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

[Jura The idiot]

did you know

“For ski jump launches, the aircraft recognizes when it is on the ramp and responds by positioning the control surfaces and nozzles automatically for takeoff and climb,” said Gordon Stewart, flying qualities engineer with the British Ministry of Defense.

? I didn't
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EDIT
now I found similar info

The F35B’s design allows it to automatically position the control surfaces and nozzles for takeoff; a unique capability compared with previous STOVL aircraft. Such automation frees up pilot capacity and provides an added safety enhancement.

in

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[Jura The idiot]

...

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter beat goes on!

Jeff I found something on Singapore:

Singapore Delegation Visits Cameri
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but can you please comment on

EDITOR’S NOTE: Although the above press release says nothing about what the Singapore delegation was interested in, the fact that it visited the Italian FACO shows that it is looking at its options for F-35 assembly and follow-on support.
The fact that the US dollar has appreciated by about 30% in the past year, making all dollar-denominated F-35 operations that much more expensive, also makes euro-denominated operations that much more attractive.
Could Singapore become another buyer of Italian-assembled F-35, after the Netherlands?

below that article?

 

[Jeff Head]

Some stills of the F-35B Ski-Jump testing.







hehehe...I am sure that the Royal Navy is very interested and directly involved with these tests. There is little doubt (Obi Wan) who the largest Ski-Jump operator of the F-35B will be.





That's an F-35B mockup that was positioned on the deck of the HMS Queen Elizabeth at her launch.

 

[Jura The idiot]

fresh article ... also mentions the Osprey:
New Navy-Marine working group will unleash the F-35's full power

In one of his final efforts as commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Joseph Dunford is working to ensure the Marines' new joint strike fighter achieves its full potential.

Dunford said the F-35B, set to reach initial operational capability for the Marine Corps this summer, had the power to transform Marine operations beyond its function as a cutting-edge new aircraft. He made the comments in a speech at a Washington event hosted by the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus.

By this fall, Dunford said, a Marine general and a Navy flag officer would convene to form a working group with subject-matter experts to explore ways the fighter could better help the Corps to project power from the sea and to collaborate with Navy counterparts.

This effort fits into a larger initiative Dunford announced last month aimed at modernizing the ground combat elements of the Marine air-ground task force, harnessing available aviation technologies and applying lessons learned from the past decade-and-a-half at war. The Marines had invested heavily in their aviation assets over the past decade, developing the revolutionary MV-22B Osprey and now the F-35, Dunford said, but until recently had not examined ways to use the platforms to improve the whole force.

"How do we take MAGTF and move it forward so we actually fully leverage the transformational capabilities of the F-35 and the V-22," Dunford said. "That's going to fundamentally change equipment, it's going to change tactics, it's going to change our organizational construct."

The Osprey, which was fielded to the Marine Corps in 2007, has recently been developed as a cornerstone for the Corps' long-term plan for distributed operations. The Marines' Expeditionary Force 21 strategy, introduced last year, relies heavily on the aircraft to insert Marines into operational theaters and to carry troops from floating bases offshore. Other recent efforts have highlighted the Osprey's ability to cover long distances at speed with the help of mid-air refueling.

The F-35, which will eventually be fielded to the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, has been called the most expensive weapons system ever with its $400 billion development cost and a price tag of $98 million to $115 million per plane. Dunford did not elaborate on all the ways the aircraft may transform the capabilities of the MAGTF, but noted the high-tech plane could serve as an information hub or "server in the sky" for troops on the ground below.

The F-35 working group, Dunford said, could take five months or more to develop its recommendations on how best to use the new fighter. The effort will likely outlive Dunford's tenure as commandant; he has been nominated to succeed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey when Dempsey retires this fall.

"Folks can argue about the F-35, should we have done it, should we not have done it," Dunford said. "The fact of the matter is, the United States Marine Corps now has the F-35. So I want to make sure the Marine Corps and Navy take full advantage of it."

