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It's already been linked on the last page but that isn't a wind tunnel strictly speaking, it's the McKinley Climatic Lab. It's not intended to evaluate aerodynamic performance (hence why there's massive ice-build up that wouldn't otherwise be there if the plane was in an airstream representative of flying conditions). It's strictly intended to evaluate climatic performance in a ground environment...high temps, low temps, rain, snow, wind, etc. Basically it's not grading "can this thing fly," it's grading "how will this thing perform if it sits on the ground for 12+ hrs in cold/hot/rain/snow/wind/etc weather?" And no, "experiencing ice build-up in icing conditions subsequently rendering it unable to fly" isn't an F-35 problem, it's a "things that fly in the air" problem.
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Jan 31, 2015 21:09
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I think the F-35 program is a hot mess but at this rate we're going to see a picture of an F-35 cut in half by a train running through one and people will be like "lol 1800s tech beat it"
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Jan 31, 2015 21:57
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iyaayas01 posted:It's already been linked on the last page but that isn't a wind tunnel strictly speaking, it's the McKinley Climatic Lab. It's not intended to evaluate aerodynamic performance (hence why there's massive ice-build up that wouldn't otherwise be there if the plane was in an airstream representative of flying conditions). It's strictly intended to evaluate climatic performance in a ground environment...high temps, low temps, rain, snow, wind, etc. Can its radar absorbent coating take deicing spray without getting ruined?
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Jan 31, 2015 22:37
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:Can its radar absorbent coating take deicing spray without getting ruined? The F-22 gets sprayed down, so I imagine the F-35 can as well.
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Jan 31, 2015 22:45
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mlmp08 posted:The F-22 gets sprayed down, so I imagine the F-35 can as well. I'm sure there's some sort of awesome $30,000 a gallon special spray they have to purchase.
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Jan 31, 2015 23:05
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Deuce posted:Yes, but from a wind tunnel rather than flight activity. Fighters avoid ice two ways; first is to avoid flying in it entirely, which isn't enormously difficult to do (but at the same time, it is unavoidable in some circumstances). The second is to just go fast; the kinetic heating, even at the F-35's pathetic top speed of Mach 1.6, is more than enough to melt any ice build-up. Plus, the thrust to weight ratio of a fighter aircraft makes airframe icing a bit less dangerous than in a civilian aircraft; having lots of power available can make things pretty trivial. MrChips fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 23:21
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mlmp08 posted:I think the F-35 program is a hot mess but at this rate we're going to see a picture of an F-35 cut in half by a train running through one and people will be like "lol 1800s tech beat it" 
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Feb 1, 2015 05:28
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Rand alPaul posted:I'm sure there's some sort of awesome $30,000 a gallon special spray they have to purchase. I would be really surprised. De-icing and anti-icing fluid get sprayed all over an airplane. Despite maintenance's best efforts, it gets into the static ports, into the balance bays, into the flap actuators, etc. It's already been carefully chosen to be as non-corrosive as possible.
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Feb 1, 2015 06:00
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As someone with hands on mx experience with the Raptor...deicing spray isn't a problem with current LO tech. Like Dead Reckoning said, it's basically completely neutral as far as being corrosive or otherwise causing problems.
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Feb 1, 2015 09:56
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I was making a joke about how corrupt/bloated military expenses are, not really about de-icing equipment. It was low-hanging fruit, basically a "$50 for a hammer" sort of laugh.
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Feb 1, 2015 10:46
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mlmp08 posted:I think the F-35 program is a hot mess but at this rate we're going to see a picture of an F-35 cut in half by a train running through one and people will be like "lol 1800s tech beat it" Ok, but it would be really funny if an F35 somehow was in position to get hit by a train.
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Feb 1, 2015 16:04
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mlmp08 posted:I think the F-35 program is a hot mess but at this rate we're going to see a picture of an F-35 cut in half by a train running through one and people will be like "lol 1800s tech beat it" A train would actually be useful for something outside of ludicrously improbable fantasy scenarios, whereas the F-35, much like the F-22, is the nation-state equivalent of a diamond encrusted codpiece. So yes, the 1800s tech of a train does "beat" the F-35. In terms of providing value to the nation that purchases it, an industrial-scale money incinerator would beat the F-35 or F-22 as long as the waste heat was used to heat government buildings.
