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The US Air Force’s F-35A Lightning fighter jets are under restriction from flying within 25 miles of thunderstorms or lightning, until the On-Board Inert Gas Generation System (OBIGGS) is fixed.
This was announced by a Lockheed Martin spokesperson on June 24th.
The issue only seems to affect the F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing variant, which is used by the U.S. Air Force and the majority of international customers.
Delivery of the fighter jets was also briefly paused to fix the issue, but it has since resumed.
The OBIGGS protects the F-35 by flooding an area struck by lightning with inert nitrogen gas, to prevent explosion.
Delivery of aircraft was suspended June 2nd to ensure the system was being properly installed, but resumed June 23rd when it was determined the problem was occurring “in the field after aircraft delivery,” a company spokesperson said.
Bloomberg, which obtained a JPO memo dated June 5th, reported that flawed tubes were found in 14 of the 24 “A” models inspected.
“We are working with the F-35 Joint Program Office on a root cause corrective action investigation to determine next steps,” the spokesperson said.
The F-35 Joint Program Office did not respond to queries about the issue.
This is not the first time that the F-35A Lightning fighter jet was told to avoid, well, lightning – the jet’s original OBIGGS was also problem-prone, leading to a directive to avoid thunderstorms about 10 years ago. A redesigned system was installed in 2014.
Meanwhile, the US House Oversight and Reform Committee is looking into why exactly the F-35 is so expensive.
According to maintenance personnel testifying before the committee, costs are ballooning because Lockheed Martin is failing to deliver parts to the military that are ready to be installed.
The panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, and others said in a June 18th letter to Lockheed’s new chief executive, James Taiclet, that the Department of Defense faces “excess costs” because it “must divert personnel to troubleshoot these issues and use extensive workarounds to keep F-35 planes flying.”
“The military is spending tens of millions of dollars a year to overcome unresolved issues with the system Lockheed Martin built and maintains to track spare parts for the F-35,” they said. “It is imperative that Lockheed Martin be held accountable for meeting its contractual obligations and that taxpayer money is spent efficiently and effectively.”
The lawmakers made an extensive demand for Taiclet to provide internal documents by June 30th.
Lockheed “will provide all relevant information to the House Government and Reform Committee detailing the continued affordability and success of the F-35 program,” company spokesman Brett Ashworth said in a statement.
“Lockheed Martin has made several improvements to automation and enhanced supplier accountability processes that are reducing costs and improving performance.”
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and also birds :)
more amerikan incompetence—they can’t shoot straight either…the designers may wish to reduce their consumption of meth
The overpriced US equipment is not suited for fighting armies. The Apache helicopter are unsuited for high altitude Ladakh operations so we using the trusted Russian Mi-17 and even older Mi-8.
u are half wrong and half right! the USA apache’s are not what the concern was about! it was HEAVEY LIFT in high Afghan mountains! The USA preferred Russian heavy lift over the Chinooks!
When u want to make attacking comments, try to at least get it right!
Meanwhile the Chinese have moved 2 kms into the Galwan valley
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Every time the United States develops a new fighter, everyone tries to copy/mimic it and at the same time claims it is not good. Interesting.
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is this supposed to show a copy? lol u idiot!
It shows what it shows. Too complicated for you?
The vertical takeoff, and landing Yak. Didn’t Russia gift that to US ?
The US bought the technology.
Who said they copied ? donypu find the Su-27 ressembling tve F-15 , or the Mig-29 looking like a obvious F’16 design knock-off to you ? anyway it goes both ways,every country will try to mimick a given aspect of his competitor,as there will always be some part of its asset that will be of technological interest despite all its flaws.And despite all the Russian-bashing crap that the US State Dept publicly spits aml.the time on air, the US that repeatedly tried (and once succeeded via Japan) to steal entire Russian jets qnd air-defense apparatuses, notably the Mig-25, or the early s-300 PMU-2 via some whore-banging slave drunkard puppet called Yelstin ,and had a dedicated “Foreign Technology’ study department for such prizes.
