@Maus92- Thanks for correction. I went back and re-read
the article. The wing spar crack was in the fatigue structural test airframe and occurred at the equivalent of 6,850 flight hours. It was noted the issue had no impact on current F-35 flying operations.
The previous cracking issue I noted was with the
die forged aluminum bulkheads used on the F-35B. Similar to the situation above, the cracking was discovered on the fatigue structural test airframe at 9,400 hours, which is beyond the design requirement of 8,000 hours. People should appreciate that the aluminum die forgings used for the bulkheads are very impressive pieces of manufacturing engineering.
