F-35 Lightning II

[Chema]

Aunque probablemente no signifique mucho los deseos de Trump, pues los contratos ya están firmados, el desearía que todo el F35 se fabricase en EEUU.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/trump-on-f-35-we-should-make-everything-in-us/?utm_campaign=Breaking%20Defense%20Air%20&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=87998446&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--b8Pxi6v9B3u5MVjB0OaKkhNu5UIVVpuyBCIbVb7uOwBgOKqMetMMqaHadhH4ZOOq1RpPSCqeDVxXR3_BNyDtvRyRzCA&_hsmi=87998446

Pero por algo se empieza.

[champi]

Un breve repaso a este informe del CRS que ya se citó, aunque casi todo ya estaba recogido en este mismo hilo: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30563

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“[E]ven the [then] Program Executive Officer of the F-35 Joint Program Office, General Christopher Bogdan, recently admitted the variants are only 20–25 percent common.”
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Although the fleet-wide trend in aircraft availability showed modest improvement in 2019, it remains below the target value of 65 percent. No significant portion of the fleet, including the combat-coded fleet, was able to achieve and sustain the DOD mission capable (MC) rate goal of 80 percent. However, individual units have been able to achieve the 80 percent target for short periods during deployed operations.
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Some F-35As will be dual capable aircraft (DCA), meaning that they will have the ability to deliver nuclear ordnance. Dual capability is expected to be included in the Block 4 software release, with initial capability for the B61-12 weapon.108 The F-35A DCA is scheduled to achieve nuclear certification in January, 2023.
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Total Program Acquisition Cost111

As of December 2019, the total estimated acquisition cost (the sum of development, procurement, and military construction [MilCon] costs) of the F-35 program in constant (i.e., inflationadjusted) FY2012 dollars was about $340.5 billion, including about $70.3 billion in research and development, about $265.6 billion in procurement, and about $4.5 billion in MilCon.112 In then-year dollars (meaning dollars from various years that are not adjusted for inflation), the
figures are about $428.3 billion, including about $67.9 billion in research and development, about $355.3 billion in procurement, and about $5.2 billion in military construction.

Prior-Year Funding

Through FY2018, the F-35 program has received a total of roughly $137.6 billion of funding in then-year dollars, including about $56.9 billion in research and development, about $78.2 billion in procurement, and approximately $2.4 billion in military construction.
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“The initial estimate for modifying early-production F-35As from a basic configuration to a capable warfighting level is $6 million per jet, plus other associated expenses not included in that figure.”123 That would make the current cost of upgrading the earliest F-35As to Block 3F about $100 million.
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Turno para este de la GAO: https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/706815.pdf

