F-35 Multirole Joint Strike Fighter

[arrow canada]

I would wait and see if something like the Washington Post, NY Times, DID, AW&ST, Janes or similar picks up the story.

How about Reuters:

Pilots start F-35 training flights as Pentagon report pans jet | Reuters

"The report also included comments from the four experienced pilots who flew the jets during the Air Force evaluation, in which they expressed concerns about problems with the plane's radar and visibility during combat or more intense training.

Referring to close-range visual combat, one of the pilots said, "The head rest is too large and will impede aft visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements," and, "Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned every time."

Winslow Wheeler, a long-time critic of the plane who posted the report for the watchdog group, said the new report showed that the Air Force, or conventional takeoff and landing model of the F-35 was "flawed beyond redemption.""

Or the Washingtontimes:

New Pentagon super fighter will get pilots shot down, warns report - Washington Times

Oh well, see no evil, hear no...

 

[gf0012-aust]

How about Reuters:

Pilots start F-35 training flights as Pentagon report pans jet | Reuters

"The report also included comments from the four experienced pilots who flew the jets during the Air Force evaluation, in which they expressed concerns about problems with the plane's radar and visibility during combat or more intense training.

Referring to close-range visual combat, one of the pilots said, "The head rest is too large and will impede aft visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements," and, "Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned every time."

Winslow Wheeler, a long-time critic of the plane who posted the report for the watchdog group, said the new report showed that the Air Force, or conventional takeoff and landing model of the F-35 was "flawed beyond redemption.""

Or the Washingtontimes:

New Pentagon super fighter will get pilots shot down, warns report - Washington Times

Oh well, see no evil, hear no...

are you serious? you're quoting winslow wheeler, he's a front row advocate of GCI managed air defence and thinks that modern fighter aircracft can do without sensor systems and radar a-la the Freedom Fighter? The man is stuck in 1970's vietnam era airwarfare. He basically subscribes to the same old failed air combat construct that the soviets subscribed to - ie pre 89.

as for quoting reuters, wash post etc..... these are the also the same burglary/housefire, lost cat reporters who think that the USN still needs battleships

and to not put too fine a point on it, when you quote sources its customary to provide references

so on top of you not knowing what the hi-lo construct meant, you now come forward with wheeler as a reference point?? next you'll be quoting APA.....

 

[Abraham Gubler]

This is the one area that those of us who are proponents of the F-35, were recently dissapointed, as those numbers and expectations for the F-35 where recently "slightly downgraded", the numbers for all three versions "hover" in the 5 G range, which is where most fighter aircraft honestly live every day. Of more concern are the acceleration rates, which you will likely notice that the F-35 may be a little "doggy".

So why do most fighter “aircraft honestly live every day” at high G? Because they don’t have an LO treatment to avoid being shot at by SA-6 and similar SAMs and they don’t have EODAS and HOBS missiles so they have to manoeuvre to maintain SA and to get a shot off. But if you have all these things in your fighter when are you going to need high G?

 

[OPSSG]

Oh well, see no evil, hear no...

Oh, the irony of what you just posted. This thread is close to 200 pages and you are ironically not aware that you trod on well covered ground.

Please take a few days to read Air Power 101 for New Members, as it covers some of the basics you seek to discuss. Read it before you post again. It would improve the quality of this present discussion.

We have had so many news cycles of regurgitating the same misinformation you post. Our forum members are now bored with debunking what you (as a new member) have to say. Don't be lazy and take some time to educate yourself before you continue posting.

 

[the road runner]

Referring to close-range visual combat, one of the pilots said, "The head rest is too large and will impede aft visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements," and, "Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned every time."

You do realise that missiles can be jammed by planes such as F-18 Growlers?
Why pull G's when when you can flick the jamming switch.As a number of members have commented ,planes that pull 9 G's can NOT out turn a 40-60G missile so it's a silly argument to use to ride off the JSF. Add to that,the JSF will be a hard plane to get a firing solution onto due to its LO properties.

This is my understanding ,from input of the forum posters here who do this stuff for a living.You should really try and listen to them instead of presstitutes.

I bet that Wheelar bloke still uses a type writer ,stamp and mail :fly

Cheers.

 

[Todjaeger]

How about Reuters:

Pilots start F-35 training flights as Pentagon report pans jet | Reuters

"The report also included comments from the four experienced pilots who flew the jets during the Air Force evaluation, in which they expressed concerns about problems with the plane's radar and visibility during combat or more intense training.

Referring to close-range visual combat, one of the pilots said, "The head rest is too large and will impede aft visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements," and, "Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned every time."

