Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)
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I suspect environmental clean-up, plus costs of the investigation and corrective action. Plus having to do it in the Alaskan winter.
If Eielson's record keeping was as bad as this implies, they'd potentially have to drain the hydraulics of every aircraft there, and maybe even the ones that had just passed through.
- At 21:48:15Z, the MA MLG touched down, followed by the NLG at 21:48:18Z (Tab J-111). TFLIR video from the MW showed both the MLG and NLG touching down on the runway (Tab BB-202). Once this occurs, TFLIR video and CSMU data showed the nose wheel went from 17 degrees left to 6 degrees left when it touched down (Tab J-183).
- At 21:48:19Z, the MP momentarily selected Maximum Afterburner (MAX ETR) and the MA lifted back off the runway at 21:48:24Z (Tab J-198).
- At 21:48:32Z, an FCS/ENG RESET was initiated by the MP and at 21:48:36Z—when the MA is climbing away—the MA began to experience significant oscillations in the yaw axis followed by oscillations in the pitch axis (Tab J-111, 113). The MP attempted to counteract the oscillations with the control stick before selecting MAX ETR at 21:48:41Z (Tab J113).
- At 21:48:42Z, the MP attempted to initiate a left bank at which point the MA rolled to the left and aggressively pitched up (Tab J-113). The control stick inputs were neutralized at 21:48:43Z, indicating the MP released his hand from the stick (Tab J-111).
- And at 21:48:44Z, the MP commanded an ejection (Tab J-111). Testimony from the MP reinforced that the MA experienced uncommanded yaw and pitch oscillations (Tab V-1.4). The MP attempted to counteract those movements before attempting to turn the MA away from the populated area of the airfield and ejecting (Tab V-1.4). According to the CSMU, the ejection was commanded at 21:48:44Z (Tab J-111).
- The MA was travelling at 222 KCAS and at approximately 372ft above ground level (AGL) (Tab H-71) with the MA at 30-40 degrees pitch up, -38 degrees (left) roll, and approximately 3g (Tab H-55).
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My guess would be it changed the gains and limits on control surface movements - you don't want the aircraft rolling inverted on the ground, so roll control needs dampening, that kind of thing. Then you get in the air and you don't have the control authority to counter oscillations when they set in. Could also change the filtering that prevents PIO.
But to be honest I really am guessing.
piginapoke
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Didn't the YF-22 crash because of a change of control laws at low level causing oscillation?
I think it might've been but it didn't crash it had a hard landing which severely damaged its' airframe.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269064311_F-22_control_law_development_and_flying_qualities
This paper covers the YF-22 incident: thrust vectoring is disabled with the gear down and the pilot was flying with a lot of nose-up trim, meaning he was pushing in lots of nose-down input with the stick. As soon as it went to gear up, thrust vectoring enabled, the system gave a much higher pitch rate for the stick inputs he was generating, and the controls couldn't keep up with his inputs.
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One would kinda expect by 1000 planes built they would be combat ready outside from bombing some toyotas in the desert ,whole story of Israelis with drop tanks and conformal tanks on F35 was BS (no one is fiting anything conformal on an aircraft that has problems with cooling), probably just a cover story for them refueling in a friendly muslim nation that would not like its plebs to know it was colaborating.
www.aspistrategist.org.au
In 2023 alone, the Joint Program Office for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning program awarded $36 billion in contracts from its anonymous headquarters in Crystal City, a high-rise civilian building adjacent to the Pentagon. The program remains critical to U.S. military power, even as Boeing’s F-47 steals the spotlight.
The program’s recent performance has drawn sharp criticism from the Air Force, its largest customer, which has yet to approve a new set of critical software for combat use. The problem has compounded the complexities of a comprehensive hardware upgrade called Block 4. The jet also needs an upgraded engine and a new power and cooling system to address a long-standing problem: The F-35 literally overheats in flight.