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[Air Force Brat]

fresh article ... also mentions the Osprey:
New Navy-Marine working group will unleash the F-35's full power

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Gen Dunford will be a much more faithful advocate for airpower, and he will assure the Navy will get the C up and running as the Marines are going to be forced to buy some Cs, Gen Dunford will no doubt shepherd this process forward. Those Navy jocks will think they invented the F-35 when they get the C out to the boat, but right now there is a lot of trepidation over how this airframe will operate onboard, lots of concerns as there always is with a very new and sophisticated platform.

General Dunford as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs will be a much more powerfull proponent of airpower as a whole, and may not completely buy the UCAV concept as superior to manned aircraft, time will tell?

 

[Jeff Head]

. Those Navy jocks will think they invented the F-35 when they get the C out to the boat, but right now there is a lot of trepidation over how this airframe will operate onboard, lots of concerns as there always is with a very new and sophisticated platform.

Well, the firs testing aboard a CVN occurred this year and went better than expected.

There are going to be a lot more.

I expect they will go very well...but that is not to say that there will not be issues. There always are.

​

 

[Bernard]

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A report from

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“Project Atom” urges the Department of Defense to make the Navy’s F-35Cs “dual role capable.” In other words, they want to make sure the jet can drop conventional munitions and nuclear ones, all in an effort to surround potential enemies with a more “neighborly” nuclear deterrent.

According to our friends over at

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the Pentagon has only committed to making the

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. The CSIS’s report claims that adding a carrier-based nuclear deterrent would be a “visible manifestation” of the U.S. honoring its commitment to defend its allies around the globe. Such a strategy emanates from the idea that a deterrent is more effective when it’s forward deployed to positions in and around an ally’s geographical area. Basically, a much closer proximity manifestation of the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

The U.S. has relied more and more on long-range nuclear deterrents, include land-based ICBMs, submarine launched SLBMs and heavy bomber delivered nuclear bombs and cruise missiles, with only a small fraction of the

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being tactical in nature and deliverable via fighter aircraft.

The nuclear weapon of choice for the F-35 will be the upgraded “smart” B61-12 thermonuclear guided bomb,

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, but is seen as essential for maintaining an air-dropped tactical nuclear capability.

Currently, only the USAF’s F-35A is due to become nuclear capable, with the fully developed B61-12 around 2024 if everything goes as planned.

Clark Murdock, a key player behind the report, told Flightglobal:

We had 7,000 nuclear weapons forward-deployed in Europe at the pinnacle of the Cold War... In Asia, we had almost 1,000 deployed on the Korean Peninsula. About 3,000 total were in the Asia Pacific theatre.

When the Soviets looked out at their borders, they didn’t just see a ring of American men and women in uniform, they saw a ring of nuclear weapons. They knew that any major, conventional aggression on their part would go nuclear because all the weapons were there.

The report also adds that scaled response options need to be made available by fielding smaller yield, highly targeted nuclear weapons. Currently, the U.S. nuclear force is organized around a massive nuclear response, which limits flexibility to certain lower-level scenarios where tactical nuclear weapons or even exotic versions of tactical nukes built for hitting deep buried bunkers or to cause maximum electromagnetic pule destruction could be used instead of high-yield strategic nuclear weapons as a way to limit escalation.

The CSIS report and Mr. Murdock’s suggestions are an eye-opening reminder of the times we are now living in. Although they seem quite extreme, and even mimic America’s nuclear posture during the the Cold War, they do have some merit.

The sad truth is that there seems to be a heavy amount of denial out there as to just how precarious things have become geopolitically around the globe in over the last 15 months. Nobody wants to admit that a

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, especially considering all the other problems that need fixing, including a rising and more stubborn China and their extra-territorial ambitions and the spread of Islamic Extremism that features a whole new level of brutality in the Middle East. This is not to mention a cascade of failed states that have occurred since the once naively hopeful Arab Spring began. A potential nuclear arms race around the Persian Gulf, increasing tensions between India and Pakistan, a psychopathic kid running a nuclear armed North Korea, massive cyber vulnerabilities and global warming can all be added to that list.


