2018 F-35 News and Discussion

And the UK PLC has just “IOCed” their “Dave B” AKA “JCA” AKA “F-35B “.

Congratulations

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-secretary-sets-sights-on-next-century-of-british-air-power

Defense-Aerospace is vying with “National Interest” as the most inaccurate, sensationalist, website covering defense topics.

I think there is a fundamental difference between the two. National Interest is just a sensational, tabloid like format and gives audience to all sort of crappy journalists, thinkers, and national security view points. Some of their stories smack of downright incompetence but they are often all over the place. Driving clicks seems to be their main strategy. They aren’t as ideological other than just driving traffic by using sensational headlines, stories and recycling past work. Defense-Aerospace is deeply ideological and recently that has very heavily focused on attacking US and to a lesser account programs and hardware that directly compete with French defense wares. Weird for an obscure small-scale French blog to focus so much on US DOD from everything to the level of use of FOUO to National Defense Strategy and Industrial Base studies. In that context, Defense-Aerospace stands in a league of its own.

got the link please? µI missed that tweet. Thks

Steve Trimble a respected defense journalist (now defense editor of AvWeek) correcting de Briganti’s misinformation on twitter, sad.

Defense-Aerospace is vying with “National Interest” as the most inaccurate, sensationalist, website covering defense topics. Then again, it’s been obvious for years that de Briganti’s modus operandi isn’t accuracy. It’s creative editorializing with an emphasis on promoting certain aerospace corporations.

That one surely must have shown up on some video. Any example?

– “A European military pilot said the nose jumped around while the aircraft was banking, which he took as a sign of faulty flight control software.”

This part is true, aswell as you’ll ee nose jumping up just before any turn. It is wrth noticing F-35 flew with a temporary FCS (not 3F) afaik.

As an example, the following was released the same day,..

Ozair, not only that but in this instance (I hadn’t come across this before) he completely disregards any other reason for X not happening. The Essex is deployed to a COCOM and is essentially performing the presence mission there and the pilots and sailors aboard it and other ships deployed there are training, supporting the presence mission and when and IF called upon can and DO go out and perform combat missions. The commanders on the ground have that option available in the region if they so choose but then what they end up choosing is both needs (demand) based, and supply (other options) based. Can a mission X over Afghanistan be performed by another asset more easily..Perhaps an A-10 if they are still around or a rotary craft aircraft etc etc etc. The F-35B’s in the region have supported that COCOM and have performed at least one known combat mission..and they have performed training in that vicinity and around the Horn of Africa iirc. They are rotating there..are prepared to, if called, carry out what is tasked to them. What else can they do?

the US Navy has gone strangely silent on the F-35 aircraft based aboard the amphibious ship USS Essex….

See what he’s trying to do there? He is trying to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of his readers by editorializing that since the USMC has been silent on what the F-35 is doing in the region (something which itself is false) there must be some underlying reason or news that they could potentially be trying to hide or at the very minimum implying that it is suspicious at the very least. He is not going there himself but the tone and the language used is enough..

No the US Navy had not gone “strangely” silent. In fact, a quick search reveals that there were a number of reports filed by USMC PR aboard the Essex in December both showcasing flight ops (training) and it doing forward deployed integration training with USS John S Stennis Carrier Strike Group in the Arabian Sea. Both the aircraft-carrier and the L-class ship are supporting the CENTCOM AOR and as such given this is the first deployment of the F-35B on USS-Essex in the region this is quite important from a training and integration perspective for both the current squadron deployed but also as something that will lay the groundwork for future deployments in CENTCOM and other COCOMs.

The ship left on her deployment around July and had been supporting the AOR since it arrived while also making sure the first-in-region deployment provided valuable training to the crew and the chance of the 5th fleet’s other assets to integrate and train with the aircraft. They performed flight ops, training, and presence and combat when needed. They spent 7-10 days in Doha on a scheduled port call (the largest US vessel to make a port call there). December was spent training and integrating with the CVN in the region and conducting flight ops and being ready to support the COCOM. Throughout this time they were at the call of the CENTCOM commander. Their job when forward deployed is to perform presence and be ready, trained and equipped to perform combat if called upon. The flight-ops are performed regularly to support that need. This is the same for all forward deployed ships…

It is going to be difficult to believe that Briganti was not aware of what the F-35B’s and USS Essex were doing last month or the month before that, as forward deployed to CENTCOM. In fact to feed his fondness of bashing all things American Mil he surely checks into all the Public Relation releases probably daily looking for stuff that he can distort and pass across. He probably just ignored that in the hope that readers would simply just buy the absurd notion that the F-35B and USS Essex have been just parked somewhere in port for the last four months doing nothing.

