Forum: General F-35 Forum

And rooting around over there came across this --

http://www.sldinfo.com/f-35-consortium/

F-16.net Sponsor

And at the bottom of the article at this link, a video from a June session on F-35 at Heritage that I had not seen before. Hour long, a range of things covered, including interesting discussion of concurrency costs -- projections vs actuals.

http://www.sldinfo.com/a-marine-corps-p ... n-with-it/

The F-35 did quite well in FUSL testing.

Quote:

Conclusions

The FUSL testing conducted on AA-1 was very successful meeting all defined test objectives and success criteria. Addressing synergistic effects, the electrical power and flight control systems successfully isolated failures and protected the redundancies built into these systems, allowing continued safe flight. The VSN architecture is robust, providing multiple paths to transfer data. Testing highlighted that fire is a significant threat to flight critical systems.

The test team was able to verify that the actual ballistic damage response correlated very well to previous pilot in the loop simulator testing. Over the course of the test program, the LFT team witnessed firsthand the robustness of the F35 flight critical systems, no cheap system kills.

Page 13 of:
http://www.bahdayton.com/surviac/asnews ... V9_web.pdf

btw, What other fighter aircraft has fire extinguishers throughout the airframe?

As to being overweight, did you miss the recent news that the F-35B has more than doubled its available weight margin? In other words, not only is it not overweight, but its weight margin is growing.

warwolf1 wrote:

the f35 program has big problems.its overweight.if there is a fire it has no fire extinguisher on board meaning the pilot and plane is lost.life must seem cheap to LM.plus it has some design flaws from what i can tell.

This statement is ambiguous at best. There were only two major "flaws" really, and they've been fixed. One is the lightweight bulkhead cracking, and the second is the tail-hook. The rest are relatively minor issues. And except for a one-off Integrated Power Package malfunction, there has not been anything resembling a fire in the F-35. The F35 has fire suppression, just like every other 4+ Gen jet fighter in the inventory.

If the pilot has an in-flight fire, its a major emergency. Cutting off fuel supply or hydraulics system may help, but there is a very real possibility the pilot will have to eject anyway. There have been instances of fires in other jets, where the pilot has ejected out on the runway due to a flareup or running off the end of the due to related malfunction (no brakes!).

The F-35 has the finest Martin-Baker Mk16 ejection available, and in the F-35B the seat will auto-eject during STOVL flight if a major malfunction occurs. I don't see any show-stopper problems with the F-35 going into service.

warwolf1 wrote:

the f35 program has big problems.its overweight.if there is a fire it has no fire extinguisher on board meaning the pilot and plane is lost.life must seem cheap to LM.plus it has some design flaws from what i can tell.

@warwolf...... For Pete sakes stop trolling already! You need to go back and look at the F-14, the F-16 and the Harrier flight test programs if you want to see problems. Relatively speaking the F-35 flight test program has been amazingly smooth considering they are testing three seperate aircraft and one of those aircraft being a STOVL.

Quote:

"...no fire extinguisher on board meaning the pilot and plane is lost.life must seem cheap to LM"

Really? Are you on Sprey's mailing list or something? I can just see the LM board meeting: "How many pilots have died in our jet this week? 20? 30? Meh...whatever.."

Oh yeah...that'll really endear 'em to USAF. Doh

It even looks like a warwolf.

fisk

SpudmanWP wrote:

btw, What other fighter aircraft has fire extinguishers throughout the airframe?

Good question Spudman, what other aircraft DOES have fire extinguishers distributed throughout the airframe? They aren't there purely for asthetics so why does the F35 NEED fire extinguishers distributed throughout the airframe? That's a fair amount of weight and expense added...for why again? Surely not another example of gold plating a solution is it?

SpudmanWP wrote:

As to being overweight, did you miss the recent news that the F-35B has more than doubled its available weight margin? In other words, not only is it not overweight, but its weight margin is growing.

The loss of 150 odd pounds is an impressive short term result, however we all know that all three variants have lost weight before only to put it back on later. The real question is whether the weight is still trending over the NTE line or not and whether this improvement represents real improvement or just the removal of equipment that has been deemed "unnecessary" say like half of the installed fire-extinguishers.

I think the gains come from two sources, in no particular order:

1. Newer technology allows for lighter parts to be made. LRIP4 will see the introduction of carbon nanotube reinforced polymer (CNRP).

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... es-357223/

Quote:

A thermoset epoxy reinforced by carbon nanotubes will replace carbon fibre as the material used to produce F-35 wingtip fairings beginning with low rate initial production (LRIP)-4 aircraft, said Travis Earles, a manager for corporate nanotechnology initiatives.

...

Meanwhile, the same carbon nanotube reinforced polymer (CNRP) material is being considered to replace about 100 components made with other composites or metals throughout the F-35's airframe, he said.

...

It is widely considered one of the strongest materials ever invented - several times stronger than carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP), yet lighter by about 25-30%.

...

Lockheed, however, has invented a process that dramatically reduces the cost to build carbon nanotube composites for aircraft structures, Earles said. The new wingtip fairing is being made for one-tenth of the cost of the equivalent CFRP component, he said.

Here is a comparison of airframe materials:

2. The projected yearly weight gain is not happening to the level projected thereby leaving a greater margin behind.

jeffb wrote:

SpudmanWP wrote:

btw, What other fighter aircraft has fire extinguishers throughout the airframe?

Good question Spudman, what other aircraft DOES have fire extinguishers distributed throughout the airframe? They aren't there purely for asthetics so why doeas the F35 NEED fire extinguishers distributed throughout the airframe? That's a fair amount of weight and expense added...for why again? Surely not another example of gold plating a solution is it?

SpudmanWP wrote:

As to being overweight, did you miss the recent news that the F-35B has more than doubled its available weight margin? In other words, not only is it not overweight, but its weight margin is growing.

The loss of 150 odd pounds is an impressive short term result, however we all know that all three variants have lost weight before only to put it back on later. The real question is whether the weight is still trending over the NTE line or not and whether this improvement represents real improvement or just the removal of equipment that has been deemed "unnecessary" say like half of the installed fire-extinguishers.

fire suppresion systems are common hardware on ANY AIRCRAFT built regardless of type built in the US. your ignorance for such matters shows quite well. anyone who has worked fighters would know the weight penalty is negligent in terms of what it offers of safety to the pilot and acft.

and try more like 300 lbs of weight lost mate.

It was 160+ lbs lost (140 existing plus 160+ gives the new margin of 300+).

fiskerwad wrote:

It even looks like a warwolf

They guy's just a little kid. Smile

His analysis of the F-22 is based on how it "melts faces in Ace Combat ... lulz"

Spud,

Wow, impressive critique!! Thanks for clarifying another innate discussion. " well, I lost 160 lbs at first, but the other 140 lbs was just something I did for kicks and entirely different to the discussion at hand." hypothetical of course.....

Dude, chill a bit. The initial 140 was the incredibly thin margin that it had at the beginning of the year. Up to that point the margins had been getting smaller and smaller.

To lose the 140 would be to assume that the margin was zero, which it was not. The key thing to remember is that not only did they stop the ever shrinking margin, but they were able to reverse the trend and increase it by 160+ lbs.

This is a good thing and in no way should reflect badly on the program.

Last edited by cywolf32 on Aug 27, 2012 - 08:01 AM; edited 1 time in total

Sorry Spud,

I read it back and now feel ignorant. It's just the nitpicking discussions drive me silly sometimes regarding this program. The Internet allows great debate, but ludicrous discussion as well. My bad.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

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