F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread

[Jeff Head]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

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LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. - The buildup of F-35 operations at Luke Air Force Base has begun, and the Royal
Australian air force will soon be Luke's first international partner to train here on the F-35A Lightning II. The 61st Fighter Squadron and 61st Aircraft Maintenance Unit will house the RAAF personnel. The goal is to build a cohesive, working understanding of the F-35A program with Luke's international partners for increased success in joint operations.

"It's one more step in the long road to making this aircraft combat capable," said Capt. Dan Langan, 61st AMU officer in-charge. "The idea is in future conflicts nobody is going to be going at it alone. We'll have our allies with us. The idea behind this aircraft was to make it easier to operate with our multinational partners, understand the same tactics, operate with the same logistics base, and figuring out how to do that starts right here. We are laying the foundation and it's pretty exciting to be on the ground floor of that effort."

Luke will act as ground zero for international partners to build their expertise in F-35A operations. The RAAF is the first partner to start their spin-up operations and are expecting their first aircraft by the end of this year.

"We are really pleased to come in and be the first partner to stand up operations here," said squadron leader Maj. Nathan Draper, 61st AMU participant maintenance liaison officer and RAAF senior officer. "We are pretty lucky to get to come here first."

The RAAF plans to eventually have 14 aircraft at Luke, with their goal to have a complete working picture of U.S. Air Force F-35 operations, then return to the home base they are setting up for the F-35. "One of the biggest things I hope to achieve is the successful transition of our aircraft from the production line to the Luke training environment and the commencement of training operations alongside our Air Force colleagues," Draper said. "If we can do that in a safe and efficient streamlined manner, leveraging the Air Force processes and systems, it will be a pretty good day."

The RAAF expects their first pilot to arrive at Luke the beginning of next year. Draper is part of an acquisition project called Joint Strike Fighter Division, and he now considers himself a team member of the 61st AMU. "We have a really good, close working relationship with our colleges in the Air Force, and we are looking forward to the next few years of joint operations here," he said.

Luke's relationship with the RAAF goes back a long way. Air Marshal Mark Binskin, soon to be the top Australian Defence Force officer, was stationed at Luke in the late 80s. Follow-on squadrons, to include the 62nd, are scheduled to bring in
additional partner countries including Italy, Norway, Canada, Turkey and the Netherlands.

Luke AFB will ultimately be home to 144 US Air Force F-35As.

Here's a picture of two USAF F-16s escporting the arrival of Luke AFB's first USAF F-35A arrival in March of this year.

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[valapak]

Re: Shenyang J-31 Fighter

The F-35 is not as bad as advertised; there are some key design flaws with the F-35, for instance, the aircraft layout resulted in two separated weapons bays, which increases the aircraft weight and reduces its payload capability, and the F-35 is not designed for cutting edge maneuverability; it's designed to use a combination of sensors, active, and passive defenses to defeat enemy aircraft in WVR.

The last remaining advantage the J-31 has over the F-35 is that the J-31 has a larger and unitary weapons bay. The F-35, due to its single-engine design, maintains two separate weapons bays with a maximum munitions length of about 4.3 meters. The J-31, on the other hand, maintains a single weapons bay with a bay length of around 4.7 meters, allowing the J-31 to carry not only more, but also more capable munitions than the F-35. For example, with some modification, the Kh-15 Kickback will fit in the J-31. That's a 300 km range missile with a supersonic terminal trajectory. Compare the Joint Strike Missile, which also has 300 km range, but is subsonic throughout its flight path.

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Also please do note, the J-18 likely does not exist and is a rumor used to make fools out of overly enthusiastic fanboys. Chengdu is working on the J-20 project, while Shenyang is working on the J-31 project. There is no one left to work on the J-18 project, and China doesn't have much to gain from STOVL stealth fighters. Unlike the United States and Japan, China does not have a significant fleet of light carriers from which to operate STOVLs, whereas the United States has more than 9 light carriers and Japan has helicopter carriers that can be converted to operate F-35Bs.

but, when you have to carryc cruise missiles or bigger weapons, you need to install external weapon stations at the hardpoints. when you do this, your jet is not so stealthy anymore. the F-35 can carry mid paveways and MK84 bombs along with anti air, but the range of targets is not very big, because the F-35 cant carry mavericks or the joint strike missile (when im wrong with the JSM pls correct) for tanks

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Re: Shenyang J-31 Fighter

F35 Can carry two JSM's internally. Some of the Radar cross section issues may be resolved for F35 series with the application of wing mounted stealthy weapons pods akin to the center line pod seen on the Advanced Super Hornet but as yet the majority of F35's weapons are external limiting the RCS reduction.