All this has been factored into the

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recently, which has been pushed forward from its 2012 index of five minutes to midnight, to three minutes to midnight as of last January. This is the closest it has been to the Armageddon mark since 1984. The only other time it has been three minutes to midnight or less was in 1953.

The Bulletin’s justification for the move is as such:

Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth. Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth. Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads—thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.

Will we see the widespread deployment of

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as an attempt to limit the possibility of a mutually assured destruction (MAD) strategic nuclear weapons exchange in the coming years? It is quite possible. The new military reality for the U.S. will be one of wars not of choice but of necessity, ones we do not start, but are obligated to end. Should such conflicts occur, they will not be limited to small-time rogue regimes and third world failed states, but could very well include nuclear capable near peer-state actors. These wars will most likely be characterized by limited but rapid and violent exchanges as the result of territorial disputes. Although these exchanges will begin conventional in nature, escalation is a squirmy thing to predict, and there is no telling if, or when, a nuclear option could be introduced by either party.


As such, introducing throngs of tactical nukes into such a mix may also be a form of introducing what could end up being a rapidly escalating nuclear exchange just as much as they could represent an option for a limited nuclear response.

This perilous nuclear tightrope was walked throughout the Cold War, at least before MAD became the unofficially agreed upon policy of the USSR and USA, and it is very sad, if not terrifying, seeing that metaphorical tightrope being strung up once again.

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[Air Force Brat]

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"ah, Roger that!", brat out.

 

[Jura The idiot]

dated June 26, related to the F-35C training facility:

Solpac Construction Inc., doing business as Soltek Pacific Construction Co., San Diego, California, is being awarded firm-fixed-price $20,219,000 for task order 0007 under a previously awarded multiple award construction contract (N62473-10-D-5411) for construction of the operational training facility to accommodate the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter aircraft training requirements at Naval Air Station, Lemoore. The work to be performed provides for construction of a multi-story, steel framed, and reinforced concrete masonry unit operational training facility with pile foundations to house full mission simulators. Facility standards for the operational training facility will be built for a special access program including the full mission simulators, classrooms, briefing rooms, storage, and maintenance areas, personnel support spaces, and administrative spaces. The task order also contains four unexercised options and one planned modification, which if exercised would increase the cumulative task order value to $20,986,244. Work will be performed in Lemoore, California, and is expected to be completed by October 2016. Fiscal 2015 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $20,219,000 are being obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Six proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity.

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[Jura The idiot]

below is the article (dated Apr 2, 2015) which describes F-35A "air-to-air combat maneuvers against" F-16, but doesn't say the outcome ... and yesterday F-35 detractors claimed
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... the "five-page brief" not included though)
the outcome was ... not good for F-35 ...
F-35 Flies Against F-16 In Basic Fighter Maneuvers

The

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Joint Strike Fighter has been flown in air-to-air combat maneuvers against

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for the first time and, based on the results of these and earlier flight-envelope evaluations, test pilots say the aircraft can be cleared for greater agility as a growth option.

Although the F-35 is designed primarily for attack rather than air combat, U.S. Air Force and

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test pilots say the availability of potential margin for additional maneuverability is a testament to the aircraft’s recently proven overall handling qualities and basic flying performance. “The door is open to provide a little more maneuverability,” says Lockheed Martin F-35 site lead test pilot David “Doc” Nelson.

The operational maneuvers were flown by Nelson in AF-2, the primary Flight Sciences loads and flutter evaluation aircraft, and one of nine F-35s used by the Edwards AFB-based 412th Test Wing for developmental testing (DT). The F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards has six F-35As, two F-35Bs and a single F-35C dedicated to DT work, as well as a further set of aircraft allotted to the Joint Operational Test Team. Work is underway as part of efforts to clear the final system development and demonstration (SDD) maneuvering envelopes on the way to initial operational capability (IOC). The U.S.

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F-35B IOC is targeted for later this year, the Air Force’s F-35A in 2016, and the U.S. Navy’s F-35C in 2019.

