Click to see full-size image
The most expensive military project of all time the F-35 joint strike fighter is facing yet another problem, that could potentially slow down jet delivery to the US Air Force and other clients.
Five years after declaring the F-35 ready for combat, the Air Force is discovering the aircraft’s Pratt & Whitney F135 engine takes longer to maintain than originally projected.
A heat-related issue is also causing cracks in the F135’s fan blade coatings. If left unchecked, the problem could reportedly ground up to 20% of the Air Force’s F-35s by 2025.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a single-engine jet fighter designed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. The F-35’s engine, the F135 afterburning turbofan, produces 28,000 pounds of thrust, or 43,000 pounds of thrust with afterburner on.
The F135 powers the entire F-35 fleet, including the Marine Corps’ short vertical takeoff and landing -B model, allowing the aircraft to take off vertically if needed.
The F135 Heavy Maintenance Center at Tinker Air Force Base isn’t processing engines and getting them out to the jet fleet as fast as anticipated, Bloomberg reported.
It’s also unclear how many flight hours the F135 engine of the F-35 fighter jet can fly, but they assume it’s about 26,000 flight hours.
A single aircraft might use multiple F135 engines over its lifetime, flying one engine until it needs depot-level maintenance and then requisitioning a new one. Each engine for the F-35A costs approximately $10.8 million; the more complex engine for the F-35B costs $24 million.
On top of it all, the engine issue appears to steadily be getting worse. Defense News estimated that 5-6% could lack engines by 2022, and then the worst-case scenario would be a 20% lack by 2025.
The engine is produced by Pratt & Whitney, part of Raytheon. And it said that it is expanding repair depot capacity and “implementing engineering solutions that will keep engines deployed longer before needing maintenance or replacement.”
To fill the gap, the US Air Force is grounding its F-35 demonstration team.
The team, which is assigned to Hill Air Force Base at Utah, is normally a part of the 388th Fighter Wing and flies the F-35 at air shows across the country. The team has canceled its appearance at several air shows due to the engine issue.
The engines work fine, but they don’t want to add flight hours on them.
The Air Force plans to purchase 1,763 F-35As over the lifetime of the program. The cost of the jet has been steadily dropping, from $297 million for the earliest jets to just $77.9 million in 2019.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
Slowly but steadily it is turning into a Rube-Goldberg machine.
It will go the same way as the Fake-22, whose production was rapidly declined and the production chains were dismantled, the very big difference is that they forced a lot of vassal countries to buy it, what will happen to the relations with these fake allies the day they will say that production will be stopped? many fun days await us from that circus of Yankee buffoons.
BUT …. right now the F-35 is the best out there …. it’s the ‘Superman’ without any doubt
Lol, according to Lockheed Martin, and Jews are suckered in their delusion…..Superman lol….how about a flying brick confused by effective EW, getting shot down by hypersonic SAM’’s.
When it happens I’ll believe it … until then it’s ALL BS BRAVADO BRAGGART-Sh Xt
“”” THE GREAT F-35 ””” F35 is great business and marketing tool for Lockheed Martin, as a weapon it is a POS.
As if you know …. lol
Yea I know, Adir is a POS. Whoever agrees to buy F35, their IQ needs to be re evaluated. Besides high operational costs, low number of sorties this plane will need close to 1billion per plane for maintenance during its service of 30 years. Israel’s 20 billion defense budget will be eaten up by these aircraft.
Always looking at the cost? The costs are for those seeking to maximize the destruction of the enemy in the shortest time frame … 1000’s of missions per day with so much information gathering ‘in real time’ … the enemy is destroyed … it’s a game changer
That is another portion of BS you have been fed, F35 will not be able to gather meaningful information because EW will render it blind in the realm os situational awareness. Thousands of mission a day? At most two or three sorties per aircraft before their air bases and runways are attacked an damaged/destroyed by waves of ballistic missiles.
1 mission per day before the engines need a 1 week service.
Wishful thinking …. each ballistic missile launch site will be targeted / demolished within minutes
Data collection and collation is instantaneous … this is a level of blitzkreig that is unimaginable …
Coming to an Arab/Muslim state near you … Beirut / Tehran / Damascus / Baghdad
“”” Data collection and collation is instantaneous … this is a level of blitzkreig that is unimaginable …”””
You are in denial, both Russia and Iran have superior EW capabilities than Israel. They can confuse your data collection effort and render you Air Force incapable after ballistic rockets strike your airfields. Execution of blitzkrieg involves defeating your enemy in the air and ground, something you have failed to do in the last 30 years.
