F-35 Lightning II

PACIFIC OCEAN (Oct. 28, 2016) An F-35B Lightning II lands on the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6). Later, F-35Bs take off from the flight deck. The F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant is the world's first supersonic STOVL stealth aircraft. America, with Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 (VMX-1), Marine Attack Fighter Squadron 211 (VMFA-211) and Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23) embarked, are underway conducting operational testing and the third phase of developmental testing for the F-35B Lightning II aircraft, respectively. The tests will evaluate the full spectrum of joint strike fighter measures of suitability and effectiveness in an at-sea environment.
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Voi hyvää päivää. Odotan mielenkiinnolla miten suomen tilanne ratkaistaan jos f35 tulee valituksi.

Britain will have to send its supersonic F-35 fighter jets to Italy for heavy overhauls, the UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed to The Register.

BAE Systems will maintain an airframe maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade (MRO&U) capability at RAF Marham in Norfolk, according to a US announcement earlier this week.

However, that will only be used if Italy, the Americans' designated airframe overhaul point in Europe, is unable to cope with demand.

"The F-35 programme is based on a global support solution concept. This is the most cost effective way to deliver the F-35 support solution and is based on economies of scale," the MoD told The Register, adding: "The UK is establishing an F-35 airframe maintenance facility at RAF Marham to maintain UK aircraft. However, regional Airframe 'Heavy' MRO&U and Engine MRO&U will be undertaken in Italy and Turkey."

In Europe, F-35 heavy maintenance will be carried out by the UK for the aircraft's avionics, and as noted above, Italy for the airframes and Turkey for the jets' F135 engines.

The MoD declined to answer questions as to why Britain's carrier strike aircraft will have to be dismantled and shipped abroad for MRO&U work, when a perfectly good airframe overhaul facility exists over here, referring The Register to the Americans for an answer. This was said to be because the Americans have the lead on PR relating to F-35 maintenance arrangements and not because, as El Reg suggested, the US supplier tail is wagging the British customer dog.

The ministry also strongly claimed that Britain retains sovereignty over the UK's F-35s, saying: "Whilst the UK is participating in a global support solution, it will still have full sovereign control of its aircraft and its carrier strike capability."

This claim is at strong odds with the level of control the US F-35 Joint Project Office seems to have over where and by whom third-line maintenance of frontline British military aircraft will be carried out. Unlike other military projects such as the AirTanker consortium – which leases modified Airbus A330s (known as Voyagers) to the RAF for troop transport and air-to-air refuelling duties – the F-35 purchase was presented to the public as a full purchase.

Given that the US apparently controls who does what with the F-35 even after it has been sold, it appears that Britain has effectively leased the supersonic stealth fighters – and this is before the controversial ALIS maintenance software, which reports each aircraft's maintenance state to system users, is deployed to the UK.

Who does what?

Sources suggested that the key thing is not the country in which the maintenance would be taking place, but rather which company or organisation would be carrying it out. In the case of Turkey, which is rapidly regressing into an authoritarian state with religious overtones following the attempted military coup earlier this year, its F135 engine factory is 51 per cent owned by Turkish industrial conglomerate Kale Group. Forty-nine per cent is held by the F135 design authority, US firm Pratt and Whitney.

Though ownership details for Kale are not readily discernible in English, an interview given by a Kale exec a few years ago hints at the firm being privately held and not government-controlled.

The arrangements for F-35 heavy maintenance are unprecedented in the history of British combat aircraft. Historically, all frontline fast jets maintained by civilian contractors have been maintained in the UK by firms answerable to Britain. While Italy and Turkey are UK allies through NATO, so was Belgium during the First Gulf War – and they refused to sell us badly-needed 155mm artillery shells (column 24WH), allegedly because the Belgian government decided to make a political protest against British involvement in the US-led conflict.

Even allies can throw unexpected spanners into the military works, and with the F-35 being the only fast jet capable of being flown from Britain's Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, a hardening of attitudes in either Italy or Turkey could see our carrier strike capability held to diplomatic ransom – or, worse, artificially limited in its capabilities (for example, restrictions on flying hours or high-energy manoeuvres to preserve engine or airframe life) because vital overhaul or upgrade work is not carried out.

