F-35 News

[AlbertoRJ]

Desde que o Reino Unido pulou fora eu creio que essa versão foi condenada.

[]'s

[Penguin]

Gente, vcs que tem mais informação sobre o Programa JFS. Como está o F-35B, morreu mesmo? Se isso ocorrer como vão ficar os NAes europeus que dependem de um caça deste tipo? Um novo Harrier? Ou vão virar Porta-Helos somente?

[]´w

Deram um prazo para sanar os problemas. De qq jeito vai atrasar mais do que os outros. Se os problemas forem sanados, será adquirido pelos Marines.

A mudança para a versão C pelo Reino Unido parace que tem a ver com a maior capacidade desta versão e com sua compatibilidade com o novo NAe. Se vão adquirir um NAe de 50.000t, para que limitá-los a aeronaves VTOL?

Outra questão são os custos para operar um NAe deste porte, muito altos. Que o diga os franceses. A mudança de VTOL para CATOBAR permitiria o compartilhamento dos agrupamentos aéreos entre os aliados franceses e ingleses, principalmente quando um NAe está em manutenção.

Os países com NAes pequenos podem escolher: AV-8B modernizados, A-4 modernizados, SUE modernizados, Mig-29K, F-35B, Sea Tejas ou Sea Gripen

[]s

[Glauber Prestes]

Olha, se eu fosse a Inglaterra, eu procuraria as formas do Harrier...

[Penguin]

Olha, se eu fosse a Inglaterra, eu procuraria as formas do Harrier...

A model of a possible Harrier III shown by BAe at Farnborough in 1990, the product of joint investigations with MDC.

[Justin Case]

Amigos,

Sobre o F-35 no Canadá:

...Only one engine
An important issue raised in the F-35 debate in Canada is the airplane’s single engine. Pilots and military analysts have pointed out that given the immense size of the country - nearly ten million square kilometers - and lack of airfields within gliding distance of fighter jet operational areas such as the Arctic, plus huge (locks of migrating, large birds such as Canada Geese that pose a growing danger to aircraft, according to the Ministry of Transportation, the CF-188's replacement should have two engines. Significantly, 30 years ago Canadian Air Force officers rejected the single engine General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and chose the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet because the latter had a second source of thrust.
Lockheed Martin has pointed out t hat engine reliability has improved - while true, an ingested bird, a fuel line not tightened properly, an engine control module malfunction, an internal crack in a turbine blade resulting in separation, or another major engine problem would probably result in an F-35 crash. In Canada's vast north and coastal areas, could the pilot, who might be injured during an ejection - or after - survive long enough until help arrived from several hundred kilometers away? Perhaps. Canadian F-35 critics have pointed out that the Super Hornet, Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon each have a second power plant that would allow the pilot and machine - significant taxpayer investments - to fly to a suitable airport following a serious problem with an engine...

Bom fim de semana,

Justin

[Penguin]

DATE:23/05/11
SOURCE:Flight International
Canada special: F-35 wins election
By Stephen Trimble


With the Conservative Party election victory on 2 May, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is now free to finalise the long-term military modernisation strategy - dubbed Canada First - that was unveiled three years ago.

The document calls for yet more purchases of airlifters, helicopters and unmanned aircraft systems in the near term, with fighters and maritime patrol ships to follow.

At the same time, domestic budget pressures and Canada's imminent withdrawal from Afghanistan are likely to squeeze the capital investment budget of the Department of National Defense (DND).

Not least among these pressures are the disputed costs of Canada's commitment to buy 65 Lockheed Martin F-35s over five years, starting in 2016. Last July, the DND formally selected the F-35 for the next-generation fighter aircraft (NFA) contract in a decision that became a rallying cry for the Liberal opposition before the election.
In some ways, the Harper government's decision was predictable.

The DND was among eight partner countries in 2002 that joined the F-35 international development programme, contributing about $150 million with an eye on procuring 80 fighters to replace Canada's CF-18s.

That decision invested the DND and Canadian industry in the F-35's development, but options during the procurement phase remained open.
As the DND established an NFA programme office in mid-2009, Boeing and Eurofighter started actively lobbying for an "open and transparent" competition. Both companies appeared at the annual Canadian defence and security symposium in June of that year in an attempt to make the public aware that alternatives were available.

