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

[Air Force Brat]

What about the B2 thought they could carry a few bombs themselves

Well the B-2 is a bomber, nothing to do with stealth fighters?? and the B-2 will carry two of the "big boys", the B-21 will be limited to 1, all the more reason to forget about that big dollar small bomber! LOL

 

[FORBIN]

F-35B Phase 2 Ski Ramp trials continue

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[Obi Wan Russell]

Actually Master Jura, myself and some of your brothers are praying for you Obi-Wan, we do indeed hope you have a speedy recovery brother,,, praying that you might have life and health and peace! We all love you Bub, very thankful for your outstanding contributions and your friendship here on the SDF.

and just to get back on topic, congratulations on this beautiful Lady, that we call Queen Elizabeth! May she lift your Spirit, and your Flag!

Thank you all. I have long term health problems that ebb and flow, I've just been feeling like crap for a few days, and given the British tendency to understate things I'm obviously underplaying it! The flesh is week but the spirit is willing and the brain is still plotting world domination. Did I just say that out loud?

Any way Big Liz is currently waiting in the Channel to the south of the Isle of Wight (Home to the 'Wight Walkers'. Trust me, I've been there...) ready for her entry into Pompey tomorrow morning, now expected at around 7.10am BST (0610ZULU) due to tides and weather. Live coverage expected from the BBC.

Also the 11th UK F35B (BF-11) ZM145 was delivered not so long back and 12 is on the way:

 

[Equation]

AT 0:47 you can see the vector nozzle exhaust pivot downward right during the take off!

 

[Jeff Head]

Thank you all. I have long term health problems that ebb and flow, I've just been feeling like crap for a few days, and given the British tendency to understate things I'm obviously underplaying it! The flesh is week but the spirit is willing and the brain is still plotting world domination. Did I just say that out loud?

Any way Big Liz is currently waiting in the Channel to the south of the Isle of Wight (Home to the 'Wight Walkers'. Trust me, I've been there...) ready for her entry into Pompey tomorrow morning, now expected at around 7.10am BST (0610ZULU) due to tides and weather. Live coverage expected from the BBC.

Also the 11th UK F35B (BF-11) ZM145 was delivered not so long back and 12 is on the way:View attachment 41405

GREAT to see them ramping up...and the beat goes on!

 

[Jura The idiot]

here's DefenseTech story
New Pilot on Navigating F-35 Comms: ‘It Is Extremely Simple’ August 15, 2017

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The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is one of the most software intensive mission systems ever built that allows it to take in, process and display a host of information to its pilot.

It’s given critics a reason to blast the aircraft as a flying computer instead of just an aircraft, giving the pilot more unnecessary tasks if he or she were in battle.

But because of its state-of-the-art design, how a pilot uses, for example, its data communications network is surprisingly simple, an F-35 pilot recently told Military.com

“Operating between the systems is really easy. I don’t have engineers’ understanding of the systems, I couldn’t tell you how to design them, but I can tell you it is extremely simple,” said 1st Lt. Brett Burnside, who recently graduated the Air Force’s B-course at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. Th “B-course,” or the basic flight class, is part of the 61st Fighter Squadron at the base.

For example, the F-35 operates on the F-35’s Multi-Function Advanced Datalink system, or MADL, as well as the legacy Link 16 system, common to many U.S. military platforms.

“For MADL, all I have to do is set a local net for my flight, one through 12, and then my node, which is kind of my position, I put my node as either two or four as a wingman, and I hit active on two different antennas and I am in the net[work],” Burnside explained.

By comparison, Link 16 has a few more “button pushes. But pretty transparent. Really, you could tell someone how to get into the link, type it in, enter the net, and that’s all they need to know.”

“It’s extremely, extremely easy to utilize the datalinks — very user friendly,” Burnside said of the overall comms network.

Burnside and five other F-35A pilots graduated the service’s eight-month long B-course on Aug. 5. The 62nd Fighter Squadron, the 61st’s sister squadron, also trains a six-person F-35 class, one currently ongoing at the base.

The only platform these pilots have known in their brief Air Force careers is the Lightning II.

There was a time during training, Burnside said, his datalink wasn’t working “as advertised.”

“Usually there’s a simple fix of turn it off then turn it back on, which is generally kind of our answer here in the F-35 right now,” he said.

“But there’s other ways for me to kind of battle track red forces and blue forces with other sensors I have on the jet — my radar, or my [Electro-Optical Targeting System] or any sort of [Identification Friend-or-Foe] interrogator transponder which will allow me to keep track of who’s who in the battlespace,” he explained.

All of these avionics help keep the F-35 combat ready on command.

The pilot said doubling back on those systems versus the comms networks does “degrade his situational awareness and it’s not going to be as user friendly, I’m going to have to work a little bit harder to maintain some of that stuff to track my lethality or effectiveness.”

“It is good that you have [both MADL and Link 16] that you could work on,” he said, because “they have different purposes, so ideally you always want them both to be working but if one is not working, you’re still able to keep SA with one or the other,” he said.

 

[Jura The idiot]

Major Eric Northam of USMC flight test and evaluation unit VX-23 Launches an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile while flying inverted. (Photo: Dane Widdeman for Lockheed Martin)

now found inside
“Because I Was… Inverted!” Everything You Need To Know About The Photo Of An F-35C Firing An AIM-9X During Inverted Flight
Aug 18 2017

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[kurutoga]

F-35B Phase 2 Ski Ramp trials continue

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Can F-35C be launched via ski jump? not as effectively as f-35B?

 

[Air Force Brat]

Can F-35C be launched via ski jump? not as effectively as f-35B?

NO WAY HOSEA! ain't gonna ever, ever, happen! so no, the F-35C will never launch off a ramp,,,, could it at a lighter weight??? after all the Russians and Chinese launch their SU-33 and J-15's off the ramp at significantly reduced gross weights, sure it could, but it WON'T ever happen, the USN does not operate that way...

All CAT, all the time! cats and traps! but a good question, and it does serve as another opportunity to remind all, that operating any fixed wing aircraft off the ramp, is a mixed bag...

that J-15 with the bird-strike off the land base, would have been a "swimmer" off the ramp after losing an engine off the ramp,,,, don't ask me how I know, but it was hairy enough after coming off a 10,000 foot runway, just ask YUAN Wei?? he'll tell ya the truth!

would have been a "punch out and a SPLASH! off the ramp.

F-35 Bravo always does a "rolling take-off" when departing the Wasp, and will do likewise off the Queen Elizbeth, someone pointed out that the rear nozzle is deflected downward as it rolls up the ramp,,,, and it does, its flying off on JP Power, all engine, all the time! engine loses power for any reason, bird-strike whatever, its also a punch out!

 

[kurutoga]

NO WAY HOSEA! ain't gonna ever, ever, happen! so no, the F-35C will never launch off a ramp,,,, could it at a lighter weight??? after all the Russians and Chinese launch their SU-33 and J-15's off the ramp at significantly reduced gross weights, sure it could, but it WON'T ever happen, the USN does not operate that way...

All CAT, all the time! cats and traps! but a good question, and it does serve as another opportunity to remind all, that operating any fixed wing aircraft off the ramp, is a mixed bag...

So in other words, for a country like UK/Japan they don't have arresting cables on the carriers they won't be able to launch refueling planes, drones, EW aircrafts unless they can STOVL. If so I think this is a very big disadvantage compared to USN or future PLAN (not the current PLAN)