F-35 News

[Sintra]

O que permite ver "através da parede" é o DAS e não o capacete e era precisamente a esse sistema que me estava a referir...
O nivel de processamento depende directamente dos micro processadores utilizados, dá uma vistinha de olhos ao que a SAAB está a propor (e já agora, o novo "sensor suit" de comunicações do Gripen NG é uma coisa absolutamente fantástica )

Abraço

Quis dizer HMD conjugado com os sensores, neste caso o DAS.

[]s

Sim

[PRick]

Bem legal o vídeo.
Algumas características do DAS também são atribuídas ao Spectra, ao menos na propaganda francesa.

[]'s

O DAS eh um sistema eletro-optico extremamente sofisticado. O OSF do Rafale eh muito mais limitado :

TARGETING
Lockheed Martin Missile & Fire Control and Northrop Grumman Electronic Sensors and Systems are jointly responsible for the JSF electro-optical system. A Lockheed Martin Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) will provide long-range detection and precision targeting, along with the Northrop Grumman DAS (Distributed Aperture System) thermal imaging system.

EOTS will be based on the Sniper XL pod developed for the F-16, which incorporates a mid-wave third-generation FLIR, dual mode laser, CCD TV, laser tracker and laser marker. BAE Systems Avionics in Edinburgh, Scotland will provide the laser systems.

DAS consists of multiple infrared cameras (supplied by Indigo Systems of Goleta, California) providing 360° coverage using advanced signal conditioning algorithms. As well as situational awareness, DAS provides navigation, missile warning and Infrared Search and Track (IRST). EOTS is embedded under the aircraft's nose, and DAS sensors are fitted at multiple locations on the aircraft.


O Spectra seria o analogo ao IEWS:
Information & Electronic Warfare Systems (IEWS) will be responsible for the JSF integrated electronic warfare suite, which will be installed internally and have some subsystems from Northrop Grumman. BAE is developing a new digital radar warning receiver for the F-35.

Porem o Sepctra foi desenvolvido ao longo nas decadas de 80 e 90. O sistema do F-35 deve incorporar tecnologias mais recentes.

[]s

Mais crendisses populares, o SPECTRA já está em sua terceira versão a ser instalado no Rafale F-3. Parece que só os EUA investem em invoções, o OSF II está em fase final de desenvolvimento, e por aí vai. Tudo isso é propaganda para disfarçar o aumento de custos do F-35, e a críticas sobre seu envelope de vôo. É sempre assim, toda vez que uma célula de caça dos EUA tem problemas, eles começam a fazer propagando dos maravilhosos sistemas.

O F-35 é caro, está ficando mais caro, e é inferior a boa parte dos caças de 4ª geração no quesito envelope de vôo. Aí vem a descoberta de sistemas que já estão em uso faz tempo ou a HMD´s, sem o HUD, medida de economia porca. Se o HMD falhar por qualquer motivo, você tem o HUD, já no F-35 se por qualquer motivo o HMD quebrar, o piloto ejeta é joga o F-35 no lixo. Pagar 200 milhões num caça que nem HUD tem.

[ ]´s

[Carlos Lima]

Os prototipos (2) do F-35 ainda estao no inicio dos testes e voce ja sabe que o seu envelope de voo 'e inferior as aeronaves de 4 geracao .

Agora e' o HMD que nao funciona e 200 milhoes(?) no chao.

Novamente cara, esse tipo de linha de argumentacao nao agrega beneficio nenhum a discussao.

Vamos maneirar por favor!
[]s
CB_Lima

[PRick]

Os prototipos (2) do F-35 ainda estao no inicio dos testes e voce ja sabe que o seu envelope de voo 'e inferior as aeronaves de 4 geracao .

Agora e' o HMD que nao funciona e 200 milhoes(?) no chao.

Novamente cara, esse tipo de linha de argumentacao nao agrega beneficio nenhum a discussao.

