Monday, July 14Above is the press availability for briefings on the F-35.
11 a.m.-12 p.m., BSTF-35 Program Update BriefingThe Radlett Room, Farnborough International Media CenterPresenters will provide an update on the F-35 program.
Tuesday, July 15
11 a.m.-12 p.m., BSTF-35 Pilot BriefingThe Cody Room, Farnborough International Media CenterF-35 test pilots will provide a presentation on the capability of the F-35.
Consider this exhibit number one that lets you know that the F-35 WILL NOT be making this trip.
I'm guessing here (and I could be wrong...trying to read tea leaves), but my impression was that this was going to be the triumphant unveiling of the plane in Europe.
Two short briefings?
Sounds like they expect less excitement than originally planned.
Judging from past performance, the one hour presentation on the capability of the F-35 will be on its supposed, fanciful capability straight out of Lockheed-Martin sales brochures, and will not cover actual F-35 capability as reflected in its test reports.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, actual performance does the real talking while bull**** walks, and the world is watching at a precarious time in the F-35 program. After thirteen years in development a production decision is till at least five years off, probably more, and yet the Pentagon wants to sell faulty prototypes to other countries in order to reduce manufacturing cost. This at a time when a military jet engine which according to its manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney, runs “hotter than any other Pratt & Whitney engine that’s ever run, and we believe it’s the hottest that’s ever been run in an engine in the world” has experienced a catastrophic failure, one of many failures.
Maybe LM can use the "plywood" F35 mockup from the QE carrier christening at Farnborough. LOL!
ReplyDeleteQE images here, featuring the F-35 mockup as a figurehead, but here's a better one.
Deletehttp://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1101&MainCatID=11&id=20140708000093
ReplyDeleteJ-15 can defeat F-35B in limited conflict: Chinese analyst
The Shenyang J-15, China's fourth-generation carrier-based fighter, is capable of defeating Lockheed Martin's F-35B fifth-generation stealth carrier-based fighter designed for the US Marine Corps and Royal Navy in a limited conflict, according to Cao Weidong, a Chinese military analyst, in an interview by the Hangzhou-based Qianjiang Evening News published on July 8.
According to various news reports, the four US B's have flown to Patuxent, the takeoff point for the UK. The US hope is to fly them 3,500 miles, with inflight refueling, perhaps 5 ot 6 depending upon wind and weather in the North Atlantic, to attend the Farnborough Air Show which starts Monday. But the UK B is still at Eglin. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteAny distance flights, as opposed to test and training flights, require a certification of air worthiness. The F-35 fleet can't even be considered for a general air worthiness certification until it completes development, at least two years away, and if it ever does complete its development which began thirteen years ago.
Meanwhile, the US Marine planes obviously have the certification to fly between US bases, say Eglin to Patuxent, which is provided by NAVAIR. But the UK has a different system. In the UK, whoever signs off on air worthiness for an aircraft can be held personally responsible if an incident occurs. That goes beyond anything in the U.S.
So the UK B sits at Eglin, because somebody would have to be found to personally attest to the plane's air-worthiness for three flight scenarios: 1,00 miles Eglin to Patuxent, 3,500 miles across Atlantic, and domestic flights within England. Who can do that? Probably nobody.
We have a situation where prototype planes with poor reliability might be constrained against unnecessarily jeopardizing their pilots' lives in a cheap political stunt in a faraway place by a sensible policy in another country. That's good. If somehow the US planes are given clearance, and actually arrive, how would that make the UK look? And every other possibility is worse.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28257349
ReplyDeleteF-35 combat jet's UK debut at Fairford Air Tattoo cancelled
Organisers of the tattoo said in a statement: "Despite everyone's best endeavours, it has now been decided that the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II will not fly at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) 2014 as all of the aircraft currently remain grounded."
Bogdan: "It is important for the international community to see this is not a paper airplane."
ReplyDeleteSo he concedes that it has been.
Déjà vu -
ReplyDeleteAINOnline, Jul 15, 2010
Lockheed Martin rebuts F-35 critics on cost, progress
After a bad start to 2010, U.S. officials are at Farnborough to persuade their eight international partners that the original ambitions for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are still intact. Escalating cost estimates and flight-test delays have cast a shadow over the airplane billed by Lockheed Martin as the only exportable fifth-generation fighter.
Unlike previous shows, there will be no stage-managed public parade here of the U.S. and international customers, all professing confidence, enthusiasm and unity. But in low-key media and private briefings this week, the F-35 message is that the goals of all-aspect stealth and superior avionics integration in a mass-production, multi-role combat aircraft can still be achieved.
The tone for these discussions was set in Washington last month, when Lockheed Martin chairman and CEO Bob Stevens declared, “There is no more affordable alternative capable of performing the mission.” He maintained that if Lockheed Martin can secure the production volume, the acquisition cost of the F-35 will be equivalent to a similarly equipped F-16 Block 60 or F-18 fighter.. .
Frank Kendall claims to think that he knows the root cause, but he's not telling. (Frank isn't being frank.)
ReplyDeleteThe Hill, Jul 10
The blaze on an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that grounded the military’s fleet might be an isolated incident, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer told lawmakers Thursday.
“There’s a growing body of evidence that this may have been an individual situation, not a systemic one,” Frank Kendall told the House Armed Services Committee.
Kendall said the department has “inspected all the existing engines that are in service” and “we have not found ... anything that suggests the type of problem that we think caused this failure.”