Well, Sukhoi said his fighters are just supersize MiG-29. MiG-29 existed prior to F-16. The Russians copied the other famous US fighter. The one that has never existed. Isn’t F-16 a single engine aircraft ? F-15 is a swing wing aircraft, if I recall. You’ve watched too much US propaganda. MiG-29 held the world record for fastest fighter aircraft ever, for quite awhile, then MiG-31 took the record and holds it to this day. MiG-29 is an unsurpassed dogfighter, as are all Russian fighters. A few weeks ago, an F-35 flew up beside a Tu-160 strategic bomber on routine patrol, somewhere around Norway, Finland, etc.. F-35 was hanging right beside the bomber, the pilot said later, he was cruising next to the big bomber, watched as the wings swung back, and then hit the afterburners. He said the bomber was gone, he couldn’t stay with it. Tu-160 is another world record holder, and has no analog in the West. There’s a problem with F-35 Oxygen concentrator, same unit as in F-22. Both have the same problem, and it’s still unresolved. This has cost several planes, and pilots being lost, along with other failures the cause F-35 to fall out of the sky with amazing regularity. These junk had to be pulled out of the Middle East, as being even more difficult to maintain in battlefield conditions. That and the “stealth coating keeps falling off, and corrosion issues, are plaguing F-22, and F-35. They’ve proven to be not so stealthy after all. S-200 damaged an IDF F-35, and earlier shot down an F-16. F-35 is the epitome of the “sunk cost fallacy.” Syria just recieved a bunch of upgraded MiG-29. The electronics, (radars, etc.) are state of the art, and resolved that blind spot at mid, to long range that gave Western fighters such a big advantage. Upgraded weapons system, new, more powerful, and efficient engines. These don’t have the increased internal fuel capacity of the top upgraded planes, but I think they do have in-flight refueling, now. Russian military hardware is stronger, better designed, because it has to be to survive Russian winters. One does not see Russian aircraft experiencing problems in Syria, or any other hardware. US Navy went North to the Arctic, the ships broke down. They didn’t like the cold, it seems. Russian icebreakers run 16 knots through 2 metres of ice. US is fortunate Russian icebreakers respond to any, and all distress calls regardless of the country the ship is registered. As far as Yeltsin is concerned, he may have been an old drunk, but he wasn’t a stupid old drunk. Yeltsin is responsible for Putin stepping in, then elected President. Much to the consternation of The City of London. Go troll elsewhere.
Wow! wait a minute mate, I think you’re crudely misguided in your perception of my reply in both spirit and letter, and would respectfully suggest you to change your tone and get down from our high horses, strictly no need for such hostility with me considering your own take, really.
Indeed if you’ve been hanging anywhere near that forum for the last couple of years you’d see that my stances are antithetical to American ones on basically every single piece of geopolitical issues and theaters, and I’m an affirmed, staunch opponent of the imperialist doctrine and namely the infamous “B-team” so I’d advise you to read me again, written records are plenty everywhere to attest that. I’ve gone in lengths several times to counter pro-US teenage fanboy “narrative” sincerely thinking that the USN can mount a successful offensive against the Russian mainland considering the A2/AD capabilities of the latter, that can tear half their assets in range in the opening days of an all-out conflict with their anti-carrier triads, + the impregnable nature of their IADS today including but not exclusive to the lamentably deficient F-35 or their support craft, the extreme vulnerability of USAFE airbases in Eastern Europe to a myriad of Russian metric-precision MRBMs and SRBMs arsenals , and I debunked more than one Trumpian troll in that regard and often got blocked in return by them lol
I think you completely missed my ironical tone when addressing the other commentator. I actually meant (ok in a smart-ass way, granted) that the Mig-29 and Su-27 designs had nothing to do with anything American, and these beautiful birds are testament to that reality,as well as the brilliant fondations of their respective design bureaus, that my whole aeronautics and soviet-friendly family were always astonished about and in utter respect for decades and on to this day with the UAC merger. The F-35 is DOA and even voices in Congress and Lockheed have time and again made themselves heard in quite unforgiving ways. Its Thrust to Ratio and overall Aerodynamic performance are incredibly poor, and almost none of its flight parameters and specs are on par with existing non-stealth platforms currently in USN or USAF inventory, and that “super-stealthiness” cannot compensate for that in the era of bi-static radar apparatuses, multi-band combining the S and X spectrum to beat their designs dating back to the Cold War era. Indeed VHF has killed America’s “all-stealth” doctrine for a decade now if not more, but you gotta get your nose away from Fox, CNN, Foreign Policy or National Interest magazine to realize that of course. Most of these folks don’t even know about ECCM, agile frequency hopping, and EW radars such as the Nebo and it’s hilarious to see them discover it when you first mention it.
