US Navy Receives First F-35C Lightning II

The U.S. Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 101 received the Navy's first F-35C Lightning II carrier variant aircraft from Lockheed Martin today at the squadron's home at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
navy.mil

Canada’s military scientists predict RCAF would lose several F-35s before all 65 are delivered

National Defence scientists predicted in 2011 that the military would have almost certainly lost several of its brand-new F-35 stealth fighters before all 65 were even delivered.

vancouversun

F-35 Lightning II Program Retrofits To Cost Additional $1.7 Billion

Solving problems found in flight-testing the planes in the Pentagon's controversial F-35 Lightning II Program, aka the Joint Strike Fighter Program, will most likely cost more than $1.7 billion, Reuters reported Saturday in its coverage of a draft report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO

ibtimes

F-35 Lightning IIs arrive at Nellis

A U.S. Air Force crew chief assigned to the 57th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Lightning Aircraft Maintenance Unit marshals an F-35 Lightning II aircraft into its parking spot after it's arrival at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., March 6, 2013. The two F-35s will be assigned to the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron.
nellis.af.mil

Lockheed F-35 Flights Permitted to Resume, Pentagon Says

Flights of Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s F-35 will be allowed to resume, the U.S. Defense Department said, ending a suspension that grounded the fleet after the discovery of a cracked engine blade in one of the stealth jets.
The affected engine had been subjected to “prolonged exposure to high levels of heat and other operational stresses” in testing, the Pentagon F-35 office said today in a An undated handout photograph shows Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 fighter jet, provided to the media on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. Source: Lockheed Martin Corp. via Bloomberg
Inspections of other F-35 fighter jets didn’t find any other “cracks or signs of similar engine stress,” and no redesign will be needed for the engines built by United Technologies Corp. (UTX)’s Pratt & Whitney unit, according to the statement.
The F-35, the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program, has been plagued by a costly redesign, bulkhead cracks, excessive weight and delays in software that have helped put it seven years behind schedule. The cost of the program’s 2,443 aircraft is now estimated at $395.7 billion, a 70 percent increase since 2001.

bloomberg

Honeywell to test some F-35 parts after smoke incident

The Pentagon said on Monday an F-35 test plane was involved in an incident on Feb. 14 that caused smoke in the cockpit, and it was sending the affected parts back to their manufacturer, Honeywell International Inc , for a detailed inspection.

Kyra Hawn, spokeswoman for the $396 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, said an initial assessment of the incident at a Maryland air base showed it was isolated, software-related, and posed minimal risk.

The Pentagon has made temporary changes to prevent another smoke incident, she said.

cnbc

F-35B had smoke in cockpit on Feb. 14

Parts from BF-2′s power thermal management system had to be sent back to Honeywell for inspection after the F-35B had smoke in the cockpit on Feb. 14.
The pilot had stop and restart the auxiliary power unit when a caution light came on during flight and noticed traces of smoke. The flight was terminated and landed safely without declaring an emergency.

reuters

F-35 Flights May Resume Within Week of Tracking Down Fault

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may resume flying within a week of working out problems that caused its grounding, the program chief for the Pentagon’s most expensive weapon program said.
The grounding won’t affect delivery of the planes and the cause of the engine problems will be known by the end of the week, Chris Bogdan, head of the F-35 program at the U.S. Department of Defense, said in a briefing today in Melbourne. Australia is deciding its order of the stealth aircraft, amid a 7 percent cut to its defense equipment budget and delays in the delivery timetable for the aircraft.

bloomberg

Australia green lights F-35 purchase

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has confirmed that Australia will go ahead with purchasing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from the US, despite the jets being grounded by the Pentagon due to a cracked engine blade.
The US military on Saturday suspended all flights operated by the fleet of 51 jets to investigate the turbine blade crack.
A statement issued by the Pentagon said that “it is too early to know the fleet-wide impact of the recent finding."
The statement added that the F-35 Joint Program Office is working closely with Pratt & Whitney and Lockheed Martin at all F-35 locations to ensure the integrity of the engine and to return the fleet safely to flight as soon as possible.
PM Gillard told reporters on the weekend that Australia would continue with the purchase of the first two JSFs, which have already been paid for.

australiandefence.com.au

First production US Navy F-35C flies

The first production model Lockheed Martin F-35C carrier variant flew its first sortie Thursday, 15 February, 2013. When it is delivered later this year, the aircraft will be assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron-101(VFA-101), which is stationed with the US Air Force's 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida. Like the other units at the base, the USAF's 58th Fighter Squadron and the US Marine Corps VMFAT-501, VFA-101 is a training unit or Fleet Replacement Squadron in naval parlance.

