates, and compared what what fighter jets cost in the past, leads me to believe they are no longer an efficiently run company. Obviously I don't really know, but no one in this thread knows to the contrary either. It wasn't too long ago that a cutting edge fighter cost < $50 mil. There hasn't been that much inflation.

Russian jets are more maneuverable and equally fast as American jets at a fraction of the cost. American jets have stealth, but the Su PAK FA will as well. It's also the first aircraft to have pitch, yaw, and roll all controllable via thrust vectoring. At $100 mil US it's not exactly cheap either, but a bargain compared to the F22, which it is designed to compete with.

Costs have risen dramatically due to the increased cost of trying to stay ahead of the competition. As time has gone on it's been harder and harder to stay ahead because the competition keeps improving. All of the cheap and easy improvements have been done, the only ones that remain are the hard and expensive ones.

Also, I'll believe the Su PAK will compete against the F22 when I see it. Russian planes are typically destined to be heavily exported and sold to countries around the world that often are at odds with the US or its allies. Spreading information around that the their fighter is better than western fighters could very easily just be good advertising.

 

[thecrecarc]

The cost of 5th generation fighters will be $100 million-ish no matter where you get it from. For example, American F-22s-$150 million. Russia Su PAK FA- $100 million. Chinese J-20 $110 million. And these price tags isn't counting R&D costs.

 

[drinkmorejava]

I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, but the recent dramatic increase in cost in Lockheed Martin's aircraft in particular, compared to other fighters of the world, compared to their own original estimates, and compared what what fighter jets cost in the past, leads me to believe they are no longer an efficiently run company. Obviously I don't really know, but no one in this thread knows to the contrary either. It wasn't too long ago that a cutting edge fighter cost < $50 mil. There hasn't been that much inflation.

Russian jets are more maneuverable and equally fast as American jets at a fraction of the cost. American jets have stealth, but the Su PAK FA will as well. It's also the first aircraft to have pitch, yaw, and roll all controllable via thrust vectoring. At $100 mil US it's not exactly cheap either, but a bargain compared to the F22, which it is designed to compete with.

This debate about Russian vs. US jets has always been around, and in its current iteration, performance differences are solely due to customer requirements and design philosophy. In other words, we know and we made our planes the way we did for a reason. The F-16 is 30 years old, faster, and more maneuverable than the F-35. Did our technology or design ability get worse in the last three decades? Of course not, however, the mission for these aircraft has changed. Simply, the Russians build great aerial combat aircraft, unfortunately for them, newer missiles with high off-boresight tracking, hybrid active/passive seekers, 3D thrust vectoring, and sensor fused aircraft (read F-35 and F-22) that can simultaneously track, engage, and evade multiple aircraft and defensive systems make this capability almost entirely USELESS!

Saying the T-50 will have stealth isn’t any better than saying X country will have Y system in ten years that can defeat our current Z system.

A modern aircraft battle is won through the use of advanced EW systems, combat survivability, and number of sorties/aircraft/day*#aircraft, not how maneuverable your aircraft are at the outer limits of human capability.

 

[Pocatello]

I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, but the recent dramatic increase in cost in Lockheed Martin's aircraft in particular, compared to other fighters of the world, compared to their own original estimates, and compared what what fighter jets cost in the past, leads me to believe they are no longer an efficiently run company. Obviously I don't really know, but no one in this thread knows to the contrary either. It wasn't too long ago that a cutting edge fighter cost < $50 mil. There hasn't been that much inflation.

Russian jets are more maneuverable and equally fast as American jets at a fraction of the cost. American jets have stealth, but the Su PAK FA will as well. It's also the first aircraft to have pitch, yaw, and roll all controllable via thrust vectoring. At $100 mil US it's not exactly cheap either, but a bargain compared to the F22, which it is designed to compete with.

So you actually believe the Su PAK FA going to be delivered on time and on budget? If you think Russian jets are not as expensive, think again. If you want all the modern fancy electronics install, it's going to be expensive. Look how much India has to pay for the Su-30MKI, over $100 million for each airplane, without AESA radar, which have to be upgraded later. Russian jets are very maneuverable, but not against a modern missile. What you want to do is detect the enemy first before he detects you, launch your missiles, then get out of dodge. Better yet, you launch you cruise missiles to disable his air fields, control radars, destroy his control and communication centers, etc.

 

[Scouzer]

Relative to it's size, Canada is not pulling it's weight at all.
Lets be real here for a minute. Canada exists because the US will defend it.
I think they should probably be buying US military hardware, not Russian.

Relative to our population and economic size, I think we are pulling our weight.

 

[Aikouka]

I'm not sure how the price necessarily means Lockheed sucks. It might mean such a thing if their own incompetence jacked the price up. In my own experiences, the government is good at doing that on their own .

Imagine you're building a house, and after the sticks are up, you decide you want a new bathroom extended off the side. You tell them to build it, and once you get the revised bill, you just scoff and say, "I am not paying that!" Yeah... that's the equivalent of government contracts :\.

 

[Imp]

yea old planes you should have bought a decade ago if you were going to get them, getting such planes now is just sorta missing the point.

Ya, but what's the point? Really?

Canada sends maybe a max of 20 planes to any peacekeeping operation at once. If any country bothered to attack, we have the US (we lub you...). At least the UK and the rest of Europe can say that they're on the front line against any actualy threats, and they aren't right next to the US. If the US abandoned us, we have a military strength of about 120k full and part-time, so it'd be game over anyways.

I think the paper said we sent 8 planes to Libya, 18 to Kosovo (?). And it's not like we use them for first-strike. We wait for the US to clean all the bad shit out, then we send up our planes for roll call. Most of the time, planes are supposedly just used for "establishing presence" over the Arctic, which the F-35's limited range (relative) an single-engine design aren't good for. I guess we can use them to bomb shit. The F-18 can't do that...