Vamos maneirar por favor!
[]s
CB_Lima

A vergonha é gastar 200 milhões num caça que não tem HUD, e duas versões nem canhões! E isso é falado como se fosse vantagem, não é. Por esse preço, tinha que vir com tudo, todos os opcionais e mais outros ainda. O preço está lá, enfiado pela goela dos judeus. A dança do CRÉU.

[ ]´s

[P44]

Italy Pulls Out of JSF’s Initial Operational Test and Evaluation

Letter to Parliament (excerpt)


(Source: Dutch Ministry of Defence; issued Oct. 7, 2008)


(Issued in Dutch only; unofficial translation by defense-aerospace.com)



As a result of the general consultation of 1 October last, I am informing you of the decision by Italy concerning its participation to the Initial Operational Test And Evaluation (IOT& E) of the JSF. (…/…)

Recently the Italian project director has informed the Dutch, American and British partners that Italy will abandon its participation to the IOT& E and, with that, also of the purchase of the first test aircraft this year.

As a reason, the new [Italian] government has invoked the need to reduce expenditure.

The Italian decision has no financial consequences for the Netherlands.

Moreover, the Italian government has reaffirmed its explicit support for the JSF program, and has confirmed the Italian participation to the System Development & Demonstration (SDD) phase.


(Signed)
Dr. Jack (J.G.) de Vries
State Secretary for Defence


Click here for the full letter to Parliament (in Dutch; 3 pages in PDF format) on the Dutch MoD website.


(EDITOR’S NOTE: Repeated attempts to contact the Italian Ministry of Defense on Oct. 7 and 8 were unsuccessful. We will update this item as warranted.)

(ends)



The JSF, Italy and Europe


(Source: Alenia Aeronautica); issued Oct. 7, 2008)



The [Rome-based] Institute for International Affairs presented the results of its research on the Italian and European participation in the F-35 program at a conference held yesterday in Rome. The Joint Strike Fighter is the fifth generation fighter intended to allow air forces to meet 21st century operational requirements, but also today’s largest aeronautical program, with potential sales running into the thousands.

Italy joined the program very early as a Tier II partner, just behind the United Kingdom, and is the candidate to host the only Final Assembly and Check-Out facility outside the US. In the past weeks Alenia Aeronautica signed the first contract for wing production, for which it will be the second source supplier with a potential run of 1,200 wings.

The importance of the JSF was underscored by the high-level attendance at the conference, which ranged from Undersecretary for Defence Giuseppe Cossiga, to the Chairman of the Defense Committee of the Italian Chamber of Representatives and the Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Vincenzo Camporini, who spoke together with industry representatives Remo Pertica, Chairman of the Italian Aerospace and Defense Industries Association, and Giovanni Bertolone, CEO of Alenia Aeronautica.

The speakers all stressed that the research – coordinated for IAI by Michele Nones with Giovanni Gasparini and Alessandro Marrone and sponsored by Alenia – stands out for its rigorous methodology and objective approach. The IAI paper confirms the great operational value of the JSF, including its ability to operate away from its home base with minimal logistic support, but also highlights some of the positive and negative aspects of the program.

These include on one hand the technological progress (starting from netweork-centric capabilities and stealthiness) and great industrial potential; on the other hand, there are still some critical issues relating to transferring technologies (also related to industrial roles) and the bureaucracy which might make it difficult to ensure the timely flow of parts in an international program, but also to the need for European countries to increase their cooperation to increase their bargaining power.

The speakers underlined how all these aspects are crucial if Europe is to reap the opportunities that the Joint Strike Fighter program can offer Italy and Europe.

-ends-

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bi ... le=release

[P44]

(UPDATE: EDITOR’S NOTE: A spokesman for the Italian National Armaments Director confirmed on Oct. 10 Italy's withdrawal from the IOT&E phase.)