Harper's government, however, ignored the pressure for a competitive bidding process. The DND trimmed its procurement budget from 80 to 65 fighters, but publicly announced its intention to buy the F-35 last July, at least four years in advance of a procurement contract.

Although opponents argued that DND had everything to gain financially by launching a competition, the DND had clearly made up its mind. All other candidates had already been disqualified from meeting the NFA requirement because the fighters lacked stealthy features only offered by the F-35.

Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff seized on Harper's commitment to the F-35 on a sole-source basis as one of a handful of key issues to ignite an opposition movement. For Ignatieff, the mistake was not focused on the selection of the F-35, but on the absence of a competitive bidding process for the most expensive weapons deal in Canadian history.

The results of the 2 May election will likely support the DND's current plans to buy 65 F-35As to fulfil the NFA requirement and replace the CF-18. Ignatieff's centre-left Liberal Party was not only defeated by the Conservatives, but lost its perch atop the opposition to the left-wing National Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the Harper government is now added to the list of F-35 partners that have been forced to quell an internal insurrection about remaining committed to the Lockheed Martin stealth fighter.

Both Norway and the Netherlands have defeated similar manoeuvring to remain committed to F-35 procurement.
However, the full costs of Canada's commitment to the F-35 may yet have to be fully counted.

Since the election, Harper has publicly re-assured Canadians that any F-35 cost increases have been anticipated in the government's long-term budget plans.

However, a report in March by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) argues that costs to acquire and operate the 65-aircraft F-35 fleet are at least 66% higher than Harper's budget forecast of $17.6 billion, including $9 billion for procurement and basic maintenance over two decades.

The PBO report, however, predicts actual lifecycle costs of $29.3 billion over 20 years to buy 65 F-35s. These estimates are based on the US government's updated 2010 programme costs for the F-35, which have actually increased even further since the PBO report was completed.

The PBO report also reveals the budgetary impact a programme such as the F-35 can have on a country with the world's 13th-largest defence budget.

Indeed, if the PBO defence estimate is accurate, slightly more than five dozen fighters will account for roughly 7% of all defence expenditure forecast over the next 20 years by Harper's government.

This may be the price to maintain a modern fighter fleet, regardless of the aircraft model involved. Harper's representatives have argued that the Typhoon would actually cost more than the F-35.

The challenge will be keeping Canada's defence budget in balance with a wave of new requirements. Canada is nearing the end of a nine-year-long deployment to Afghanistan, The expedition drove Harper in 2008 to launch a massive modernisation programme, buying four Boeing C-17s, 17 Lockheed Martin C-130Js, six used Boeing CH-47Ds and 15 new CH-47Fs, leasing Israel Aerospace Industries' Heron 1 unmanned air systems.

Most pressingly, 17 new aircraft are required to replace 13 aging C-130s and six CC-115 Buffalos. A near-term requirement still exists for a medium-altitude long-endurance UAS, with the General Atomics Aeronautical System Inc MQ-9, the Heron and the recently unveiled Northrop Grumman Firebird potentially in the competitive field.

Beyond the near-term projects, the bill for the F-35 acquisition still looms as Canada also faces a need to start replacing its CP-140 Aurora fleet. However, it is not clear if the Canadian defence budget is large enough yet to pay all the bills. Beyond Afghanistan, budget priorities could shift to the navy, which desperately requires a new Joint Support Ship.

[marcelo l.]

Não consegui colar e copiar, mas aqui vai uma analise do ROBERT HADDICK sobre o F-35....na página 2 tem uma analise que vem sendo discutida na coluna dele sobre o futuro dos Fuzileiros Navais: a nova doutrina.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... n?page=0,1

[Penguin]

Israel quer adiantar treinamento de pilotos de F-35
28 de maio de 2011, em Noticiário Internacional, Sistemas de
Aeronave seria capaz de ameaçar instalações nucleares do Irã

A Força Aérea Israelense quer mandar seus melhores pilotos para os Estados Unidos antecipadamente para começar a treinar no Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, acelerando o processo de implantação dos 20 aviões que o Ministério de Defesa israelense encomendou em outubro de 2010.

