F-35 Multirole Joint Strike Fighter

[Air Force Brat]

I think you guys are thronging around the idea of a navalized variant of existing air-craft, which was not designed to be flown off of a carrier at sea, far too cavalierly. I am not saying that it cannot be done but there is a lot more involved than beefing up the landing gear and putting a tail hock on an aircraft that was defined for land use. You would be lucky to get 70% commonality, huge development costs for a small production run, and a long time frame before you got the product operational, if ever, as well as losing some the land variants proven capacities that make them attractive.

There are many issues involved starting with the airframe. Will it be both strong enough to come whopping down on the fight deck and shot off again a few thousand times, assuming that the basic aerodynamic destine has sufficient low speed handling qualities and then sufficient structural life span to make it all worthwhile. There are many other issues like corrosion, ordnance and fueling restrictions and the assonated safety factors for flight operations when using a ship as your airport that do not come into play for shore based aircraft that directly affect the utility and safety of the destine of the aircraft. True, there would be fewer problems with a fighter type than an attack type but there would still many difficulties. And that is assuming that the manufacturer has the required knowledge base to address all of the navalized issues correctly.

There are very real reasons that the F-35C is a less capable aircraft that the F-35A. And that is true even though the F-35A has many features, which have increased its mass and its expense that would not otherwise be included if they were not trying to have the maximum commonality between the three variants. It would be cheaper and better for the Indian’s to build a plane from scratch in partnership with a western company that has real world experience with naval aircraft used up on carries. Operating aircraft from carries is a lot more than the aircraft, the aircraft is the most important part of a system but the aircraft has to fit the system to be practicable and it requires a huge knowledge base separate from operations conducted from land that take years to master. The Chines and the Indians are both embarking on a huge undertaking and it will be many years before they efficient in this specialized form of warfare. This is not a slam upon them or their abilities it is just a statement of how difficult the task is.

The AirForce-Magazine.com posted a nice picture of a three ship echelon of AF-2, AF-3, and AF-4 in the 12/22/11 Daily Report, pix were taken over Edwards AFB 12/10 I hope that someone will set up an airshow type flight demonstration of the F-35 sometime soon, the AV8B Harrier was always a big airshow hit. As rip notes above there are myriad and sundry considerations when designing a naval aircraft to operate in the very challenging naval evironment, I personally find the appearance of the F-35C to be the more attractive of the three, notwithstanding the likely weight penalty of the carrier bird. Although I am the Air Force Brat, I particularly enjoy watching the F-18, especially the high alpha demonstrations put on by the Blues.:fly

 

[madandlucky]

Some problems with F-35 has still been going on nowadays... Such as, England wants its Source code and maybe others. Turkey wants to integrate its local produced weapons on the craft. So US has some resistance about the demands. The project might not meet expectations. The last thing, Japanese Army declared that they are interested in the aircrafts. I think it can bring in a movement to the project again....

 

[ADMk2]

Some problems with F-35 has still been going on nowadays... Such as, England wants its Source code and maybe others. Turkey wants to integrate its local produced weapons on the craft. So US has some resistance about the demands. The project might not meet expectations. The last thing, Japanese Army declared that they are interested in the aircrafts. I think it can bring in a movement to the project again....

F-35 is getting a capability known as the Universal Armaments Interface. (UAI). Effectively a nation will be able to integrate whatever compliant weapon system they like onto the F-35 without requiring access to the source codes and without the traditional expense and complexity of integrating new weapon systems onto a platform for the first time...

Likewise with indigenous electronic warfare systems and perhaps some of the sensor systems. A lot of work is being done to "pave the way" for systems like this to be "added on" to the basic F-35 airframe.

Israel is paving the way for such a capability due to it's own defence requirements, but the work I think will over time benefit all F-35 users in that it will establish a technical basis and demonstrated capability for any and all to customise their F-35's (at their own expense of course) as they desire.

At the heart of it all however, the F-35 capability will essentially be the same across the world, which is a good thing given what the baseline F-35 will bring to the fight...

