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F-22 / F-35 5th Generation jets | News & Discussions.

*Ahem

The Pentagon on Tuesday said classified data about the $399 billion F-35 fighter jet program remains secure, despite fresh documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden last week which said China stole "many terabytes" of data about the jet.

The U.S. Defense Department's F-35 program office said the latest documents released by the German magazine Der Spiegel "rehashed" a previously disclosed and reported 2010 incident, which it said compromised only non-classified data about the new warplane being built by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N).

"Classified F-35 information is protected and remains secure," the program office said in a statement released Tuesday. It said all potential cyber-attacks were taken seriously and the 2010 incident was not expected to cause any negative impact to the program.

Pentagon says classified data on U.S. F-35 jet fighter program remains secure| Reuters
 
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*This will impact the USN and JMSDF only, as these two nations are using the systems being integrated with the F-35.

Navy to Integrate F-35 With Beyond-the-Horizon Technology


The Navy and Lockheed Martin are planning to demonstrate a beyond-the-horizon anti-ship missile detection and defense technology using an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The system, referred to as Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air, or NIFC-CA, uses Aegis radar, and airborne sensor and SM-6 missile to find, track and destroy approaching threats such as cruise missiles at ranges well beyond the typical radar horizon, Navy officials said.

Alongside Aegis radar and an SM-6 missile, NIFC-CA uses an E-2D Hawkeye aircraft as an airborne sensor to help relay threat information to the ship from beyond its normal radar range.

Lockheed is working closely with Naval Sea Systems Command, or NAVSEA, to plan a NIFC-CA demonstration at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., sometime this year or next year, a Lockheed executive said.

“We are looking at alternative airborne sensors,” the executive said.

The idea with a demonstration, sources indicate, would be to use the F-35 as an airborne relay node or sensor in place of the E-2D Hawkeye. This could allow NIFC-CA to operate against an increasingly complex set of targets such as stealthy targets, the Lockheed executive explained.

Sensors on the F-35 include the Active Electronically Scanned Array, or AESA, radar as well as a system called Distributed Aperture System, or DAS, which combines input from as many as six different electro-optical cameras on the aircraft. The aircraft also draws upon a technology called Electro-optical Targeting System, or EOTS, which helps identify and pinpoint targets. EOTS, which does both air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting, is able to combine forward-looking infrared and infrared search and track technology.

NIFC-CA is a technology which could alter the strategic calculus for both offensive and defensive warfighting scenarios; it is the kind of system which could have implications regarding what the Pentagon likes to call anti-access/area-denial or A2/AD – the strategy through which potential adversaries seek to use long-range weapons such as anti-ship guided missiles to deny U.S. forces the ability to operate in strategically important areas. For instance, long-range, land-launched cruise missiles could make it more difficult for Navy ships to approach certain coastal waterways.

However, if there were a NIFC-CA-enabled ability to identify and destroy approaching threats at much further distances beyond the horizon – that could greatly impact where U.S. forces such as Navy ships and carrier groups could safely operate.

Alongside this defensive role, NIFC-CA technology can bring offensive firepower capability to Navy ships as well, allowing them to attack targets at much greater ranges. For example, the SM-6 uses both active and semi-active guidance technology, giving it the ability to discriminate and destroy targets at ranges beyond-the-horizon. NIFC-CA could potentially be used for long range offensive strikes against a range of enemy targets to include things such as aircraft, unmanned systems, ships, vehicles and buildings.

The NIFCA-CA is slated to deploy later this year with Navy forces in 2015 as part of the Teddy Roosevelt battle group, so this cruise missile defense technology will be protecting the fleet soon.

NIFC-CA is part of the Navy’s upgraded Aegis ballistic missile defense system called Baseline 9, which is being engineered into destroyers now under construction such as DDG 113 through DDG 118. Baseline 9 is already engineered onto a handful of platforms including the USS John Paul Jones, a destroyer– and two cruisers, the USS Chancellorsville and the USS Normandy.

From Navy to Integrate F-35 With Beyond-the-Horizon Technology | Defense Tech

*Ahem

The Pentagon on Tuesday said classified data about the $399 billion F-35 fighter jet program remains secure, despite fresh documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden last week which said China stole "many terabytes" of data about the jet.

The U.S. Defense Department's F-35 program office said the latest documents released by the German magazine Der Spiegel "rehashed" a previously disclosed and reported 2010 incident, which it said compromised only non-classified data about the new warplane being built by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N).

"Classified F-35 information is protected and remains secure," the program office said in a statement released Tuesday. It said all potential cyber-attacks were taken seriously and the 2010 incident was not expected to cause any negative impact to the program.

