F-22 / F-35 5th Generation jets | News & Discussions.
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gambit
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The fact that the F-35 is to be VTOL capable mean there are no legitimate comparison to the F-22 in terms of design and manufacturing. To date, the only successful VTOL aircrafts are the Harrier and the Osprey and make that successfully DEPLOYED aircrafts. Plenty of experimental VTOL designs exists but for some reasons or another, none of them made it beyond the testing stage. Either they were designed to test a very specific idea about VTOL to see if that idea is practical or not. Or as a whole aircraft, the design was completely impractical. Nevertheless, we must explore anyway.
Not only are there system and sub-system technical hurdles to overcome, but operational issues as well. For example, and this is a carryover from the Osprey program, when an aircraft is hovering, how do you design its controls? A helicopter is an aircraft and helo pilots will call it that. But the controls for a rotary wing aircraft is different from a fixed wing aircraft in terms of controlling the aircraft in different modes of flight. So how do you design the flight controls system, other than the technical issues, so that it incorporate both rotary and fixed wings features to reduce pilot confusion? In development, which pilot do you want as test pilot, the rotary wing guy, or the fixed wing guy? Each will have his own biases as to how to design a flight controls system. How will you train the new F-35 pilot, meaning do you send him to certify on the helicopter so he will know how an aircraft will behave when it has thrust but no aerodynamic forces on the aircraft?
It is not as 'piece of cake' as you perceived.
Eglin F-35B conduct first aerial refueling
US Marine Corps pilots flying the F-35B short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) version of the Joint Strike Fighter at Eglin AFB, Florida, recently completed their first aerial refueling on 2 October.
While aerial refueling is a relatively mundane task that every US fighter pilot routinely undertakes, the F-35B is in its infancy. The initial instructor pilot cadre at Eglin has to ensure that the aircraft is safe enough for future student pilots to train on, as such the idea was to "validate the system."
USMC Majors Tye Bachmann and Paul Holst, both assigned to Eglin's VMFAT-501, flew the unit's aerial refueling sortie. The two F-35Bs took on fuel from a Lockheed Martin KC-130 Hercules tanker over the Gulf of Mexico using the probe and drogue aerial refueling system. The aircraft were at 15,000ft and flying at about 250 knots.
"It was different refueling an F-35, but not hard," says Holst, the first non-test pilot to aerial refuel the F-35B. "The system worked as advertised. At the end of the day, the pilot still has to plug the probe into the drogue."
Later that afternoon, USMC Colonel Art Tomassetti, vice-commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing, and Major Adam Levine also took-on fuel from the KC-130 tanker.
Now that the aerial refueling procedure has been validated, all of the Marine aviators at Eglin will start qualifying on the procedure--including two who are bound for the first operational squadron in Yuma, Arizona.
US Marine Corps pilots flying the F-35B short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) version of the Joint Strike Fighter at Eglin AFB, Florida, recently completed their first aerial refueling on 2 October.
While aerial refueling is a relatively mundane task that every US fighter pilot routinely undertakes, the F-35B is in its infancy. The initial instructor pilot cadre at Eglin has to ensure that the aircraft is safe enough for future student pilots to train on, as such the idea was to "validate the system."
USMC Majors Tye Bachmann and Paul Holst, both assigned to Eglin's VMFAT-501, flew the unit's aerial refueling sortie. The two F-35Bs took on fuel from a Lockheed Martin KC-130 Hercules tanker over the Gulf of Mexico using the probe and drogue aerial refueling system. The aircraft were at 15,000ft and flying at about 250 knots.
"It was different refueling an F-35, but not hard," says Holst, the first non-test pilot to aerial refuel the F-35B. "The system worked as advertised. At the end of the day, the pilot still has to plug the probe into the drogue."
Later that afternoon, USMC Colonel Art Tomassetti, vice-commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing, and Major Adam Levine also took-on fuel from the KC-130 tanker.
Now that the aerial refueling procedure has been validated, all of the Marine aviators at Eglin will start qualifying on the procedure--including two who are bound for the first operational squadron in Yuma, Arizona.
Mosamania
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@ 2:04
Lockheed Martin's F-35A Joint Strike Fighter has performed its first in-flight weapons release, with conventional take-off and landing test aircraft AF-1 having dropped a JDAM-series GBU-31 908kg (2,000lb) bomb on 16 October.
Jettisoned from the F-35A's left-side internal weapons bay, the instrumented weapon was released over the China Lake weapons range in California. AF-1 was flown by US Air Force Maj Matthew Phillips from Edwards AFB.
Lockheed says the F-35A has a maximum payload capacity of almost 8,200kg, with the fighter having four internal weapons points and three hardpoints under each wing.
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