At the current rate, the last of the 1,763 F-35s the Air Force is scheduled to receive won’t be delivered until 2051. That’s halfway there (full-scale development began in 2001), but the project is under pressure. In its fiscal 2026 budget, the Air Force cut its planned F-35 purchase from 48 to 24, the lowest since 2015. Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allwin put it bluntly in a July interview with Defense One that the service was holding off on the purchase until it could get “the most combat-ready F-35s.” (Lets screw over our allies ,let them buy , unfinished jets instead of us
let Turkey buy some lemons)
F-35s delivered starting in 2023 lack combat-ready software. Lockheed Martin said in June that a fix was awaiting Air Force approval. But it’s just the first step in a larger effort to modernize the F-35’s systems under the Block 4 program. The latest estimates put the cost of Block 4 at $16.5 billion, 60 percent more than the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber. This massive system upgrade effort has also been plagued by delays, and a promised “rethink” plan has never been delivered.
The root cause of the problem is that well-intentioned management encourages competition to replace subsystems when new technologies emerge. This spurs innovation and avoids sole-source contracts. But when program management and Lockheed Martin sought a new integrated central processor in the late 2010s, L3Harris poached incumbent Northrop Grumman, won the contract—and quickly fell behind schedule. The hardware delays delayed software testing. During flight tests in 2023, pilots frequently had to reboot the F-35’s systems midflight.
The embedded CPU is the foundation of the Tech Refresh 3 (TR-3) hardware upgrade, which in turn is the foundation for Block 4. Under Phase 4, more than 80 individual enhancements (including Northrop Grumman’s new APG-85 radar and Raytheon’s EO-DAS 360-degree infrared surveillance system) were scheduled to be introduced into the F-35 production line every two years between the first TR-3 delivery in 2023 and the end of the decade. F-35s ordered in 2029 and delivered in 2031 will meet the Phase 4 standard.
Congress and the Government Accountability Office have repeatedly said that Block 4 is so large that it should be its own major acquisition program, like a program for an entirely new aircraft. But program management continued to operate under the principle of continuous capability development and deployment, adopted in 2019 in keeping with the then-global enthusiasm for “agile” systems development.
But there were too many such subprograms to be implemented in this way, especially since many of them were interdependent. At a hearing in early 2024, Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, then director of the Joint Projects Office, testified that the Block 4 project had been “reimagined” and reduced to “the set of capabilities that give us the highest return” because “we believed in pipe dreams.” That reimagining is incomplete — hence the Air Force’s decision to reduce the FY26 order. Outside observers cannot say whether Unit 4 will be launched on the previous schedule, given the reduced set of enhancements.
A parallel program outside Block 4 is addressing thermal management issues that have dogged the program since its first flight tests. One of the design principles of the stealthy F-35 is to siphon heat away from the avionics, actuators, and other systems into either an engine bypass or the fuel and cooling air supplied by the power and thermal management system (PTMS). Otherwise, the internal systems begin to overheat.
In some cases, this heat-dissipation system fails (at higher speeds and lower altitudes), forcing more air from the engine into the PTMS, causing the engine to overheat and shorten its service life. (In 2023 alone, the program office has ordered 40 more engines than the airframe.) Even more efficient cooling is expected to be required for Block 4 and beyond.
Part of the solution was to equip the F-35 with a new engine design. By 2022, this was to be an efficient but technically challenging configuration called an “adaptive cycle.” But such an engine would be difficult to fit into the short takeoff and vertical landing version of the fighter, the F-35B, and Pratt & Whitney had lobbied hard to improve the F135 engine already in use on the F-35 with a new high-pressure section. A contract for the engine upgrade was awarded in 2023, with the aim of delivering the engines by 2029. However, in June 2025, it was revealed that a critical design milestone for the engine upgrade, scheduled for this summer, had been delayed by a year.
The second front in the thermal war is the introduction of a new PTMS design, with Lockheed Martin hosting a competition between RTX Collins and the incumbent Honeywell. The PTMS is a complex system combining environmental control, auxiliary and emergency power, and engine start.
The timeline for introducing these new technologies into production is unknown, but another question arises: what to do with the more than 1,000 F-35s built before TR-3, including those operated by Australia, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore? Upgrading even half of those aircraft to Block 4 standards with engine improvements and the new PTMS would be the largest aircraft upgrade program in history, and the unit cost is unknown.
