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

[Jeff Head]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Two British pilots have begun training with the Marines in Florida, in the two British F-35Bs, when they complete their training and check-out they will take their two birds to Edwards and continue flight Testing out there with the Marines as they begin to work on operational procedures etc, with the Marines at Edwards? This from todays DR of the Air Force Magazine.

Outstanding! The more partners that get their people behind the sticks of these aircraft, trained up, and operational policies and procedures developed, the better.

The sooner they become operational the better too. As that happens, I expect to see other customers come to the table.

The US now has operational Air Force birds and operational U.S. Marine birds and the Navy will not be too far behind. All very good...and making progress towards a real logictical bonanza and a dream of decades to have significant commonality betweeen all three branches for a very major program, particularly including the Marines with their STOVL jump-jets.

The A-7 was that way...the Air Force, Navy and Marines all used it. The F-4 Phantom too, and some others. But none of those could do STOVL or VTOL for the Marines and it was thought that pulling this trick off, and doing so with stealth and supersonic capability would simply not ever happen.

But, once again, American ingenuity is going to prove such a premise wrong...and before anyone gets too touchy feely about what I just said, that does not mean that other countries and their "ingenuity" can not pull great things off too. Just that in this case it will be the good ole U.S. of A. doing it. (Sad commentary that I would even have to feel it necessary to put such a end-tag after a statement like this...explaining something that is so patently obvious.)

 

[Air Force Brat]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Will the recent deployment of F-35 in the USMC rattles China? or Chinese military planners? These can be deployed in Taiwan or any areas of potential conflict to encircle China. Since these aircraft is VTOL, then it does not need long runways. Therefore in can land on highways and streets right?

Actually NO Delbert, China nor the US get "rattled', fanboys get "rattled", defense journos get "rattled", and I'm sure there are others that do, not many peopled get rattled by the US doing anything, because you've got to do something seriously stupid or dangerous to provoke the US into any action, so no they are NOT rattled.

 

[Jeff Head]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

...not many peopled get rattled by the US doing anything, because you've got to do something seriously stupid or dangerous to provoke the US into any action, so no they are NOT rattled.

Current production schedules (if they continued throughout this year (2012) as planned), will end up with the following inventories on hand per plan at the start of 2013:

USAF "A"s - 67 aircraft, with an additional 1 for the Dutch and 2 for the Australians, or 70 aircraft in total.
USMC "B" - 35 aircraft, with and additional 3 for the UK, or a toal of 38 aircraft in total.
US Navy "C" - 21 aircraft.

By 2017, when all the production stops are pulled out for full production for all varieties, the intital production rates, per plan, will have achieved the following numbers of aircraft built and delivered by the end of 2017:

"A" - 225 US, 1 Dutch, 2 Australia, 3 Italy, 2 Turkey and 2 Norway (235 total)
"B" - 78 USMC, 4 UK (82 Total)
"C" - -65 US Navy

Here's a GREAT video about the F-35s APG-81 AESA Radar:

[video=youtube;wIwAOupjMeM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIwAOupjMeM[/video]
​

Here's another video about the F-35's Electro Optical Distributed Aperture System (EO DAS)

[video=youtube;9fm5vfGW5RY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fm5vfGW5RY[/video]
​

Good stuff I thought you might like, Brat. Headman, out.

 

[Subedei]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

nyt online, today, has an interesting article about the f-35 program.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Fu Wen Shi]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

nyt online, today, has an interesting article about the f-35 program.

Hello, it says to me "Page not found".

 

[jackliu]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

This is the correct link.

Nothing new, over budget over time, inappropriate relationships between lockie and government... bad decision making from everyone etc...

But what is interest is that the articles says "Only 20 to 30 percent of the structural parts ended up in common" between 3 planes. No wonder it is facing so much troubled, originally it was suppose to be 70-80% parts in common to reduce cost and logistic. Now it looks like it is almost 3 new different planes.

 

[Jeff Head]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

But what is interest is that the articles says "Only 20 to 30 percent of the structural parts ended up in common" between 3 planes. No wonder it is facing so much troubled, originally it was suppose to be 70-80% parts in common to reduce cost and logistic. Now it looks like it is almost 3 new different planes.

Sorry Jack, I am familiar with the program and with engineers working on the project an the NYTs has got it wrong (no big surprise there either) and their claim is simply backwards.

