Except for the fact that almost all the currency requirements require the use of weapons systems and real captive carry missiles minus the warhead and rocket motor.

I really do not see and use of an aircraft that does not have weapons systems.

Stupid question but is captive weapons carry designed to replicate control feel with a combat loaded aircraft?

What a boondoggle

I'm not the best to answer, but I think that replicating control feel is a ways down the priority list since the jets aren't launching with a CATM on every station where they would have a weapon in combat ops.

They need the capability to interface with weapons, even if the weapons don't have motors or warheads.

Avionics has to be there to be able to incorporate seeker behavior.

Weapons integration is always an ongoing process with every fighter back as far an anyone can remember.

Every time a new model or block upgrade is made to Air Intercept Missiles or bombs, they have to be validated by operational test and evaluation units, then have the avionics upgraded across the fleet of the aircraft that will be made compatible with that weapons upgrade.

Even with dumb bombs, they had to be tested and validated at different speeds, flight regimes, stores configurations, and altitudes.

It gets even more complex with AIMs and PGMs.  Look at the video of the F-35 testing AIM-9X, where they included barrel roll launches even with separation happening when the aircraft was inverted.

Like every other aircraft out there, the F-35 will never be finished with systems and weapons integration.

The real main difference with the F-35 vs the F-16, for example, when looking at costs, is that all of the ancillary and follow-on systems that ended up on or in the F-16, have some type of equivalent and more integrated into the F-35.

That includes IR and RF detection, tracking, and targeting, as well as advanced self-protection features.

In addition to those, you have low observable surfaces and internals, more sensors, and a radar that is in an entirely different generational leap over what's in the F-16.

That they are able to deliver at the current unit costs should be hailed as a major accomplishment, rather than ridiculed by those who don't know what is under the hood of this aircraft.  It's very ambitious across the board.

Perhaps.  I don’t really know what all is missing in the airframes to know what the limitations would be.  If you do I’ll defer to you.

not at all

only one an AIM 9 captive is required to have a seeker that recycles. The systems do not need a radar seeker head to train with, it is all internal to the aircraft

I dont know what is missing either, but if it isnt full up, there really isnt much that can be done with training.

It would be like training in a chevy vega for a formula one race

That’s, what I was thinking, how do you train someone to fight as well as fly, when the fight parts do not function?

I can see your STEALTH

If they don't have the money or don't want to spend the money to upgrade the software to current specs then why would you think they would spend the money to create an entirely new set of software programming to make them into "trainers"?

Blasting your way to Moscow with SRAMS would of been the best way to experience the end of the world.

At the same time the Air Force is recalling 1,000 pilots back to service to fly what aircraft?

A desk.

Guys like warpusher have no idea what airpower really is.  You need a pilot.

I used to have a really good chart from NASA that illustrated the cost of incorporating requirements early on in the lifecycle. This wasn't it but it is close.

So true...If only I had good eyesight at 20 years old and a fetish for scarves, zippers, and patches to go along with a Central Colorado School School for Wayward Youth education.