The F-35 thread

Blu82 said:
Some legacy design decisions and compromises would have carried over to the detriment of the aircraft. If they had three different airframes from the start the aircraft would have been fastly superior.

There are currently serious concerns about the lifetime of the F35B airframe due to the weight saving exercises done.
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Did you see that on an official site or one of your junk news sites?

A quick search appears to find a different story.

F35

A full scale durability test airframe of the F-35A aircraft has successfully completed its third life testing, equivalent to 24,000 hours of 'flying', in our unique testing facility at BAE Systems’ site in Brough, East Yorkshire.

Kathy Nesmith, F-35 Joint Program Office Airframe Team Lead, said: “The F-35 programme requires a service life of 8,000 flight hours. This is verified through durability testing to two lifetimes or 16,000 hours. Completing third life testing on the F-35A durability article will provide us the data to enable the warfighter to maintain and sustain this aircraft beyond 2050.”

Both the F-35B and F-35C durability test articles have completed 16,000 hour second life testing and are continuing with additional testing to maximize the life of the aircraft.
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https://www.baesystems.com/en/artic...mpletes-third-life-testing-in-unique-facility

F/A18

Engineering analysis and testing of the F/A-18 program have resulted in revised service life estimates, from 6,000 flight hours to 8,000 flight hours for the A/C models, and another change is possible to 8,000 or 10,000 flight hours for the E/F models. These changes are based on the amount of fatigue life that is remaining on the aircraft at the time of inspection. Initial flight hour projections were made based on the engineering assessment (expressed in terms of hours) of when the aircraft would reach a fatigue life expended of 100%. Initial analysis resulted in an estimate of 6,000 flight hours.
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https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-18-service-life.htm

That F/A18 seems like a pile of junk in comparison, doesn't it ;)
 
You might find out what happened to the F-35B during that accelerated life cycle testing process. They stopped the test at around 8000 flight hours due to cracks in bulkheads requiring a bulkhead redesign hence the concerns about the F-35B.

Source

Something interesting it seems the marines have started cannibalizing their F-35s similar to those legacy hornets and the F-35s world wide availability was 22% in 2017.

Source
 
Jesus, it's no wonder you find warisboring.com interesting...

Blu82 said:
You might find out what happened to the F-35B during that accelerated life cycle testing process. They stopped the test at around 8000 flight hours due to cracks in bulkheads requiring a bulkhead redesign hence the concerns about the F-35B.

Source
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Your link is 2014, and the fix was made in 2014. The new article is about the testing with the improved parts.

Your own link even makes that point:

Feb 21, 2014

An improved design for the second 496 bulkhead is being developed and will be ready for testing in March, Dellavedova says. Additionally, “new findings on the adjacent structure have just begun a similar design development, so estimates of when repair parts can be made available and installed are in-work, but we estimate the repairs will support a projected fourth quarter of 2014 durability test restart.”

The section 496 bulkhead is the same structure found in 2010 to have had a crack at the 1,500-hr. mark; this temporarily halted flight testing until a fix was implemented.

The fix to the section 496 bulkhead is expected to weight less than 2 lb.; officials have not yet said how much weight the improvements for the other two bulkheads may require.
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blu82 said:
Something interesting it seems the marines have started cannibalizing their F-35s similar to those legacy hornets and the F-35s world wide availability was 22% in 2017.

Source
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Another warisboring style of understanding from you?

Your own link makes the point that the spare parts network is still stretched and some parts take up to a month for delivery, so if required a part is used off a out of service jet but then replaced when the new part arrives. The same system is used for the F15 and F/A-18 fleet.

The system can reprioritize parts, so sometimes maintainers can actually receive a part as quickly as three to five days even if a longer date is projected.

However, it’s not uncommon for certain parts to take around a month, Pedro said.

In some scenarios, maintainers will “cannibalize” other F-35s — harvesting parts from one unavailable jet to repair another. That practice isn’t uncommon across fighter fleets and has been used to service F-15s and F/A-18s, but Pedro said that cannibalizing aircraft is a last resort.

