Another bit of news from the F35 front, not all bad, not all good;
F-35B Weight Margins Pretty Thin, OSD Testers Say
F-35B Weight Margins Pretty Thin, OSD Testers Say
By Colin Clark
Published: January 13, 2012
......
The overall conclusion is that the most expensive conventional weapon in Pentagon history is doing, well, not too bad -- but not nearly as well as it should.
In terms of flight tests, the Navy version is 32 percent ahead of the new schedule, while the Air Force version is 11 percent behind and the Marine version lags 9 percent behind the new schedule.
Perhaps the most interesting item in the report comes from the full-up system-level testing. In live fire testing -- when they actually shoot stuff at the test item and analyze the results -- testers found "the fuel tank inserting system is incapable of providing protection from threat-induced fuel tank explosions during some critical segments of combat missions when the aircraft is most likely to be hit." This system, the report says, is being "redesigned" as a result of the testing. The new system will be tested again to see if it works.
etc,etc,etc.....
Seeing that most of our forces are most likely dependant on how this
fighter performs, let's keep hope up but stay skeptical at the same time.
As for the article, a redesign to improve the survivability under fire (this is
most likely for all versions) probably doesn't bode well for the ,already
problematic, weight issue(s).