2019 F-35 News and Discussion

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12 years 3 months

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Don't throw me tomatoes. Post above is non-editable :)

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12 years 1 month

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For rotten tomatoes, we 're waiting for the fun part, ALIS to be rearchitectured ;)

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12 years 1 month

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So let's sum up. Germany is out, and Uk dubious didt hey get the notice about low life expectancy?

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6 years 1 month

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Just for my understanding, would this reduced life expectancy write off those airframes or can they be overhauled? Will they have a big impact in the current planed concurrency costs or will they be reported otherwise?

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15 years 2 months

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They are already scheduled to be overhauled as part of the "Concurrency" process that has been in the budget since the beginning.

After we published this story, Lockheed Martin, who manufactures the F-35Joint Strike Fighters, sent us with the following statement regarding the F-35B's life expectancy:
[INDENT]The F-35s operating today are delivering exceptional capability, lethality and connectivity around the globe. While we await the full details of the ongoing Operational Test phase, we are actively enhancing all aspects of the F-35 to ensure it exceeds warfighter demands and outpaces evolving threats. Items identified in the Annual DOT&E report are well understood and have been resolved in partnership with the F-35 Joint Program Office or have an agreed path forward to resolution.

F-35B Service Life: The F-35B has completed full scale durability testing to 16,000 hours. Planned modifications and fleet management of the early contract F-35B aircraft will ensure that they meet the 8,000 hour service life requirement, and aircraft delivering today incorporate these design changes in the build process to ensure they'll meet 8,000 hours or more.[/INDENT]


http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...d-service-life

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12 years 3 months

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So let's sum up. Germany is out, and Uk dubious didt hey get the notice about low life expectancy

could be worse, the aircraft could have been in production for 18 years and only produced ~170 aircraft and a handful of exports. That would constitute an embarrassing failure for a signature national aerospace defense project. Meanwhile the fools at L-M will produce 130 aircraft in 2019 for an expanding portfolio of international rubes. Go figure.

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6 years 1 month

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Thanks SpudmanWP, I thought this was something new and not a know issue...

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10 years 5 months

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can someone give me the pdf of DOT&E report, i can't download it

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12 years 1 month

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could be worse, the aircraft could have been in production for 18 years and only produced ~170 aircraft and a handful of exports. That would constitute an embarrassing failure for a signature national aerospace defense project. Meanwhile the fools at L-M will produce 130 aircraft in 2019 for an expanding portfolio of international rubes. Go figure.

Because the quality of a plane is measured using its sell numbers? (btw, the 170number is pure fantasy, nvm)

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15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

Because the quality of a plane is measured using its sell numbers? (btw, the 170number is pure fantasy, nvm)

In a way, yes. If all of the bad press were true then customers would not be buying it.

Since they are buying it, then that says volumes about it's quality.

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12 years 7 months

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The point is until this point there was no explicit mention of France defending Germany. France is only country that Germany willing to put money for various aviation projects. now why Germany not develop products with Sweden, UK, Turkey, Poland or even Korea/Japan on same scale?. this big win for France. it will give them much higher production down the road. Paris as financial center and controlling labor and trade flow over 500 million people. All this happened due to bringing independent industrial skills to the table.

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12 years 1 month

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In a way, yes. If all of the bad press were true then customers would not be buying it.

Since they are buying it, then that says volumes about it's quality.

Many ford pinto were sold. That says a lot about it's quality.

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6 years 2 months

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Because the quality of a plane is measured using its sell numbers? (btw, the 170number is pure fantasy, nvm)


How else should it be measured? Number of fan blogs?

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12 years 1 month

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Quality of a plane is measured by its efficiency in a system to perform designed set missions at a certain cost. (i am including in cost relaiabilitiy, number of sorties etc.). That's why it depends on surrrounding systems, adversaries etc. Saying "this plane has no chance against that one" or "this plane is better because it is sold" is pretty oversimple. There are o course local tactical issues AND a fighter market is always a political one. MAny F-104G were sold. Success?

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9 years 9 months

Posts: 1,765

In a way, yes. If all of the bad press were true then customers would not be buying it.

Since they are buying it, then that says volumes about it's quality.

To be fully onest the absolutely majority of them are not customers but development patners

@hallowene

Quality of a plane is measured by its efficiency in a system to perform designed set missions at a certain cost. (i am including in cost relaiabilitiy, number of sorties etc.). That's why it depends on surrrounding systems, adversaries etc. Saying "this plane has no chance against that one" or "this plane is better because it is sold" is pretty oversimple. There are o course local tactical issues AND a fighter market is always a political one. MAny F-104G were sold. Success?
.

According to the parameters put on by yourself, in mine own country air force they surely were and F-104S even more, while G-91Y and above all Tornado were not.

Hourly cost (in italian lira)

  • G-91Y: 6.135.000
  • F-104: 5.900.000 (media)
  • MB-339A: 2.800.000
  • G-91T: 2.650.000
  • Tornado 34.300.000

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12 years 3 months

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To be fully onest the absolutely majority of them are not customers but development patners

In other words, they benefit more than an FMS customer. And that is somehow negative?

Anyway, Japan, Korea, Israel, Belgium, Singapore (soon) as “customers”, pretty robust sales for an aircraft declared failed and dead many time over in the media and on defense forums such as this.

The perception vs reality dissonance is most clearly demonstrated by your own nation. The Five Star Movement was openly hostile to the F-35, announcing publicly that if elected, they would end Italian participation in the program. Now as they part of the coalition government, we seeing a very public 180 coming out about the F-35. Perhaps hearing briefings from the military and seeing the industrial participation changed some minds?

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9 years 9 months

Posts: 1,765

In other words, they benefit more than an FMS customer. And that is somehow negative?

Anyway, Japan, Korea, Israel, Belgium, Singapore (soon) as “customers”, pretty robust sales for an aircraft declared failed and dead many time over in the media and on defense forums such as this.

The perception vs reality dissonance is most clearly demonstrated by your own nation. The Five Star Movement was openly hostile to the F-35, announcing publicly that if elected, they would end Italian participation in the program. Now as they part of the coalition government, we seeing a very public 180 coming out about the F-35. Perhaps hearing briefings from the military and seeing the industrial participation changed some minds?

Not at all and in what i have written you wouldn't find anything like this, It's just you that are in an hyper-defensive mode and see in any consideration made about F-35 a personal attack.
What should then be Halloweene reaction about my way more witty remark about F-104 in comparison?

Relax, the airplane has reached IOC, it's in production and it would have all possibilities to be evaluated for what it is.

About the 5star, well, I've not voted for it and neither for Lega but I look at them both with a small amount of hope and optimism, better them with all their limits that the ones we had before (independently by the political collocation of them).
However, it's like having to choose between Trump and Clinton: you take the one you evaluate would made the least damages.
AFAIK they have however just confirmed the existing orders and said they would NOT made any more of them during the actual mandate, not exactly a 180° turn in my book .

Member for

12 years 3 months

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Not sure how what I wrote could be construed as “hyper-defensive”. Just stating facts. I certainly don’t take any of this personally. Perhaps your projecting, or the language barrier leads to misunderstanding my direct communication style.

Anyway, the remarks from Angelo Tofalo do constitute a 180 from the Five Star movement’s election promise. The program of record has not changed, only a hint of delivery slowdown possible.