[P44]

peço desculpa se já foi postado, a noticia é de 28 de Setembro

September 28, 2008

Britain considers £9bn JSF project pullout

Michael Smith

BRITAIN is considering pulling out of a £9 billion project with America to produce the new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft, intended to fly off the Royal Navy’s forthcoming aircraft carriers.

The move is part of an increasingly desperate attempt to plug a £1.5 billion shortfall in the defence budget. The RAF’s 25 new Airbus A400 transport aircraft could also be at risk.

Studies have now been commissioned to analyse whether Eurofighters could be adapted to fly off the carriers.

If Britain abandons the JSF, it will be seen as a further snub to the Americans following Gordon Brown’s decision last week not to send 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Only a week earlier, during a visit to London, Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, had said he understood Britain would be sending more troops to meet what commanders say is a 10,000 shortfall.

The possible ditching of the JSF results in part from spiralling costs that have seen the price of the planned 150 British aircraft rise from the original £9 billion estimate to £15 billion.

Britain has already paid out £2.5 billion in preliminary costs but next spring must start paying for actual aircraft. At that point it is committed to the entire project whatever the price.

Once full production begins, Britain will be paying more than £1 billion a year for the aircraft, exacerbating the already dire state of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget.

“That has really concentrated minds at the MoD,” said Francis Tusa, editor of Defence Analysis. “Put simply no-one has the faintest idea how much this project will cost.”

The cost is only part of the problem. There is serious concern over the aircraft’s lack of firepower as it can only carry three 500lb bombs, compared with as many as eight on the Eurofighter.

There is also increasing frustration over the continued American refusal to share information on the technology involved.
President George Bush signed a deal with Tony Blair shortly before the former prime minister handed over to Gordon Brown, promising to share top secret technology with Britain.

The deal has still to be ratified by Congress and the Senate foreign relations committee has written to Bush warning him it will not now be ratified until the new president takes office.

There is consternation over the lack of information Britain is receiving on the aircraft and this country’s lack of input into designing its capability.

BAE Systems, manufacturer of the RAF’s Eurofighter, has been asked to produce a study into whether it could be flown from the carriers, which are due to enter service in 2014 and 2016.

The JSF is a short-take-off-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) aircraft similar to the Harrier aircraft that are currently being flown off the Royal Navy’s two old carriers.

Flying Eurofighter from the new carriers would require pilots to learn a completely new skill of landing conventionally at sea — a task likened by experts to a “controlled crash”.

It would also require the Eurofighter fuselage to be strengthened, the attachment of an arrestor hook to stop the aircraft on landing, and protection against saltwater erosion.

The BAE Systems study, carried out earlier this year, determined that the aircraft could be built to land on carriers without major difficulty.

A company spokesman would only confirm that the study had been carried out and that the MoD had seen the results which confirmed the aircraft could be adapted to fly off carriers.

Replacing JSF with some of the 232 Eurofighters the RAF is committed to buying would be attractive for the Treasury, which has always wanted to find ways to cut its £16 billion cost.

The deal committed all four major partners — Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain — to paying for all the aircraft they originally ordered even if they later decided to cut the numbers they needed.

The cost of the project, now running at close to £1.2 billion a year, is the biggest single contributor to the £1.5 billion shortfall in the defence budget.

Efforts to stave off the payments dragged the government into the controversy over the decision to call off a Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged bribes paid by BAE Systems.

The probe into the company’s £43 billion al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia was expected to examine the bank accounts of members of the Saudi royal family.

A £6 billion deal under which Saudi Arabia agreed to take 72 Eurofighters from Britain — earning the MoD a two-year payments holiday on its own aircraft — was dependent on the probe being called off.

That has only served to focus attention on the fact that when the payments holiday ends, Britain will be committed to a decade of paying well in excess of £2 billion a year for two different strike aircraft.

The additional measure of cancelling the military version of the Airbus A400 would only save a total of £1.5 billion but is attractive to the Treasury because it would cost nothing.

