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

[Air Force Brat]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

It gets very,very foggy in Lemoore..very foggy indeed..

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sorry about the dinky chart.

No problem and your are correct, but my limited experience suggests that it normally burns off around 10:00 Am, thanks to all that "glorious" California sunshine, remember "It Never Rains In California".... cheers big Daddy, and I'm sure they still consider you one of the smartest men in California, I hope Iowa appreciates you that much, but I wonder about some of these "Yankees"???

You Da Sailor Man!

 

[Air Force Brat]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

I must say I was puzzled by this as well. With so many units affected over so many years, that would be a serious qualitiy controll issue. Bad news just don't stop coming at us these days.
I want to think sometimes that it's just a consequence of not having designed an built a figher for many years here before the EF project. But this is something else ...

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which just "shows to go ya" that all aircraft are very complex, and those German and British Typhoons have been "beat on" in an attempt to put them out there ahead of the F-22, much like our own F-15s. You can break them, if you "beat on" them all the time, and I "strongly" encourage USAF to put the Raptors on a conservation plan to maintain those lower time airframes for the future, and to "fix" the higher time airframes by developing early "life extension" programs.

 

[Equation]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

other news: Germany said "a manufacturing fault" was found with the Eurofighter Typhoon, germany has decided to cut typhoon's annual operation time by half, it said britain first noticed the defect and decided to cut the operation as well.

the typphoon has been in service for more than 10 years, how come it takes so long to detect such a serious fault?

That depends on if it came from the latest batch or the earliest one.

 

[Air Force Brat]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

That depends on if it came from the latest batch or the earliest one.

all three tranches are subject to concerns according to the report???

 

[Jura The idiot]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

very recent:
[video=youtube;Zi58mvomVMo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zi58mvomVMo[/video]

 

[Air Force Brat]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

very recent:

that brings to light the B, that thing is so "ugly", and I'm going to hate all these stupid airshow vids showing Bs going around in circles and hovering like a helo,,,, brings to light all the times I had to watch that goofy Harrier do the same, burning JP and getting all HOT. It would be nice to see what the F-35 can do, and I imagine the C will be the best airshow bird, and hopefully we will see the C, coming aboard the Nimitz in November????

 

[asif iqbal]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

I have been reading about the F35B recently and to be honest not impressed

I have the feeling that QE Class are just large amphibious assault ships yes there's lots and lots of space but really it's so big that not having cats and traps is a tragedy

F35B is a good aircrat but it just doesn't have th legs, speeds and range of a F35C

High tempo prolonged air opps from a flat tops really asks for a fully blown carrier a ski jump doesn't quite cut it

And this issue just isn't going to go away!!

 

[Jeff Head]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

...speaking of air shows:

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​

Spectators at the Miramar Air Show witnessed the end of an era in Marine aviation and a beginning, when a helicopter that served in the Vietnam War flew its last active duty performance and a stealthy, supersonic F-35B fighter jet flew its San Diego debut.

The F-35B Lightning II, the Marine variant of the Joint Strike Fighter under development by lead contractor Lockheed Martin for three services, later demonstrated its ability to hover and land at speeds of just 60 mph on a relatively short strip of runway.

The Corps created the Pentagon’s first operational squadron of F-35 planes in 2012. Yuma-based Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 has since flown more than 1,000 sorties totaling about 1,700 flight hours.

The Marine Corps said its plan to become the first service to declare initial operational capability for the jet, in July 2015, is on track despite the temporary grounding of the entire F-35 fleet this summer because of an engine malfunction in the Air Force version.

“This is the most advanced and newest fighter aircraft in the world. … the future of Marine aviation,” Col. John Farnam, commanding officer of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, said in opening remarks.

The Corps intends the F-35B to eventually replace its AV-8B Harrier jump jets and F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets.

Lt. Col. Steve Gillette, commanding officer of the F-35 squadron, said they have all 16 jets and a full-strength complement of 280 personnel. In September the squadron began flying specific requirements to prepare for initial operational capability.

