By Jon Lake
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II’s combination of stealth and advanced avionics promises to give it aircraft unparalleled operational capabilities when it enters service, both as a ground-attack aircraft and as an extremely potent air-to-air fighter.
That’s the view of Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president and general manager of F-35 integration. He says:“The F-35 is poised to become the world standardbearer of fighter aircraft,” and stresses that the aircraft has regularly exceeded its flight test goals.
The aircraft has flown nineteen times since its maiden flight on December 15 last year, and chief test pilot Jon Beesley has praised “the maturity of this highly integrated aircraft”, adding:“When it’s time to fly it is always ready and takes minimal time to get off the chocks. The Lightning II flies just as our engineers predicted, and I continue to be impressed by this marvellous airplane’s performance and handling characteristics.”
The aircraft has been flying with its innovative new helmet-mounted display system since April 4, and Beesley was very impressed by the helmet, which exhibited no latency or stability problems, and that worked so well that he “forgot he was wearing it”.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme is industrially vital, with the US Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy planning to acquire 2,581 aircraft, with other participating nations expected to add a further 700 aircraft to the programme total.
But there is another side to this particular coin. The only flying F-35A (AA-1) is unrepresentative of the planned production configuration. It lacks sensors, and is currently limited to just 3.8g, with an absolute limit of 4.5g.
A Boeing 737 has been modified as the F-35 co-operative avionics test bed, with an F-35 nose and wing leading edge ‘canard’, but the aircraft has not yet been fitted with F-35 sensors, and the 24 hours flown have all been envelope expansion and certification flights.
Different elements
The Northrop AN/APG-81 radar flew in the nose of a modified BAC One Eleven on August 23, 2005, and the electro optical targeting system (EOTS) was flown for the first time last week fitted to a Rockwell Sabreliner, but the different elements of the system have not flown together, nor in a tactical platform.
Nor has the development programme gone entirely smoothly. On one occasion a tailplane electro-hydraulic actuator failed, forcing the aircraft to land with one stabilator locked, while the aircraft suffered an electrical power loss halfway around a full-stick 360° roll. Though the system automatically reconfigured and restored power to the flight control system, reconfiguring its architecture to provide alternative pathways, Flight Daily News’ sources say that the JSF’s single display screen blacked out completely, forcing the pilot to recover using the tiny analogue back-up instrument.
Experienced fighter pilots have already questioned the wisdom of relying on a single display, which could be ‘taken out’ by a single fragment of shrapnel, and the reported failure has further exacerbated concerns.
Source: Flight Daily News