And with the U.S. Air Force seemingly ready to switch to Boeing’s F-47, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Ticlet is talking about a future F-35 variant that could incorporate technology the company developed for its failed F-47 competitor. The technology could provide “80 percent of the capability at 50 percent of the cost per aircraft.” Ultimately, 3,500 of these [F-35] landing gears will be built, at varying stages of technology and capabilities.
That sounds less like a Block 4 and more like an entirely new avionics suite — perhaps based on what Northrop Grumman is developing for the B-21 — and an adaptive engine that would provide more efficient cooling and increase range by 30 percent. Some of the aircraft could be upgraded, but the option is to build a new production version with a larger wing like the current F-35C and upgrade it by eliminating the short takeoff and vertical landing capability.
It’s a solid strategy because the Air Force and Navy must continue to buy F-35s to keep their fighter forces from becoming obsolete. The F-47 would be too expensive and too late, and the Defense Department is unwilling to fund the Navy’s new fighter, the F/A-XX.
Even if the Air Force were looking for an entirely new entry-level fighter to complement the F-47, it’s unlikely that any of the three possible suppliers would want to build one: Lockheed Martin would be happy to build an updated F-35, Northrop Grumman, the F-35’s production partner, would likely be of the same mind, and Boeing would be focused on the F-47.
That means the new entry-level fighter would have to be the significantly improved F-35 that Lockheed Martin is talking about. How that would fit in with the Block 4 upgrades and refits is anyone’s guess.
Either way, the F-35 is here to stay for a long time.
Where the F-35 program stands: big upgrades, long future | The Strategist
From its anonymous digs in Crystal City, the Pentagon’s high-rise civilian annex, the Joint Program Office for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning wrote $36 billion in contracts in 2023 alone. The program is still critical ...
In 2023 alone, the Joint Program Office for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning program awarded $36 billion in contracts from its anonymous headquarters in Crystal City, a high-rise civilian building adjacent to the Pentagon. The program remains critical to U.S. military power, even as Boeing’s F-47 steals the spotlight.
The program’s recent performance has drawn sharp criticism from the Air Force, its largest customer, which has yet to approve a new set of critical software for combat use. The problem has compounded the complexities of a comprehensive hardware upgrade called Block 4. The jet also needs an upgraded engine and a new power and cooling system to address a long-standing problem: The F-35 literally overheats in flight.
At the current rate, the last of the 1,763 F-35s the Air Force is scheduled to receive won’t be delivered until 2051. That’s halfway there (full-scale development began in 2001), but the project is under pressure. In its fiscal 2026 budget, the Air Force cut its planned F-35 purchase from 48 to 24, the lowest since 2015. Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allwin put it bluntly in a July interview with Defense One that the service was holding off on the purchase until it could get “the most combat-ready F-35s.” (Lets screw over our allies ,let them buy , unfinished jets instead of us
let Turkey buy some lemons)F-35s delivered starting in 2023 lack combat-ready software. Lockheed Martin said in June that a fix was awaiting Air Force approval. But it’s just the first step in a larger effort to modernize the F-35’s systems under the Block 4 program. The latest estimates put the cost of Block 4 at $16.5 billion, 60 percent more than the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber. This massive system upgrade effort has also been plagued by delays, and a promised “rethink” plan has never been delivered.
The root cause of the problem is that well-intentioned management encourages competition to replace subsystems when new technologies emerge. This spurs innovation and avoids sole-source contracts. But when program management and Lockheed Martin sought a new integrated central processor in the late 2010s, L3Harris poached incumbent Northrop Grumman, won the contract—and quickly fell behind schedule. The hardware delays delayed software testing. During flight tests in 2023, pilots frequently had to reboot the F-35’s systems midflight.
The embedded CPU is the foundation of the Tech Refresh 3 (TR-3) hardware upgrade, which in turn is the foundation for Block 4. Under Phase 4, more than 80 individual enhancements (including Northrop Grumman’s new APG-85 radar and Raytheon’s EO-DAS 360-degree infrared surveillance system) were scheduled to be introduced into the F-35 production line every two years between the first TR-3 delivery in 2023 and the end of the decade. F-35s ordered in 2029 and delivered in 2031 will meet the Phase 4 standard.