Winslow Wheeler, a long-time critic of the plane who posted the report for the watchdog group, said the new report showed that the Air Force, or conventional takeoff and landing model of the F-35 was "flawed beyond redemption.""

Or the Washingtontimes:

New Pentagon super fighter will get pilots shot down, warns report - Washington Times

Oh well, see no evil, hear no...

Part of my interest, was that I searched via the post title you opted to use and the only 'source' with that title was the Russian Times, an English language Russian news source which is not noted for being unbiased. In effect, it would be like citing PressTV as a news source on US domestic policies.

Now having gotten a place to actually start and take a look at an article, it was pretty much as expected here.

What also was not unexpected was the degree to which you opted to cherry-pick the content of the article. I shall quote some of the paragraphs and point out the relevant content and what it means, which will hopefully prove educational and worthwhile.

Some students in the U.S. Air Force's F-35 fighter pilot school took their first flights on Wednesday in the new radar-evading jet as a report by the Pentagon's chief tester found fault with early versions of the plane's radar, pilot helmet and other systems.

The bolded indicates that there are some issues with some of the avionics, which is why there is testing & evaluation. It is also worth noting that the Air Force is strill having pilots start training on the F-35. Something else which is important to note is that while the leaked report was sent to Congress last month, the article does not mention a date for when these problems with the avionics were noted, or anything about efforts to resolve or mitigate the problems, or even what block aircraft these were observed in.

Having looked at the leaked, unclassified version of the report from the POGO site here, then one can see that the aircraft are Block 1A, basically one of the earliest versions, and not the block which are to reach IOC.

Also note these next two quoted portions of the Reuters article.

Gilmore has been critical of the U.S. Air Force's decision to start training F-35 pilots while the new Lockheed Martin Corp plane is still in development, arguing that pilots are at risk until the jet has amassed more flight hours in testing.

AND

Defense officials said they were not surprised by the negative tone of the report given Gilmore's views, but said it included no "showstoppers" that jeopardized the program, which must complete several more years of development before it moves into combat testing and is declared ready for operational use.

In effect, one specific person within Defense has disagreed with the Air Force and other parts of Defense regarding the F-35, but Defense as a whole (again note the bolded text) do not feel that the programme itself is in danger from the issues the report publisher pointed out.

What is also worth pointing out is the involvement of POGO, and the fact that Winslow Wheeler is a POGO staffer, immediately makes any statements or involvement suspect. As others have pointed out, there are a number of small groups and individuals who are rather loud about air defence matters, that the public and media often listen to, unfortunately without realizing that these people are either not experts on defence matters, or have not kept up with the changes to how air combat is conducted and the battlespace managed. Wheeler, Sprey, Goon, Kopp and the Klown Klub all essentially belong to this group of people that either never really understood, or have not kept up with changes in capability.

As for this last bit from you...

Oh well, see no evil, hear no...

This sort of rather feeble attempt at a dig makes one think the poster was more interesting in either flaming or trolling. Especially given how selective one was with the content of the article. If one has not already made up your mind prior to posting this 'gem' then read the posts about Air Power and read this thread through to get a much better understanding of the issues. If one has already made up one's mind, then continued posting of the same poor quality flames will get one booted.

-Cheers

 

[ADMk2]

How about Reuters:

Pilots start F-35 training flights as Pentagon report pans jet | Reuters

"The report also included comments from the four experienced pilots who flew the jets during the Air Force evaluation, in which they expressed concerns about problems with the plane's radar and visibility during combat or more intense training.

Referring to close-range visual combat, one of the pilots said, "The head rest is too large and will impede aft visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements," and, "Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned every time."

Winslow Wheeler, a long-time critic of the plane who posted the report for the watchdog group, said the new report showed that the Air Force, or conventional takeoff and landing model of the F-35 was "flawed beyond redemption.""

Or the Washingtontimes:

New Pentagon super fighter will get pilots shot down, warns report - Washington Times

Oh well, see no evil, hear no...

Hear no evil see no evil? Yeah right. Why don't you actually do some research on the topic before you embarrass yourself even further?

The aircraft that those 4 "experienced" pilots flew was at the Block 1A software standard. Which means they didn't FLY any combat simulation missions... Excellent source there old boy!

That's the standard that has little to no radar capability beyond basic navigation functionality, no EODAS capability, no EOTS capability, no electronic warfare capability, no EW self protection capability, no weapons capability and very limited helmet mounted sighting capability, ie: just like the DOE&T unit itself says, "no combat capability."

However test pilots are flying F-35's with Block 2A software today and Block 2B later this year. Block 2A allows weapons testing and has most of it's sensor capability. Block 2B has the initial combat capability based on AMRAAM and JDAM.

By the end of this year, F-35's will be flying with basic combat capability, according to the development schedule.

