via Merriam-Webster..
How can the USMC continue with flight operations when the USAF and USN has decided that its too risky?
The desperation coming out of the Commandant's office with regard to this airplane is palpable.
Its beyond obvious that the SecDef needs to step in to protect these pilots from Marine Corps leadership.
MALFEASANCE: wrongdoing or misconduct especially by a public officialvia The Washington Post...
Marine Corps Capt. Richard Ulsh said in a statement Friday afternoon that the F-35B, the version that is scheduled to appear at Farnborough, would resume flights Friday. He declined to elaborate on why the Marine Corps felt its versions were safe to fly, while others remained on the ground.The question has to be asked.
“We are continuing with our plans to deploy to the U.K. next month,” he said.
In a sign that military officials are proceeding with plans to show the plane overseas, four jets arrived at Patuxent River Naval Air Station Friday from Yuman, Ariz. in anticipation of the trip to Britain, officials said.
Before heading to Farnborough, the F-35 is expected to fly at the Royal International Air Tattoo in Britain.
How can the USMC continue with flight operations when the USAF and USN has decided that its too risky?
The desperation coming out of the Commandant's office with regard to this airplane is palpable.
Its beyond obvious that the SecDef needs to step in to protect these pilots from Marine Corps leadership.
Oh, look: Sol' has learnt a new word (malfeasance). Pity, he can't learn any new tricks. Ah well, the rants continue. Must get noisy in that basement somedays.
ReplyDeleteColin Clark has done a good job here of laying out the overall F-35 prototype ownership situation which has resulted from the program's concurrency, i.e. manufacturing five times as many prototypes as are required for testing, and then giving most of them to a service agency, in this case the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command AETC).
ReplyDeleteThe eighteen F-35's undergoing development testing are at Edwards and Patuxent, under the close control of the JPO and DOT&E. These planes are instrumented and their activities tightly controlled by test requirements, probably with video coverage of all operations.
The other eighty-some, and growing with every LRIP, are primarily with the AETC at Eglin, Nellis and Luke and it is one of those planes which suffered the recent event. The AETC is employing the planes for "training" which involves flying a lot of hours and burning fuel to make the program look like it's actually moving forward quicker than it is (glacial). These operations have nothing to do with development or really, with anything other than (expensive) public relations.
So after the event occurred the AETC, according to Clark, maintained tight control over the information flow, but has loosened up some now. Apparently the plane itself was locked in a hangar under armed guard. It's the AETC, apparently, which is controlling the investigations by two boards, the Safety Investigation (SIB) and Accident Investigation boards (AIB).
Complicating this is that apparently there has been no "grounding" whereby a root cause must be found and a fix made before the planes can fly again. So the MC is free to do its thing. Meanwhile the program's concurrency and putting a lot of prototypes out in "training" units under less tightly controlled conditions has certainly gained the program some publicity, but not of the sort they wanted in this case.
The Washington Post is covering the cover-up here, and provides some background (which we all knew) on the MC's motivation:
ReplyDeleteDoubts rise as some F-35 flights remain grounded ahead of international debut --
...Potential customers are mindful that this program has had a lot of teething problems,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at the Virginia-based Teal Group. “If this is cleared up quickly, it won’t be a problem. But if it persists through Farnborough, that’s going to hurt.
Many of the planned details for the upcoming transatlantic trip and shows are here.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 will cost the nation an average of about $1.4 million an hour for the next two and a half decades, in a report here.
ReplyDeleteU.S. Marines resume F-35B flights; F-35A engine parts found after fire 27 Jun 2018 Andrea Shalal
ReplyDelete"(Reuters) - The U.S. Marine Corps on Friday resumed flights of its Lockheed Martin Corp F-35B jets that were suspended following a fire on an Air Force F-35A and prepared for the jet's global debut in Britain next month after the discovery of engine pieces from the F-35A pointed to an issue with that specific model...."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/27/us-lockheed-martin-fighter-marines-idUSKBN0F228T20140627
The A and B engines were the same in February, but in June they are different, and now even the C is different too. They don't know the cause of the fire, and they probably won't know for weeks.
ReplyDeleteIn February:
The entire F-35 fleet is being grounded owing to an engine issue, to avoid what U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (Navair) calls a potential “catastrophic failure.”
A crack on the 3rd stage low-pressure turbine airfoil was found Feb. 19 during an inspection of a conventional F-35A at Edwards AFB, Calif., says Matthew Bates, a spokesman for Pratt & Whitney, which makes the stealthy, single engine fighter’s F135 engine.
In June:
(Reuters) - The U.S. Marine Corps on Friday resumed flights of its Lockheed Martin Corp F-35B jets that were suspended following a fire on an Air Force F-35A and prepared for the jet's global debut in Britain next month after the discovery of engine pieces from the F-35A pointed to an issue with that specific model.
Sources familiar with the situation said engine pieces and fragments were found on the runway at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida after the fire, the first confirmation that the fire involved the plane's engine, which was built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp
The Air Force has not released any details about its investigation and a spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the report that engine components were found.
The sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the discovery of the engine parts did not point to a specific cause of the fire and said the investigation was continuing. But they said it cleared the way for the Marine Corps and Navy to resume flights since their B- and C-model jets have a different engine.
LtGen Glueck, Marine aviator, is head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command.
ReplyDeletefrom Air Force Magazine -- more eye-in-the-sky BS:
The F-35B strike fighter is a “transformational” capability, on par with how the MV-22 tiltrotor platform revolutionized expeditionary operations, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck, head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told reporters on Thursday.
But some of its capabilities will take years to perfect, he said. “I would say we are in the crawl stage on that,” said Glueck when asked about the maturity of data links and systems to disseminate the jet’s electronics and command and control capabilities.
The F-35B is “transformational because of what it does,” he said. “It is a battlefield integrator,” and when its systems mature, it will be able to deliver information about the overall picture of a conflict down to marines and troops on the ground, he said. The F-35B will eventually replace three aircraft across the Marine Corpsy: the F/A-18, EA-6B, and AV-8B, said Glueck. “It will be a disruptive technology in the beginning,” he said. “It’s going to take a while to realize what we need on the ground to take full advantage of all the capabilities,” he added.
Off topic I know, sorry for that but. Sol can you put in to your Hot Reads... part a doc with Martin P4M-1 to download?
ReplyDeleteMany thank's Sol
ReplyDeleteI thought taht Marine Aviation fell under the guise of NVAIR? And if NAVAIR is grounding the F-35...how can the Marine Corps "un-ground" it?
ReplyDeleteBritish F-35B Not Yet Ready for Transatlantic Crossing
ReplyDelete01 Jul 2014 Amy Butler and Tony Osborne | AWIN First
http://aviationweek.com/farnborough-2014/british-f-35b-not-yet-ready-transatlantic-crossing