The F-35 No Holds Barred topic

[GTX]

I guess you should also start attacking the RAF instead of overly focusing your rants for the USMC...just to be fair :

Development of F-35 Fighter Jets
(Source: UK Ministry of Defence; issued Jan 27, 2014)

On Saturday the Telegraph and Financial Times both set out concerns that development tests of F-35 fighter jets in the US have uncovered technical issues with the aircraft.

The article fails to recognise that, as ever, when you go from the drawing board to practical tests with a highly complex jet, there will always be some technical development and fine tuning needed along the way. Indeed, the very purpose of testing is to identify potential problems and the proper solutions.

The development tests will not hold up delivery of our Lightning II aircraft, which will be the UK's most advanced combat jet. We are confident that any issues will be resolved by the time our operational aircraft arrive and that our Armed Forces will receive the very best aircraft possible.

UK pilots are currently conducting live flying trials with our 3 F-35B aircraft in the US and steady delivery of the operational fleet is planned to start in 2015, with the first land-based operational flights expected in the UK in 2018. We are on track for carrier-based flight trials to start in the same year.

 

[GTX]

The Marines can say what they like, but see:

https://www.f35.com/assets/uploads/downloads/12994/f-35_ioc_joint_report_final.pdf

Should capability delivery experience changes or delays, this estimate will be revised appropriately.

So you regularly accuse the F-35 team for being inflexible but then when some element does exhibit flexibility you also attack. Come on Bill, you can't have it both ways...

 

[GTX]

This might help the good Doctor...

Maybe you should keep that calculator for yourself Bill:


F-35 Math is Hard. Analysis is Harder


And


Journalists Who [Apparently] Have no Critical Reading Skills Either

 

[LowObservable]

Can anyone else on this thread discern any logic in those posts and explain it to me?

 

[GTX]

Can anyone else on this thread discern any logic in those posts and explain it to me?

Come now Bill…is that really the best response you can deliver?

 

[bobbymike]

Has anyone actually made a apples to apples comparison of programs in terms of issues related to changes and repairs and everything else in comparison to what is undoubtedly the most complex weapon system ever produced.

For example if you compare the F-15, 16, 18 and AV-8B to the F-35A, B and C (I added a fourth 4th Generation aircraft in an ad hoc balance of 'complexity') is the F-35 better, worse or about the same when it comes to 'issues'

Growing up in the 70's and 80's I remember many, many weapon systems that were going to ruin the US military, bankrupt the nation and cause us to lose the Cold War. Some of those I listed in the 2nd paragraph and most turned out ot be dominant 'war winning' weapons.

 

[GTX]

Has anyone actually made an objective, honest apples to apples comparison of programs

May I suggest the above change?

 

[Sferrin]

Can anyone else on this thread discern any logic in those posts and explain it to me?

Yeah, you hate the F-35. We get it. BTW you got any pics of the Typhoon doing this:




You know, the F-35 being a 100 ton hunk of flying blubber and all.

 

[JFC Fuller]

Come now Bill…is that really the best response you can deliver?

Oh, I see what you did there- because LowObservable criticises the F-35 he must be Bill Sweetman- thats clever. By that logic, as you unquestioningly defend the F-35 program, you must be Loren Thompson...

 

[Sferrin]

Come now Bill…is that really the best response you can deliver?

Oh, I see what you did there- because LowObservable criticises the F-35 he must be Bill Sweetman- thats clever. By that logic, as you unquestioningly defend the F-35 program, you must be Loren Thompson...

You must be the last person on the internet that doesn't know "LowObservable" is Bill Sweetman.

 

[Triton]

I guess it is more satisfying to attack journalists than it is to hold Lockheed Martin or the JSF Program Office accountable for rising costs, unrealistic expectations, and missed deadlines in the F-35 program.

If Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 program, can say that the latest report by Michael Gilmore stating that Block 2B software is 18 months behind schedule is factually accurate, than how can we accept Lockheed Martin's insistence that Block 2B software will be released in June 2015 "on time" or Marine aviation spokesman Capt. David Ulsh's claims that there is "no change to our plans" concerning F-35B IOC?

I guess it is hate speech to point out the inconvenient truth that if Block 2B is eighteen months behind schedule, then the aircraft will not be operational with the Marines until late 2016 or early 2017 and IOC is also delayed for the F-35A and F-35C.

 

[LowObservable]

Bobbymike - I would suggest that putting 16 nuclear missiles in a nuclear submarine starting in 1955 was quite complicated too.
The F-35 is indeed complex as military aircraft programs go. The question is whether it was like the F-111 in being needlessly so, as a result of excess focus on commonality and production mass.

 

[Sferrin]

Bobbymike - I would suggest that putting 16 nuclear missiles in a nuclear submarine starting in 1955 was quite complicated too.
The F-35 is indeed complex as military aircraft programs go. The question is whether it was like the F-111 in being needlessly so, as a result of excess focus on commonality and production mass.

