It is claimed that a fighter without radar can still function and fly as a fully operational aircraft. For this to work, it must be used alongside others with full equipment and the ability to transmit data.
facepalm
That is… wow. I’m honestly pretty baffled by this call. I don’t think these would be useful anywhere outside of the continental US, tbh. And I’d be shocked if delivery of these are accepted if they’re going to try to give them to any non-US customers with pending orders.
It sucks but I kinda get it. You can’t get radars yet and the more the planes sit around a production line the longer it takes for the units to do acceptance inspections, train technicians and get pilots seat time. A plane without a radar is still a plane, and maybe with all the data sharing abilities it can be worked around. Absolutely not combat capable though
It’s incredible how it came to this. And this is peacetime production and logistics!
Idk maybe they should commit to this strategy and start shipping the planes to customers without the wings either, it would save a large amount of storage space for customers after all.