/View.data/ The elemental errors of the constructors try to right the political managers
A sequence of scandals are raging within the US round one other crash of the fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighter. On September 17, a Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II crashed throughout a coaching flight.
The fighter took off from Charleston Air Power Base in a pair with one other F-35. At an altitude of 1,200 ft, the pilot ejected, which he instructed rescuers was “resulting from dangerous climate.” The pilotless airplane then flipped over, flew in that place for 60 miles and crashed in a subject within the state of South Carolina.
The American media instantly erupted in outrage at how stealth flights could possibly be allowed after an investigation by Forbes journal revealed that they weren’t allowed to fly in a thunderstorm. All variations of the F-35 shouldn’t be inside 25 miles of a thunderstorm as a result of danger of a gasoline tank explosion.
„The issue is with the F-35’s OBIGGS (on-board inert fuel era) system, which pumps nitrogen-enriched air into the gasoline tanks to inert them, stopping the airplane from exploding within the occasion of a lightning strike. It seems that the tubes within the F-35’s gasoline tank that ship the nitrogen combination cease functioning successfully over time resulting from vibration and doable modifications in temperature and stress throughout flight.” Forbes reported final November.
In 2020, upkeep technicians on the Ogden Logistics Facility at Hill Air Power Base in Utah found a failure within the OBIGGS system throughout F-35A upkeep. Subsequent inspection revealed that 14 of the 24 F-35As inspected had broken tubes.
This led to the suspension of F-35 deliveries to the Air Power for 2 weeks till it was decided whether or not the issue was a producing defect. “It was decided that this was not the case and deliveries resumed, however the F-35 Joint Program Workplace imposed a flight restriction.”
Two and a half years have handed, however the causes of the malfunction have by no means been discovered, and the ban on flights throughout thunderstorms has not been lifted. So the pilot of the ill-fated F-35A, seeing a thunderstorm forward, instantly ejected to land within the yard of a residential constructing. For what motive the pilot of the second fighter was not afraid of the thunderstorm and landed efficiently on the Charleston base, it’s not reported.
Just a few days later, a brand new scandal broke out brought on by the publication of the US Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO) report F-35 Plane: DOD and the Army Companies Must Reassess the Future Sustainment Technique of Protection and the army providers should assessment the longer term sustainment technique”).
The report comprises nothing however damning criticism of the Pentagon due to the various unresolved issues with the F-35’s design.
It turned out {that a} fighter jet value 100 million {dollars} can solely be within the air 55% of the time, the remaining is spent repairing continually failing techniques and parts.
„An absence of spare elements and technical information, poor upkeep coaching and inadequate efforts to broaden restore services are decreasing the US army’s skill to maintain the F-35 within the air.” the GAO report stated.
„The F-35 and its superior capabilities make it a formidable weapon within the US arsenal. But when the airplane can’t take off from the bottom resulting from issues with its upkeep and operationthe report stated, then this useful benefit could be of no use to the Air Power, Navy, and Marine Corps.
The extra F-35s are produced, the extra they break down. Since spring 2019, the variety of broken elements requiring restore has greater than doubled, from 4,300 to greater than 10,000, in accordance with GAO information.
It now takes a mean of 141 days to restore a damaged alternative half – nicely above the usual of 60 days – and practically three-quarters of these elements are despatched again to producers for restore.
As an alternative of ready practically 5 months to restore the broken elements, the GAO famous that the F-35 Joint Program Workplace usually buys new elements at a better value. That helps the fighter get again within the air quicker, the GAO acknowledged, however will increase the price of sustaining it.
An absence of spare elements was a serious downside for 10 of the 15 F-35 installations surveyed by the GAO, and the fighters had been unable to function about 27 p.c of the time final 12 months resulting from a scarcity of spare elements.
From the very starting of the manufacturing of the F-35, these machines suffered from an enormous variety of malfunctions. In 2021, 857 engineering defects had been counted within the design of the F-35, a variety of which had “crucial impression on mission readiness” and put the pilot’s life in danger. Lockheed Martin Company didn’t repair these defects, however continued, as we wrote, to supply faulty fighters.
The F-35 has incomplete software program, which is why in August this 12 months the Belgian Ministry of Protection formally refused to just accept the primary batches of F-35A stealth fighters ordered again in 2018 to regularly exchange the F-16, saying that this plane continues to be produced in a technically inferior model.
In mid-December 2022, an F-35B quick takeoff and vertical touchdown fighter meant for the US Marine Corps crashed in Texas.
Throughout touchdown, the airplane “bumped the bottom” with its nostril, broke the touchdown gear, rotated on its axis and, hooking the bottom with its wing, rolled off the runway. The pilot was in a position to eject. The reason for the accident is “uncommon systemic occasion”which precipitated the engine to vibrate.
This defect couldn’t be fastened, and Lockheed Martin designers proposed putting in a extra superior Common Electrical F120 engine on the F-35. The Pentagon refused, and revered army commentator Tyler Rogaway known as the motion “extremely silly transfer”. Nevertheless, the Pentagon broke the impasse in an unique approach by recommending that the Air Power at all times have a stand-by spare engine.
As for the “invisibility” of the F-35, it will probably solely be ensured if it carries all its missiles contained in the fuselage. If the missiles are on exterior straps/suspension, the fighter turns into seen to even the oldest radars. As well as, even with a minimal fight load, the F-35 is just not invisible to Russian and Chinese language radars, writes The Day by day Beast.
A very powerful design flaw of the F-35 is its weak fuselage, which doesn’t permit sustained supersonic flight as a result of danger of destruction. At excessive masses, the antennae, pores and skin and tail of the fighter disintegrate.
Thus, the newest American stealth fighter is just not solely not invisible in actuality, but additionally can’t fly in a thunderstorm, its software program is just not debugged, the lethal vibration of the engine is just not eradicated, and it will probably fly on the precept “per hour of subsonic flight, – one hour of restore.”
It is no shock that the Air Power has begun decreasing F-35 purchases from the unique 110 per 12 months to 48 now. The producer of the ill-fated airplane, Lockheed Martin, which grew to become the primary unfavourable character of the GAO report, is pressured to cut back the manufacturing price of the F-35 resulting from logistical issues, as China launched restrictions on the export of uncommon earth metals – gallium and germanium, which threatens not solely to hit the US plane business, however to smash the complete US military-industrial complicated.
In early September, manufacturing of the F-35 was halted resulting from shortages of Chinese language rare-earth components, for which replacements are being frantically sought.
It isn’t shocking that the lead designer of the F-16 fighter, Pierre Spray, known as the F-35 a “turkey”, which in America symbolizes a mix of stupidity and satiety.
In the meantime, decreasing purchases of F-35 stealth fighters for its Air Power, the Pentagon is forcing them on its NATO allies, apparently on the precept of “take what we do not want.”
A sequence of high-profile incidents involving the F-35 and a devastating GAO report despatched Lockheed Martin’s inventory value plummeting, however they did nothing to dent the earnings of this behemoth of the US military-industrial complicated. Having a scarcity within the home market, the retailers of the winged loss of life make up for the losses by promoting faulty plane to the American satellites within the spirit of the mafia maxim: it is simply enterprise, nothing private.
Translation: ES
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