The F-35 thread

NarrowBandFtw said:
you want disappointed? I was in Moscow on the 9th of May (victory day parade) and in position to see all the flyovers of the airforce ... which was cancelled due to weather
:mad:
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That is a pity. Did you at least get to see some decent ground hardware?

Pics are always welcome.
 
Arthur said:
Rather disappointed I can't do an F-35 factory tour. Open to US citizens only, and they do a strict verification of every visitor. :( Understandable, I suppose, but disappointing. Off to Houston Space Center next week.
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Sorry to hear. Space centre should be good though.
 
buka001 said:
That is a pity. Did you at least get to see some decent ground hardware?

Pics are always welcome.
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sadly not, to see ground forces people occupy precious bits of pavement from the early hours of the morning and I never planned to get involved in any of that, just wanted to see the planes ... epic fail

realized at the last second I could spot ground forces leaving red square under this bridge, using a lot of zoom, missed a mobile ICBM driving past before the camera was out ...
IMG_3689.JPG

so I caught a few boring snaps of some tanks and what looks like an APC:
IMG_3685.JPGIMG_3686.JPGIMG_3687.JPGIMG_3688.JPG

and there was this row of parked hardware that must've already done their bit:
IMG_3684.JPG

strolling through the parks on the day was more fun, everywhere you go had stages with musicians and some form of commemoration of the war, if you've done some research on how the Nazis got pushed back out of Russia you'd know this unassuming thing played a large role:
IMG_3680.JPG
 
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NarrowBandFtw said:
sadly not, to see ground forces people occupy precious bits of pavement from the early hours of the morning and I never planned to get involved in any of that, just wanted to see the planes ... epic fail

realized at the last second I could spot ground forces leaving red square under this bridge, using a lot of zoom, missed a mobile ICBM driving past before the camera was out ...
View attachment 666205

so I caught a few boring snaps of some tanks and what looks like an APC:
View attachment 666211View attachment 666213View attachment 666215View attachment 666219

and there was this row of parked hardware that must've already done their bit:
View attachment 666221

strolling through the parks on the day was more fun, everywhere you go had stages with musicians and some form of commemoration of the war, if you've done some research on how the Nazis got pushed back out of Russia you'd know this unassuming thing played a large role:
View attachment 666223
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Yes the Katyusha rockets. Devastating (also devastating effect on the enemies moral). They were called Stalin's Organ by the Nazis, because of the resemblance to a church organ and the near symphonic sound they made as they launched the multiple rockets. That one in your pic looks the version placed on the US Studebaker truck supplied to the Russians in the lend-lease deal.

The APC in your pic is the venerable BMP. The pic looks like one of the new ones Russia has ordered, the BMP-3. The original APC's have been in service since the 60's.
The tank (3rd pic) is the new Russian T-14 Armata. Very impressive tank, but unfortunately seems a bit expensive so the Russians may not role too many of them out as they had hoped too.

Interesting stuff, thanks for the share.
 
buka001 said:
Yes the Katyusha rockets. Devastating (also devastating effect on the enemies moral). They were called Stalin's Organ by the Nazis, because of the resemblance to a church organ and the near symphonic sound they made as they launched the multiple rockets. That one in your pic looks the version placed on the US Studebaker truck supplied to the Russians in the lend-lease deal.

The APC in your pic is the venerable BMP. The pic looks like one of the new ones Russia has ordered, the BMP-3. The original APC's have been in service since the 60's.
The tank (3rd pic) is the new Russian T-14 Armata. Very impressive tank, but unfortunately seems a bit expensive so the Russians may not role too many of them out as they had hoped too.

Interesting stuff, thanks for the share.
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Yeah, Stalins Organ would demoralise any opposing force if they heard it...

 
buka001 said:
Yes the Katyusha rockets. Devastating (also devastating effect on the enemies moral). They were called Stalin's Organ by the Nazis, because of the resemblance to a church organ and the near symphonic sound they made as they launched the multiple rockets. That one in your pic looks the version placed on the US Studebaker truck supplied to the Russians in the lend-lease deal.

The APC in your pic is the venerable BMP. The pic looks like one of the new ones Russia has ordered, the BMP-3. The original APC's have been in service since the 60's.
The tank (3rd pic) is the new Russian T-14 Armata. Very impressive tank, but unfortunately seems a bit expensive so the Russians may not role too many of them out as they had hoped too.

Interesting stuff, thanks for the share.
Click to expand...
cheers, learned something new there

by the time I got to St Petersburg I snapped two random subs from a moving hydrofoil, which I now know to be the whisky class and the kilo class:
IMG_3894.JPG
IMG_3891.JPG

as well as a visit to the museum that played a part in the October Revolution, the Cruiser Aurora:
IMG_3917.JPG
 
The U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ F-35s become unpredictable to handle when executing the kind of extreme maneuvers a pilot would use in a dogfight or while avoiding a missile, according to documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.
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Source

Engineers and pilots continue to struggle with operating the F-35 jet in low-light conditions, with a new issue emerging that obstructs the horizon line for pilots when flying at night with below-average levels of starlight, according to documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.