Blah … blah… blah
Neither one has superior equipment or better trained soldiers
I can wait for the day of reckoning … but it amuses me to know that Iran’s forces in Syria and Iraq have been attacked hundreds of times WITHOUT Iran’s superiority displayed … hello?
next
nah the dumbed down tax-payers in the disunited states of A will pay the jews extravagant largesse when it comes to the weapons they couldn’t afford unless they bribed the entire congress that they do – bribes the entire congress, that is.
The f35 leads to a financial graveyard, for all the money printing for US military and Israel, it will reach a point where the bubble created by fictional money will explode.
there is talks about hyperinflation and still they print money as if there is no tomorrow – I personally believe they print money in order to stop the debt inflated bubble turning into a deflationary mode which will ruin the banks and thus about every thing there is, which would be a catastrophe for the 1%, except they are invested in real estate, land, gold and tangible assets that maybe will loose in value but still is tangible and will recover in due time (unless we, the people, take over whatever they’ve hoarded and confiscate it and lamppost every friggin one of them).
ROTFLMAO
YOU sewer rats always dreaming from your basement apts … eh?
House prices from mid-180’s to 2 million dollars in Toronto … still goes a long way … eh?
I piss on your ilk … slug
F35 will be back to smash muslim terrorists,iran and chinese communists
Dream on little nazi boy!
Nah, he is just a attention seek slum shit dog. Poor guy just wants to be noticed.
Coming ta git ya …
F-35 is now operational … Israel has 50 and have ordered another 25 …. they’re incredible machines … hello?
F-16’s are also being ordered …. Iran and enemies of Israel beware …
Fck35 has never accomplished anything worth mentioning on the battlefield.
It’s probably killed more US allies than enemies:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47876128
expected when you employ jens as design engineer and appoint Dalit embarrassed hindu suoervisor
Russians dont have money and are begging china
Their foreign reserves are approaching 600 billion.
They need to invest then …. oil is nearing its expiry date
Russian women aren’t having babies … demographic decline on the horizon
They have zero debt. And they don’t need money, they have infinite wealth beneath their landmass:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Russia/@33.4979426,40.6080862,3z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x453c569a896724fb:0x1409fdf86611f613!8m2!3d61.52401!4d105.318756
You hindustani piss-drinkers on the other hand, have only cow patties for currency.
(P.S that shitty little country in the corner is hindustan)
You realize that you are replying to a shit smelling little attention seeking sewer rat. The poor guy spends his whole day here trying to get any attention. Deprive these losers of any attention and they are done.
Time to ban that sucker for shitposting.
He produces no rational thought whatsoever.
Stupid reply … cementhead
Meanwhile, frightened by China, India is begging Russia to advance its delivery of SAM S-400 system/MiG-29’s/Su-30Mki’s…that India ordered and signed off on – that’s $5 billion to Russian exports.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-23/china-india-border-tensions-simmer-in-lead-up-to-moscow-meeting
https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/india-china-tensions-cowering-response-to-chinas-provocations-may-lose-india-more-territory
Russians produce cheap products … cutting corners … adequate but NOT the cutting edge
Russians produce EFFECTIVE weapons, that annul so called “cutting edge” weaponry, at a fraction of the cost.
Google: Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot
Israeli pilots downed Russian pilots over Egypt during the Egypt-Israel War of Attrition after 1967
That was then, in 1973 had Sadat followed Russian plan of holding ground forces in Sinai under the antiaircraft umbrella, Israeli Air Force would have hit a brick wall…..even so they lost almost 70 aircraft.
Yes … maybe
Guess what … it didn’t go down that way
On the Golan … Syria had EVERYTHING going for it … but they stopped and LOST too
So what’s your alleged point?
No maybe, the point is ground forces covered by good air defense system will shoot a lot of your planes down trying to attack ground forces. Things got out of control when Sadat wanted the Egyptian troops to move beyond the air umbrella, and got attacked 2 corps getting disjointed, allowing Israeli armour to move thru the created gap.
As far as Golan heights several armored and mechanized divisions were ready overlooking the sea of Tiberius ready to pour into northern Israel …..however they stopped and waited for a day or two for Assad to ok the move, instead of exploiting the situation that presented Golan heights void of defenses except for a Centurion tank unit.
That was then … the SA-2’s were ‘state of the art’ for a minute …
I just watched the Israeli TV show … Valley of Tears … about the Golan 1973 War … a real sh Xt show … it just came out last year in 2020
“Valley of Tears”??? What about the 70 years of Palestinian tears Shlomo? Or don’t they count as humans in your Israeli estimation? Untermenshen perhaps?
The Pals are finished … their ‘cause’ extinct
Google “Lebanon War” Shlomo. 300 Hezzies humiliated 15,000 Shlomos . . .
