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

[Equation]

Fear is not an appropriate word for China's emotion or action, China is aggressively militarizing the SCS in response to Obama's demonstrated lack of foreign policy "chops".... so China is now "frustrated" by Donald Trump's election, and the US rejection of Obama and Hillary's weak response to both the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Chinese "take-over" of the SCS.

So in Dave's World, that frustration is characterized by fear, now in response, the US is "afraid" that China's aggressive expansion in the SCS is what it appears to be, China attempting to counter the US presence in the region. Trump's team is going to respond in a powerful way, to "flesh out" Obama's Pacific Shift, uping US military presence and FON excercises that are a direct response to China's obvious expansion into the SCS.

Before or after Trump finish dealing with his ridiculous Obama wiretapping scandal?

 

[bd popeye]

China attempting to counter the US presence in the region. Trump's team is going to respond in a powerful way, to "flesh out" Obama's Pacific Shift, uping US military presence and FON excercises that are a direct response to China's obvious expansion into the SCS.

Actually , and I've pointed this out previously, President Obama did not start the US shift to the Pacfic. President Bush did...BHO just gave it a name and made it an offical policy;

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President Obama's Asia strategy represents a significant shift in American foreign policy from a Middle Eastern/European focus to an East/South Asian one.

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Previously, the Clinton and Bush administrations deployed significant naval and air weapons systems to Guam and Japan, cooperated with Singapore by constructing an aircraft carrier facility at

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, and strengthened U.S. bilateral defense cooperation with Japan and the Philippines.

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"The Bush administration assigned an additional aircraft carrier to the Pacific theater and the Pentagon announced in 2005 that it would deploy 60 percent of U.S. submarines to Asia."

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Spending for

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(PACOM) remained high during the anti-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Obama approach to FON deployment of Naval assets was a joke...in most cases.

 

[Air Force Brat]

Before or after Trump finish dealing with his ridiculous Obama wiretapping scandal?

There is NO DOUBT that the NSA, CIA, and the rest of the "spooks" have been tapping the Trump campaign for at least a year, and there's no doubt, that would have to have been approved by then President Barack Hussein Obama......

When you saw so many of the "spooks" come out as never Trumpers, and sign their stooped little "hit list", saw "madam butterfly" of the supreme court come out against the President?? they did NOT expect a Trump Victory, because they threw their whole being into defeating him???

How much tax payer money did Obama send to Israel in an attempt to defeat "Bibi Netanyahu", but then liberals aren't smart enough to realize Obama was doing exactly what he now accuses Vladimir Putin of doing in our election???

 

[Air Force Brat]

Actually , and I've pointed this out previously, President Obama did not start the US shift to the Pacfic. President Bush did...BHO just gave it a name and made it an offical policy;

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President Obama approach to FON deployment of Naval assets was a joke...in most cases.

Of course it was a joke, but under President Trump, it will be a good faith effort to assure freedom of the open seas and to prevent "power plays" that rob others of their rights under international law.

 

[Zool]

Wow, throw in an article on J-20 and its straight to aggressive Chinese expansion, then Obama vs Trump political posts. All in the F-35 thread. And some people complain about political leanings in the strategy threads lmao. Any bets on if any of this actually gets a warnings and cleaned up? I'll start - no

 

[Jura The idiot]

Sep 16, 2016

the usual, right?
Boeing protests Denmark's F-35A decision

source is FlightGlobal

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and Denmark may respond to Boeing lawsuit in April

Denmark’s Office of Attorney General is expected to unveil a formal legal defense position in April or May in response to a lawsuit filed by Boeing that essentially questions the fairness and transparency of Denmark’s fighter selection process.

Boeing wants access to selection process documents pertaining to Denmark’s next-generation fighter competition.

In its lawsuit, Boeing claims that its F/A-18F Super Hornet, which lost out to Lockheed Martin’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter in the Danish Fighter Replacement Program, may have been subjected to a flawed evaluation process culminating in unsound conclusions made by Denmark about the aircraft.

On the Danish side, the government’s defense strategy and legal input is being prepared in consultation with the ministries of Defence, Justice and Finance. Denmark plans to also present reasons for nondisclosure of selection process documents sought by Boeing.