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Feb 1, 2015 18:37
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Liberal_L33t posted:A train would actually be useful for something outside of ludicrously improbable fantasy scenarios, whereas the F-35, much like the F-22, is the nation-state equivalent of a diamond encrusted codpiece. Bombing people isn't a fantasy, what world do you live in? I'm being glib 
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Feb 1, 2015 18:51
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mlmp08 posted:Bombing people isn't a fantasy, what world do you live in?  So dreamy 
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Feb 1, 2015 19:30
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Liberal_L33t posted:So yes, the 1800s tech of a train does "beat" the F-35. In terms of providing value to the nation that purchases it, an industrial-scale money incinerator would beat the F-35 or F-22 as long as the waste heat was used to heat government buildings. someone post a link to that old LF thread Goatstein posted about how the experimental military budget incenerator had reached record temperatures iirc it really pissed off gip
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Feb 1, 2015 19:39
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I really like the mental picture of Lockmart slamming a train into a multimillion dollar fighter jet for some nebulous form of testing. Then bragging that the F-35's Rapid Locomotive Stress Endurance beats any competitor in the skies, so you really ought to buy a dozen.
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Feb 1, 2015 19:55
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I would so watch a slow-mo video of an F-35 getting rammed by a locomotive.
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Feb 1, 2015 20:40
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Cat Mattress posted:I would so watch a slow-mo video of an F-35 getting rammed by a locomotive. This is the best I can do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ8uvQk1H9I F-4 Phantom vs Concrete Wall, courtesy of Sandia Labs. EDIT: VVV They were testing the wall, not the jet 
Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 21:01
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Dead Reckoning posted:This is the best I can do: What do they learn from doing that sort of thing? Isn't it pretty obvious that if you ram a jet into a brick wall it will disintegrate?
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Feb 1, 2015 22:17
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OctaviusBeaver posted:What do they learn from doing that sort of thing? Isn't it pretty obvious that if you ram a jet into a brick wall it will disintegrate? A single A-Wing suicide rammed the Executor and took out an 8km long Super Star Destroyer, which then proceeded to crash into the Empire's greatest strategic weapon asset. I see no reason why the United States wouldn't want to prevent suicide runs on it's own reinforced concrete structures with empirical testing. 
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Feb 1, 2015 22:26
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OctaviusBeaver posted:What do they learn from doing that sort of thing? Isn't it pretty obvious that if you ram a jet into a brick wall it will disintegrate? I'm pretty sure this one was about testing the ability for concrete structures in nuclear plants to withstand direct hits from aircraft. Using a leftover F-4 on skids at the right speed can mimic a jetliner.
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Feb 1, 2015 22:29
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Doc Brown tried a rhino before went with the DeLorean
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Feb 1, 2015 23:52
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Your cartoon mocking critics doesn't change the fact that the f35 is a gigantic, ill-considered piece of poo poo.
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Feb 3, 2015 22:29
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So did they end up fixing the engine design or what? The engine defect that caused this thread to be created and is still mentioned in the thread title was called a design flaw but I've never heard any redesign happened. So all F-35 are being built with engines that are known to break down -- with explosive results -- when the plane is subjected to G-forces that are "well within" its envelope.
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Feb 3, 2015 22:45
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Cat Mattress posted:So did they end up fixing the engine design or what? The engine defect that caused this thread to be created and is still mentioned in the thread title was called a design flaw but I've never heard any redesign happened. So all F-35 are being built with engines that are known to break down -- with explosive results -- when the plane is subjected to G-forces that are "well within" its envelope. From the FY14 DOT&E report: quote:- On October 10, the program confirmed that excessive So tl;dr yes, they know what happened, it was caused by friction between some engine components in the compression section that caused excess heat which in turn cause a catastrophic failure of a rotor (compressor blade). They have developed a work-around procedure for the current design (basically not conducting extreme maneuvers during the first two flights on an engine) as well as an interim redesign, which has been applied to the test aircraft, and are in the process of developing a permanent redesign for production engines (I'm assuming it's since been implemented since the report was closed out several months ago).
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Feb 4, 2015 05:28
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iyaayas01 posted:and are in the process of developing a permanent redesign for production engines (I'm assuming it's since been implemented since the report was closed out several months ago). Yeah, that's what I was wondering about; I expected that after the whole fiasco they would have announced the permanent redesign.
