F35's cleared for flight!!

[Eric Mc]

Confirmed by the US DoD this morning - the F35 will NOT be appearing at Farnborough.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28321023

[mcdjl]

Bisonhead said:

What an absolute shambles. Why cant they just design it properly, on time and on budget. Surely they must have carried out projects on time and on budget in the past?

Mental

The research and design phases both have challenges. At the start of the project a salesman sells this ace concept. By the time the person making it sees it they don't have the ability to ask for more time/money to actually make it work. Followed shortly by the salesman getting a fat bonus and being off to repeat the above, while some engineer gets moaned at for not doing his job. Which constantly changed anyway as the design specification gets changed constantly by the customer.

[jimbobsimmonds]

mcdjl said:

Bisonhead said:

What an absolute shambles. Why cant they just design it properly, on time and on budget. Surely they must have carried out projects on time and on budget in the past?

Mental

The research and design phases both have challenges. At the start of the project a salesman sells this ace concept. By the time the person making it sees it they don't have the ability to ask for more time/money to actually make it work. Followed shortly by the salesman getting a fat bonus and being off to repeat the above, while some engineer gets moaned at for not doing his job. Which constantly changed anyway as the design specification gets changed constantly by the customer.

erm, ^^This!

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

Confirmed by the US DoD this morning - the F35 will NOT be appearing at Farnborough.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28321023

That's just the BBC be a bit slow and confirming this morning what the Pentagon confirmed yesterday morning

As I said, in an earlier post, the restricted flight regime imposed on the return to flight status was hardly going to allow a first time trans Atlantic trip when one of the restrictions (among many!) is a boroscope inspection of the fan blade unit after every 3 engine hours!!!

[Eric Mc]

Did any other news media organ confirm this yesterday?

Or were they just not interested?

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

Did any other news media organ confirm this yesterday?

Or were they just not interested?

Not in this country - as you say, UK media aren't really interested unless it's a slow news day otherwise.

[onyx39]

aeropilot said:

Eric Mc said:

Confirmed by the US DoD this morning - the F35 will NOT be appearing at Farnborough.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28321023

That's just the BBC be a bit slow and confirming this morning what the Pentagon confirmed yesterday morning

As I said, in an earlier post, the restricted flight regime imposed on the return to flight status was hardly going to allow a first time trans Atlantic trip when one of the restrictions (among many!) is a boroscope inspection of the fan blade unit after every 3 engine hours!!!

Could they not strategically place their carriers at intervals across the pond? It's been approved for carrier landings..

[SydneyBridge]

is the plane due to appear anywhere else in the UK later in the summer?

[onyx39]

SydneyBridge said:

is the plane due to appear anywhere else in the UK later in the summer?

Very much doubt it.
I think it was always going to be about Farnborough, and they tied in RIAT as they were consecutive weekends.

[aeropilot]

onyx39 said:

SydneyBridge said:

is the plane due to appear anywhere else in the UK later in the summer?

Very much doubt it.
I think it was always going to be about Farnborough, and they tied in RIAT as they were consecutive weekends.

Yup, plus MOD wanted it here for the flypast for the carrier launch ceremony which was the week prior to RIAT, so all 3 events tied together.
I suspect they'll maybe try again next year for RIAT 2015, but almost certainly not before then.

[Mave]

Bisonhead said:

What an absolute shambles. Why cant they just design it properly, on time and on budget. Surely they must have carried out projects on time and on budget in the past?
Mental

How do you plan out and budget a job which has never been done before? Turning a set of paper concepts into an integrated operational solution is a hugely complex task with lots unknowns and enormous interdependenview. You want something on time and budget? Ask for something that's been done before, and don't keep changing your mind.

[Lurking Lawyer]

Bisonhead said:

What an absolute shambles. Why cant they just design it properly, on time and on budget. Surely they must have carried out projects on time and on budget in the past?

Mental

It can be done - just seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

I was quite surprised to read recently that the F15 took 4 years to go from the issue of the specification/order to first flight and then a further 4 years to first active service. Given how long things seem to take these days, that was positively heroic in its alacrity.

I suppose the degree of technology and sophistication was rather less than something like the Typhoon, F22 or F35, and so delays and problems with the latter are perhaps more understandable, but even so it shows it can, on occasion, be done!

[Eric Mc]

Compare and contrast with the F-111 - or even the F-14 - which all experienced serious problems during their development.

[Lurking Lawyer]

Indeed, Eric - I wasn't seeking to suggest that things were necessarily any different 30, 40 or 50 years ago.

Delays and overruns are very much the norm - I was just surprised that the F15 had been so comparatively rapid in its transition from procurement specification to flyable prototype and then into squadron service.