The service is dependent on delivery from Lockheed Martin of 2B software before it can declare the jet ready for combat, but Gillette said reports from the Joint Program Office leave the service very confident about its timeline.

“It’s not the full capability … but we will have weapons integrated, we will have combat capability. And the Marine Corps is raising its hand, saying ‘combatant commanders and Mr. President, … it’s available,”

The F-35B is going to be a game changer.

To have a super-sonic, 5th genertion stealth fighter, with a mini-awacs capability like that operating off of LHDs and LHAs is going to give the US MArines a real state of the art, fully competitive strike fighter available to them.

Its VTOL and VSTOL capabilities are going to ultimately be sought by any allied nation with a jump jet carrier.

I got to see two F-35As at the air show at Mountain Home air Force Base here in Idaho last month.

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​

 

[thunderchief]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Following that engine incident, F-35 was restricted to -1g to +3.2g acceleration. I wonder is that restriction still in place .

..within a restricted envelope, and only after rigorous engine inspections, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said Tuesday. Specifically, the F-35s are limited to speed of under 0.9 Mach; 18 degrees angle of attack, between -1G to +3 G maneuvers, and 1/2 stick deflection for rolls. Also, the front engine fans are to be inspected every three hours of flying time—a requirement that precluded the six-hour trip to Britain for their Farnborough Air Show debut. Kirby said Air Force and Navy airworthiness authorities cleared flights to resume with the above-stated caveats, with full clearance pending a final “root cause” for the engine fire, which Pentagon acquisition czar Frank Kendall on Monday said was due to blade “rubbing” against the engine case.

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During the inspection into the cause of the June 23 fire, the Pentagon grounded the entire fleet. On July 15, the planes were cleared to fly with heavy restrictions.

In late July, the Pentagon eased up on some restrictions for the test fleet. Speed restrictions were relaxed from Mach 0.9 to Mach 1.6, while maneuverability restrictions were eased slightly from 3 Gs to 3.2.

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Flight restrictions on Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s F-35 are hampering the Pentagon’s ability to conduct the software tests the plane must pass before it can be declared combat-ready by next July, according to the Pentagon’s weapons-testing office.

The start of rigorous in-flight testing on the initial software for the Marine Corps version of the fighter is already five months late, and may be further delayed by the flight restrictions imposed on the 20 test aircraft and 79 training jets after an engine fire on an Air Force F-35 on June 23.

“Many test points remain blocked or difficult to achieve because” of the flight restrictions, Jennifer Elzea, a spokeswoman for Pentagon director of operational testing Michael Gilmore, said in an e-mailed statement. “This may cause further delays in completing” testing of the software, she said.

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Pratt & Whitney has pledged to cover the cost of the engine fix, which includes redesigning that part of the propulsion system to create more space in the so-called trench area. Bogdan declined to specify how much it will cost until the root-cause analysis is completed.

A prototype part may be tested as early as mid-October, Bogdan has said. Meanwhile, the program office is developing a new engine break-in procedure as a short-term fix to better analyze how it performs under increasing loads, he has said.

“There is no engine today going into a Lockheed Martin airframe that won’t have the fix,” Bogdan said on Monday. If the prototype part isn’t ready by the end of the year, “we’ll do some burn-ins of production engines.”

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[Air Force Brat]

Re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

I have been reading about the F35B recently and to be honest not impressed

I have the feeling that QE Class are just large amphibious assault ships yes there's lots and lots of space but really it's so big that not having cats and traps is a tragedy

F35B is a good aircrat but it just doesn't have th legs, speeds and range of a F35C

High tempo prolonged air opps from a flat tops really asks for a fully blown carrier a ski jump doesn't quite cut it

And this issue just isn't going to go away!!

No its not, and your point is the QE has sacrificed potential for expediency,,,and in effect become a large amphibious assault platform, and that is at least partially true, the B is an airplane designed to fill a "niche" in order to provide these ships a suitable aircraft to perform that mission, so it to may have sacrificed potential for expediency, but as Mr Head has well stated, we shall see????