Maybe no F-35's EH

[The Inspector]

Canadas Ministry of Defense is having a change of heart on buying F-35's as the once 'solid' price is now starting to balloon from the negotiated (but not yet a signed contract) Ca$ 75 Million each to a price not yet found.
This ads to Norway, Turkey, and others starting to back away from the F-35-

[mike furline]

Another boondoggle!


Taken from Wiki, (for what it's worth)
"U.S. intends to buy 2443 airframes....." (We'll see. IIRC initial F-22 procurement was to be 700+. Total ended up being 195).

"During testing in 2011, all eight landing tests of the F-35C tail hook failed to catch the arresting wire; the hook design is being modified to address the problem".

Haven't tailhooks been around and working for close to 100 years? They must have "improved" upon it.

[The Inspector]

Yeah, but this is the first aircraft LocoWeed has designed for the Navy that needs a tailhook as standard equipment.

[mike furline]

What about the T2V (T-1A)?

[The Inspector]

What about the T2V (T-1A)?

Forgot that 'un

[Pogmusic]

S-3 Viking? Lockheed.......

[Wildchild]

I'm still mad at the few F-22's they made, which was/is a all around better fighter than the F-35

[Kyleb]

Directly or indirectly, Lockheed has paid for a lot of my existance, so I'm a big fan of their programs. However, this program smelled like a boondoggle from day one. Trying to use variants of one airframe to fill three substantially different requirements is a recipe for a mess.

I hope they get things worked out.

[ZRX61]

"During testing in 2011, all eight landing tests of the F-35C tail hook failed to catch the arresting wire; the hook design is being modified to address the problem".

Haven't tailhooks been around and working for close to 100 years? They must have "improved" upon it.

It's too close to the mains, there isn't any sufficient structure far enough back to mount it where it needs to be....

[The Inspector]

"During testing in 2011, all eight landing tests of the F-35C tail hook failed to catch the arresting wire; the hook design is being modified to address the problem".

Haven't tailhooks been around and working for close to 100 years? They must have "improved" upon it.

It's too close to the mains, there isn't any sufficient structure far enough back to mount it where it needs to be....

Once again, Locoweed engineering rushs to the cutting edge carrying a butter knife.

[phil65]

We don’t need no stinking tail hook, just make them all STOVL !

Actually I don’t we could make all the engines here at Pratt anyway.

From what I’ve heard we were going to make the US engines here in Ct. and the foreign engines would be made in Fl. by our sister company Rocketdyne, since they not making too many Shuttle engines anymore.

Phil

[Cvairwerks]

It's too close to the mains, there isn't any sufficient structure far enough back to mount it where it needs to be....

Actually, the hook location is not causing the problem that showed up in the trample testing. The Navy's desired toe shaping coupled with a hook damper that was wan't strong enough caused the problem. A while back the Navy revised it's hook toe design requirements to reduce the potential and instances of the hook cutting the deck pendants. The as designed toe profile just didn't work for the required hook angle. Revisng the toe profile combined with a new damper should solve the problem. It's supposed to start testing late this summer. There is a long discussion on hook engineering and the requirements over on F-16.net in the F-35 section if one is curious.

[Kyleb]

It's too close to the mains, there isn't any sufficient structure far enough back to mount it where it needs to be....

Actually, the hook location is not causing the problem that showed up in the trample testing. The Navy's desired toe shaping coupled with a hook damper that was wan't strong enough caused the problem. A while back the Navy revised it's hook toe design requirements to reduce the potential and instances of the hook cutting the deck pendants. The as designed toe profile just didn't work for the required hook angle. Revisng the toe profile combined with a new damper should solve the problem. It's supposed to start testing late this summer. There is a long discussion on hook engineering and the requirements over on F-16.net in the F-35 section if one is curious.

It is always interesting when you get the facts behind the story. I doubt that the facts and the solution (presuming it works) get 1/10th the press that the problem did.

[The Inspector]

I'm still curious about what will be the result of the first one to FRISBEE that forward lift fan-

[obart1]

I'm shocked. How can this happen to a company that holds an AS9100C registration? I'm certain LM has buckets of metrics that inform management everything is fine. I'm equally certain that all the engineers on the program are current with their diversity and harassment in the work place training requirements.