Thread: Lightning will ground F35 fighter jet known as the Lightning II

Lightning will ground F35 fighter jet known as the Lightning II

Britain’s £150 million new combat jet has been banned from flying in bad weather amid fears that it could explode.

Attempts to increase fuel efficiency by reducing the jet’s weight have also made it more vulnerable to enemy attack than the generation of aircraft it was supposed to replace Photo: AP

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
7:30AM GMT 20 Jan 2013
432 Comments

The production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – the world’s most sophisticated and expensive combat aircraft – has been derailed after engineers discovered that the jet’s fuel tank could explode if struck by lightning.

The disclosure is a major setback for the aircraft, also known as the Lightning II, which is due to enter service with both the RAF and the Royal Navy by 2018.

Attempts to increase fuel efficiency by reducing the jet’s weight have also made it more vulnerable to enemy attack than the generation of aircraft it was supposed to replace.

The damaging findings were disclosed in a Pentagon document which revealed that a fault within the JSF’s fuel tank could potentially lead to catastrophic explosion if the aircraft was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm.

The report from the Pentagon’s Operational Test and Evaluation Office states that all test flying within 25 miles of thunderstorms is “not permitted” until a device in the fuel tank which maintains correct oxygen levels is redesigned.

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The fear of an exploding fuel tank is just one of a series of problem to befall the F-35 programme. A design fault in the fuel tank has also prevented the JSF being able to rapidly descend to low altitude.

The Pentagon report describes both failings as “unacceptable for combat or combat training”.

Examinations by the United States Air Force and the Lockheed Martin, the aircraft’s manufacturer, also discovered a handful of cracks in the tested aircraft, including on the right wing and right engine of the F-35A variant, and on another part of the F-35B variant.

“All of these discoveries will require mitigation plans and may include redesigning parts and additional weight,” the report added.

Britain is buying the F-35B – the short take-off and vertical landing version – as a replacement for the Harrier. The “multirole” plane will be used for air defence, ground attack and reconnaissance missions.

The F-35 has a top speed of 1,300mph and a range of 1,450 miles, while the Harrier could reach a speed of 700mph and had a range of 350 miles. The older aircraft also had no radar transparency or stealth capabilities, while the F-35 has both.

However the version being ordered by Britain is the is the heaviest, least capable and most expensive of the three versions of the plane, as it carries a lift fan propulsion system for its “jump jet” capability, which it needs to land on the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers.

The F-35 is also designed to be practically invisible to radar. Its shape has no right angles, which reflect radar waves, and a special “fibre” coating make it difficult to detect on any enemy radar.

Low heat emissions and an ability to carry armaments in an internal weapons bay instead of mounted on wings and underneath the fuselage further enhances its stealth capabilities.

The aircraft will carry a range of weapons including air-to-air rockets and satellite guided bombs.

Pilots are fitted with helmets which allow them to see 360 degrees, and displays all the data they need inside the visor.

The cockpit also features an all-glass digital instrument panel and a speech recognition system. Each aircraft has more than 24 million lines of “software code”.



Interactive graphic: explore the F-35 fighter jet in more detail

In theory the F-35 should be able to fly into the enemy’s air space, attack it’s target and return safely to friendly territory without ever being detected.

But the F-35 has been dogged by criticism since its inception in the 1990s, particularly in the United States where it has gained unwelcome notoriety as the most expensive equipment project ever undertaken by the Pentagon.

Estimates suggest that the total cost of buying, operating and maintaining the planes over the next 30 years will be £625 billion – or $1 trillion.

Winslow Wheeler, at the US Center for Defense Information described the F-35 programme as a “gigantic performance disappointment”, which was not even as stealthy as the F-22 Raptor.

He added: “It’s the counterintuitive problem of paying a huge amount of money thinking you’re getting a Lamborghini or Ferrari: You’re not, you’re getting a Yugo (the cheap, mass-produced cars made in the former Yugoslavia).”

Though British pilots have already been involved in the test flying programme, they will not be flying the plane off UK bases or the two new aircraft carriers until 2018.

The US is spending around £254 billion to buy 2,500 F-35s for its navy, air force and marine corps. The previous government said the UK would buy 138 planes but Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, has so far committed to purchasing only 48.

The fuel tank problems are the second major blow to hit the programme in recent weeks. Last month Canada pulled out of a deal to buy 65 F-35s over fears that the aircraft could be too expensive to run.

Canada is not the only country to get cold feet. Italy reduced its purchase to 90 F-35s instead of the initial 131, while the US has delayed some of its purchases and may still trim the programme given its difficult fiscal situation.

An audit of the programme by KPMG revealed aircraft running costs could reach £28.4 billion over the next 42-years.

The final decision on the number Britain buys will be dependent on the future role of the Royal Navy’s two carriers and whether, as is expected, the unit price of each aircraft falls.

The future of the aircraft is also key to Britain’s defence industry and will help to sustain over 20,000 jobs.

Although the plane is being manufactured by Lockheed Martin, Britain is a major partner in the programme, with both BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce playing key roles in the production and design of the jet.

