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

[FORBIN]

A second F-35 Sqn stand up to Luke, 62nd, first 61nd. 62nd use(d) 20 F-16C/D block 25, three othes Sqns use 60 F-16C/D block 42.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=949310931758539

62 FS Stood down on July 3, 2014 in preperation for conversion to the F-35 in mid 2015.

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But surprising don' t have new F-35 delivered for him ! we see 2 on the videos possible 61nd loaned them for begin training mission and in more 61nd is not full, almost, in may have 21 + 2 RAAF.

 

[Jura The idiot]

Forza Italia!
Italy Plans First F-35 Flight in October

The first F-35 flight outside the US will take place in October when Italy's first F-35 begins test flights after rolling off the country's final assembly line, a Lockheed Martin official said.

After entering service with the Italian Air Force, the aircraft, AL-1, will then fly across the Atlantic in the first quarter of 2016, probably via the UK and Iceland, to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where Italian pilots will train, said Debra Palmer, the Lockheed executive leading F-35 work in Italy.

That is the same route that joint strike fighters were due to take to reach the UK from the US last summer to appear at the Farnborough International Air Show. The appearance was canceled when the JSF fleet was grounded due to a fire in the engine of one aircraft.

Details of the pending flights emerged as activity ramped up this month at Italy's final assembly line at Cameri Air Base in northern Italy, which is owned by the Italian Defense Ministry and operated by Finmeccanica unit Alenia Aermacchi and Lockheed Martin.

The facility, the only one of its kind outside the US, was designated last year to also serve as the maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade hub for European- and Mediterranean-based JSFs.

In March, the first of Italy's planned 90 JSFs rolled off the line, and this month its engines were turned on for the first time.

"A full engine run can take two to three days but this took one day," Palmer said. "Technicians on site from Pratt and Whitney said this was the cleanest run they had personally seen on an engine."

AL-1 is now undergoing minor planned modifications before it will receive final coatings beginning the week of June 23 in the aircraft final finishes building, a process that will take about six weeks. The work will be undertaken by Alenia Aermacchi with technology transfer oversight provided by Lockheed experts for the initial planes, Palmer said.

"It is important to assure this complex technology is done flawlessly. The Italian MoD has paid for us to oversee the work to this purpose," she said.

Around Aug. 20, the aircraft will move for about two weeks to the acceptance test facility

From the start of September, software will be loaded onto the aircraft, Palmer said, before the first flight takes place in the first or second week of October.

"Lockheed Martin will do three acceptance flights before the customer makes three flights," she said. However, since Italy does not have trained JSF pilots yet, the customer flights will be undertaken by US Air Force test pilots. "It will be that way for a couple of years."

The first two Italian JSF pilots will start training in September in the US. One will stay in the US as an instructor while the second will return to Italy.

After the six test flights, AL-1 will return to the aircraft final finishes building for any touch-ups required at the end of November before official delivery takes place in December.

"Since our contract is with the US government, the plane is officially delivered to them, and then immediately on to the Italian government," Palmer said.

When AL-1 and AL-2 are ready, both will make the trans-Atlantic flight to the US early in 2016. In total, 11 Italian aircraft will go to the US for Italian Air Force and Navy pilot training. Air Force pilots will head for Luke to train on the conventional-takeoff and -landing F35A, and both Italian Navy and Air Force pilots will train at Beaufort Air Force Base in South Carolina with the short-takeoff, vertical-landing (STOVL) variant.

Italy so far has ordered eight F-35As, including three from low-rate initial production run (LRIP) 6, three from LRIP 7 and two from LRIP 8, and has said it will order 38 by 2020.

The ordering of two aircraft from LRIP 8 in the latter half of last year helped stave off an interruption in the flow of aircraft at the line, Palmer said.

"Lockheed Martin anticipates that formal negotiations will start for aircraft from LRIP 9 and 10 shortly, while long lead items have already been ordered," she said. The two lots of two and four aircraft will contain Italy's first STOVL F-35s.

Meanwhile, the first six F-35As are scheduled to be delivered by October 2016, with four more in 2017, four in 2018, seven in 2019 and 13 in 2010. That is far lower than the 24 aircraft a year the line was designed to handle, a drop due to Italy's trimming of its order.

One analyst said Cameri's future as a maintenance hub justified its existence, even if order numbers were down.

"Italy's investment of about €1 billion at Cameri is only justified if we look at the entire life-cycle of the JSF," said Michele Nones, head of the security and defense department at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a Rome think tank partly funded by the Italian Foreign Ministry. "Strategically, Cameri has made sense. Holland is sending its planes, and there will be in the future about 700 to 800 F-35s in Europe."

