Our boy Box Cox of the Ft. Worth Star Telegram and his gang of zany JSF watchers caught the plane in the act on Friday…
Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II test airplane finally took off again Friday afternoon for a 55-minute flight, the first since a severe electrical problem forced an emergency landing May 3.
Test flight No. 20 was successful, went according to plan and was trouble free, said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 program general manager.
“We planned it to go an hour,” Crowley said. Test pilot Jon Beesley “had the discretion to go a little more or a little less. He got everything done and finished a little bit early.”
It was a key milestone in the development of the next generation stealth combat jet, a program estimated to ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers upward of $300 billion even with financial contributions from eight partner nations. Lockheed Martin and government officials have downplayed the effect of the plane’s grounding and the problems that caused it, but the issues and rising costs are being closely watched by potential foreign buyers.
The F-35’s wasn’t the only milestone flight of the afternoon above Fort Worth. Lockheed later flew the CATBird, the much-modified Boeing 737 that will be a flying laboratory for engineers to test and modify the many electronic surveillance, tracking and weapons-targeting systems that are being developed for the F-35.
“The impact of these two flights on the team morale, having been down so long, was huge,” Crowley said.
With a cluster of several dozen onlookers watching nearby, Beesley fired up the F-35’s Pratt & Whitney engine and took off about 1:20 p.m. from Naval Air Station Fort Worth, followed moments later by an F-16 chase plane. Both planes quickly gained altitude and turned to the southwest.
After becoming airborne, Beesley ran the engine at various power settings and checked the aircraft’s flight characteristics at 6,000, 17,500 and 20,000 feet, and performed a fuel-dump test at 250 knots before returning to base at 2:15 p.m.
“Everything sounds like the plane is ready to fly again right away,” Crowley said. The test plane will likely fly several more times before the end of the year as test pilots methodically put the aircraft through various maneuvers and situations to test its performance.
In particular they will be monitoring the electrical-hydraulic controls that operate the aircraft’s control surfaces. It was a serious electrical arcing problem in one of the control boxes that caused the emergency on flight No. 19 and led to the plane’s grounding while repairs were designed, produced and tested.
The F-35 will be flown in Fort Worth until about March, when plans call for it to be flown to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for testing by the military.
Hopefully they got all the kinks worked out — especially since they keep grounding those confounded F-15s.
(Gouge: NC)
[Photo: “Where’s Bob?” from the Ft. Worth Star Telegram]
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
I am very glad this has finally been fixed, as I have a slight preference to this craft over the F-22, which he likes more.
It is always less of a waste of tax money when it does cool stuff… and actually flies.
The F-35 is such a waste of money. It was supposed to be to the F-22 what the F-16 is to the F-15. A cheaper, less focus on air dominance, versatile plane. But the Eurofighter always does that and better! I’ve always seen the Eurofighter as the true sucessor of the F-16.
The Eurofighter costs $122m per fighter. The F-35 will cost half that when all is said and done.
The F-35 will cost $113 million each, according to the GAO as of Spring 2007, and that was before we had the just concluded hiatus in production — delay is never cheap.
The Eurofighter is basically in the same class as an F-16 – the F-35 reflects a new generation of fighter design. For all the Typhoon’s advanced avionics, it’s still based on a non-stealthy airframe representing fashionable fighter design in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Stores are carried externally, and supercruise capability is hampered by the need for external tanks on a lot of missions. It’s a very nice fighter, but would’ve been a lot more impressive if it had entered squadron service in the early 1990s as intended rather than dragging out for another 10-15 years. Nobody else has produced a stealthy fighter with the capabilities of the F-22 and F-35 so far.
