UK MOD in a muddle over F-35C

[steve2267]

Sound no workee...

Interesting that the load includes the 25mm gun pod — thought the Brits passed on the gun. Is this for the US jarheads (who flew in for the beer)?

[spazsinbad]

MindBogglin' Ubend B/S about the first track being copyright music 'monetised'? Goo help us all because it is years old now so it seems because of this the video has been muted overall; good solution but not by me only for fwit claiming copyrong.

Still why I cannot find it amongst other SpazzyRazzyViddys still puzzles me - possibly eases someone's pain but NOT MINE.

It all or no sound so no sound it is and I'll delete the video because part of it needs sound for the speakers in it. Part of the problem has been using IE 11/W10 which GaGyourVideoNeedlessly no longer supports. Cool huh. I've never liked YouBOOB.

PROBLEMATIC VIDEO with NO SOUND now DELETED.

[quicksilver]

Via e-mail: QE tests finished Monday 19 Nov 2018 with good results all round - all marks hit. News should be on net soon.

Another milestone landing on HMS Queen Elizabeth
19 Nov 2018 RN PR

"RAF test pilot Squadron Leader Andy Edgell flew his specially-adapted stealth fighter facing the stern, not bow, before bringing the jet to a hover, slipping it over the huge flight deck and gently setting it down. The ‘back-to-front’ manoeuvre, described as “like driving the wrong way down a one-way street” is intended to give pilots and the flight deck team more options to safely land the state-of-the-art stealth fighter in an emergency....

...The wrong-way landing was a slightly surreal experience, said Squadron Leader Edgell. “It was briefly bizarre to bear down on the ship and see the waves parting on the bow as you fly an approach aft facing. “It was also a unique opportunity fly towards the ship, stare at the bridge, and wonder what the captain is thinking.” Once alongside the landing spot however, the act of setting the F-35 down is almost identically – except for nudging the jet left, not right – and “the aircraft handled beautifully.”..."

Bow-to-stern approaches are hardly new, as they’ve been a periodic feature of ops for all Harrier users for decades. Couple pics from USMC versions doing so off the coast of Libya during combat ops a few years back, iirc. Allows the ship the some flexibility to maneuver whilst conducting recoveries. Perhaps Andy’s crab-ness is showing...

[sferrin]

HMS Queen Elizabeth, F-35B launch, Flyco view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGkJAEC3y-A

By my calculation, that Bee only used about 345ft of deck for its takeoff roll.

This one at (0:52) is pretty short too:

[spazsinbad]

Lengthy description of previous LHA test points so only a few excerpts below to show all kinds of VLs carried out to limits.

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=24438&p=274982&hilit=stern+test+land%2A+vertical#p274982

download/file.php?id=23804 JumpingJackFlashAirInternationalJuly2014pp7.pdf (1.4Mb)

F-35B flat deck STO Rusnok Method pp2 + Ski Jump.pdf (1.4Mb) download/file.php?id=23803

Jumping Jack Flash [there must be a PDF pages excerpt somewhere on forum otherwise one will be below]
July 2014 unknown author AIR International F-35 Special Edition

"...The pilot also has command of the throttle. Two power setting options are available for take-off: Mil STO and Max STO [have not read about this before], as Maj Rusnok explained: “When you taxi to the tram line you stay in mode one, the conventional flight mode. You convert the aircraft into mode four, the STOVL flight mode, and it takes about 15 seconds or so for the doors to open up and the lift fan to engage.

“Then you push the throttle about halfway up the throttle slide into a detent position at about 34% engine thrust request. It sits there and you check the engine gauges: if the readings are okay you slam the throttle to either Mil or Max position and then release the brakes simultaneously. Pushing through to max is like an afterburner detent. But it’s not an afterburner – you can’t go to afterburner in mode four.

“It’s a very fast acceleration. The closest we would spot from the bow is 400 feet, [now we know from NEW SAR KPP on previous page STO is achieved from 471 feet so for tests they had plenty of safety margin then] so about 175 feet before we would actually start rotating the aeroplane [at the STO rotation line]; so very, very quick.”

...“DT II was about crosswind envelope expansion; getting out to 40 knots of headwind; tailwind envelope expansion; and the internal carriage of inert weapons during take-offs and landings for the first time,” said Wilson....