 

[StobieWan]

Meant to ask - UAI presumably would be the route into integrating the air to air refuelling gear needed by the RN presumably?

I'm wondering how complicated or straight forward that'd be - I've been told that at least some of the hard points for the F35 are "wet" - and that the existing kit for the F18 would hang off the F35 okay - so that'd leave some proving work and some software changes?

Ian

 

[colay]

Meant to ask - UAI presumably would be the route into integrating the air to air refuelling gear needed by the RN presumably?

I'm wondering how complicated or straight forward that'd be - I've been told that at least some of the hard points for the F35 are "wet" - and that the existing kit for the F18 would hang off the F35 okay - so that'd leave some proving work and some software changes?

Ian

Clarification plese.. what is RN and what is their issue with air refuelling gear?

 

[SpudmanWP]

Royal Navy (UK)

 

[colay]

Royal Navy (UK)

I suspected as much but wasn't aware they had any issues with the refueling gear on the C jet.. do they?

 

[SpudmanWP]

There is currently no refueling pod that is planned for the F-35C. Considering the large amount of fuel carried and the two 5000lb wet pylons available, I could see it happening without much issue.

 

[colay]

There is currently no refueling pod that is planned for the F-35C. Considering the large amount of fuel carried and the two 5000lb wet pylons available, I could see it happening without much issue.

Oh, OK.. got it now.. its for buddy refueling. I now recall reading how the lack of this capability would seriously constrain flight operations.

 

[StobieWan]

There is currently no refueling pod that is planned for the F-35C. Considering the large amount of fuel carried and the two 5000lb wet pylons available, I could see it happening without much issue.

That's my take on it - the hard stuff is already in place - the F35 carries a lot of fuel internally, and can physically carry the existing Cobham stores used by the F18 tankers. That would leave the question as to what the on board fuel system would do when it started flowing fuel faster than the engines are demanding - which I'm hoping would have been considered already.

Basically I've seen estimates of 1.6 billion for buddy buddy refuelling, mostly from people who seem opposed to F35 on deck and I can't see this as being the case. We'd have to buy the gear no matter what CATOBAR solution we went with (F18/F35/Rafale/whatever) so that just leaves the imponderable cost of clearing the gear for use with the F35C.

Ian

 

[Heruamarth]

TurAF to acquire 2 F-35's.

Today, SSIK, the Executive Committee of Defense Industry held one of regular meetings, and SSM, Undersecretariat for Defense Industry is authorized to place orders for two F-35A's. More orders are expected, as Turkey expressed her intention to acquire about 120 F-35's.

There is a note about "following orders are to be decided according to progress of project", which, I believe, is a sign of consideration for possible price and performance issues being expressed by USAF officials in early testing process of project.

 

[Air Force Brat]

TurAF to acquire 2 F-35's.

Today, SSIK, the Executive Committee of Defense Industry held one of regular meetings, and SSM, Undersecretariat for Defense Industry is authorized to place orders for two F-35A's. More orders are expected, as Turkey expressed her intention to acquire about 120 F-35's.

There is a note about "following orders are to be decided according to progress of project", which, I believe, is a sign of consideration for possible price and performance issues being expressed by USAF officials in early testing process of project.

Sec Def Panetta and Obama are going to the Pentagon for a presser today, no pres has ever held a presser at the pentagon, they will be delivering bad news, in a prerelease Panetta is quoted as saying they are slowing F-35 production to see if LM can get the bugs worked out and get it up to speed:smash

 

[ADMk2]

Sec Def Panetta and Obama are going to the Pentagon for a presser today, no pres has ever held a presser at the pentagon, they will be delivering bad news, in a prerelease Panetta is quoted as saying they are slowing F-35 production to see if LM can get the bugs worked out and get it up to speed:smash

So they actually listened to their Program Manager's recommendation?

Excellent. Best news I've heard today.

Now if only we could get Congress to listen to the same Program Managers, we might actually see this (and many other) programs brought home strongly?

 

[colay]

So they actually listened to their Program Manager's recommendation?

Excellent. Best news I've heard today.