Look at the F-22. Similar issues. You put stealth, internal weapon carriage, and the level of avionics in any fighter and it isn't going to be cake walk. (Especially when you're the one who has to figure everything out instead of downloading the solution from someone who already did the work.) Do you honestly think if the Typhoon had been a stealth aircraft with F-35 level avionics and sensors that it wouldn't have had an even more difficult development than it did? You either pay to play or abandon the field to others.

 

[LowObservable]

Well, yes. That is why the Lampyridae tech was left on the shelf. Remind me how many operational stealth aircraft we have for how much invested?

 

[GTX]

I guess it is more satisfying to attack journalists than it is to hold Lockheed Martin or the JSF Program Office accountable for rising costs, unrealistic expectations, and missed deadlines in the F-35 program.

When said journalists post deliberately partisan and often inaccurate articles of course they deserve to be challenged...or shouldn't they also be held to account?

 

[AeroFranz]

Look at the F-22. Similar issues. You put stealth, internal weapon carriage, and the level of avionics in any fighter and it isn't going to be cake walk.

I would argue that supercruise and stealth have major conflicting requirements in a few, tractable areas (internal weapons bay is not ideal for achieving high fineness ratios, but the YF-23 did it really well). Compared to a stealthy non-supercruising fighter, or a non-stealthy, supercruising fighter, the penalties involved were not great.


Now take VTOL. VTOL is almost antithetic to both supercruise (requires compromises to longitudinal cross sectional area distribution to accommodate lift pillars distributed at the corners of the airframe in order to obtain forces and moment arms to generate hover moments for control, engine thermodynamic cycle is not the best for low temperature, low q ground environment), and stealth (multiple door openings, internal weapons bay wants to be on the CG, where most simple VTOL arrangements place at least part of the thrust).


The F-35 is an amazingly smart configuration, employing a novel way to obtain thrust augmentation. As a response for the mission requirements, I don't think you could do much better. However, I hope I am not surprising anyone by saying that a machine designed to fulfill only two of the three requirements (VTOL, Stealth, Supercruise) would have looked entirely different, been simpler to develop, and hit less snags.


I leave the discussion of whether a platform combining LO, VTOL, and supersonic performance is absolutely positively necessary to others.

I do want to make clear that all these things have a cost that is greater than the individual sums. I am not sure this fact was understood in its magnitude by all when the requirements where drafted, or for that matter now.

 

[Triton]

"Report: Software issues may delay F-35 for Marine Corps"
Jan. 28, 2014 - 10:48PM |
By Aaron Mehta
Staff writer

Source:
http://www.militarytimes.com/article/20140128/NEWS04/301280032/Report-Software-issues-may-delay-F-35-Marine-Corps

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is often touted as the most advanced fighter in the world, whose complex systems are held together by millions of lines of code. So when the Pentagon’s top weapons tester declares the current software “unacceptable,” it tends to make waves in the defense world.

That’s what happened this week, as the Department’s Office of Test and Evaluation (OT&E) released its annual report on the status of the F-35 with a strong rebuke of the progress F-35 supporters touted in 2013, including a warning that software development has lagged so far behind that it may cause the Marines to miss their initial operating capability (IOC) date in 2015.

“The program plans to complete Block 2B fight testing in October 2014; however, there is no margin for additional growth to meet that date,” the report found. “Projections for completing Block 2B fight testing using the historical rate of continued growth ... show that Block 2B developmental testing will complete about 13 months later, in November 2015, and delay the associated feet release to July of 2016.”

The Marines intend to go to IOC with the Block 2B software; the Air Force is scheduled to follow with its F-35A in December 2016 with Block 3I, which is essentially the same software on more powerful hardware. The Navy intends to go operational with the F-35C in February 2019, on the Block 3F software.

Additionally, the testers warn that the F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) is “immature and behind schedule.” Any further delays to the software development, which is at the core of operations, maintenance and supply-chain management for the platform, could prove problematic for the program going forward.

Software, particularly ALIS, has been identified by top Pentagon officials as a major challenge moving forward.

Despite hopes from outside groups who view the F-35 as a legendary waste of taxpayer funds, the Pentagon seems unlikely to move away from the plane, regardless of how poorly it comes out in testing reviews like the one put forth this week.

Because the F-35 is so close to IOC and escaping a dreaded “death spiral” of partner nations dropping from the program, hence raising the cost per plane to an unaffordable level, proponents would also argue against any slow-down on the rate of production.

“I am fighting to the end, to the death, to keep the F-35 program on track,” said Gen. Michael Hostage, head of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command. “For me, that means not a single airplane cut from the program, because every time our allies and our partners see the United States Air Force back away, they all get weak in the knees. This program will fall apart if the perception is that the Air Force is not committed to this program.

