Things are really starting to come together with the JSF program. Pratt and Whitney has proactively addressed any FOD damage due to problems with fan blade tips.
Pratt: F135 Fan Fix Simple, Cheap Posted by Graham Warwick at 9/18/2009
Pratt & Whitney says it’s standard industry practice – clip the tip of a blade to remove the piece that’s susceptible to damage. And that’s what the manufacturer plans to do with the fan blades on its F135 engine for the F-35, after a piece of the tip of a first-stage fan blade broke off during durability testing.
Pratt says the “potential cause” of the piece breaking off was an aerodynamic disturbance caused by a worn bushing ahead of the fan. The bushing is a cylindrical metal part used to seat, or locate, a component in the fan inlet case. Tear-down of the engine revealed all the bushings were severely degraded and some were missing.
That’s not as bad as it might sound, because the blade damage occurred 2,455 cycles into a 2,600-cycle durability test of the initial service release (ISR) engine for production F-35As. That’s the equivalent of eight years of in-service operation, Pratt says. When the tip broke off, the engine was 5 hours into a supersonic high-cycle fatigue test designed to deliberately excite blade vibration.
There is also a really good article here:http://www.f-16.net/news_article3837.html
According to the article the focus for the remainder of the year is to get all SDD planes delivered on time. Next year and 2011 will see flight testing really get going.
I also find the discussion on why LM chose not to use a swash plate interesting. IRST will be available in Blk 3 versions and six AAMs being carried internally is being actively studied.
An excellent and informative article over all.
Sign In
September 20, 2009 at 3:12 am