SouthernSky
Junior Member
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
I'll continue to take the long view on the F-35 thunderchief.
I'll continue to take the long view on the F-35 thunderchief.
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
The F-35s have not really even gotten going yet. They are going to be around a long time, and they are going to be the most situational aware and network centric fighter/attack aircraft in history, along with their stealth and other capabilities.
When that is all fully developed together and taken advantage of...nothing else is going to be able to touch it.
The Super Hornets and the coming Advanced Super Hornets are going to be great...but they are a patch to get us over the hump. The Growlers are also going to do what they do and do it very well. But they both will take a seat long before the F-35 service life is over. It will be the F-35s that lead the US Navy and Air Force and Marines (and other allies) into the second half of this century and the ultimate generation 6 aircraft...which will be developed based on that we learn from the F-35 experience.
And well you should.I'll continue to take the long view on the F-35 thunderchief.
The F-35s have not really even gotten going yet. They are going to be around a long time, and they are going to be the most situational aware and network centric fighter/attack aircraft in history, along with their stealth and other capabilities.
When that is all fully developed together and taken advantage of...nothing else is going to be able to touch it.
The Super Hornets and the coming Advanced Super Hornets are going to be great...but they are a patch to get us over the hump. The Growlers are also going to do what they do and do it very well. But they both will take a seat long before the F-35 service life is over. It will be the F-35s that lead the US Navy and Air Force and Marines (and other allies) into the second half of this century and the ultimate generation 6 aircraft...which will be developed based on that we learn from the F-35 experience.
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
Of course I agree with you Chief when it comes to the poor old Turkey, a very fine airplane, and very capable platform, although expensive when compared to the F-18, and the Super Hornet, it will look like a bargain compared to the F-35, shoot the F-22 will likely look like a deal as well, but the F-35 will bring some options to the table, that will guarantee air-superiority into the foreseeable future, and it will deliver. Don't be surprised at the bumps in the road, and don't worry, it will be plenty fast. Speed will take a back seat to covert ops, and she will be "sneaky".... brat
Don't get me started on that, there are many people that still can't get over destruction of so many beautiful planes
Of course I agree with you Chief when it comes to the poor old Turkey, a very fine airplane, and very capable platform, although expensive when compared to the F-18, and the Super Hornet, it will look like a bargain compared to the F-35, shoot the F-22 will likely look like a deal as well, but the F-35 will bring some options to the table, that will guarantee air-superiority into the foreseeable future, and it will deliver. Don't be surprised at the bumps in the road, and don't worry, it will be plenty fast. Speed will take a back seat to covert ops, and she will be "sneaky".... brat
Jura The idiot
General
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
On F-35B Training:
Posted on InsideDefense.com: June 27, 2014
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION BEAUFORT, SC -- Personnel from the Marine Corps' lone F-35B training squadron have started departing the world's only active Joint Strike Fighter training base for this air station in South Carolina ahead of the expected start of B-model F-35 training in the region on Oct. 1.
Until now, F-35 training for all users flying all models -- the conventional F-35A flown by the U.S. Air Force as well as the Netherlands, the short-takeoff-vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35B operated by the Marines and the United Kingdom, and the U.S. Navy's carrier-capable F-35C -- has been conducted at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle. But because of service-specific needs and space constraints at Eglin, the Air Force is standing up a second training site at Luke Air Force Base, AZ, and the Marines are moving all B-model training to MCAS Beaufort.
Inside the Pentagon visited the base on June 24 and interviewed three Marine Corps officials intimately involved in the transition from Florida to South Carolina: Col. William Lieblein, the commander of Marine Aircraft Group 31 which includes six operational F/A-18 Hornet squadrons and the single F-35B training squadron; Lt. Col. Joseph Bachmann, an F-35 pilot and the commander of that squadron, known as VMFAT-501; and Lt. Col. Luis Villalobos, the officer in charge of the newly built and opened JSF pilot training center at MCAS Beaufort. The base is scheduled to receive its first two Joint Strike Fighter aircraft in early July, and pilots and maintainers have started arriving at the new site, which will train British pilots alongside Marines from the start.