“When we did the first dogfight in January, they said, ‘you have no limits,’” says Nelson. “It was loads monitoring, so they could tell if we ever broke something. It was a confidence builder for the rest of the fleet because there is no real difference structurally between AF-2 and the rest of the airplanes.” AF-2 was the first F-35 to be flown to 9g+ and -3g, and to roll at design-load factor. The aircraft, which was also the first Joint Strike Fighter to be intentionally flown in significant airframe buffet at all angles of attack, was calibrated for inflight loads measurements prior to ferrying to Edwards in 2010.

The operational maneuver tests were conducted to see “how it would look like against an F-16 in the airspace,” says Col. Rod “Trash” Cregier, F-35 program director. “It was an early look at any control laws that may need to be tweaked to enable it to fly better in future. You can definitely tweak it—that’s the option.”

“Pilots really like maneuverability, and the fact that the aircraft recovers so well from a departure allows us to say [to the designers of the flight control system laws], ‘you don’t have to clamp down so tight,’” says Nelson. Departure resistance was proven during high angle-of-attack (AOA) testing, which began in late 2012 with the aircraft pushing the nose to its production AOA limit of 50 deg. Subsequent AOA testing has pushed the aircraft beyond both the positive and negative maximum command limits, including intentionally putting the aircraft out of control in several configurations ranging from “clean” wings to tests with open weapons-bay doors. Testing eventually pushed the F-35 to a maximum of 110 deg. AOA.

An “aggressive and unique” approach has been taken to the high AOA, or “high alpha” testing, says Nelson. “Normally, test programs will inch up on max alpha, and on the

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it took us 3-4 months to get to max alpha. On this jet, we did it in four days. We put a spin chute on the back, which is normal for this sort of program, and then we put the airplane out of control and took our hands off the controls to see if it came back. We actually tweaked the flight control system with an onboard flight test aid to allow it to go out of control, because it wouldn’t by itself. Then we drove the center of gravity back and made it the worst-case configuration on the outside with weapons bay doors and put the aircraft in a spin.” The aircraft has been put into spins with yaw rates up to 60 deg./sec., equal to a complete turn every 6 sec. “That’s pretty good. But we paddled off the flight-test aid and it recovered instantly,” he says.

Pilots also tested the ability of the F-35 to recover from a deep-stall in which it was pushed beyond the maximum AoA command limit by activating a manual pitch limiter (MPL) override similar to the alpha limiter in the F-16. “It’s not something an operational pilot would do, but the angle of attack went back and, with the center of gravity way back aft, it would not pitch over, but it would pitch up. So it got stuck at 60 or 70 deg. alpha, and it was as happy as could be. There was no pitching moment to worry about, and as soon as I let go of the MPL, it would come out,” Nelson says.

Following consistent recoveries, the test team opted to remove the spin chute for the rest of the test program. “The airplane, with no spin chute, had demonstrated the ability to recover from the worst-case departure, so we felt very confident, and that has been proven over months of high alpha testing,” says Nelson. “It also satisfied those at the Joint Program Office who said spin chute on the back is not production-representative and produces aerodynamic qualities that are not right.” Although there are additional test points ahead where the spin chute is scheduled to be reattached for departure resistance with various weapons loads, the test team is considering running through the points without it.

With the full flight envelope now opened to an altitude of 50,000 ft., speeds of Mach 1.6/700 KCAS and loads of 9g, test pilots also say improvements to the flight control system have rendered the transonic roll-off (TRO) issue tactically irrelevant. Highlighted as a “program concern” in the

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’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (

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&E) 2014 report, initial flight tests showed that all three F-35 variants experienced some form of wing drop in high-speed turns associated with asymmetrical movements of shock waves. However, TRO “has evolved into a non-factor,” says Nelson, who likens the effect to a momentary “tug” on one shoulder harness. “You have to pull high-g to even find it.” The roll-off phenomena exhibits itself as “less than 10 deg./sec. for a fraction of a second. We have been looking for a task it affects and we can’t find one.”

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