Different stealth airplanes. Some documentaries that celebrate Raptor and F35 as technical marvel (highly complex). I have not really observed any maintenance difference or break throughout between F22 and F35.
And nobody really provided any solid numbers. If numbers are good, it would be easy to prove.
There is a lawsuit going in Switzerland. Swiss do not believe official maintenance cost.
Other countries (Japan and South Korea) have stealth program that has similar issues. Some disagreements with F35. South Korea fighter should cost 30% of F35 maintenance. But that goes into spare parts and features, not coating...
And frankly Russian program ran into a lot of troubles and cost overruns with stealth fighters. I believe Russians have better science and technical knowledge to deliver such airplane cheaply (without software integration). And they did not made any breakthrough that would magically reduce maintenance costs.
So you don't have any evidence (solid or otherwise) that backs up your claim about the F-35 requiring a "complete overhaul" after each flight. Do we even know where the maintenance costs go to?
I also fail to see how the Russians are in a better position to build a stealth plane (cheaply or otherwise) when historically they've always been behind the US in that regard.
Anyway, opinions aside, big claims should be backed up with evidence and I'm not seeing anything that supports the idea that the F-35 needs that level of maintenance.
I wrote "extensive overhaul". I guess better wording would be "extensive inspection and coating overhaul". Far from "quick refuel/arm and launch" original post wrote.
F-35 has internal bomb bays, and those have to be opened and closed to add bombs. Those have to be resealed to maintain stealth. It has polymer based coating, how that stuff survives transsonic speeds with friction and heat?
F-22 maintenance cost was quoted at $72000 per flight hour (10 years ago). Stealth used as main cause. Is F-35 somehow different or cheaper?
Russians do not have cost overruns and technical feature creep, the way US does. Go ask on military forums. Problem are finances, not science.
Anyway, I do not believe claim that F-35 needs extensive and expensive maitenance is somehow extraordinary. "Overhaul" of stealth coat cold be some spray on stuff and inspection.
F-35 has a long track of cost overruns and proper maintenance cost is yet unknown.
While attempting to quote your post, I ended up quoting your quote of another comment, hence the "complete overhaul", not "extensive overhaul". My bad.
You're doing a lot of guesswork to reach your conclusions. You have no idea which parts of the F-22 are more fragile and require frequent changes or if the F-35 uses the same materials as the F-22. You're assuming that flaws from the F-22 haven't been fixed for the F-35. We have no idea if there's a problem with the F-35's internal bays, but you assume they need fixing before flying again. And to use your example, I'm not sure if spraying some foam can be consider "extensive overhaul".
You have conjecture, but no evidence, which is a problem as we can reach many conclusions that way. The maintenance costs for example... where you see evidence of a flawed plane, someone else sees evidence of corruption. Everyone's guessing and guessing isn't enough to change my mind.
Regarding Russia's capabilities, historically every country has been better at certain things. The Soviet Union created good SAMs and radars, but they've never been known for having the best computer chips or best stealth. It has nothing to do with feature creep, it's just that some are better than others at some things.
Military forums do a lot of guessing and assuming, which can make it a good echo chamber. Even people in the military have no idea what's being worked on at Skunk Works or the Chinese or Russian equivalent.
For this reason, the aircraft exterior coating, panels, seams, are inspected after each flight, to look for anything that might affect the jet's stealthiness, identifying any damage or scratches. Removing sand particles and dirt that settle on the aircraft surfaces and may turn into abrasions of the coating.
So you have to inspect the plane to make sure that stealth isn't compromised. How long does an inspection take? How often do they have to fix scratches?
The only long maintenance mentioned there is the washing of the plane every 3 months. It takes them 2 days by hand (even though some do it with a machine?) and this is mostly to maintain stealth.
Maybe I have a different definition of what "extensive" means, but this doesn't sound like "extensive overhaul after every flight".
I'll leave the discussion after this comment. We're just guessing here and going nowhere.
