64 F-35 at my calculations comes at approximately 5 Billion dollars, this is excluding spare parts and training. Finland military complete spending/defense budget for 2019 was $3.97B.
Edit: Actually it seems my calculations where off by 50%. This will cost you 10 Billion...
"Audit clears Finnish F-35 buy amid rising spending on pandemic, Ukraine"
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/03/28/audit-c...
Source: https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/the-lockheed-martin-f-35a-lig...
How are you qualifying whether or not this system is proven?
The reality is that the fight was not fair for the F16 that was loaded with two external fuel tanks, probably to make sure there was no way it could win.
The latest arguments are the F35 did not have yet all the latest software, but for me it's telling the fight was not re-staged again...
Can you describe what you mean by this? Are you suggesting that no F-35 has ever been used in combat operations?
> when trying to do a dogfight with a F16 lost
What's your source for this?
> but for me it's telling the fight was not re-staged again...
Be careful, we're getting close to sounding conspiratorial and we want to make sure to avoid that, because we can't have a discussion at that point.
Yes. Complete zero air superiority combat missions as with the exception of bombing a few ISIS tunnels. But as this article from 2021 mentions, its not combat if the enemy can't shoot back.
"...The United States has been at war continuously since Sept. 11, 2001, yet the F-35 has flown zero combat missions. Zero. When I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, we would say: “That dog don’t hunt.” Perhaps sensitive to the F-35’s disgraceful war record, in 2018 the Pentagon sent a few on missions in Afghanistan and Iraq to notch up combat cred. Never mind that their help comes 15 years too late; the super-expensive F-35 was not designed to take out a weapons cache or a terrorist on a moped. Also, as any grunt will tell you, it’s not “combat” if the enemy can’t shoot back. If engine failure is the biggest threat to survival, then the F-35 might as well be flying over Kansas..."
"The F-35 tells everything that’s broken in the Pentagon" https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/542412-the-f-3...
> when trying to do a dogfight with a F16 lost > What's your source for this?
My source are US F35 pilots...Note how somebody tried to undermine the F16 ( An airplane from the 80's) in the test
"Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight" https://warisboring.com/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-dog...
"...The F-35 was flying “clean,” with no weapons in its bomb bay or under its wings and fuselage. The F-16, by contrast, was hauling two bulky underwing drop tanks, putting the older jet at an aerodynamic disadvantage..."
"...But the JSF’s advantage didn’t actually help in the end. The stealth fighter proved too sluggish to reliably defeat the F-16, even with the F-16 lugging extra fuel tanks. “Even with the limited F-16 target configuration, the F-35A remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement,” the pilot reported..."
"And when the pilot of the F-16 turned the tables on the F-35, maneuvering to put the stealth plane in his own gunsight, the JSF jockey found he couldn’t maneuver out of the way, owing to a “lack of nose rate.”"
"...The F-35 pilot came right out and said it — if you’re flying a JSF, there’s no point in trying to get into a sustained, close turning battle with another fighter. “There were not compelling reasons to fight in this region.” God help you if the enemy surprises you and you have no choice but to turn..."
> Be careful, we're getting close to sounding conspiratorial and we want to make sure to avoid that, because we can't have a discussion at that point.
Did they re-stage the fight? No
I provided my sources. Yeah...very conspiratorial...
As I said, you are approaching that with this idea that the F-35 is this big cover-up. It can't "fight", etc. etc. and I just do not have any interest in treading water near that discussion. It's not at all interesting or valuable in any way.
Anyway:
> Yes. Complete zero air superiority combat missions as with the exception of bombing a few ISIS tunnels. But as this article from 2021 mentions, its not combat if the enemy can't shoot back.
