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

[paintgun]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Is there any chance that the radar of an Su-35 can detect an F-35B and shoots it down? Btw since F-35's internal weapons bay can only carry 4-6 missiles, it might have to cary some short-range AAMs on the outside, exposing itself to enemy radar.

of course, the question as with aircraft LO or not, is at what range

the external weapon and air superiority issue is abit of a conundrum for the F-35

 

[delft]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

I think thew XC-142 had the best chance myself...first landing on a carrier in 1966

But Mcnamara cancelled it. It had a lot of the same benefits of the V-22, except its wings tilting allowed it to take off vertical, STOL, or normal. it's biggest problem was that it required a small propeller in the rear for stability, which if it failed, could cause the aircraft to have dangerous problems.

The problem with XC-142 was that its propellers were too small to make cyclic control as used by helicopters and V-22 an option. My favorite propeller for a similar configuration is a contra rotating or a co-axial one because it is more efficient especially at low and high speed. It would consist of two propellers, the front one with larger diameter and fewer blades than the aft one. This should be more efficient and make less noise that the classic contra rotating propeller as used in the Fairey Gannet and the Westland Wyvern. Such a propeller would at zero speed and with the same power and thrust as that of V-22 have a much smaller diameter. But I doubt whether it would be fit to provide control for VTOL. It could provide power for a fine STOL transport. You might have a co-axial propeller with each component absorbing the same power or a contra rotating driven by one or two engines.
Btw the Russians developed a contra rotating propeller for An-70 with less rather than more blades in the aft component, no doubt to avoid trans-sonic trouble near the blade roots.
But I'm now getting far away from F-35.

 

[Scratch]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

So, here's another customer's concerns then:
The Italians still want their F-35s, but under budget constrains may have to scale down their overall number of jets. The biggest hit would probably go on the Bs. But as long as they can put a full complement on the Cavour, things should be ok.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Italy committed to F-35 programme but may cut order
By: Luca Peruzzi - 16 hours ago

Italy is aiming to slash €1.45 billion ($1.9 billion) from its defence procurement spending in 2012, with its plan to acquire 131 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs likely to be in the firing line.
It previously indicated it would order a total of 131 of the type - 69 conventional take-off and landing F-35As and 62 of the short take-off and vertical landing variant F-35B. However, more recently, defence sources have suggested a reduction to the total order of between 20-30 units, with the majority of these F-35Bs.

The procurement has come under fire in the Italian parliament for its anticipated total cost of €17.4 billion, with €2 billion already spent on the acquisition.
Despite the possible cuts to its purchase, Italy remains a key stakeholder in the Joint Strike Fighter's industrial team.
Giampaolo di Paola, the country's defence minister, on 30 January visited the site of the final assembly and check-out (FACO) facility for the JSF under construction at Cameri air base, near Novara in the north of the country.
The previous week, a Lockheed team headed by Tom Burbage, F-35 executive vice-president and general manager of programme integration, visited Rome to meet with Italy's industrial and government representatives.
The 60,000m² (646,000ft²) FACO, which incudes 20 new buildings and attendant infrastructure, is planned to be operational by the end of 2012. It will deliver the first Italian JSF, an F-35A, roughly two years later, said Burbage. The aircraft will then transfer to the USA to support the training of Italian air force pilots.
The site is earmarked to assemble and deliver around 80 F-35As for the Royal Netherlands Air Force in addition to those for Rome. It will also have the capacity to develop a maintenance, repair and overhaul and upgrade capability at a later stage.
The facility will also include Alenia Aermacchi's assembly line for wing section units, which is expected to produce around 1,200 kits for the nine-nation programme through to 2023.

Including Alenia Aermacchi, around 20 Italian companies are due to be involved in the F-35 programme.

 

[delft]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

There is no majority for getting out of the F-35 program in the Netherlands but it is unlikely that 80 will be bought, more probably about half that. This will make the investment for production in Italy less valuable.

 

[paintgun]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

haven't read the article, but 2 pages of AVweek is supposed to be meaty

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

How much of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s spiraling cost in recent years can be traced to China’s cybertheft of technology and the subsequent need to reduce the fifth-generation aircraft’s vulnerability to detection and electronic attack?

 

[delft]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

haven't read the article, but 2 pages of AVweek is supposed to be meaty

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This article is mostly waffle. There can be no excuse for not using adequate cryptography when the Pentagon has a video conference with its suppliers, even if they don't use, and why don't they?, dedicated glass fiber connections. But last week we learned that Anonymous sat in on the video conference between computer specialists of the FBI in Los Angelos and Scotland Yard about ways of tackling Anonymous.

“You are on to something,” says a veteran combat pilot with insight into both the F-35 and the intelligence communities “There are both operational and schedule problems with the program related to the cyber data thefts. In addition, there are the costs of redressing weaknesses in the original system design and lots of software fixes.”

There can be no connection between the hacking of defense contractors and structural problems in F-35. The size and position of the antennae will mostly (?) not be related to the software run. You can build the aircraft and train pilots to fly and operate it and then replace the electronic hardware, if necessary, and certainly replace the software. This has no relevance to the building schedule of the aircraft, so if that is stretched out it is because of trouble with the air frame and/or the flight control software. And even the costs of redressing weaknesses in the original system design are mentioned.

There is another view of what is affecting JSF and why. A former senior staffer for the U.S. Senate contends that the F-35 program’s problems reflect diminishing interest in manned aircraft whose performance is limited primarily by its aircrew.

“I think the biggest issue facing the JSF is that there has been a profound shift in the military’s perception of the value of manned aircraft compared to unmanned aircraft,” he says. “I’ve had long conversations with a Marine Corps forward air controller who has just returned from Afghanistan. He pointed out that an F/A-18 can be kept on call for 15 minutes, but an unmanned Reaper is there for eight hours. The day of the fighter pilot is over. There has been a seismic shift in the military’s value judgment of manned and unmanned aircraft.”

