USAF Gets F-35 Flight Simulator 252
cylonlover writes "Eglin Air Force Base has just taken delivery of a piece of hardware that would surely be the ultimate toy for flight sim gaming fans. The F-35 Lightning II Full Mission Simulator (FMS) system includes a high-fidelity 360-degree visual display system and a reconfigurable cockpit that can simulate all three variants of the F-35 Lightning II for US and international partner services – the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35A, the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B, and the F-35C carrier variant."
Re:Top Gun (Score:4, Informative)
Geography never favors Japan, they have to import everything. Germany did not lose to the USA, it lost to the USSR. No male on my maternal grandmothers side lived through the war, all six of them died on the eastern front. Without the USSR in the war Germany would have lost the USA after berlin was nuked. If England did not fall first.
Re:Great more money wasted (Score:5, Informative)
"Who the hell are we gonna fight that a well trained pilot in the F18 or even the F15-F16 won't be at the very least an even match? "
Do you know what the prize is for second place in air combat? A tombstone.
I love strong opinion with weak knowledge. You go on about how the Russians planes are all 70s tech. Well they are not and lets just go through the list of current US aircraft shall we?
F-15 first flight 1972 entered service 1976. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle [wikipedia.org].
F-16 first flight 1974 entered service 1978 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-16 [wikipedia.org]
F-18 first flight 1978 entered service 1983 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-18 [wikipedia.org]
F-18E first flight 1995 entered service 1999 I will give the Super Hornet second timeline since it really is a massive update to the Hornet and really isn't the same aircraft even if it derived from it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F/A-18E/F_Super_Hornet [wikipedia.org]
So all of your examples are all based on 70s tech. Some of it early 70s tech. Yes they have been upgraded over the years but the basic airframes are all from the 1970s except for the F-18E/F which is sort of from the 90s.
And the F-15 was considered way to expensive when new. The thing is that we will be flying the F-22 and probably the F-35 for the next 30 plus years. You do not build a new fighter for the threats of today but for the threats 20 years from now. And the Mig-31 isn't really a fighter it is an interceptor The real current threats from from the SU-3x line of fighters but I am guessing that you are not really into military aviation that much. Nice to see that you lack of knowledge didn't stop you from voice such a long and loud opinion.
BTW the problem with drones is now and will be for a while is bandwidth. It takes a lot of bandwidth to uplink all the sensor data that a modern combat aircraft can gather and then you have the problem of time of signal for control. Until the drones are autonomous and pick pick their own targets "Wow how about that for a really bad idea?" and can handle air to air combat on their own they will be server limits to what they can do vs a manned aircraft.
Re:Ugh the F-35... (Score:4, Informative)
In the past few wars, by far the most effective air craft have been the B-52 and the A-10. Most of the combat sorties have been air to ground. Problem is there really isn't anything to replace the A-10 in terms of being able to fly low, slow, take a lot of hits, and dish it out. An A-10 can loiter around a kill box for a couple hours for on call close air support. I believe the loiter time for an F-16 is about 30 minutes before they have to go tank up again with fuel.
Drones are starting to fufill this role, but they can't carry the sheer amount of bombs, rockets, missiles, and the 30mm anti-tank gun the A-10's could.
Thing is about the A-10 is the generals never wanted it because it ain't a sleek sexy fighter jet.
Re:Top Gun (Score:5, Informative)
"Without the United Kingdom and the United States bombing the ever living crap out of Germany day and night, the Germans would have had the fuel, aircraft, armor and super weapons to end the Soviet Union."
Not really. The impact of firebombing is somewhat overestimated.
"The Eastern Front was a body dump for both sides while the Atlantic Wall, the North African campaign and air war in the west ground down Germany's extra man power and material, just like the western front did in WW1 for Germany."
North Africa? LOL! It was minuscule by the scales of the battles on the Eastern Front. In the end the USSR was responsible for the 80% of German casualties in manpower and equipment.
Read and weep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II) [wikipedia.org]