Pentagon says classified data on U.S. F-35 jet fighter program remains secure| Reuters

That article got everyone's panties in a bunch again, but the leak and theft of data dates back to the 2007-2010 period. Still, people will freak about it... again, but this matter has been taken care of and any theft mitigated through changing the designs. Plus the F-35's software still isn't complete, if anything the Chinese stole very little and having seen parts of the stuff they stole, it's mainly PowerPoint slides and very little technical information. PDF's Chinese members will high-five themselves, but the damage has been mitigated.

THAAD, the F-35, LCS (why would China want that lemon?), PAC-3, Standard, none of these has been adversely effected seeing as all are or have proceeded as planned.
 
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Cool photo of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II undergoing tests in extreme freezing weather conditions.

An F-35B from the F-35 Patuxent River Integrated Test Force in Maryland has undergone rigorous climatic testing at the U.S. Air Force 96th Test Wing's McKinley Climatic Laboratory located at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The laboratory supports all-weather testing of weapon systems to ensure they function regardless of climatic conditions.

For the past four months, an F-35 Lightning II has endured extreme weather temperatures to certify the fleet to deploy to any corner of the world.

An F-35B from the F-35 Patuxent River Integrated Test Force in Maryland has undergone rigorous climatic testing at the U.S. Air Force 96th Test Wing’s McKinley Climatic Laboratory located at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The laboratory supports all-weather testing of weapon systems to ensure they function regardless of climatic conditions.

With 13 countries currently involved with the program, the F-35 must be tested in meteorological conditions representative of those locations from which it will operate, ranging from the heat of the Outback of Australia to the bitter cold of the Arctic Circle above Canada and Norway.

“We’ve designed an environment here at the chamber where we can simulate virtually any weather condition—all while flying the jet at full power in either conventional or vertical takeoff mode,” said Dwayne Bell, McKinley Climatic Laboratory technical chief.

The F-35B Lightning II was ferried to Eglin AFB in September 2014 to begin a six month assessment of the aircraft’s performance in wind, solar radiation, fog, humidity, rain intrusion/ingestion, freezing rain, icing cloud, icing build-up, vortex icing and snow.

“While we are testing in the world’s largest climatic testing chamber, we’re pushing the F-35 to its environmental limits —ranging from 120 degrees Fahrenheit to negative 40 degrees, and every possible weather condition in between,” said F-35 test pilot Billie Flynn, who performed extreme cold testing on the aircraft.

“To this point, the aircraft’s performance is meeting expectations”, Flynn said. “It has flown in more than 100 degree heat while also flying in bitter subzero temperatures. In its final days of testing, it will fly through ice and other conditions such as driving rain with hurricane force winds.”

“We are learning more and more about the aircraft every day,” Flynn said. “The future warfighters can be confident the F-35 will perform in any condition they find themselves in for the future.”

F-35 Lightning II Nears Completion of All-Weather Climatic Testing | F-35 Lightning II
 
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F-35 Can't Carry Its Most Versatile Weapon Until At Least 2022

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Because of its small size and standoff range, theoretically a single B-2 bomber could one day carry hundreds of the pint-sized munitions on a single, each programmed and networked together to hit a separate targets in a single or multiple target areas. This means a single attack pass on a massive enemy airfield, or even a large enemy armored column, by a lone B-2, or a formation of F-35s, while staying dozens of miles safely away from the target area, could take out every single target on that airfield or in that armored column while keeping the infrastructure around it largely intact.

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Quite literally, the SDB II is a super weapon that will be the most versatile air-to-ground munition in the entire Pentagon's air combat inventory. The cost per SDB II is said to be around $250k and the DoD plans on buying as many as 17,000 of them.

When it comes to the F-35B and this game-changing weapon, the problem is fairly simple. The F-35B, even with its truncated weapons bay compared to its A and C model cousins, was supposed to be able to carry eight SDB IIs internally. Because the F-35 has to carry its weapon internally to retain its small radar signature, these pint-sized, 250lb precision attack munitions are key to the aircraft's effectiveness in combat, allowing for up to eight ground targets to be engaged on a single stealthy sortie. This is especially true for the F-35B, with its very tight weight limits, being able to hit eight individual targets at range while in stealthy configuration gives the jet an immense attack per-sortie capability boost compared to packing a pair of 1,000lb or 500lb guided bombs internally. Additionally, considering the F-35B's main focus is to support Marines on the ground, being able to hit eight moving targets via STB II instead of eight stationary targets via STB I is a huge tactical difference.