The aircraft has consistently failed to meet deadlines with manufacturer EADS admitting last week that it could not meet the deadline for the first test flight.

“The RAF and the MoD would prefer to enforce penalty clauses providing compensation for delays while continuing with the project,” said defence sources. “But the Treasury would happily bin it.”

The MoD said “marinising” Eurofighter had been looked at as an option but “JSF remains our optimum solution to fly off the carriers”.

A spokesman said Britain remained “fully committed to the defence trade cooperation treaty and we are working closely with the American administration to find a way forward.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... =12&page=2

[caixeiro]

September 28, 2008

Britain considers £9bn JSF project pullout

Michael Smith

BRITAIN is considering pulling out of a £9 billion project with America to produce the new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft, intended to fly off the Royal Navy’s forthcoming aircraft carriers.

The move is part of an increasingly desperate attempt to plug a £1.5 billion shortfall in the defence budget. The RAF’s 25 new Airbus A400 transport aircraft could also be at risk.

Studies have now been commissioned to analyse whether Eurofighters could be adapted to fly off the carriers.

Nem brinca com isso !!! O Fuzileiros americanos devem esta muitooo P....
a versao STOVL so existe por que os ingleses aceitaram o convite para participar do projeto se nao nada de STOVL para o JFS o que sera que pode acontecer ??

[soultrain]

F-22 and F-35 Suffer From Network Gaps

Bill Sweetman/Defense Technology International

As fighters become more wired, the F-22 is a disconnected standout

A strange thing happened to the fighter aircraft in the past decade: It became an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform.

Sensors are at the front of this development. Active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars deliver sub-meter resolution. Much-improved electronic combat subsystems using digital radio-frequency (RF) technology can identify and locate emitters in ways that a few years ago were confined to large, special-purpose, electronic-surveillance measures systems. Targeting pods now have several times the effective range and resolution of earlier-generation pods, and geo-locate targets with increased accuracy.

What has not improved as quickly is the ability to get this information to other users. The baseline fighter data link is the U.S.-developed Link 16 standard, which shares short text messages and numerical data, but lacks the speed to deliver imagery. Targeting pods such as the Rafael Litening can be equipped with data links capable of passing imagery between the fighter and a close air support controller on the ground. Other systems have been adapted for such short-range, line-of-sight communications. Sweden has long led the world in the use of data links to connect a formation of fighters, and the Saab JAS 39 Gripen comes with a system that lets a formation cooperate. For beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications, Israel's new F-16I fighters have a two-way satellite link.

Israeli F-16I fighters carry two-way satcoms terminals under a radome forward of the vertical fin.Credit: JONATHON DERDEN

But huge gaps remain. And the biggest gaps afflict the most advanced fighters -- the very-low-observable (VLO) Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35.

The problem with adding VLO systems to a network is that all transmissions can be intercepted. With networked, computer-based systems like the Czech Vera-E passive surveillance system (PSS), which uses time-difference-of-arrival models to locate the source of any emitter in 3D, a detected signal can cue other sensors to the possible location of a target. And as the 1999 shoot-down of an F-117 Nighthawk by a Serbian missile crew showed, even a VLO aircraft is vulnerable once an adversary knows where to look.

The designers of the first VLO aircraft adopted low probability of intercept (LPI) as the watchword for RF systems. This includes power management, frequency ability and tight beam control with small sidelobes -- but it was founded on transmitting as little as possible, which in the pre-network days meant not at all. Both the F-22 and F-35 use RF intra-flight data link systems, which generate steered, stabilized, pencil beams on a handshake arrangement, so that the beams lock on to the receiver aircraft. The Harris Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) on the F-35 uses six phased array antennas to provide spherical coverage around the aircraft. The signals cannot be intercepted unless the listener is on the beam, which is constantly moving.