The F-35 Joint Project Office, which is part of the US military, ignored El Reg's repeated questions about maintenance arrangements. Perhaps they were too busy fretting over US president-elect Donald Trump's previous – and very unrealistic – suggestion that he'd cancel the F-35 outright.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/11/uk_f35s_heavy_overhaul_says_us/
 
http://www.allgov.com/news/controve...-aircraft-unfit-for-combat-160429?news=858730

The aging Air Force fleet is a problem. Air superiority is overwhelmingly being supported by the F-15, which makes up 71 percent of the air superiority platforms but has consumed over 90 percent of its estimated 30-year service life according to the 2016 Index of US Military Strength. The Navy has similar concerns, but is procuring operational fighter aircraft to ease its situation. Meanwhile the need for a viable fighter aircraft has increased. “We’ve seen both Russia and China develop airplanes faster than was anticipated,” Air Force Lt. Gen. James Holmes, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at a March 8 hearing as reported by DefenseOne.

While the services suffer, billions of dollars are being spent especially by the Marines and Air Force in procuring F-35 pre-production aircraft years before the Milestone C production and deployment decision (currently scheduled for 2019). Is there any justifiable hope that these expensive F-35 pre-production systems could ease the current problems?

There seems to be a belief in the land that manufacturing pre-production F-35 aircraft is a solution to this situation. But obviously aircraft which can't be deployed is not a solution to the need for deployed aircraft. The Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall has called this "acquisition malpractice." Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James: "People believed we could go faster, cheaper, better" by designing and building the F-35 concurrently, "and that the degree of concurrency would work. Indeed it has not worked as well as we had hoped and that's probably the understatement of the day."

There is competition among the states over basing these useless aircraft. Arizona has done quite well for obvious reasons. The two dozen (only) planes bought by five (of eight) foreign Joint Strike Fighter Partners have been based in the U.S. Like the U.S. models, they can't leave because future development and operational testing will probably lead to engineering changes which must be done at U.S. depots. Hill AFB in Utah recently became the first depot facility to perform modifications on all three F-35 Lightning II variants. But the planes are still not deployable pending further test and evaluation.

The F-35 won't be combat capable any time soon. "Overall, the program is at a critical time," said Michael Gilmore, head of the Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation Office. "Although the Marine Corps has declared initial operational capability, and the Air Force plans to do so later this calendar year, the F-35 system remains immature and provides limited combat capability, with the officially planned start of initial operational test and evaluation just over one year away." In fact, as of the end of January 2016, the program had 931 open, documented deficiencies, 158 of which are Category 1 -- serious. “There are shortfalls in electronic warfare, electronic attack, shortfalls in the performance of distributed aperture system and other issues that are classified,” Dr. Gilmore said March 23. “With regard to mission assistance, stealth aircraft are not visible to achieve success against the modern stressing mobile threats.

Nyt ne on sanonut että kone on initial operational capability, mutta ne varmaan tietää että se ei ole

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/08/...a-ioc-major-milestone-for-biggest-us-program/

Aug 2016
USAF declares F35A IOC

“Air Force F-35A initial operational capability (IOC) shall be declared when the first operational squadron is equipped with 12-24 aircraft, and Airmen are trained, manned, and equipped to conduct basic Close Air Support (CAS), Interdiction, and limited Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD/DEAD) operations in a contested environment. Based on the current F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) schedule, the F-35A will reach the IOC milestone between August 2016 (Objective) and December 2016 (Threshold). Should capability delivery experience changes or delays, this estimate will be revised appropriately.

The U.S. services alone are scheduled to buy 2,443.
Will the Air Force buy its full complement? Harrison was skeptical.

“I don’t think it’s plausible that we’ll actually buy that full amount in the long run, but they don’t need to change their plans right now, they don’t need to scare the foreign partners by signaling that right now, it wouldn’t make sense to do it now,” he says. “You don’t have to make that decision on the total quantity, you don’t even have to make the decision on the full-rate production, until four or five years from now. So you can wait four or five years, more of the foreign partners will get deeply invested in the program, and then they can scare them.”
 
Ei noita testiheppujen tarinoita kannata kritiikittä niellä. Itseään tekevät myös tarpeelliseksi.
Research Development Test & Evaluation eli RDT&E-ohjelma maksaa 1,6 mrd. Eikä todellakaan ole pysynyt hanskassa edes sen vertaa mitä muu ohjelman kustannukset.

Esim. siitä ilkutusta "$530 miljoonaa lisää valmiiksi" puolet menee nimenomaan testeihin. Kaikkiaan 1800 muuttujaa testattavana. Loput $265 milj. ei mene minnekään. Ne varataan odottamattomia menoja varten.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...said-to-need-500-million-more-for-development

The call for more money comes as the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester has issued a fresh warning that the aircraft, projected to cost $379 billion for a fleet of 2,443 U.S. planes, is far from showing it has full combat capability.

In an eight-page memo dated Oct. 14 and obtained by Bloomberg News, Michael Gilmore, the director of operational testing, recommended “very strongly that the program be restructured now and provided the additional resources it clearly requires to deliver its long-planned and sorely needed full” capability.