Now if only we could get Congress to listen to the same Program Managers, we might actually see this (and many other) programs brought home strongly?

It's a safe bet the program's detractors were disappointed, buying into and feeding speculation of more drastic reductions or better yet, cancellation of one or more of the variants. It was a very measured decision that seems to be a good compromise for all, including vocal critics on the hill.

 

[LGB]

It's really too bad the F-35 has turned so polarized that critical supporters are often considered detractors and some supporters deemed cheerleaders. Certainly there are quite a few with extreme positions but for the most part it's been too bad seeing a lot of critical analysis of the F-35 dismissed when more critical analysis earlier in the program would have been rather helpful.

While one can agree that this is a "measured decision" it's also Adm Venlet making a rigorous analysis of the all the issues and determining the program needs to be slowed down to deal with some of these. Moreover, all the results of the bottom up review have not been made public. New cost and schedule projections will be released soon and then we'll all know where the program really stands.

If this sounds critical, and it is, it's also coming from a strong supporter of the program that believes the US, especially the USAF, desperately needs this aircraft as soon as possible in the greatest numbers possible. The very real concern over cost and how many we can afford has not by any means gone away however.

One matter that concerns some people is that JPO and LM were saying the same thing for years and within the past year in direct Congressional testimony Adm Venlet and Dr Carter both stated past projections by JPO were incorrect. Indeed Adm Venlet went out of his to point out that based on the past JPO has no credibility and that he was doing a painstaking new analysis and would members please give him the benefit of the doubt that JPO will finally get things right. The point here is that while JPO is now saying the program has to be slowed down LM was up to a few weeks ago still saying the program needed to be accelerated. Both of them can't be correct and one of them either has or is projecting a serious lack of credibility.

It's a safe bet the program's detractors were disappointed, buying into and feeding speculation of more drastic reductions or better yet, cancellation of one or more of the variants. It was a very measured decision that seems to be a good compromise for all, including vocal critics on the hill.

 

[fretburner]

With the delays in the F-35C, the UK defense ministry (?) is being criticized for having a Carrier with no planes. Would they buy F-18s like the Aussies? They're still buying F-35Bs for training right? Not sure if they can use that to train for catapult launches and landing.

 

[ADMk2]

With the delays in the F-35C, the UK defense ministry (?) is being criticized for having a Carrier with no planes. Would they buy F-18s like the Aussies? They're still buying F-35Bs for training right? Not sure if they can use that to train for catapult launches and landing.

The UK have already ordered 3x F-35B aircraft. 1 has already been rolled out and another is in final assembly. The third has commenced production but the UK is negotiating to swap this aircraft for a USN (or USMC) F-35C aircraft.

There are a ton of roles a pilot could train on with the F-35B that would be directly applicable to the F-35C. It is a shame a politically inspired decision has seen the UK change direction on this issue, but it isn't a complete waste.

A lot of training on the F-35 will be in relation to the capability of the sensor and mission systems. In this case, there will be no difference between the -B and the -C and the -B will be a perfectly adequate (if perhaps more expensive) platform on which to train in these areas.

They will also be extremely useful for the UK in learning about operating an LO aircraft. As RAAF is finding out, there's quite a bit more to it, than with legacy aircraft...

 

[fretburner]

^ The questions still stands though -- if the UK indeed puts into service their carrier before the F-35C becomes available -- what are they going to put on their carriers?

I don't think they have anything right now, unless they buy F-18s or borrow Rafales. The British and French after all have been toying around the idea of joint "use" of their carriers and aircraft.

 

[ADMk2]

^ The questions still stands though -- if the UK indeed puts into service their carrier before the F-35C becomes available -- what are they going to put on their carriers?

I don't think they have anything right now, unless they buy F-18s or borrow Rafales. The British and French after all have been toying around the idea of joint "use" of their carriers and aircraft.

Helicopters, initially and F-35C's later. The same basic capability as is on the existing light carriers in RN service today.

 

[CheeZe]

Will development of the F35 be affected by the newly announced defence cuts? Not having seen anything that outlines what's getting axed, I can only speculate that this could be one project to receive less funding.