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

[TerraN_EmpirE]

or could be just what it reads as a complementary platform.

 

[Jura The idiot]

or could be just what it reads as a complementary platform.

yep

and hey, that's for arguing

 

[FORBIN]

Carrier air wing of the 2020s with mix of F-35C and F/A-18E/F

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I have udapted mainly for helos :
HSC have 8 MH-60S deployed in general 7
HSM have 11 MH-60R " " 8 whose in average 6 on CG/DDGs to consider also Burke Fl I 28 / 62 don' t have hangar for helos
And removed SV-22B.

Author’s Note: Part II will discuss the CVW's power projection capabilities against the PRC.
Waiting

 

[Jura The idiot]

or could be just what it reads as a complementary platform.

complementary ... or none:
Trump flirting with big Super Hornet order
"... Trump told reporters that, unless prices continued coming down on the F-35, he would be prepared to cut future F-35 contracts and order more Super Hornets instead."

At the rollout of Boeing’s newest commercial airliner, President Donald Trump indicated his administration could be looking at a large Super Hornet order. Huge, even.

“We are going to fully rebuild our military. By the way, do you care if we use the F-18 Super Hornets? Or do you only care about—what do you think?” Trump said Friday, addressing veterans and servicemembers in the crowd at a Boeing plant in North Charleston, S.C. “We are looking seriously at a big order. We’ll see how that [goes].”

Trump’s trip marks a growing relationship between the new president and Boeing, which has been a target of both his praise and scorn. In December, Trump tweeted that the Air Force One replacement, which is to be helmed by Boeing, should be cancelled because of what he viewed as inordinate expense.

After meeting Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg later that month and getting his promise that the program would not exceed $4 billion, Trump warmed on the company. The president has even positioned the Super Hornet as a direct competitor to Lockheed Martin’s F-35.

Speaking today in South Carolina, Trump joked that, although he wants to buy more Super Hornets, “the problem is that Dennis [Muilenburg] is a very, very tough negotiator.”

“But I think we may get there,” he added.

During his time at the Boeing facilities, Trump met with a number of company executives, including Muilenburg. A pool report noted that before the speech, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was holding a brochure for the F/A-18 XT — another name for the “Block 3” or Advanced Super Hornet. That model is being considered as a potential rival to the F-35C, the naval variant designed to take off from an aircraft carrier.

After the speech, Trump told reporters that, unless prices continued coming down on the F-35, he would be prepared to cut future F-35 contracts and order more Super Hornets instead. He also advocated taking steps to increase the stealth of the Super Hornet, according to Time's White House correspondent Zeke Miller.

The Navy requested money for two Super Hornets in its 2017 budget, and is set to request another 14 in 2018. But according to current budget documents, that would mark the end of the road for U.S. F/A-18E/F procurement — unless the Trump administration makes changes.

While it is difficult to judge whether Trump's interest in the Super Hornet will make for a long-term extension of the product line, there have been signs that this is a serious opportunity for Boeing to grab additional orders. Before his inauguration, Trump sought out information from both Muilenburg and the Pentagon's F-35 program chief Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan in order to understand how the Super Hornet and F-35 stack up. According to Bogdan, that conversation helped to spawn a Defense Department study of the optimal mix of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and F-35Cs.

Although the event in North Charleston was supposed to focus on the debut of a commercial plane, Boeing’s 787-10 Dreamliner, Trump made time in his speech to namedrop a number of defense products, including the F-15 Strike Eagle and the AH-64 Apache helicopter.

The Air Force One replacement, he said, “was a difficult project for previous administrations, but it looks like we’re getting closer and closer.”

Trump also hinted that he would greatly expand defense modernization funding in his first budget.

“We’re going to ensure that our great service members have the tools, the equipment, training and resources needed to get the job done,” he said. “We will ensure our men and women have the latest, the most cutting edge systems in their arsenal. Right now it’s not that way."

source:

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[FORBIN]

Son—and Cousin—of JDAM

The Air Force is looking to develop a new class of direct-attack munitions—those dropped from an attacking aircraft either over or near the target—that would be stealthy, maneuverable, and potentially have some electronic warfare capability, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Hawk Carlisle said in an interview.

The weapon would equip the new Penetrating Counter-Air jet and other stealthy platforms able to penetrate an enemy integrated air defense system, he said. “If we get to the enemy IADS sites, we have to have a weapon that can penetrate” those defenses “to hit the actual surface-to-air missile” batteries and associated radars, Carlisle said in the late January interview.

The weapon would have reduced signature and “broadband acquisition and tracking capability” to be able to pursue ground targets trying to flee the area, he said. The reason such a weapon is needed is that adversaries will have the ability in the not-too-distant future to shoot down or fool an existing weapon after it’s dropped from an aircraft but “before it impacts the target.”

The SSW will fill a major hole in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) mission, he said. Carlisle did not specify when such a weapon will be needed, but spoke about it in the context of the Air Superiority 2030 report done last year.

In the nearer future, the Air Force wants a quick-turnaround additional source of small, precision-guided, and maneuvering munitions to equip the F-35 in time to be part of the Block 3F suite of capabilities on the jet, according to a Feb. 10 service solicitation.

This requirement is to provide ACC with a “quick reaction capability” for a weapon in the 500-pound class that could pursue a moving target and be “compatible” with the F-35A Block 3F. The Air Force isn’t interested in a new development, specifying a mature design, “already in production,” and it wants to buy about 400 units.

A vendor could be selected in calendar 2017 and deliveries could start as soon as six months after contract award. That would coincide with planned operating capability of the 3F, which USAF said in the notice would be May 15, 2018. The contract “cannot impact the current fielding schedule” for the 3F software build, USAF said.