As for Yelstine, the only reason why Putin didn’t treat him like the other pro-Us oligarch agent busy on bankrupting the economy and seeling out infrastructure and technology secrets to Washington was that he promised him and his family immunity from whatever prosecution that the end of his presidency migh entail, it was a well-known deal between the two and he certainly didn’t “invite” Putin out of his good heart or ideology. The US was taken aback by the appearance of Putin and the few oligarch that opposed him were too late to mount enough soft power to stop his rise, and it’s all for the better.
Putin was a legitimate, predicable and needed counter-reaction from a decade of Russian ruin and geopolitical catastrophe for both its state integrity and strategic interest. It was “because” of Yelstine not “thanks to him”, you’re making a gross mistake by thinking he gladly acted against London and Langley.
Entirely possible.
Like no country copied T-34 after WWII. Every tank design after WWII is based on T-34.. The only component Russia didn’t design was the suspension, they bought that. From an American named Christie, after US rejected it.
Dude if this jet worked as advertised everybody would respect it much like the F-15 and F-14 Tomcat, this thing is plagued with disasters even after 20+ years of development and it’s first flight how can anyone defend it.
You and I don’t really know much about this fighter. But his many buyers probably know better.
So, who’s attempting to copy F-35 ?
Among others, those who tried to steal its plans. But this is a theoretical debate because today only the US can produce such a stealth plane.
QUOTE
“Among others, those who tried to steal its plans. But this is a theoretical debate because today only the US can produce such a stealth plane.”
UNQUOTE
Yaaaaawn, boring, snoring, zzzzzzzz
Yeah, you’re right, “only the US can produce such a plane.” Okay, who are “those who tried to steal its plans” ? I know Sukhoi went another way with his actual stealth fighter. Two of his planes flew into Syria, flew combat missions for a couple days, then left. The only times the planes were seen were in two satellite photos of them parked on the tarmac.
nobody copies amerikan trash—the Indians prefer Russian fighters, as do the Chinese—the Eurofighter rafaeles, etc are purchased frequently—the amerikans spend more, produce less
$1 trillion garbage.
India has received 4 Rafale so and not very impressed. May cancel the bigger order and we urgently need Russian superior SU-30 and Mig 29 at a fraction of the cost of any European or American aircraft and also their spares are subject to politics and uncertainty.
If only Rafale didn’t cost as much as a 5-gen fighter, the good thing about it is the EW system and the missiles it can use, i understand the political reason on why the Indians bought them, so to not depend too much on Russian equipment but Rafale is super expensive for a 4.5 Gen aircraft .
Edit: Rafale RCS isn’t really that big of a deal if it wants to carry weapons, it was detected by SU30 Radar and a BUK system in Syria
USA 1981 Launch (lifting body) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3962403cc811b770c196f0ff9131ad3dcd256acf54985eb6b0cbe71381fbaa3b.jpg
Russia 1988 Launch (lifting body WHICH PARTIALLY WORKED, NEEDED AND ENGINE)) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f213caa3023d82705788e7e2c04e8272f22d26e4660ac1c725ed11bb363e120.jpg
USA 1950’s (lifting body concept) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/962ef59695404562d014904feeeb818d75332671eac838abd2b44af59d6ef33a.jpg
Russia (Lifting body WHICH DOESNT WORK! HAD TO PARACHUTE DOWN) 1980 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48d3e9db8b4c9216a33b8cec0f5c63bb69862b42fa74e113bffaa405881e62c6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d777452d4e43e60d7d4020f0b829ee70f7511e9a35178099170b39ca7478728.jpg
Buran was a superior shuttle to the U.S. Space Shuttle. (it was also capable of orbiting unmanned and autonomously in space, many years before the X-37)
The only reason it’s service life was so brief was political, the USSR dissolution.
Americans couldn’t have gone to the moon without von Braun and stole many, many of their military technologies from Germany.