“Before we start looking at cannibalizing that part, if it says a year out, we’ll monitor it,” he said. “Because the next report might say, ‘We have that part. It was going to be prioritized to that unit, but you need it more.’ So it will reprioritize that part.”
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Yet you contrive to make out it's an exclusively F35 weakness when it's just a normal operating procedure in the US armed forces, which is a little pathetic...
 
Any comment on the 22% availability since you missed that one?
 
Blu82 said:
Any comment on the 22% availability since you missed that one?
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You know what they say about statistics? For a start, other reports show higher rates, it's likely the rate was cherry picked from a base which has a higher number of airframes from LRIP 1-4 which quite obviously will have lower availability rates being test airframes and often grounded for upgrading.

LRIP 9-10 already has a 75% availability rate.

The overall rate is supposedly 51% and climbing.

The head of the government’s F-35 Joint Program Office says that just over half of the of the 280 fighters delivered so far are flight-ready, according to Military.com. Vice Adm. Mat Winter stated that only 51 percent of the aircraft delivered to the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines, and international customers are available for flight, with older aircraft having the greatest reliability problems.

The F-35 is in a phase called low-rate initial production (LRIP), in which relatively small numbers of planes are ordered before the final version is complete. The first year F-35s were ordered was called LRIP 1; currently the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin are negotiating prices for LRIP 11.

According to Military.com, F-35s from LRIP 2 through 4 are the least available, with just 40 to 50 percent actually available to fly. LRIP 9 and 10, which includes planes rolling of the assembly line, are the most reliable, at 70 to 75 percent.
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https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a19122455/half-f-35-fleet-is-flight-ready/


You really need to wise up and stop believing all the junk news sites, many have an agenda that you appear too gullible to notice...
 
USAF Air Force Availability rates for 2017 can be found here. For the record it shows the F-35A at 55% which makes me query the 22% availability stated above and the USMC's capability of maintaining their aircraft at all.
 
Blu82 said:
USAF Air Force Availability rates for 2017 can be found here. For the record it shows the F-35A at 55% which makes me query the 22% availability stated above and the USMC's capability of maintaining their aircraft at all.
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So your new link's 55% is more in line with the 51% in the link I found, as I said, the 20% is more likely to be a twisted statistic as F35 servicing and spares network is a unified one across all services.

I'll say it again, learn to be a little less gullible, and don't believe every website you read.
 
Dave said:
So your new link's 55% is more in line with the 51% in the link I found, as I said, the 20% is more likely to be a twisted statistic as F35 servicing and spares network is a unified one across all services.

I'll say it again, learn to be a little less gullible, and don't believe every website you read.
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Those statics does re-enforce the use of the A-10 though. Your 55% F-35's and 49% F-22's have way better things to do with their time than CAS.

It also shows the the availability of the F-35 dropping even with the influx of the new "improved aircraft".
 
Blu82 said:
Those statics does re-enforce the use of the A-10 though. Your 55% F-35's and 49% F-22's have way better things to do with their time than CAS.

It also shows the the availability of the F-35 dropping even with the influx of the new "improved aircraft".
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So you think it would be a good idea to use the A10 for bombing raids into Syria then?
 
Dave said:
So you think it would be a good idea to use the A10 for bombing raids into Syria then?
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I am personally a fan of the the B1-B / B-52 or B-2 for bombing raids. I want to use the A-10 as a CAS aircraft while the F-22's and F-35's are doing tasks they are more suited for, like say killing anything that is a threat to the bombers or CAS aircraft.
 
Source: Entire F-35 stealth fighter jet fleet grounded by military after crash in September
The U.S. military on Thursday grounded its entire fleet of F-35 stealth fighters after one of the jets crashed during a training mission in South Carolina last month, officials said Thursday.