But anyway, why don't you quote a few more broadsheet links that all refer to the same story? That should reinforce your disbelief even further shouldn't?

Meanwhile L-M will just continue with delivering the only 5th Generation fighter in production today...

 

[Bonza]

Oh well, see no evil, hear no...

If your intent on here is to be a smart arse, let me know ASAP so I can get your membership over and done with, and you can go find somewhere more amenable to your knee-jerk views and cherry-picked data.

 

[AegisFC]

Winslow Wheeler, a long-time critic of the plane

Word of advice "friend" go look up Winslow Wheeler. He has been wrong MANY, MANY times. His idea of the ideal fighter is an up-engined F-5 with wingtip Sidewinders and no radar because that is needlessly complicated and adds weight.

Before the first Gulf War he and his buddies predicted that F-15's would be murdered by lighter weight MiG-29's. Did that happen?
He has no clue how modern links and data management affect air combat. His beloved F-16 has gained weight and equipment over the years and is now lumpy with add on pods to keep the plane modern and survivable.

 

[mAIOR]

Yeah. That guy manages to get it wrong all the time. Even supposed low-tech assets like the Tucano are not low-tech at all. They have a very smart sensor suite suitable for their needs. And their main use is to bomb drug dealers and insurgents in Afghanistan without access to a modern IADS. Imagine what the need for tech is if your trying to face a modern IADS.

I can't help but thinking that if the A-6 was developed today, most of those authors would be bashing it for not standing up to an F-15 or a MiG-29... And this is a Vietnam era plane and it was survivable due to it's electronics not it's uncanny manoeuvrability or anything of the sort.

 

[jack412]

I can't help but thinking that if the A-6 was developed today, most of those authors would be bashing it for not standing up to an F-15 or a MiG-29... And this is a Vietnam era plane and it was survivable due to it's electronics not it's uncanny manoeuvrability or anything of the sort.

It reminds me of the sceen from Raiders Of The Lost Ark where the big sword wielding guy making a grand gesture is simply shot.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzcOCyHDqc"]Indiana Jones : Sword vs. Gun - YouTube[/nomedia]

 

[Haavarla]

No, the F-22 will maintain 6 Gs at 50,000 ft, so we may extrapolate, [always dangerous], that down in the teens where such things have been determined, that it may well maintain 9, and to be honest I have heard 9.5 but to be honest when I attempted to confirm that, I came up empty.
This is the one area that those of us who are proponents of the F-35, were recently dissapointed, as those numbers and expectations for the F-35 where recently "slightly downgraded", the numbers for all three versions "hover" in the 5 G range, which is where most fighter aircraft honestly live every day. Of more concern are the acceleration rates, which you will likely notice that the F-35 may be a little "doggy".
Now in actuallity the F-35 has a very good intitial turn in, the A model having pulled 9.9 Gs in testing, and that is a very, very, respectable number, and as you have alluded to, that was in the clean configuration, and at a lighter test weight. In the reality of day to day mission configuration I would imagine that in the A2A role the F-35 will be light, and it will be clean, and it will do much better than the paper numbers imply, and IMHO opinion as gf often reminds us, the F-35 is very stealthy at the ranges where it will be engaging in BVR, it also is equipped with an outstanding, far surpassing the F-22 electronics suite, and will be able to network "silently", operating in a "passive mode", without having to reveal its own presence until weapons release, and after release will once again clean up and go passive.
In real life, this will make it very difficult to defeat, one of the reasons I am excited to see how it fares against the F-22, it won't surprise me, to see the F-35 come out on top of these real world scenarios??? As we see the first two F-35As at Nellis, with two more soon to follow, the smart folks will be finding ways to employ the F-35 against all threats, including the F-22, and as gf has alluded to frequently, they will win, they really are very good at what they are designed to do. I imagine we will hear some of this positive news coming out of these engagement as it will be very reassuring to partners.
On a newsy note Flight Global has announced the roll-out of the second Dutch F-35A at Fort Worth- 002, which will also be flown to Eglin AFB sometime this year to be used training pilots and maintainers.

All of this info is taken from Flight Global, the Air Force Magazine, or public release of the revised performance expectations, with the exception of the Raptor numbers at high altitude, which were shared by General Norton Schwartz, as he was preparing to leave his position as the Air Force Chief of Staff, Cheers Brat.

sorry adm, I didn't see your post which is much more succinct, but at least we are on the same page.

I'm aware about the recent G-load performance on F-35.
But this does not answer my original question. Cause i can not see how much internal fuel we are talking about here..

