MCAS Yuma Airshow 28 Feb 15 - Videos
 

Here are a few videos from the MCAS Yuma Airshow by spencerhughes2255 - you can select up to 1080p HD:

F-35B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygVlvlvnmTU

I thought the F-35B short rolling take-off was impressive and the excellent photography gives a good close up view of the various configurations of the vertical lift doors and main engine thrust vectoring.

AV-8B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHvVWu7sjek

Shockwave Jet Truck: 3 x P&W F-34 and capable of 376 mph - an impressive bit of engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_A8oa1KMvo

Interesting how the Harrier (Ooops) was flown with obvious confidence, verve even whereas the F-35 was kept very much on the leash..

Where's Clive Soffe when you need him?

What's with the fingerless gloves?

Now that I'm retired I keep the heat off during the day to save money.

Fingerless gloves
 

To operate the touch screens I presume.

In a Harrier?

Right now the F-35 fleet (all three variants) have a restricted flight envelope, imposed on them after aircraft "AF-27" (a USAF F-35A) had an engine component failure during a take-off roll last year. Unfortunately - but pragmatically - the aircraft is especially 'G' limited right now however this will expand over the coming year.

Ah! Brings back many happy memories of 10 years of SHAR displaying. Only do it in a Tiger Moth now; not quite the same thrust/weight ratio. Swing the lamp!

So what's the fix, what does it cost and how much does it weigh?

We're all ears...

Glad Rag,

As reported last Oct, publicly, the fix is a set of engine "burn-ins" designed to entrench the Integrally Bladed Rotor (IBR) before the aircraft is stepped up towards its design limits through various Mods toward the end of SDD.

As far as I know, the cost is minimal if you don't include the cost incurred by schedule delays to the test program. I also don't believe they've added any weight either. Pratt have clearly taken a lesson from their own engine here, probably because it is at the cutting edge of tech and was not predicted.

I see this as a very straightforward, cautious crawl-walk-run back to the desired limits as the potential loss of an F-35 incurred by missing out the crawl-walk stage would be tragic and preventable.

That's what I know.

"Engine component failure".

A bit more than that, I would say. AF-27 supposedly looked like the guy in Alien after the parasite decided to pop out for a breath of fresh air.

Fire kinda does that to most things LO.

Maybe we should rename the jet F-35 "Phoenix"; like the mythic bird, perhaps it will emerge from the inferno of media damnation and, like most US fighter aircraft, go on to become a real asset.

Time will tell.

the inferno of media damnation

That makes the media sound a bit like Smaug obliterating Laketown. Although in fact the F-35 has had a much easier time than the F-22, the B-2 or Sarah Palin, to name but three.