The DOD/USMC release a lot of public information especially when a new asset is deployed for the first time. From what they have released so far, the F-35Bs aboard the USS Essex are performing the presence mission supporting CENTCOM, have performed at least one combat mission, have been training with CENTCOM partners around the Horn of Africa, and have linked up with a CVN and its strike group for integration and additional training. This just from the material that they have released and from just one deployment of an amphibious vessel with 6 F-35B’s on board. They’ll wrap up the first deployment in the region in the next couple of weeks as was the plan all along and I bet we will see an article from him with an Editor’s Note stating that they have been recalled because of poor performance or something like that..

No one expects a day by day or a ball by ball coverage of what a unit or ship is doing to support a COCOM. Not for the Essex, not for any other ship or its deployed air-wing. Does CENTCOM disclose each and every mission it performs? NO. Does it disclose full details about each and every mission it does disclose? NO. Does it and other COCOM’s provide a day by day account of what flight operations activity has taken place on forward deployed ships? NO.
This is not going to change just because a clown on the fringe somewhere is going to demand a weekly update or else…:rolleyes:

defense aerospace is a site dedicated to bashing the F-35 (among probably others

Defense aerospace is a site which highly biased against F-35, while highly favor the Rafale, you can just took any article from there and compare them to article from more reputable source like Aviation week or Breaking defense.
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/feature/5/197892/claims-of-%E2%80%98game_changing%E2%80%99-f_35-data-fusion-debunked.html
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/feature/5/184921/f_35-paris-flight-demo%3A-much-ado-about-nothing.html

well, “poorly written” as he may have misheard 36 for 3 to 6, what did he hear to get 24 and then 20? 2 to 4 and 2 to 0? You speak about “biases”, but don’t question your own bias, obviously.

Time to use some common sense TooCool. Do you honestly think the US, which has literally thousands of fighter aircraft that can have their engines changed in less than 6 hours, would accept a fighter jet that required 36 hours to change the engine?

or do you imply that defense aerospace is a site dedicated to bashing the F-35 (among probably others?

Take any article from Defence Aerospace on the F-35 and you can see the inaccuracies and false statements. Don’t worry though, he is similar although less aggressive with the Eurofighter. Anything that is a threat to the Rafale gets the treatment.

As an example, the following was released the same day,

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/198815/f_35s-now-flying-in-arabian-gulf.html

ARABIAN GULF — A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), takes off from the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2), on Jan. 3, 2019.

The Essex is the flagship for the Essex Amphibious Ready Group and, with the embarked 13th MEU, is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of naval operations to ensure maritime stability and security in the Central Region, connecting the Mediterranean and the Pacific through the western Indian Ocean and three strategic choke points.

[I](EDITOR’S NOTE: Since the first announcement of the F-35’s first combat mission in Afghanistan on Sept. 28, the US Navy has gone strangely silent on the F-35 aircraft based aboard the amphibious ship USS Essex.
From time to time, news items are posted indirectly providing some information. In the item above, for example, reveals that the ship is now operating in the Arabian (Persian) Gulf, whereas it was previously steaming in the Arabian Sea.
No further news on what its F-35Bs are doing, however, but there have been no reports of any combat missions since Sept. 28 – over three months ago.)

[/I]

The top is the USMC press release, the lower is Briganti’s words. He clearly suggests that because no additional news on F-35 strikes on Afghanistan have been released that something must be wrong. Is that an accurate suggestion, is it even warranted?

In case you wanted to know, the US does not release every single combat mission flown over Afghanistan.

That’s correct. The details are classified, but the public record shows that both our U.S. Marine Corps flying the F-35B and our Israeli Air Force teammates flying the F-35A have reported using their F-35s in combat with positive results.

http://www.jsf.mil/news/docs/20181228_Washington_Examiner_QnA_with_PEO.pdf

The absence of more F-35 combat missions being publicly announced (as indicated above because they are classified…), after the first was done, is certainly not evidence of no further missions being conducted and Briganti’s suggestion is simply bad and sensationalist journalism and no better than National Interest or War is Boring.

There is nothing to be biased on here. Read the entire article, it makes it quite clear as to what the crux of the article is i.e. they finished the inspection and fuel tube swap in 24 hours by not sticking with the guidelines but by finding a new way to do this without removing the engine. I don’t think it could be any clearer than that. As the article claims, had they followed the guidelines they would have had to remove the engine, perform the inspection do the swaps and get it back into the jet. That process as per the article would have taken a third longer.