Google it yourself …. Hezbollah’s Nasrallah cried on TV after the war stating:
“Had I known it would bring such devastation I wouldn’t have started the war”
BTW … he hasn’t been back … eh?
next
Nasrallah is still going strong Shlomo. Where is Ehud Olmert? Probably some psychiatric institution in Haifa or Tel Aviv where he is recovering from Zionitis . .
Israel is a democracy … hello? He’s no longer in government … eh?
He’s living ‘la vida loca’ … in a beautiful condo … lol
Nasrallah the fat f/k is sleeping underground … afraid of a sudden death by drone … eh? Who voted him into power?
Stated with arrogance, yet providing no proof. Meanwhile, it’s F-35’s who are failing, even being banned from supersonic flight to avoid engine wear. Oh, the US Navy Inspector General report on fleet maintainance in 2020 says that there was significant degradation across the fleet from established standards and the USS Gerald R. Ford was commissioned in 2017, cost over $13 billion and has yet to undertake a single operational sortie because…multiple systems have not yet been made to work. Who makes cutting edge military products?
Israel
Some, sure. But they import quite a bit, especially from the USA. Also, every few years Israel gets a big lump gift of several billion U.S. Dollars cash for their “defense” budget. Israel would still have a reasonable defense budget without that revenue stream, but far less overwhelming. BTW, Israeli F-35’s rarely fly at supersonic speeds either. Nor do they have to. But in an American war with Russia or China F-35’s will be less than effective under peacetime speed restrictions and will degrade quickly if the machines are pushed to performance. They will prove to be a waste of cash in a hot war.
Ok … I accept those remarks
That’s why they’re updating and buying new F-15’s which are more than adequate for their needs
F-16’s too. It’s crazy but after all that cash we’re back to old tried and true. The USAF sent two F-35’s out last year to intercept two of Russia’s Tu-160 supersonic white swan bombers. This was out over the Pacific. The two F-35’s caught up to the swans who then afterburnered away, going supersonic.. They were both out of weapons range in 15 minutes. Hilarious.
its the ghost of the soviet union striking back from beyond the grave lol
F-35 is a trillion dollar failure and most are not even air worthy. There is a problem with helmet sights data, engines and airframe hairline cracks. The US extortionists are forcing their NATO vassals and Arab Wahhabi pimps to buy the junk. The Zionists already lost a F-35 a couple of years ago to a Soviet era SA-2 “bird strike”. Even Vietnam era Iranian Phantoms have been lighting them up on radars, so much for stealth.
BS … Iran is 4 generations of technology behind the US / Israel
Your armed forces will be crushed …
Yes, definitely a Shlomo . .
But, but, BUTT Twatz engines are also falling of US commercial jets :) You Jews have totally ripped the dumb Americans off, they have no electricity or fresh water in Texas for 3 weeks now.
Blame the Jews? lol
America is in bad shape because of their own errors …
BUT … they have the ability to turn it around quickly
The State Department is replete with dual nationality citizens, so in a way, yes the occupation entity is responsible for many of Americas ills. .
“Twatz” . . LMAO
Good documentary on Russian excellence:
“The Engines that came in from the cold”
These were finest rocket engines in the world, built in absolute secrecy to land a man on the moon. At the height of Cold War rivalry, the engineers of the Soviet Union developed what have become the most admired rocket engines money can buy.
I agree … also helicopter engines by
Maybe at Lada, but not in the MIC.
That’s rubbish – any country that can consistently and sustainably design and manufacture its own advanced military aviation suites, from Su-30/35 to Kamov Ka-52, without external tech buy-in is very capable state. In contrast, it took the combined efforts of leading western European nations to design and manufacture the Eurofighter/Typhoon in 2000’s – and after barely a decade it proved basically unsustainable – the UK have flogged off majority of their fleet to the ever hapless and gullible Saudi’s. Russia can produce its own advanced military hardware – this is not a feat many other nations can boast. That is before even broach topic of advanced S-400/500 SAM family, or the fact US-NASA space launches currently remain dependent on Russian built and supplied rocket power-plants. US military pilots have due peer-respect for advanced Russian aviation and SAM’s – they tend to leave the area pronto when painted – suffice to say they know a thing or two more about it all than you – so maybe get off your very ill-informed high horse. Just sayin’.
Russian decline is foreseeable … just sayin’
And, entirely predictable, generalized, Russophobia is all ya’ can muster…lame.
Demographic decline is already present …
Russian State has fallen 2wice in the last 100 years … instability of the regime is obvious …. look for the oligarchs to abandon ship
I smell a Shlomo . .
A mutt from the street smells?
Not difficult Shlomo, especially when the odor is so bad that even the flies won’t go near it . . .
I pity the fool …
haahhahhahhahahahaha
The Ugly Duckling F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a complete & utter Failure…an Expensive heap of Junk
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/f35-joint-strike-fighter-deficiencies-2020/
‘The National Interest’ says otherwise … eh?
next
No they don’t…they say exactly the same:
The Egregiously EXPENISIVE and notoriously UNRELIABLE F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are even more of a DISAPPOINTMENT than you previously thought, according to a new Department of Defense…
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/stealth-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-has-some-serious-problems-report-42892
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-can’t-fire-its-cannon-without-committing-suicide-122541
In other words: It is an Expensive piece of Junk
Mir shoin zayn …
If people on here say shit tastes foul you would say it taste great. Who believes a word you say when we all know you are just here to stir the shit because you are so bored.. Have a nice day Splatz .. Hint , go fishing , you bite so quick you will love it..
I can smell shit … I don’t have a Covid … eh?
You’re here for the same reason … to meet fellows at the ‘coffee shop’ to stir it up …
next
Course you smell shit idiot .. you are smelling yourself.
Don’t bother trying to be funny … goy
Who’s trying to be funny jerkoff. What a dumb fish you are . Doesn’t matter the lure you swallow it whole everytime.. Now that would be funny if it wasn’t so sad..
Keep swimming in vomit … slug
LOL LOL Now that is hilarious. I see what you mean about being funny.. I am still laughing. Thanks.
yeah persistent idiot.
Wouldn’t mind if was something to think about but just repetitive mindless crap , like a couple of others.. Pissabit is even worse. He is all piss.
The occupation entity hires losers like this Shlomo as disinformation agents. Most of these putzes are homeless or unemployed and jump at the chance to get food in their stomachs. You can tell they are not well educated and have a limited ability to actually carry on an intellectual conversation . .
Those couple have been quiet for a while now. Not earning wages so sacked. Pretty dumb and stupid alright. Just wasting their time as they are not going to change anyone’s thinking..
buy russian engines to sort the problems. nothing much going as planned in the disunited states of exceptional morons of A. they are like the jews, think that theft and murder and lies are fully compatible with the reality in the world and that they will be excused, which no longer is he case. poor fuckers.
Five years ago my grandmother could tell the damn thing would be too difficult to maintain to be any good.
I wonder if Theresa May’s husband has sold his Raytheon shares with his insider knowledge .Must have been nice telling his wife when she was PM to go bomb some country because we will make money off the shares we have in the missile factories.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/16/washington-energetic-generals-and-emphasis-on-preparation-for-nuclear-war/
Washington’s energetic generals. Hucksters prepping for civilian consulting jobs.
Knew this thing would end up as a hanger queen. This would likely effect training of pilots since they’d have less time in the air.
The Flop-35 program is pretty much toast. Even the U.S. started buying Super-Hornets, F-15EX instead. Now airforce wants a low cost 4.5gen to replace the F-16… Told you so…
The Chinese have all the electronics blueprints anyway, given they manufacture the boards on it:
“In truth, though, this revelation has been hiding in plain sight. The U.K. company, Exception PCB, was acquired by Shenzhen Fastprint in 2013, “a company based in China and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.” Exception openly heralds its global parent: “The Fastprint Group of Companies provides manufacturing sites in the U.K., U.S. and Asia, trading companies in the U.K., U.S., Israel, China and main EU Countries,” as well as “truly global support… for all sectors including Aerospace.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/15/chinese-owned-company-supplies-electronics-on-u-s-and-u-k-f-35-fighter-jets/?sh=708b471125c0”
Though, the Chinese might want to be very suspicious of copying anything from this turkey …
‘A heat-related issue is also causing cracks in the F135’s fan blade coatings.’
Notably, the F-35 has other ongoing overheating issues in rear fuselage assembly – also around power-plant. The radiant engine heat has overheated the electronics, hydraulics and other associated parts packaged around the engine. This was identified in earlier reports, and indicated it would mean replacing these parts a lot sooner than anticipated – and lot more screening maintenance to check on heat degradation of all close proximity parts. The reason for it all seems to be the overly tight packaging of engine and parts inside of rear fuselage. Done as result of design brief to produce a minimum overall fuselage cross-section, in interests of low radar signature. This is a fundamental design issue – and interestingly, very similar overheating/ packaging issues have arisen in formula racing cars in past. Where the packaging of engine and associated electronic and hydraulic management systems were simply too tight within rear of chassis, in pursuit of reduced mass and aerodynamic advantages. However, in those racing car instances, when the parts were being cooked around the engine, and the racing season was being thrown away, the racing teams had benefit of knowing that they could refocus resources toward developing a new chassis for following season. This however, is not an option for the F-35 program, as the aircraft effectively has a permanently fixed core fusealge design – across three models.