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Subject: F-35 news thread III
jessmo_24    1/12/2011 7:23:24 AM
BF-2s 1st vertical landing. *ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS3ngl1GcaI&feature=player_embedded NAVAIRSYSCOM 10 Jan 2011 "F-35B test aircraft BF-2 accomplishes its first vertical landing and conversion back to normal flight mode at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The integrated test team is testing both the STOVL and carrier variants of the F-35 for delivery to the fleet. Video courtesy Lockheed Martin."
 
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jessmo_24       1/12/2011 7:25:34 AM

On the same day Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the world he was putting the Marines F-35B short-takeoff-vertical-landing model on probation for lack of progress, a small bit of progress was made.

Lockheed Martin said flight test airplane BF-2 made its first vertical landing on Thursday at the Navy's Patuxent River, Md. test center. It is the second F-35B test aircraft to accomplish a vertical landing. BF-1 (pictured above) did it in March.

Piloted by Marine Lt. Col. Fred Schenk, the aircraft made a one hour flight that included: one conventional takeoff; three short takeoffs; three slow landings; two hovers and the vertical landing.

Lockheed spokesman John Kent said Schenk indicated that BF-2 handled very much like BF-1. A good thing, one would think. A second flight was scheduled for Friday.

 
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jessmo_24       1/12/2011 5:35:08 PM

The initial operational capability date for the U.S. Air Force version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is likely to slip due to recent program changes to help right the troubled tri-service effort, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said during an Air Force Association-sponsored breakfast with reporters Jan. 12.

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http://www.defensenews.com/images/arrow_caption.png" width="29" height="15" alt="" />
The F-35 program was recently restructured after a detailed Technical Baseline Review (TBR) by Defense Department procurement chief Ashton Carter and new JSF program manager Vice Adm. David Venlet concluded that additional time and funding is require (Darin Russell / Lockheed Martin)

"I think that's implied with the additional dollars and time required in system development," Donley said when asked whether the recent restructuring would delay the in-service date.

Donley did not elaborate, but said additional details would follow.

The F-35 program was recently restructured after a detailed Technical Baseline Review (TBR) by Defense Department procurement chief Ashton Carter and new JSF program manager Vice Adm. David Venlet concluded that additional time and funding is required to complete development.

The review's most significant decision was to put the U.S. Marine Corps vertical landing F-35B variant, which is the most technically challenged version, on a two-year probationary period, Donley said.

"The major decision from this TBR has been to decouple the testing of the U.S. Marine short take-off vertical-landing variant from the conventional and carrier variants to ensure we do not slow progress on the conventional and carrier variants," he said.
 
 
 
 
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jessmo_24       1/13/2011 6:48:46 AM
The EA-18G Growler and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will both carry an airborne network invasion weapon, says U.S. Navy?s top intelligence official.

A few years ago, the U.S. Air Force first demonstrated the ability to create a focused datastream with its EC-130 Compass Call aircraft that could be filled with invasive algorithms and fired into the antenna of an integrated air defense system and its wirelessly-connected missile launching vehicles. The capability was exercised in a progressive series of ?Suter programs?. The effects on the enemy network were monitored by an RC-135 Rivet Joint. Now the Navy will install the capability on fighter-size tactical aircraft.
 
*ttp://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3aa2d11ad1-c7d4-403c-ad62-2fb21c53bb9d&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
 
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jessmo_24       1/14/2011 2:50:02 PM
The F-35B short take-off, vertical landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter may not complete flight sciences testing and shipboard integration until late 2016, even if current efforts to resolve design problems are successful, according to the latest report from the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test & Evaluation, Dr Michael Gilmore. The report has not been officially released as yet but a copy was made available to Ares. Update:  DOT&E report.

Until the past few weeks, Marine and other officials continued to insist that the previously planned initial operational capability date for the F-35B, in late 2012, could be met. The new report also says that the often-promised benchmark of 12 flights per aircraft per month, for all F-35 variants, cannot be attained without reliability and maintainability improvements. 

The DOT&E also reports that the latest date for the completion of development testing on the F-35A and F-35C, in early 2016, will not be met unless Block 2 and 3 software is delivered on time and other "critical" problems, including issues with the JSF's helmet-mounted display system, are resolved. But the mission systems flight test schedule "still contains significant uncertainty", the report says.