O Pentágono já deu luz verde a Israel para comprar outros 55 avançados caças de quinta geração.

Com a confirmação das aquisições, Israel poderá equipar três esquadrões com o F-35, alterando a estratégia de ataque israelense, largamente equipada com a Lockheed Martin F-16I e Boeing F-15I.

“O avião irá fornecer novos recursos à Forlça Aérea”, informou o comandante Ido Nechushtan nesta quarta-feira em uma conferência no Instituto Fischer de Estratégia e Estudos Espaciais, localizado perto de Tel Aviv.

“O F-35 é vital para nossa existência e proporcionará um salto dramático em recursos.”

Mas o programa JSF tem sido atormentado por problemas, atrasando o projeto em dois anos e adicionando custos enormes, que têm pressionado o valor unitário original de US$ 69 milhões para mais de US$ 120 milhões.

Apesar do entusiasmo da Força Aérea de Israel pela aeronave, que os comandantes dizem que permitirá a Israel manter sua supremacia aérea sobre seus adversários regionais, a aquisição tem enfrentado forte oposição de legisladores, horrorizados como crescente preço.

Enquanto isso, o programa continua a sofrer reveses que poderiam atrasar ainda mais a sua implementação em operações no Oriente Médio.

Sob o acordo de 2010, em que o pagamento pelos aviões viria da ajuda militar dos EUA ao Estado judeu, Israel deveria começar a receber os F-35 em 2015.

Mas é provável que isso não aconteça até 2017 devido a problemas de desenvolvimento enfrentados pela Lockheed Martin com o programa F-35.

O programa JSF recentemente sofreu outro duro golpe quando o Departamento de Defesa dos EUA divulgou que o avião, equipado com sistemas avançados, pode ter um alcance menor do que o inicialmente projetado.

O raio de combate do modelo F-35A, sem reabastecimento em vôo, é atualmente estimado em 584 milhas náuticas em vez dos previstos 690 milhas náuticas.

Isso poderia ser um problema sério para os israelenses, que querem o F-35 com um eventual sistema de ataque capaz de ameaçar as instalações nucleares iranianas.

Isto implicaria em operações de reabastecimento aéreo para que os jatos ataque atingissem seus alvos e voltassem para suas bases.

Desta forma, um alcance inferior ao originalmente especificado poderia complicar ainda mais uma missão que, de início, já seria bastante complexa.

O programa JSF deverá custar aos Estados Unidos algo em torno de US $ 1 trilhão nas próximas duas décadas, sendo o projeto militar mais caro da história.

O plano é construir 2443 JSF em diferentes versões para a Força Aérea dos EUA, Marinha e Fuzileiros Navais.

Aliados dos EUA como o Reino Unido, Itália, Singapura, Japão, Holanda, Turquia e Austrália já se comprometeram a comprar o F-35, embora alguns, como o Japão, disseram que podem desistir por causa dos problemas de desenvolvimento.

Uma eventual falha de desempenho do JSF no mercado pode abrir mais espaço para outros caças que incluem o Eurofighter Typhoon construído pelo consórcio de quatro países europeus, a Saab sueca com o Gripen e a francesa Dassault Rafale, assim como o Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

Existiam rumores de que Israel consideraria a compra de avançados modelos atualmente no mercado como o F-15 porque estes poderiam ser entregues antes do F-35.

Esta opção parece estar descartada e a Força Aérea quer adiantar em uma ano a formação dos seus pilotos de F-35 e assim eles estariam prontos para operá-los quando os jatos fossem entregues em 2017.

“Em termos de custo, nós selecionamos o melhor avião”, Nechushtan disse a uma platéia formada por executivos da indústria da defesa e oficiais superiores na quarta-feira.

“Os prazos previstos na entrega dos F-35 ( para a Força Aérea Israelense) é menos dramático do que aquilo que está sendo dito …

“Nós não queremos contemplar uma situação na qual temos jatos inferiores aos que os outros têm”, comentou Nechushtan.

FONTE: UPI por Poder Aéreo
http://www.aereo.jor.br/2011/05/28/isra ... s-de-f-35/

[bcorreia]

(Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp, the world's biggest aerospace company and the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales, has been hit by an unspecified cyber incident, the government said on Saturday.

