F-35B Lightning (RAF & RN)

[Ron5]

Further evidence of the RAF undermining the Navy carrier program.

[S M H]

Further evidence of the RAF undermining the Navy carrier program.

The fundamental lesson that the treasury
driven 2010 S.S.D.R. was that small fleets of aircraft are easy to dispose in the hands of the bean counters and there political masters. That was the bright idea behind going for C. But the sort tern costs for integration of the aircraft on the carriers. Along with the higher costs in keeping aircrew deck qualified scuppered it. As the we will effectively have a single F35 airframe type in service it makes a repeat of the political driven shenanigans that befell the harriers. Fleet to small and easy to Cut. The Air force and Navy have to work to keep the F 35s because if we end up with a split procurement the politicos will sacrifice the smaller part for there own ends. If we have a common fleet it makes it harder for the In civil servants and there political masters to repeat the catastrophe that was S.S.D.R. 2010.The major fly in the ointment is that the top of the M.O.D is stuffed with Civil servants whom are not accountable for there actions!

[downsizer]

Wow, journo opinions count as fact these days. Who knew, exciting times we live in! And for the record one of the Tornado Sqns goes this year, all three are not being run till the end.

[Lord Jim]

What is worrying me these days is given the rate of F-35 orders, the total of 138 to be ordered could include later orders to replace aircraft ordered at the beginning and worn out by use. We might plan to order 138 but only ever have 30-40 on the books so to speak.

[arfah]

Robbed this from another forum.

Lots to digest.

http://www.sldinfo.com/wp-content/uploa ... arrior.pdf

[ArmChairCivvy]

Very in-depth read in such a concise format. Thx, arfah!

The Grape ie. Brewster Buffalo gets many references. so let me add how it made history among fighter designs, a bit like the carrier based F111 in bombers. Bureaucrats insisted that the original design get more armour and machine guns... and in a wartime economy they are to be obeyed. So the original batch of 44 was off-loaded to Finland as "obsolete" and the line started to churn out Grapes, which were shot out of the sky with ease (perhaps with the exception of Darwin where the Zeros were limited by the fact that they were operating at the extreme edge of their range).

34 of the Brewsters were available in the 24th Finnish Fighter Squadron when things kicked off in the East by Barbarossa. wiki tells us how half of them survived until being withdrawn from front line service

"In early 1944 the unit received the "fighter" prefix to its name and only 17 Brewsters remained operational. The successful aircraft, with a 30:1 victory ratio was replaced with Bf 109s"

This little side step reminds me that we dont have a history thread? TD introduced one as an afterthought and it got quite popular (attracted guest writers, too).

[Pseudo]

sadly, this is being used by certain parties to push the narrative that the entire F35 program is bad, not just the C...

If the F-35C doesn't work out doesn't that end up with the QEC being an even more valuable platform as far as the USN and NATO are concerned?

[R686]

sadly, this is being used by certain parties to push the narrative that the entire F35 program is bad, not just the C...

If the F-35C doesn't work out doesn't that end up with the QEC being an even more valuable platform as far as the USN and NATO are concerned?

No it won't, worst case they load up dummy bombs to increase the take off weight then drop them once airborne, remember it's only light loads that is the concern.

Fall back postion is more SH in the short term, long term it will be sorted.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Fall back postion is more SH in the short term, long term it will be sorted.

Could be the background to that mysterious Trump Hornet tweet?

USMC going with B in any case could be the one getting any Cs (as they fly sqdrns off the carriers, too).

[Lord Jim]

The USN could do a lot worse than continue to buy and develop the SH whist using the USMC to develop the F-35 in both B and C variants and iron out any issues. It could then join the F-35 club at a later date to replace any remaining legacy Hornets and oldest SHs.

[Ron5]

sadly, this is being used by certain parties to push the narrative that the entire F35 program is bad, not just the C...

If the F-35C doesn't work out doesn't that end up with the QEC being an even more valuable platform as far as the USN and NATO are concerned?

Yes.

But C model will happen.

[R686]

The USN could do a lot worse than continue to buy and develop the SH whist using the USMC to develop the F-35 in both B and C variants and iron out any issues. It could then join the F-35 club at a later date to replace any remaining legacy Hornets and oldest SHs.

Future incremental upgrades of the Rhino fleet will be on going till about 2030 and thats when the air dominance will decline in that role quite substantially, F35B doesn't meet the CONOPS of the USN in regards to weapons and radius of action alone.

http://www.businessinsider.in/f-35-pilo ... 359078.cms

[shark bait]

Berke's talking crap.

The only tech on the F35 that couldn't be retro fitted to a 4th gen is stealth.

The only reasonable point he makes is "Even if you could, without low observability capability (stealth), what would be the point?"

[R686]

Berke's talking crap.

The only tech on the F35 that couldn't be retro fitted to a 4th gen is stealth.

The only reasonable point he makes is "Even if you could, without low observability capability (stealth), what would be the point?"