Congress and the Government Accountability Office have repeatedly said that Block 4 is so large that it should be its own major acquisition program, like a program for an entirely new aircraft. But program management continued to operate under the principle of continuous capability development and deployment, adopted in 2019 in keeping with the then-global enthusiasm for “agile” systems development.
But there were too many such subprograms to be implemented in this way, especially since many of them were interdependent. At a hearing in early 2024, Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, then director of the Joint Projects Office, testified that the Block 4 project had been “reimagined” and reduced to “the set of capabilities that give us the highest return” because “we believed in pipe dreams.” That reimagining is incomplete — hence the Air Force’s decision to reduce the FY26 order. Outside observers cannot say whether Unit 4 will be launched on the previous schedule, given the reduced set of enhancements.
A parallel program outside Block 4 is addressing thermal management issues that have dogged the program since its first flight tests. One of the design principles of the stealthy F-35 is to siphon heat away from the avionics, actuators, and other systems into either an engine bypass or the fuel and cooling air supplied by the power and thermal management system (PTMS). Otherwise, the internal systems begin to overheat.
In some cases, this heat-dissipation system fails (at higher speeds and lower altitudes), forcing more air from the engine into the PTMS, causing the engine to overheat and shorten its service life. (In 2023 alone, the program office has ordered 40 more engines than the airframe.) Even more efficient cooling is expected to be required for Block 4 and beyond.
Part of the solution was to equip the F-35 with a new engine design. By 2022, this was to be an efficient but technically challenging configuration called an “adaptive cycle.” But such an engine would be difficult to fit into the short takeoff and vertical landing version of the fighter, the F-35B, and Pratt & Whitney had lobbied hard to improve the F135 engine already in use on the F-35 with a new high-pressure section. A contract for the engine upgrade was awarded in 2023, with the aim of delivering the engines by 2029. However, in June 2025, it was revealed that a critical design milestone for the engine upgrade, scheduled for this summer, had been delayed by a year.
The second front in the thermal war is the introduction of a new PTMS design, with Lockheed Martin hosting a competition between RTX Collins and the incumbent Honeywell. The PTMS is a complex system combining environmental control, auxiliary and emergency power, and engine start.
The timeline for introducing these new technologies into production is unknown, but another question arises: what to do with the more than 1,000 F-35s built before TR-3, including those operated by Australia, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore? Upgrading even half of those aircraft to Block 4 standards with engine improvements and the new PTMS would be the largest aircraft upgrade program in history, and the unit cost is unknown.
And with the U.S. Air Force seemingly ready to switch to Boeing’s F-47, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Ticlet is talking about a future F-35 variant that could incorporate technology the company developed for its failed F-47 competitor. The technology could provide “80 percent of the capability at 50 percent of the cost per aircraft.” Ultimately, 3,500 of these [F-35] landing gears will be built, at varying stages of technology and capabilities.
That sounds less like a Block 4 and more like an entirely new avionics suite — perhaps based on what Northrop Grumman is developing for the B-21 — and an adaptive engine that would provide more efficient cooling and increase range by 30 percent. Some of the aircraft could be upgraded, but the option is to build a new production version with a larger wing like the current F-35C and upgrade it by eliminating the short takeoff and vertical landing capability.
It’s a solid strategy because the Air Force and Navy must continue to buy F-35s to keep their fighter forces from becoming obsolete. The F-47 would be too expensive and too late, and the Defense Department is unwilling to fund the Navy’s new fighter, the F/A-XX.
Even if the Air Force were looking for an entirely new entry-level fighter to complement the F-47, it’s unlikely that any of the three possible suppliers would want to build one: Lockheed Martin would be happy to build an updated F-35, Northrop Grumman, the F-35’s production partner, would likely be of the same mind, and Boeing would be focused on the F-47.
That means the new entry-level fighter would have to be the significantly improved F-35 that Lockheed Martin is talking about. How that would fit in with the Block 4 upgrades and refits is anyone’s guess.
Either way, the F-35 is here to stay for a long time.