Look,I love stealth also & I want to see the F-22 & all versions of the F-35 in service.I just think that there is still a mission for brand new F-16 fighter jets also.The F-16I Soufa with conformal fuel tanks,dorsal compartment for electronic countermeasures,& 600-gal external fuel tanks can complement the F-15E as long range strike fighter/bombers.Add to that,make them block 60 & they’d still be relevant for today’s missions.How about this,without going into adding canards,delta wings,&/or thrust vectoring engines to the F-16s,how about keeping the F-35s as single seat aircraft,except for the trainers,& just fly 2-seat F-16s for the long-range fighter-bomber missions just like the Israelis plan with their F-16I Soufas.Surely thats a good compromise.Also,keep the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets & bring back the AIM-155 Advanced Air-to-Air Missile for the Super Hornet.
And since we’re all feeling the love for all things stealth,how about bringing back the “Stealth” RAH-66 Comanche Helicopter? It hasn’t been canceled any longer than the B-1 Bomber was when Reagan brought that back from the dead.
The F-35 is such a waste of money. It was supposed to be to the F-22 what the F-16 is to the F-15. A cheaper, less focus on air dominance, versatile plane. But the Eurofighter always does that and better! I’ve always seen the Eurofighter as the true sucessor of the F-16.
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What on earth are you talking about? the eurofighter has just barely had laser guided bombs installed!
The eurofighter cannot even perform the F-117s mission of deep strike first day on the war penatration, with out a gazillion squadreans of
Sead and jammer air craft backing it.
I dont even think the eurofigher can drop jdam.
the F-35 will do
1. The F-117s mission deep strike first day of war.
2. The F-16s mission of bomb truck
3. Play a secondary role as the 2nd best fighter in the sky
4.A-10,f-18,harrier missions
Havent we learned by now you get what you ay for.
I wouldnt even doubt that the aircraft might super cruise seeing as how a euro fighter does it when its engines put out both about 20K pound of thrust equaling about 40 and the F-35 is around the same but flies clean.
The F-35 will end up far, far cheaper than the F-22. It is a simple fact of the cost spiral. Unit costs go down when you can spread development costs over a larger production run. For that reason, we were boneheaded in building both the F-22 and the F-35, overall unit numbers would have been far higher for the same cost if we could have had just one program. We probably would have ended up with an extra hundred or more 5th gen aircraft.
Let
correction “a net $22M difference” should read “net $26M difference”
Good post there SMSgtMac.
Well boys, it is nice to see that kids like to see new toys and play what-if with fantasy comparisons, but let’s be real here. The F35 is NOT an F-22 want-a-be. One is an air superiority platform and the other is a strike platform. Additionaly, the F-35 has a large potential for growth which will allow it it be extended a long way into the future.
Most important of all, remember the old adage. Never put all your eggs in one basket! The diversity counts.
This is about us.
One point that is missing in this discussion is the effects of the F-35 avionics. While the F-35 airframe may be less capable than the F-22, its avionics are much better. This results in better pilot situational awareness, giving the F-35 pilot more and better options than his F-22 counterpart. One question that should be asked by the pentagon is how do we provide the F-22 with the F-35 avionic suite capablity?
One point that is missing in this discussion is the effects of the F-35 avionics. While the F-35 airframe may be less capable than the F-22, its avionics are much better. This results in better pilot situational awareness, giving the F-35 pilot more and better options than his F-22 counterpart. One question that should be asked by the pentagon is how do we provide the F-22 with the F-35 avionic suite capablity?
