[F-35] deel 9 (de discussie)

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Op vrijdag 27 februari 2015 18:08 schreef Pumatje het volgende:

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Hoe weet je nou zo zeker dat het een slecht toestel is?
Zo apart.

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Op vrijdag 27 februari 2015 19:24 schreef rubbereend het volgende:

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ik weet niet dat het een slecht toestel is. Je krijgt er alleen heel weinig. Er kunnen er straks 4 constant in de lucht zijn...... dat is alles en als er straks één uit de lucht valt dan tast dat de inzetbaarheid enorm aan. Daarbij is de hele financiering van het onderhoud enorm krap begroot.

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Op zaterdag 31 januari 2015 20:51 schreef RonaldV het volgende:

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Laat hem maar. Ik ben er wel een beetje klaar mee dat ik elke kut-n00b (Gruj0 < 1000 posts) op FOK! een verklaring 'schuldig' ben. Zo vaak ben ik er toch niet meer.

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More Money, More Problems: F-35 Software Overwhelmed With False Alarms
Published March 13, 2015 | By Rob Vogelaar

New problems – namely, false alarms from overly sensitive threat-detecting sensors – have arisen with the beleaguered F-35 aircraft, so far the most expensive, and problem-ridden, piece of military equipment in US history.
he sensors on the fighter that are supposed to detect threats — like incoming missiles — often don’t know what they’re detecting and are returning a high rate of false alarms, Breaking Defense reports. In addition, it is proving difficult to integrate the “threat” data into the fighter’s onboard software.

In order to make the alerts more accurate, the plane’s system will require highly complex sets of files — called a “threat library” — which then must be incorporated into the onboard system. Creating that “library” requires coordination of data from all across the military’s intelligence community, a highly complex operation in itself.

The 2014 annual report by the director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Dr. J. Michael Gilmore concluded that, despite improvements to the software, “fusion of information from own-ship sensors, as well as fusion of information from off-board sensors is still deficient. The Distributed Aperture System continues to exhibit high false-alarm rates and false target tracks, and poor stability performance, even in later versions of software.”

Thomas Lawhead, a civilian involved in integrating the F-35 for the Air Force, agreed that the fighter’s warning system “is still a little too sensitive,” and that the threat information probably won’t be ready until just before the planes are scheduled to become operational.

There are different versions of the fighter being developed and the one scheduled to be operational first is the Marine’s F-35B which is slated to debut in the summer of 2015. The Navy’s is currently expected in 2018, if all goes well.

“Flying Swiss Army Knife” to Cost $1 Trillion

But if history is any guide, there’s plenty of reason to believe all will not go well. Since the program to develop the fighter jet began in 2001, it has seen costs soar even as deadlines are pushed back repeatedly. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) — hardly known as an outspoken critic of the military — called the program “one of the great national scandals that we have ever had, as far as the expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars are concerned.”
The program has already nearly doubled its original budget to $400 billion dollars in spending — making it the most expensive plane in history. And that doesn’t take into account the $5 billion or so the military has spent to extend the existing fleets this plane was supposed to replace or the $650 billion or so in maintenance costs the Government Accountability Office has estimated will be necessary, which would bring the total cost to well over $1 trillion dollars over the next few decades.

Many attribute the difficulties of the program with the overzealous demands from all branches of the military to incorporate features to suit their particular needs all in one plane, with some calling it the Flying Swiss Army Knife. The F-35 is supposed to be a bomber, a fighter, and capable of performing ground support, but some of those capabilities have contradictory needs. Add to it a load of highly complex computer systems and by trying to please everyone, it may end up performing for no one.

In 2008 the RAND corporation — a think tank that works closely with the US military — reported on a series of war simulations involving the F-35 and their analysis was leaked to the press with its pessimistic conclusions. “Inferior acceleration, inferior climb [rate], inferior sustained turn capability,” the analysts wrote. “Also has lower top speed. Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.
Just recently, another software related error was announced, which means that the fighter won’t be able to fire its primary guns until 2019. It will also not have the necessary software to operate one of its precision guided bombs until 2022.

There’s also been a lot of concern over the possibility that this supposed state-of-the-art stealth fighter — supposedly designed to evade detection through its size and special coatings — isn’t actually very stealthy. Reports in 2014 indicated that the F-35 might actually be vulnerable to Chinese and Russian advances in radar technology.

The planes were also rushed into production before design was even completed, meaning the military has spent billions of fixing already produced aircraft that were faulty.

“This will make a headline if I say it, but I’m going to say it anyway,” Frank Kendall, a top Pentagon official, said in 2012. “Putting the F-35 into production years before the first test flight was acquisition malpractice. It should not have been done.”

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Op zondag 15 maart 2015 23:11 schreef Gruj0 het volgende:

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Wat heeft het aantal posts op FOK! te maken met kennis??

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Sowieso neem ik jou niet al te serieus door je taalgebruik elke keer maar weer en het mag zeker gezegd worden dat het een zwaktebod is door elke keer op de man in te spelen (beledigingen) bij gebrek aan argumentatie.

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Op zondag 15 maart 2015 23:11 schreef Gruj0 het volgende:

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Wat heeft het aantal posts op FOK! te maken met kennis??

