you are really reaching. smudged paint? really? just plain wow. just plain fucking wow. please tell me why the US Navy would decide to "smudge" the paint on all of their aircraft?!!!! inform us all how two aircraft would get their paint "smudged" when they're the only aircraft aboard! please tell us all how salt water doesn't affect aircraft and that somehow, someway the F-35C has used its magical stealth technology to somehow beat mother nature!
they posted pics of everything else so link a post to this testing of weathering and thats what it is. you can call it smudges all fucking day long but its fucking weathering and you know it clown.
but i digress. the link to the testing please. i'd love to see what a simulated cruise will look like on the F-35C.
I found this tidbit about previous at-sea testing of the F-35's LO coatings (12/2011). "F-18 carrier-based flight testing of LO topcoat in-work"
Also
" Extensive testing of full stack-up panel seams with simulated damage exposed to accelerated and outdoor (beach) exposures"
I'll try to find a better PDF and quotes but they have said that you will have to do actual physical damage to the F-35 to affect it's RCS, even at sea.
Another tidbit describing the durability of the finish: "SLD: In entering the facility, I noticed you have a “door mat” of stealth that’s been there for some time. Can you comment on this “door mat?”
Bill Grant: Oh, the slab of stealth? That’s our welcome mat. Yes, we actually have one of the test panels that we use for assessing the stealth of the various materials. It represents a stack-up that’s consistent with the upper surface or the outer surface of the jet. It has the exact same structure and the primer and the topcoat system that you’ll find on the operational jets. And that gets walked upon every time somebody comes in or out of our lab area out there, the repair development center. Occasionally, we take it up to test to see if there’s any electrical or mechanical degradation to the system and with around 25,000 steps across that system we have not seen any degradation whatsoever. So we have a great deal of confidence, however anecdotal that may be, that we have a very robust system. "
SLD: So this must have a significant impact on maritime operations. For example, the future of the F-35Bs and Cs should be a significant improvement over legacy aircraft, shoulden’t it be?
Bill Grant: Absolutely. The Navy and Marine Corps have set the benchmark for the LO repair facility program and approach. They work in the worst maintenance environments. It was the challenge we had to meet. So our material development effort and material qualification program was predicated and populated by requirements that were specifically suited for the Navy and Marine Corps. We have the most extensive and aggressive material qualification in our history, probably in industry history. We have as many as ten times more coupons per materials being tested. We have engaged in a very aggressive approach to testing which has been developed with the military labs and the program office. We have worked with them to shape the most aggressive and most challenging test regimen from all of their different programs and their experience, and thereby compiled those experiences into our test matrix. And the testing process has led to changes in the repair approach as well as the manufacturing approach for the program. Obviously, when we found deficiencies, we suggested changes to the manufacturing processes, which in turn were adopted. Indeed, the interaction between maintainers and designers has been followed throughout the F-35 program in shaping the manufacturing approach.
SLD: You’ve mentioned “ten times the coupons being tested.” What exactly does that mean?
Bill Grant: Well, we use little mechanical coupons. They are then used to do mechanical testing in corrosion and twisting and pulling, and those are representatives of all of the structural integrations of panels and substructure, and the material systems that spanned gaps in the panels and substructure. We test those coupons in those mechanical situations in both hot and cold extremes and we’ve yet to see any of those gaps open up. Naturally, if you can keep the gaps from opening up and introducing contaminants, the potential for corrosion is much lower. We also have a large selection of similar types of coupons representative of various elements of the structure that are in exposure environments. These environments are either in the laboratory, in our salt bog, exposed to acid rains, or stack gas type of environment – a very, very aggressive environment that they’re out on exposure racks or at Battelle’s corrosion test facilities out in Daytona Beach, which is considered by the Air Force to be the most corrosion-prone area in the Continental-48. Those coupons being tested, by the way, are in both pristine and in deliberately damaged conditions so that we’ve introduced damage that either the maintenance environment or manufacturing anomalies could represent so that we have a good test of what all the materials do in that environment."
