Re: F-35 News
Enviado: Qui Mai 26, 2011 8:25 pm
Desde que o Reino Unido pulou fora eu creio que essa versão foi condenada.
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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.PRick escreveu: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?
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glauberprestes escreveu:Olha, se eu fosse a Inglaterra, eu procuraria as formas do Harrier...
Bom fim de semana,...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...
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.
Não encontrei, mas o artigo abaixo esclarece.AlbertoRJ escreveu:Existe um gráfico semelhante para a US NAVY?
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