Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
"F-35 will not be cancelled, it's too big and too important to the US services."
And the Marines could make do by rebuilding their (and our) Harriers and stretching those out for another 10-15 years Thats their plan B. Whats ours? Refit the few remaining Sea Harriers from the museums and ground schools?
The Marines have been sensible and bought our Harriers as insurance, that is their Plan B. They had always planned to operate AV8B til at least 2015 with a staggered transfer of personnel from Harrier to F-35. With spares becoming more expensive and Rolls not building anymore new engines buying our jets at a rock bottom price was a godsend for them. At the same time they are running out of F-18 airframes and may need to transition some aircrew onto AV8B until F-35 is ready in enough numbers.
What is our Plan B? Good question, to which my only answer would be sit and wait and hope we don't need the capability... Well above my pay grade but with the reversion to a STOVL carrier there isn't any other STOVL jet in the game. Mabe QE becomes a 'deck for hire' for the USMC/Spanish/Italians? Embarrassing for the politicians to see other nations Harriers operating off QE but it would at least help build the FW experience for the ship's company until F-35 FOCFT.
Last edited by WhiteOvies; 10th Jul 2012 at 14:03.
no-one has been killed flying an F-35 yet. Not saying it won't happen, accidents do, but it's a bit rich to start throwing that around just yet.
I never said anyone has, I was talking about the F22...the hypoxia death trap that caused the death of an F22 pilot in Alaska and has had some of its pilots choosing to no longer fly it, for their own safety.
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With the B off probation and already being delivered to the USMC this will not happen.
The B coming of probation was pure politics not technical qualification, many of the fundamental problems that landed it on probation, still exist unresolved.
The F35 still has c.75% and with it, the most challenging aspects of its flight testing still to finish. If that or the 90% of its mission codes yet to be written and/or verified throw some sort of curve ball that proves to be prohibitively expensive to fix, then the fact that the USMC have stood up a handful of jets in a skeletal OCU along with another few hundred million invested in airfield modifications, isn't going to stop congress pulling the plug.
I completely agree that a complete cancellation of the whole programme isn't going to happen, but the US navy withdrawing and/or a cancellation of the B after say 100 aircraft, is highly possible. Remember, the defence sequester is only 5 months...the clock is ticking with no sign of a compromise.
With the Netherlands openly talking about a withdrawal, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing ends up the same way as the F22; the original plan called for well over 1000 F35s to have been produced by 2018 and the current and most optimistic estimate is to have c.360 built by then...
Understood you were referring to the F-22, but the F-35 is not the same aircraft and has a different oxy system.
I'd disagree that it was pure politics whilst totally agreeing that there is a political dimension. However, going on the probation in the first place was a political decision by Gates, who in the same speech suggested a new bomber be developed (although that's all gone quiet).
The project had significant issues on a programme scale that needed sorting out but technical testing for the B turned itself around last year. Lack of Vertical Landing experience was resolved through 2011. I don't think that anyone thought that the initial sea trials would go on time, or be successful, but they did and were. The aux engine inlet door issue quoted by Gates was also fixed by modification, and proven by flight test, which did not significantly alter the weight (don't know about cost) prior to the probation being lifted. What other 'fundamental' issues are you referring to, apart from ones like HMD that affect all variants?
I'm sure more discoveries will come to light, that's what flight test does and the next years will be busy at Pax River. However, the USMC hand is now strengthened by the UK coming back to the B. We upset the Marine Corps by bailing on them once but they seem to have forgiven us and welcomed us back into the STOVL fold, sealed with a loving 72 GR9s.
Netherlands not buying A's would impact, as would Italy changing their buy. But the politicians have to remember that LM have it in writing that pulling out of the buy affects the industrial share of the build allotted to that country. As such any removal of aircraft would cost aerospace industry jobs.
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Netherlands not buying A's would impact, as would Italy changing their buy. But the politicians have to remember that LM have it in writing that pulling out of the buy affects the industrial share of the build allotted to that country. As such any removal of aircraft would cost aerospace industry jobs.
Precisely that argument has come around a full 360° and bit the proponnents of the JSF in Holland severely in the ass. The fear that LM can easily relocate work ,that was originally planned to be done in the Netherlands, to other sites in the US or other partner nations is indicative of the fairly low cutting edge technical level of involvement of the Dutch companies involved. The US , and Bae in the UK/US, have made sure that almost all, if not all, relevant high tech technology stays in house while contributing tier 2 and 3 nations design/produce almost nothing which is cutting edge and gives them an edge in future projects, the only noteable exception seems to be Elbit from Israel, and a couple of optional pieces like eg. the Norwegian JSM.