In 2019, the line will produce its first Dutch JSFs, the result of an Italian-Dutch deal under which eight of the 13 aircraft produced in 2020 at Cameri will be Dutch.

Meanwhile Italy is planning ahead to Cameri's future as a maintenance, repair, overhaul and upkeep (MRO&U) hub.

"Italy is working with the JSF Joint Program Office [JPO] and Lockheed Martin to assure the facility is fully equipped to assure the sustainment demands of the forecasted fleet in Europe," Palmer said.

While Italy will have a certain amount of autonomy, MRO&U is a JSF program capability controlled by the JPO, she added.

"There will need to be a global pooling of resources," she said. "Equipment like power carts could be needed in an emergency situation somewhere in Europe, and if they are owned by the JPO, this would allow them to be easily shifted to meet operational need because they are directed by the JPO in support of all the countries of the JSF program."

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[Jura The idiot]

here's what "Lorraine M. Martin, Lockheed’s executive vice president and general manager of the F-35 Program" had to say (caution! Dave Majumdar quoted inside LOL):
Lockheed Martin Defends F-35’s Close Air Support Capabilities

Lockheed Martin said it has not received a request from the U.S. Marine Corps or U.S. Air Force to speed up the delivery of the gun on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s A or B models, according to Lorraine M. Martin, Lockheed’s executive vice president and general manager of the F-35 Program.

The Marine Crops’ F-35B is scheduled to be combat ready by next month and will take on close air support as one of its missions.

However, the F-35’s close air support capabilities have fallen under the spotlight in the

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, the military’s lead close air support aircraft. Air Force leaders said they need to retire the aircraft to free up funding and maintainers for the F-35.

Critics of the move point to the time between the F-35B’s initial operating capability date and the time when F-35 pilots will be able to fire the F-35’s Gatling gun. A

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by Dave Majumdar for the Daily Beast said pilots will have to wait as long as four years to use the Gatling gun because the aircraft requires Block 3F software to operate it.

Martin defended the F-35B as a close air support aircraft here at the Paris Air Show saying that Lt. Gen. Joe Davis, head of Marine aviation, “has said publicly that the close air support capability he has in that aircraft (the F-35B) is more than anything he has in his current inventory and he’s very pleased with the ability and the capability.”

Tests on the four-barrel GAU-22/A Gatling gun that is scheduled to be installed on the F-35 will begin this summer.

“I know of no plans to change our formal test plan. It is a well organized and designed test plan…and I don’t’ know of any activities to enhance that,” Martin said. “Anytime that our customer would come to us and say we need you to do something earlier, we would work with them and readjust things, but we have not gotten that request.”

The F-35B will enter IOC for the Marine Corps with three weapons – the

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, the

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and the

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.

She did highlight the work the Air Force and the Marine Corps is doing to create concept of operations for the F-35 as a close air support aircraft when it is combat ready.

Martin was also asked if she has heard concerns from international partners on the close air support capability of the F-35. She said no.

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[Jura The idiot]

here's what "Lorraine M. Martin, Lockheed’s executive vice president and general manager of the F-35 Program" had to say ...

... on orders, pricing etc.:
JSF Block Buy Could Reach 500 Fighters

Countries signing up to buy the joint strike fighter have all said they are interested in a block buy that could see commitments to purchase 500 of the aircraft, a Lockheed Martin official said Monday.

"They have all said they are interested," said Lorraine Martin, Lockheed's F-35 program manager, after a briefing on the program at the Paris Air Show.

"There are some countries that do this all the time, they usually do multi-year," she said. "There [are] some countries, like Japan, that have just passed legislation that enables them to do this and they have never done it in the past."

Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall last month backed multi-year, bulk purchases of the JSF by the US and other countries.

Rather than relying on nations signing up to buy aircraft from individual production runs, known as low rate initial productions, Lockheed and the US government will now ask countries to sign up to a block buy comprising aircraft from LRIPs 12,13 and 14, which would be ordered in the fiscal years of 2018-2020.

Martin said the US Congress would want to see big savings thanks to the block buy before approving it.

"They are expecting significant cost savings. The US Congress often looks for around 10 percent," she said.

Savings would flow from the bulk buy, she added.

"The ability to tell the supplier base that you are going to get 400 plus, almost 500 aircraft, can have a huge impact," on savings, she said. The block buy would be around 460 aircraft, rising to around 500 if Canada and Denmark joined.

Knowing they were in line for savings might sway the two potential buyers, she said. "They can get a cheaper aircraft and that might help them with other stresses they might have," she said.