...During the 18-day sea trial the two jets completed 95 take-offs and vertical landings, both forward and aft-facing, and 17 night take-offs and landings in 10 days of testing....

Source: AIR International F-35 Special Edition July 2014

[spazsinbad]

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=12631&p=228790&hilit=Tailhook+stinking#p228790 FOR:

http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/07/ta ... nking.html FOR:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qCR7l0vPPe0/U ... t_1976.jpg

"...V/STOL advocates considered the experiment a virtually unqualified success. Complying with standard carrier cyclic operations (90-minute flight period for the conventional takeoff and landing airplanes) proved to be unnecessary since the Harriers could land in any open space during a launch/land cycle. Benefits demonstrated early on included no time or crew required to hook up to the catapult for takeoff, virtually no waveoffs (and zero bolters), and the ability to back into a designated parking space. The Harriers could also land with the ship steaming out of the wind in conditions that precluded the operation of its conventional airplanes...."

[spazsinbad]

Perhaps (I can only guess) the difference in numbers is due to the 'SRVL wave offs' but could be some other reason. Error.
Previous page: "...202 takeoffs - 187 vertical landings, 15 SRVL’s - 75 hours in the air & 54 Training Weapons dropped..."

F-35 jets leave HMS Queen Elizabeth after ‘eclipsing aspirations’
22 Nov 2018 RN PR

"...Since then they have performed 200 short take-offs, 187 vertical landings, and 15 ‘rolling’ landings – a technique unique to the UK which allows a Lightning to return to the carrier with a heavier payload – and dropped 54 dummy bombs into the Atlantic.

“This has been one of the most comprehensive flight trials at sea ever conducted,” said RAF Squadron Leader Andy Edgell, ITF chief test pilot. “I am very proud to have professionally executed every aspect of this trial and deliver for the UK a capability that can be exploited for years to come.”

Naval aviator Commander Nathan Gray – the first person to land a jet on HMS Queen Elizabeth – added: “It has been phenomenal to get through a high profile with such success. This is due to the skills of the designers of both the F-35 and the ship herself. “It is beyond question that without the vision of the Royal Navy and the unfailing support of the ship’s company we would not have achieved what we have done today. “I am proud to have delivered this future and enduring operational capability.”

Weapons experts loaded various configurations of bombs and missiles on to the Lightnings, making use of HMS Queen Elizabeth’s unique automated munitions magazine. ITF scientists recorded masses of data from the ship and the jets; that data will determine the limits (weather, humidity, pitch and roll of the ship, aircraft weight) at which the Lightnings can safely launch from and land back on HMS Queen Elizabeth and her sister Prince of Wales...."

Source: https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... ave-hms-qe

[spazsinbad]

Back to better numbers - those RN PR Peeps are real amateurs - must have been apprenticed to kindergarten at SLDinfo.

UK Hails Successful Initial F-35 Carrier Trials
22 Nov 2018 Tony Osborne

"...The first two of three planned rounds of developmental testing (DT-1 & DT-2), also known as First of Class Flight Trials (FOCFT), taking place off the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. concluded on Nov. 18 with the F-35s having carried out 202 takeoffs, 187 vertical landings and 15 ship rolling vertical landings (SRVL). As well as recording 75 flight hours, the four test pilots also carried out 54 weapon drops...." [author just rewritten a press release - why can't RN PR Peeps do it?]

Source: http://aviationweek.com/defense/uk-hail ... ier-trials

[spazsinbad]

Sat Pic via e-mail: QUEEN ELIZABETH at Norfolk USA.

[steve2267]

In the F-35 combat power takeoff thread, with regard to Hill AFB sortieing thirty-five Stubbies, old_rn remarked:

That is an "alpha strike" launch from a UK CVF with 36 F35B's?

to which I replied

That's a good way to look at it. However, how quickly can the QueenLIzzie launch them? Once every 30 seconds? Once a minute? The first planes up will be spending gas waiting for the trailers. With no organic tanking component...

So... how quickly can the QueenLizzie launch that alpha strike? Is the lack of an organic, fleet in-flight refueling capability a large impediment to a proper alpha strike? Or would the Brits need to arrange for some land-based refuelers (KC-130's etc) to participate? Or would they never launch all aircraft on deck in one fell swoop... so an alpha strike would be smaller and the launch time not really be a factor?