Again, read the entire article again and it will be quite obvious as to what the article is getting at. They are not stating that they managed to do something in 20-24 hours when it would have taken them a week to do it as per guidelines. And no you couldn’t have done it in 2 to 4 hours either because this wasn’t just a simple engine removal but a more delicate set of inspections and fault isolation that was followed by part replacement. Given it was a fleet wide directive they had to ensure that they remedied the problem, if one existed, for safety reasons and so the process takes time. Many jets were turned around over the weekend and basically had zero or negligible cancellations in terms of scheduled flights. This was widely reported by the media at the time.

You have an actual F-35B pilot telling you that the propulsion system on the B can be removed in 6-8 hours, and the B has the most complicated system of the three jets. He should know. But we are to believe that the simplest jet takes 6 times longer. All I can do is ask reasonably minded people to read the damn article and draw their own conclusions. A couple of senior journalists tried to tell him the same thing (as to what the article was implying) but I guess all of them must be biased and Briganti who clearly is a disinterested and unbiased party has to be right. :rolleyes:

Again, reasonable folks can read the entire article which clearly states what the 36 hours and 24 hours imply. It could have been written better but even so, most people with reasonable comprehension can get to the bottom of the article and get what the author is trying to communicate. It isn’t very hard.

When the OTI was first accomplished, the fuel line swap took about 24 hours, 12 hours less than removing the entire engine and performing the maintenance on a stand.

https://www.aetc.af.mil/News/Article…-tight-spaces/

So –

A) > OTI Accomplished in 24 hours by following a modified process and not sticking to guidelines

B) > Following the guidelines would have entailed engine removal –> Inspections –> part swap –> engine installation

Process B would have taken 12 hours longer (the underlined portion in the quote from the article (and not my personal bias) states that). Process A took 24 hours therefore we can infer that Process B would have taken 24+12 = 36 hours.

well, “poorly written” as he may have misheard 36 for 3 to 6, what did he hear to get 24 and then 20? 2 to 4 and 2 to 0? You speak about “biases”, but don’t question your own bias, obviously.

I came across that article and that sounded crazy, but explanations that the author didn’t know what happened sound a little funny to me.. or do you imply that defense aerospace is a site dedicated to bashing the F-35 (among probably others?

Halloweene, please stop playing around words or defending the clown. Briganti is misrepresenting facts and anyone with some fairly basic reading comprehension skills can determine what the article is talking about and NO it is about it taking 36 hours to remove an F-35 engine.

Secondly, read my comment that you just quoted. If you do, you would realize that I am talking about engine removal i.e. it usually takes an hour to a few hours to remove an engine on most US fighters. On the Hornet it apparently takes less than half that time.

Briganti is doing nothing of what you say he is doing – he on his twitter rant was totally twisting words and misrepresenting what the article and its author is getting at in that they were able to turn around in 20-24 hours vs 36 hours had hey followed the guidelines which involved removing, working on and reinstalling the engine. The article was trying to showcase how a group of mainteners did things differently and BETTER and as a result were able to shave as much as 45% of the time from the process.

The first LHD engine swap was done NOT with the intention to set or establish the TAT for the process but to showcase this as a proof of concept, document for process validation, establish protocol for future training and use the opportunity to also train maintainers on the process. This is documented.

Here’s something from someone who knows the F-35 better than De-Briganti ever will as he actually flies/flew the aircraft (keep in mind that the F-35B is the most complicated propulsion system of the three variants).

ngine removal on most US fighters takes an hour to a few hours and the F-35 is unlikely to be any different.

Seriously? Fastest afaik is F414 from F-18. Few hours. + testing after reinstallation.Brignati is comparing with Rafale (less than an hour, no further test needed). I thought it had taken 60 hours to swap en engine on LHD?

De Briganti being a silly bunny again?
Quelle surprise…

I don’t think it is very hard to read the article and comprehend what the author is actually trying to communicate in that they were able to develop and apply a different process and were able to complete the inspections/swaps in about 24 hours, 12-16 hours short of what it would have taken had they stuck to the guidelines which called for engine removal before the same work could be performed.. Other senior reporters even pointed this out to him. But then anyone who follows Briganti knows that he spends a ton of time trying to malign US and US defense equipment while batting for a certain country and its defense wares. The bias is quite overt and anyone who closely follows any fighter program that is not named the “Rafale” can attest to it. The cabal and the echo chamber then ensures that his own twisted conclusions, editorial notes do the rounds on the blogosphere before they just die because most of them lack any teeth or are a blatant misrepresentation of facts.