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I wonder if the F35s cooling issues are related with the *very* thick radar absording skin fitted to the aircraft. You can see on openings that the aircraft is covered in a super thick outer structure, that likely insulates its insides very well, which makes cooling quite difficult. It's chunkiness (meaning large volume relative to surface area) probably doesn't help either.
(Also the mention in your post that the aircraft dumps heat into the engine rather than radiating it away through its skin makes the installation of conformal tanks a much more realistic proposition)
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Possible, I got the image off Wikipedia. Although the skin thickness in your pics also looks like its multiple inches. Here's a different pic of the lift fan, and there you can see the same thick inner lining (other photos of the landing gear doors also sho. this)
Engine waste heat far outdo surface cooling anyway. The F-35 is just too compact and not having enough (surface for) inlets for heat exchangers.
There's a reason military aircraft fuel are kept cool until being transfered so they can be used as heatsink... the more fuel the better.
In fact, this using fuel is one of the main major goal for 6th generation fighters to control IR signature, onboard system and improve performance. Combine this with new adaptive cycle engine cooling designs and the aircrafts will be able to push performance a lot harder.
Scott Kenny
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Could have sworn I'd replied to this already.
My statements about SCAF were strictly in terms of it being a possible competitor to F-35 in terms of being a strike fighter.
F-35 Closer To Carrying Six AIM-120 Missiles Internally
Known as Sidekick, the upgrade will give F-35As and Cs the ability to go from four to six AIM-120 missiles in their internal bays.
www.twz.com
What is the status of the “Sidekick”？
Doesn't the F35 already dump heat into the fuel?
I think you understate the complexity of cooling - first its two problems, not one, first is how to remove the heat from the aircraft and the second is cooling systems, which might have wildly different temperature ranges (with IR sensors requiring superchilled temperatures, and radar T/Rs likewise putting out epic amounts of heat while having to be kept at a low temp). Imagine having to design a system that's supposed to operate at 100K, with a generator inches away that's running at 500K, while due to the previously discussed skin thickness, the whole aircraft is wrapped in a thick thermally insulating blanket.
Also - thermal runaway is a problem. The amount of energy required to move an unit of heat energy is linearly proportional to the temperature difference - meaning if the cooling system gets to capacity it will get harder to remove that heat (which was impossible before), leading to a positive feedback loop of things overheating and having to shut down.
Because of this, you also don't want to cool things to a lower temperature than necessary, which means you either have multiple cooling loops with different temps and capacities (which is another complexity add) or have a local chiller installed in your sensor, which is weight and perf penalty.
Having to dump heat into fuel also comes with its own set of problems. It means the longer the mission goes on, the hotter your fuel will get and there'll be less of it, which means you'll be running out of thermal headroom, and will possibly have to shut down/throttle some systems part way.
It also means you either store the fuel outside of the aircraft, or accept that after X minutes of fueling the plane you'll lose the thermal margin necessary to fly the mission, and makes rapid reaction standby a headache. In places like the Middle East, keeping the fuel cool both inside and outside the planes, and being able to take off at any time is an issue with this scheme
Contrast this with an F-15, where you can roll up to the plane with boring old tanker truck, fill up the tank, and have the plane ready to take off at any time.
As for a more philosophical angle: I think it's known there has been a change of guard between the design of the F-22 and the F-35. Out went the experienced designers who had a hand in designing every single jet since the Korean war, and in came a set of fresh-faced techno-geeks, who thought technology is a panacea that solves every single problem. Now we know that many of these solutions were of the two-steps forward, one-step back kind.
I think the sixth gen will be much more about back-to-basics simple solutions, with a few key game-changer technologies. You have to make physics work for you instead of trying to outsmart it, as any attempt to do so will end in tears.
Look at the B-21 - it's on time and budget, I think in no small part due the usage of tried-and tested solutions (geometric stealth +simple RAM conductive coatings + edge diffraction control, combined with best-in class geometry), that are known to be unbeatable.
Imagine barely scraping together funds to buy F35 only to get some half-developed jet for which they will offer you a super expensive refit of near new planes in a couple of years because you bought them before they finished basic development.
