F-35 Lightning II: News thread

AlfaT8 wrote:The hell is going on over there?
I could understand the F-35s, but what's up with the F-22, that aircraft should be solid by now, or do they just age that badly?

What's next, a B-2?

Old birds need maintenance. Maintenance is not just some grease monkey futzing around. For high tech systems a good
understanding is needed of how the craft degrades. That is design level engineering.

ahmedfire wrote:This is about half billion loss in one week !

That's pathetic. 2 jets are worth an equiped hospital.

Planes crash... that is simply a fact of life.

Yes planes crash but this should tells us a fact that over expensive fancy weapons are not the best choice.Corruption should not design the planes . Actually the war time is very small in comparison to the peace time ,so the designed weapons would be more costly during peace and we shouldn't double and triple that cost by using fancy weapons .

F-35A Joint Strike Fighters Banned from Flying Near Lightning over Explosion Concerns

magnumcromagnon wrote:F-35A Joint Strike Fighters Banned from Flying Near Lightning over Explosion Concerns

F-35 Not lightning II

The Gift that keeps on giving.

AlfaT8 wrote:

Uaaagh that moron makes me sick, he goes on an on trying to convince people that pindostanski equipment is reliable. It is not as if the pindos made the seargant york or b58 among many other half arsed attempts at imotating nazi wunderwaffle at all is it.

Could we see Su-35 in Turkey ?

The US Air Force is Buying Turkish F-35 Fighters After Countries Removal from JSF Program

ahmedfire wrote:Could we see Su-35 in Turkey ?

The US Air Force is Buying Turkish F-35 Fighters After Countries Removal from JSF Program

The really bad thing for turkey about the f-35 is that they planned to build a helicopter carrier able to use the VTOL variant and they could have a mini-carrier in the Mediteranean. Like Japan plan to do.

Now they won't have it.

GarryB wrote:Sounds like a good escape for Turkey...

Weren't the UAE funding a 5th gen fighter with Russia... perhaps Turkey could join... maybe even India too...

Think the UK is working with Turkey on that project. It was the plan.

They'll have to do with helicopters I guess....not sure if they could use drones from it?

F-35 in "beast mode"

F-35A in "beast mode" with one AIM-9X missile launcher and six 500-lb (227 kg) laser-guided UAB GBU-12s - four under the wings and two in the armament bay (AFB Luke, Arizona) :copyright: Senior Airman Alexander Cook / USAF

In stealth mode, the F-35A can carry up to 2.6 tons of load at four points of suspension in the internal weapons compartment. But if the situation allows neglecting low visibility and flight range, with an external suspension the maximum load increases to 10 tons. This option is called "Beast Mode".

Within the framework of the so-called "allied F-35 basic course" at Luke airbase in Arizona, seven F-35A aircraft, flight and ground personnel of the Norwegian Air Force, together with their colleagues from other countries, began to practice flights in "beast mode" in order to be ready for a significant change in the characteristics of the machine that have become familiar, especially during takeoff and landing.

The Norwegian pilots have not yet erased from the memory not the most pleasant memories when they urgently had to retrain. First, before the Afghan epic in 2002, the Danes rented Sniper suspended containers for target designation of the UAB, then in 2011, before the NATO Unified Protector operation in Libya, they borrowed ALQ-131 electronic warfare containers from the Dutch, and the simultaneous transition to the use of the AIM-120 UR was not very comfortable to say the least. Just before the flight to Souda in Crete, the pilots experienced for the first time how the air behavior of the F-16 with "three-meter Amraam telephone poles on the wingtips," as one of the participating pilots later described it, changed for the first time.



https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4110787.html

These guys are something special... 2 t payload is "beast mode"?? Then what is this?



And that is 50% of the payload capability of that plane, with center pylons empty and no AAMs...

LMFS wrote:These guys are something special... 2 t payload is "beast mode"?? Then what is this?

And that is 50% of the payload capability of that plane, with center pylons empty and no AAMs...

No quite like for like is it? In the absence of a true equivalent it would have been more equal with an F-16 or Mig-35. Try comparing a F-15E with the Su-34.

JohninMK wrote:No quite like for like is it? In the absence of a true equivalent it would have been more equal with an F-16 or Mig-35. Try comparing a F-15E with the Su-34.

It is not about the plane itself, but about someone calling this "beast mode", it is ridiculous. Agree a fully loaded F-15E would be equally valid. But the F-35 and the Su-34 have, theoretically, the same max payload, so we are indeed allowed to compare them, by the very guys that published such optimistic F-35 specs

The figures for the range are certainly not for the beast mode. Probably for the plane with 2 air to air missiles and even then I doubt those numbers.

The manoeeuvrability is already bad, an f-35 in beast mode meeting a pantsir will bendead meat.

Isos wrote:The figures for the range are certainly not for the beast mode. Probably for the plane with 2 air to air missiles and even then I doubt those numbers.

The manoeeuvrability is already bad, an f-35 in beast mode meeting a pantsir will bendead meat.

It would need more runway to take off than a B-52... it is good that is has good carrying capabilities, but the airframe is what it is and one cannot expect it to carry 8 t of weapons like a Su-34 would do. At least it does not need to carry three bags for any normal mission. The range is good, it is so thick that they managed to put any amount of fuel inside. The engine is very efficient, subsonic L/D is not bad at all (low sweep wings, relatively low wing area help). But no sales pitch can turn it into an air superiority fighter or a high-end tactical bomber

LMFS wrote:
It is not about the plane itself, but about someone calling this "beast mode", it is ridiculous.

We agree on that. Its Lockheed Martin's PR department getting carried away with their own propaganda. Probably pretty embarrassing for Air Force professionals.

Looks like they still have the vulnerability to lightning problem with the F-35A. I am sure they didn't mean that when they named it Lightning 11

Amsterdam claims the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) was unable to participate in the US’ NATO-inclusive Operation Allied Sky because its US-made F-35 Lightning II aircraft had vulnerable fuel tanks due to pipe damage of unexplained origins, making them unsafe to fly in thunderstorms.

“Damaged pipes have been found on F-35A fighters. These are pipes from the On-Board Inert Gas Generation System (OBIGGS) in a fuel tank,” read a Friday release issued by the Dutch Ministry of Defense.

“All countries with F-35As were advised to avoid flights near storm cells and to protect the aircraft on the ground by a shelter or lightning rod. This is stated in the 21st annual progress report VF-35 published this week.”

-------------------------------------

“The OBIGGS ensures that the risk of explosion of fuel vapors in the event of, for example, a lightning strike is reduced to a minimum. The damaged pipes can make the fuel tanks less well protected,” the Dutch Ministry of Defense highlighted in its Friday release.

“After damaged pipes were found on 4 (non-Dutch) appliances, further inspections followed. More damaged pipes were found, including at Dutch F-35As. The cause of the problem is still under investigation.”

The Aviationist’ David Cenciotti reported that Dutch Ministry of Defense spokesperson Sidney Plankman spoke with Dutch outlet Algemeen Dagblad and confirmed that while the RNLAF intended to escort B-52s during Operation Allied Sky, “there was a great risk of lightnings that day. Therefore we have decided not to do it.”

According to the Cenciotti, issues with the OBIGGS were first identified in 2009 and have persisted for over a decade. While a grounded F-35 Lightning IIs can be protected by lightning rods, “it looks like there is no other way to safeguard the precious aircraft than keeping it away from thunderstorms when it is airborne,” he wrote.

https://sputniknews.com/military/202009231080553213-netherlands-claims-thunderstorms-blocked-f-35s-from-escorting-us-b-52s-during-august-operation/