It is anticipated that the Danish government’s core arguments against the lawsuit will be to explain the criteria under which the fighter selection process was run and defend the overall transparency aspect of the competition.

Moreover, the Danish MoD will argue that it could not comply with certain individual petitions by Boeing for information because the requests made were either nonspecific or "too wide-ranging" in nature.

Part of Denmark’s defense strategy will be to block access by Boeing to technical reports and records dealing with the evaluations conducted on the various competing candidate aircraft on the grounds that such documents fall under Denmark’s classified data laws.

Furthermore, Denmark is expected to argue that Boeing’s Super Hornet fell short of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 offering under the Fighter Replacement Program’s so-called four primary assessment pillars: strategic, military, economic and industrial.

Boeing’s lawsuit will endeavor to persuade a Danish court to compel the Danish government to grant the company access to certain classified and other documents pertaining to technical and qualitative reviews carried out on the competing aircraft and which were instrumental to overall decision-making and selection of the F-35A.

Denmark’s MoD has already denied Boeing’s requests for access to all materials relevant to the decision-making process. The MoD has only released a small number of documents to Boeing despite regular formal requests for greater access that were lodged by the company in the past six months.

source:

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[Jura The idiot]

Tuesday at 9:38 PM

did you perhaps mean
F-35 Excels At Destroying Targets—If They Don’t Move

Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me. If the primitive precision guided munitions of 40+ years ago could lock and track targets .. I'm sure if this problem does exist it is an easy fix.

hm Here's how the Air Force is fixing the F-35's moving target problem

The U.S. Air Force’s F-35A, in its current iteration, can’t hit a moving target — at least without a human manually directing the bomb to its destination.

The service plans to change that over the next year by adding a new weapon, Raytheon’s Enhanced Paveway II (GBU-49), which it hopes to integrate into the F-35’s arsenal in time for full combat capability.

The GBU-49 wasn’t originally included in the Block 3F weapons loadout, which, along with new software, will make the joint strike fighter fully mission-capable. The service decided to incorporate it within the last six to nine months, said Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, director of the Air Force’s F-35 integration office.

“The ability to hit a moving target is a key capability that we need in current close-air support fight, and the GBU-49 is a great solution for the F-35 and, frankly, for all of our legacy platforms to hit these moving targets,” he said during a February interview.

According to the F-35 Joint Program Office, a Block 3F F-35 is supposed to be able “to search, detect, track, ID and engage multiple stationary and moving surface targets in clear and adverse weather.” At the time the services formed the F-35’s requirements, they believed they could use a cluster munition to meet the moving target objective, but those weapons were banned under an international treaty, said F-35 JPO head Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan.

“The U.S., by treaty, is not allowed to use those weapons anymore,” he told reporters in February. “So when that weapon left the inventory, we were left without a weapon that could hit moving targets."

Instead of relying on weapons like the GBU-49 with a built-in ability to prosecute moving targets, many combat aircraft employ electro-optical targeting systems, or EOTS, with “lead-laser guidance” — which calculates how far a weapon should travel beyond the target’s current location in order to hit it. However, the F-35 EOTS was designed when that tech was still in its its infancy, so while the system can find a moving target, lock onto it and track it, an F-35 pilot still has to predict where a target will move and aim there, Pleus said.

The GBU-49, however, has lead-laser capability built into its front end, so it doesn’t need to rely on the EOTS system for that data, Pleus said. “All it requires is a laser spot on the moving target and the bomb itself will produce the lead necessary to hit the moving target.”

The JPO hopes to finish GBU-49 integration work by the end of calendar year 2017, Bogdan wrote in testimony submitted to Congress in February.

It already has a head start because the weapon’s flight characteristics, outer mold line and aircraft interfaces are very similar to the GBU-12 currently used by the F-35A, which also reduces integration cost. In answers to emailed questions from Defense News, the JPO noted that the GBU-49 integration and lab testing has already been completed and verified.

And because it can leverage GBU-12 flight test data, the program office is not required to conduct flight tests of the GBU-49 to validate its handling and separation characteristics — although the JPO stated it could conduct some F-35A flights with GBU-49 “on a not-to interfere basis with the completion of the development program.”

The F-35’s EOTS shortcomings are neither a new problem nor a surprise. The Air Force has long been aware of the issue, as has the Pentagon’s independent tester, who dinged the system in its most recent report. Michael Gilmore, then the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation, advised the Pentagon to integrate GBU-49 in time for Block 3F as a stopgap measure.

“Otherwise, the program plans to develop and field lead-laser guidance in Block 4.2” during the F-35’s follow on modernization program, “which would be delivered in [calendar year 2022], at the earliest,” he warned.

The Air Force has also signaled interest in other weapons that could give the F-35A moving-target capability in time for 3F capability, slated for May 2018. On Feb. 10, it released a sources-sought notification for a non-developmental, 500-pound precision-guided munition. According to the notice, the service plans to award a contract early this summer for an initial 400 weapons, with the first deliveries occurring six months from the award. From there, the service could issue follow-on contracts “to procure and sustain a total inventory of approximately 1,200 weapons.”

Presumably, Raytheon would respond to the sources-sought notification with information about the GBU-49.

Lockheed Martin also intends to provide information about its Paragon dual-mode guidance kit, Alan Jackson, the company’s vice president of strike systems, told Defense News earlier this month. Paragon — formerly known as “dual mode plus" — converts 500-, 1,000- and 2,000-pound dumb bombs to precision-guided weapons.

Lockheed has said Paragon could begin production in 2017, but it is yet to be seen whether it will fit the Air Force’s tight integration timeline. The kit is undergoing flight tests with the Navy on the F/A-18 Hornet, with tests aboard an Air Force F-16 planned for this summer. But that isn’t slated to wrap up until the end of the year.

source is DefenseNews

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[TerraN_EmpirE]

Sep 16, 2016
and Denmark may respond to Boeing lawsuit in April

source:

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standard industry practice, if you lose a contract protest. Happens all the time

 

[Jura The idiot]

Nov 28, 2016

Tuesday at 9:07 PM
now Critics Question Canada's New Super Hornet Plans

source:

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and according to FlightGlobal Canada sends letter of request to US for interim F/A-18s

Canada has taken the next step in its pursuit of an interim fleet of Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets with a letter of request to the US government this week.

On 13 March, the Canadian government sent the letter outlining capabilities, schedule and economic benefit requirements for the interim acquisition of 18 Super Hornets. Canada expects a response from the US as early as this fall, a 14 March government press release states.

The US Department of Defense will then develop an official proposal with Boeing and sub-tier suppliers, including a notification to Congress on the potential Super Hornet sale to Canada. The US and Canada could enter into a formal agreement on the interim fleet in early 2018.

“Canada has confirmed to the US government its commitment to applying its industrial and technological benefits policy on this potential acquisition, which requires suppliers to make investments in Canada equal to 100% of their contract value,” the release states. “This policy will provide Canadian companies with opportunities to directly participate in this procurement, develop Canadian-based suppliers, support innovation through research and development, grow export opportunities for Canadian firms and create jobs for middle-class Canadians.”

Canada’s replacement for its aging fleet of CF-18 fighters became a political cudgel during the 2015 election, with then liberal party candidate Justin Trudeau railing against the cost of the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme. In November, the Trudeau administration’s decision to create an open competition for the CF-18 replacement and entertain an interim Super Hornet fleet represented a blow to Lockheed and a referendum on former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s policies.

Canadian government officials have met with US government officials and Boeing on a regular basis over the last few months to discuss the interim buy, according to the release. Last month, Minister of National Defence Harjit Singh Sajjan met with Defense Secretary James Mattis at the Pentagon, though the department of national defence only officially mentioned discussions around NATO, NORAD and the fight against ISIS.

source:

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[kwaigonegin]

Tuesday at 9:38 PM

hm Here's how the Air Force is fixing the F-35's moving target problem

source is DefenseNews

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I'm confused . I thought that's what a JDAM is. With lil research JDAM can be upgraded and configured for moving target acquisition as well.

What's this new paragon crap? More fleecing of the tax paying public?