F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

[asianobserve]

Ultimately Canada will go for F-35. The Liberals just need time to make an about face without loosing too much credibility...

Liberals pay $33 million to stay in F-35 program, despite not committing to buy them

Canada has so far forked over more than $311 million to develop the F-35 — without any guarantee it will actually buy the multibillion-dollar stealth fighter.

The most recent instalment was made June 24, when the Liberal government quietly paid $32.9 million to the U.S. program office overseeing development of the warplane, despite having promised during last year's election campaign not to buy the F-35.

The contribution keeps Canada at the table as one of the nine partners in the project for the next year. Partners get a discount when purchasing the stealth fighter, and have access to billions of dollars in contracts associated with producing the plane.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/f35-stealth-fighter-jet-1.3696269

 

[asianobserve]

First flight for Israel's F-35A Adir

 

[asianobserve]

The Air Force is close to declaring the controversial F-35 ready for combat

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ring-the-controversial-f-35-ready-for-combat/

 

[asianobserve]

Marine Corps F-35B Stealth Fighter Is Ready for War, General Says

The Marine Corps expects to send its first squadron of F-35Bs to Japan in January ahead of a deployment with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.

But there’s nothing stopping the Marines’ two operational squadrons of 5th-generation fighters from deploying earlier if called upon, Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Aviation Lt. Gen. Jon Davis said Friday.

“We have a unit that’s ready to go right now,” Davis told Military.com following an event at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. “If we think we need to do that, we’re ready to do that.”

http://www.defensetech.org/2016/07/...tealth-fighter-is-ready-for-war-general-says/

 

[asianobserve]

F-35B Tactics Evolving As Pilots’ Understanding Of Technology Matures

The first was done with fewer planes than Davis thought was needed, but otherwise went according to plan. He said the pilots were given a scenario that was “very high-end, off the ship, go into the jaws of death, double-digit SAMs, fighter threat, and go after a very strategic target on the ground. I watched them do it as a foursome, which normally I would say it would be 13 or 14 airplanes normally, what I would do as [commanding officer] of the weapons school, which I was. … They killed the fighters, they killed the SAMs, they killed the target, they came home.

“What was most interesting to be was not what they did but how they did it. It was very much the maturation of the pilots and how they’re flying this airplane, how they’re using information, communicating with each other, sharing information,” he continued.
“It was more like watching a pack of dogs go after something. And it was force-on-force, it wasn’t scripted,” so their success – particularly with so few aircraft – was far from guaranteed.

The second drill, though, did not go as planned – in the best possible way, Davis said. The planes were to fly a close-air support mission through clouds at 1,000 feet, with the planes in the 3F configuration that allows for pylons to externally carry 18,000 pounds of bombs.

“I’m out there, the commandant of the Marine Corps is out there, I want to impress the commandant,” Davis said.
“This first scenario was awesome, and then right before the second scenario I said, are we ready to go? And this young major comes up … he goes, ‘we’re not going to do exactly what you want us to do.’ I’m like [eyes grow wide]. “Because we didn’t think the tasking was challenging enough. So we’ve got two that are slick and two that are loaded up as bomb trucks. We can do the job sir, don’t worry.’”

So two planes forfeited their external carry capacity in exchange for stealth, and “it was a work of art,” Davis said. The planes hit all their targets in five and a half minutes, with the four planes passing images through the clouds and successfully taking out the missile threat early on.

“I just watched, I’m like, that’s not how my brain works, but that is the way their brains are working,” he said.
“Gen.(Charles) Krulak, who I used to work for, said ‘you don’t man the equipment, you equip the man,’ so we’re equipping these young Marines, this generation that doesn’t know any bounds for latitude for technology, and they’re leveraging this technology and doing great things.”

https://news.usni.org/2016/07/29/f-35b-tactics-evolving#more-20947

 

[asianobserve]

The F-35 is so stealthy, it produced training challenges, pilot says

During a recent exercise at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, F-35 squadrons wanted to practice evading surface-to-air threats. There was just one problem: No one on the ground could track the plane.

“If they never saw us, they couldn’t target us,” said Lt. Col. George Watkins, the commander of the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

The F-35s resorted to flipping on their transponders, used for FAA identification, so that simulated anti-air weapons could track the planes, Watkins said.