Gilmore: Major Weapon Acquisitions Can't Be Fixed Overnight
At a time when two-thirds of the Pentagon's major weapon programs are behind schedule and over budget, the release of J. Michael Gilmore's annual report to Congress can be as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.
Gilmore's response: Don't shoot the messenger.
As the Defense Department's director of operational test and evaluation, Gilmore is required by law to provide an independent assessment of the performance of major weapon systems. His findings might be bad news for some programs, but as he points out, the first step in correcting a problem is to identify the causes of the problem.
...In the early days of the George W. Bush administration, the Pentagon agreed to proceed to low-rate production at the beginning of engineering development, with little to no testing. Normally, low-rate production starts after development is completed.
The assumption was that models and simulations were so good that very limited testing would be needed either in flight sciences or mission systems in order for the plane to mature," Gilmore says. "Those were bad assumptions. It took the department a number of years to realize that." A program restructuring in 2010 added more time and money for developmental testing."
Near the upper right wing root is your hot exhaust from the power thermal management & Integrated Power Package (IPP). So you will always see some heat discoloring there.
The strong point of F-35 low-observability is mostly nose on. Not bad when you consider the Joint Operational Requirement Document which assumed hundreds of F-22s would take down the big threats. But of course today, the JORD has some issues in that it is obsolete.
Whatever Bill Grant says is corporate BS. Disregard it. The proof is in the testing, which has just started with F-35C in a maritime environment. Michael Gilmore, with his annual reports, is the go-to guy on real-life F-35 capability. Thanks to JSF project mismanagement the jury is still out on what the F-35 can actually do.
from the link above: The F-35 program office now has to play catch-up, and live with the consequences of those early decisions, he says. "You can't test reliability at the end of the program."
Forget the slab of stealth and the little mechanical coupons.
Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Alice in Wonderland.
Sorry, meant intake scoop. Any-who, the surface wear on it isn't bad by any measure. There is a lot more to observe in that photo than the skin surface.
I do think Sol is reaching a little bit. A single photo of a dirty-looking plane doesn't tell us much one way or the other. It's not like the coating is obviously flaking off or anything. Could be the coating just picks up dirt easily.
i'm reaching at nothing. all i made was an observation. the weathering on that plane is getting body slammed. full stop. nothing further.
i made no comment about its stealth being degraded etc...as usual people read into this post what they wanted. just like you're doing now.
its really amusing and sometimes i feed the trolls but it should explain why i comment less and less on these posts. people are idiots. they take a tidbit and run to the hills.
LET ME BE CLEAR. I DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT STEALTH TO KNOW! but anyone can tell that the plane has spent a short time at sea and is already looking like batshit on the wall.
This is what they did (combined numbers) the FIRST 4 days they were at sea:
55 Cat launches 57 Traps 84 Touch and Gos 12.7 hours in the air
All within just 4 days, you are going to get a bit dirty.
btw, When you said "maritime environment is just body slamming that stealth coating", that is implying that it was a bad thing and affected the stealth coatings.
I wonder how it will look after two winyers in Canada
ReplyDeletehttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/DaSdeFcis-MWkA-HHFDWUfOogb2DMLrsgOoYOcl0x3Q7YzTuOBjxpTzCafmKaAoQf0FpIrg4UesRq537_ZOeOaXOY_BjEG-s7_jY921PeQYmUrb8cW-mEvNS=w605-h432-nc
Anything you see is just deposits on the outside of the coatings and does not affect the coating itself.
ReplyDeleteA good wash and it will be nice and pretty again. :)
Total affect on mission capability: NIL
are you seriously going to push that meme Spudman???? do you really believe that? seriously? really?
DeleteYes I do, unless someone provides evidence to the contrary.
DeleteShowing a photo of a smudged paint job is not proof of "weathering".
you are really reaching. smudged paint? really? just plain wow. just plain fucking wow. please tell me why the US Navy would decide to "smudge" the paint on all of their aircraft?!!!! inform us all how two aircraft would get their paint "smudged" when they're the only aircraft aboard! please tell us all how salt water doesn't affect aircraft and that somehow, someway the F-35C has used its magical stealth technology to somehow beat mother nature!