They didn’t go anywhere near it with humans
The soviet Shuttle ended up being far superior to the US one, but the design of the shuttle was made public it would be stupid for the Soviets to ignore that and just pour billions into R&D, it would ultimately lead them to something similar since the aerodynamics and physics behind the shuttle dictated that.
the Buran, which did fly, was not only a better, more efficient, safer design and it was unmanned and landed without pilots .
both US and Soviets used each others design and ideas it’s nothing new
To tell you the truth: German scientists were “shipped out” to the US and USSR at the end of WW2
A nation who’s citizens earn on average $800 a month at best shouldnt be bragging!
ive been to Russia twice! i discovered every female (good looking ones) are willing to sell themselves for sex! I assume to pay their rent!
Dont go bragging! just admire the good ur country does but also find room to admire other nations too!
if u want to say the USA is shit….. then u need to be from a greater country! not a worse country! Russia isnt better! u have a lot of crappy shit! You know it! so dont lie! ur country is still a shit hole!
Lol noone believes you Zionist.
The bad period when ‘American’ Jews took over the Russian government and set themselves up as oligarchs is long gone. Justice will be served.
yes i agree its gone! Putin is a good man!
But there is still a long way to go! Jews fuck everything!
Lets revisit this conversation in a year or so after the bankruptcies start to hit and the retail investors figure out that bidding up the price of bankrupt stock is dumb as fuck. Russia is recovering from it’s lost decade (1990’s) ….. the USA’s is just beginning theirs.
I heard an interesting perspective on the joke that is the F-35 program, where the three ‘variants’ share something like 20% of parts between them.
The suggestion was put forth that this isn’t necessarily as bad as it sounds in terms of the logistics train, as many of those parts might be things like structural components that never actually need to be replaced in service. Yes, obviously the cost is higher than it might be if every variant had the same wing structure etc, but, that wouldn’t have worked anyway and the costs won’t compound over time.
Now we find out that this system for MAKING SURE THE PLANE DOESN’T EXPLODE is so different between the three variants that an issue on the conventional variant doesn’t affect the others.
So how does that work? Note that only the F-35C has folding wings. I could understand the variants having to have different parts but if this effects only the F-35A, either they have completely different systems approaches (and the F-35A design was probably cheaped out on) or the F-35B and F-35C are actually unsafe and they’re flying them anyway.
Yes Indians prefer Rus System but the Indians are forced to buy US weapons so they don’t fall under “counter america’s adversaries through sanctions act” even if they don’t end up using them
They used to make good stuff back in the day, nowadays it’s all about profits and show
F-35 is a proven over rated and over priced failure. US was pushing it to India, but even Modi decided to stick with tried and tested Russian SU-30 and Mig 29 which are value for money.
The enemies of the outlawed US empire will die laughing, it could be the secret of victory, a secret hidden in plain sight that only the Yankees cannot find.
nothing much right with the f35 – useful to know for the guys with the proper stuff such as su37s and other russian types.
The flying palm slap.
But can just about lob a bomb (in favorable flying conditions) a few dozen miles from neutral airspace in operations to support ISIS.
Honestly this is a recipe for disaster, i might wake up one day to see them fall out of the sky in mass and i wouldn’t surprised, this program has been going on for more than 20+ years and still there are bugs issues with it’s skin it’s fuel tubes it’s guns and the speed they’re allowed to reach before it’s stealth coating starts breaking up
Overblown piece of crap. Imagine that all information of its main computer will be beamed to Microsoft cloud. Anybody buying this shit will be under constant surveillance and control of the Americunts. And on top you pay a huge ransom. Nice deal right?
Hahahaha what a shitbox shitshow
Lockheed made beyond-limits airframes before almost anyone on the internet was born. They know how to build airframes. Or perhaps the intelligence among those “experts” and “highly educated” is downgoing, that logic and common sense is slowly but surely being destroyed, that be smart today was the normal intelligence back in the day?
All these “mistakes” and “delays” are all deliberately; i believe that they are holding back the F-35 until they know who are the “good” vassal states and who´s not. And a party should take it as a honour to be able to pay for one and, perhaps, eventually, get one in stock. Its like Crapple and slamsung; we have millions of phones in stock on launch day, but you need to sign up on this list and feel honoured and priviliged to “get the call” that there is on with you name on it in the shop.