Sowieso neem ik jou niet al te serieus door je taalgebruik elke keer maar weer en het mag zeker gezegd worden dat het een zwaktebod is door elke keer op de man in te spelen (beledigingen) bij gebrek aan argumentatie.

Nu on-topic maar weer:

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http://www.aviationnews.e(...)d-with-false-alarms/

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Op vrijdag 10 april 2015 06:05 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:
Gaat dat ding ooit nog weleens opstijgen?

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Op vrijdag 10 april 2015 09:43 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:
De gemiddelde NL kiezer heeft weinig vertrouwen meer in het ding.

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Op vrijdag 10 april 2015 09:40 schreef Bouke-p het volgende:

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Jij denkt dat een vliegtuig ontwikkelen vanzelf gaat?

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Op vrijdag 10 april 2015 10:12 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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Die F16 doet het toch nog.

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Op vrijdag 10 april 2015 10:12 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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Die F16 doet het toch nog.

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F-35 Engines From United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO

F-35 engines from United Technologies Corp. are proving so unreliable that U.S. plans to increase production of the fighter jet may be slowed, according to congressional auditors.

Data from flight tests evaluated by the Government Accountability Office show the reliability of engines from the company’s Pratt & Whitney unit is “very poor (less than half of what it should be) and has limited” progress for the F-35, the costliest U.S. weapons system, the watchdog agency said in a report sent to lawmakers this month.

The GAO cited the need to make design changes to the engines and then retrofit planes already built, along with continuing flaws in the plane’s software, in a report that warned the Defense Department’s “procurement plan may not be affordable.” The military plans to spend $391.1 billion for a fleet of 2,443 planes from prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.

As of late December, engines on the Marine Corps’ complex version of the F-35, designed for short takeoffs and vertical landings, flew about 47 hours between failures caused by engine design issues instead of the 90 hours planned for this point, according to GAO officials. Air Force and Navy model engines flew about 25 hours between failures instead of the 120 hours planned.

Pratt & Whitney provided the data “underpinning the engine reliability percentages in our report,” Michael Sullivan, a GAO director for acquisition who oversees its F-35 work, said in an e-mail.

Company’s Response

Matthew Bates, a spokesman for Pratt & Whitney, said in an e-mail that the GAO “incorrectly assessed engine reliability, as it did not account for new designs that have been validated and are being incorporated.”

The Marine Corps model’s reliability “is at 71 percent of where it is expected to be” and “has made consistent improvement progress” since 2013, Bates said. He said the Air Force model’s engine “is at 147 percent of where it is expected at this point.”

The agency “has confused engine spec reliability and aircraft spec reliability, which are measured differently,” he said. “While the report lists some propulsion concerns,” the Pentagon has “validated our reliability performance.”

Sullivan of the GAO said Pratt & Whitney’s figures “include design changes that are validated and are now being incorporated into the engine, but have not yet been demonstrated through flight testing.”

‘Solutions Developed’

The Pentagon and Pratt & Whitney have funded initiatives since 2010 to improve engine reliability, Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Defense Department’s F-35 program office, said in an e-mail. “Solutions have been developed and validated” and have already been incorporated, he said.

While the fixes will provide the desired reliability for the Air Force and Navy versions, the Marine Corps’ F-35 “is projected to be slightly below specification requirements,” he said. The contractor and the program office are “adding reliability redesign projects,” he said.

Pratt & Whitney, the sole provider of F-35 engines, also has faced criticism from Pentagon officials for failing to reduce prices quickly enough and for lapses in quality.

The reliability issue may be reviewed by lawmakers as they weigh the Pentagon’s request for $1.2 billion to buy engines next year, up from $873 million this year, with annual funding rising to $2 billion by 2020.

‘Independent Look’

Congress so far has approved at least $17 billion of a planned $67 billion for F-35 engines, with purchases to increase to 57 engines next year, from 38 this year, and 92 in 2020.

A House Armed Services Committee panel last week directed “an independent look at the engine program to make sure it is on the right track,” its chairman, Republican Representative Michael Turner of Ohio, said. The language is in the draft of the fiscal 2016 defense authorization bill that the full committee is scheduled to act on Wednesday.

Separately, the Pentagon’s inspector general this week is expected to release results of its inquiry into Pratt & Whitney’s adherence to company and Pentagon-mandated quality control standards and procedures in producing F-35 engines.

Citing the GAO findings and the inspector general’s review, Pratt & Whitney invited reporters to a briefing scheduled for Monday with Bennett Croswell, its president for military engines.

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Op vrijdag 10 april 2015 10:10 schreef AgLarrr het volgende:

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De gemiddelde Nederlandse kiezer is een conservatieve zeiksnor en heeft derhalve weinig vertrouwen in welke verandering dan ook.

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Op vrijdag 10 april 2015 09:41 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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Deze duurt wel erg lang.

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Op maandag 27 april 2015 15:36 schreef Radegast het volgende:
Bloomberg:

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Op maandag 27 april 2015 17:37 schreef sp3c het volgende:

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vergeleken met wat?
f16?
spitfire?
hedendaagse conurrenten?

zeg het maar

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Op maandag 27 april 2015 21:43 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Met de F-104 haaden we er tenminste nog een sappig smeergeldverhaal bij