Dave Majumdar-The Dewline

Lockheed claims F-35 kinematics ‘better than or equal to’ Typhoon or Super Hornet

Lockheed Martin is claiming that all three versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will have kinematic performance better than or equal to any combat-configured fourth-generation fighter. The comparison includes transonic acceleration performance versus an air-to-air configured Eurofighter Typhoon and high angle-of-attack flight performance vis-à-vis the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

flightglobal

First F-35A four-ship flies over Eglin

Increasing capability is becoming routine for the F-35 Lightning II team.
The 58th Aircraft Maintenance Unit produced a four-turn-four for the 58th Fighter Squadron flying Jan 31.

af.mil

The operational impact of reducing the F-35's performance specs

The US Department of Defense has decided to lower some of the performance requirements for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), particularly with regard to transonic acceleration (with the Navy's C-model taking the hardest hit) and sustained g-forces, as was revealed in the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) 2012 report.

Dave Majumdar, Flightglobal, The Dewline

Engineers discover culprit behind F-35B fueldraulic line failure

Engineers working on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) have identified the likely culprit behind a fueldraulic line failure on 16 January that led to the temporary grounding of the US Marine Corps' B-model aircraft.

"Government and industry engineering teams investigating the origins of a failed propulsion fueldraulic line on an F-35B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant have identified the probable cause and are developing a return to flight plan to lift the suspension of flight operations," the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) says.

According to the JPO, engineers have ruled out any design or maintenance problems. "Evidence revealed a quality discrepancy from the company that produces the fueldraulics line," the JPO says. "The investigation determined the line was improperly crimped."

The investigating team found that six other aircraft had the same manufacturing defect. The faulty parts have been returned to F-35 propulsion system prime contractor Pratt & Whitney for replacement. The fueldraulic line is built by Stratoflex. The company, along with Rolls-Royce and Pratt &Whitney, has "instituted corrective actions to improve their quality control processes and ensure part integrity," the JPO says.

The fueldraulic line powers the actuator movement for the F-35B's STOVL vectoring exhaust system. Instead of traditional hydraulic fluid, the system uses fuel as the operating fluid to reduce weight.

NAVAIR and the JPO are currently "developing a return to flight plan which details the removal and inspection requirements of currently installed fueldraulic lines on the 25 F-35B variants affected by the flight suspension." The B-model has been grounded since 18 January, but the US Air Force's F-35A and US Navy F-35C were not affected

flightglobal

Second F-35A Reaches 500 Flight Hour Milestone

The second Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, known as AF-1, joined the 500 flight hour club recently during its 272nd flight.
It joins AF-2 which passed the milestone June 26, 2012. The conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) fighter began flight operations when it made its inaugural flight Nov. 14, 2009.

defencetalk

Australia Set to Buy Super Hornets Over Cutting-Edge Fighter

Australia will almost certainly be forced to buy 24 new Super Hornet fighter planes at a cost of about $2 billion to plug a looming gap in its air defences amid delays in the purchase of the cutting-edge Joint Strike Fighter.

According to a leaked draft of the 2013 defence white paper, just two Lockheed Martin JSFs will be delivered to Australia by 2020.

This strongly indicates that the government will need to buy rival Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets, which are cheaper but older and less stealthy than the JSF.

''By the end of this decade, the ADF will take delivery of three Air Warfare Destroyers, two Landing Helicopter Dock amphibious ships and the initial two F-35A Joint Strike Fighter aircraft,'' the white paper states.

While switching to the Super Hornets would not be a blow to the budget - each plane costs about $40 million less than each JSF - it may mean money is wasted because the government would lose economies of scale on training and maintenance by operating two different types of fighters. And experts say the Super Hornet would be challenged by the growing air combat capabilities of some of Australia's neighbours.

