The Woracle

Despite its engine glitch, Lockheed thinks the F-35B will fly before the end on June, maybe a month later than originally hoped for, but still within its "mid-2008" window for the first flight of the STOVL JSF. It will take Pratt & Whitney about a month to deliver a replacement flight-test F135 engine, and it should arrive in March, allowing Lockheed to get on with hover pit testing.

The hiccup happened when the original engine for aircraft BF-1 failed a proof test designed to reveal if it was susceptible to high-cycle fatigue of the third-stage turbine blades (it was!). P&W is proof testing the replacement engine, and probably has its fingers very tightly crossed. So far three F135s have been proof-tested: two CTOLs passed and one STOVL failed.

Meanwhile, thanks to Steve Trimble on The DEW Line for finding this video of the STOVL F135's three-bearing swivelling nozzle being tested in aircraft BF-1. I am still fascinated to watch this nozzle working...

It's been a contentious week in the US fifth-generation fighter business, with the Department of Defense and US Air Force taking diametrically opposed positions on whether more F-22s are needed. The DoD has made clear it thinks 183 F-22s are enough (plus another 4 in the FY09 war supplemental). The USAF is adamant it needs 381, and can find a way to pay for them.

Steve Trimble over on The DEW Line calculates, at $150 million a copy, it will cost the USAF almost $30 billion to buy the Raptors it wants. That money will have to come from other programmes - and the DoD's fear is it will come from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is intended not only for the Air Force, but also the Navy and Marine Corps (not to mention lots of US allies!).

Raptor - endangered species?

It emerged during the week that the DoD sees the F-35, and not the F-22, as the likely replacement for any F-15s that have to be retired because of structural problems. Quite a turn-around given the F-22 was designed to replace the "high" F-15 and the F-35 the 'low" F-16. The USAF disagrees, of course, but the argument casts the DoD's opinion of the JSF's capability in an interesting light.

Here are some of the competing statements made over the past week: