F-35B Lightning (RAF & RN)

[Caribbean]

Expect Indian software engineers to have made an order of magnitude better job of the eight million plus lines software used in the F-35 than LM which is years late and still in need of major updates.

PS CEOs of both Microsoft and Google are Indian, Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai.

It depends on the business culture they are brought up in. Not just my opinion, that's how it was explained to me by colleagues of Indian descent, brought up in both the UK and USA. I've been involved in a several large software projects involving work off-shored to India and it's my experience that there are never any problems, until it's impossible to conceal the problems any more and it's too late to fix them and meet your deadline. Indian business culture tends to stifle individual initiative, leading to people doing exactly what they were told to do by their manager, even when they know its wrong, because you can't get fired for doing what you were told to do (there's lots of other stuff, like deference to age and authority that plays into that). Mainland China is very similar (worked with them too), only they want everything in writing, so they have proof of what they were told to do (a legacy, I guess, of when you could be sent for "re-education" if you got things wrong - i.e. didn't do exactly what you were told).

[Timmymagic]

I did some work on testing the Bucaneer on a similar rig at Brough nearly 45 years ago, and the principles involved then apply today. my job then was building multi channel amplifiers for the strain gauges which fed the data to multi channel recorders for playback. It was a lot of channels, as there were often thousands of strain gauges.

Did they actually ever manage to break a Buccaneer. I thought the saying was it wasn't built from parts, it was carved from a solid block!

[ArmChairCivvy]

I would say that we are forgetting what a few "Bs" could do here:

Their best bet would be, once their home built carriers com eon line is re-role the ex-Russian one to a helicopter carrier to carry out [either] ASW

Let's also not forget that India is/ will be a participant in the S. China Sea naval exercises and have basing rights in Camh Ran.

[seaspear]

i might be wrong but as a non participant nation in the f35 program they would not be involved in the assembly of any f35,s they wished to purchase but have to pay up front for planes from the U.S ,and such planes would be sent overseas for maintenance

[sunstersun]

i might be wrong but as a non participant nation in the f35 program they would not be involved in the assembly of any f35,s they wished to purchase but have to pay up front for planes from the U.S ,and such planes would be sent overseas for maintenance

Being a partner offers a lot of benefits but for example, Japan isn't a partner of the JSF and they have an assembly line.

[bobp]

Did they actually ever manage to break a Buccaneer.

While I was there no and I never heard of any testing failures. We used to test fly them from a nearby airfield at Home on Spalding Moor and we lost one in flight testing not sure of the reason but it hit the deck upside down.
Yes the Bucc was a tough bird but had to be as flying at 50ft above the waves meant the airframe took a hammering. It was more common for them to fly a bit higher.

[R686]

i might be wrong but as a non participant nation in the f35 program they would not be involved in the assembly of any f35,s they wished to purchase but have to pay up front for planes from the U.S ,and such planes would be sent overseas for maintenance

Being a partner offers a lot of benefits but for example, Japan isn't a partner of the JSF and they have an assembly line.

A lot of that has to do with the stratigic relationship between JPN/US than between IN/US

[seaspear]

Just to stir the pot , there are some thoughts on an f35d development that may have a reduced tail to further elude radar, although a different configuration is essentially an F35 should the U.K consider this as a split order with the b model lol

[sunstersun]

https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/report- ... -briefing/

[Lord Jim]

Indian defence procurement makes the UK's look organised and efficient.

[sunstersun]

Indian defence procurement makes the UK's look organised and efficient.

They've only needed more 155mm artillery since the 80's.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Japan isn't a partner of the JSF and they have an assembly line.

This would be a good article on the "next steps"... if anyone gets to have a peep behind the paywall (Stratfor, AKA CIA, creates more demand for their views by making them pricey )
Most Popular Articles of 2017

Japan and South Korea Consider Carrier Options
The major catalyst driving Tokyo's and Seoul's plans is China, which has been rapidly expanding its carrier fleet. While the Type 001A, China's first domestically produced aircraft carrier, will set sail for sea trials in the next few months, there are indications that Beijing has commenced preparations to construct another aircraft carrier, the Type 002, at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai

... and the Maracshino cherry on this cake is that the name of the island that is disputed between Japan and Korea... is (in Korean): Dokdo

[sunstersun]

[2HeadsBetter]

I'm waiting for one of the naysayers to point out how un-stealthy they are while in hover mode.

[SKB]

Why couldn't the makers have designed the lift fan cover to hinge to one side, rather than backwards? When fully open back, it acts like an airbrake!

[S M H]

Why couldn't the makers have designed the lift fan cover to hinge to one side, rather than backwards? When fully open back, it acts like an airbrake

The redesign of the air intake from the x35 was that you get more airflow as the plane moves forward reducing strain on the the lift fan.The air brake function on landing increases air flow into the lift fan reducing all important engine wear. This was important to the Yakovlev Yak 141 which needed this type of intake to reduce fuel consumption of it two lift engines. Lockheed had paid for the data fron the 141 program. The 141 data presumably caused the redesign of the lift fan door. The weapons doors also opern in hovering mode to make the aircraft stable. In the harrier this was provided by the gun pods. When the U.S.M.C. wanted a single gattling gun fitted they had to retain the other pod and use it as the amunition store to maintain lateral stability in the hover. The engine needs auxilary air intake behind the lift fan door as there is insufficient air intake through the intakes for the engine. It was provided on the harrier by the intake flaps round the intake. The B has some very intresting aero dynamical problems in hovering mode which require very clever adaptations to hover and land vertically. The short take off use of the lift fan reduces fuel hungery afterburner use. This caused the removal of the blast deflectors on the U.K. carriers.

[ArmChairCivvy]

The short take off use of the lift fan reduces fuel hungery afterburner use. This caused the removal of the blast deflectors on the U.K. carriers.

There is a great picture/ diagram of that on p.3 of this pdf:
CVF/F-35B - F-16.net
www.f-16.net/forum/download/file.php?id=26021

[ArmChairCivvy]

Imagine if we had removed the ski jump from our carriers: 544 - 550 - 568 - 600... and counting
"The short-take-off-and-landing KPP before the JROC review last month was
550 feet. In April 2011, the Pentagon
estimated that the STOVL variant could execute a short take-off in 544 feet
while carrying two Joint Direct Attack
Munitions and two AIM-120 missiles internally, as well as enough fuel to fl
y 450 nautical miles. By last month, that
take-off distance estimate grew to 568 feet, according to DOD sources. The
JROC, accordingly, agreed to extend the
required take-off distance to 600 feet, according to DOD officials."

Rather than shaving weight, the simultaneous launch rate was halved, to afford the longer runs on the deck
- better that than trading weapon payload for range (fuel)

PS This KPP was always different for the UK, but these estimates exhibit a clear and worrying trend. The topic has dropped off the latest years' testing reports... have to fix some parameters, to be able to worry about the rest, I guess

[ArmChairCivvy]

What do you do if your 5th gen fighter only just works? Why not put a 6th gen engine in it, to improve the weight margins (and range):

" Pratt & Whitney, which is also undertaking AETD testing. The company demonstrated a three-stream fan in a rig in 2013. In early 2017, “We want to take the next step and demonstrate that in an engine environment, so that we get interaction between the fan and engine,” he says. “So we are taking the fan off an F135 engine, [then] putting the three-stream fan in its place and simulating three-stream flow back to the back.” Pratt also plans to demonstrate a “very high-efficiency core” on a test stand early next year"
- so getting there (mid 2020s?), and from the same article, GE is also at it:
"the different approaches taken by GE and Pratt, particularly on materials. “GE has made a big bet on CMCs for low-density, high-temperature materials as well as other areas, and Pratt is leveraging all their combat experience. They are leveraging what they have done in the past and evolving that through the AETD program. So we have two unique approaches to the core and material set and also two unique adaptive fans,”

All from:
Three-Stream Engine Moves To New Phase

by EnviroTREC | Aug 8, 2016

AETP awards set to put sixth-gen U.S. combat engines in motion

Originally published in AviationWeek by Guy Norris

[Lord Jim]

Would this cut RR out of the supply loop if these new engines were used on all three variants?

[Simon82]

The Pratt & Whitney F135 is already the sole engine for all three variants of the F-35. Development of the Rolls-Royce and General Electric alternative engine (the F136) was stopped in 2011 when the funding was withdrawn by the US government. Rolls-Royce do however manufacture the lift fan, roll posts and vectoring exhaust for the F-35B. This arrangement would presumably continue whatever enhanced Pratt & Whitney engine is used in future upgrades.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Rolls-Royce do however manufacture the lift fan, roll posts and vectoring exhaust for the F-35B. This arrangement would presumably continue whatever enhanced Pratt & Whitney engine is used in future upgrades.

Rolls dropped out, and continued with the bits that Simon above lists. However, GE came back on its own for the next gen, so they are in competition with P&W (both are working to the physical constraints of the currently installed engine's space).
- the "joke" here is that the 6th gen engine will get a "test run" on a 5th gen fighter (may be in thousands of copies) before it goes onto the 6th gen fighter... so the funding now flows from the latter prgrm, but F-35 may become the new P-51. Becoming a star only in version D (in the latter's case, with the Merlin installed).

[Lord Jim]

SO when will the "Twin" F-35 come along as a long range fighter bomber then?

[R686]

SO when will the "Twin" F-35 come along as a long range fighter bomber then?

That was the FB-22 medium bomber program cancelled in 2006 Quadrennial defence Review.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military ... /fb-22.htm

[Lord Jim]

I was thinking more along the lines of the F-82 Twin Mustang with two F-35s joined together by a wing/extended weapons bay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Ame ... in_Mustang