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In April 2019, the F-35 program estimated that Block 4 development and procurement costs would add $13.9 billion to the program’s total baseline cost.
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Due to the concurrency of testing and production, according to an F-35 program official, as many as 550 aircraft delivered through 2020 will need retrofits to fix deficiencies and design issues found during testing.17 The program refers to the cost of these fixes as its concurrency cost, which the program estimates at $1.4 billion; this estimate did not change with the program’s last update in 2019.
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The planned $13.9 billion Block 4 effort exceeds the statutory and
regulatory thresholds for what constitutes a major defense acquisition
program, and Block 4 is more expensive than many of the other major
weapon acquisitions already in DOD’s portfolio.
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Due to these delays to completing operational testing, the program has delayed its full-rate production decision by at least an additional 9 months. Though the program is working toward September 2020, the program has acknowledged this decision could be made as late as March 2021.
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Of the 9 open category 1 deficiencies, the program reports all have operational workarounds—procedures that avoid encountering the deficiency. This represents four fewer open category 1 deficiencies than we reported in April 2019, reflecting the resolution of previously identified deficiencies and the addition of new ones, some of which were resolved.36 For example, the program fielded a software fix to a category 1 deficiency, which showed that the F-35’s cockpit display could falsely indicate its AIM-9X weapon—an air-to-air missile—selection status as “selected” though the weapon’s status is not selected.
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According to an official from this agency, there have been 18 engine test failures in 2019, which is eight more than in 2018, each requiring disassembly and rework. The engine contractor stopped deliveries due to the test failures, which has slowed engine acceptance and reduced on-time deliveries. These issues are affecting engines built at the engine contractor’s production facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, which opened in 2014.
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In 2019, according to our analysis, the total number of key F-35 manufacturing processes identified in the final assembly phase increased 70 percent, to a total of over 10,000 critical processes. Furthermore, of these critical processes, only 30 percent are currently able to produce a product within predefined design standards.
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According to the Defense Contract Management Agency:
· Between August 2017 and July 2019, the number of parts delivered late increased from under 2,000 to more than 10,000.
· Between July 2018 and July 2019, the parts shortages per month increased from 875 to over 8,000. According to contractor representatives, roughly 60 percent of parts shortages are attributable to 20 suppliers.
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According to an official with that office, Turkish suppliers will provide parts through the end of lot 14 deliveries (scheduled to take place through 2022), in part, to avoid disruptions to aircraft deliveries and additional cost growth from standing up new suppliers.
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In its May 2019 report to Congress, DOD outlined its plans for Block 4 with a development cost estimate of $10.6 billion for activities through fiscal year 2024.50 Since the 2019 report, we found the program office has increased its estimate by about 14 percent, to $12.1 billion, primarily due to schedule delays.
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At that time, we reported that DOD had requested funding for the development and delivery of Block 4 through the end of 2022. However, over the last year, the program has revised its Block 4 schedule and now expects to field Block 4 capabilities into fiscal year 2026.
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This new schedule adds 2 years to the costs DOD reported to Congress in May 2019. Additionally, our analysis of DOD’s updated cost estimate indicates the total cost of Block 4 development grew by $1.5 billion to a total of $12.1 billion for activities in fiscal years 2018 through 2026.55 Furthermore, in addition to the Block 4 development costs, the program also estimates it will need another $2.9 billion to develop other capabilities, such as upgrades to ALIS.
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Specifically, according to the plan outlined in its May 2019 report to Congress, the F-35 program was going to deliver eight Block 4 capabilities in 2019. However, the program delivered only one—a software capability called the auto ground-collision avoidance system.
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For example, the airframe contractor had planned to deliver a capability called the interim full motion video for the Marine Corps in 2019. The contractor developed the software needed, but it is late in developing the hardware needed for the software to operate and, as a result, the contractor did not deliver the capability in 2019 as planned.
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With these pieces currently missing, the Block 4 development cost estimate does not present a full picture of Block 4’s cost. Ultimately, without a complete understanding of Block 4 costs, the program could face additional cost growth, which will be hard to track without a complete cost baseline.
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[Orel]

Gracias champi.

La USAF ha perdido ayer en accidente un F-35A en Eglin, tras perder también un F-22 el día 15 en la misma base.
Fue al aterrizar por la noche. En ambos casos los pilotos se eyectaron exitosamente:
https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/us ... 56.article
https://theaviationist.com/2020/05/20/u ... b-florida/

[Pathfinder]

Parece que era uno de los primeros lotes no?

[14yellow14]

Japan has installed Auto-GCAS on its F-35A fleet

All 17 aircraft at Misawa Air Base had the system installed since the end of last year. Four more F-35As are expected to arrive at the base later, these will come equipped with Auto-GCAS.


http://alert5.com/2020/05/23/japan-has- ... 35a-fleet/

[Pathfinder]

The inside story of two supersonic flights that changed how America operates the F-35
https://www.defensenews.com/smr/hidden- ... -the-f-35/


Those limits were imposed after two separate tests in 2011 where the "B" model incurred “bubbling [and] blistering” of its stealth coating and the "C" model suffered “thermal damage” to the tailboom and horizontal tail, according to documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.

But those limitations must be placed in context, said Billie Flynn, the Lockheed Martin test pilot who flew both of those missions during F-35 developmental testing at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.

According to the documents, both incidents took place during flutter tests where the B and C models were flying at speeds of 1.3 Mach and 1.4 Mach. However, that damage didn’t occur in a vacuum, Flynn said. It materialized after F-35B and F-35C test articles flew repeated supersonic runs that pushed to the plane’s maximum of 1.6 Mach, making it the result of cumulative pressures on the aircraft.