Deletetell us more!!!!
Combine steam with salt-spray, multiple cats & traps per day and you get dirty condensation on the paint, ie smudges (I did not say scrapes).
DeleteThey have been testing the coatings for years at sea along with the navalized F135 and in "weather" labs and it performed just fine.
they posted pics of everything else so link a post to this testing of weathering and thats what it is. you can call it smudges all fucking day long but its fucking weathering and you know it clown.
Deletebut i digress. the link to the testing please. i'd love to see what a simulated cruise will look like on the F-35C.
I found this tidbit about previous at-sea testing of the F-35's LO coatings (12/2011).
Delete"F-18 carrier-based flight testing of LO topcoat in-work"
Also
" Extensive testing of full stack-up panel seams with simulated damage exposed to accelerated and outdoor (beach) exposures"
I'll try to find a better PDF and quotes but they have said that you will have to do actual physical damage to the F-35 to affect it's RCS, even at sea.
Another tidbit describing the durability of the finish:
Delete"SLD: In entering the facility, I noticed you have a “door mat” of stealth that’s been there for some time. Can you comment on this “door mat?”
Bill Grant: Oh, the slab of stealth? That’s our welcome mat. Yes, we actually have one of the test panels that we use for assessing the stealth of the various materials. It represents a stack-up that’s consistent with the upper surface or the outer surface of the jet. It has the exact same structure and the primer and the topcoat system that you’ll find on the operational jets. And that gets walked upon every time somebody comes in or out of our lab area out there, the repair development center.
Occasionally, we take it up to test to see if there’s any electrical or mechanical degradation to the system and with around 25,000 steps across that system we have not seen any degradation whatsoever. So we have a great deal of confidence, however anecdotal that may be, that we have a very robust system. "
Last but not least:
Delete"SLD: In terms of the way you’re describing it, stealth goes from being a surface appliqué to becoming an integral part of the actual product being manufactured, is this correct?
Bill Grant: Exactly.
SLD: So this must have a significant impact on maritime operations. For example, the future of the F-35Bs and Cs should be a significant improvement over legacy aircraft, shoulden’t it be?
Bill Grant: Absolutely. The Navy and Marine Corps have set the benchmark for the LO repair facility program and approach. They work in the worst maintenance environments. It was the challenge we had to meet. So our material development effort and material qualification program was predicated and populated by requirements that were specifically suited for the Navy and Marine Corps.
We have the most extensive and aggressive material qualification in our history, probably in industry history. We have as many as ten times more coupons per materials being tested. We have engaged in a very aggressive approach to testing which has been developed with the military labs and the program office. We have worked with them to shape the most aggressive and most challenging test regimen from all of their different programs and their experience, and thereby compiled those experiences into our test matrix.
And the testing process has led to changes in the repair approach as well as the manufacturing approach for the program. Obviously, when we found deficiencies, we suggested changes to the manufacturing processes, which in turn were adopted. Indeed, the interaction between maintainers and designers has been followed throughout the F-35 program in shaping the manufacturing approach.
SLD: You’ve mentioned “ten times the coupons being tested.” What exactly does that mean?
Bill Grant: Well, we use little mechanical coupons. They are then used to do mechanical testing in corrosion and twisting and pulling, and those are representatives of all of the structural integrations of panels and substructure, and the material systems that spanned gaps in the panels and substructure. We test those coupons in those mechanical situations in both hot and cold extremes and we’ve yet to see any of those gaps open up. Naturally, if you can keep the gaps from opening up and introducing contaminants, the potential for corrosion is much lower.
We also have a large selection of similar types of coupons representative of various elements of the structure that are in exposure environments. These environments are either in the laboratory, in our salt bog, exposed to acid rains, or stack gas type of environment – a very, very aggressive environment that they’re out on exposure racks or at Battelle’s corrosion test facilities out in Daytona Beach, which is considered by the Air Force to be the most corrosion-prone area in the Continental-48.