Because the F-35 is not invisible to advanced radars, no aircraft is, integrating the SDB II with its 40 mile range, onto the jet is key so that it can target enemy SAM and anti-aircraft artillary systems, especially road-mobile pop-up ones, while still remaining out of range of detection. Without this capability, it is unclear exactly what weapon the F-35 will be used to break down an enemy's non-fixed air defenses and how close it will bring the F-35 to those air defenses due to traditional gravity munition's limited range. SDB I will be effective against stationary anti-aircraft and air defense sites, but will lack the enhanced terminal guidance and networking capability.

In other words, a good portion of the concept of operations that makes the F-35 worth the cost of admission, which is close to $150M per F-35B, will have to wait well into the next decade, long after the B model has officially entered 'operational service' later this year. This, along with many other deficiencies, makes the idea that the jet is truly operational when the Marines declare it as such remains more debatable than ever, if not outright laughable.

Originally, the F-35 was going to be one of the first aircraft to receive the SDB II, mainly because the weapon is so well suited to its concept of operations as discussed above and because of its limited internal weapons carriage capability. Now it will be introduced along with more frivolous munitions capabilities (including the 'lock on after launch' AIM-9X as well as theNorwegian Naval Strike Missile based Joint Strike Missile among other weapons and capability upgrades) as part of the Block 4 upgrade somewhere around 2022, hopefully.

At this point, the issue of delayed SDB integration is not so much a software one but a physical one. Crucial hardware within the F-35B's weapons bay interferes with the full contingent of eight SDBs being carried, thus the bay needs to be redesigned to accommodate this very necessary loadout. As a result, the F-35 program has delayed the integration of this key weapon as a whole until 2022, at which time modifications to existing aircraft, which there will be many, will supposedly take place. Thus the Navy and Marines will not have the SDB II capability until then, and apparently neither will the USAF. Instead the Super Hornet and the F-15E will lead SDB II integration in the near term.

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Until sometime in 2020s, the F-35 will be shoehorned into attacking moving targets even in the most highly defended areas with 'direct attack' munitions like GPS guided JDAMs and laser guided bombs while maintaining its stealthy lines. This means they will have to nearly overfly these targets to destroy them as opposed to standing off and attacking them outside the detection and/or engagement ranges of enemy air defenses. This would greatly impede the F-35's survivability against near peer-state threats and would basically give the jet the same strike capability against moving targets that was available during the opening of Operation Enduring Freedom some 15 years ago and the same capability against fixed targets that the F-22 has had for many years.

In the end, the lack of SDB IIs in the F-35's quiver till at least 2022 may not be a show-stopper for a jet that has fought one problem after another throughout its development, but it is just another 'wait and see' item on the F-35's growing list of 'wait and see items.' The truth is that, regardless of its price tag, the F-35 will not really exist as promised until the middle of the next decade, assuming development goes as planned and assuming that orders remain intact at current levels. This puts the existence of a fully mission ready F-35 close to 20 years after its first flight, and some 25 years after its technology demonstrator, the X-35, first flew back in 2000.

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For some perspective, you were lucky to be carrying an analogue Motorola StarTAC cell phone in 2000, now take a look at your cell phone now. If we can learn anything from the F-35 debacle it is that we need to find another way to design, test and procure high-end weapon systems. A 30+ year cycle just to get the weapon system as originally envisioned is totally unacceptable and in many ways the F-35 is already obsolete both on a sub-system level and on a conceptual level.

If we really want to retain our military supremacy well into this young century than we need to find a new way to evolve our weaponry because our competitors are more than willing to assume more risk in development and testing in order to reach parity sooner.

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First F-35A Fighter Assembled Outside US Rolled Out In Italy

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Italy Rolls Out First F-35A Fighter Assembled Outside US

The first F-35 A Lightning II fighter built outside the US rolled out of Cameri Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO) facility in Italy, Lockheed Martin said in a press release Thursday.

The roll-out marks the first F-35A assembled internationally and the first of eight aircraft currently being assembled in Italy. The aircraft, designated as AL-1, will now proceed to additional check-out activities before its anticipated first flight later this year.

The rollout exhibits the ongoing strong partnership between the Italian Ministry of Defense, industry partner Finmeccanica-Alenia Aermacchi, and Lockheed Martin. The Italian FACO is owned by the Italian Ministry of Defense and is operated by Alenia Aermacchi in conjunction with Lockheed Martin with a current workforce of more than 750 skilled personnel engaged in F-35 aircraft and wing production.