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Switzerland presently having a meltdown over their F-35 acquisition. It's not pretty !
yeetmahboi
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Meh, that's what you get for supporting monopolization of the industry.
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We're looking at structures with a vertical structural depth there, you can't extrapolate from that to essentially 2D skinning, especially in places not exposed to aerodynamic buffeting.
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That's not RAM necessarily. Composite parts are not like sheet metal. Lots of core areas.
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A few important points:
1) Cost is not simply purchase cost, the F-35 has an advantage with lower upfront costs, but will necessarily have higher post-purchase costs. Low maintenance costs 'for a stealth aircraft' does not necessarily equate to low maintenance costs versus conventional aircraft. We also know there have been major issues with F-35 maintenance infrastructure/parts availability, and general serviceability
2) The F-35 doesn't just have the steath vs not-stealth advantage, but a 10-20 year advantage in service entry date wrt systems.
3) We can't extrapolate from the Indo-Pakistani engagement, too few data points to understand what went wrong, and for which side it went wrong. The IAF appears to have lost several aircraft, but it also appears to have achieved its mission objectives, and we simply don't know the missiles fired to hit ratio to understand how well either side's aircraft performed.
4) This isn't the Rafale's first time seeing the elephant.
5) Other aircraft have been lost in arguably embarrassing circumstances: the F-117 in Yugoslavia, the F-16I downed by a Syrian S-200, the heavy Tornado losses in Desert Storm, yet people simply worked out what went wrong, what they needed to do differently and no one argued the aircraft was suddenly worthless. The difference this time appears to be a confirmed black propaganda effort from Chinese sources, with Russian sources jumping on the bandwagon and luring in the overly credulous.
TLDR: Comparisons are complicated.
BonPlan2
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As a Gripen C.
To be exact, we don´t know how many Rafale were shot down as the information on both sides diverge and an heavy lid of covert stories and erroneous interpretations (and even intimidations) was in place that blurred the picture to the public.
We can only assert that the F-35, in arguably more challenging and repeated situations, faired undeniably better (Syria, Iran (IDF), Yemen, Iran (US), Ukraine (NATO)... While remembering that all alleged ground targets assigned to Rafale strike groups were hit with more or less success until this day.
We can only assert that the F-35, in arguably more challenging and repeated situations, faired undeniably better (Syria, Iran (IDF), Yemen, Iran (US), Ukraine (NATO)... While remembering that all alleged ground targets assigned to Rafale strike groups were hit with more or less success until this day.
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The only Gripen C crashes are an involuntary ejection (Swedish), a gear-up landing (Hungarian) and an airshow crash from lost situational awareness (Thai). Looking at incidents with confirmed FCS involvement (all Swedish), there's the two low-level Gripen PIO crashes during development (JAS 39-1 and a Gripen A)*, a very weird wake-vortex incident with an in-service Gripen A that didn't see PIO, and a Gripen A that ended up in an unrecoverable inverted deep stall after falling out of the top of a low-energy loop/height recovery attempt, but I don't see a control law _change_ involved in any of them except the inverted deep stall incident, which the pilot reasonably concluded was unrecoverable and which was outside the parameters of the FCS stall recovery system. The only other Gripen crash is a Hungarian runway overrun.
* The report on the first PIO crash says "The accident was caused by the aircraft experiencing increasing pitch oscillations (divergent dynamic instability) in the final stage of landing, the oscillations becoming uncontrollable. This was because movement of the stick in the pitch axis exceeded the values predicted when designing the flight control system, whereby the stability margins were exceeded at the critical frequency," the second one was apparently exactly the same issue.
Ainen
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For Rafales, right now verifiable number is 1.5(one down, one splashed). Not an actual answer, of course.
For F-35, it's complicated. It faired well in a very challenging situation (Iran), but there are special circumstances (overwhelming success of D+0 attack and almost comical level of infiltration) that allowed even the oldest IDF platforms perform just fine.
And Rafales got straight into an aerial ambush by peer force - something no western power met for a long, long while.
That's the problem part. F-35 still can't use absolute majority of that catalog.
It should've been by almost incountable number of deadlines at this point, but it does not.
