Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning and F-22 'Raptor' : News & Discussion

Switzerland signs Air2030 contracts
29 Nov 2021 Gareth Jennings

"Switzerland has signed for both the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and the Raytheon Patriot ground-based air-defence systems (GBADS) to fulfil its Air2030 requirement.

The Federal Council announced the milestones on 26 November, some five months after the country announced its decision in July to procure 36 F-35As and five Patriot GBADS based on the highest overall benefits for the lowest overall costs.

“Contracts for the purchase of the F-35A combat aircraft and the Patriot long-range ground-to-air defence system have been finalised by Armasuisse with the US government,” the council's announcement stated...."
 
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They build and sustain F-35s in Europe, there will be over 450 F-35s in Europe by 2030. You are trying to sow fear and doubt, and since even before world war II the Americans have built forces with the idea of a "Two Theater" war. That is why they have Pacific, and Atlantic fleets, bases in the east and the west its been like that for a long time, and I don't see that changing. They have added to NATO since the USSR collapsed
Promises are only binding on those who believe them
 
Is this different pod ?
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Navy says Senate cut to F-35C budget will add $700M

SAC cuts to the F-35 C2D2 upgrade program would cause significant delays to new capabilities that "are critical to keeping F-35 dominance over our near-peer competitors, China and Russia," the Navy argues.

WASHINGTON: The Senate’s proposed move to cut $84 million from the Navy’s 2021 $482 million budget request for incremental upgrades to its F-35C fighter jets will push back critical electronic warfare capabilities by a year and decrease operational availability, according to the service’s budgetary appeal obtained by Breaking Defense.

It also will end up increasing costs for retrofitting the EW hardware into the service’s Joint Strike Fighter variant by $700 million, the service argues.

Senate appropriators in their version of the annual defense spending package, released last month, criticized the overarching Joint Strike Fighter software/hardware upgrade plan, called Continuous Capability Development and Delivery (C2D2). Under the C2D2 program, prime contractor Lockheed Martin is supposed to deliver software upgrades every six months. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a July report found that those upgrades were more often than not delayed, and it criticized the Pentagon’s Joint Program Office (JPO) for failing to develop a more realistic schedule.

The JPO requested a total of $1.98 billion for C2D2 for Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps jets, but the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) would slash $565.9 million from the total.

Echoing GAO’s concerns about unrealistic scheduling and vague performance criteria, the appropriators cited “significant challenges” to the effort including: “cost growth of approximately 70 percent, schedule delays of the Technology Refresh 3 system, and a 3 year delay in the delivery of the complete Capability Increment #1 (formerly Block 4) capabilities.”

The SAC added, “Given that F–35 modernization is planned using the C2D2 approach through 2035, the Committee is troubled by these developments.”

Further, the appropriators noted the high costs of the total C2D2 effort, and charged the Defense Department to break it out into a stand-alone major acquisition program in its 2023 budget to allow greater transparency and improved oversight.

For it’s part, the Navy cited a litany of woe beyond that would befall the F-35 program writ large if its funding for C2D2 is slashed.

“Proposed program reductions will cause significant negative impacts to the development, delivery, and fielding of important electronic warfare, radar, communications, precision navigation, and integrated weapons capabilities on the F-35 (inclusive of critical F-35 Training Systems). These capabilities are required by the F-35 warfighter to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving global threat environment, and are critical to keeping F-35 dominance over our near-peer competitors, China and Russia,” the document argued.

For the Navy in particular, this includes “a one-year delay of U.S. Service prioritized weapons integration and associated mission planning activities including AARGM-ER, the AGM-158 family of weapons, and increased missile carriage negatively impacting F-35 survivability and lethality,” the appeal said.

Finally, the Navy argued that the SAC reduction would have a “significant negative impact” on the JPO’s effort to replace Lockheed’s infamously complicated and buggy maintenance and logistics software, ALIS (for Autonomic Logistics Information System), with a faster, streamlined version. The new software, called ODIN, for Operational Data Integrated Network, is being developed internally by DoD to give service maintenance efforts more autonomy.
 