“I am fighting to the end, I am going to fight to the death to protect the F-35 because I truly believe that the only way we will make it through the next decade is with a sufficient fleet of F-35’s.”

Other problems were identified as well in the report, including the conclusion that the plane’s electrical system is vulnerable to ballistic fire “remains an open question.” A number of cracks were also found during tests conducted in 2013. Cracks led to the February 2013 stand down of the entire F-35 fleet. In March, the discovery of excessive wear on the jet’s rudder hinge attachments grounded the test fleet at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Cracks were also found on a test-model put under stress as part of durability testing in late September.

The F-35 review is part of a larger report, due Wednesday morning, looking at DoD’s largest acquisition programs.

The OT&E report often conjures mixed emotions in the defense world. While reformers and advocates hold it up as a paragon of oversight on billion-dollar programs, others argue that it focuses too much on process and not enough on results.

Lockheed Martin chose to look on the bright side of the report, citing “a tremendous amount of positive information in the 2014 DOT&E report about the F-35 program’s progress” in a company statement, including the number of weapons tests completed and the fact that 7.4 million of the 8.4 million lines of code for the plane have been flight tested already.

“Lockheed Martin is confident we will complete flight testing of the software required for Marine Corps Initial Operational Capability this year,” the company statement read. “The Marines plan to declare IOC between July and December of 2015. We plan to release the required combat ready software to the F-35 production fleet no later than July 2015.”

That confidence was echoed by the Pentagon office in charge of the F-35 program.

“There were no surprises in the report; all of the issues mentioned are well-known to us, the F-35 international partners and our industry team,” Joe DellaVedova, F-35 Joint Program Office spokesman, wrote in a Pentagon statement. “Although the report is factually accurate, it does not fully highlight the F-35 enterprise’s efforts to address and resolve the known technical and program related challenges.”

“We are confident about delivering the F-35’s initial warfighting capability to the U.S. Marine Corps in July 2015,” the statement continued. “To address reliability and maintainability issues, the JPO has established a reliability improvement program. In addition, we stood up an air system readiness cell with a focus on tackling top degraders to improve overall F-35 readiness.”

 

[bobbymike]

Bobbymike - I would suggest that putting 16 nuclear missiles in a nuclear submarine starting in 1955 was quite complicated too.
The F-35 is indeed complex as military aircraft programs go. The question is whether it was like the F-111 in being needlessly so, as a result of excess focus on commonality and production mass.

Submarines again? Didn't know you wrote for Naval Week & Submarine Technology

I asked for apples to apples and I get apples to Stonehenge (went to your native land for that one!)

Anyway I think my question is valid are we seeing less, more or about the same number of issues for the three versions of the F-35 than for the F-15, 16, 18 & AV-8B?

 

[LowObservable]

BobbyMike - Interesting question. Of the four aircraft you mention (and this is pretty much off the top of my head)....

F-15 - Biggest problems were the F100 engine and overall complexity/reliability. Much alleviated by the time MSIP 1 rolled around.

F-16 - F100 was the only major problem, along with a limited initial avionics/weapon suite. However, the early F-16A was combat-effective, as the IDF demonstrated.

F-18 - Disappointing range and wing-flex problems.

AV-8B - No big issues that I recall.

None of them took 20 years from first major investment to IOC, or 14 years from FSD start to IOC, or was 7+ years late delivering intended IOC capability. Most problems had been fixed or alleviated well inside FSD+14 years. Nor did they cost so much that there was no backup solution available to the customer.

BTW - You said "weapon systems" which includes the SSBN.

AeroFranz - LPLC should have been given a better shot than it was - part of the problem was an immature MDC-led proposal - and even SDLF might have been better off with a Rex/Cactus solution on the lift/cruise engine.

GTX - "Partisan" is quite normal if it is labeled as an Op-Ed or a blog. And I quite agree that inaccuracy should be called out, whether it's a ludicrous claim that New Zealand is next on the JSF customer list, or the use of bogus numbers to assert that an F-35 costs about as much as an F-16, or asserting as fact in 2008 that "a project is underway" to fit eight AMRAAMs internally in the F-35.

Yes, there was a two-star once who denounced me to my boss for writing an inaccurate and speculative article, but responded with dead silence when I asked for specifics.

 

[Sferrin]

BobbyMike - Interesting question. Of the four aircraft you mention (and this is pretty much off the top of my head)....

F-15 - Biggest problems were the F100 engine and overall complexity/reliability. Much alleviated by the time MSIP 1 rolled around.

F-16 - F100 was the only major problem, along with a limited initial avionics/weapon suite. However, the early F-16A was combat-effective, as the IDF demonstrated.

F-18 - Disappointing range and wing-flex problems.

AV-8B - No big issues that I recall.