The transition of close to a dozen aircraft and the pilots and maintainers associated with that from one base to another is complex in itself, but the Marines' move to South Carolina is made even more complicated by the time line the expeditionary service has placed on itself to reach F-35 initial operational capability. The Marine Corps has pledged to reach IOC no later than the end of next year, forcing the service's training pipeline to operate at full speed -- and leading to a significant, late change in the way this transition is organized.
Until about six months ago, according to Lieblein, the Marines were entertaining the idea of shifting VMFAT-501 in the traditional way, which is to shut down operations at one location, move assets and people to the new site, and then resume flying. But because of the demand to continue graduating pilots for operational or instructor roles, the squadron will keep flying at Eglin while simultaneously moving people and airplanes to Beaufort.
"We didn't shut down, do a full standup over a 12-month period and then start flight operations," he said. "We're still continuing with pilot creating and flight ops. We had to reevaluate that about six or seven months ago to say, 'Hey, is this a realistic objective?' And we decided we needed to do dual-site operations to maintain our program and pilot training requirements."
Those dual-site operations introduce tremendous challenges, Bachmann acknowledged, as the size of the workforce draws down in Florida and grows substantially in South Carolina. He joked that there was not enough time in the day to discuss all the complications of continuing to meet flying-hour goals at one place while preparing to start flying at another location."
The most important thing right now is the manpower needs to get here and get established so we can take care of ourselves once we get here," said Bachmann, who only arrived at the base himself in mid-June. "The airplanes can stay back at Eglin and they are taken care of. We will increase the amount of manpower here linearly basically, and decrease the amount of airplanes in Eglin linearly, but on negative slopes. They will meet to step off, [ Oct. 1], to be prepared to operate flight ops."
As a result of the change in strategy, the Marine Corps now expects to have completely departed the training center in Florida by the spring of 2015, Lieblein said. The service is on pace to meet that deadline, Bachmann said.
By next spring, VMFAT-501 should have as many as 15 aircraft in its possession, although Bachmann said they may not all be physically located at MCAS Beaufort at that time. Some may be sent to the Navy's Fleet Readiness Center East depot for maintenance or modifications, while others may be required to support operational testing.
Those aircraft will mostly move over to South Carolina in the immature Block 1B configuration, which cannot support night operations nor carry weapons, among other restrictions. Those jets will all be upgraded to the marginally more capable Block 2A -- a small number are already in that mode -- and eventually to the Block 2B configuration, which the Marines have deemed sufficiently capable for IOC. Block 2B remains in flight test.
VMFAT-501 is slated to receive a handful of additional aircraft off of Lockheed Martin's production line in the coming year, and those may be delivered to Eglin AFB or straight to Beaufort depending on the Marine's transition progress, Bachmann said.
The new F-35B pilot training center is expected to produce a relatively small number of pilots in its first year -- close to 15 pilots in fiscal year 2015, Villalobos said. That should grow to around 26 in FY-16 and then jump all the way to 60 around FY-18. He said the curriculum differences between the training programs at Eglin and Beaufort should be minimal.
"When you start looking at the training system down at Eglin, it's basically a mirror reflection of what's going to be done here," he said. "We have Lockheed Martin instructor pilots that are going to teach and the software, the courseware, all the materials, are going to be the same. I think the subtle differences are now it is, obviously, a STOVL syllabus, so the curriculum is driven basically as a model manager for VMFAT-501."
One of the primary factors that will determine the pace of the transition will be the availability and qualification of maintenance personnel, all three officers agreed. Villalobos stressed that maintenance personnel will continue to be trained in Florida, not in South Carolina. And Bachmann said that part of the move would be simplified because F-35Bs are maintained under contract to Lockheed Martin in Florida, whereas they will be cared for organically by Marine Corps personnel at Beaufort. That means the service will not need to strip its maintenance unit at Eglin AFB of its people, although it will need to continue to train and mature its own maintainers.
