{"id":180624,"date":"2017-02-26T22:13:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T03:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/02\/26\/another-thing-that-the-mistake-jet-cannot-do\/"},"modified":"2017-02-26T22:13:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T03:13:00","slug":"another-thing-that-the-mistake-jet-cannot-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/02\/26\/another-thing-that-the-mistake-jet-cannot-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Thing That the Mistake Jet Cannot Do"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that after years of development, and billions of dollars, <a href=\"http:\/\/aviationweek.com\/combat-aircraft\/f-35-excels-destroying-targets-if-they-don-t-move\">the F-35 cannot hit a moving target<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Despite being among the most technologically advanced low-observable warplanes on the planet, the Lockheed Martin F-35 has one significant shortcoming. The Joint Strike Fighter cannot strike moving ground targets using the targeting system and weapons loadout delivered in its final combat Lightning II configuration, Block 3F.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The challenge is the F-35 is currently unable to lead a target with its laser designator to compensate for movement. This means the aircraft is limited to striking fixed or slow-moving objects&nbsp; such as the surface-to-air missiles it has proven so skilled at destroying in Red Flag exercises.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The F-35 has already entered service with the U.S. Marine Corps (F-35B Block 2B) and Air Force (F-35A Block 3i), equipped with the laser-guided 500-lb. Raytheon\/Lockheed GBU-12 Paveway II and GPS\/IMU-guided 2,000- and 1,000-lb. <a href=\"http:\/\/awin.aviationweek.com\/OrganizationProfiles.aspx?orgId=12083\">Boeing<\/a> GBU-31\/32 <a href=\"http:\/\/awin.aviationweek.com\/ProgramProfileDetails.aspx?pgId=1071&amp;pgName=Boeing+JDAM\">Joint Direct Attack Munition<\/a> (JDAM). Block 3F will add the 1,000-lb. Raytheon AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (F-35C), 250-lb. Boeing GBU-39 Small-Diameter Bomb Increment 1 (F-35A), and the United Kingdom\u2019s 500-lb. Raytheon UK Paveway IV (F-35B). <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Those weapons can take out fixed or stationary targets, but not fast-movers such as tanks, trucks or mobile command posts. They would have some utility against relocatable, slow-moving targets if the F-35 had a lead-laser capability, which comes standard in modern targeting pods fielded on legacy, nonstealthy combat fighters and bombers. Weapons capable of automatically adjusting for so-called Kentucky windage without lead-laser correction will not arrive on the F-35 until the early 2020s as part of the Block 4 follow-on modernization program, under the existing plan.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This has fiasco written all over it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that after years of development, and billions of dollars, the F-35 cannot hit a moving target: Despite being among the most technologically advanced low-observable warplanes on the planet, the Lockheed Martin F-35 has one significant shortcoming. The Joint Strike Fighter cannot strike moving ground targets using the targeting system and weapons loadout delivered &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,381,588,379],"class_list":["post-180624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-defense-procurement","tag-fail","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}