“We basically told them where we were at and said, ‘Hey, try to shoot at us,’ ” he said, adding that without the transponders on, “most likely we would not have suffered a single loss from any SAM threats while we were training at Mountain Home.”

“When we go to train, it’s really an unfair fight for the guys who are simulating the adversaries,” Watkins continued. “We’ve been amazed by what we can do when we go up against fourth-gen adversaries in our training environment, in the air and on the ground.”

Watkins said he can take four F-35s and “be everywhere and nowhere at the same time because we can cover so much ground with our sensors, so much ground and so much airspace. And the F-15s or F-16s, or whoever is simulating an adversary or red air threat, they have no idea where we’re at and they can’t see us and they can’t target us.”

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/07/31/f-35-so-stealthy-produced-training-challenges-pilot-says/87760454/

 

[Yumdoot]

Tell them to stop learning from Zohan and start learning from Zoltan.

 

[asianobserve]

Maiden Flight of IAF's First F-35A

 

[asianobserve]

F-35 targeting system laser will be 'almost impossible' to use in UK for training

The F-35's electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) includes a target designator laser and a laser rangefinder.

According to the Defence Ranges Safety Committee, the F-35 has only been cleared to use the designator laser “in the US under very tight controls”.

These include a ban on any optic devices being within 33km of the aircraft when the designator is switched on, and no observers being allowed within 9km of an F-35 operating its designator laser.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/01/f35_electro_optical_targeting_system_laser_cant_used_uk/

 

[asianobserve]

USAF Set To Declare F-35 Combat Ready; Hill Notifications Begin

The U.S. Air Force plans to begin notifying Congress on Aug. 1 of the impending decision to declare the F-35 combat ready, sources said, a move that will likely be followed shortly by Air Combat Command’s (ACC) final seal of approval.

http://aviationweek.com/defense/usaf-set-declare-f-35-combat-ready-hill-notifications-begin

 

[asianobserve]

USAF Moves Forward with Integration of F-22 and F-35

The declaration of the United States Air Force F-35As initial operational capability (IOC) is looming. This milestone (anticipated by the 388th FW at Hill AFB) will initiate the next phase of the F-35A variant of the evolving F-35 global fleet, namely, the operational integration within the Air Force fleet, specifically with the F-22.

It is well known that each aircraft bring unrivaled 21st Century situational awareness to the battlespace, and yet each has a distinct strength.

Fesler paraphrased comments made by Gen. H. “Hawk” Carlisle, “the F-35 is the best A2A platform in the world, except for the F-22. The F-22 is the best A2G platform in the world, except for the F-35.

The units/aircraft will operate in combat together to maximize effectiveness in the battlespace.

How the units/aircraft will be best manned and systems maintained for maximum efficiencies is a work in progress.

The Raptors have a decade of 5th Generation “real world” experience to share with the F-35A.

http://www.sldinfo.com/usaf-moves-forward-with-integration-of-f-22-and-f-35/

 

[WolfPack86]

f-35 lightning ii fighter jet

 

[asianobserve]

F-35A takes down target drone

With an initial operational capability declaration imminent, the Lockheed Martin F-35A marked its first air-to-air kill during a flight test after launching infrared- and radar-guided missiles at subscale target drones, the US Air Force announced 1 August.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/f-35a-takes-down-target-drone-428085/

 

[WolfPack86]

F-35A completes first live air-to-air ‘kill’ test

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --
The F-35 Lightning II advanced its combat capability by launching an air-to-air missile and directly hitting a drone over a military test range off the California coast July 28.

U.S. Air Force test pilot, Maj. Raven LeClair, employed an AIM-9X missile from an F-35A's external wing against an aerial drone target in restricted military sea test range airspace. Test data and observers confirmed the F-35 identified and targeted the drone with its mission systems sensors, passed the target 'track' information to the missile, enabled the pilot to verify targeting information using the high off-boresight capability of the helmet mounted display (HMD) and launched the AIM-9X from the aircraft to engage the target drone. After launch, the missile successfully acquired the target and followed an intercept flight profile before destroying the drone, achieving the first F-35 Air-to-Air kill or "Boola Boola," which is the traditional radio call made when a pilot shoots down a drone.

