An article in Defense Aerospace 3/1/2019 commented that the removal of the engine of the F35A takes 35 hours and likely that much again to reinstall , and compared this to a Rafale on a U.S.N carrier with a six man maintenance crew which took out the engine in 3 hours .
I seem to recall that the site is one of those that seems to have a bias against the F-35. Having found and read the article referenced, I found it rather lacking in details. For instance, was it 36 man-hours to remove an F-35 engine? Or was it a total of 36 working hours with the entire maintenance crew working on removing the engine? If it was the later, how many people were part of the maintenance crew? Also given the story, how much if any of the time was occupied because the aircraft and maintenance crews were not at their regular bases, and the tools had to be shipped in before work could begin?
Incidentally, while the Rafale-M had it's engine changed in three hours, that was the work of a six person maintenance crew for a total of 18 man-hours of labor to change the engine, which I believe was a 'regular' engine change.
The article referenced on the site was about an OTI (one time inspection) of a specific fuel line, with parts from a certain batch number or range of numbers needing to be removed and replaced. Reading the article further, it mentioned that an alternate way to inspect and replace the fuel line without requiring removal of the engine and initially this faster method took 24 hours, or 12 hours less than removing the engine and putting it on a stand. That, to me, sounds like that 36 hour engine removal time first mentioned was for removing the engine, inspect the fuel line in question, replace it if needed, then inspect the work done before the engine gets cleared to be re-installed. That is not quite the same as what seems to be getting suggested initially, which given some of the commentary put in by the editor, makes me think that what was being suggested was done so deliberately.
As a side note, the article also mentioned that after doing the new method a few more times on additional aircraft, a further four hours was shaved off the time required. We still do not know how these hours were determined (man-hours, or from start to finish for a job, etc.) but even everything mentioned in the article, it does sound like the work being done was not 'routine maintenance' and also that it was not happening under normal conditions, since the work was being carried out at a base the F-35's had been evacuated to, to avoid Hurricane Michael, and that all the normal tools and parts were not initially available since things had to be shipped in.
LHAs really CRAM stuff onboard