 

[Inst]

Re: Shenyang J-31 Fighter

The F-35 can operate JSMs internally. Its weapons bays were actually designed to load up JSOWs, a 4.2 meter long glide bomb. And British F-35s will be able to launch 4 Brimstone ATGMs from internal bays while carrying 2 Meteor BVRAAMs internally. For whatever you can fault the F-35, it's a pretty decent bomb truck.

 

[kwaigonegin]

Re: Shenyang J-31 Fighter

but, when you have to carryc cruise missiles or bigger weapons, you need to install external weapon stations at the hardpoints. when you do this, your jet is not so stealthy anymore. the F-35 can carry mid paveways and MK84 bombs along with anti air, but the range of targets is not very big, because the F-35 cant carry mavericks or the joint strike missile (when im wrong with the JSM pls correct) for tanks

The F-35 is probably not going to fly low level attack profiles pounding mud like the A-10 or attack choppers so missiles like the HellFire, Maverick etc would not be the most ideal. It carries things like the JSM, JSOW for long range attack but most likely in A2G role I would say 90% of the time the F-35 will probably be dropping bombs.. either SDB type or the Paveways like you said in the form of JDAMs etc

 

[Jeff Head]

Re: Shenyang J-31 Fighter

...but the range of targets is not very big, because the F-35 cant carry mavericks or the joint strike missile (when im wrong with the JSM pls correct) for tanks

This is off topic, but valapak, you should probably do more research before you make such statements here on SD.

The Maverick missile itself is extremely short ranged...only 12-15 miles. So not carrying the Maverick is no indication about a lack of long range air to ground capabilities of the F-35.

FYI, in late 2013, Norway successfully conducted

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. It will be able to carry two of these advanced anti-surface missiles in its weapons bays (one in each bay) along with two AMRAAM missiles in each bay as well. If they so desire, more JSMs will be able to be carried on its external pylons...up to four JSMs altogether. The JSM has a 125kg warhead and a 290 km range, so it is defintely a long range ASM.

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All of this has been discussed on the F-35 thread.

Now...back on topic about the J-31.

 

[Jeff Head]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Just to reiterate it here should someone wonder or question it, and becasue it was raised on another thread by a new member:

...but the range of targets is not very big, because the F-35 cant carry mavericks or the joint strike missile (when im wrong with the JSM pls correct) for tanks

The Maverick missile itself is extremely short ranged...only 12-15 miles. So not carrying the Maverick is no indication about a lack of long range air to ground capabilities of the F-35.

However, in late 2013, Norway successfully conducted

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. It will be able to carry two of these advanced anti-surface missiles in its weapons bays (one in each bay) along with two AMRAAM missiles in each bay as well. If they so desire, more JSMs will be able to be carried on its external pylons...up to four JSMs altogether. The JSM has a 125kg warhead and a 290 km range, so it is defintely a long range ASM.

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This is a signifcant capability. A 5th generation stealth aircraft carrying and firing 2-4 5th generation stealth ASMs.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Maverick is one of the Three systems intended for replacement by the Joint Air to ground missile system the other two being Hellfire, and Tow. However the range of that system is only listed as 5 miles. but only from a rotary wing.

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given that limitation? I think the better option would be the Brimstone II system which reaches out to 37 miles.

 

[Jeff Head]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Maverick is one of the Three systems intended for replacement by the Joint Air to ground missile system the other two being Hellfire, and Tow. However the range of that system is only listed as 5 miles. but only from a rotary wing.

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given that limitation? I think the better option would be the Brimstone II system which reaches out to 37 miles.

Yes...but specifically for the F-35, I am more interested in the Royal Air Force moving forward with the Spear 3 derrivitive of the brimstone.

With that, they initially envisioned a 55 mile range ASM specifically for the F-35, with a 220 lb warhead. I believe since that time they are now tallking about a 75 mile range for this beast.

It would be 2.2 meters long, fly at a high-subsonic speed, and incorporate a multimode seeker with INS/GPS guidance and a datalink. This would nbe very nice indeed!

They are supposed to conduct flight trials here in 2014 off of the Typhoon. And get this...they are talking about carrying four of these babies in each F-35 bay, packaged along with a Meteor air-to-air missile in each internal bay too. Eight 75 mile range guided missiles, each with a 220 lb warhead, along with two very decent A2A missiles, all carreid in stealth mode.

Now that sounds outstanding! Go Brits go!

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Yes my Friend... I would love to see those adopted by the US, a missile like that on the Apache Guardian with Commonality to other platforms would be a excellent replacement for the Hellfire and Tow.
And Imagine Meteors on American F35's and F22's.