None of them took 20 years from first major investment to IOC, or 14 years from FSD start to IOC, or was 7+ years late delivering intended IOC capability. Most problems had been fixed or alleviated well inside FSD+14 years. Nor did they cost so much that there was no backup solution available to the customer.

As you well know, every generation has taken longer to develop / cost more than the previous. The F-86 cost more than the P-80. The F-100 cost more than the F-86. The F-4 cost more than the F-100. The F-15 cost more than the F-4. Seeing a trend here? (Oh, and I'm pretty sure the Typhoon cost a boatload more than the BAC Lightning and took longer to develop. I guess that means Eurofighter is incompetent, the Typhoon is a dog, and it's over-speced. Right?)

As for "backup solutions", what was the backup solution for the Harrier? The Typhoon? F-14 Tomcat? F-15? A-10? F/A-18?

 

[Sferrin]

Well, yes. That is why the Lampyridae tech was left on the shelf.

If European nations didn't want stealth they wouldn't be buying the F-35. Must also be why both Russia and China are jumping on the stealth bandwagon. Nice try though.

 

[bobbymike]

BobbyMike - Interesting question. Of the four aircraft you mention (and this is pretty much off the top of my head)....

F-15 - Biggest problems were the F100 engine and overall complexity/reliability. Much alleviated by the time MSIP 1 rolled around.

F-16 - F100 was the only major problem, along with a limited initial avionics/weapon suite. However, the early F-16A was combat-effective, as the IDF demonstrated.

F-18 - Disappointing range and wing-flex problems.

AV-8B - No big issues that I recall.

None of them took 20 years from first major investment to IOC, or 14 years from FSD start to IOC, or was 7+ years late delivering intended IOC capability. Most problems had been fixed or alleviated well inside FSD+14 years. Nor did they cost so much that there was no backup solution available to the customer.

BTW - You said "weapon systems" which includes the SSBN.

AeroFranz - LPLC should have been given a better shot than it was - part of the problem was an immature MDC-led proposal - and even SDLF might have been better off with a Rex/Cactus solution on the lift/cruise engine.

GTX - "Partisan" is quite normal if it is labeled as an Op-Ed or a blog. And I quite agree that inaccuracy should be called out, whether it's a ludicrous claim that New Zealand is next on the JSF customer list, or the use of bogus numbers to assert that an F-35 costs about as much as an F-16, or asserting as fact in 2008 that "a project is underway" to fit eight AMRAAMs internally in the F-35.

Yes, there was a two-star once who denounced me to my boss for writing an inaccurate and speculative article, but responded with dead silence when I asked for specifics.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Rlewis]

You must be the last person on the internet that doesn't know "LowObservable" is Bill Sweetman.

Just increasingly bored of the hypocritical ranting from both sides on this topic.

don't know what you would expect on a subject this heated. i try not to post too much on f-35 sites because no one on either side is really interested in the truth. you are probably better off reading a book, doing some chores, or planting a garden. thats what i do. this is a fun site, plenty to explore

 

[bobbymike]

You must be the last person on the internet that doesn't know "LowObservable" is Bill Sweetman.

Just increasingly bored of the hypocritical ranting from both sides on this topic.

don't know what you would expect on a subject this heated. i try not to post too much on f-35 sites because no one on either side is really interested in the truth. you are probably better off reading a book, doing some chores, or planting a garden. thats what i do. this is a fun site, plenty to explore

Don't mean to be critical but this is a voluntary site and within this site a voluntary thread WHO'S sole purpose is to allow ranting and raving about the F-35.

BUT the positive is there is great back and forth with LOTS of constructive commentary from very knowledgeable people.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Yes, there was a two-star once who denounced me to my boss for writing an inaccurate and speculative article, but responded with dead silence when I asked for specifics.

So in the absence of classified or still variable data it’s OK to say whatever one wants? I think you’ll find this has been the issue of dispute at the heart of this thread. The two different perspectives on the F-35 that are colouring people’s interpretation of it in the absence of specific data that cannot be made publically available. Wether one views the F-35 through the perspective of something the air forces want and have specified and a program that is trying to achieve that or something that is fundamentally flawed and the problems of the project are just magnifying those flaws. The later view thrives in the absence of easily understood and presentable hard data.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Bobbymike - I would suggest that putting 16 nuclear missiles in a nuclear submarine starting in 1955 was quite complicated too.
The F-35 is indeed complex as military aircraft programs go. The question is whether it was like the F-111 in being needlessly so, as a result of excess focus on commonality and production mass.

What’s with this obsession with finding historical parables to the F-35? It is so flawed because of the huge changes in technology and complexity required to achieve the F-35’s capability compared to a relatively highly simple F-111 or nuclear submarine. It would be like going back to the 1960s and when the F-111 is in trouble pointing out all the problems Bristol had with their F.2 in 1917 before they got the right engine. Unless there is some directly similar program, specification or technological issue there is no reasonable comparison. Just because something was complicated in the past does not mean that it is en par with today’s complication. If they had to write three million lines of software code each on an individual paper punch card to make Polaris work then we might still be waiting for it.