Fact is that the F16's will need to be replaced and there are much more and interesting pieces of the pie to be had if countries like Holland choose to go with other projects ,like the RAFALE or EF or Gripen or F15, F18 or the F16V. Many main and important subsystems need to be upgraded or developped from the ground up giving ample opportunities for the Dutch defense industry to participate when they decide upon what plane should replace their F16's. This time they would have the opportunity to be invested in all kinds of interesting, and later useable in other business opportunities, technologies iso of being a cheap low tech-parts supplier of nothing but the F35. The worldwide aftermarket for upgrades on the legacy fighters will be huge and those that don't have the expertise and equipment in house will have no part of it.
eg, hypothetically,... let's assume Holland, Belgium and Denmark (forget about Norway, they're to far up LM's ass) team up once again and decide to get involved in one of the running projects, let's say, for the sake of argument, the EF. Their is enormous potential and opportunity on almost all fronts, weapons integration, Avionics apgrades, Radar, Pod's, engines, TVC, Ram materials, redesiging tailend, wingupgrades, etc, etc ,etc...... .
There are rumours around online about the RAAF once being tentatively offered Sukhois. Does not seem like such a bad choice, although I very much doubt the RAF would receive the same overtures.
After the presidential election whoever is in will have to find very large sums of money somewhere out of the current budget - I can't see the navy wanting to lose their new "Ford" carriers or the new SSN's - the Army couldn't give a toss about the F-35 sooooooooooo the USAF will be on their own
not a comfortable place to be
I also suspect once one "partner" pulls out the rush to the door will be amazing - thsi has happened on a number of "collaborative" projects worldwide. No-one really wants to be first but needs must when the devil drives
Besides that the F-18 and Rafale will operate with a slightly reduced MTOW in a STOBAR mode.
As much an operational cul de sac as stovl...you still would not be able to operate fixed wing support a/c so therefore as much a total waste of money as F35b
Super Hornet with full internals and a centre line tank needs just under 2000 ft of roll in Max AB.
STOBAR is therefore not really a player in my mind.
We have made our bed, we are going to lie in it. If US defence cuts add a gallon or two of 'no F-35B' urine to the equation well that's our fault for a) going down the STOVL route to start with b) attempting to let the UK build its own carrier - in yet another collaborative fudge- and c) making the best decision ever to go cat and trap, followed by the worst one since we left a small island nation with no MPA. (Which is in itself the worst decision ever and will probably never be beaten - although Hitler's crack at Russia does come close)
The latest critic of the U.S. Air Force’s ambitious — and pricey — plan for an all-stealth fighter fleet is one of the flying branch’s top stealth pilots.
Writing in the Air Force Research Institute’s Air & Space Power Journal, Lt. Col. Christopher Niemi, a former F-22 test pilot who later commanded a frontline squadron of the radar-evading jets, says the Air Force is making a big mistake by buying only the most expensive stealth fighters — namely, the F-22 and the newer F-35.
“An all-stealth Air Force fighter fleet deserves reconsideration,” Niemi asserts (.pdf). ”Stealth technology demands significant trade-offs in range, security, weapons carriage, sortie generation, and adaptability. Stealth provides no advantage in conflicts such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq (since 2003), and (despite its obvious utility) it cannot guarantee success in future struggles with a near-peer adversary.”
“Most importantly,” Niemi adds, “the cost of F-22s and F-35s threatens to reduce the size of the Air Force’s fielded fighter fleet to dangerously small numbers, particularly in the current fiscal environment.”...............
"Which is in itself the worst decision ever and will probably never be beaten"
I think the idea of building two carriers then selling the only planes we had which could fly off them must be neck and neck.
Even as a civilian with an interest in aircraft I could see that every 'non-Harrier' VTOL ever built was too badly compromised by the extra weight and complexity.
Just noticed this snippet in a Flight International piece by David Majumdar dated 6 Nov. My bold.
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The F-35 is in its infancy, but the stealthy type is already proving to be relatively stable from a maintenance standpoint, says Col Andrew Toth, commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing.
"The system right now is behaving as advertised, [although] occasionally, we will have some issues with it on the ground," he says. However, this is usually easily fixed by shutting the aircraft down and then restarting it.
I love it. Microsoft, I presume?
"Come on, Bloggs, call for take off for chrissake...."
"Sorry, Sir, I'm just restarting the jet."
I occasionally I find my laptop won't fire up, I have to disconnect the power lead and hold the power button down to the count of 30 before re-connecting and re-starting, apparently it clears any build up of static and allows the machine to fire up again!?
I wonder if that may also be a problem with the F35? I imagine it won't do during a QRA scramble should F35s find themselves mounting such.
FB - The same routine can apply to wifi mice, too. Symptoms of static build-up can include the mouse 'double-clicking' despite the button only being pressed once.
I'm getting a sense that reports like this are becoming more and more common. Is someone running a PR campaign to get people ready for a major cut or even cancellation of the USN F-35B/C order?
ORAC - Not surprising. There are lots of Hornet/Growler people who think that they can take on pretty much anybody for the next decade-and-a-bit, and know that they will have to, anyway, with the rate that the F-35 is going; they also recognize that the F-35C won't, for a long time, have some of the tricks that are on the Block 2 Rhino today. And in the meantime they could use some of the money that is being spent on the F-35B/C.
-which fuels some of the pro-Rhino arguments.
