I agree with you on the Stealth eagle. The reports out of the Australian analysis are really - eye opening. If the polymer matrix is deteriorating in service, then the entire aircraft ahs to be reworked.. That is really serious.
the huge advantage of titanium / aluminium is the ability to remove heat from vital components in supersonic flight.
L-M has been there before, - remember the "Fry Star' that the airlines stopped buying after the rear engines burnt through the passenger bulkheads?
In 2002, in a surprise decision, the then Defence Minister announced that the planned AIR 6000 flyoff to choose Australia's future fighter aircraft was to be effectively stopped, with the developmental Joint Strike Fighter declared to be the preferred aircraft type.
The Joint Strike Fighter is not designed to perform air superiority roles, unlike the larger F-22A, and is not well adapted to performing the penetrating long range strike role filled by the F-111 until 2010.
There has been considerable adverse press associated with JSF cost overruns, project delays, and other difficulties observed in this program.
The JSF Program and resulting aircraft designs have, since the very first days of the program, been burdened by fatal optimism, a total indifference to what is real, placement of form over substance, the acquisition malpractice of concurrency and the fact that the STOVL F-35B is the baseline for all three variants, having dictated and constrained most if not all key aircraft parameters in the definition and resulting design of the other two JSF variants.
The F-35 JSF aircraft designs will not meet specification nor the operational requirements laid down in the JSF JORD (Joint Operational Requirements Document) by significant degrees, noting that these operational requirements and resulting specifications, themselves, were predicated on the capabilities of reference threats from an era past and subsequently subjected to the illogical and deeply flawed process known as CAIV (Cost As and Independent Variable).
The designs of all three JSF variants are presenting with critical single points of failure while even the most basic elements of aircraft design (e.g. weight, volume, aerodynamics, structures, thermal management, electrical power, etc.) will almost certainly end up in what Engineers call "Coffin Corner".
In essence, the unethical Thana Marketing strategy used to sell the JSF, along with the acquisition malpractice of concurrency in not only development, production and testing but the actual designs of the JSF variants, themselves, have resulted in the JSF marketeers writing cheques that the aircraft designs and JSF Program cannot honour.
A more detailed summary of these points is available in
Hansard, Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, 07/02/2012, Inquiry into the Department of Defence annual report 2010-11 and associated
Submissions by Air Power Australia. Further technical discussion can be found in the
OSD DOT&E FY2012 Annual Report.
This website indexes a selection of relevant articles, submissions and papers.
From Air Power Australia
Whereas in 2003:
Burbage: There’s a lot of magic, but let’s start with the
infrastructure. The multi-role combat air forces (U.S. Air
Force, Navy and Marine Corps, and the joint Harrier force
of the U.K.) operate airplanes that basically have the same
mission, if you exclude how they are based; i.e., long
runways, and aircraft carriers. What’s unique about them
is how they sleep; but when they’re awake they all do the
same thing.
The design challenge of JSF is to find a way to develop a
family of airplanes and attain economies of commonality
and scale that drive down the costs of each airplane. The
objective is to make the airplanes for about half of what
today’s airplanes cost.
http://www.honeywell.com/sites/docs/DZHZL77WSTHRHWKLQS9EKSY4C4A68QR9.pdf
What a load of Malarkey, -TOM Burbage.
Deftly Managing a Global Team,
Working Around the Clock to Produce
the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
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