If we look at other jets like the Flanker, it is structure limited on 6 G-load as long as it has internal fuel stored in those Wing tanks. And that is the one big reason it mostly fly with 5700-6000kg fuel.
The F-35A does carry lots of fuel. Its wing loading is quite high.
So, can the F-35 pull 9G with max out internal fuel.
Or is there structure limitations at play.

 

[CapnCrunch]

Airforce-magazine.com Nov 2012: The F-35’s Race Against Time

Lockheed Martin Vice President Stephen O’Bryan: "Stealth also permits (and requires) internal fuel and weapons carriage. The Air Force F-35 variant, fully loaded for combat, can pull nine-G turns with a full load of fuel and missiles. This cannot be done by fighters lugging along external weapons and fuel tanks."

 

[jack412]

Lockheed Martin Vice President Stephen O’Bryan: "Stealth also permits (and requires) internal fuel and weapons carriage. The Air Force F-35 variant, fully loaded for combat, can pull nine-G turns with a full load of fuel and missiles. This cannot be done by fighters lugging along external weapons and fuel tanks."

Thank's mate, it's nice to have a new member who can add to the discussion, the full article is well worth a read. It also included the M1.2 in dry...because you can't post links yet, let me

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2012/November 2012/1112fighter.pdf

 

[Air Force Brat]

Let me continue on a slightly different track then.

Is the F-35A able/designed to perform prolonged 9G manuveres with full internal fuel?
This is connected to wing loading i guess, but i've seen different figures..
How much fuel can be stored in the wing tanks?

NO, the max "sustained" G rate with 18,250lbs of fuel is 4.6Gs at a gross weight of 70,000lbs. Thats 3,000 gallons for a max range of 1200 miles. The F-35A has an initial turn in G rate of 9 positive Gs, and as adm noted, you will have likely burned off quite a bit of fuel and be lighter, hence your max "sustained" turn rate will go up from 4.6 to somthing in the 5-6 G range, which will put it in the Flanker league, it is not limited by where the fuel is stored, so at max gross weight of 70,000 lbs, with internal fuel and weapons, it is rated at 9Gs maximum, and as you have guessed the drop off to sustained G of 4.6 is due to gross weight and limited by thrust available. The computer will NOT allow you to break the airplane, making the F-35 a very safe and intuitive aircraft to fight. Cheers Brat

 

[the road runner]

LM have just posted a video of wing assembly on JSF.
How is that rivet machine plugging away,while robots move the wings to the next bay.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2pJlZajYG8"]F-35 Center Wing Assembly - YouTube[/nomedia]

 

[aussienscale]

LM have just posted a video of wing assembly on JSF.
How is that rivet machine plugging away,while robots move the wings to the next bay.

F-35 Center Wing Assembly - YouTube

Nice video, Thanks RR. I am interested in the terminology used in the video description "Centre WING Assembly" and not describing it as center fuselage section etc ? Centre Wing, I would love to know how much body lift the JSF actually creates

Cheers

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Nice video, Thanks RR. I am interested in the terminology used in the video description "Centre WING Assembly" and not describing it as center fuselage section etc ? Centre Wing, I would love to know how much body lift the JSF actually creates

Cheers

It used to be called the inner wing module. The F-35 aerodynamics in this area look a lot like those of the F-16.

 

[ADMk2]

NO, the max "sustained" G rate with 18,250lbs of fuel is 4.6Gs at a gross weight of 70,000lbs. Thats 3,000 gallons for a max range of 1200 miles. The F-35A has an initial turn in G rate of 9 positive Gs, and as adm noted, you will have likely burned off quite a bit of fuel and be lighter, hence your max "sustained" turn rate will go up from 4.6 to somthing in the 5-6 G range, which will put it in the Flanker league, it is not limited by where the fuel is stored, so at max gross weight of 70,000 lbs, with internal fuel and weapons, it is rated at 9Gs maximum, and as you have guessed the drop off to sustained G of 4.6 is due to gross weight and limited by thrust available. The computer will NOT allow you to break the airplane, making the F-35 a very safe and intuitive aircraft to fight. Cheers Brat

Actually it hasn't been revealed at what thrust setting that 4.6G sustained turned rate was listed at.

It's a requirement that the aircraft has to meet not a definitive figure, so I wouldn't get too hung up on that number.

It's a requirement that the F-35 achieve Mach 1.6 too, but we know it's going to be taken faster than that during it's development...

 

[gf0012-aust]

all modern 4th gen and 5th gen aircraft have stress frame alerts

anyone pulling 9g sustained (and that includes french, swedish, russian) will have their aircrafts SFA going off before 7G, so I'd love to see any production aircraft where sustained 9G is done without software control mods (and the pilot can't alter it mid-flight either)

never ceases to amaze me when performance conditions are postulated that other earlier generations of aircraft couldn't meet anyway unless everything was turned off (by software)