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Feb 4, 2015 06:53
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iyaayas01 posted:From the FY14 DOT&E report: Did they not burn in the engines at the test cell before they even went on the aircraft? I remember having to do some of that by hand (F404's though) because brand new stator assemblies had a pretty thick layer of thermal barrier coating you had to gouge channels into by spinning the rotor for a few minutes and again in the test cell for a few minutes.
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Feb 4, 2015 07:04
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Bolow posted:Did they not burn in the engines at the test cell before they even went on the aircraft? I remember having to do some of that by hand (F404's though) because brand new stator assemblies had a pretty thick layer of thermal barrier coating you had to gouge channels into by spinning the rotor for a few minutes and again in the test cell for a few minutes. I'd guess it has the same issue as the PT6 installation in the Texan II: everything works just fine at 1.0 G, but once it's under high G-loads, parts that shouldn't come into contact have just enough flex to come into contact. (If I recall correctly, the Texan issue was exacerbated by the oil system getting less than full flow under G-loads.) Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 07:10
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Question: how much of the F-35 being terrible is unique to it compared to previous aircraft as they were designed/built, and how much of it is exacerbated by mass Internet scrunity and its incredible cost? Basically, is the F-35 truly uniquely terrible or did we just not go as crazy for previous airplanes (like the F-14 crashing/killing people)? Do the F-35A/C have an abnormal amount of problems being at this point in their life cycle? I understand a lot of blame falls on the three variants (read: Marines) but I'm curious off the full scale of the issues in comparison to previous aircraft projects. Mazz fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 09:56
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Mazz posted:Question: how much of the F-35 being terrible is unique to it compared to previous aircraft as they were designed/built, and how much of it is exacerbated by mass Internet scrunity and its incredible cost? I think the main source of complaint is ultimately that it was promised to be a plane that would bring down costs but it didn't. It's just that it's also not very good at what it claims to do.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:31
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Eh, at least it looks cool in BF4. Tax payer money well spent imo you can also do hover strafing runs which no other country can so  wins
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Feb 4, 2015 15:35
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Mazz posted:Question: how much of the F-35 being terrible is unique to it compared to previous aircraft as they were designed/built, and how much of it is exacerbated by mass Internet scrunity and its incredible cost? The F-14 was never the Navy's only option for an airframe and was in fact a replacement for another failed project, the F-111. At the time the F-4 was still in production and the lightweight fighter competition that would lead to the F-16 and F-18 was underway. In comparison right no there are exactly 0 fighter development projects ongoing other than the F-35.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:43
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Mazz posted:Question: how much of the F-35 being terrible is unique to it compared to previous aircraft as they were designed/built, and how much of it is exacerbated by mass Internet scrunity and its incredible cost?
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Feb 4, 2015 15:50
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awesome-express posted:Eh, at least it looks cool in BF4. Tax payer money well spent imo John McClane took one out with a rock. Silly plane.
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Feb 4, 2015 17:08
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Anosmoman posted:John McClane took one out with a rock. Silly plane. He should've just waited a couple minutes for it to take itself out. Waste of a good rock there
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Feb 4, 2015 17:27
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Anosmoman posted:John McClane took one out with a rock. Silly plane. Didn't he throw a rock into the open turbine?
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Feb 4, 2015 17:47
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Mazz posted:Question: how much of the F-35 being terrible is unique to it compared to previous aircraft as they were designed/built, and how much of it is exacerbated by mass Internet scrunity and its incredible cost? There's some semi-unique aspects to the F-35's fuckupery, like applying the practice of concurrency (building production-model planes when you haven't even finished designing them yet, let alone testing them) to plane development, and the ridiculous one-size-fits-all-ness of the three-variant crap. There's also a lot of questions about its versatility and reliability in real combat conditions - if the plane is so delicate it needs its fuel to come in specially painted trucks, how's it going to handle sucking sand in the Middle East? - and whether it's even suited for the missions it's being targeted for in the first place. Part of it, though, is simply that there's no alternative - we're getting ready to retire a bunch of planes based on the assumption that the F-35 will be able to do those planes' jobs, and in some cases the retirement is necessary regardless because the old planes are just about ready to fall apart. If the F-35 ends up not being able to do those planes' jobs, or turns out to be absolutely lovely at doing those planes' jobs, then there will be a big gap in US air capabilities that we might just have to build an entirely new plane to fill.