The issue, which affects the feed from the night vision camera, appears to the pilot as wonky horizontal lines, or striations, in the night vision display, obscuring the horizon.
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Source

It was a hot day aboard the amphibious assault ship Essex when a pilot brought his F-35B in for what is known as a “mode four” flight operation, where the jet enters hover mode near a landing spot, slides over to the target area and then vertically lands onto the ship.

It’s a key part of the F-35B’s short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing capability, known as STOVL. And normally, everything in a “mode four” landing goes smoothly. But on this day, when the pilot triggered the thrust to slow his descent, something went wrong.

The engine, working hard on a day that temperatures cracked 90 degrees Fahrenheit while trying to lift a plane that was heavier than most returning to base, wouldn’t generate the needed thrust for a safe, ideal landing.

The pilot got the plane down, but was shaken enough by the situation to write up an incident report that would eventually be marked as “high” concern by the F-35 program office.
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Source

In early 2018, multiple F-35A flights out of Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska were disrupted when pilots received warnings that a key battery in the plane was failing mid-flight. The pilots were forced to land as quickly as possible and switch out the battery, wiping out flying hours and raising costs for maintenance — and raising the fear that in an emergency, the U.S. would be unable to scramble its high-end fighter.
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At extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability, a problem that may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.
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Here is a summary of all the current category one issues from the fall of 2018 with the bulk of them being with the F-35B and F-35C.
Another document obtained by Defense News noted that at least 13 issues would need to be held as category 1 deficiencies going into operational tests in fall 2018.

The 13 deficiencies include:

  • The F-35’s logistics system currently has no way for foreign F-35 operators to keep their secret data from being sent to the United States.
  • The spare parts inventory shown by the F-35’s logistics system does not always reflect reality, causing occasional mission cancellations.
  • Cabin pressure spikes in the cockpit of the F-35 have been known to cause barotrauma, the word given to extreme ear and sinus pain.
  • In very cold conditions — defined as at or near minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit — the F-35 will erroneously report that one of its batteries have failed, sometimes prompting missions to be aborted.
  • Supersonic flight in excess of Mach 1.2 can cause structural damage and blistering to the stealth coating of the F-35B and F-35C.
  • After doing certain maneuvers, F-35B and F-35C pilots are not always able to completely control the aircraft’s pitch, roll and yaw.
  • If the F-35A and F-35B blows a tire upon landing, the impact could also take out both hydraulic lines and pose a loss-of-aircraft risk.
  • A “green glow” sometimes appears on the helmet-mounted display, washing out the imagery in the helmet and making it difficult to land the F-35C on an aircraft carrier.
  • On nights with little starlight, the night vision camera sometimes displays green striations that make it difficult for all variants to see the horizon or to land on ships.
  • The sea search mode of the F-35’s radar only illuminates a small slice of the sea’s surface.
  • When the F-35B vertically lands on very hot days, older engines may be unable to produce the required thrust to keep the jet airborne, resulting in a hard landing.
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Source
 
Blu82 said:
Here is a summary of all the current category one issues from the fall of 2018 with the bulk of them being with the F-35B and F-35C.

Source
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Most of what you have quoted there was discussed in the video, but most were single digit occurrences and some like the radar were actually performing to specification but the Navy has asked for an improved version to show larger areas. I think the video also said hot weather performance can be an issue for many aircraft and that the issues were only noticeable on the oldest aircraft with the older engine that couldn’t sustain the higher performance of the newer engines as it was set up, but they hoped to rectify with software.

Your opinions seem to be at odds with the conclusions in the video you posted for most of the defects.
 
That was intended to be tongue in cheek but it is a long list of category one issues and some are downright dangerous.
 
Blu82 said:
That was intended to be tongue in cheek
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Ok, I have no dog in the fight, I just happened on your post and watched the video at face value.

but it is a long list of category one issues and some are downright dangerous.
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That wasn’t the conclusion of the video though.
 
With the F-35 being the first volume software-defined fighter, these problems will doubtless be ironed out as the software gets debugged and refined.
 
Arthur said:
With the F-35 being the first volume software-defined fighter, these problems will doubtless be ironed out as the software gets debugged and refined.
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That was one of the conclusions in the video.
 
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For those of you interested in hearing about this directly from the source:

Billie Flynn, a Lockheed Martin F-35 test pilot, will be giving a keynote presentation in Pretoria during October. This will be part of the Aeronautical Society's annual conference. This may be informative since the reality of complex projects is usually fairly nuanced. The chief test pilot of the Boeing 787 will also be presenting.

https://www.aessa.org.za/conference/
 
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