Those coupons being tested, by the way, are in both pristine and in deliberately damaged conditions so that we’ve introduced damage that either the maintenance environment or manufacturing anomalies could represent so that we have a good test of what all the materials do in that environment."
http://www.sldinfo.com/the-f-35-low-observable-repair-facility-a-unique-asset-for-21st-century-combat-aviation/
"Well, we use little mechanical coupons"
ReplyDeleteNationalDefenseMagazine, Oct 22, excerpts
Gilmore: Major Weapon Acquisitions Can't Be Fixed Overnight
At a time when two-thirds of the Pentagon's major weapon programs are behind schedule and over budget, the release of J. Michael Gilmore's annual report to Congress can be as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.
Gilmore's response: Don't shoot the messenger.
As the Defense Department's director of operational test and evaluation, Gilmore is required by law to provide an independent assessment of the performance of major weapon systems. His findings might be bad news for some programs, but as he points out, the first step in correcting a problem is to identify the causes of the problem.
...In the early days of the George W. Bush administration, the Pentagon agreed to proceed to low-rate production at the beginning of engineering development, with little to no testing. Normally, low-rate production starts after development is completed.
The assumption was that models and simulations were so good that very limited testing would be needed either in flight sciences or mission systems in order for the plane to mature," Gilmore says. "Those were bad assumptions. It took the department a number of years to realize that." A program restructuring in 2010 added more time and money for developmental testing."
Near the upper right wing root is your hot exhaust from the power thermal management &
ReplyDeleteIntegrated Power Package (IPP). So you will always see some heat discoloring there.
The strong point of F-35 low-observability is mostly nose on. Not bad when you consider the Joint Operational Requirement Document which assumed hundreds of F-22s would take down the big threats. But of course today, the JORD has some issues in that it is obsolete.
ReplyDeleteWhatever Bill Grant says is corporate BS. Disregard it. The proof is in the testing, which has just started with F-35C in a maritime environment. Michael Gilmore, with his annual reports, is the go-to guy on real-life F-35 capability. Thanks to JSF project mismanagement the jury is still out on what the F-35 can actually do.
ReplyDeletefrom the link above:
The F-35 program office now has to play catch-up, and live with the consequences of those early decisions, he says. "You can't test reliability at the end of the program."
Forget the slab of stealth and the little mechanical coupons.
Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland.
Spudman, the check is in the mail.
Thanks for once again demonstrating that "Da Nile" is not just a river in Egypt.
Delete“Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.”
Delete--Hyman G. Rickover
"Pessimism never won any battle."
Delete--Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sorry, meant intake scoop. Any-who, the surface wear on it isn't bad by any measure. There is a lot more to observe in that photo than the skin surface.
ReplyDeleteI do think Sol is reaching a little bit. A single photo of a dirty-looking plane doesn't tell us much one way or the other. It's not like the coating is obviously flaking off or anything. Could be the coating just picks up dirt easily.
ReplyDeletei'm reaching at nothing. all i made was an observation. the weathering on that plane is getting body slammed. full stop. nothing further.
Deletei made no comment about its stealth being degraded etc...as usual people read into this post what they wanted. just like you're doing now.
its really amusing and sometimes i feed the trolls but it should explain why i comment less and less on these posts. people are idiots. they take a tidbit and run to the hills.
LET ME BE CLEAR. I DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT STEALTH TO KNOW! but anyone can tell that the plane has spent a short time at sea and is already looking like batshit on the wall.
This is what they did (combined numbers) the FIRST 4 days they were at sea:
Delete55 Cat launches
57 Traps
84 Touch and Gos
12.7 hours in the air
All within just 4 days, you are going to get a bit dirty.
btw, When you said "maritime environment is just body slamming that stealth coating", that is implying that it was a bad thing and affected the stealth coatings.
The only dogfights this aircraft will enter into is in forums just like this.
ReplyDeletewhy would the Navy accept single engined aircraft like this ? i thought it is navy's philosoply to always get twin engined fighters
ReplyDeleteBecause it was forced on them to help 'cut costs'.... yeah.
Delete