Immediately prior to launching the AIM-9X, LeClair employed an internally carried AIM-120C missile against another target drone. This target was beyond visual range and the AIM-120C was given a successful self-destruct signal right before target impact.

The AIM-9X is a short-range heat-seeking missile with an off-boresight capability for accuracy and features thrust-vectoring controls for increased turn capability. The F-35 can carry two AIM-9X missiles on its wings.

During previous test shots a self-destruct signal had been sent to the missile prior to it hitting the target.

"It's been said you don't really have a fighter until you can actually hit a target and we crossed that threshold with the first air-to-air weapon delivery of an AIM-9X. This successful test demonstrates the combat capability the F-35 will bring to the U.S. Military and our allies," said LeClair. "This test represents the culmination of many years of careful planning by combined government and contractor teams. We want to ensure operators will receive the combat capability they need to execute theirmission and return home safely - we cannot compromise or falter in delivering this capability."

The missile test is part of a weapons delivery accuracy surge being conducted by the F-35 Joint Program Office Test Teams at Edwards Air Force Base, Point Mugu Sea Test Range, White Sands Missile Range and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. The focus of the increased weapons testing is to advance 3F software testing, which will provide full warfighting capabilities to the F-35. Other ordnance being released during surge testing include: Small Diameter Bombs, Joint Direct Attack Munitions and AIM-120s.

The F-35 is a multi-role, next-generation fighter that combines advanced stealth with speed, agility and a 360-degree view of the battlespace. The F-35 will form the backbone of air combat superiority for decades to come and replace legacy tactical fighter fleets with dominant air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities to deter and defeat potential adversaries.
http://www.edwards.af.mil/News/Arti...35a-completes-first-live-air-to-air-kill-test

 

[asianobserve]

F-35 fighters combat ready, US Air Force says

The U.S. Air Force says the most expensive weapons system in its history is ready for combat.

The service said Tuesday that its version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35A Lightning, has reached IOC (Initial Operating Capability), meaning that it is developed enough and has passed the proper tests to be flown on combat missions.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/air-force-f-35-combat-ready/index.html

 

[asianobserve]

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Singapore's next-gen fighter?

While Singapore continues to remain tight lipped about its next-generation combat aircraft programme it is widely believed that an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter buy is a matter of not if, but when for the Southeast Asian country.

http://www.janes.com/article/62721/f-35-joint-strike-fighter-singapore-s-next-gen-fighter

The operators of F-35, US allies, is only set to grow even more in the coming years due to obsolence of current frontline fighters. The current 4th gen fighters on the market simply is not an option when potential adversaries are already developing their own 5th gen fighters.

 

[WolfPack86]

US Air Force declares F-35A fighter jet combat ready
WASHINGTON: The US Air Force has declared the F-35ALightning II fifth-generation fighter jet as ready for combat, a major milestone for the futuristic aircraft dogged by delays and cost overruns.

The US defence secretaryAshton Carter congratulated the air force on the announcement on Tuesday and said this is a significant milestone for an aircraft that will allow the US to maintain the advantage of air superiority for years to come.

"I know that even after being declared combat ready, there is more work to do with this critical program, but the Air Force, Air Combat Command and the men and women of Hill Air Force Base should be proud of this major step forward for the F-35A," Carter said.
The fighter jet is the latest addition to the US Air Force's fleet of deployable and fifth-generation aircraft.

"The F-35A will be the most dominant aircraft in our inventory because it can go where our legacy aircraft cannot and provide the capabilities our commanders need on the modern battlefield," General Hawk Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command said.

It provides air superiority, interdiction, suppression of enemy air defenses and close air support as well as great command and control functions through fused sensors, and it will provide pilots with unprecedented situational awareness of the battlespace that will be more extensive than any single-seat platform in existence, the Pentagon said.

Carlisle said the aircraft has met all key criteria for reaching initial operational capability -- Airmen trained, manned and equipped to conduct basic close air support, interdiction and limited suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses in a contested environment with an operational squadron of 12-24 aircraft.

It also has the ability to deploy and conduct operational missions using program of record weapons and missions systems and having all necessary logistics and operational elements in place, he added.




Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the aircraft's achievement of initial operational capability is another important milestone in the Joint Strike Fighter program.