[FourWheelDrift]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Eurof...

The X-35 first flew in 2000, F-35A in 2006 and the first F-35B in 2008 and the B model is expected to be in service in December 2015 with the US Marine Corps, 1 year before the USAF get their A models.

Now I'm not saying the Eurofighter was a slow development (but I do think it was) but the F-35B has been positively rushed by comparison to it and others.

[aeropilot]

FourWheelDrift said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Eurof...

The X-35 first flew in 2000, F-35A in 2006 and the first F-35B in 2008 and the B model is expected to be in service in December 2015 with the US Marine Corps, 1 year before the USAF get their A models.

Now I'm not saying the Eurofighter was a slow development (but I do think it was) but the F-35B has been positively rushed by comparison to it and others.

The trouble is with all this new stealthy high tech fly-by-wire computer controlled gubbins and fire/control weapons kits etc is that the design of it all in the mid 2000's is now so out of date, they almost have to start again just prior to entering service.
F-35 has 8 million odd lines of code or something like that, and the hardware its all mounted on is 'technically' now out of date.
That's not to mention that by the time it doesn't enter service, the detection systems have progressed enough to render it's stealth aspects much less relevant.

Too much all eggs in one basket with this thing - and at huge cost to boot.

[richtea78]

My interest in this is based purely on watching them fly and I know nothing about the technology or the processes involved

That said, why are we spending so much money on something that doesn't appear to be very good. It looks like they have tried to make it do too much and it's now literally jack of all trades

Couldn't they do it with a range of different drones? Wouldn't they be smaller as no pilot so not need to be as armoured therefore less expensive and less of an issue if shot down?

What am I missing?

[jimbobsimmonds]

aeropilot said:

FourWheelDrift said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Eurof...

The X-35 first flew in 2000, F-35A in 2006 and the first F-35B in 2008 and the B model is expected to be in service in December 2015 with the US Marine Corps, 1 year before the USAF get their A models.

Now I'm not saying the Eurofighter was a slow development (but I do think it was) but the F-35B has been positively rushed by comparison to it and others.

The trouble is with all this new stealthy high tech fly-by-wire computer controlled gubbins and fire/control weapons kits etc is that the design of it all in the mid 2000's is now so out of date, they almost have to start again just prior to entering service.
F-35 has 8 million odd lines of code or something like that, and the hardware its all mounted on is 'technically' now out of date.

As it the case with all military/civil aerospace avionics though. Even the latest updates to the Typhoon are on ancient hardware (in comparison to what is available). The final updates for Typhoon in 10-15 years will probably be with hardware we recognise today. The time it takes to design, test, redesign, qualify then produce avionics hardware is incredibly long as it HAS to work with near 100% reliability. Component obsolesence (ie: the manufacturer stops making the chip, capacitor or w/e) is a major problem in the aerospace industry.

[jimbobsimmonds]

richtea78 said:

My interest in this is based purely on watching them fly and I know nothing about the technology or the processes involved

That said, why are we spending so much money on something that doesn't appear to be very good. It looks like they have tried to make it do too much and it's now literally jack of all trades

Couldn't they do it with a range of different drones? Wouldn't they be smaller as no pilot so not need to be as armoured therefore less expensive and less of an issue if shot down?

What am I missing?

Drones cannot think... 30 years down the line maybe but even then I would imagine it will be in a support role to manned assets.

[S3_Graham]

jimbobsimmonds said:

aeropilot said:

FourWheelDrift said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Eurof...

The X-35 first flew in 2000, F-35A in 2006 and the first F-35B in 2008 and the B model is expected to be in service in December 2015 with the US Marine Corps, 1 year before the USAF get their A models.

Now I'm not saying the Eurofighter was a slow development (but I do think it was) but the F-35B has been positively rushed by comparison to it and others.

The trouble is with all this new stealthy high tech fly-by-wire computer controlled gubbins and fire/control weapons kits etc is that the design of it all in the mid 2000's is now so out of date, they almost have to start again just prior to entering service.
F-35 has 8 million odd lines of code or something like that, and the hardware its all mounted on is 'technically' now out of date.

As it the case with all military/civil aerospace avionics though. Even the latest updates to the Typhoon are on ancient hardware (in comparison to what is available). The final updates for Typhoon in 10-15 years will probably be with hardware we recognise today. The time it takes to design, test, redesign, qualify then produce avionics hardware is incredibly long as it HAS to work with near 100% reliability. Component obsolesence (ie: the manufacturer stops making the chip, capacitor or w/e) is a major problem in the aerospace industry.

I'd say that civilian stuff is more up to date than military, based on the fact that they can share components and use 'off the shelf' items whereas most military stuff, as you say, is all made to order when the original order is placed.