so anybody has any specs? which base will get it? I live near Luke air force and there is a group of people in the city that I live in who plan to protest the new inclusion of the F-35's in Luke airforce base. what are your thoughts?
well, its not my protest, to be honest but peeps here say the new planes are going to be much noisier also the city were I live in is severly closed in because the nearby city, glendale bought and annexed land in our city to keep encroachment to luke airforce base. that hampers growth in our city and kills projected tax revenues and with the new noisy planes, it can kill this city off. specially since we are in the flight path of the landing strip at luke air force
If it's any consolation they're awesome planes mate! I live next to the second biggest Garrison in the UK, luckily it's not an Air Base. Have to put up with the Para's though!
I highly doubt a one engine plane would be nosier than the two engine planes they are intended to replace. Jet engines have gotten quieter as they have evolved. But if you don't want the planes there we will take them at Wright Patterson. In fact transfer the entire base here to Ohio.
So really, the protests are kinda pointless right? Maybe they think a STOL aircraft is noiser for some reason?
The Air Force F-35's are not STOL. The F-35 has a lot more thrust than an F-16, and from my limited experience from airshows more thrust per engine generally means more noise. But it isn't necessarily a one-to-one relationship, and it will depend on the design and how they decide to take off.
The F-35 also known as the JSF (joint strike fighter) will be a multi functional aircraft intended for use by all services. The F-35 is available as a VTOL for the marine variant and a navy and airforce variant will be available.
Just curious, but if F-35 has a lot more thrust than F-16, then why is it slower ? F-16 had a maximum speed of Mach 2+, while F-35 has only Mach 1.6+. Yet it's thrust, both dry and with afterburner, is 40% more powerful. Shouln't that have put F-35 at a maximum speed of Mach 2.8 with afterburner and Mach 1.4 in cruise flight ?
I think the thrust has gone into making the F35 cruise supersonically (is that a word?) That and the F-35 is about 40% heavier than the F-16.
burning_phoneix covers most of the points - the thrust goes to good acceleration and keeping speed up during hard maneuvering. Mach 2 speeds also require special intakes. Also, fighter aircraft just about never go top speed. It's incredibly wasteful of fuel. A higher top speed without afterburner is way better.
IIRC, Vietnam era jets were faster than most modern era jets before designers realised all that extra speed was useless.
Modern SAMs are far too fast and besides, what's the use of burning all your fuel escaping from a SAM and then ditching your plane because you couldn't get to base in time?
Speed was never a way to get away from missiles. What you use top speed for is catching up to other aircraft to engage them. So having a high top speed is useful for interceptors, which is the mission of shooting down incoming bombers. That's why planes designed in the 1950's and 1960's are faster than planes now - all those pointy small planes (like the MiG-21 and F-104) and those big brutes (like the F-14 and the Mig-25) had those mission specs. Times are different now - bombers are less important than ICBMs, threats are lesser, and western powers depend on air superiority to prevent other people from attacking, not responding to particular threats as they appear. That's why our aircraft carriers don't have those defensive F-14's anymore and now only have offensive F-18's. Gas-guzzling top speed isn't useful in the air superiority mission. There were a couple of cases in Vietnam of F-4 pilots using Mach 2+ speeds to catch up to and engage enemy planes trying to flee. They didn't make it back to base.
The airforce doesn't care. (Actually, they do. Trained fighter pilots are worth a lot.) But really, you lose an aircraft either way so there had to be better SAM beating measures.