Defense News: F-35 Ejection Seat Fix Delayed to 2018; Pilot Restrictions Continue
WASHINGTON — The US Air Force won’t lift weight restrictions on F-35 pilots until 2018 — at the earliest — as more testing needs to be done to address safety issues with the jet’s ejection seat, Defense News has learned.
"The [Joint Program Office] is working to accelerate the timeline for fixes and a lot of energy will be applied to ensuring this issue is resolved in 2017," Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Karns wrote in a Jan. 9 email to Defense News. "However, getting this right is the top priority."
The news of the delay is another blow to the Pentagon’s Joint Strike Fighter, which is fast approaching a critical deadline this year to declare the Air Force F-35A variant operational. The pressure is also on for the fighter jet to make its expected European debut at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK this summer. In an embarrassment for a program with years of cost overruns and schedule delays already under its belt, the plane was forced to skip Farnborough in 2014 after an engine fire grounded the fleet.
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WNU Editor: Why so long? Why two plus years to fix what is suppose to be a minor problem. My guess is that it is not a minor problem .... but actually a big problem.
Yes, the F-35 program is in trouble, but no, the Air Force calling it operational (which has already been done at Hill AFB) has no meaning, is not a critical deadline, any more than the Marines calling their variant combat capable (in effect) was. They are lying. The plane won't actually be operational in a competitive environment (not just bombing peasants) for years, if ever.
ReplyDeleteThe next critical F-35 milestone is the Milestone C production decision in 2019, which they never mention but it's documented.
The plane is airshow-capable, that's it.
The critics of the F-35 are pulling out all stops to stop this thing. form their efforts, I'm reminded of the William Shakesphere quote, "thou doest protest much." As such, I'm inclined to believe 1.)the F-35 is the best innovation since warmed bread, 2.)the anti-American/anti-war American leftists who dominate the US media and dominate the US government believe the F-35 to be the best invention since warmed bread and, since their goal is to undermine America, they will;/are doing everything the can to undermine this program, or 3.) the F-35 is a crappy program that needs to be scrapped ASAP and the anti-Americanism of the media and government elites prevents them from thinking clearly.
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to believe that 3 is the correct assessment. Furthermore anti-American leftists have likely penetrated the program to develop the F-35. As such, the sooner the program is scrapped, the likely the better.
Russia and China are the world's most powerful countries. Unfortunately they are America's enemies and to make matters worse American leadership has acted in a manner to make matters worse.
B. Poster,
ReplyDeleteYou really need to read the technical criticisms of the F-35 and the F-35 program.
It's massively over budget, over a decade behind schedule, loaded up with temporary pre-production fixes for structural, engine and design failures that still have not been resolved, it's claimed performance has been continually downgraded and it's mission roles have been reduced, it's speed, sortie rates and flight time are half the target goals for the project, it's maintenence cycles are horrible.
Japan, South Korea and the EU have all restarted their Gen5 fighter programs because it is clear that the F-35 will not achieve it's origional mission goals, nor it's deployment schedule, and needing an actual Gen5 fighter, given there will be no F-22 restart or sales, they are going to have to build one themselves.
If Canada elects to go with the F-35, the CAF will be down to 21 flying F-118's by the time it enters service, and we will be able to afford only 40 F-35's to replace what was a 120 F-118 fleet. The F-35 will effectively kill Canada's membership in NATO as we will only have enough sortie able aircraft to barely cover our NORAD commitments.