The commonality is not 20-30%. If that were the case, and they had missed that critical target so glaringly, the program would have been stopped long ago.

I can tell you that they are very close to the goals of the program to have 70-80% structural commonality and you can look at the three aircraft and see the evidence. They are clearly much, much more alike physically/structurally than they are different. For there to be only 20-30% commonality, they would simply have to appear much more differently than they do...so you can choose to believe what you will, the NYTs claim, or your own eyes.

That does not mean that there are not problems in the program...and that there will not be more.

...and, come on, Jack, "bad decision making from everyone."

You don't think that statement portrays a very signficant bias?

To the contrary of such a statement, they are producing aircraft in low level production regularly now and they have operational aircraft in both the US Air Force and the US Marines flying and the approvals are going forward. Do you honestly think that reflects "bad decision making from everyone?"

There should at least be some effort to display some degree of impartiality. The facts of what is happening prove that particular bias wrong...despite whatever problems the program is having.

Operational aircraft in the Air Force and the Marines are very good things for the program, and do not results from bad decisions from everyone.

I expect after successful qualification exercises aboard the carriers this year, that the US Navy will begin to form up their own initial operational aircraft, which will be just another achieved milestone on the road to an ultimately very successful, and much needed program that will add significantly to the ability to defend the nation.

But, as with everything else. we'll see.

 

[jackliu]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

Sorry Jack, I am familiar with the program and with engineers working on the project an the NYTs has got it wrong (no big surprise there either) and their claim is simply backwards.

The commonality is not 20-30%. If that were the case, and they had missed that critical target so glaringly, the program would have been stopped long ago.

I can tell you that they are very close to the goals of the program to have 70-80% structural commonality and you can look at the three aircraft and see the evidence. They are clearly much, much more alike physically/structurally than they are different. For there to be only 20-30% commonality, they would simply have to appear much more differently than they do...so you can choose to believe what you will, the NYTs claim, or your own eyes.

That does not mean that there are not problems in the program...and that there will not be more.

...and, come on, Jack, "bad decision making from everyone."

You don't think that statement portrays a very signficant bias?

To the contrary of such a statement, they are producing aircraft in low level production regularly now and they have operational aircraft in both the US Air Force and the US Marines flying and the approvals are going forward. Do you honestly think that reflects "bad decision making from everyone?"

There should at least be some effort to display some degree of impartiality. The facts of what is happening prove that particular bias wrong...despite whatever problems the program is having.

Operational aircraft in the Air Force and the Marines are very good things for the program, and do not results from bad decisions from everyone.

I expect after successful qualification exercises aboard the carriers this year, that the US Navy will begin to form up their own initial operational aircraft, which will be just another achieved milestone on the road to an ultimately very successful, and much needed program that will add significantly to the ability to defend the nation.

But, as with everything else. we'll see.

I'm going to take a guess you didn't read the article.

Yes, it was planned to have 70-80% common parts, but the article now say it is 20-30%. I didn't say it, the author says it, so I assume he must have some sources, if you want challenge, challenge him not me. And I don't think just by looking at external appearance alone you can say it must be have 70-80% common parts, because you should know this, different version of F-35 have very different requirements, so it is possible they may have very different internal structure design.

And yes, I said bad decision from everyone, I didn't say it, the article said it. And the example that you give me that they are now in production is just one of the example of bad decision. Because the jet is NOT ready, but yet they have started pre-production and hoping to later refit the ones being produced to the production finished model, and this would cost another 4-6 billion dollars. The article criticize this decision because it thinks this is not economical and this is done primarily out of political interest, because the sooner you produce, the sooner you can gain political supports, here is the quote

"rushing into production creates jobs and locks in political support, even if it allows programs to drift into trouble. Lockheed and its suppliers on the F-35 employ 35,000 workers, with some in nearly every Congressional district"

There is no doubt this jet is over budget and over time. Affordability was one of the key selling point of this plane, it was also one of the most important reason they decide to stop F-22 production, because it costs too much. However now it looks like F-35 will cost the same as a F-22.

 

[Equation]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

I'm going to take a guess you didn't read the article.

Yes, it was planned to have 70-80% common parts, but the article now say it is 20-30%. I didn't say it, the author says it, so I assume he must have some sources, if you want challenge, challenge him not me. And I don't think just by looking at external appearance alone you can say it must be have 70-80% common parts, because you should know this, different version of F-35 have very different requirements, so it is possible they may have very different internal structure design.

And yes, I said bad decision from everyone, I didn't say it, the article said it. And the example that you give me that they are now in production is just one of the example of bad decision. Because the jet is NOT ready, but yet they have started pre-production and hoping to later refit the ones being produced to the production finished model, and this would cost another 4-6 billion dollars. The article criticize this decision because it thinks this is not economical and this is done primarily out of political interest, because the sooner you produce, the sooner you can gain political supports, here is the quote

"rushing into production creates jobs and locks in political support, even if it allows programs to drift into trouble. Lockheed and its suppliers on the F-35 employ 35,000 workers, with some in nearly every Congressional district"

There is no doubt this jet is over budget and over time. Affordability was one of the key selling point of this plane, it was also one of the most important reason they decide to stop F-22 production, because it costs too much. However now it looks like F-35 will cost the same as a F-22.

You're right, but lets just wait and see for sure if the decision made will either have a negative effect or a positive one on the production line. The sooner the F-35 is produce in a safe and efficient manner, the cheaper and better turn out for the plane as the workers and engineers become more accustom to it and fixing all the kinks along the way. That's just the nature of producing high tech jet planes.

Just think of it like contractors bidding for government building construction or a skyscraper for a corporation. The final bidding cost will NEVER be the final amount. Why? Because there's always many other issues come into play that effects cost such as fuel, rise of material costs, weather delays, workers strike, testing of soil not adequate to foundation and so forth.

 

[Jeff Head]

re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread

I'm going to take a guess you didn't read the article.

Yes, it was planned to have 70-80% common parts, but the article now say it is 20-30%.

And yes, I said bad decision from everyone, I didn't say it, the article said it.

"rushing into production creates jobs and locks in political support, even if it allows programs to drift into trouble. Lockheed and its suppliers on the F-35 employ 35,000 workers, with some in nearly every Congressional district".

Wrong guess, Jack.

Like I said, whether you were the source or author, it is clearly a badly skewed and biased article from that comment alone.

And I know exactly what was "planned" for the F-35 ad I also know where it actually is. I tried to give you a way to use your own abilities to look at the aircraft and see that the claim regarding commanlity is clearly off, way off...but hey, people generally believe what they want to believe. BTW, the article actually gave no source for that statement...it was just thrown in there.

As to costs, yes right now it is costly. Anytime you develop new tehcnologies to the extent they are doing on this program there will be. The savings on this aircraft will come in the overall numbers, and in the long term and I expect both will be achieved. It's straight forward economies of scale. To begin with, with the R&D costs, rampinging up the logistics chain and mateirals...each one is very expensive. As you add aircraft...particularly many thousands of them, the material costs are cheaper, the initial startup and R&D costs are spread out over more aircraft, and each one becomes less expensive. Conversely if you planned for 2,000 aircraft and cut it way back to say...187 aircraft...then each aircraft would be very expensive indeed. Generally when that happens, this same crowd points the finger and is upset about the cost of each aircraft...when it was they who complained and lobbbied to get rid of the program. Oh well, that's life..

As to rushing into prodution...clearly you,nor the author are very familiar with the project plan, or it is being willfully ignored. They have stretched out the initial, very low level production runs over eight years, Jack. That's no "rush" into production of a system that will ultimately be numbered in many thousands between all three variants and all the nations involved.

As I said, as a person who knows the program and knows people working on it, the claim about the commonality is simply ludicrous and if you have to "assume" that this author has official, credible technical sources for that claim, when he lists none...well, you know what happens when anyone "assumes."

The other sources I read in the article were mainly new appointees by the Obama administration, non-profuit organizations, research institutes, and other democratic representatives or appointees, pretty much each of whom have an axe to grind and are looking for reasons to cancel or reduce such programs. It is why there is the tenor to the article that there is. The General clealry believes it can be accomplished, and of course the President of Lockheed who was quoted is going to believe it too.

But there were no negative or derogatory comments cited as coming from project personnel...and believe me, when a project really goes bad, they are easy to find because, contrary to what some may think, most of those working on these projects are professionals who want the best for their country and come forward when there are those level of problems.

I've seen a lot of projects, JAck...most succeeded, some failed. My own prediction on this is that the ultimate outcome of this project will be a success and they will realize significant down stream savings from the commonality and abilty to work out the logistics chain and maintenance accordingly.