All your jabber don’t make more than a hill o beans…..No matter your thoughts and chatter, The F35 will survive and fly us into the future…..nuff said………………..Hang Tough God Bless….mlm
Ah, it is grand to see the F-35 FINALLY spread its wings and fly. This will now signal the beginning of a long and hard flight test program that with luck, will be safe as the aircraft proves itself and expands its flight envelope. Noting in the article Mr. John Beasly completed his test cards early and returned to base. That too should be circled on the calendar as Lockheed Martin (L/M) is not known for its ability to build/fly to schedule or to cost. The test team members throughout the country are now shifting gears to try to work to a published schedule that in the world of flight test is rarely met due to the unknowns that they will experience. Such is flight test itself. Many customers await this weapon system in each of its configurations (NAVY, A/F and MARINES & NATO) and will follow each step of its development with an eagle eye and anticipation. There will be setbacks, and successes, coupled with the political assistance from those who have no concept of what it takes to build, test and field a modern day aircraft of this type. However, they will offer direction and guidance that will, in their eyes, assist in managing the overall program for the tax payer. In reality, it will cause heartburn and consume an unbelievable amount of time for many of the team as they try to appease these
The F-35 has a stronger avionics package to support the munitions carried by the F-22′s. A comment was made to not place all of our eggs in one basket, but from my understanding the F-22 is now phasing out the F-15 (widely known and understood)…but it is also going to replace the stealth fighter (lol….only a fighter because of its gun….was built as a mini-bomber but we are no longer able to make sub-sonic nuke carriers). The F-35 will be replacing the F-16 and the A-10. I dont really understand how the A-10 is going to be replaced by this fighter, but with the F-35 haveing 3 different packages for the AF, Marines, and the Navy, duties of this plane can be shifted for different support. Since the F-35 is going to be replacing the F-16 it doesn’t have to be as good as the F-22….thats what the F-22 is for. It can, however, seek targets further out from the F-22 and then relay that information to the F-22′s to lock onto while never actually coming within range of those targets, afterall, the F-35 is replacing our major dog fighter is it not?
As for a little history of the F-16……its nickname is the “Lawn Dart” for a reason. (at least thats what we on the flight line call it.) The F-16 was built to be much cheaper and provide a function that allowed it to go in fast and dog fight. Other capabilities were later worked into the plane in order to have it support more of a mission, but for a while they kept falling out of the sky and the common joke was that they stuck in the ground like a lawn dart. It was intended to be a short term throw away fighter that proved it could be more.
Fly-away cost is a better measure of the actual cost “to have the plane”.R&D costs for a cutting edge project like the F-35 cannot be allocated to the plane only, since the experience gained through such a process is invaluable to the aviation & engineering knowledge base of the country involved.
I still think that we should continue to buy F-16 Block 60s as two-seat “special missions” packages only,complementing the F-15E/K/SG/I Strike Eagle/Slam Eagle/Ra’am Strike Fighters.Have it set up with conformal fuel tanks & dorsal compartments for Electronic Warfare/Countermeasures like the Israeli F-16I Soufas are.Also attach 600 gal. external fuel tanks for long range bombing missions.The two seat F-16 can also perform Wild Weasel duties.Let the one-seat F-35 replace the one-seat F-16 & just keep the two-seat F-16 only.You could also add digital camouflage paint to the F-16s like the Jordanians are doing with theirs.
I like the F-35 & I hope it succeeds,but I believe that there is still a mission for the two-seat F-16.
Does anybody here know about a proposed Naval Aircraft called the F-36A Longsword by Pearce Aerospace(who I never heard of)? I was reading about Japan planning on building their own stealth aircraft called the F-3.I looked it up & it was described as a Northrop-Mitsubishi F-3(F-36A US) Affordable Interceptor.I’m not writing this because I know anything about it,I’m just curious if anybody else knows something?
Nevermind,the “F-36A Longsword” seems to be a figment of someone’s imagination. With apologies to another thread,I guess you can find it on “secondlife.com.”
I just read on Strategypage.com that the U.S. Air Force is employing digital camouflage on F-16s.I read about how 2 F-16s in South Korea were redeployed to Alaska & before they left,they were painted with Arctic Camouflage.I think that digital camouflage painting would also work with the F-22 & F-35,as long as the stealth capabilities were not compromised.
Roy, I kinda have to take the blame for the F-36A thing. The Longsword is a engineering concept I’ve been working on as an engineering student. That being said, it’s gained a bit of Fame (or should I say Infamy) thanks to the net…
Concept or not…still beats the hell out of the F-26 Stalma…
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