BonPlan2
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Syria : they had SAM but what about C2I ??? and before F-35, Israel was able to deal with Syrian defense with legacy fighters.
Iran : no real air defense for years.
Yemen : no air defense.
Ukraine : first time I read F-35 involved in ukraine war.
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Rafales have also hit Syria on multiple occasions, plus operations in Libya (SEAD/DEAD), Iraq, Mali and Afghanistan, and engagement of the 13th April Iranian drone attack on Israel. Meanwhile I'm really not sure NATO F-35s have been doing much in Ukraine.
Uh ? I missed the start of Nato/Russia war ?
And, how can bombing Syria (a pile a ruins), Iran (under embargo for 20+ years, without a meaningful Air Force), and Yemen (you're joking ?), makes it "faired undeniably better" ?
All -
Contaminated hydraulic fluid caused Alaska F-35A crash
A US Air Force investigation has determined that water-contaminated hydraulic fluid froze in extreme cold conditions, causing an F-35A to become uncontrollable before crashing in Alaska.www.flightglobal.com
TLDR: F-35 took off from Eielson AFB, Alaska, but the nosewheel jammed part way through the retract cycle, at 17 degrees off the straight and narrow. After 50 minutes of pootling around while base engineering rang Lockheed Martin for help, they decided to try bouncing it loose with a touch and go. On the second try, the main gears both froze in the part compressed position, and the aircraft decided that meant weight-on-wheels was true, and switched to on-ground flight laws, leaving it unflyable, and the pilot ejected.
The cause was water contamination of the hydraulic fluid, leading to the fluid literally freezing. And not just a little water contamination, the barrel it came from was one third water.
I've coded the weight-on-wheels decision in the past, there's lots of protection against a false value, but this would do it.
As a former Hydraulic Systems Mechanic that worked on U.S. F-16s, the level of Hydraulic Fluid contamination seen @ Eilson beggars the imagination.
The hydraulic “ Mules “ we used ( to powder the Hydraulic system during ground operation of the system ) had flow meters and reservoir sight glass that would allow
Mule operators & Maintainers to see the presecence of a large amount of water contaminating the fluid.
Most U.S. MIL-spec Hydraulic fluid is lighter density wise-wise… than water.
Inside a barrel, tank, or reservoir…. water would tend to separate from the Hyd fluid and collet in a low point in the Mule’s fluid system; given a sufficient chance. The most likely spot for gallons of water to accumulate or collect, would be the centralized large storage tank in the unit.
Was the Hydraulic fluid found contaminated in ( at least ) one Hydraulic “ Mule “ introduced to the Mule’s storage tank by topping it off with contaminated fluid from a
55gr drum ?
How many, if any Hydraulic fluid drums have been/are contaminated with water ?
How many “ Mules “ are contaminated ?
How many aircraft have been contaminated ?
Were the drums of Hydaulic Fluid needed to satisfy consumption required to be sampled for contamination… prior to issue from Supply; and before subsequent use by AGE ?
Things like jet fuel and liquid oxygen are subject to sampling for conformity to quality and purity standards; before issue and use. When I was in the Air National Guard, base
“ Petroleum fuels, oils, and lubricants “ sampling was generated though the base’
“ POL “ function…. the same folks that ran the aircraft refueling trucks and jet fuels
“ tank farm “ sampling.
Back when I was in the Hydraulic Shop, hydraulic “ Mules “ and other powered support Equipment were maintained and serviced by the powered “Aerospace Ground Equipment“ shop ( AGE ) . I am unsure what they call that function t
If the whole shot of water ( multiple gallons ) came from a supply drum, it is possible that the Mule servicing crew did not see it. I saw hydraulic “ Mules “ reservoirs being topped off from a drum laying between the tines of a forklift….positioned above the “ Mule “…
with fluid gravity flowing down into the “ Mule Reservoir “ through a black rubber hose.
If the contaminated fluid was presented to the subject “ Mule’s “ tank not long before the unit’s use on the incident jet, the contamaton may not have had time to separate in large enough quantity to be visible to AGE personnel; or to “ MULE “ operators.