Rather than the rapid software development schedule originally planned, the DOT&E report now says that "the F-35 mission systems software development and test is tending towards familiar historical patterns of extended development, discovery in flight test, and deferrals to later increments."

The report draws heavily on the just completed, unpublished technical baseline review (TBR) conducted by new program executive officer VAdm Dave Venlet. The DOT&E notes that the TBR found that feasible flight rates were even lower than earlier independent reviews (such as that carried out by the Joint Estimating Team) and that more testing would be necessary.

Flight testing so far has revealed problems with handling in the transonic and medium angle-of-attack regimes, and a problem with screech - destructive high-frequency combustion instability in the F135 afterburner - which is preventing the aircraft from achieving maximum power.


The potentially huge delays to the STOVL program are the result of design changes needed to resolve problems already discovered, including the "major" fatigue crack discovered in a bulkhead late last year. These changes are needed in order to lift operating limitations and make the aircraft more reliable, so that flight testing can be moved forward. As a result, the report says, STOVL flight sciences and ship integration could lag behind the rest of the development test program by as much as a year.

For all variants, earlier plans to achieve flight test goals by raising the sortie rate to 10-12 flights per month per aircraft "are not achievable", the report says, until reliability and maintainability are improved.

Mission system software is the biggest problem. Currently, the only software for which a test program has been approved is Block 0.5 - but the Block 0.5 effort has failed, since the program office has deemed it unsuitable for training.

The Block 1 test program plan has been completed and is now being reviewed, and the Block 2 plan is in the initial draft stage, as part of a comprehensive replanning effort. "Completion by early 2016 is possible provided further delays in delivery of Block 2 and Block 3 software are not incurred, and the program can overcome the helmet mounted display problem before Block 2 flight test must begin," the report says.

The TBR found that the previous program plans had not allowed enough time for re-fly and regression testing (tests to make sure that new or modified software has not affected previously tested functions), according to the DOT&E.

Earlier plans had also not formally included flight testing to demonstrate the integration of software and sensors before going into tests to verify capability - the assumption had been that integration on the CATBird flying laboratory would allow that phase to be bypassed or minimized.
 
 
Screech and problems in transonic AOA? is this controll surface scheduling or somthing worse?
 
 
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jessmo_24       1/18/2011 6:28:50 AM

5 vertical landings in 8 days for F-35B


By Dave Majumdar - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jan 17, 2011 17:21:01 EST
. To view the contents go to:" type="hidden" /> http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/01/military-5-vertical-landings-in-8-days-for-f-35b-011711w/" type="hidden" />

A series of five vertical landings over eight days shows that the troubled F-35B Joint Strike Fighter is getting back on track, analysts said.

The tests, performed between Jan. 6 and 13, are among the 42 that must be completed before the aircraft can be tested at sea onboard an amphibious assault ship.

The 2011 schedule for F-35 flight testing has yet to be finalized, said John Kent, a spokesman for F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin.

Prior to Jan. 6, short take-off and vertical-landing operations had been suspended due to problems with doors located on the upper surface of the aircraft.

Analysts agreed that this series of vertical landings signals the problematic vertical landing variant is starting to recover from a series of technical glitches that resulted in schedule slips and the redesigns of some ancillary equipment and structural elements of the aircraft. These elements include components in the propulsion system, an insufficiently robust structural bulkhead and hinges on some doors on the top surface of the aircraft.

?I think it does [signal that the program is getting back on track]. This program has never been quite as troubled as many critics thought. I think it?s probably progressed more smoothly than other fighter development program with the possible exception of the F-16,? said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, Arlington, Va. The F-16?s development proceeded so smoothly because of the simple nature of the original version of that aircraft, he said.

Comparatively, the earlier development of Lockheed Martin?s other fifth-generation fighter, the F-22 Raptor, faced far greater difficulties, Thompson said. He said that the challenges faced by the F-35 are common teething problems encountered in most developmental programs.

?Lockheed Martin, they definitely learned from the F-22 experience. The Air Force is sort of vindicated in taking an F-35 design that based in large part on the F-22 system,? Thompson said.

Analyst Richard Aboulafia at the Teal Group, Fairfax, Va., said that the technical challenges facing the F-35 can be turned around within the two-year probationary span allotted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to fix the program.

