Caution light causes F-35A to make unscheduled landing

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 12 Mar 2013, 00:29

Caution Light Causes New Fighter Jet to Make Unscheduled Landing in Lubbock
By: Nick Ochsner 11 Mar 2013

"The plane, part of the Air Force's new fleet of fighter jets that have been plagued by problems, was en route to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada from a Lockheed Martin factory near Dallas when it made the unscheduled stop.

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin tells us that during a routine delivery flight today an F-35A Lightning II conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft landed at the Lubbock International Airport after experiencing an in-flight caution warning. They say the pilot, following standard operating procedures, landed the aircraft without incident. The pilot is safe and the aircraft is secure at this time. The aircraft took off from the Lockheed Martin F-35 production facility in Fort Worth at approximately 12:42pm for a flight to Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. After the caution warning occurred, the jet landed at Lubbock IA at 1:40 p.m. They tells us a maintenance team from Lockheed Martin is being dispatched to the Lubbock IA to determine the cause of the incident and repair the jet for flight...."

Source: http://everythinglubbock.com/fulltext?nxd_id=163422

That is it.

exfltsafety · by **exfltsafety** » 12 Mar 2013, 01:55

Hmm - caution light, caution warning, warning indicator? Caution lights don't generally result in landing at civilian fields. Must have been a land as soon as possible event (i.e. warning indication) since Cannon AFB is a short distance northwest of Lubbock.

lookieloo · by **lookieloo** » 12 Mar 2013, 02:29

exfltsafety wrote:Hmm - caution light, caution warning, warning indicator? Caution lights don't generally result in landing at civilian fields.

Where does the pilot's girlfriend live?

smsgtmac · by **smsgtmac** » 12 Mar 2013, 02:33

Geez. There's more than 50 aircraft out there delivered, and more flying every week. I wonder how long it will be that EVERY flight anomaly will make the doomsday news? I was at Luke AFB in 1973-4 when one of the early F-14s landed after an IFE. Seems like it sat there a week. No news coverage at all.
Of course, most programs in history have pronged a plane or two by the time 50 were flying, so here's to many more 'non-events'!

XanderCrews · by **XanderCrews** » 12 Mar 2013, 03:25

smsgtmac wrote:Geez. There's more than 50 aircraft out there delivered, and more flying every week. I wonder how long it will be that EVERY flight anomaly will make the doomsday news? I was at Luke AFB in 1973-4 when one of the early F-14s landed after an IFE. Seems like it sat there a week. No news coverage at all.
Of course, most programs in history have pronged a plane or two by the time 50 were flying, so here's to many more 'non-events'!

The Tomcat also lost 11 of its first 12 prototypes. Times have changed indeed!!

johnwill · by **johnwill** » 12 Mar 2013, 04:27

XanderCrews wrote:
smsgtmac wrote:Geez. There's more than 50 aircraft out there delivered, and more flying every week. I wonder how long it will be that EVERY flight anomaly will make the doomsday news? I was at Luke AFB in 1973-4 when one of the early F-14s landed after an IFE. Seems like it sat there a week. No news coverage at all.
Of course, most programs in history have pronged a plane or two by the time 50 were flying, so here's to many more 'non-events'!

The Tomcat also lost 11 of its first 12 prototypes. Times have changed indeed!!

Including the first F-14 on its second flight.

KamenRiderBlade · by **KamenRiderBlade** » 12 Mar 2013, 04:31

How the heck did the F-14 ever get greenlit?

Conan · by **Conan** » 12 Mar 2013, 04:41

kamenriderblade wrote:How the heck did the F-14 ever get greenlit?

Because the internet wasn't widely used back then. Nowadays every minor issue gets massively blown out of proportion like the 1-4 pilots (or somewhere in between) who "don't like the rear visibility" non-issue.

KamenRiderBlade · by **KamenRiderBlade** » 12 Mar 2013, 04:45

See, 1-4 pilots that are new to the F-35 platform spouting negative comments doesn't faze me compared to all the experience test pilots who have plenty of glowing reviews.

11/12 prototype planes lost makes my WTF meter light up.

Usually you don't lose that many or that high of a percentage of prototype planes before it ever goes into production

lookieloo · by **lookieloo** » 12 Mar 2013, 05:36

Sweetman often likes to fawn over how great the F-117 (Senior Trend) program went in comparison to the F-35. Riiiiight... Had it not been a black program, I'm sure pundits like him would have been singing it's praises after both demonstrators for the unproven technology crashed.

fang · by **fang** » 12 Mar 2013, 07:48

AF-23 and AF-24 scheduled to Nellis AFB.
So, I guess it's one of these two birds...

neurotech · by **neurotech** » 12 Mar 2013, 08:12

XanderCrews wrote:
smsgtmac wrote:Geez. There's more than 50 aircraft out there delivered, and more flying every week. I wonder how long it will be that EVERY flight anomaly will make the doomsday news? I was at Luke AFB in 1973-4 when one of the early F-14s landed after an IFE. Seems like it sat there a week. No news coverage at all.
Of course, most programs in history have pronged a plane or two by the time 50 were flying, so here's to many more 'non-events'!

The Tomcat also lost 11 of its first 12 prototypes. Times have changed indeed!!

You sure it was that many?

The F-14 001 (BuNo 157980) crashed on its second flight.
http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-serial-01.htm

I think its amazing the F-35 program hasn't lost a jet yet. The YF-22 had only one major mishap during initial development. The F/A-18E/F test program didn't have any losses before operational service.

neurotech · by **neurotech** » 12 Mar 2013, 08:43

exfltsafety wrote:Hmm - caution light, caution warning, warning indicator? Caution lights don't generally result in landing at civilian fields. Must have been a land as soon as possible event (i.e. warning indication) since Cannon AFB is a short distance northwest of Lubbock.

The F-35 hasn't had that many real emergencies, and I suspect that an electrical issue would be an "oh sh**, land the jet Now!" but not require the same type of handling as as a fire or fuel leak.

I remember landing at LAX in a F/A-18F (rear seat) with another jet on our wing, the National Guard showed up pretty quick to secure the jets. Both jets were low fuel.

The F-22 that went down at Tyndall AFB went down quite close to the base, after an earlier (15-20 minutes before crash) in-flight emergency. Its possible that the F-35 pilot didn't want to risk pushing to Cannon and potentially loose the jet.

popcorn · by **popcorn** » 12 Mar 2013, 09:19

Nòw you guys have just jinxed it.

exfltsafety · by **exfltsafety** » 12 Mar 2013, 15:07

Fixed and on its way same day per http://news.softpedia.com/news/F-35-Forced-to-Land-in-Lubbock-Texas-After-Internal-Caution-Warning-336368.shtml.