"The Cameri FACO is currently assembling the first eight Italian F-35As and producing wings for all F-35As fleet-wide," saidLorraine Martin, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 program manager.

"Additionally, as the European F-35 airframe Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Upgrade center, it will generate thousands of long-term, high-tech jobs for the Italian people for decades," he added.

The FACO will build all Italian F-35A and F-35B aircraft, is programmed to build F-35As for the Royal Netherlands Air Force and retains the capacity to deliver to other European partners in the future. In December 2014, it was selected by the U.S. Department of Defense as the F-35 Lightning II Heavy Airframe Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Upgrade facility for the European region.
 
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How to Build a $400 Billion F-35 That Doesn’t Fly

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The Pentagon’s embattled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter continues to be plagued with so many problems that it can’t even pass the most basic requirements needed to fly in combat, despite soaring roughly $170 billion over budget.

As the most expensive weapons program in the Pentagon’s history, the $400 billion and counting F-35 is supposed to be unlike any other fighter jet—with high-tech computer capabilities that can identify a combatant plane at warp speed. However, major design flaws and test failures have placed the program under serious scrutiny for years—with auditors constantly questioning whether the jet will ever actually get off the ground, no matter how much money is thrown at it.

Related: How DOD’s $1.5 Trillion F-35 Broke the Air Force

Last year, military officials faulted contractors for all of the mistakes. Contractors claimed they had corrected the issues and that there wouldn’t be more costly problems down the road.

During an interview on 60 Minutes, Air Force Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, who is in charge of the program, said, “Long gone is the time when we will continue to pay for mistake after mistake after mistake. Lockheed Martin doesn’t get paid their profit unless each and every airplane meets each station on time with the right quality.”

However, a new progress report from the Defense Department casts serious doubts on the progress of the program.

The DOD’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation cites everything from computer system malfunctions to flaws with its basic design—it even found that the jet is vulnerable to engine fires because of the way it’s built.

A separate report from Military.com unearthed another embarrassing issue with the jet that suggests it won’t take off on time.

Related: 5 Expensive Weapons Programs No One Wants

The “precision-guided Small Diameter Bomb II doesn’t even fit on the Marine’s version of the jet," according to Military.com. On top of that, the software needed to operate the top close-air support bomb won’t even be operational until 2022, inspectors said.

The Defense Department’s report also suggested that the program’s office isn’t accurately recording the jet’s problems.

“Not all failures are counted in the calculation of mean flight hours betweenreliability events, but all flight hours are counted, and hence component and aircraft reliability are reported higher than if all of the failures were counted,” the report said.

The Project on Government Accountability summed up the report in an independent analysis, concluding that the program isn’t realistically going to meet its goal of being operational for the Marines by this summer.

“The F-35 is years away from being ready for initial operational capability. To send this airplane on a combat deployment, or to declare it ready to be sent, as early as the Marines’ 2015 or the Air Force’s 2016 IOC dates, is a politically driven and irresponsible mistake. DOT&E's report shows that the current plans for the F-35A and B should be rejected as unrealistic. Without meaningful oversight from the Department of Defense or Congress, however, these IOC declarations will go unchallenged,” POGO said on its website.

While more problems with the program are identified, the costs keep climbing.

Last year alone, the JSF was $4 billion over budget, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. At the same time, the program was scaled back to include fewer jets. The GAO noted the Pentagon was spending more for less.


How to Build a $400 Billion F-35 That Doesn’t Fly | The Fiscal Times
 
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F-35 programme begins developing cyber-attack capability
Marina Malenic, Washington, DC - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
18 March 2015
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An F-35A, at Edwards AFB, California, is pictured with the F-35 Systems Development and Demonstration Weapons Suite the aircraft is designed to carry. The F-35 can carry more than 1,600 kg of ordnance in low observable mode and over 8,200 kg uncontested. The programme is now preparing to add non-kinetic weapons such as an offensive cyber pod. Source: Edwards AFB
Key Points
  • The F-35 programme is developing a pod-mounted cyber-attack system
  • The offensive system is in the "prototyping phase", according to the deputy programme manager
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter programme is developing a pod-mounted cyber-attack system as it continues kinetic weapons integration, the deputy programme executive officer said on 17 March.

"Industry is developing a pod that would not degrade the signature of the airplane," said Rear Admiral Randy Mahr at the Precision Strike Association conference in Springfield, Virginia. He told IHS Jane's that the offensive system was in the "prototyping phase" and was not being designed by F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin, but declined to name the developer.

Meanwhile, Rear Adm Mahr said, the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) B-model of the aircraft would be able to accommodate the Raytheon GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb Increment II (SDB II).