The stand down affects more than 200 jets while an "inspection of a fuel tube" in F-35 engines takes place, according to a Pentagon spokesman.
...............
Of the 280 operational F-35s purchased to date by the U.S. and international partners, only about half can fly, Vice Adm. Mat Winter, director of the F-35 Joint Program Office, told reporters in March, according to Military.com.
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Wonder if the Israeli's have grounded theirs....unlikely i guess, as they have modified it to suit their own op req as they always have done with their jets...Kfir,Soufa, Ra'am and now the Adir

Besides it was the first F35 to be used operationally in airstrikes...at least unofficially.
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
Source: Entire F-35 stealth fighter jet fleet grounded by military after crash in September
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LOL at the idiocy of that journalist :laugh:

“Entire F-35 stealth fighter jet fleet grounded”

“Of the 280 operational F-35s purchased to date by the U.S. and international partners, only about half can fly”

Especially when it’s just a no fly order until a specific part is checked, rather than a grounding while investigations are carried out.

The stand down affects more than 200 jets while an "inspection of a fuel tube" in F-35 engines takes place, according to a Pentagon spokesman.


“If suspect fuel tubes are installed, the part will be removed and replaced. If known good fuel tubes are already installed, then those aircraft will be returned to flight status. Inspections are expected to be completed within the next 24 to 48 hours,” Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the F-35 program, said in a statement to Fox News.
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lived666 said:
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/F...es-Israel-grounds-all-F35-fighter-jets-569214
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Extract from above article:


The Adir was heavily altered to Israel’s specifications and are embedded with Israeli-made electronic warfare pods as well as Israeli weaponry, all installed once the planes arrived in Israel. The jets also have a unique overriding Israeli-built C4 (Command, Control, Communications and Computing) system that runs “on top” of Lockheed’s built-in operating system.

The Israeli F-35Is also have components built by several local defense companies including Israel Aerospace Industries, which produced the outer wings, Elbit System-Cyclone, which built the center fuselage composite components, and Elbit Systems Ltd., which manufactured the pilots’ helmets.

Israel is also the only partner nation to have secured the right from the US to perform depot-level maintenance, including overhauling engines and airframe components, within its borders.
 
MirageF1 said:
Extract from above article:


The Adir was heavily altered to Israel’s specifications and are embedded with Israeli-made electronic warfare pods as well as Israeli weaponry, all installed once the planes arrived in Israel. The jets also have a unique overriding Israeli-built C4 (Command, Control, Communications and Computing) system that runs “on top” of Lockheed’s built-in operating system.

The Israeli F-35Is also have components built by several local defense companies including Israel Aerospace Industries, which produced the outer wings, Elbit System-Cyclone, which built the center fuselage composite components, and Elbit Systems Ltd., which manufactured the pilots’ helmets.

Israel is also the only partner nation to have secured the right from the US to perform depot-level maintenance, including overhauling engines and airframe components, within its borders.
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I wonder if the Israeli version is more capable that the other versions.
 
The Royal Navy aircraft carrier trials for the F35B have been progressing well according to the reports. Some good footage and stills have been released.

F-35 Jets conduct first night-time landings on HMS Queen Elizabeth
03/10/2018
Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has reached another milestone in her flight trials with the first night-time landings of F-35 Lightning jets.

Britain’s biggest warship is currently conducting flight testing off the east coast of the United States and part of that is practicing landing in darkness.

These tests were carried out with and without the aid of night-vision technology, with the pilots and aircraft handlers successfully guiding the fast fighter jets onto the flight deck.

Pilots initially flew in using only ambient light and the lights on the carrier’s deck before later conducting landings using the night-vision capability in their helmets.
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https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-a.../2018/october/03/181003-f35-night-landings-qe

 
buka001 said:
I wonder if the Israeli version is more capable that the other versions.
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More capable in what sense? That's like asking if a Boeing-747 is more capable than a 737 at flying from A to B.
 
First shipborne short rolling landing by an F35, allows the B to return and land with higher weight carried (fuel and weapons).

 
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