while your launch platform remains within United States airspace. (Or space directly above US airspace.)
Geostationary orbits only exist around the equator. As far as I know, the United States doesn’t have any territory on the equator. Also even in low earth orbit, you’re above what’s considered the upper limit of a country’s airspace so it doesn’t matter if it stays over your country or not.
Great video, but sadly as someone else said, lots of problems with this platform. Hopefully cost overruns will not cause cancellation. Like our gubment has any money anyway…with all the defense cuts and all.
I think the F-35 program needs to be consolidated and put on notice. Cancel the F-35B which has been technically the most difficult aircraft and move forward with the F-35 A/C. I would give L-M 12 months to fix the aircraft and the cost issues and at the end of the 12 months have a competitive flyoff against an upgraded F-18 Super Hornet Block III and perhaps the F-15 Silent Eagle. Competitors would be expected to bring aircraft in its go to war configuration and the winner of the contract would be expected to deliver aircraft within 12 monts.
I think by doing this we reintroduce competition in the system and by guess is that the F-35 problems would be solved. If not, the military still would have a very good and affordable back up option to recapitalize our tactical aviation fleets.
I do realize that there are serious issues with cost, mission, technologies and other factors, but as a vertical flight guy myself, there is something about this machine that just strikes me as one of the coolest developments we’ve ever seen in aviation. True, the Harrier was a heavy hitter in its own right, but the F-35B brings an entirely new measure of capability to the same flight environment. It may indeed make more sense to cancel it in favor of the A/C models, but I hope it survives. Then again, I had a soft spot for the F-23, too … and I picked the wrong horse in the Kentucky Derby this year.
No doubt the F-35B vertical takeoff capabilities are cool but I think the insistance of making a vertical takeoff version of the F-35 really damaged the program. The F-35 had to physically made much bigger and bulkier than necessary to have room to fit a massive lift fan into the plane. The F-35 is very much overweight for a single engine fighter and because of this its flight performance is actually inferior to some of the planes it is supposedly replacing. In addition, the military recently had to relax the performance requirements even more and if you look at its numbers it is an extremely expensive aircraft whose flight performance is on the low end for even a 4th generation aircraft and more similiar to some of the better performing 3rd generation aircraft.
With the Harrier with exception of the verticle take off ability is really not that capable of an aircraft especially for its price. Basically it has the payload and performance capabilities of a 1950s vintage A-4 or F-5. It is far inferior in terms of survivability, loiter time, and payload to the cheaper A-10 in the CAS role. For multi-role work, for similiar price the F-16 offers far superior range, payload, avoinics capability, plus extensive air-air capability.
Personally, I think the F-35 should have been a simple F-16/F-18 replacement and if the services desired a vertical take off capability they should have basically built a more simple low observable attack aircraft with at least A-7 range and payload performance with modern systems.
But the harrier can exist where other aircraft cannot. So it’ll always be better than nothing.
Also, you can’t force a competition after they already won the contract unless it was in the original contact. And in the end, it doesn’t matter if the f18 or f16 outflies an f35. Can either take off from short runways? Can either penetrate IADS without support? Do either simplify aircraft logistics by consolidating 3 services into one aircraft with the majority of parts commonality? If you simulated dogfights (like red flag), it’s kind of hard to kill something that can kill you before you can see it, regardless of almost any other factors.
So while the b variant might be the smallest number of airframes and the most troublesome of the bunch, the program in its entirety definitely has merit.
First off, keep your reality the hell away from my sci-fi.
Second, geosynch can occur at any latitude, you just have to be going to same speed as the world under you. (Which of course affects the altitude of your orbit.)
Third, militarizing space is a delicate proposition and having a military station that as a matter of course will need to pass over sovereign nations that aren’t friendly to you will prove to be a point of contention (because people are stupid). It also would allow such countries to destroy your station with an ASAT and claim that they were simply protecting their sovereignty… effectively committing an overt act of war reducing your military capabilities without offering you a means to retaliate without looking like a bully.
IIRC, the F-35B and F-35C are twin engine. You know, that old sticking point that they had with the YF-16 versus the YF-17 that caused the Navy to further develop the YF-17 (despite losing to the YF-16) into the F/A-18.
Geostationary can’t occur at any latitude for any reasonable amount of time. It has to be over the equator to be in a true/stable orbit. The reason is if you orbit around anything other than the center of mass of the planet earth, you need to constantly expend fuel or the center of mass of the planet will change your orbit. And you’ll probably crash. Edit: I should say, you have to constantly expend fuel at a much greater rate than normal.
A geosynch orbit can be rotated so it passes over places of the planet that aren’t on the equator, but the actual orbit DOES move and it’s not stationary over that point. It just returns to any given point every 24 hrs, but it will cross the equator twice every day in the same spot.
And a stable geosynch orbit cannot be obtained at any altitude, it can only really be at a single altitude. You can technically orbit at any altitude (outside of the atmosphere), but there’s only one spot where your velocity around the planet in a stable orbit also matches the planet’s rotational speed. So it’s theoretically possible to have a LEO and geostationary orbit match if the Earth were rotating much faster.
You can really see the lateral stress that its landing gear has to deal with when landing at 2:54. I wonder how may such cycles those can handle, especially the front gear?
Also, despite 15 years of development and tens of billions of dollars spent, the F-35C can’t even land on a carrier yet due to a defective design. The level of shear incompetence with the F-35 program is mindblowing. Its not like landing from carriers is something new.