?The problem with this program, given two years of leeway, is not technological. It?s budgetary and political,? he said.

The Air Force conventional take-off version and Navy carrier variant are doing well in testing, both Aboulafia and Thompson said. Both variants are ahead of schedule in their flight tests.

?We started getting the F-35B back on track toward the end of last year, when we resolved some of the key component issues and began achieving flight rates similar to those of the [conventional take-off] jets, but the [vertical landings] this month certainly have moved the needle for us in terms of STOVL-mode flight. We are seeing excellent results,? said Lockheed?s Kent.
*ttp://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/01/military-5-vertical-landings-in-8-days-for-f-35b-011711w/
 
 
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heraldabc       1/18/2011 7:56:54 AM
Getting desperate. Idiots. Always too late with the performance. 
 
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doggtag       1/18/2011 8:26:35 AM

Getting desperate. Idiots. Always too late with the performance. 

...or has too much of this program been more a case of LM dragging @ss for the sake of shareholders (government kept pumping money into this program time and again),
and only now are getting serious about it since they see Gates (and others) is getting tired of excuses (threat to cancel F-35B within 2 years if it doesn't start delivering as promised).
 
Pulling one out of their @sses at the last moment has always been the hail-mary dramatic ploy that Americans have come to love.
 
Fact is, years ago LM had working prototypes that won them the JSF contract (considering the X-32 competitor, I suppose it's a good thing the X-35 won...).
Then somewhere along the way,
either reality,
or show-boating,
or a combination of these and something else (overly-optomistic engineers couldn't deliver what the salesmen were promising?),
led LM to drag @ss on getting a combat-capable model of each variant into airworthy status.
 
When again was the original IOC that they (LM) sold the Pentagon (and others) on that they could deliver these aircraft by?
 
Some have argued it's little more than a pie-in-the-sky ponzi scheme in the making,...only now, they play the drama card and announce, "look at all these successes we've only recently started having!"
(and after announcement of re-designing whichever bulkhead in near-record time, even!)
 
Someone hasn't been fully honest with us on something here.
 
Pentagon and other customers need to start demanding more transparency from defense contractors...
 
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heraldabc    Sarcasm on.   1/18/2011 9:10:40 AM



Getting desperate. Idiots. Always too late with the performance. 



...or has too much of this program been more a case of LM dragging @ss for the sake of shareholders (government kept pumping money into this program time and again),

and only now are getting serious about it since they see Gates (and others) is getting tired of excuses (threat to cancel F-35B within 2 years if it doesn't start delivering as promised).

 

Pulling one out of their @sses at the last moment has always been the hail-mary dramatic ploy that Americans have come to love.

 

Fact is, years ago LM had working prototypes that won them the JSF contract (considering the X-32 competitor, I suppose it's a good thing the X-35 won...).

Then somewhere along the way,

either reality,

or show-boating,

or a combination of these and something else (overly-optomistic engineers couldn't deliver what the salesmen were promising?),

led LM to drag @ss on getting a combat-capable model of each variant into airworthy status.

 

When again was the original IOC that they (LM) sold the Pentagon (and others) on that they could deliver these aircraft by?

 

Some have argued it's little more than a pie-in-the-sky ponzi scheme in the making,...only now, they play the drama card and announce, "look at all these successes we've only recently started having!"

(and after announcement of re-designing whichever bulkhead in near-record time, even!)

 

Someone hasn't been fully honest with us on something here.

 

Pentagon and other customers need to start demanding more transparency from defense contractors...



Gee, all those times I called LockMart a bunch of thieves and I had no idea that these shenanigans were going on.

Sarcasm off.
 
H.
 
 
 
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doggtag       1/18/2011 9:42:51 AM
Gee, all those times I called LockMart a bunch of thieves and I had no idea that these shenanigans were going on.




Sarcasm off.


 

H.


 

 


Generally,
where LM is concerned,
sarcasm isn't even necessary: if the shoe fits....
 
Issues with the F-35s.
Issues with the LCS and NetFires.
Need I go into various concerns of other troubled defense systems they've been involved in, either principal or in part?
 
Yeah, occasional they find their proverbial truffle:
the MLRS system to name one (perhaps in part because it was initially Vought, before they...."succumbed" to the black hole of acquisition of smaller companies by larger ones).
F-16: originally, that was General Dynamics' baby...
Conversion of A-10s into the newer -C standard, sure,...but again, originally a Fairchild project (and IIRC, Boeing got the contract for the new replacement wings, not LM)...
 