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The pilots post updates on a blog.
Says the guy whose adopted country's military still uses Windows XP as their OS as does his national health system aka the NHS. The DWP runs on 3.10.

Runs a first world's navy on a 3rd world budget, is a N power to boot & what's more is running short of planes to be flown from aircraft carriers yet manages to send one into the drink & had as it's anthem Brittania rules the waves less than a century ago but tries to undermine others.


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Rafale also uses Link 16, it's part of NATO after all. Export Rafales to non-NATO countries have other datalinks.

So In case of India if F35 is exported then it wouldn't use Link 16? I tried to find but there is no clear info on Data links. Thales has installed the communication on Rafales for India but which one no idea.
 
So In case of India if F35 is exported then it wouldn't use Link 16? I tried to find but there is no clear info on Data links. Thales has installed the communication on Rafales for India but which one no idea.

It's unclear which datalink the Rafale has been integrated with, either the older ODL or the new B-NET. I believe it's the ODL 'cause the Rafale contract was signed before the B-NET contract was. Would require an upgrade soon.

In case the F-35 comes to India, it will have to be integrated with the B-NET in order to network with our stuff.

The IN has the Link 16 integrated. So F-35s coming to the IN can continue with the Link 16, although it will still have to carry an Indian DL as well. It's unclear how receptive the IAF is to the Link 16, although their Reapers should come with it.
 
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Keraunos with TILBA and unseenlab coud be the future of communication for the whole french army services even replacing link16 :
Space : The French Ministry of the Armed Forces launches a new project in the field of optical communication by laser

by Laurent Lagneau - November 29, 2021

In an interview with La Tribune last week, the director of the Defense Innovation Agency [AID], Emmanuel Chiva, very briefly mentioned a project involving two French technology nuggets, Cailabs, which specializes in the development of innovative optical subsystems, and Unseenlabs, which develops and operates nano-satellite constellations. But he had kept his mouth shut...

Finally, during a speech at the 2021 edition of the Defense Innovation Forum [FID], the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, lifted the veil on this project, called "Keraunos" ["lightning", in ancient Greek].

"We have launched the Keraunos innovation project, with the objective of experimenting with an optical communication link, based on high-speed laser, between a 20 kg nano-satellite and a small ground station on Earth," announced Ms. Parly. "To do this, we are working with start-ups Unseelabs and Cailabs, pioneers in their technologies, and which the Ministry of the Armed Forces is supporting with the Definvest fund, endowed with 100 million euros to support French companies whose know-how is essential to the performance of defense systems," she added.

On November 29, the French Ministry of Defence provided additional details. In detail, Keraunos aims to test a high-speed laser optical communication system between a nano-satellite and a compact, transportable ground station. This, according to him, has never been done before.

Compared to a radio link, optical communication offers several advantages, such as a higher throughput, better discretion and "no need to share transmission frequencies between different users". The concern is that, between the transmitting satellite and the ground, it is sensitive to atmospheric turbulence. Hence the use of adaptive optics technology. But these are too large and not very mobile.

So the Keraunos project will allow us to test a new approach. As the Ministry of the Army explains, the project will consist of "experimenting with data transmission by optical satellite telecommunications from a nano-satellite designed and launched into low orbit by the company Unseenlabs, via a new solution from the company Cailabs that is particularly compact and light in its reception part. The modern and agile software architecture of Unseenlabs nano-satellites offers the possibility to integrate this laser payload.

Success in this experiment would be a "world first" that "would make it possible to rapidly deploy laser communications on mobile, ground, naval or airborne platforms," he concluded. The cost of this project is 5.5 million euros. A sum financed by the IDA.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
 
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In fact with such lowcost communication systemes it is very easy to imagine a whole and dense network of low cost cameras to monitor the sky from above and below making stealth an old fashion survavibility factor.
 
With 14 for parts and 24 sold secondhand, out of 102 for the AAE, even the French don't want them. That leaves them with 64 Rafales and they aren't buying new ones. If someone buys those, they can get the F-35.
You just forget that the 24 second hand will be replaced by brand new ones (12 already purchased, 12 in 2023). But it's probably too difficult to understand.