Martin declined to say what deadline would be given nations to decide on backing a bulk buy, but suggested it could be around a year.

During her briefing, Martin said that by 2018, half the JSFs ordered would be for partner nations. By 2019, she added, Lockheed Martin would try and reduce the price per plane to $80 million, "a fifth generation aircraft for the same price as a fourth generation."

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[FORBIN]

The F-35B will enter IOC for the Marine Corps with three weapons – the

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, the

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and the

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.

Ofc wrong for GBU-39 he have

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and 32 in more AIM-120.

After recent tests on the Wasp about ten current have her software update for get IOC normaly next month.

 

[Jeff Head]

... on orders, pricing etc.:
JSF Block Buy Could Reach 500 Fighters

A block buy of 500?

That would be very impressive!

The beat goes on...indeed!

I wonder what the per aircraft price will average out to on a build of 500?

 

[strehl]

Some people's block buys are bigger than other people's air forces.

I would be impressed for one reason only: congress just can't resist having to meddle on a year by year basis.

 

[Jura The idiot]

breakingdefense.com looking for The Danish Connection?

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Critics of

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have long wondered why friends and allies have stuck with the program. It can’t be, they argue, because of

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. It is, they say, years

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, billions over budget and won’t be able to deliver all its weapons for years.

Ah, grasshopper, but there are other reasons — aside from the fact the critics are suffering from the time lag, since the program’s fixed many of the problems raised by those incredibly careful

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audits and the efforts of the

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.

Some $5 billion of those reasons were on display yesterday when the Danish company

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and Lockheed Martin signed an MOU giving Terma, Denmark’s defense company, a whole lot of business should a new Danish government approve purchase of the F-35.

Terma signed a long-term agreement with Lockheed Martin two years ago for manufacture of composite and bonded assembly parts for the three variants of the F-35. It has also signed agreements for other F-35 work with Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, and Marvin Engineering.

I asked Terma CEO Jens Maaløe how many jobs the new agreement might mean for Denmark. He said it would mean doubling the size of his company’s workforce from 300 to as many as 700 workers. He declined to estimate how many follow-on jobs it might mean for Danish suppliers to his company. He also said it would mean $5 billion or more for Denmark over the next few years. With a GDP of $335 billion, that is not chump change for tiny Denmark.

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. If the current government stays in power then a decision on whether to fully commit to the F-35 is expected relatively quickly. Should the opposition win, they will need time to analyze the data and the country’s finances before coming to what most observers expect will be the decision to stick with the program and buy at least 24 F-35As.

Denmark has been a Joint Strike Fighter partner since 2002. However, as good stewards of their taxpayer’s money, the current government is analyzing the F-35A, Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Eurofighter Typhoon for the $4.5 billion contract. Each company presented bids for 24, 30 and 36 combat aircraft.

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is also expected to make a decision on whether to buy F-35s to replace its fleet of 55 mostly F/A-18Cs quite soon.

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, and the

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are all in the running.

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[thunderchief]

Decision to by 500 F-35s in one block could be potentially mother of all military procurement disasters .

We have a fighter that still has issues with the engine, avionics , helmet and last but not least , its multimillion lines of software code .

It is a huge risk with little benefit for anyone except Lockheed-Martin to commit such large sums of money to buy essentially unfinished plane . Sure , it is possibly that all major issues will be fixed by the time the production starts. But is also very likely that at least part of that first block would need upgrades, or even that hundreds of planes would be permanently partially capable for combat (Eurofighter Tranche 1 comes to mind) .

 

[Jeff Head]

Decision to by 500 F-35s in one block could be potentially mother of all military procurement disasters .

We have a fighter that still has issues with the engine, avionics , helmet and last but not least , its multimillion lines of software code ...etc., etc., etc..

Well, thunder...those are your opinions...and I have to say, not surprising opinions. but that;'s fine., you are entitled to them..

But the nations making these purchases are not foolish and they are not making blunders to somehow benefit the US "Industrial Military Complex."

They are smart people. I have known some of them over the years. They are also very much interested in the best interest of their nations,

And yet they are moving forward.

I bet they know some things that we do not know.

My own opinion is this. The F-35 family of aircraft are going to be the most prolific 5th generation strike aircraft on the planet. And they are going to be a game changer for conventional strike aircraft, for carrier launched strike aircraft, and for STOVL strike aircraft.

Time will tell...but they are moving towards that reality as we speak.

Does this mean they are perfect and without either blemish or need for improvement?

Of course not!

Any sophisticated and complex program like this will have those issues. But I am willing to bet that they will move forward, address them, and be very successful.