But the latest major defense programs? Let's just say I wouldn't put all my faith in the LM leadership (or whoever makes those decisions) to appoint the right departments and personnel to work on my defense projects.
Sure, everyone gets some things right,
but just what/where/who has been the issue with LM "screwing the pooch" on these other programs?
Do we let them typically blame the military for continually changing program requirements and desires throughout the R&D phases?
 
Somewhere in the chain, it's people that are the problem.
And rest assured I don't accept the US military as being the model of flawless perfection in all they do,
but I don't accept defense contractors blaming a majority of their delays and setbacks on miltary leadership "interfering" at whatever levels: grow a pair and tell them up front what you can and can't do; don't promise pie-in-the-sky capabilities that you know damn well your people can't deliver on in the time alloted (or start hiring and assigning more qualified engineers and development staff on more of your projects).
 
Back in the day (basic training, 1990), the Army fed me this whole line about "maximum range of an excuse is zero",
and in war, all delays are costly,
yet today excuses for failure and delay are the norm.
Go figure.  http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/face8.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />
 
(and again, sarcasm not needed.)
 
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jessmo_24       1/18/2011 1:45:54 PM
While we are F-35 hating the French have stepped in.
 

The F-35 fighter jet, set to replace a large part of the US warplane fleet, has become the most expensive weapons program ever, drawing increased scrutiny at a time of tight public finances.

Following a series of cost overruns and delays, the program is now expected to cost a whopping 382 billion dollars, for 2,443 aircraft.

The so-called 5th generation fighter was built with features designed to help avoid enemy radar and ensure American supremacy in the skies for decades.

But there is now the potential for competition from China, which this week unveiled its first radar-evading combat aircraft and fueled a sense of a military rivalry between the two powers.

At home, the Lockheed Martin F-35 is getting increased criticism even from some at the Pentagon.

Defense officials say the original cost estimates have now doubled to make each plane's price tag reach some 92 million dollars.

At the same time, the contract awarded in 2001 had been planned to last 10 years, but has been extended to 2016 because of testing and design issues.

Lockheed Martin, which is working with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, is developing three versions of the aircraft, which are being designed for ground attack as well as reconnaissance missions.

The F-35A is designed to replace the F-16 and A-10 of the US Air Force, while the F-35C is designed for deployment on aircraft carriers to supplant to F-18, and the F-35B would have a vertical takeoff capacity and replace Harrier aircraft.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned the cost overruns cannot continue and expressed particular concern over the short take-off and vertical landing variant.

"The culture of endless money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of restraint," he said recently.

For the short-takeoff version, Gates has ordered "the equivalent of a two-year probation," adding that "if we cannot fix this variant during this time frame and get it back on track in terms of performance, cost and schedule, then I believe it should be canceled."

As part of a cost-saving drive, the Pentagon chief has decided to delay the purchase of 124 of the 449 units of this version until 2016.

Another bone of contention is a second engine being developed for the fighter by General Electric and Rolls Royce in case the Pratt & Whitney engine is not up to par. Gates contends this second engine is "unneeded."

Private analysts say the whole F-35 program is becoming a money pit.

"The incredibly unfortunate phrase 'too big to fail' applies to this aircraft more than any other defense program," said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace industry analyst with the Teal Group.

"It's difficult to think of a civil or military program in the past decade that hasn't experienced similar delays and cost overruns."

Still, it may be hard to make many changes to the F-35 program because Britain and seven other countries have been closely involved in its development.

The United States is covering 90 percent of the cost of the development but has participation from Britain, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Australia.

Other nations, including Israel and Singapore, have signed contracts to buy the plane.

"The US wants a globalized JSF program for a combination of strategic and economic reasons," said Aboulafia.

"It greatly simplifies logistics, training and doctrine for coalition warfighting. Dominating the military aerospace export business is certainly a strong draw, too. It's as much an industrial policy as a fighter."
 *ttp://www.defencetalk.com/f-35-looking-more-like-white-elephant-31347/
 
Imagine that  Frenchmen calling the F-35 a boondoggle! OHH the irony!
 
 
 
 
 
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