The Department of Homeland Security said it and the Defense Department had offered to help gauge the scope of a "cyber incident impacting LMCO," as the maker of fighter jets, ships and other major weapons systems is known.

The U.S. government also has offered to help analyze "available data in order to provide recommendations to mitigate further risk," Chris Ortman, a Homeland Security official, said in an e-mailed reply to a query from Reuters.

It was not immediately clear what kind of data, if any, was stolen by the hackers. But military contractors' networks contain sensitive data on arms that are under development as well as technology used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A person with direct knowledge told Reuters on Friday that unknown attackers had broken into sensitive networks of Lockheed Martin and several other U.S. military contractors.

They breached security systems designed to keep out intruders by creating duplicates to "SecurID" electronic keys from EMC Corp's RSA security division, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Lockheed Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the government statement. The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment earlier on Saturday.

U.S. officials may get involved in investigating a cyber breach at a company's request. The Homeland Security Department, for instance, can deploy a team to analyze infected systems, develop mitigation strategies, advise on efforts to restore service and make recommendations for improving overall network security.

(Reporting by Jim Wolf, editing by Will Dunham)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/ ... VY20110529

[Junker]

Meu Deus que lambança!

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter becoming a target for cost cutters


The F-35 program is years behind schedule and is now estimated to cost $1 trillion. | AP Photo

By CHARLES HOSKINSON | 6/2/11 4:53 AM EDT

It’s the Pentagon’s largest acquisitions program — an ambitious effort to re-equip the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps with the latest stealth fighter technology designed to maintain U.S. air superiority over the next 25 years.

But the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has already become a target before it has even faced an enemy in the air, and many of its wounds are self-inflicted: The program is years behind schedule and now estimated to cost $1 trillion. And the delays have forced the military to buy upgraded versions of older aircraft to fill the gaps.

Lawmakers are questioning whether the U.S. military needs 2,400 advanced jets that cost an estimated $133 million each and are more expensive to maintain than current warplanes while the Pentagon is under intense pressure to reduce spending and recover from 10 years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

They aren’t alone. A commission appointed by President Barack Obama to study ways to reduce the national debt recommended in December that $9.5 billion could be saved through fiscal year 2015 by replacing about half of planned F-35 purchases with newer models of current fighters. The commission contended the military did not need that many fighters with the capabilities of the F-35.

The commission also recommended canceling the Marine Corps short takeoff/vertical landing version of the F-35, which has been plagued by technical problems, cost overruns and schedule delays. Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates put that part of the program on probation, threatening to cancel it if the problems aren’t quickly solved.

“The facts regarding this program are truly troubling,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said at a May 19 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the F-35 program.

Describing the $1 trillion cost of the program as “a jaw-dropping amount,” the former Navy carrier pilot said, “We need to know that the program is going to bring that number down.”

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Ashton Carter told lawmakers at the hearing that the Pentagon would review the program to see whether costs can be reduced, with a goal of shaving 10 percent to 30 percent off the $1 trillion figure.

“That’s what it’s going to cost if we keep doing what we’re doing. And that’s unacceptable. It’s unaffordable at that rate,” he said.

The F-35 program, which began in 2001, survived previous rounds of cost-cutting, which ended similar big-ticket weapons programs such as the F-22 fighter, because the military needs to replace current fighters, which are on average 20 to 30 years old and are approaching the end of their service lives. Pentagon officials argue that the F-35’s advanced technology is needed to counter the threat posed by China’s rapid advances in capability.

“We must field a next-generation strike fighter — the F-35 — and at a cost that permits large enough numbers to replace the current fighter inventory and maintain a healthy margin of superiority over the Russians and Chinese,” Gates said in a May 24 speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

A Chinese stealth fighter, the J-20, made its first test flight in January while Gates was visiting Beijing. Some analysts suspect the technology was at least in part stolen from the F-35 program, raising fears that China would benefit from the program’s innovations before the United States and its allies.

The program has also survived previous criticism about costs and schedule delays. A Government Accountability Office report in April found restructuring had put it on a firmer footing but that “after more than nine years in development and four in production, the JSF program has not fully demonstrated that the aircraft design is stable, manufacturing processes are mature and the system is reliable.”

