Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

Forest Green said:
Do we not do nice pictures anymore?
Click to expand...
We love nice pictures for sure. That one has a specially beautiful light. Many thanks!. I have collected thousands of them in my computer :)

Just thinking if we could preserve the core topic attention as much as possible. Why about opening dedicated threads for that kind of less related but still appreciated posts?
I love to surf the forum like a library. My feeling, after all that years, is that clean threads are more comfortable for reading and locating data when researching. It's also easy to add coherent new posts even after years inactive. Long and cluttered threads, instead, bring me the opposite sensations.
 
Forest Green said:
I thought is was a nice picture, sorry. Do we not do nice pictures anymore?

View attachment 732713
Click to expand...
No problem there but just a comment along the lines of "Just a nice picture" with the tweet repost would have been useful rather than just the repost.
 
USAF F-35A mission availability rates getting even worse!
The minimum mission availability rate target (where an aircraft is capable of performing at least one of its squadrons assigned mission types) is 80% with 90% the desired availability rate.
However the rate peaked in 2020 at 71.4% then fell to 68.8% in 2021, 56% in 2022 (USAF saying its claim of 65.4% in Air and Space Forces Magazine was incorrect) and its now been announced as just 51.9% in 2023. At the same time this year the expected airframe flight hours per year in the service plan has been reduced from 230 hours to 187 hours, because of the reduction in flying hours it expects each airframe to last 8 years longer in service. The annual maintenance cost of the plane has also increased from $4.1m in June 2023 to $6.6m per tail in the June 2024 service plan, an increase of 34%.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-f-35as-mission-capable-2023/
 
Last edited:
WatcherZero said:
USAF F-35A mission availability rates getting even worse!
The minimum mission availability rate target (where an aircraft is capable of performing at least one of its squadrons assigned mission types) is 80% with 90% the desired availability rate.
However the rate peaked in 2020 at 71.4% then fell to 68.8% in 2021, 56% in 2022 (USAF saying its claim of 65.4% in Air and Space Forces Magazine was incorrect) and its now been announced as just 51.9% in 2023. At the same time this year the expected airframe flight hours per year in the service plan has been reduced from 230 hours to 187 hours, because of the reduction in flying hours it expects each airframe to last 8 years longer in service. The annual maintenance cost of the plane has also increased from $4.1m in June 2023 to $6.6m per tail in the June 2024 service plan, an increase of 34%.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-f-35as-mission-capable-2023/
Click to expand...
And we stopped the F-22 for this stiff?
 
F-22 is only a fraction higher, 57.4% in 2022 (1.4% higher) and 52.0% in 2023 (0.1% higher)
 
Well its good that they are discarding the previous notion of picking up second hand LCS ships, I am not really sure the Constellation class as the program stands today is much of an improvement.
 
WatcherZero said:
Well its good that they are discarding the previous notion of picking up second hand LCS ships, I am not really sure the Constellation class as the program stands today is much of an improvement.
Click to expand...
I think they'd be okay if they bought some of the LCS-2 class. Those are at least not losing propulsion.
 
https://www.twz.com/air/usaf-f-35as-to-be-based-in-japan-replacing-wild-weasel-f-16s
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/07...apan-under-new-dod-tactical-aircraft-laydown/
https://www.spacewar.com/reports/US..._to_Japan_amid_growing_Asia_tensions_999.html
The Defense Department said in a statement that 36 F-15EX Eagles will be deployed to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Prefecture in southern Japan, replacing 48 F-15C/D Eagles "as part of a planned divestment and modernization."

Forty-eight F-35A Lightning II fifth-generation fighters will also be deployed to the Misawa Air Base in Japan's northeastern prefecture of Aomori. They will be replacing 36 F-16 Fighting Falcons.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
This is interesting....UK appears to be looking to boost its fleet, at least temporarily by turning the 3 x ITF test aircraft into 'combat capable' F-35 and bringing them to the UK. There is also another recent production aircraft in the US at Edwards assisting the test effort, that is unaffected. Presumably it is staying there.