 

[Triton]

Lockheed Martin and the JSF Program Office often make forward-looking statements based on variable data and does not qualify these statements as speculation and subject to change, but states them as if they were hard facts. For example, Lorraine Martin, JSF manager for Lockheed Martin, pledge to journalists on December 17, 2013: "By 2019, the F-35A (the Air Force version) will cost $75 million a copy in current dollars ($85 million in good ole then-year dollars, i.e. counting future inflation), which will be “less than any fourth generation fighter in the world.” That means no other fighter already flying (one sold in US dollars or Euros) will cost less — not the famously inexpensive Gripen, not the French Rafale, the Russian MiG-35, the Boeing F-15 Eagle, or the European Typhoon."

Source:
http://breakingdefense.com/2013/12/lockheed-boasts-f-35-will-cost-less-than-any-4th-gen-fighter/

Really? Considering that the aircraft is still in development and none of the three variants has reached IOC? We are continuing to pay for development, costs are rising, and we are still waiting for IOC. So how can anyone at Lockheed Martin or the JSF Program Office make statements concerning cost of the F-35 as if they were facts?

Is it disingenuous, or nihilistic duplicity, on the part of Lockheed Martin and a Marine aviation spokesman to insist that the Block 2B software will release "on time" in July 2015 and IOC of the F-35 will occur according to plan. While a Department of Defense spokesman verifies that the annual report prepared by Michael Gilmore is factually accurate stating that the release of Block 2B software is 18 months behind schedule? I guess we will see in July 2015 if Lockheed Martin meets this release date for Block 2B software or if IOC of the F-35B occurs no later than December 2015.

It is Lockheed Martin and the JSF Program Office who set expectations on program costs and project milestones and deadlines. Unfortunately, they make these forward-looking statements without qualifying them as speculation and subject to change, but rather as factual statements concerning the F-35 program.

I guess it is hate speech when a journalist points out misleading or inaccurate statements made by Lockheed Martin and the JSF Program Office. Lorraine Martin used the present tense rather than the future tense. She did not qualify her remarks by using words such as "believe," "estimate," "anticipate," "plan," "predict," "may," "hope,", "should," "expect," "intend," "is designed to," "with the intent," or "potential."

 

[Triton]

Well, yes. That is why the Lampyridae tech was left on the shelf.

If European nations didn't want stealth they wouldn't be buying the F-35. Must also be why both Russia and China are jumping on the stealth bandwagon. Nice try though.

At the beginning of the Joint Strike Fighter project there seemed to be an emphasis on affordability and addressing the "death spiral." Unfortunately, during the development of the F-35 emphasis on affordability was lost and a technically complex, risky, and expensive fusion of radar and onboard sensors was added to the project.

 

[Sferrin]

At the beginning of the Joint Strike Fighter project there seemed to be an emphasis on affordability and addressing the "death spiral." Unfortunately, during the development of the F-35 emphasis on affordability was lost and a technically complex, risky, and expensive fusion of radar and onboard sensors was added to the project.

What hardware on the F-35 wasn't specifically intended to be there from the get go? AESA radar? DAS? EOTS? Steath? STOVL? Interested parties would like to know.

 

[Triton]

January 30, 2014 4:39 pm

"US hears conflicting accounts on Lockheed’s $400bn F-35 fighter"
by Robert Wright in New YorkSource:

Source:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30d9ea96-8929-11e3-bb5f-00144feab7de.html#axzz2ruYfRAPm

It is either comfortably on track to forming the cornerstone of the western world’s militaries or a flop so unairworthy that lightning could down it. The US public has this week been presented with sharply contrasting takes on the world’s biggest-ever military procurement project.

Which account of the development of the F-35 joint strike fighter gains the ascendancy will be critical to the future defence of not only the US but also at least 13 other countries that intend to use the super-advanced aircraft.

It will also be critical to Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest military contractor by sales, the main recipient of the US government’s expected $12.6bn average annual spending over the next 23 years for the 2,443 US aircraft on order.
However, there remains strikingly little common-ground between proponents of the opposing views of the aircraft, which the US alone is projected to spend at least $400bn to buy.

Loren Thompson, an analyst for the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, says the F-35 is set to be as “stealthy” – invisible to enemy radar, a key attribute for the aircraft – as it was designed to be.

“It’s the most stealthy aircraft that the United States or its European allies are likely to field in the next few decades,” Mr Thompson says. “It can do all its missions.”

Winslow Wheeler, director of the military reform project at Project on Government Oversight, a think-tank, says a government report leaked this week on the programme is only the latest evidence suggesting it should be scrapped.

“The fundamental design of the aircraft itself and the acquisition programme – fatally flawed doesn’t do it justice,” Mr Wheeler says.