The white paper draft states that the government ''remains committed'' to acquiring the JSF but makes no mention of the next batch of 12 planes, expected about 2020. This appears to confirm what the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, has hinted at and many experts have suspected: that Defence will replace some of the retiring Hornet aircraft with Super Hornets and end up with a mixed fighter fleet rather than the 100 Super Hornets originally proposed.

Mr Smith has already asked the US about the price and availability of more Super Hornets.

The opposition defence spokesman, David Johnston, said the government had broken its pledge in the 2009 white paper to buy 100 JSFs, which would have "provided regional domination out to 2030".

"The revelation in the 2013 defence white paper that this promise has been reduced to just two aircraft (by 2020) is a further testament to Minister Smith's incompetent handling of the defence portfolio," he said.

Analysts say the JSF is the best fighter on the market, although many say the Super Hornet will probably suffice. Andrew Davies, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the JSF was "far stealthier and has a much more powerful and integrated set of senses than the Super Hornet has".

He said Australia would benefit from "economies of scale on training and maintenance" by having a single type of airforce rather than a mixed fleet.

''Nonetheless, the Super Hornet is still frontline equipment with the US Navy and a powerful air combat capability,'' he said.

Sam Roggeveen, an analyst and editor of the Lowy Institute's Interpreter blog, said the Super Hornet would represent a compromise but added: "I would argue we don't need the JSF yet."

Former defence minister Brendan Nelson, who bought the existing 24 Super Hornets, said a mixed fleet should give Australia what it needed, given other governments were hit by budget constraints.

"If the government did choose to [buy Super Hornets], Australia would still have extraordinary air combat capability and would be well-placed in relation to our strategic competitors," he said.

But Peter Goon, a former RAAF engineer now with the independent think tank Air Power Australia, said Australia was "already outmatched in the region" on air combat. "If you send out Super Hornets against the Sukhoi Su-35s, few if any of them will come back," he said.

Mr Smith said last week the leaked draft was out of date. The final paper will be released by June.

defense-studies

First dual aerial refueling for the F-35C

Two F-35 Lightning II carrier variants completed an aerial refueling for the first time Jan. 18. Test pilots Navy Lt. Christopher Tabert and Dan Canin of Lockheed Martin flew CF-1 and CF-2 respectively, with a KC-130 from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 20 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River.

navair

Precautionary Suspension of F-35B Flight Operations

The F-35 Joint Program Office issued a precautionary suspension of flight operations today (Friday — 18 Jan) for development and test F-35B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variants. A similar action was taken by Naval Air Systems Command for all F-35B production aircraft operating at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.; Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz.; and at Lockheed Martin’s production facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
These actions were taken as a result of an incident involving an F-35B at Eglin AFB. The precautionary flight suspension preserves safety while providing time for the program to understand the origin of a failure of a propulsion fueldraulic line. The line enables actuator movement for the STOVL vectoring exhaust system.
Static ground operations of F-35B STOVL aircraft will continue. Flight operations for F-35A or F-35C model aircraft are unaffected.

defencetalk

F-35B grounded, Lockheed responds to DOT&E report

This has not been a good couple of weeks for Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Late last week, the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) released his annual report. The F-35 section highlighted myriad problems. Then, a couple of days ago on the 16th, an F-35B at Eglin AFB, Florida, suffered a fueldraulic line failure which led the Joint Program Office to order that variant grounded. That line was connected to an actuator which moves the short take-off vertical landing aircraft's nozzle.

Dave Majumdar-flightglobal

Stealth coating peeling off from F-35′s horizontal tail surfaces

The Pentagon’s chief weapons tester says the F-35 failed to meet some of its testing goals last year even as the fighter made 18 percent more flights than planned.

The DOT&E report said the A-model completed 30 percent less test points than planned due to problems with it’s air refueling system and weapons bay doors.
Stealth coatings were also peeling off on horizontal tail surfaces due to higher-than-expected temperatures during high-speed, high-altitude flights.
Cracks were also found on the underside of the F-35B and testing was suspended in December.
The C-model has problems transferring video and imagery data to ships.



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