The report said total costs to complete development of the aircraft by 2018 would grow to $56.8 billion — a 26 percent increase in cost and five years behind schedule compared with current baselines.

Affordability is “a challenging issue” for the F-35, Michael Sullivan, director of acquisition and sourcing management for the Government Accountability Office, told senators at a May 19 hearing.

“Going forward, the JSF will require unprecedented demands for funding in a period of more austere defense budgets where it will have to annually compete with other defense and nondefense priorities for the discretionary federal dollar,” he said. Pentagon officials and executives of Lockheed Martin, the principal contractor for the F-35, have pledged to do what they can to reduce costs.

Carter noted that upgraded versions of current fighters are not an acceptable long-term alternative. “We need to make it succeed. To make it succeed, we need to make it affordable,” he said.

The estimated costs “are not set in concrete,” Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Officer Robert Stevens said at a breakfast for reporters on May 24. He pledged to work with Pentagon officials to help bring them down.

“This is a critical juncture, because there has recently been a conspicuous absence of public [Lockheed Martin] support for DOD leadership on the F-35 program,” defense consultant Jim McAleese said. He said it is vital for the company to engage with the Pentagon in the cost-cutting effort to prevent a cutback in orders that would increase unit prices and cause a “death spiral” for the program just as Gates is leaving. He said it’s not yet known to what extent CIA Director Leon Panetta, nominated to replace Gates, would support the F-35.

Another concern is whether other countries that have joined the program will reduce their commitments to buy aircraft, further increasing the cost to the U.S. military. Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Denmark, Norway and Australia are all participating in the aircraft’s development and are expected to buy at least some fighters for their armed forces. Israel and Singapore are also potential buyers.

International partners are expected to buy 600-700 aircraft. Anything less could further increase prices for the Pentagon, Carter told lawmakers.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56037.html

[Penguin]

DATE:12/05/11
SOURCE:Flightglobal.com
F-35A may need mods to fix range shortfall
By Stephen Trimble

An internal report predicts the Lockheed Martin F-35A conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant is falling short on a key performance requirement, forcing programme officials to consider a range of aircraft modifications to fix the problem.

Combat radius, the maximum distance of an out-bound leg with a full load of weapons and fuel, has dropped to 1,080km (584nm) for the F-35A, according to a leaked copy of the 2010 F-35 selection acquisition report (SAR).

That falls slightly below the specification for a minimum combat radius of 1,091km, one of seven mandatory “key performance parameters” that apply to the CTOL variant, the 31 December report states.

The SAR report shows combat radius for the other two F-35 variants has also declined, but remain above the threshold mandated by Lockheed's development contract.

The CTOL variant was originally expected to exceed the minimum combat radius by 185km, flying almost 1,280km one-way before needing to return to base or refuel in-flight.

But the number has been falling for several years and dropped by 41.8km this year based on a set of new assumptions.

The F-35's propulsion and avionics are running at higher temperatures than expected. To compensate, more bleed air from the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine is used for cooling, but this reduced propulsion efficiency and shortened range by 19.3km, according to sources familiar with the design issues. Another 16.1km of range was lost by new estimates about the aircraft's actual fuel capacity. Finally, the weight and drag of the aircraft's electro-optical targeting system was factored into the F-35's performance calculations, further reducing range by 6.4km.

As a result, the programme office is considering “realistic aircraft modifications to add fuel capacity” in an effort to meet the requirement, according to the SAR report.

One simple change under review is a software tweak that would maximise the amount of fuel taken onboard during in-flight refuelling. Another relatively simple fix is to raise shut-off valves higher inside the fuel tank to create slightly more capacity, a source said, adding: "That gets you back a lot of the fuel that you need to recover" to meet the range mandated by the contract.
A more complex solution also being considered is to install new fuel tanks in a small number of hollow spaces within the aircraft's structure.

But programme officials are also debating whether to change how the range of the F-35A is calculated, the source said. The equation does not include a buffer margin of 5% of fuel capacity, which is intended to be preserved through the end of the flight test period in 2016. Eliminating the buffer margin adds another 72.4km to the aircraft's combat radius, the source said.