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[Air Force Brat]

Carrier air wing of the 2020s with mix of F-35C and F/A-18E/F

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View attachment 36424
I have udapted mainly for helos :
HSC have 8 MH-60S deployed in general 7
HSM have 11 MH-60R " " 8 whose in average 6 on CG/DDGs to consider also Burke Fl I 28 / 62 don' t have hangar for helos
And removed SV-22B.

Author’s Note: Part II will discuss the CVW's power projection capabilities against the PRC.
Waiting

Mangler Muldoon presents an knowledgable picture of the threat and the solutions, while it does rely heavily on 4 gen F-18s, it presents a lock-tight case for the absolute necessity of the F-35C! really with the proliferation of area denial weapons on almost every surface platform as well as S-400s etc... the only aircraft that will effectively put you into kill range are the F-35B and F-35C as far as carrier based aircraft are concerned.

Without the B and the C, we might as well Park those Love Boats??

 

[FORBIN]

461st Flight Test Squadron to Edwards have 6 F-35A, 3B and 3 C plus 5 pre serie F-35s for fatigue tests

 

[Jura The idiot]

I think I noticed last weekend (but don't have an access to the report quoted inside)
F-35C getting redesigned wing tips that will not break carrying missiles while making tight turns

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The U.S. Navy variant experienced an undisclosed amount of oscillation or turbulence during flight trials with the AIM-9X in December 2015, and Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan says aircraft already delivered need to be retrofitted with strengthened wings.

The outer, folding portion of the wing has inadequate structural strength to support the loads induced by pylons with AIM-9X missiles during maneuvers.

Engineers have already produced an enhanced outer wing design, which is now undergoing flight testing. The issue has impacted the timeline for fielding AIM-9X, which is being rolled out for the Navy in Block 3F

Because of a seven-year schedule delay, the fifth-generation F-35 fighter will carry air superiority missiles that are one generation behind missiles on F-18s, which are already carrying the newest AIM-9X Block II and AIM-120D.

The missile must be delivered in time to support initial operational test and evaluation and complete the 17-year F-35 system development and demonstration phase by May 2018. The Navy, in particular, must be cleared to fly and shoot the AIM-9X to declare combat-ready status with its first squadron of F-35C Block 3F aircraft in 2018.

The F-35 team is adding a moving target capability, as reported by Aviation Week on Feb. 15. There are currently no plans to install weapons capable of hitting moving and maneuvering targets, such as an insurgent driving away in a pickup truck. The F-35’s laser designator cannot lead the target, its basic inventory of late-1990s guided bombs will fall short if that target moves briskly.

The military is integrating Raytheon’s GBU-49 Lot 5 Enhanced Paveway II, which automatically corrects for target speed and direction as well as wind conditions. The Marines have expressed a preference for the Raytheon GBU-53B Small Diameter Bomb Increment II, but that is not slated for full integration and flight clearance until Block 4.2, around fiscal 2022 or later.

source:

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[Air Force Brat]

As they say? "The devil is in the details". I would remind all that the F-18 also had to have "revised" outer wing panels.

 

[Jura The idiot]

Nov 16, 2016

according to AirForceMag Carlisle Expects F-35 to Join Anti-ISIS Fight

source:

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now:
F-35 to fight ISIS in a few years

The US Air Force’s F-35A will fight ISIS in the near future, but don’t expect to see the Lockheed Martin Lightning II flying over Iraq or Syria this year.

The F-35A’s Middle East deployment is not imminent and is planned a few years out, USAF Air Combat Command chief Gen Herbert Carlisle told reporters 24 February. It’s unclear now whether the jet will have increased software capabilities by that point or will remain in the current Block 3i configuration. When the F-35A reached initial operational capability this summer, it fell short of its planned Block 3F configuration, which would have increased the aircraft’s weapons capacity and improve its targeting capability. The USAF expects Blocks 3F and 4 will be available by 2018 and 2021.

When the USAF readies for its Central Command deployment, the service will take stock of 3F testing progress, according to Carlisle. In order to maintain combat capability, the USAF will likely keep one squadron of F-35s in the 3i configuration he says. As the air force procures new 3F jets, the service will retrofit the 3i aircraft to block 3F, he adds.

“We’ll look at what that looks like when the timing comes to send the F-35,” Carlisle says. “Whether we send the 3i folks or 3Fs, we’ll look at that, I don’t think we have the answer to that right now.”

While the Pentagon’s top weapons tester has compared the Block 3i capabilities to a fourth-generation aircraft, Carlisle maintains the 3i aircraft is a combat ready fighter. He’s also made an aggressive push to increase the buy rate of F-35s to at least 60 aircraft per year. His colleague and deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements has warned against accelerating procurement before the development of Block 4. In a February Congressional testimony, Lt Gen Jerry Harris told lawmakers an increased F-35 procurement over the next five years would force the service to retrofit additional aircraft with Block 4 hardware and software modifications.

When faced with criticism over whether the service should continue buying more aircraft before initial operational test and evaluation completes, Carlisle told reporters Block 3i did not complete IOT&E before dropping weapons or participating in Red Flag exercises.

“The airplane is performing exceedingly well,” he says. “Do we know everything about it? No, we don’t know anything about any airplane before we put it into different environments. We learn as we go.”

“From my perspective, I would tell you that I have confidence in the airplane and would increase the buy rate and that we’ll learn things in IOTE and we’ll learn things as we finish out SDD, but everything we’ve seen to date gives me confidence that the airplane is combat capable,” he adds.

Before the F-35A deploys the Middle East, the block 3i aircraft could fly to Europe as early as this spring on a short deployment, Carlisle says. The USAF is also looking to the US Marine Corps for support in a Pacific deployment. In January, the first F-35B squadron moved to Iwakuni, Japan.

source is FlightGlobal

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