The job of the crew highlighted in the story was to inspect and make necessary swaps of fuel lines following a fleet wide order to do so. The article highlighted that as per the established guidelines the process would have taken 36 hours and would have involved engine removal and reinstall. They were not swapping 350 engines but only inspecting them and swapping fuel lines so the process as per the guidelines would have involved engine removal, engine inspection, engine work to rectify fuel lines, validation of work, and engine reinstall. The process “innovation” highlighted was to showcase the teams approach to do things differently and by doing so shaving a third of the time it would have taken.

Leave it to the clown to completely misrepresent this and somehow imply that it takes 36 hours just to remove an engine. :stupid:

Wrong thread (This is the 2018 one. I know, it’s from 2018 but for sanity’s sake I’ll post news in the 2019 thread).. and he was wrong.

In the same article it says that the new (no removal OTI [One Time Inspection] process) process involves removal, fix, and replacement.

When the OTI was first accomplished, the fuel line swap took about 24 hours, 12 hours less than removing the entire engine and performing the maintenance on a stand.

Another source also states:

Dellavedova said that they will remove and replace any fuel tubes they suspect might be problematic. Those planes that don’t have the problem will be cleared to fly, he said, and they hope to have the inspections completed within 24 to 48 hours.

Note that ALL the planes that he is talking about will be done within 24-48 hours. This cannot be done if it take 72+ hours (36 to remove + fix + 36 to reinstall) to do one jet.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news…8aiTtU4mIbi9ho

btw, This is why a lot people think DA is an idiot.

The exact quote is: “….required that the entire engine be removed, which would require at least 36 hours per jet.” Can’t imagine this could be taken to mean removing engine, doing maintenance & re-installing engine.

https://twitter.com/JoedeBrig/status/1081138434872348672

Really.. He could not “imagine” that 36 hours could be anything but JUST the removal of the engine…. :stupid:

This was in reference to an OTI directive and the article in later paragraph states :

When the OTI was first accomplished, the fuel line swap took about 24 hours, 12 hours less than removing the entire engine and performing the maintenance on a stand.

What the author is implying is that they were able to perform a fuel line inspection and swap and turn around the aircraft in about 24 hours (later in 20 hours), and had they needed to remove the engine, put it on a stand and perform the same maintenance work it would have taken about 36 hours i.e to remove the engine, perform the necessary fuel line swap and perhaps even reinstall the engine back into the aircraft or perform the requisite tests that are needed before an engine can be reinstalled.

It is most likely a poorly written news release that is confusing and not very clear (though moderate level of reading comprehension skills should suffice to connect the dots but those may not be sufficient to overcome personal biases) . The author was trying to communicate that had they followed the established guidelines they would have had to remove the engine and then address the fuel line replacement which would have been a 36 hour process. Instead, the article claims they were able to follow a different process and were able to shave about 12 hours form what they would have spent on this task i.e. accomplish the same task in 24 hours.

Engine removal on most US fighters takes an hour to a few hours and the F-35 is unlikely to be any different. But you remove for a reason i.e. either to replace/swap or to fix or replace a particular module, validate the fix and then re-install. It also depends upon who and where you perform this task. Are you at a dedicated F-35 facility or attached to a squadron and are handling this as part of a routine process, or are you out at sea and trying to perform the first proof of concept engine swap while meticulously documenting the process, (and training crew) as this will likely be used for whole host of validation, testing and training materials down the line?

er, something crazy written here, 36 hours to remove an engine???

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/198821/revealed%3A-f_35a-engine-removal-requires-36-hours.html

IAI to deliver 700 outer wing sets

The wing sets will be manufactured using state-of-the-art technology that includes a composite layer of materials called Automatic Fiber Placement, or AFP. The three-millimeter thick threads eventually become one unit that will allow the wings to dodge radar detection.

[…]
Israel Aerospace Industries announced Thursday that F-35 stealth fighter components for the outer wings to make them invisible to radar have entered production.

The company said it will start delivering the outer wing sets early next year — the first phase of about 700 kits — with the possibility of future orders, the Jerusalem Post reported. The production line is expected to make 811 pairs for the fighters by 2034.

Are those panels for the C version?

Source:
UPI.com

They will still be buying F-35C’s (or a future model) to replace Super Hornets in the 2030’s. So, don’t expect to see a replacement until ~ 2040. Which, in turn will start to replace early F-35C’s. (mostly likely case)