“I was flying out at 700 knots in the C model up and down the East Coast of the state of Maryland and Delaware — that’s where we fly at Pax River — and then out over the ocean, firing missiles at almost 1.6 Mach as we cleared out the weapons for the airplane. That’s extreme speed, and that’s repeated flights in those environments,” said Flynn, who has flown more than 800 hours in all three F-35 variants.

“Make a run at 700 knots, make another run at 700 knots, go to an aerial refueling tanker, get fuel for myself … and then race out again and again and again. Repeat this cycle for four- and five-hour missions,” he added.

Similarly, the flights for the B model involved aggressive maneuvering at the edge of the aircraft’s flight envelope for hours at a time.

“Nobody is going to do [that] tactically,” he said. “There’s not a combat scenario where that is going to happen.”

Although Flynn, like all fighter pilots, ended missions by walking around the aircraft and inspecting the jet for damage, he doesn’t remember seeing the blistered stealth coating or thermal damage noted in the Pentagon’s deficiency report.

Instead, Flynn offered the possibility that the degradation was only visible to engineers monitoring the internal impacts to the F-35B and F-35C test planes, which are specially equipped to measure imperceptible damage to the jet’s structure and give insight into how forces such as gravity and heat will affect it over time.


(...)

No creo que haga falta traducción, imagino que la gente domina el inglés.

[champi]

Por cierto, viendo despegues del F-35C desde portaaviones parece que lo hace normalmente sin postcombustión Por ejemplo:

[Pathfinder]

En las recientes Red Flag, el F-35 obtuvo un ratio de 28-1.

https://www.airforcemag.com/Retired-Gen ... egacy-Buy/
The writers noted that the F-35 is doing well in deployments and has racked up “a 28:1 kill ratio at recent Red Flag exercises in Nevada.” More than 380 F-35s are now flying with all three US services—the Navy recently having declared initial operational capability—and in 17 locations worldwide, the letter noted.

[Orel]

Gracias Pathfinder!

Por cierto, viendo despegues del F-35C desde portaaviones parece que lo hace normalmente sin postcombustión Por ejemplo:

No sé, pero hablando de eso, dos vídeos de distinto ángulo de un mismo vuelo de prueba. Se trataba de conocer cuál era la fuerza mínima que debía ejercer la catapulta para poder lanzar un F-35C... Y vaya si apuraron...
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3 ... apult-shot

Saludos

[alejandro_]

Por cierto, viendo despegues del F-35C desde portaaviones parece que lo hace normalmente sin postcombustión

Tampoco me sorprendería. Una de las ventajas del F-14D sobre los A/B es que gracias a los motores más potentes podía despegar sin postcombustión.

Saludos.

[champi]

Más contratos (26/5/2020). El primero me imagino que podría tener que ver con Turquía: https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contra ... e/2197963/

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Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is awarded a $15,989,488 cost-plus-fixed-fee order (N00019-20-F-0817) against a previously-issued basic ordering agreement N00019-19-G-0008. This order procures support to manage diminishing manufacturing sources in support of the F-35 program for the Air Force, Navy and non-Department of Defense (DOD) participants. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be complete by June 2020. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $6,545,775; fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $6,545,774; and non-DOD participant funds in the amount of $2,897,939 will be obligated at time of award, $6,545,775 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
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Relacionado con el Lote 14 (27/5/2020): https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contra ... e/2199430/

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NAVY

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is awarded a $393,846,014 modification (P00008) to previously awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00019-19-D-0015. This modification increases the ceiling to produce and deliver Ancillary Mission Equipment (AME)/Pilot Flight Equipment (PFE) and associated AME/PFE initial spares in support of F-35 Lot 14 aircraft deliveries for the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, non-Department of Defense participants and Foreign Military Sales customer's operational aircraft. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be complete by September 2023. No funds are obligated at time of award and funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
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[Kique]

[evol]

¡Curioso camuflaje!!....parece de los años 80/90....

[Orel]

Adquirir el F-35 es más barato pero operarlo es más caro de lo previsto. "Lo comido por lo servido":
https://www.infodefensa.com/mundo/2020/ ... uesta.html

[evol]

Como todos los productos de última generación.......algo que se critica una y otra vez pero que es un hecho para todos los ejércitos y todos los fabricantes.....no solo Airbus/EADS....