The controversy over the F-35, which was first conceived more than 20 years ago, reignited this week after the premature release online of a section on the F-35 of the annual report of the US defence department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT & E).

The report lists scores of problems facing the programme, including the peeling-off of parts of the aircraft’s stealth coating after extended use of its engines’ afterburners, unpredictable airborne handling and troublesome software. Most eye-catchingly, the report says the fuel tanks could be vulnerable to explosion because of lightning strikes.
Lockheed Martin, however, has sought to portray the report as an out-of-date picture of a programme that is gradually coming closer to achieving the goal of having services declare the aircraft has achieved initial operational capability (IOC).

“[The report] doesn’t capture the progress the team made in 2013,” Lockheed Martin says. “The Marines will declare IOC between July and December 2015.”

The project aims to supply three main variants of the aircraft to the US Air Force, Army and Marine Corps and to a series of partner countries – Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and the UK. Israel, Japan and Korea have also said they will buy the aircraft.

Lockheed last year completed 35 of the aircraft, which have been coming off its production line in Fort Worth, Texas, since 2006.

Mr Thompson says that, regardless of whether it was right to embark on such a vast programme for so many different military roles, it is currently the best option available.

“There is no better alternative in terms of superior performance at a better price,” he says.

Mr Wheeler, however, insists the DOT & E report shows a programme running into ever deeper problems and ever less likely to meet the demands put upon it.

That, he says, is a result of two decades during which successive US administrations have “ignored” warnings about the programme’s shortcomings.

“The chickens are coming home to roost and they continue to pay no attention,” he says.

 

[Triton]

"New Tests Find Significant Cracking In The F-35"
Brendan McGarry, Military.com Jan. 30, 2014, 12:21 PM

Source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/tests-find-cracking-in-the-new-f-35-2014-1

The U.S. Defense Department’s newest and most advanced fighter jet has cracked during testing and isn’t yet reliable for combat operations, the Pentagon’s top weapons tester said in new report.

The entire F-35 fleet was grounded last February after a crack was discovered in a turbine blade of an F-35A. While the order was subsequently lifted, more cracks have been discovered in other areas and variants of the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made plane, according to the latest annual report by J. Michael Gilmore, director of Operational Test and Evaluation.

Durability testing of the F-35A, the Air Force’s version of the plane designed to take off and land on conventional runways, and the F-35B, the Marine Corps’ model that can take off like a plane and land like a helicopter, revealed “significant findings” of cracking in engine mounts, fuselage stiffeners, and bulkhead and wing flanges, according to the document. A bulkhead actually severed at one point, it states.

“All of these discoveries will require mitigation plans and may include redesigning parts and additional weight,” Gilmore wrote in the report.

The F-35C, the Navy’s version of the plane designed to take off and land on aircraft carriers, has also had cracks in the floor of the avionics bay and power distribution center and, like the F-35B, in the so-called jack point stiffener, according to the document.

The hardware problems, along with ongoing delays in software development, among other issues, led Gilmore to conclude that the fifth-generation fighter jet’s “overall suitability performance continues to be immature, and relies heavily on contractor support and workarounds unacceptable for combat operations.”

He added, “Aircraft availability and measures of reliability and maintainability are all below program target values for the current stage of development.”

The Joint Strike Fighter program is the Pentagon’s most expensive acquisition effort, estimated last year to cost $391 billion to develop and build 2,457 F-35 Lightning IIs. The single-engine jet is designed to replace such aircraft as the F-16, A-10, F/A-18 and AV-8B.

The Pentagon this year plans to spend $8.4 billion to buy 29 F-35s, including 19 for the Air Force, six for the Marine Corps, and four for the Navy. The funding includes $6.4 billion in procurement, $1.9 billion in research and development, and $187 million in spare parts. The department in fiscal 2015 wants to purchase 42 of the planes.

The Marine Corps had expected to begin operational flights of the aircraft in 2015, followed by the Air Force in 2016 and the Navy in 2019.

The Corps’ schedule depends on using a more limited version of the software, known as Block 2B, designed for use with such precision-guided weapons as the AIM-120C Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, GBU-32/31 Joint Direct Attack Munition and GBU-12 Paveway II bomb.

The first operational flights, however, will probably be delayed because the aircraft’s software won’t be ready in time due to ongoing glitches, according to the report.

“Initial results with the new increment of Block 2B software indicate deficiencies still exist in fusion, radar, electronic warfare, navigation, EOTS [Electro-Optical Targeting System], Distributed Aperture System (DAS), Helmet-Mounted Display System (HMDS), and datalink,” it states. “These deficiencies block the ability of the test team to complete baseline Block 2B test points, including weapons integration.”

Lockheed has reassigned more engineers to improve the software, and the Pentagon has assembled an outside team of experts to study the issue.