A Lockheed Martin spokesman said: “The F-35 programme has yet to formally test for lightning protection. We still have 4 years of Developmental Test ahead of us, before we actually begin formal Operational Testing. There is a plan in place for lightning testing to be completed in the future test plan, and for the jet to be appropriately equipped to fly in all weather. The plan is to conduct lightning test towards the end of the flight test programme. Because the testing has not be completed to date, we therefore have a lightning restriction of 25 miles at present for flight operations – this is obviously the safe, and sensible way to do business and supported by all involved in the programme.”

Lightning will ground F35 fighter jet known as the Lightning II - Telegraph

DOCUMENTRY ON F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER PART 1



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0 ... re=related

Sep 11, 2010

Military expert Pierre Sprey, the founder and designer of the F-16 & A-10 Warthog airplanes, Explains why the f-35 will not cut it on the modern battlefield.

DOCUMENTRY ON F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER PART 2

Jan 25, 2011



1/5 F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON - YouTube

DOCUMENTRY ON F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER PART 3



6/5 F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON - YouTube

Sep 11, 2010

Military expert WINSLOW T. WHEELER Explains why the f-35 will not cut it on the modern battlefield.

Read more here about escalating costs to......

http://cdi.org/program/document.cfm?doc ... ersion.cfm

DOCUMENTRY ON F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER PART 4



5/5 F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON - YouTube

DOCUMENTRY ON F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER PART 5




3/5 F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON - YouTube

F-35 Lightning II: Too Expensive, Too Few, Su-35 Bait? Part 1 - YouTube

F-35 Lightning II: Too Expensive, Too Few, Su-35 Bait? Part 2 - YouTube

South Korea Stumble Threatens Lockheed's 'Super Jet'

Posted: 08/19/2013 3:48 pm
Barack Obama , South Korea, Barack Obama , Lockheed Martin, F-35 Fighter Jet, Pentagon, Weapons, Politics News

Despite recent reports to the contrary, it has been a rough patch for Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, now known as the "Lightning II."
Under current plans, the Air Force's "plane of the future" is slated to cost at least $1.5 trillion over its lifetime, which, Pentagon analyst Winslow Wheeler has pointed out, is the equivalent of the Gross Domestic Product of Spain.
There are also serious questions as to whether the F-35 will ever work as planned. It has had problems taking off and landing vertically, as required for the Marine Corps version; landing on an aircraft carrier, a capability the Navy obviously cannot do without; and developing adequate software to allow it to do all the things a modern, so-called "fifth generation" fighter plane is supposed to be able to do.
Amidst all of these signs of a procurement disaster in the making, the Air Force and Lockheed Martin, the plane's prime contractor, have fallen back on a few simple lines of defense. One is that it is a complicated plane, and that all of the bugs will be worked out given enough time.
Another argument put forward in defense of the F-35 is that we can't possibly cancel or scale back production of the plane because we would be letting down our allies who have committed to buying it.
This second line of argument - that we can't let down our allies who are chomping at the bit to get their hands on the F-35 - suffered a major setback this week when South Korea announced that Lockheed Martin's bid for that nation's 60-plane "F-X" fighter purchase exceeded the price Seoul is willing to pay for new combat aircraft.
It was widely assumed that the F-35 - the aircraft of the future! - would win the South Korean competition hands down. But recent developments should have tipped Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon off to the fact that this would not necessarily be the case. Canada has already talked about backing off of their prospective F-35 purchase and putting their fighter plane deal back out for competitive bidding. Italy can't afford to buy F-35s in the numbers originally envisioned. Norway is dramatically slowing down its F-35 buy, and Australia has delayed its purchase as well.
So, if a major reason for building the F-35 is to help out U.S. allies, we should think again as a growing number of U.S. allies are saying "thanks, but no thanks" to these immensely costly aircraft.
The tactic of last resort in trying to save some of Lockheed Martin's big foreign deals will be to boost the economic benefits promised to the purchasing country, in a practice referred to as "offsets." Offsets are quid pro quos in which a company like Lockheed Martin promises to kick back part of the price of a plane to the purchasing country. For example, in the case of South Korea it has promised to help Seoul to develop and build its own military communications satellite, and to develop a simulation system for use by Korean pilots. In addition, Korean companies would be offered the chance to build parts of the F-35.
All of this offset activity will come at the expense of U.S. jobs. Once similar offset deals are provided to Norway, Australia, Italy, Turkey, Israel, the United Kingdom, Japan and other current or prospective F-35 purchasers, the job benefits to the United States will be whittled away even further. And because some of the offset deals call for companies in the recipient countries to become ongoing suppliers for all F-35s, not just the ones purchased for their own countries, some of the job losses from offsets will be permanent.
The Korean case shows that time is running out on the argument that F-35s are being built to help out our allies. And Lockheed Martin's response in Korea and elsewhere - offering them jobs and technology if they stay the course and buy the F-35 - shows yet again that the company cares more about making a buck than preserving U.S. jobs. Keep that in mind the next time Lockheed and the Air Force try to use the jobs argument as their trump card in debates over whether to keep funding the F-35.
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books).


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/willia...b_3781321.html

The Independent Institute

Research Fellow Winslow Wheeler is one of the world's leading experts on the F-35 joint Strike Fighter. He's also one of the expensive warplane's biggest critics. The plane and its promised jobs aren't flying with US allies.