Some media reports have suggested that the weapon cannot be carried in the weapons bay of the F-35B - the smallest of the three variants - because the aircraft body contains a liftfan.

"SDB II will fit in the F-35B," Rear Adm Mahr said. "We have to move one hydraulic line and one wire bundle about a half-inch each to make it fit".

He noted that SDB II was still in development and would not even be ready for integration until Block IV of the F-35 programme was complete.



F-35 programme begins developing cyber-attack capability - IHS Jane's 360
 
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New report shows slow, steady unit cost drop for F-35
By: DAN PARSONS
WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flightglobal.com
13 hours ago
The overall cost of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II programme will come in at about $7.5 billion less than previously expected, according to the 2015 selected acquisition report (SAR).

Released on 18 March, the report indicates that research, development, test and evaluation cost remains unchanged at $54.9 billion, but that procurement costs declined by $7.7 billion, to $331 billion. The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) says the reduction was primarily due to decreased labour costs.

While the SAR reports that the operating and support (O&S) costs of the F-35 over its service life remain nearly $1 trillion – the cost assessment programme evaluation that authors the SAR does not adjust O&S figures until a major milestone is reached – the JPO claims its revised cost estimate for this metric showed a $57.8 billion reduction from 2014, bringing the overall figure to $859 billion.

Lockheed's F-35 programme general manager, Lorraine Martin, says the company has reduced O&S costs for the F-35 by $60 billion in the past year alone.

“This is a result of a laser focus by the entire government and contractor team on reducing costs across the board, whether it’s improving quality in manufacturing, increasing supply chain delivery speed, and dramatically reducing concurrency items," Martin says. "We have numerous initiatives in place, including the Blueprint for Affordability, that will drive programme costs even lower, allowing us to provide our warfighters a fifth-generation F-35 jet at a fourth-generation price by the end of the decade.”

Lockheed is aiming for price tag of around $80 million per jet, with a Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, by 2019, when the F-35 will enter full-rate production. Another recent report by the US Department of Defense inspector general (IG) brings into question whether Lockheed's production line will be able to meet a one-jet-per-day peak production rate.

The SAR puts the unit recurring flyaway (URF) cost of an air force F-35A at $108 million in the eighth lot of low-rate initial production (LRIP 8), which was finalised in late 2014 – $4 million less per aircraft than the US government paid in LRIP 7.

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US Air Force

"The actual contract negotiated cost of aircraft and engine with fee continues to come down, and remains well below the SAR lot yearly URF estimates," the JPO says.

The IG recently said that the JPO was not ensuring that Lockheed was meeting the 90% reduction in the rate of assembly defects per aircraft "to meet the full-rate production goal of completing one aircraft per day", and was also not tracking its progress using the correct data for LRIP deliveries.

Lockheed was tracking the number of non-conforming material records rather than the number of assembly defects, the IG says. The company showed just a 23% reduction in non-conforming material records, compared to the 60% defect rate reduction that should have occurred in LRIP 5.

Lockheed says the report indicates a 98% drop in findings compared with 2013. It adds that 25% of the resolutions to the new findings have already been validated by the US Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), which tracks adherence to government acquisition deals.

DCMA approval is required for every failure resolution before a finding is considered closed. Lockheed says all corrective action plans should be in place by mid-2016.

"Producing quality products is a top priority for the F-35 Lightning II programme. Lockheed Martin, our partners, and our supply base strive every day to deliver the best possible aircraft to our customers. When discoveries occur, we take decisive and thorough action to correct the situation," the company says.
 
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The crux of matter is for all the tall claims Lockheed and proponents of F-35 makes its a plane too slow, too expensive thus making it pretty useless. Wasn't there a simulation in 2008 showed that F-35's were no match for Chinese fighters? Which Lockheed tried its best to not only suppress but villainize the two authors.
Expecting one plane to fulfil all the different roles and monopolise it to one manufacturer was not a good idea to begin with. With all the bell and whistle, this flying junk is useless.
 
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The crux of matter is for all the tall claims Lockheed and proponents of F-35 makes its a plane too slow, too expensive thus making it pretty useless. Wasn't there a simulation in 2008 showed that F-35's were no match for Chinese fighters? Which Lockheed tried its best to not only suppress but villainize the two authors.
Instead of asking about the article, why did you not bring on the article ? Never mind that question, we already know the answer. :rolleyes:

Expecting one plane to fulfil all the different roles and monopolise it to one manufacturer was not a good idea to begin with. With all the bell and whistle, this flying junk is useless.
I take it you speak from extensive personal experience in military aviation.
 
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