However, that is a disputed analysis.

And there is apparently even doubt about the usefulness of the project.

---------- Post added at 07:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:23 PM ----------

I next looked further in Aviation Week and found another article by Bill Sweetman that is really shocking:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

But then came bad news as well. First, as the flight-test rate built up and fatigue testing was underway, faults and problems were found. That is normal, but the faults were severe and there were many more of them than had been predicted. That has undermined the basic philosophy of the JSF program’s approach to full production.

The second piece of bad news is that, despite the number of flights and test points accomplished, test leaders in the major customers’ armed services do not believe that the program is on track to start operational testing on schedule. At least one major partner no longer expects to reach initial operational capability (IOC) before 2020.

And look how they are saving money

As a result of lessons learned from disasters with concurrency, in the 1960s and 1970s, procurement law was changed to prohibit full-rate production until testing was complete. Low-rate initial production (LRIP) was permitted during development. U.S. law stipulated that the LRIP total should cover no more than one unit of production-configured aircraft and be no more than 10% of the total.

A January briefing by Lockheed Martin shows how the rule-makers’ intent was set aside in JSF planning, with no fewer than 11 LRIP batches totaling 882 aircraft. Long-lead procurement was expected to start this year for an LRIP-7 package of 70 aircraft—which would have been the world’s largest fighter production program—in advance of full envelope exploration or the completion of fatigue testing.

The point I have mentioned before - combining incompatible versions:

That issue is causing London to look nervously at the F-35C arrestor hook problem. The root cause is a design feature: the main landing gear is far aft, because it is attached to the first full-depth bulkhead behind the weapon bay, while the exhaust is well forward to provide correct thrust balance in the Stovl version—so there is only a short space in which to locate the hook. The point of the hook is consequently closer to the mainwheel axle line than on other carrier-based aircraft, so the wire—which is normally several inches above the deck— has no time to rebound after being “trampled” by the wheels.

And as dessert:

Another lesson for future planners and requirement-writers: a number of JSF problems are related to features that were included in hopes that they would reduce cost, or because they were “nice-to-have” capabilities that appealed to the end-user. An example of the latter is the “through the airframe” view to be provided by the infrared, spherical-coverage Distributed Aperture System and the helmet-mounted display, which was made a KPP, but has proved far more difficult and expensive than expected, and a major problem since the aircraft has no fixed head-up display. The IPP and electro-hydraulic flight-control actuators, hailed as cost-saving items in the late 1990s, have so far proven to be unreliable.

Lockheed Martin’s JSF program manager said last month that the company was addressing issues like the tailhook and fuel dump. But whatever the outcome of the JSF program, it will be discussed for decades to come whenever anyone talks about the procurement of complex defense systems.

 

[paintgun]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

can be meaty for those who aren't really keeping up with news

alright here's another AVweek (Sweetman) piece

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Putting the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter into production before flight testing had started was "acquisition malpractice," acting Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall told an industry group this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Kendall has a sign on his office door that says "In God we trust -- all others, please bring data,"

that is golden Mr. Kendall

 

[delft]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Designing an aircraft is not too difficult if you don't go out to collect additional difficulties. Since the thirties the main driver for better aircraft were better engines. Over the last forty years or so electronics have become a large part of the cost of an combat aircraft.
Mr. Kendall says it will take about six years to get the problems out of F-35. That's just about what you need to design a new aircraft with a simple specification, given the availability of the engine and the electronic systems. Otherwise you are spending lots of treasure to develop an aircraft for incompatible functions, i.e. STOVL and CATBAR. It's sickening.
Btw I took a book from my book case that I bought nearly half a century ago, called "Science and Government" and written by the British scientist C.P.Snow. It concerns the development of radar and other engineering challenges before and during WWII. When I have reread it I'll open a thread to consider what happened then and what is happening now.

 

[Equation]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

can be meaty for those who aren't really keeping up with news

alright here's another AVweek (Sweetman) piece

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

that is golden Mr. Kendall

Thanks for the post Paintgun, but who is this Frank Kendall guy and what's his credential? It seems like he's threatening the reputation of the F-35 due to his upcoming Congressional hearing to me.

 

[Air Force Brat]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Well Delft you are certainly correct about designing an aircraft to fullfill three different, and ultimately divergent tasks. The closer the A, B, and C get to their design objectives, the farther away they get from each other, and the less commonality they will actually share. We've been down this path several times, and I guess we should nick-name this "flying car syndrome". The same people who want to build flying cars or floating cars seem to be the main proponents of JSF, which was never designed to be, nor will ever be an air superiority fighter. We killed a fabulous fifth gen, in order to adapt a mediocre aircraft to a role it can never fullfill, in order to be able to have something for everybody so the Navy can have a decent fighter, the Army a decent close air support, and the Marines a supersonic Harrier. To answer your question equation, you sir have hit the proverbial nail on the head, Mr Kendall is one of BHO's unaccountable and unconstitutional CZARS? A graduate of West Point, and a politician for sure and out to make a name for himself, not yet approved for his position, hopefully we will enjoy regime change soon. When ATF was brought to the table the lessons of the F-4 and the Mig-21 were fresh in everyones mind, and the ATF was designed to be exactly what it needed to be, it didn't turn out perfectly, but even 25 years later, its still the best Air Superiority aircraft ever produced. Now we're trying to get the portly, but sweet little F-35 to function as something it will never be, and Delft, thank you sir for reminding us again that form follows function, I learned my lesson when I used to modify my car to be better, it never was.LOL Thats when I began to love engineers who had a passion for design and a flare for art, that may be old school, but it still works in real life.