The speculation appears to be this is necessary to keep things on track due to the slowdown in deliveries, plus although test aircraft are desperately needed these early production aircrafts utility is decreasing. The idea might be to move some of the new, or yet to be built, production aircraft, with TR-3, into the Test Fleet so that their overall configuration is the same or at least closer than these earlier aircraft.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1808772645023818183
View: https://twitter.com/GarethJennings3/status/1808772645023818183
 
timmymagic said:
This is interesting....UK appears to be looking to boost its fleet, at least temporarily by turning the 3 x ITF test aircraft into 'combat capable' F-35 and bringing them to the UK. There is also another recent production aircraft in the US at Edwards assisting the test effort, that is unaffected. Presumably it is staying there.

The speculation appears to be this is necessary to keep things on track due to the slowdown in deliveries, plus although test aircraft are desperately needed these early production aircrafts utility is decreasing. The idea might be to move some of the new, or yet to be built, production aircraft, with TR-3, into the Test Fleet so that their overall configuration is the same or at least closer than these earlier aircraft.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1808772645023818183
View: https://twitter.com/GarethJennings3/status/1808772645023818183
Click to expand...

Denmark have done similar, they have moved six that were in the US for pilot training to Europe to join the 4 already in Denmark because deliveries have slowed down and the type trained pilots had nothing to fly and couldn't proceed into advanced tactical skill learning in Denmark and so their skills were atrophying. They will instead have the new deliveries when they eventually come rebuild the training squadron in Arizona.
 
Last edited:
Interesting news about Switzerland to produce four of it's F-35's GTX, I am surprised that the US never alowed the UK or Italy or the other European countries that have ordered the F-35 to do the same.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Interesting that it's the same total number of aircraft but locations reversed. Fewer planes in Okinawa and more in Aomori.
Click to expand...
Given the decreasing likelihood of Kadena even being able to generate meaningful sorties during the war, due to its proximity to the adversary, even 36 planes might be overkill.
 
Switzerland originally was looking during the tender for a consequent share of local manufacturing. It was latter agreed with the US that it would not be possible to source local content economically to the extend that was originally planned by the Swiss. Hence, a compromise was reached that would see a minimal portion of the lot assembled on site to sustain the Swiss industry with a de-facto partial technology transfer. Moreover, the Swiss industry got to participate in tender as other program participant countries.

Link related to this should be available on this forum.
This should also been seen in the larger context with the DoD being certainly one of the largest customer of Pilatus aircraft with, for example, the U-28.
 
FighterJock said:
Interesting news about Switzerland to produce four of it's F-35's GTX, I am surprised that the US never alowed the UK or Italy or the other European countries that have ordered the F-35 to do the same.
Click to expand...
Errr…Italy does have a Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO) so technically they are. And it wasn’t a case of the USA not allowing but rather countries looking at the costs involved vs the benefit and realising very quickly that it wasn’t worth it.

In Switzerland’s case they insisted even though it makes absolutely no economic sense. Think about it, establishing a ‘capability’ to just assemble 4 aircraft. Ridiculous!
 
totoro said:
Given the decreasing likelihood of Kadena even being able to generate meaningful sorties during the war, due to its proximity to the adversary, even 36 planes might be overkill.
Click to expand...
Dark Eagle could make things the same the other way round too though.
 
Jeb said:
Mine was that it's a hotdogging pilot running out of skill. Tried a short-field takeoff run without the needed experience and then stalled during the turn to port. The jet auto-ejected the pilot when it computed that he couldn't recover.
Click to expand...
Scott Kenny said:
That's entirely possible, and probably more likely than a mechanical failure.

I just hate to accuse a pilot of screwing up if I don't know them.
Click to expand...
Sadly, once you've briefed enough SIB's on First Fridays you recognize patterns. AF pilot, probably a patch wearer (USAF TPS), but not a regular STVOL driver, flying a STOVL jet, chooses to not follow pre-filed plan/expected/normal departure for this type of mission to show some guys at the airport something. There's good reason we follow process, procedures and standards, always tweaks my antennae when you hear stuff like that.

There's a reason those of us in the flight test community say the two most dangerous words in aviation are, "Watch this." Kind of like, "Hold my beer."

None of this is to say it goes one way or the other, a SIB will determine that and an AIB will inform the public eventually.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom