F-35B/C Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter)

[cosmania]

The benefit that the Marine Corps has with the F-35 is that they are getting the B model. While the idea of VSTOL is inherently problematic, most of the major components: Radar, Engine, avionics, systems integration will already be Air Force tested in the A model. Like I said, the lift fan and those moving parts are likely to cause any delay from a technical standpoint.

So, yes, if looking at the development of the A and it's adherance to their schedule is sipping the Kool Aid, then my answer is Yes.

 

[AznDragonBoy]

The sole blame for any delays will rest on the shoulders of Congress. LMaero has a really cool facility and they have developed some really cool new technology to build that thing. The line is awesome. My biggest worry about the whole project, from a technical standpoint is that crazy lift fan transmission. Talk about a miracle.

Really? LMaero may have really cool facilities and awesome technology, but they managed the F-22 program really poorly. I'm only mildly optomistic they will manage F-35 any better.

 

[SDNalgene]

During my senior year of college I was "lucky" enough to go on a plant tour at a plant in Chula Vista (pretty sure it was Goodrich, but I was half asleep the entire time) where they are building the housing for the lift fan on the F-35b. The engineer showing us around talked about how making a fire wall thick enough to stop a blade out failure (where a blade fails, comes free, and rockets at high speed toward the cockpit) would have added too much weight for the plane to fly, that whole weight and balance thing or something. Then he gets this goofy grin on his face and tells us that to solve the problem they put sensors in the fan housing to detect a bladeout and automatically eject the pilot in something like 0.01 or 0.001 seconds. No need for a thick firewall to stop the blade now. He says, "pretty cool, huh?" Now I don't know if they have fixed that problem, or even how likely such a failure is, but the whole immediate ejection with no warning, while it does beat getting a jagged turbine blade through the gullet, doesn't sound like it would be "pretty cool." That was about a year and a half ago so hopefully they have come up with something else by now.

 

[HeyJoe]

The sole blame for any delays will rest on the shoulders of Congress.

I attended a JSF brief last week and they mentioned a two year slide to the right due to Congressional action, but not technical issues. I'm sure AvWeek and other defense press will have lots of coverage.

 

[Semper Jump Jet]

they put sensors in the fan housing to detect a bladeout and automatically eject the pilot in something like 0.01 or 0.001 seconds. No need for a thick firewall to stop the blade now. He says, "pretty cool, huh?"

I had understood this feature included for in the event of a lift fan giving up the ghost, the ass-end nozzle dealie (these are tech terms, hang with me) would then cause a wicked nose down pitch that would put the pilot outside the ejection envelope in a hover. If it's for a blade failure then I think I'd like a button to disable it, like a yellow and black one that says "I'll take my chances thanks". Either way pretty uncool.

On another note remember that unlike the F-22 LM is flogging this thing to everybody with a spare nickle world-wide, so there will be even more pressure to get the line rolling. The Brits are 'keen' to get them ASAP since they got rid of the Sea Harrier last year, leaving them without a radar aircraft to pick up the slack of fleet defense. Or defence.

 

[Beans]

Losing the ass end nozzle dealie sure would cause a nose down pitch! But I don't think it'd matter much to the pilot...

Earlier this year, I heard a seminar from a Rolls-Royce guy who's on the Aero side of the lift fan project. If I recall correctly, they were not going to accommodate the blade-out issue - i.e. if it goes, so do you. That sounds harsh, but no one designs for a compressor blade-out failure or a turbine blade-out failure. Those things are supposed to have "prime" reliability (take that you six-sigma black belts!). Of course, as soon as you have one failure you can't claim that, but you can try really really hard, which is what that guy said they're going to do.

 

[Swanee]

Losing the ass end nozzle dealie sure would cause a nose down pitch! But I don't think it'd matter much to the pilot...

Earlier this year, I heard a seminar from a Rolls-Royce guy who's on the Aero side of the lift fan project. If I recall correctly, they were not going to accommodate the blade-out issue - i.e. if it goes, so do you. That sounds harsh, but no one designs for a compressor blade-out failure or a turbine blade-out failure. Those things are supposed to have "prime" reliability (take that you six-sigma black belts!). Of course, as soon as you have one failure you can't claim that, but you can try really really hard, which is what that guy said they're going to do.

I can agree here and say that those sensors would probably go bad before a compressor threw a blade. Ejecting out of a perfectly good jet without any vote from the pilot just seems silly to me, and I'm sure we would see a few of those type situations. How many of those sensors would we go through before upteen million dollars are lost in perfectly good go-to-war iron?