There is no shortage of questions. Adequacy of aircraft mechanic and crew chief F-35 Hydaulic system “ purge “ actions, tech order guidance for Hydaulic System “ purge actions, and even the ability of the aircraft’s Hydraulic system to be adequately
“ purged “; all come into question. What normally is targeted for removal on a pre-flight basis; is any air entrained in the aircraft’s Hydraulic system.
With regards,
357Mag
I'm claiming the F35 has a thick outer composite skin, and you're claiming the same thing, so forgive me, I don't see the disagreement? Whether it's RAM or not (it is
), that's kind of beside the main point - which is the F35's internals are thermally isolated by this thick material.But the F-35 has a thick composite skin, packed full of radar absorbing structures, which is why it doesn't need to rely on shaping as much (why its underside is bumpy). If you have good geometric stealth (like having a giant flat section that reflects incoming radar waves), you don't need much in the way of RAM, a simple conductive coating with absorbent properties will do.
You can see a lot of this compromise on the F-22, the landing gear doors have complex geometry that's probably not that stealthy so the panel door is quite thick and probably contains radar absorbing structures.
whereas the sideand bottom weapon bay doors are totally flat, so they're made of a thin panelof conductive material:
Reddington777
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Honestly, I don't know why people need to constantly be reminded. For a forum that talks about stuff like this every day, it should at this point be a mutual understanding.
There's never been any personal doubt in my mind that Chinese equipment works. It's just not indicative of anything beyond that. Losing multiple aircraft without a single enemy loss speaks more about something going wrong operationally than anything else. And until actual, verifiable details on engagement parameters and geometry are known, anything else is either a jump to conclusions at best or a deliberate attempt to dress up the story for... various purposes.
Back to the F-35.
If TR3 as it stands is considered "half developed" then where and when would you call the jet "fully developed"? Upgrades (even before LM's NGAD upgrade annoucement) weren't going to just stop at TR4 and new weapons are being developed faster than they can be integrated. Integration starting with US made systems also makes sense just out of convenience. So while I understand why a customer who has a bunch of non-US minitions waiting to be integrated finds this frustrating, this feels like something that should be pretty apparent at the outset.
I think it's important to remember that the F-35 was developed as a jet full of compromises to fulfill what is, in hindsight, a bat shit insane list of requirements for a jet that can do it all. To that end, I think it meets the goals that the aircraft was designed for. It just so happens that meeting those goals required a lot of compromises and the goals themselves aren't aging well in the current threat environment.
The current environment is outpacing the purpose for which it was intended for, and the updates for the aircraft just aren't moving fast enough. Even so - for all the F-35s short comings, any 4 or 4.5 gen fighter will struggle at least as hard and most definitely harder in the current threat environment. In the coming years, LO is the basic entry point for higher threat environments. No amount of upgrading existing 4th gen fighters is going to hold a candle to that - unless the list of your adversaries includes only enemies that can't punch back against your fighters.
Or just that fighter-borne stand off capability isn't terribly well developed in western countries because the need for it has only arisen relatively recently. In contrast, China and Russia, who until fairly recently in history, found themselves unable to adaquately constest NATO in the air has a very well developed standoff munitions capability both in the air and on the ground (stuff like ALBMs and Hypersonic weapons)
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Iran has (or rather had) four batteries of S-300PMU-2 and plenty of other Soviet, US and indigenous systems (S-200, Kub, Tor, MIM-23 HAWK, etc).
The Houtis managed to shoot down several combat aircraft from the Saudi-led coalition including at least two RSAF Tornados, a UAEAF Mirage 2000 and a RMAF F-16 as well as plenty of UAVs (including a LOT of USAF MQ-9s) so i wouldnt take their air defense capabilities lightly.
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Ainen
I really should change my personal text
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Any american fighter other than F-35 has way more options, with USN having overall more than USAF. Export US fighters are often the best (Australia is the leader).
Israel - more. French - best package globally, but both suffer local production limitations.
Russia and China are ironically more like 50/50(China more, Russia less, and Russia is less and not meh only b/c of the war). Neither covers everything.
I.e. it isn't some problem with the west. It's just F-35 weapon integration delays. Typhoon more or less same story.
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I beg to differ mate, it's beautiful ! ;P
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