[spazsinbad]

It is early days eh. Firstly TWO F-35Bs have operated in TEST mode from QE for the FIRST time EVER over the last weeks and you worry about a 'theoretical ALPHA strike'? M8 one has to have a lot of F-35Bs for one thing. I would like to ask: WHY IS AN ALPHA strike necessary (and what is your definition of an ALPHA strike)? Then: How will the F-35Bs be configured take off weight wize? I'm hoping you recall that at MTOW (WOD/Temp unknown) 800 feet required, getting the aircraft to that point without much if any space aft (aircraft has to turn sharply) then that MAY be one hold up. Launching further down the deck means aircraft more easily taxi to launch point from behind - then again 'why/what AlfAlfa strike'?

Do YANKee CVNs launch AllyFallAlly Strikes these days? IF NOT: Why don't they and with/without organic tanking. Seems to me to be olde schoole thinking and I thought we were done with that. RAF have pledged to have tanker assets available but one does not know what that means in practice (much like RAAF promising FLEET DEFENCE to RAN). But I digress....

[spazsinbad]

Tidbit 'bout wind I had forgotten - I'll guess good computer modelling (perhaps updated during trials) predicted it well.

‘Wrong-way’ Landing Caps Successful RN Deck Trials
23 Nov 2018 David Donald

"On November 18 the UK’s new 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth completed the initial two first-of-class deck trial campaigns (DT-1 and DT-2) with the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II. Toward the end of the trials, an F-35B was landed for the first time facing the “wrong” way.

Flown by Integrated Test Force (ITF) chief test pilot Squadron Leader Andy Edgell, RAF, the unusual recovery involved the F-35 approaching the carrier from the bow, rather than using the traditional stern approach. As well as providing different visual cues for the pilot, the bow approach also encounters different wind conditions, as the carrier would typically be sailing into the wind while also generating airflow over the deck through its own forward motion.

”It was briefly bizarre to bear down on the ship and see the waves parting on the bow as you fly an approach aft-facing,” reported Edgell. “It was also a unique opportunity to fly toward the ship, stare at the bridge, and wonder what the captain is thinking.” Proving that the “back-to-front” landing poses no handling problems extends recovery options, particularly for emergency or partially fouled-deck situations.

Queen Elizabeth set off on the Westlant 18 deployment in September, embarking two F-35Bs and four test pilots from the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, and BAE Systems, all assigned to the ITF at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. During the deployment, which included a high-profile port call in New York alongside the Cunard liner Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth conducted 202 F-35B launches, 187 standard vertical recoveries and 15 SRVLs (shipborne rolling vertical landings) between September 28 and November 18. The F-35Bs released 54 dummy bombs, while armorers tested loading and offloading various bombs and missiles using the carrier’s automated munitions magazine...."

Photo: "Sqn Ldr Andy Edgell performs a stern-facing vertical recovery, in which the F-35B comes to a stable hover alongside the designated landing spot before crabbing across to the left and then descending. (photo: Royal Navy) https://www.ainonline.com/sites/default ... /f-35b.jpg

Source: https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... eck-trials

[spazsinbad]

F-35B Lightning II Stealth Royal Air Force (RAF) Edwards AFB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKOnbMUWy6U

[sunstersun]

UK gets royalties for every FMS sale right?

I distinctly remember reading that here. Anyone got a source?

[spazsinbad]

What do you mean by 'royalties'? How is this decided? UK has 15% of F-35 production - is that what you mean? Why FMS?

Youse know that it is ALWAYS good to SEARCH? So searching using 'royalties' (I should get frickin' royalties for my searches):

viewtopic.php?f=58&t=19937&p=249608&hilit=royalties#p249608

"...The Netherlands’ discontinuation of the F-35 program is also a poor decision in terms of sheer economics. As a member of the international consortium that is involved not only in the plane’s development phase but also the ensuing production and sustainment phase, the Netherlands has a stake in the health of the F-35 program over the long term. According to former defense minister Hillen, the profits of co-producing the F-35 could amount to € 9 billion for the Netherlands. Whilst a little more than € 1 billion has been invested thus far, royalties from sales of the plane to non-consortium countries such as Japan and Singapore are expected to cover the plane’s development costs and more...."
http://www.aei.org/publication/dutch-ha ... g-decline/ 2013 [not true today I guess Dutch still in]