Even so, the report touches on other problem areas.

The aircraft remains vulnerable to “ballistically-induced propellant fire from all combat threats,” such as missile strikes, according to the document; its computer-based logistics system, the Autonomic Logistics Information System, or ALIS, was fielded with “significant deficiencies;” and the program has a “significant risk” of failing to mature modeling and simulation technology, known as the Verification System, or VSim, according to the document.

 

[Triton]

"Some Embarrassing Details From the Pentagon’s Latest Stealth Fighter Report
Delayed, over-budget F-35 still riddled with flaws"

David Axe in War is Boring

Source:
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/2ef94297330d

The Pentagon’s latest weapons testing report is not kind to the $400-billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the military’s biggest and arguably most troubled program. The annual report by the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation includes 20 pages listing the Lockheed Martin-built JSF’s ongoing problems.

A jack-of-all-trades radar-evading jet meant to replace no fewer than 2,400 existing fighters in the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, the F-35 has been dogged by budget overruns, schedule delays and redesigns. Overly complex in order to satisfy the diverse needs of three military branches, the F-35 is slower, less durable and less reliable than many of the planes it’s slated to replace.

Most damningly, the 2013 test report predicts months of delays in the development of the F-35’s millions of lines of software, which could cause the Marine Corps and Air Force to miss their planned first deployments of combat-ready JSFs in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

But the DOT&E report also includes lots of other embarrassing details.

Only one third of F-35s are flight-ready

The military manages to keep around three quarters of its warplanes ready for flight at any given time. Even the Air Force’s devilishly complex F-22 stealth fighter—another Lockheed product—is ready 69 percent of the time.

But the roughly 50 F-35s in test or training squadrons in Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona are ready just a third of the time, on average. That’s because the jets need frequent design fixes and because Lockheed’s automated supply system isn’t working.

Now, it’s not uncommon for a new warplane to start out a tad unreliable and get more ready over time. But the F-35 has been flying in one form or another off and on for 14 years. “The design is becoming more stable and opportunities for reliability growth are decreasing,” the report notes.

“While the relatively low number of flight hours shows there is still time for program reliability to improve,” the report continues, “this is not likely to occur without a focused, aggressive and well-resourced effort.”

Which is to say, making the JSF more flight-ready is going to also make its development more expensive.

The F-35 will get you lost

The JSF is designed to fly and fight against the most determined foe—even a foe capable of jamming or destroying America’s Global Positioning System satellites, depriving U.S. forces of their preferred way of knowing exactly where they are in the world.

But the F-35’s independent “inertial” navigation gear—which determines the plane’s position by constantly computing starting point, direction, speed and time—is off by a few degrees. That’s just enough to make it useless in combat. “These errors prevent accurate targeting solutions for weapons employment in a GPS-denied environment,” the Pentagon warns.

A software fix is in the works, but “further flight testing will be required.” Again, that takes time and money.

The JSF’s main air-to-air missile doesn’t fully work—and it’s not clear why

The F-35 needs three basic weapons in order to be cleared for combat in 2015: a laser-guided bomb, a satellite-guided bomb and the AIM-120 air-to-air missile.

The nav system problems slowed the addition of the satellite bomb—basically, the munition didn’t know where to land. That, at least, was a known unknown—and engineers were able to solve it with a “fix in the mission systems software,” according to the report.

But the AIM-120 isn’t working on the F-35, either. And in contrast to the bomb problem, testers have not been able to resolve the missile issue because they can’t quite duplicate it. “Problems involving integration of the AIM-120 medium-range missile have been difficult to replicate in lab and ground testing,” the report notes.

It is, in other words, an unknown unknown. And who can say what the solution is.

The F-35 confuses itself

To defend against increasingly sophisticated Russian- and Chinese-made air defenses, the JSF includes a cluster of high-tech cameras and sensors able to detect incoming missiles—and automatically deploy heat-generating flares or radar-foiling chaff to spoof the enemy guidance.

But the so-called “Distributed Aperture System” doesn’t work. “The DAS has displayed a high false alarm rate for missile detections during ownship and formation flare testing,” the testing report reveals. Basically, the system cannot tell the difference between an enemy missile and one of the F-35’s own hot flares.

Imagine the feedback loop that could result. An F-35’s DAS detects an incoming missile and pops flares. DAS then mistakes those flares for another missile and pops more flares, then still more flares to spoof them. So on and so on until the F-35 runs out of countermeasures … and is defenseless.

It takes just one bullet fragment to shoot down an F-35B

The Marines’ F-35B variant includes a built-in vertical lift fan—basically, a downward-blasting engine—to allow the plane to take off of and land on the Navy’s small amphibious assault ships. But adding a bulky lift fan made the JSF heavier, more complex and easier to shoot down.