Not to say that a compressor won't throw a blade; I've heard about it a few times in the Viper community. Apparently it isn't fun.

 

[Flathatter13]

Sorry for asking an unreasonable, unintelligent question. Mistakenly I thought naval aviators would have some knowledge about how many JSFs they plan to deploy and when - I guess I was wrong.

I'll try asking my questions on an Air Force site next time.

What makes you think we would be any nicer, I agree it is an unanswerable (is that a word??) question. Let alone you don't even know if you will qualify for the jet once you get there.

Come to the darkside and we will park you in a trailer in the desert watching your UAV spin circles flying cap for P-3's :icon_smil



On a serious note though if your only intention is to get into the F-35 the AF may be a better option as we are currently expected to field more of them then the Navy, but your gonna have a lot of people to beat out for the seat as the current A-10, F-16 and F-15 pilots that don't get Raptors are gonna take most of them.

 

[Conaway]

Sorry for asking an unreasonable, unintelligent question. Mistakenly I thought naval aviators would have some knowledge about how many JSFs they plan to deploy and when - I guess I was wrong.

I'll try asking my questions on an Air Force site next time.

Mr. Siritan needs to get thicker skin or he will not survive in a ready room in the USN or USMC.

The USAF will just use you as a fluffer.

I second that.

 

[Rg9]

So say I come out of flight school in 2013-2014, what are my chances of getting JSF if I do get selected for jets? I know they are supposed to be deployed in '09

To his credit, he didn't ask what percent get jets... Since the JSF is still a few years from any kind of operational status, no one knows how many the Navy will have (thus, your "chances" are unknown). If you do get jets, and want JSF, as previously mentioned, to the extent you have a choice, go fly the legacy hornets (i.e., anything with a letter before E in its name).

 

[squeeze]

Losing the ass end nozzle dealie sure would cause a nose down pitch! But I don't think it'd matter much to the pilot...

Earlier this year, I heard a seminar from a Rolls-Royce guy who's on the Aero side of the lift fan project. If I recall correctly, they were not going to accommodate the blade-out issue - i.e. if it goes, so do you. That sounds harsh, but no one designs for a compressor blade-out failure or a turbine blade-out failure. Those things are supposed to have "prime" reliability (take that you six-sigma black belts!). Of course, as soon as you have one failure you can't claim that, but you can try really really hard, which is what that guy said they're going to do.

The word I've always heard is that the 'auto-eject' business is solely for the lift-fan failure. Basically, it'd put the a/c in an unrecoverable nose-down pitch, which, would matter quite a bit to the pilot.

Planning for a blade failure is an even worse idea than planning for a lift fan failure IMO.

 

[Beans]

Squeeze,

I think there are two situations here that have been confused, and I contributed to the confusion.
1: "Losing" the lift of the lift fan due to a transmission failure or something of that sort. This was another problem addressed by that R-R guy... he said something to the effect that it has to be a gearbox+clutch that handles 40khp or some disgusting number like that and works many times and weighs "nothing" because they're already pushing it with weight. Something to that effect has probably been posted already. In that case, then yeah it would matter to the pilot, and he'd probably want that auto-eject dealie. Is there any (legit and public) info on how much time there would be in that case?
2. Blade out failure: If the timing is such that the pilot gets it in back, then in that case it wouldn't matter much to him what happens to the airplane. If it goes anywhere else, then I suppose there would be a chance as in #1.

 

[Lawman]

With regard to the whole "Crap the fan just died" situation....

Would it make sense at all to install a command auto eject that detects if the aircraft gets outside of a certain flight envelope? Say that if it detects a nose down attitude of X degrees at an altitude under Y and just deletes the pilot (who is probably overly concerned with recovery that has been ruled by the computer as impossible) input and pulls the handle for him. I know it removes part of the whole "pilot in command" philosophy but it would seem that with an aircraft that is going to be a exhaustively tested as the JSF on both computer and real flight time and with what modern computer simulators can do it would be pretty much a solid "at this point your F'd" established point.

 

[AllAmerican75]

My question is sort of the opposite: Do they have any way to turn said auto-eject feature off so it doesn't malfunction in proper flight and poor Ens. Schmuckatelli doesn't get kicked out of his airplane at 30k ft. and 500 knots, wings level?

 

[HeyJoe]

My question is sort of the opposite: Do they have any way to turn said auto-eject feature off so it doesn't malfunction in proper flight and poor Ens. Schmuckatelli doesn't get kicked out of his airplane at 30k ft. and 500 knots, wings level?

Or a senior 0-6 perhaps.....a SWO at that!

"It just blew!!"