F-22 is being cleared to carry GBU-39 Small-Diameter Bombs to attack SAMs, but still needs a data link for integration into a defense-suppression system.Credit: U.S. AIR FORCE

These systems have two drawbacks, however. Each pencil beam can talk to only one aircraft at a time and needs a dedicated transmitter to do that, so it is not a network device. And the intra-flight links only talk to other aircraft of the same type.

The intra-flight data link on the F-22 is the aircraft's only link that transmits. The fighter has a Joint Tactical Information Display System (JTIDS) receiver, but any communication off the aircraft, other than to another F-22, is done by voice radio.

Changing this situation hasn't been easy. Plans to integrate standard Link 16 have been abandoned and proposals for a satcoms link -- intended a few years ago to form part of the Block 40 "full global strike" configuration -- have been abandoned. The current plan is to demonstrate a new set of data link hardware and waveforms, known as the Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT), on board an F-22 as part of the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2008 (JEFX-08) next year.

Cold War-era RB-57F is the only high-altitude aircraft able to carry prototype BACN gear, which should allow the F-35 and F-22 to communicate at high speed with other users.Credit: NASA

TTNT is an Internet protocol (IP)- based system developed by Rockwell Collins. It is designed to be built into a fighter's radio system and provide data rates at up to 2 megabits/sec. over ranges of 100 naut. mi. It uses statistical models to manage throughput, assigning capacity to the highest-priority data, and is claimed to be compatible with LPI techniques.

The F-35 has also undergone changes. In late 2004, the interoperability key performance parameter (KPP) in the specification was changed to "net ready." Before the change, the F-35 was intended to be compatible with a 2010 command-and-control system. Now, it is expected to be ready for an IP environment.

The F-35 will be equipped with Link 16 in addition to MADL. There are, however, two limitations to that technology. Link 16 is not LPI: Briefings show the F-35 using it before ingress and after leaving hostile territory. The F-35's "first-day VLO" philosophy may allow for more use of Link 16 when it operates in non-VLO configurations later in the campaign, with external weapons. And Link 16 can't carry the kind of data the F-35 can gather.

The F-35 is intended to carry a broadband beyond-line-of-sight satcoms link, but that part of the program is delayed. The satcoms link was originally supposed to work with the Defense Dept.'s UHF Follow-On satellites, but these will mostly be dead by the time the F-35 is in service in large numbers. The fighter will now be equipped for the next-generation MUOS (Mobile User Objective System) satellites. In the process, the satcoms system has slipped from Block 3 -- the full operational capability standard for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) to be reached at the end of systems development and demonstration (SDD) -- to Block 4, which is expected to be in service by 2015.

To meet the "net-ready" KPP, the F-35 will eventually be equipped with TTNT. This is not part of the baseline program but is likely to be part of an early post-SDD block. However, that system has a limitation: No aircraft other than the F-35 and the F-22 use it. The result is that these two VLO platforms will be supported in service with the U.S. Air Force by a new airborne system, known as Objective Gateway. This will be a high-flying, standoff platform that receives signals from TTNT, Link 16 and many other formats -- including battlefield radios and UAV control links -- and translates them into other formats and rebroadcasts them.

Objective Gateway is a descendant of a late-1990s project from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called Airborne Communications Node (ACN), which led to a Northrop Grumman program called Battlefield ACN (BACN). The prototype BACN was demonstrated in JEFX-06, in the weapons bay of a Cold War spy plane, a General Dynamics WB-57F. BACN incorporates elements of a Northrop Grumman concept called Advanced Information Architecture, which relies on the plummeting cost and rocketing performance of electronic memory. Rather than sitting in the sky, dumbly receiving and transmitting data and hogging bandwidth, BACN stores information and provides it to the user on demand.