The Marines have also had to ensure the air station's infrastructure is ready to receive the STOVL F-35B, a challenge for Beaufort because the Hornet fleet based there takes off and lands on traditional runways. Lieblein said five vertical landing pads, designed to withstand repeated vertical landings, have all been built, and a mock amphibious landing deck, for pilots to practice landing on short-deck amphibious ships, is nearly complete. VMFAT-501's first aircraft hangar, which ITP toured, is finished as well.
Two detachments of AV-8B Harriers, the only other STOVL aircraft in the Pentagon's fixed-wing inventory, have come through MCAS Beaufort to assist in evaluating those landing pads' readiness to support F-35 operations, he said.
Once flight operations commence at the base, British and American pilots will have full clearance to fly one another's aircraft, and any potential liabilities surrounding that arrangement have been worked out well in advance, Lieblein and Bachmann said. That same kind of structure will be in place at Luke AFB, where F-35A squadrons composed of American and international pilots will share access to one another's aircraft.
The Air Force is planning to declare IOC in 2016, a year behind the Marine Corps. The Navy, which does not intend to do so until late 2018 or early 2019, has yet to formally decide if and where to train its own F-35C pilots aside from Eglin. Villalobos said an environmental study to determine if Naval Air Station Lemoore, CA, can support that schoolhouse is in the works.
On F-35B Training:
Posted on InsideDefense.com: June 27, 2014
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION BEAUFORT, SC -- Personnel from the Marine Corps' lone F-35B training squadron have started departing the world's only active Joint Strike Fighter training base for this air station in South Carolina ahead of the expected start of B-model F-35 training in the region on Oct. 1.
Until now, F-35 training for all users flying all models -- the conventional F-35A flown by the U.S. Air Force as well as the Netherlands, the short-takeoff-vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35B operated by the Marines and the United Kingdom, and the U.S. Navy's carrier-capable F-35C -- has been conducted at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle. But because of service-specific needs and space constraints at Eglin, the Air Force is standing up a second training site at Luke Air Force Base, AZ, and the Marines are moving all B-model training to MCAS Beaufort.
Inside the Pentagon visited the base on June 24 and interviewed three Marine Corps officials intimately involved in the transition from Florida to South Carolina: Col. William Lieblein, the commander of Marine Aircraft Group 31 which includes six operational F/A-18 Hornet squadrons and the single F-35B training squadron; Lt. Col. Joseph Bachmann, an F-35 pilot and the commander of that squadron, known as VMFAT-501; and Lt. Col. Luis Villalobos, the officer in charge of the newly built and opened JSF pilot training center at MCAS Beaufort. The base is scheduled to receive its first two Joint Strike Fighter aircraft in early July, and pilots and maintainers have started arriving at the new site, which will train British pilots alongside Marines from the start.
The transition of close to a dozen aircraft and the pilots and maintainers associated with that from one base to another is complex in itself, but the Marines' move to South Carolina is made even more complicated by the time line the expeditionary service has placed on itself to reach F-35 initial operational capability. The Marine Corps has pledged to reach IOC no later than the end of next year, forcing the service's training pipeline to operate at full speed -- and leading to a significant, late change in the way this transition is organized.
Until about six months ago, according to Lieblein, the Marines were entertaining the idea of shifting VMFAT-501 in the traditional way, which is to shut down operations at one location, move assets and people to the new site, and then resume flying. But because of the demand to continue graduating pilots for operational or instructor roles, the squadron will keep flying at Eglin while simultaneously moving people and airplanes to Beaufort.
"We didn't shut down, do a full standup over a 12-month period and then start flight operations," he said. "We're still continuing with pilot creating and flight ops. We had to reevaluate that about six or seven months ago to say, 'Hey, is this a realistic objective?' And we decided we needed to do dual-site operations to maintain our program and pilot training requirements."