Not 100% sure but I think you may need undercarriage pods to migrate some of the sensor and data network attributes of the F35. Would be integrating to see how big the fuselage Changes would be need and if any ecertifacation of airworthy certificate

[R686]

Small write up about 1st F35B operational deployment to Japan.

https://theaviationist.com/2017/01/11/u ... eployment/

[ArmChairCivvy]

I think you may need undercarriage pods to migrate some of the sensor and data network attributes of the F35

This is being proposed:
a mix of new capabilities and upgrades like the centreline fuel tank-mounted infrared search and track (IRST21) sensor, integrated defensive electronic countermeasures (IDECM) Block IV, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and next-generation jammer that are already being introduced as programmes of records.

Upgrades that have not yet been adopted by the Pentagon include an enhanced engine, conformal fuel tanks and an open architecture cockpit with a 48cm (19in) wide-area display.

The bits in bold must be the ones behind a "request to cost" the Advanced Super Hornet (around since at least 2013). Some of the changes would impact the existing Growler fleet, too:
"Australia has already expressed interest in the conformal fuel tanks for its aircraft, and by doing away with drop tanks, the electronic attack pods on the EA-18G will have a greater field of regard." says Boeing VP Dan Gillian.

[R686]

I think you may need undercarriage pods to migrate some of the sensor and data network attributes of the F35

This is being proposed:
a mix of new capabilities and upgrades like the centreline fuel tank-mounted infrared search and track (IRST21) sensor, integrated defensive electronic countermeasures (IDECM) Block IV, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and next-generation jammer that are already being introduced as programmes of records.

Upgrades that have not yet been adopted by the Pentagon include an enhanced engine, conformal fuel tanks and an open architecture cockpit with a 48cm (19in) wide-area display.

The bits in bold must be the ones behind a "request to cost" the Advanced Super Hornet (around since at least 2013). Some of the changes would impact the existing Growler fleet, too:
"Australia has already expressed interest in the conformal fuel tanks for its aircraft, and by doing away with drop tanks, the electronic attack pods on the EA-18G will have a greater field of regard." says Boeing VP Dan Gillian.

Unless the USN adopt the ASH attributes then the RAAF won't follow as they are to be in lock step with the USN for possabile future integration into their fleet once they decide their future once the 72 F35A have been bedded down.

[ArmChairCivvy]

yep, that was implied in the broader interview as well. The important bit (a VP for a product line is its Top Salesman, too) was the cross-ref between what Pentagon has not decided to fund (yet) and the fact that if it will get funded, there is "keen interest" elsewhere, too.

An EW a/c having to prosecute extra turns (angle of attack) does increase it detectability (so even if it is successful in blinding one radar, another one might pick it up).

[Spinflight]

Annual report on the state of the F-35 program.

http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2 ... f35jsf.pdf

Doesn't make pretty reading. EOTS is crap, worse than legacy pod mounted systems. Helmet mounted display less useful than NVGs. Sensor fusion appears to mean that each sensor creates a separate track and the datalinks don't work.

Well that's the fixable stuff.

Worse the fleet has managed a 21% mission readiness rate. Mean time between failures and amount of time needed for maintenance are all way out of bounds. ALIS doesn't work and 17 contracted performance measures are going to have to be written off. Operational test and evaluation unlikely before 2020, without which a block buy can't happen. Was meant to start this year from memory.

Worst of all it can't carry Amraams above 550 knots or else they get shaken to pieces, which pretty much makes it a subsonic only airframe, would need a redesign to fix. Well, unless running away winchester. F-35B already over not to be exceeded weight and needs more added yet, which puts bring back into question. If not when new certainly once the engine loses a few horses. Not that they lack horses at the moment, run the afterburner for too long and it melts the back end a bit.

The report almost explicitly states that the F-35 won't pass it's OTAE.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Well, that is awful, Spin.

[Ron5]

The sky is falling.

[bobp]

Seems like there a lot of structural problems with the B. No mentions of when fixes will be integrated into production. Also a lot of problems with integrating weapons on all three versions. Its probably good that the UK are currently ordering them in small batches, hopefully later deliveries will have some of the fixes incorporated. Overall it seems they are making good progress. Surprised that the EOTS hasn't been fixed being worse tan current ones in service.

[R686]

Didn't the "B" have a structural problem with the bulkhead cracking and they put in a temp fix untill a permanate solution could be found.

Is this what the above is about?

[ArmChairCivvy]

Annual Defence Acquisition Board review:
- 3F to complete in May 2018
- any impact on US quantities (for any of the versions) be made known in the FY request of the same year
- what is there that the UK would want/ has agreed to receive past the 3F? If we were interested in getting the JSF (as complementary to the Spear3), then that would count... where is the Spear 3 on this, btw?

May 2018... plain sailing for the CVF (airwing ISD still in the future)

[Bring Deeps]

I dipped into the DOD report and I don't think it is quite all doom and gloom.

Clearly there are teething problems all over the place and the main message seems to be don't order too many planes until the bugs are ironed out. Seems common sense really.

The section on the deployment to the F35B was interesting and provided a lot more detail than is usually available on the usual websites.

As a general point I do question how sensible it is for the US to make this kind of information available to all and sundry. Transparency is all well and good but giving your potential enemies a thorough assessment of the state of play with one of the world's most advanced weapons I am not sure.