The majority of the added $530 million “will be used to complete development flight tests” that are expected to be completed by October 2017 and operational combat testing in fiscal 2018 and 2019, Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 office, said in an e-mail. He said $265 million of the $530 million is to pay for “unforeseen delays,” and none of the funds will be required in the current fiscal year.
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Tämä on vielä parempi kuin se Deptulan haastattelu. Taisi viitatakin tähän siinä.

I fly on a regular basis two training stories worth of training that I would do in an F-15C model with two external tanks on it. So I would go up go out and do one offensive push where we do basically one offensive strike into the area and out and hey I'm bingo I've got to go home on fuel with the F-15C.

In the F-35 I'll go out and do two of those without any problem and one of the things that we found out in the exercise up in Wisconsin, was after we were done firing our weapons after we were done getting everybody into and out of the combat area, if we wanted to go on to keep fighting at that point they would ask us to stick around because of all the sensors we could provide and the data link we could provide to help the 4th gen aircraft who still had missiles on board. We still had fuel and the sensors to be able to provide that information form.

So it's got legs, it's got really long legs.
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Viimeksi muokattu:
F-35 kypärä a la Dart Vader
6f3792b4-66e1-4fc1-96f2-e972e86a2fe7
 
U.S. Air Force F-35s Ready For First Overseas Deployment

http://aviationweek.com/combat-aircraft/us-air-force-f-35s-ready-first-overseas-deployment

Fifteen years after the Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin the initial contract to build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. Air Force’s first operational F-35A squadron is preparing for its first overseas deployment. The “Rude Rams” 34th Fighter Sqdn. here at Hill AFB, Utah, is gearing up to participate in a so-called theater security package (TSP) next year, squadron commander Lt. Col. George Watkins tells Aviation Week.
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jokuvaan kirjoitti:
Gilmoren lokakuun F-35 muistio.
http://aviationweek.com/blog/dote-memo-f-35-still-challenged

http://aviationweek.com/site-files/aviationweek.com/files/uploads/2016/11/16/F35memo.pdf

Saapa nähdä mitä Trumpin hallinto tämän murheenkryynin kanssa tekee, uusi aikataulu ja rahoitus on ainakin tarpeen. Kysymysmerkkinä sitten annetaanko B tai C mallille kirvestä.
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Gilmore se vain kärkkyy rahaa omalle byroolleen.

The latest problem, stemming from the Imperial Office of Test and Evaluation (OT&E), is the announcement that the program will need an additional $550 million to complete development.

Has there been a failure of a critical part? Does the software not work? Nothing of the kind. According to OT&E the additional funds are required to complete the full set of some 8,000 test points mandated by that organization. Think of it as a tax on the program to ensure the full employment of testers.
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http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...f-35-program-became-boringly-successful-18280
 
Arvasin jo tuosta lainatusta kappaleesta, että LM:n rahoittama Lexington Institute asialla, valehtelemassa aivan häikäilemättömästi toimintakuntoisesta softasta. Virallisten testien tarkoitus on varmistaa, että ns. tositoimiin lähtevät asejärjestelmät toimivat. Tämä ulkopuolinen valvontamekanismi oli pakko kehittää, koska Pentagon ja asevalmistajat olivat liian hyvää pataa keskenään.
 
jokuvaan kirjoitti:
Arvasin jo tuosta lainatusta kappaleesta, että LM:n rahoittama Lexington Institute asialla, valehtelemassa aivan häikäilemättömästi toimintakuntoisesta softasta. Virallisten testien tarkoitus on varmistaa, että ns. tositoimiin lähtevät asejärjestelmät toimivat. Tämä ulkopuolinen valvontamekanismi oli pakko kehittää, koska Pentagon ja asevalmistajat olivat liian hyvää pataa keskenään.
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"valehtelemassa aivan häikäilemättömästi"
:rolleyes:

 
Gilmore/DOT&E eivät testaa yhtään mitään, vaan analysoivat muiden toimittamia (USAF/JPO) testituloksia. Poppoon tehtävänä on löytää aseprojekteista riskejä.
Jos FOCin jälkeen koneesta löytyy yksikin ongelma jota Gilmore ei ennakoinut, äijä saa etsiä uusia hommia. Jos tekevät 100 kärpäsestä härkäsen, rahoitus on taas taattu. Mikä ongelma tuossa tosiaan voisi olla, byrokraatti jonka on löydettävä ongelmia ollakseen relevantti...
Muoks lisätty linkki artikkeliin tästä anti F-35 kerhon esitaistelijasta, lukekaa itse
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...ional-test-evaluation-office-determined-17472
 
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