[Penguin]

USAF:

[AlbertoRJ]

Existe um gráfico semelhante para a US NAVY?

[]'s

[Penguin]

Existe um gráfico semelhante para a US NAVY?

[]'s

Não encontrei, mas o artigo abaixo esclarece.

U.S. Navy Details JSF Buy
Marine Corps To Fly F-35Cs From Carriers
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
Published: 14 March 2011

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps strike fighter picture will become clearer under an updated interservice agreement set to be signed March 14, according to a senior defense official.

The Tactical Air memorandum of understanding ratifies the Navy Department's plan to buy 680 F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighters (JSF), and details the exact mix of variants and who will fly them. Of the total, 260 will be Navy F-35C carrier-based aircraft, 80 will be Marine F-35Cs, and 340 will be Marine F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) planes.

The agreement also reaffirms that Marine F-35Bs and F-35Cs will continue to rotate in and out of deploying carrier air wings, sharing commitments with Navy F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets and F-35Cs. The Marines will raise the number of carrier-capable squadrons from three to five.

The agreement formalizes an earlier decision not to deploy F-35Bs from carriers, but rather to have all Marine squadrons deploying on carriers flying the same C version as their Navy compatriots. The STOVLs will operate from land bases and amphibious ships.

The first Navy F-35C carrier squadron is set to stand up in December 2015, with the first Marine F-35C squadron following a year later.

By the mid-2020s, according to Navy planners, each carrier air wing will include two Super Hornet squadrons and two Lightning II squadrons. Every fourth F-35C squadron will be a Marine unit.

The Navy continues to plan for a fleet of 10 carrier air wings, with 44 strike fighters per wing, organized into 10- and 12-plane squadrons. The Navy will field 35 strike fighter squadrons composed of Super Hornets or F-35Cs, and the Marines will field five F-35C squadrons.

Ultimately, the Lightnings will serve alongside a fleet of 556 F/A-18 Es and Fs.

There is no intention to field an all-F-35 strike fighter force with any carrier air wing, a senior Navy official said. A new, sixth-generation aircraft will be developed as a follow-on to the F-35, and those aircraft will replace the Super Hornets, the official said. Characteristics of the new aircraft - including whether it will be manned, unmanned or optionally manned - have yet to be determined, the official said.

STOVL ISSUES
Carrier planners have long wrestled with the issue of integrating the F-35B STOVL onto flight decks. The aircraft are not designed for catapult launch, and would require specific launch-and-recovery operations apart from other aircraft types flown from the ships, the senior Navy official said. They also have different range and ordnance-carrying capabilities than the carrier version.

Development of the STOVL version has hit a number of engineering snags, including weight, power and heat issues, and the program is currently on a two-year Pentagon "probation" to solve those issues.

Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, said he believes those issues can be solved before that time, and that the Corps remains committed to the STOVL version.

The Marine F-35s will replace all aircraft in 19 strike fighter squadrons - 12 squadrons flying 261 F/A-18 Hornets, and seven squadrons flying 145 AV-8B Harrier jump jets. All of the current aircraft in those squadrons are to be phased out by 2023.

The new agreement also will relieve the Navy of the need to supply a Hornet squadron to meet Marine land-based expeditionary needs. Those aircraft deploy under the Unit Deployment Program to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan. Seven Marine F-35B squadrons will eventually handle those duties.

The updated agreement, a senior Marine official said, also provides for nine F-35B squadrons to work with the seven Marine Expeditionary Units that deploy aboard Navy amphibious ready groups.

Five Reserve squadrons will also fly strike fighters. Three Marine Reserve squadrons will fly the F-35B, one Navy Reserve squadron will operate the F-35C, and one other Navy Reserve squadron will fly single-seat F/A-18E Super Hornets.

Renewal of the Tac-Air agreement, the senior defense official said, allows planners to begin working out more detailed schedules of when individual squadrons will switch to the new aircraft.

[Penguin]

Defending the future
28 May, 2011 12:00 AM

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/op ... 77712.aspx

Em português:

http://www.aereo.jor.br/2011/06/06/prog ... a-parte-1/

http://www.aereo.jor.br/2011/06/07/prog ... a-parte-2/