It also has the ability to deploy and conduct operational missions using program of record weapons and missions systems and having all necessary logistics and operational elements in place, he added.




Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the aircraft's achievement of initial operational capability is another important milestone in the Joint Strike Fighter program.
"But for the most expensive weapons system in history, the road ahead remains long," he said.




The Senate Armed Services Committee will continue to exercise rigorous oversight of the Joint Strike Fighter program's long-delayed system development and demonstration phase as well as the start of the operational test and evaluation phase.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ter-jet-combat-ready/articleshow/53516495.cms

 

[WolfPack86]

Air Force Declares F-35A Ready for Combat
WASHINGTON — The US Air Force on Tuesday declared its first squadron of F-35As ready for battle, 15 years after Lockheed Martin won the contract to make the plane.

The milestone means that the service can now send its first operational F-35 formation — the 34th Fighter Squadron located at Hill Air Force Base, Utah — into combat operations anywhere in the world. The service, which plans to buy 1,763 F-35As, is the single-largest customer of the joint strike fighter program, which also includes the US Marine Corps, US Navy and a host of governments worldwide.

The Air Force, which follows the Marine Corps in approving F-35s for operations, had a five-month window between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31 to proclaim initial operational capability (IOC). After notifying Congress, Air Combat Command (ACC) head Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle signed off on the declaration on Aug. 2.

In a briefing with reporters Tuesday afternoon, Carlisle stressed that although the F-35A is not perfect, the aircraft has significantly improved from the early days of the program. More importantly, its stealth, electronic warfare and sensor fusion capabilities are urgently needed for future conflicts.

"Given the national security strategy, we need it," he said. "You look at the potential adversaries out there, or the potential environments where we have to operate this airplane, the attributes that the F-35 brings — the ability to penetrate defensive airspace, the ability to deliver precision munitions with a sensor suite that fuses data from multiple information sources — is something our nation needs."

The service’s top leaders also sounded off in support of the declaration. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein and Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James both labeled it "an important milestone."

“The F-35A brings an unprecedented combination of lethality, survivability and adaptability to joint and combined operations, and is ready to deploy and strike well-defended targets anywhere on Earth,” Goldfein said in a statement.

F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said the IOC declaration sends a message to US friends and foes: "The F-35 can do its mission."

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Still, challenges abound. For example, during a recent interim readiness assessment, operational testers found the F-35A's scope did not always display data in an intuitive manner, necessitating that the pilot hone in on a data point to get more information, Carlisle told reporters.

The Air Force, together with the joint program office, hopes to fix that issue in 2017 with its 3F software, which will give the the aircraft its full war-fighting capability, including the ability to launch certain types of weapons such as the Small Diameter Bomb. Other 3F changes, like improved pilot interfaces and displays, will make the plane easier to operate, he said.

To reach the IOC milestone, Hill Air Force Base needed at least 12 combat-ready jets capable of global deployment to provide what officials have termed basic close-air support, air interdiction, and limited suppression and destruction of enemy air defense missions. Also required were enough pilots, maintainers and equipment to support the squadron.

Asked to spell out what the difference was from the F-35's basic close-air support capability and a full close-air support capablity, Carlisle declined to go into specifics.

"Basically it doesn't have necessarily all of the attributes" of the A-10, which was built for close-air support, he said. For instance, the airplane was not designed with an infrared pointer.

Getting to the point where the Air Force could meet its IOC requirements was not exactly easy, as the F-35 program hit a few unforeseen snags this year. Bogdan announced in the spring that the joint program office had identified instances of “software instability” that would cause the jets to have trouble booting up and, once the software was running, prompt the random shutdown of sensors.
Then, Lockheed in June disclosed that the latest version of the plane’s Autonomic Logistics Information System, ALIS 2.0.2, would not be available until at least October. ALIS is the F-35’s maintenance backbone, and is used for everything from mission planning to ordering spare parts.

The F-35 appeared to turn the corner after seven planes from Hill deployed to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. There, pilots and maintainers confirmed they could successfully operate and repair the plane away from home base, even with an earlier version of ALIS. They also demonstrated that Lockheed’s software update had fixed software instability problems, reporting zero glitches during the 88 sorties flown.