Those dual-site operations introduce tremendous challenges, Bachmann acknowledged, as the size of the workforce draws down in Florida and grows substantially in South Carolina. He joked that there was not enough time in the day to discuss all the complications of continuing to meet flying-hour goals at one place while preparing to start flying at another location."
The most important thing right now is the manpower needs to get here and get established so we can take care of ourselves once we get here," said Bachmann, who only arrived at the base himself in mid-June. "The airplanes can stay back at Eglin and they are taken care of. We will increase the amount of manpower here linearly basically, and decrease the amount of airplanes in Eglin linearly, but on negative slopes. They will meet to step off, [ Oct. 1], to be prepared to operate flight ops."
As a result of the change in strategy, the Marine Corps now expects to have completely departed the training center in Florida by the spring of 2015, Lieblein said. The service is on pace to meet that deadline, Bachmann said.
By next spring, VMFAT-501 should have as many as 15 aircraft in its possession, although Bachmann said they may not all be physically located at MCAS Beaufort at that time. Some may be sent to the Navy's Fleet Readiness Center East depot for maintenance or modifications, while others may be required to support operational testing.
Those aircraft will mostly move over to South Carolina in the immature Block 1B configuration, which cannot support night operations nor carry weapons, among other restrictions. Those jets will all be upgraded to the marginally more capable Block 2A -- a small number are already in that mode -- and eventually to the Block 2B configuration, which the Marines have deemed sufficiently capable for IOC. Block 2B remains in flight test.
VMFAT-501 is slated to receive a handful of additional aircraft off of Lockheed Martin's production line in the coming year, and those may be delivered to Eglin AFB or straight to Beaufort depending on the Marine's transition progress, Bachmann said.
The new F-35B pilot training center is expected to produce a relatively small number of pilots in its first year -- close to 15 pilots in fiscal year 2015, Villalobos said. That should grow to around 26 in FY-16 and then jump all the way to 60 around FY-18. He said the curriculum differences between the training programs at Eglin and Beaufort should be minimal.
"When you start looking at the training system down at Eglin, it's basically a mirror reflection of what's going to be done here," he said. "We have Lockheed Martin instructor pilots that are going to teach and the software, the courseware, all the materials, are going to be the same. I think the subtle differences are now it is, obviously, a STOVL syllabus, so the curriculum is driven basically as a model manager for VMFAT-501."
One of the primary factors that will determine the pace of the transition will be the availability and qualification of maintenance personnel, all three officers agreed. Villalobos stressed that maintenance personnel will continue to be trained in Florida, not in South Carolina. And Bachmann said that part of the move would be simplified because F-35Bs are maintained under contract to Lockheed Martin in Florida, whereas they will be cared for organically by Marine Corps personnel at Beaufort. That means the service will not need to strip its maintenance unit at Eglin AFB of its people, although it will need to continue to train and mature its own maintainers.
The Marines have also had to ensure the air station's infrastructure is ready to receive the STOVL F-35B, a challenge for Beaufort because the Hornet fleet based there takes off and lands on traditional runways. Lieblein said five vertical landing pads, designed to withstand repeated vertical landings, have all been built, and a mock amphibious landing deck, for pilots to practice landing on short-deck amphibious ships, is nearly complete. VMFAT-501's first aircraft hangar, which ITP toured, is finished as well.
Two detachments of AV-8B Harriers, the only other STOVL aircraft in the Pentagon's fixed-wing inventory, have come through MCAS Beaufort to assist in evaluating those landing pads' readiness to support F-35 operations, he said.
Once flight operations commence at the base, British and American pilots will have full clearance to fly one another's aircraft, and any potential liabilities surrounding that arrangement have been worked out well in advance, Lieblein and Bachmann said. That same kind of structure will be in place at Luke AFB, where F-35A squadrons composed of American and international pilots will share access to one another's aircraft.