> "...The United States has been at war continuously since Sept. 11, 2001, yet the F-35 has flown zero combat missions. Zero. When I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, we would say: “That dog don’t hunt.” Perhaps sensitive to the F-35’s disgraceful war record, in 2018 the Pentagon sent a few on missions in Afghanistan and Iraq to notch up combat cred. Never mind that their help comes 15 years too late; the super-expensive F-35 was not designed to take out a weapons cache or a terrorist on a moped. Also, as any grunt will tell you, it’s not “combat” if the enemy can’t shoot back. If engine failure is the biggest threat to survival, then the F-35 might as well be flying over Kansas..."
Just because the F-35 hasn't flown an air-to-air combat mission doesn't mean that it hasn't been involved in combat. You're misunderstanding the role of the aircraft here and defining combat in such a way that unless there's an exact engagement that fits your criteria it can't possible be combat. That's not how anyone in the military actually understands combat. It's not binary, but a matter of degrees.
So not only has the F-35 flown combat missions, the missions it has flown which haven't been dogfights are exactly the kind of missions it was designed for. It's a multi-role fighter, there are different variants for different purposes, including battlefield C&C and target identification where the F-35 isn't even expected to engage but instead use sensors and identify enemy aircraft.
> My source are US F35 pilots...Note how somebody tried to undermine the F16 ( And airplane from the 80's) in the test
That doesn't make anyone an expert. I'm a military veteran - I just have an opinion on the systems I use. It's still an anecdote. Anyway here's another anecdote which contradicts your anecdotes.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/remember-f-16-killed-...
"“I was at Edwards Air Force Base when the test pilots were there and they were writing that original report. It’s been the narrative ever since and I want to say a few things about that. . . . First of all, it should be noted the aircraft (F-35) was in its infancy stages and we were still just trying to learn how to fly the airplane,” Chris “Worm” Spinelli, an F-35 test pilot for Lockheed Martin, told the National Interest. “The entire CLAW [Flight Control Laws] hadn’t been delivered yet so the guys hadn’t really developed tactics, techniques, and procedures, etc. So to say that the F-35 can’t Basic Flight Maneuver [a term for dogfight], I think, is a gross overstatement. Honestly, you know I think it would be quite eye-opening to see an F-35 and an F-16 in a BFM engagement, depending on how it was managed. Certainly, the F-35 has some advantages that the F-16 does not, particularly in its helmet integration, along with its advanced weapons, which are a lot more beneficial in platforms like the F-22 or F-35.”"
The problem here is that you are thinking about aircraft in conventional terms. To the author and this pilot's point, the F-35's goal is to not even engage in a dogfight. It's like arguing that an Army Ranger is a crappy soldier because they can't beat a samurai 1-1. Can a dogfight happen? Sure. But you shoot from far away and the samurai doesn't even know what hit them.
> Did they re-stage the fight? No
Do you know of every single thing that the US military does? Do they publish all reports 100% accurately? Maybe they're publishing info like this so that rival forces feel secure in not upgrading their aircraft? There's no value in re-staging this exact scenario.
tl;dr you are implying that these is this big cover-up and the F-35 can't "beat" a 40+ year old platform and all of this stuff and basing it off of, frankly, no real evidence. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't really know either, but I'm not making strong claims here.
The article you posted was written as a first person account, by a non military Pilot, ex-FoxNews reporter, ex-CNN reporter, ex-Pentagon procurement expert. I quoted the actual F-35 pilot involved in the dogfight with the F-16.
The overall F-35 program is bigger than the PIB of some countries, so from the beginning when the bad news started to come up, there was a strong incentive to present the program on a certain way.
"U.S. Air Force instructs airmen on exactly how to praise the F-35": https://fortune.com/2015/09/25/air-force-f-35/
I think by now the US Air Force already understood the program is a failure.
"The U.S. Air Force Just Admitted The F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed": https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/02/23/the-us-air-...
Finnish air-force is quite professional and skilled in what it does.
As a software geek I presume they spent the money wisely and with sufficient knowledge of what they are doing. Norway has 24 F-35:s in operation so if there were obvious deficiencies those would likely have been heard over the grapevine as nordic forces are quite close.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/02/23/the-us-air-...