After that deployment, Carlisle said the current version of ALIS would not be a “limiting factor” that would keep the F-35 from becoming operational.

The squadron at Hill then completed its own checklist, which included tasks such as ensuring enough pilots were combat-ready and subjecting them to an oral examination. On July 27, members of Hill Air Force Base’s 34th Fighter Squadron told the press they had amassed 12 modified F-35As and 21 combat-mission-ready pilots and completed all the paperwork needed to make an IOC declaration.
Todd Harrison, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said declaring IOC is a sign the F-35 program has moved beyond the well-known cost overruns and development issues that marked so much of the fifth-generation fighter's development.

"I’m sure there will still be kinks that come up in the system in the coming years, but for the most part I think this means the program has stabilized, they’re on a good trajectory, [and] most of the potential for major cost overruns and technological challenges are now behind us," he said.

Critics of the program have said declaring IOC is more of a marketing move than an actual operational one, as the service set the IOC requirements itself. Harrison acknowledged that view but said IOC is still an important step forward.

"It’s not doing everything they wanted it to do. It’s had all kinds of problems along the way. But they are at the point now where it is stabilizing, so it’s still a milestone of progress."

The Road Ahead

Carlisle said in July that even though he would feel comfortable sending the F-35 to a fight as soon as the jet becomes operational, ACC has formed a “deliberate path” where the aircraft would deploy in stages: first to Red Flag exercises, then as a “theater security package” to Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

The fighter probably won’t deploy to the Middle East to fight the Islamic State group any earlier than 2017, he said, but if a combatant commander asked for the capability, “I’d send them down in a heartbeat because they’re very, very good.”

The ACC commander reiterated that sentiment Tuesday, stating that he would deploy the F-35 if its capabilities were needed. Deployments to Europe and the Asia-Pacific, which Carlisle would like to see within 18 months, would help boost partner nations' confidence in the airframe, he said.

Over the next several years, the Air Force plans to stand up two more operational squadrons at Hill. That will entail growing the F-35 maintainer corps from the 222 currently trained personnel to almost 700 maintainers, said Lt. Col. Steven Anderson, deputy commander of the 388th Maintenance Group.

“We’ve got at least another 150 in the training pipeline,” he said last week. “On average, it’s 12 months to take a fourth-gen legacy aircraft maintainer and turn them into a fifth-generation maintainer, so those maintainers that are in the pipeline now will be standing up our next couple squadrons.”
Burlington Air National Guard Base in Vermont is set to become the second operational base — and the first Air National Guard base — to host the F-35, and will receive 18 joint strike fighters to replace its F-16s, Richard Meyer, the Air Force’s deputy chief of the F-35 system management division, said in a July 29 interview.

Around 2020, Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska, will get two squadrons of 24 F-35s. Those aircraft are not slated to replace any fourth-generation fighters at the base and will bring added capability, he said

The Air Force’s first overseas base, RAF Lakenheath in England, will follow about a year afterward. Lakenheath will be home to two F-35 squadrons in addition to the F-15E and F-15C squadrons it already has.

The service is still evaluating which installations to select for the fifth, sixth and seventh operational bases, Meyers said. The fifth and sixth bases will be Air National Guard bases, while the seventh will be one of four reserve bases that currently host F-16 or A-10 squadrons: Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida, Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona or Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth in Texas, which is home to Air Force F-16s.

"You have to do an environmental assessment to ensure the base meets all the requirements of the environment of the new plane,” Meyers said. That assessment entails evaluating whether new military construction is needed and whether existing facilities need any alterations to be able to support the aircraft.

“It just takes a while," he added.

F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin congratulated the service on meeting the IOC milestone. "With the F-35A, the Air Force now has a fighter combining next-generation radar-evading stealth, supersonic speed, fighter agility and advanced logistical support with the most powerful and comprehensive integrated sensor package of any fighter aircraft in history," the company said in a statement.

Pratt & Whitney, which produces the F135 engine used in all three variants of the jet, also sent a statement congratulating the service.
http://www.defensenews.com/story/br...oc-air-force-operational-acc-combat/87948142/

 

[gadeshi]

All you need to know about JSF program in a whole and F-35 in particular

 

[asianobserve]

30 Seconds Explaining IOC for the F-35A