That’s especially true for F-35Bs flying low to support Marine infantry on the ground. A lone enemy soldier firing a single bullet could seriously damage an F-35B. “Analysis showed that fragment-induced damage could result in the release of more than 25 percent of a single lift fan blade, resulting in a catastrophic … system failure,” the DOT&E report warns.

And if the F-35B has to fly through high-tech air defenses in order to reach the beachhead, it’s even more likely to get shot down. “More severe threats, encountered at low altitude or in air-to-air gun engagements, will likely cause catastrophic damage.”

All this means that even if the JSF manages to meet its 2015 deployment deadline, it could fly into combat unreliable, confused, defenseless, toothless and vulnerable.

 

[F-14D]

"Some Embarrassing Details From the Pentagon’s Latest Stealth Fighter Report
Delayed, over-budget F-35 still riddled with flaws"

David Axe in War is Boring

Source:
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/2ef94297330d

It's amazing how even when he starts out with some legitimate issues he can get so much wrong. One example: Despite what Bruce Willis may have demonstrated, when attacking ground targets the F-35 will not be hovering or using the lift fan, so a hit in the fan blade will not bring the plane down. And if the damage is such that the lift fan can't e used, then it will make a conventional landing somewhat further away.

 

[AeroFranz]

I recently stopped following links to War is Boring. It seems like most of the stories are about flawed weapons systems and jumping on the bashing bandwagon without objective analysis which adds anything to what plenty of others have said.
Don't get me wrong, in many cases criticism is warranted, but there are also other less sensationalist, fresher stories David Axe could report on or provide a new point of view/considerations. Instead it's just echoing other websites.

 

[LowObservable]

The concern with combat damage to the lift fan is that there are no systems that detect such damage. Consequently the risk is that a damaged system will fail catastrophically when it is engaged for VL. This is non-recoverable and will destroy the aircraft.

 

[Sferrin]

The concern with combat damage to the lift fan is that there are no systems that detect such damage. Consequently the risk is that a damaged system will fail catastrophically when it is engaged for VL. This is non-recoverable and will destroy the aircraft.

Is there a similar damage detection system in the Harrier?

 

[F-14D]

The concern with combat damage to the lift fan is that there are no systems that detect such damage. Consequently the risk is that a damaged system will fail catastrophically when it is engaged for VL. This is non-recoverable and will destroy the aircraft.

There are no systems detecting damage for a lot of parts on a lot of aircraft, yet the crew finds out from various indication. However, let's assume the fan blade is damaged in such a way that there is no indication it's been severely hurt while in conventional flight. The transition to powered lift is not instantaneous, and when the process begins, the aircraft is still safely wingborne. As soon as the clutch is engaged, the system may not be able to detect what the cause is (battle damage), but will be able to detect there is something wrong with the fan and abort the startup and keep the aircraft wingborne, whereupon the F-35 proceeds to a conventional landing. Similar thing, but more manual (i.e. the plane starts flying like crap), if the nozzles or their rotating mechanism are damaged on a Harrier. Now if the F-35 had been taking advantage of STOVL's ability to land in worse weather without a lot of external aids, or coming in with the smaller fuel reserves needed than a CTOL and so can't go off to a runway, well then the pilot will just have to do the same thing that a CTOL does when battle damage prevents extension of the landing gear--eject.

 

[Arjen]

Concerns about [absence of] lift-fan damage detection were voiced by Gilmore in last year's report; he has repeated his concerns in this year's report - he seems to think it important enough to warrant repeating. This year's entry:

The F-35 has no sensors to warn the pilot of lift fan damage prior to conversion to STOVL flight upon return for landing. Conversion to STOVL flight puts high loads on the quickly accelerating system components that can result in catastrophic failure before the pilot can react and return the aircaft to wing-borne flight, or can create uncontained damage that cascades into other critical system failures. Prognostics and Health Management sensors that monitor component health and system degradation for maintenance purposes, could provide some warning but the relevant software and hardware would have to be improved to provide reliable information to the pilot to support critical survivability decisions.

Last year's [Lockheed-Martin] reaction to Gilmore's concern amounted to 'if things go bad in a hurry, auto-ejection will get the pilot out of trouble' - implicitly admitting that fan-damage CAN cause the aircraft to disintegrate so fast that the pilot may not have time to react. On auto-ejection (which was included in the design for very good reasons), the pilot will be saved, but the aircraft will be lost. If the pilot knows about fan-damage, (s)he'll skip engaging the fan, try a conventional landing and hopefully save the aircraft.

 

[LowObservable]

Right, Arjen.


Sferrin - So the mighty, game-changing, Z-axis WonderJet's airworthiness/survivability benchmark is a 1970s evolutionary development of a 1950s experimental prototype? Does that make sense?

 

[JFC Fuller]

Is there a similar damage detection system in the Harrier?

The Harrier does not have a lift fan, so the obvious answer to your fatuous question is "no".