Warship? Those tend to be naval in nature. Gunship or VTOL Transport. Seems more like a continuation of the Sea Stallion / Pave Low, or a blatant rip off of the Marvel Comics Quinjet.

They should partner with Cora and forget drivers/pilots

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Meet-Cora-Working-Electric-Autonomous-VTOL-Plane

Meet Cora-Working Electric Autonomous VTOL Plane has been added as a related post - related requested by newtboy.

Your video, The Lilium Jet – The World's First All-Electric VTOL Jet, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I was disappointed. I was expecting a modified mig-29 with VTOL capabilities. Still impressive, but not as impressive as I expected.

If I'm not mistaken, that's the cover for the VTOL fan that resides right there. Note the outflow vents below aimed rear/downwards for takeoff...I think those move forward and backwards to achieve VTOL, hover, and slow flight. I've never seen it open during forward flight, so I'm not certain, but that seems right.

My post is not hyperbole, but actual personal observation.



You also have to factor in cost+ funding.

On one hand, it's necessary. Because you don't know how much something truly new will cost - you haven't done it before. You'll discover as you go.
It would be unfair to bind a company to a fixed cost, when nobody knows what the cost will be. It's mathematically unreasonable to entertain a fixed cost on new technologies.

(Granted, everyone gives silly lowballed best-case estimates when bidding. Anyone that injects a sense of reality into their bid is too costly and doesn't get the contract).

On the other hand, cost+ means that you make more money by spending more money. So hiring hordes of nobodies for every little task, making 89347589374 different position titles, is only gonna make you more money. There's no incentive to save.



F35 wise, like I said, it's not designed for any war we fight now.
It's designed for a war we could fight in the future.
Because you don't start designing weapons when you're in a war, you give your best effort to have them already deployed, tested, and iterated into a good sustainable state, before the onset of a conflict that could require them.

F35 variations are not complicated. The VTOL variation is the only one with any complexity. The others are no more complex than historical variations from early to late blocks of any given airframe.

The splitting of manufacturing isn't in itself a complication ridden approach. It's rather normal for different companies to work on unrelated systems. Airframe will go somewhere, avionics elsewhere, engine elsewhere, etc. That's basically a given, because different companies specialize in different things.

Keep in mind that the large prime contracts (Lockheed/GD/etc) don't actually "make" many things. They are systems integrators. They farm out the actual development for most pieces (be it in house contractors or external contractors - because they are easy to let go after the main dev is over), and they themselves specialize in stitching the pieces together. Connecting things is not difficult when they are designed with specified ICDs from the get-go. The black boxes just plug up to each other and go.

The issues that arise are often a matter of playing telephone. With one sub needing to coordinate with another sub, but they have to go through the prime, and the prime is filtering everything through a bunch of non-technical managers. Most problems are solved in a day or two when two subs physically get their engineers together and sort out any miscommunications (granted, contracts and process might not allow them the then fix the problem in a timely and affordable manner).

The F22 and F35 issues are not major insurmountable tasks. The hardest flaws are things that can be fixed in a couple months tops on the engineering side. What takes time is the politics. Engineers can't "just fix it". There's no path forward for that kind of work.

Sure, in a magic wonderland you could tell them "here, grab the credit card, buy what you need, make any changes you need, and let us know when you're done" - and a little while later you'd have a collection of non-approved, non-reviewed, non-traceable, non-contractually-covered changes that "just fix the damn thing"... and you'd also have to incur the wrath of entire departments who were denied the opportunity to validate their existence. The 'high paid welfare' system would be all over your ass.

-scheherazade

I, for one, welcome our new VTOL overlords. Great sift for the *kids, this is!

I dont know the exact differences, but I do know that the F35B is fly by Wire, while the Harrier is not. Also the Harrier is extremely hard to fly and there were many accidents involving deaths in VTOL situations. Thats why they only let the best of the best fly these things now, but there are still accidents.
So due to fly by wire, the F35B should be much safer.

Another fun fact is that Lockeed bought the sweep engine technology from the Russian manufacturer Yakovlev, which was developed for their canceled Yak-141.

I've been trying to make that out, but am still confused. Maybe someone who has better info can chime in.
I think the VTOL capability of the F35B is very much inferior to that of the harrier, in that the F35B will only be able to use VTOL to move the plane short distances under a reduced fuel load... I'm guessing without any armament?
It should be able to execute short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) in battle ready condition.

1.8 gigapixel ARGUS-IS. World's highest resolution video surviellience platform by DARPA.
1 million terabytes a day saved forever.

The ARGUS array is made up of several cameras and other types of imaging systems. The output of the imaging system is used to create extremely large, 1.8GP high-resolution mosaic images and video.

The U.S. Army, along with
Boeing, has developed and is preparing to deploy a new unmanned aircraft
called the “Hummingbird.” It’s is a VTOL-UAS (vertical take-off and
landing unmanned aerial system). Three of them are being deployed to
Afghanistan for a full year to survey and spy on Afghanistan from an
altitude of 20,000 feet with the ability to scan 25 square miles of
ground surface.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e95_1359267780

the equivalent of 100 predator drones looking at one place AT ONCE ... hahah they stole my idea

Live Free or Die Hard lost it for me with the F35 scenes. Granted they were all that and a box of CGI, but the whole idea of the JSF doing battle in VTOL mode just made me flashback to Battlefield 2.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by ReverendTed.