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Feb 4, 2015 19:17
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Dead Reckoning posted:Are you asking why people with a project management background don't like it, or are you asking why people in this thread like Torpor don't like it? Because there are plenty of faults to find with the F-35 program, but they're rarely what people end up discussing on the internet. The first people. Especially those that have experience in military/commercial aviation and contracts, like you or iyaayas. Main Paineframe posted:There's some semi-unique aspects to the F-35's fuckupery, like applying the practice of concurrency (building production-model planes when you haven't even finished designing them yet, let alone testing them) to plane development, and the ridiculous one-size-fits-all-ness of the three-variant crap. There's also a lot of questions about its versatility and reliability in real combat conditions - if the plane is so delicate it needs its fuel to come in specially painted trucks, how's it going to handle sucking sand in the Middle East? - and whether it's even suited for the missions it's being targeted for in the first place. Part of it, though, is simply that there's no alternative - we're getting ready to retire a bunch of planes based on the assumption that the F-35 will be able to do those planes' jobs, and in some cases the retirement is necessary regardless because the old planes are just about ready to fall apart. If the F-35 ends up not being able to do those planes' jobs, or turns out to be absolutely lovely at doing those planes' jobs, then there will be a big gap in US air capabilities that we might just have to build an entirely new plane to fill. I understand all that, I should clarify that I'm pretty up to date on the faults of the F-35, I'm more curious about it in direct comparison to previous programs, like TFX, LWF, or ATF. Is it further behind schedule? Has is it delivered less then those in a similar time frame? Does the program have much light of getting better or expanding roles later on like the F-16 did? These questions are directed at the people who really understand the topic moreso then puking out info from articles on AusAirPower (not saying you're one of those, but this thread has those people). Mazz fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 21:27
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AusAirPower is my primary source. 
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Feb 5, 2015 06:45
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Mazz posted:The first people. Especially those that have experience in military/commercial aviation and contracts, like you or iyaayas. I'll post some more maybe in a day or two when I've got some more time but the biggest thing is how concurrency has impacted everything else. LWF and ACF are the gold standard in the fly before buy category of procurement. Even TFX provides an illustrative example...the Navy did pretty intensive flight test (including carrier trials) with the F-111B before committing to entering production (or not, as it turned out). Contrast this with the F-35, where the govt had already taken possession of 18 F-35C's before conducting carrier trials (and already taken possession of/committed to buy a total of 209 tails through LRIP contracts across all three variants before the trials took place). Concurrency was really, really stupid and it should hopefully put the nail in the coffin of the idea that computer based M&S is at the point where we can rely on it exclusively to inform major acquisitions decisions (who am I kidding that's a pipedream). Re: better/more roles like the F-16, not really because the JSF is already supposed to have significant multi-role capability from the word go. As I'm sure you know the F-16 was originally supposed to be a lightweight dogfighter (LWF) which added a dumb bomb truck mission with the baseline ACF procurement, which subsequently got various avionics and weapons upgrades that eventually made it into the true multi-role fighter that it is today. Contrast that with the F-35, which is basically supposed to be capable of everything from the word go (OCA, DCA, CAS, AI, SEAD/DEAD). Granted, with spiral development some of these capabilities won't really come into their own until a few years down the line (i.e., it's going to be difficult to be a truly capable CAS asset when your only A2G munition is a GBU-31), but they're built into the acquisition program and wouldn't be true add-ons like (for example) the F-16 getting AIM-120 capability across the fleet or getting Sniper pods for true self-targeting and designation PGM capability (something quite beyond the original ACF bomb truck A2G concept). The only big mission I can think of that isn't in any of the current capabilities plans but might get added later would be a dedicated EW capability...but I really only see this with the Marines, because the Navy has the Growler while the AF has made it known they don't really give a poo poo about tactical escort jammers. The USMC isn't buying any Growlers, so when they eventually finally retire their last Prowlers at the end of the decade, they'll either need some sort of dedicated F-35 based EW capability or they will be permanently giving up organic MAGTF airborne EW assets. The last thing is that while you can apply general lessons (i.e., concurrency is dumb and not doing it on TFX potentially saved the Navy from a complete turkey), you have to be careful when you're making straight apples to apples comparisons regarding timelines and the like. This is because the changing nature of acquisitions (driven largely by technology) means that even a successfully run and executed program today will have a significantly different timeline than a similarly successfully run and executed program 25 years ago.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:33
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