A next-generation communications node payload is being installed on a leased Gulfstream business jet at the Navy's Patuxent River, Md., flight-test center. It appears that this payload (also known as BACN Spiral 2) will connect the TTNT-equipped F-22 to the network in JEFX-08. The next-generation BACN suite supports a USAF-Navy Joint Capability Technology Demonstration known as Cable (Communications Air-Borne Layer Expansion), which is intended to lead not only to further demonstrations but also to an interim operational capability. USAF is looking to install Cable on business jets, while the Navy is considering placing it on board E-6B Mercury aircraft, originally designed to communicate with submerged submarines.

In the long run, Cable leads to USAF's Objective Gateway, which is meant to be small and power-thrifty enough to be carried on a Global Hawk UAV -- the WB-57 version weighs 6,000 lb. A 2006 USAF presentation shows BACN Spiral 3 on a Gulfstream, with Spiral 4 tested on a Global Hawk in 2010 and an internal system in 2012. The deployment of such a system, however, will depend on the availability of Global Hawk assets, as well as the ability of developers to halve the system's bulk.

This raises questions. Unless they are operating as part of a coalition with the U.S., and the U.S. has gateway systems in the theater, export JSF operators will be confined to the slow and questionably stealthy Link 16. It also means that the F-22 and F-35 need support from a new, and so far not fully-funded platform to connect at optimal speed to a network.

As the Pentagon's Fiscal 2008 budget request notes, "the type of networking projected to meet . . . tactical requirements is not supported by network theory, network design nor analysis tools."

Network-centric is a longer and harder road than most people think.

[G-LOC]

O F-35 é caro, está ficando mais caro, e é inferior a boa parte dos caças de 4ª geração no quesito envelope de vôo. Aí vem a descoberta de sistemas que já estão em uso faz tempo ou a HMD´s, sem o HUD, medida de economia porca. Se o HMD falhar por qualquer motivo, você tem o HUD, já no F-35 se por qualquer motivo o HMD quebrar, o piloto ejeta é joga o F-35 no lixo. Pagar 200 milhões num caça que nem HUD tem.
[ ]´s

As informações do HUD podem ser mostradas nas telas da cabina. Aeronaves biposto já fazem isso diariamente.
Também nunca foi premissa de projeto que o F-35 superasse outros caças em desempenho.
Esse custo do F-35 está cheirando a desinformação "barata".

G-LOC

[PRick]

O F-35 é caro, está ficando mais caro, e é inferior a boa parte dos caças de 4ª geração no quesito envelope de vôo. Aí vem a descoberta de sistemas que já estão em uso faz tempo ou a HMD´s, sem o HUD, medida de economia porca. Se o HMD falhar por qualquer motivo, você tem o HUD, já no F-35 se por qualquer motivo o HMD quebrar, o piloto ejeta é joga o F-35 no lixo. Pagar 200 milhões num caça que nem HUD tem.
[ ]´s

As informações do HUD podem ser mostradas nas telas da cabina. Aeronaves biposto já fazem isso diariamente.
Também nunca foi premissa de projeto que o F-35 superasse outros caças em desempenho.
Esse custo do F-35 está cheirando a desinformação "barata".

G-LOC

As telas da cabine fazem o piloto ter que desviar a atenção externa, portanto, implica em perda de qualidade.

Quanto aos 200 milhões por aeronave. Olha quem deu a desinformação barata, segundo você.

200 milhões por aeronave.

Se você, ao menos tivesse o trabalho de ler os posts anteriores, não estaria gastando seu tempo e o teclado sobre os 200 milhões de dólares por cada F-35, olha lá a notícia postada antes.

[ ]´s

[G-LOC]

As telas da cabine fazem o piloto ter que desviar a atenção externa, portanto, implica em perda de qualidade.

Quanto aos 200 milhões por aeronave. Olha quem deu a desinformação barata, segundo você.

Com um HUD ou HMD com pane a aeronave volta para a base. Não vai precisar ejetar como vc disse e agora quer desviar o assunto. A FAB tem caça voando sem HUD e MFD até hoje.