The Air Force is planning to declare IOC in 2016, a year behind the Marine Corps. The Navy, which does not intend to do so until late 2018 or early 2019, has yet to formally decide if and where to train its own F-35C pilots aside from Eglin. Villalobos said an environmental study to determine if Naval Air Station Lemoore, CA, can support that schoolhouse is in the works.
Jura The idiot
General
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
Recently I read stuff (I think it was a part of the discussion of some blog or something) by an individual who was obviously Air Force (I mean either of USAF, USN, USMC) saying "contrary to popular believe" Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance missions will NOT be frequently performed by F-35, but by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (now I think he specifically referred to F-35B though) ... if you think this is hogwash don't hesitate to tell me
Recently I read stuff (I think it was a part of the discussion of some blog or something) by an individual who was obviously Air Force (I mean either of USAF, USN, USMC) saying "contrary to popular believe" Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance missions will NOT be frequently performed by F-35, but by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (now I think he specifically referred to F-35B though) ... if you think this is hogwash
don't hesitate to tell me
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asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
Look at the movement of that nozzle during take off that's very cool a marvel of modern engineering
Look at the movement of that nozzle during take off that's very cool a marvel of modern engineering
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
Pentagon grounds F-35 fleet after runway fire.
-- The Pentagon has made the call to
ground the F-35 fleet after a recent runway
fire at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Details on the fire, which occurred June 23,
were not immediately available.
"The root cause of the incident remains under
investigation. Additional inspections of F-35
engines have been ordered, and return to flight
will be determined based on inspection results
and analysis of engineering data," Pentagon
spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said
Thursday.
There is precedent for the move.
Last year, the U.S. military grounded the F-35
fighter jet because of a crack in an engine
component that was discovered during a
routine inspection in California.
edition.cnn.com/2014/07/03/us/f-35-fleet-grounded
Pentagon grounds F-35 fleet after runway fire.
-- The Pentagon has made the call to
ground the F-35 fleet after a recent runway
fire at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Details on the fire, which occurred June 23,
were not immediately available.
"The root cause of the incident remains under
investigation. Additional inspections of F-35
engines have been ordered, and return to flight
will be determined based on inspection results
and analysis of engineering data," Pentagon
spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said
Thursday.
There is precedent for the move.
Last year, the U.S. military grounded the F-35
fighter jet because of a crack in an engine
component that was discovered during a
routine inspection in California.
edition.cnn.com/2014/07/03/us/f-35-fleet-grounded
re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
In case anyone was wondering it is normal procedure for the US Military to ground specific types of aircraft after accidents. Normally the grounding last until all inspections are complete. This happened many times while I served with the USN.
In fact it is the correct thing to do to insure the safety of flight crews, maintenance crews & all others..
In case anyone was wondering it is normal procedure for the US Military to ground specific types of aircraft after accidents. Normally the grounding last until all inspections are complete. This happened many times while I served with the USN.
In fact it is the correct thing to do to insure the safety of flight crews, maintenance crews & all others..
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re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
While this is SOP it is a very serious incident, the F-35 is in LRIP, it is also being sold to at least 8-9 partner nations, and it gives each of them pause for thought. The F-135 is a very HOT engine in every sense, it is not your Daddy's old J-79, it is cutting edge technology, and the way they extract all that thrust is to push everything to the top of the Green, and that means HEAT and lots of it, this NEEDs to be resolved quickly, and no doubt the accident investigation is The Top priority at present, WHY is the question, and they will want positive answers last week, not tomorrow.
While this is SOP it is a very serious incident, the F-35 is in LRIP, it is also being sold to at least 8-9 partner nations, and it gives each of them pause for thought. The F-135 is a very HOT engine in every sense, it is not your Daddy's old J-79, it is cutting edge technology, and the way they extract all that thrust is to push everything to the top of the Green, and that means HEAT and lots of it, this NEEDs to be resolved quickly, and no doubt the accident investigation is The Top priority at present, WHY is the question, and they will want positive answers last week, not tomorrow.