Of course, saving weight in the radar raises another issue…

More on F-35s to Farnborough, including an unusual target set. Reuters via Chicago Trib.

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Obligatory – Invoice for keyboard and screen wipes on its way.

Oblig gets it.

Loke, you are dead right.

The E makes a lot of sense for countries that does not need or cannot afford the extra bells&whistles offered by the F-35.

Which, unless the program pulls some kind of operating cost miracle out of its ear, is pretty much all of them.

This discussion has been documented to death, but to keep it short:

Navy civil engineers have concluded that the F-35B is likely to “spall” standard concrete (that is, break off the surface layer) in a single operation.

They have specified continuously, bidirectionally reinforced pads of heat-resistant concrete for all JSF VL operations.

Such pads have been constructed or contracted for at Yuma and Beaufort.

VLs at Pax use AM-2 over concrete.

There’s been discussion of “creeping VLs” to reduce peak thermal and mechanical loads, but no such operations have been seen on released video.

A failed attempt at sarcasm, I fear.

Mind you, imagery of an F-35B (after six years of flight testing) doing a VL on anything other than a steel deck, AM-2-shielded asphalt concrete, or a reinforced, high-temperature concrete landing pad would be more convincing.

Indeed Mr H. Gonna be a while before we see that puppy at Farnborough, methinks, despite the billions of HMG money riding on it.

It’s the tomtens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomte

They leave the parts in the hangar at night and there is a fully completed airplane ready in the morning.

The French tried it but the gnomes broke into the absinthe and it all went horribly wrong.

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As Loke says, the Swedes use a unique blend – buy, team or design – for components and technologies, and it varies from model to model (Volvo didn’t like being shut out of the 39E engine, Saab may do the radar for the C/D+) but with some consistent features (EW has always been developed locally and is related to a strong national SIGINT capability). The core skill is putting everything together from these diverse sources.

However, the big thing is that everyone knows that if you can’t come up with a fixed-price solution that costs less than an import, Sweden will exit the business.