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It's vertical landing, not vertical take off. It's still a short rolling take off. I actually wouldn't be suprised to find they do a short rolling landing too (
by chipsa 3y ago
It's vertical landing, not vertical take off. It's still a short rolling take off. I actually wouldn't be suprised to find they do a short rolling landing too (rather than go full hover, use the lift fan to allow them to land at lower than normal stall speed would be). They've tested the rolling landing on board the HMS QE
And yes, for full maintenance, you do need need a proper airport and hangars. But for a quick refuel/arm and launch, you don't need that much. It's a trade off in capabilities: do you want to have a highway strip launch capability, or do you want something that is much less likely to get shot down. It's doubtful that the F-35 will only be able to operate at a single runway, unless your country only has one runway. It should be capable of operating off nearly any concrete runway you have (highways are typically not constructed to the same standards as a runway).
- Thoeu388 3y agoFrom what I know, we only have single military airport capable of supporting F-35. Fully loaded F35 needs 2.5 km of high quality concrete. It also needs extensive overhaul after every flight to maintain stealth coating. There is no "quick refual/arm" with stealth, it is more like operating Space Shuttle! There are also civilian airports, but we would propably run out of those very soon. And using civilian infrastructure for military purposes (like bombing foreign country) would not be politically very digestible!
- thunderbird120 3y ago>It also needs extensive overhaul after every flight to maintain stealth coating. There is no "quick refual/arm" with stealth, it is more like operating Space Shuttle! I don't know where you heard that but it's completely untrue. Some older radar absorbent material required intensive maintenance but the F-35 is not like that. It's not that much more difficult to maintain than a previous generation fighter. It would be completely impractical to operate if you needed to completely overhaul it every flight.
- Thoeu388 3y agoRight now that is not verifiable. It is a clasiffied information, only supported by claims from manufacturer. And maintaince cost is already dispuded at court in Switzerland. >It would be completely impractical to operate if you needed to completely overhaul it every flight. And? Maybe it is every 2nd or 10th flight, that does not make it much more practical. Cost for operating F35 is astronomical. Old Soviet airplanes we had could take of from grassy fields!
- avereveard 3y agoAnd their circle of hit probability with preprogrammed missiles is misured in hundreds meters instead of a handful. The war for which they were built never materialised, and their performances now largely obsolete. And who's going to sell you replacement parts anyway if your principal adversary is also your plane supplier? You want suppliers that don't threaten to nuke you every other week. Soviet planes came at a much higher cost...
- Thoeu388 3y agoI get your point. But: - right now we have fighters from Sweden (not Soviet design obviously) - Soviet planes came with technical plans, we would be probably capable to fix them by our selves to huge extend. Ukraine maintained their Soviet planes for 10 years during war. Also we manufactured some airplanes ourself, and even today Czechia produces fighter jets. - Many countries produces Soviet derived planes and spare parts. Ukraine, India, China.. Half of world operates those, and there is a huge market. - For Slovakia (and other NATO countries) that operate Migs, Russia was actually supplying spare until very recently. They sabotaged spare parts AFTER it was announced that Migs were going to be send to Ukraine, which was against the support contract.
- KeplerBoy 3y agoCalling the L39 a jet fighter is a bit of a stretch. It's a trainer that can be armed and used to intercept general aviation aircraft.
- chipsa 3y agoA Boeing 787 needs 2.8km of high-quality concrete for a runway. A F-35 is known to have low maintenance stealth coatings, so you don't need extensive overhaul every flight. If you're fighting other countries from Czechia, the most likely countries to fight are either Russia, or it's minion Belarus. In which case you're probably not worrying about the politics of using civilian infrastructure.
- gostsamo 3y agoOr you are part of a NATO operation against Serbia. Mentioning it, because the conflict in Kosovo is not resolved yet.
- golergka 3y agoLast time Serbia attempted to commit literal genocide, for the second time in less than a decade, for NATO to get involved. Do you think they'll start mass murders again?
- formerly_proven 3y agoWell we did have WW2 only 20 years after WW1...
- gostsamo 3y agoWhat I know is that serbians who were assigned to northern Kosovo do not recognize the authority of Prishtina. This is still a major issue between Serbia and Kosovo and it is a regular reason for increased tension between the two. More than anything else, the perspective for EU membership keeps the tensions down, but do not expect that Serbia will disregard the problem just because.
- golergka 3y agoYes, there are border tensions, I'm well aware. Stupid things like car registration numbers. But thankfully, it's nowhere near actual mass murders of civilians, so I don't see any reason for NATO getting involved.
- ummonk 3y agoThere's no phenomenon that causes the F-35 to magically lose its stealth coating at the end of exactly one flight. You can obviously delay maintenance for a few flights just fine.
- NikkiA 3y agoI'm not so sure, the US at one point did talk about how if the F35 wasn't kept in climate controlled hangars then its stealth abilities would be negated rapidly.
- luuurker 3y agoHas that ever been confirmed? Because some variants operate from carriers and I'd be surprised if they have special hangars inside.
- tolien 3y agoIt does look like they develop a sort of "rust" through exposure to sea air [0], though what effect that has on low-observability remains to be seen. 0: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44067/the-f-35cs-radar-absorbent-skin-is-looking-pretty-rough-after-months-at-sea https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44067/the-f-35cs-radar...
- dralley 3y agoYou are thinking of the F-22 or perhaps the B-2. The stealth coatings on those are a lot more fragile.
- NikkiA 3y agoI'm absolutely not, because I remember the argument was part of 'factor in the cost of improving hangars to be climate controlled when considering the purchase cost of the F35 from the US', in particular, I think it was when the canadian purchase of the F35 was being discussed. Since the F22 and B2 are not exported at all, not even to canada, it cannot possibly have been a factor in purchasing either of those.
- dotnet00 3y agoThink about it this way, if the F35 needed an extensive overhaul after each flight, there's no way it'd be suitable for the harsh environment of carrier operations.
- philwelch 3y agoThe Czechs are buying the conventional variant of the F-35, not the vertical landing variant.
- chipsa 3y agoI'm aware, but the OP link was about British F-35Bs.
- MiscCompFacts 3y agoHere’s a video showing STOVL(Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing): https://youtu.be/hO5mZxaiyUQ https://youtu.be/hO5mZxaiyUQ. The distance it needs to take off is incredibly short, should work on any short straight road with enough clearance on both sides. It does need to come slow crawl engage STOVL landing.
- wildzzz 3y agoFor some context, that F-35B took off with only 600ft of runway. A Cessna 172 can take off with as little as 800ft meaning you really don't need much for the F-35B. You can find this airstrip on Google maps when searching Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, it's the one out in the desert. It looks to be abandoned now but the runway markings in the video are still visible.