200 milhões inclui custo de desenvolvimento o que não é vendido. No caso da FAB só conta o custo de fabricação e por isso continua desinformando (fácil de perceber com frases curtas = custa 200milhões, sem HUD, pouco manobrável etc).

G-LOC

[Penguin]

As telas da cabine fazem o piloto ter que desviar a atenção externa, portanto, implica em perda de qualidade.

Quanto aos 200 milhões por aeronave. Olha quem deu a desinformação barata, segundo você.

Com um HUD ou HMD com pane a aeronave volta para a base. Não vai precisar ejetar como vc disse e agora quer desviar o assunto. A FAB tem caça voando sem HUD e MFD até hoje.

200 milhões inclui custo de desenvolvimento o que não é vendido. No caso da FAB só conta o custo de fabricação e por isso continua desinformando (fácil de perceber com frases curtas = custa 200milhões, sem HUD, pouco manobrável etc).

G-LOC

Ele sabe que os USD 200mi se referem a um pacote para Israel com N itens.

Assim como o Rafale oferecido ao Marrocos (segundo Janes, DID, Defense Talk e outras fontes especializadas, incluindo francesas) estava orcado em mais de USD 170mi a unidade. Nao ha duvidas que eh pacote. Caca de 4a a preco de 5a e sem AESA. Marrocos preferiu ficar com F-16C block 52+ a USD 100mi (pacote).

[]s

[Anderson TR]

Americanos aprovam venda de F-35B para Israel
25 F-35 (mais 50 opções) deverão receber o OK em outubro


Segundo a imprensa de Israel, as autoridades militares dos EUA acertaram a venda a Israel de um lote de 25 unidades do caça stealth F-35B. A aquisição de um lote de 25 unidades prevê a opção para mais 50, o que poderia levar o valor da aquisição a US$ 6 bilhões, ou US$ 15 bilhões, considerando todos os custos operacionais com a utilização das aeronaves.

O F-35B é a versão do caça stealth norte-americano especialmente desenhada para permitir operações de decolagem vertical. A aeronave é, por isso, adequada para operação a partir de porta-aviões pequenos que dependem de uma rampa ski-jump para facilitar sua utilização, sendo considerado como o substituto do caça subsônico Harrier/Sea Harrier.

Os militares de Israel demonstraram mais interesse por essa versão do F-35 especialmente pela grande flexibilidade que a aeronave permite na sua utilização. O avião pode pousar em qualquer lugar e reabastecer, desde que tenha combustível e armas por perto.

Com o aumento das ameaças, nomeadamente por parte do Irã, que tem alegadamente um programa de enriquecimento de urânio para a produção de armas nucleares, Israel considera que suas bases aéreas seriam seriamente danificadas, ou inutilizadas, numa primeira fase de um combate e após um ataque nuclear iraniano.

O caça F-35 tem sido alvo de muitas críticas, que colocam em causa as suas prestações. Alegadamente, o F-35 é mais lento e menos manobrável que os concorrentes, não transportando a mesma carga de armamentos.

Já segundo os fabricantes e os militares da USAF, comparar o F-35 com aeronaves parecidas não faz sentido, porque o principal argumento do F-35 não é a velocidade e a capacidade de transportar armas, mas sim, a capacidade de se movimentar de forma quase invisível aos radares inimigos.

Num dogfight da II Guerra Mundial, o F-35 estaria condenado a perder. Mas as táticas de utilização da aeronave têm em consideração todos esses fatores. O F-35 deve atacar aeronaves inimigas antes que estas o detectem. O F-35 pode lançar mísseis que mergulham em direção ao solo e seguem uma rota pré-determinada antes de, novamente, se dirigirem para os seus alvos. Quando o avião inimigo detectar os mísseis que vêm na sua direção, o F-35 que os lançou voltou para a base e não chegará a aparecer nos radares, adiantam os responsáveis do fabricante.

[Anderson TR]