via Yahoo.com
I disagree with those that say I'm bombing the F-35 with the continuous coverage. When you have officials that purposefully ignore bad news and hide behind the "we were discussing the air force version so that's why I didn't talk about the USMC version"...then you know exactly how diseased this beast really is.
Ignoring a Pentagon that is morally bankrupt from top to bottom (I mean seriously! You couldn't move money around to get those families paid that lost loved ones but you can keep this program on track??? Fuck you all in that five sided building!) how much is it going to cost to bring all these (yeah..I'm borrowing this from you ELP) MISTAKE JETS up to speed?
IOC for the Marines by the middle of 2015? Fat fucking chance.
News of the cracks came after Bogdan and Lockheed officials highlighted progress on the $392 billion F-35 program, the Pentagon's costliest arms program, at the annual Air Force Association conference last month.Click here to read the entire story.
Hawn said Bogdan did not discuss the cracks during the conference because they were found on the Marine Corps' version of the plane, not the Air Force version.
Lockheed said there were about 50 F-35Bs with the same bulkhead. Modifications would be made and incorporated beginning with the eighth batch of low-rate production planes.
I disagree with those that say I'm bombing the F-35 with the continuous coverage. When you have officials that purposefully ignore bad news and hide behind the "we were discussing the air force version so that's why I didn't talk about the USMC version"...then you know exactly how diseased this beast really is.
Ignoring a Pentagon that is morally bankrupt from top to bottom (I mean seriously! You couldn't move money around to get those families paid that lost loved ones but you can keep this program on track??? Fuck you all in that five sided building!) how much is it going to cost to bring all these (yeah..I'm borrowing this from you ELP) MISTAKE JETS up to speed?
IOC for the Marines by the middle of 2015? Fat fucking chance.
I'm starting to wonder, what are the chances, no matter how hard LM and the Pentagon press, the F-35 will, in the end, keep itself from ever entering service with anyone.
ReplyDeletei'm sensing desperation on the part of the F-35 program office and Lockheed. they canceled the second helmet to save money....then this....i just think its going to catch everyones attention as a sacrificial lamb to govt spending soon. i really believe that. i just don't see how this program can survive with the mess in washington.
DeleteBut,but ,but SOL, weren't we just told here recently that all the changes were just paperwork and was fixed a couple of years ago? Nothing to worry about, it was just old paperwork,remember? All the recent news was really old news?....*sarcasm*
ReplyDeleteI remember reading about the F-111 program where it was planned to make a fighter version for the Navy (the TFX program). The plane was so overweight they resorted to replacing the glass in the cockpit dials with plastic! Haven't they learned from past experience? I think I answered my own question.....
ReplyDeleteThe story is, I think, a little garbled. The cracks are in a durability test model which is more or less doing what it is supposed to do: find what parts are going to fail way into the future so that they can be fixed now.
ReplyDeleteThe real issue with things like this is that all these changes set back learning curve benefits: the less the design is frozen, the less you get the cost reductions from increased production volume. Add in the changes to production models because the F-35 is so late that by the time it hits IOC that we're already seeing modifications to fix that (your post ref 'already obsolete') and you're seeing what I believe it was Pierre Sprey predicted long ago, that the F-35 will never even come close to its cost reduction targets.
EXACTLY!!! THEY NEED TO FREEZE PRODUCTION, COMPLETE TESTING AND THEN TELL US HOW MUCH THIS BASTARD COSTS!!!!! WE DO IT WITH EVERYTHING ELSE?!!! WHY IS THIS DAMN PLANE SPECIAL!!!!
DeleteCracks bad, also performance, but gorilla worse.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 Lemming II didn't come off too well in the last DOT&E test report. "The current aircraft have a number of significant operational restrictions such as limited maneuvering, speeds, and constrained descent rates; no carriage of weapons, no use of countermeasures, and no opening of weapons bay doors in flight." And cracks.
There are many problems, but Lt. Gen. Christopher C. Bogdan has called F-35 software "the gorilla in the room." Eight million lines of code on every plane, another sixteen million on the ground -- how's it doing?
Block 2A has been tested at Edwards, and the training program at Eglin is expected to begin operating it at Eglin starting next month.
Next comes Block 2B which will enable basic close air support and fire an AMRAAM, JDAM or GBU 12. This allows the plane to become a very capable weapons system, but combat capability will be limited according to the chief tester Dr. Gilmore. Progress in test points required for 2B envelope fleet release is behind schedule. It was slated to be delivered for flight-test Aug 2013, but has been delayed until April 2014. The come Blocks 3I and 3F which are supposed to bring the F-35 up to spec. Think 2018, earliest. (And the EW suite is being re-done, at $149 million.)
Meanwhile, the F-35B IOC is Jul 2015 - Dec 2015. According to Gilmore, the Block 2B software that the Marines say will make their planes combat capable will, in fact, “provide limited capability to conduct combat.” What is more, said Gilmore, if F-35s loaded with Block 2B software are actually used in combat, “they would likely need significant support from other fourth-generation and fifth-generation combat systems to counter modern, existing threats, unless air superiority is somehow otherwise assured and the threat is cooperative.”
Sol,
ReplyDeleteCracks were found in the "second lifetime" of test after the design life point (8K hours) had passed. By definition, 'minor' means they didn't even threaten the strength of the airframe when they were found. Applying a preventative 'fix' now is about making the plane last even longer than it was originally intended or required.
aren't those tests the ones where a jet is places on a movable platform an bounced/vibrated around constantly for months straight to see what breaks?
Delete'Durability Test' is more of a "place it in a rig and bend and twist the cr*p out of the test article" to simulate flight loads under all conditions. Decent overview of the F-35 program's structural test program (including why the industry tests for multiple lifetimes) and findings through late 2012 here (PDF): http://cfile231.uf.daum.net/attach/26035D49510758FA0453E1
DeleteLooks pretty typical, and answers the question "Why test?"'
At last, some sense on this blog rather than the constant boring F-35 bashing!
DeleteCorrect found this detail:
Delete"Two minor cracks have been found in a bulkhead of a Lockheed Martin Corp F-35
B-model fighter jet, but they are not expected to halt flights of the planes, Lockheed and the Pentagon said on Thursday.
The cracks were discovered during durability testing in late August and occurred after about 9,400 hours, which equates to more than 17 years of operational flying, according to the Defense Department's F-35 program office."
Are there any pilots who want to do a hard carrier landing with buckhead cracks? Or take either a 30mm round or a near burst from an air-to-air missile? The reason that the F-4 and F-15 were great aircraft beyond their aero performance was their ability to take battle damage. Can the F-35 take the same?
ReplyDelete