The jet that ’s presuppose to make up more than 90 percent of America ’s scrap air power fleet may have become a bunch easy to snap down .
Lockheed Martin , shaper of theJoint Strike Fighter , has been under vast pressure to stabilize the jet ’s skyrocketing costs . yield prices have near double on what was suppose to be an “ affordable ” fighter . R&D money is up another 40 percentage . Some psychoanalyst call the plan couldrun as much as $ 388 billion for 2,400 jets .
So Lockheed make up one’s mind “ to trim 11 lbf. and $ 1.4 million from each aircraft by remove shutoff valves for engine coolant and hydraulic lines and five of six dry bay fervour - suppression systems , ” according toInsideDefense.com .
But those cuts made it much harder for the Joint Strike Fighter to withstand a hit from an anti - aircraft arm . “ When you have something full of fuel under high-pitched imperativeness , some of it very hot , flow near to raging metal parts and 270 VDC electrical portion , your shutoff and check valves and fire crushing in the ironic Laurus nobilis ( place fuel will spray into ) are your only defense , ” a knowing observer notes .
Michael Gilmore , the Defense Department ’s principal weapon tester , recommended in a letter to Congress last month “ that these feature be restore . ” The amount saved by trimming these components , he observe , would be more than made up , if just two aircraft were recede .
“ Live - firing ballistic testing has attest that the JSF is vulnerable , ” added Lt . Gen. George Trautman , the Marines ’ deputy commanding officer for aviation .
Now , one of the JSF ’s now selling point was that it would n’t have to worry to much about take on anti - aircraft flack ; the jet would be so stealthy that the dry land - to - air guns would never find it . But grant to a report put out by Air Power Australia , the planing machine is easy to espy than originally advertised . In fact , it is “ provably not a true stealth aircraft . ”
Locheed says a recent “ technological find ” has fixed all that : a fibre flatness that can blend stealthy qualities right into the composite skin of the aircraft .
And in an e - ring armor to Danger Room , Lockheed spokesman John Kent basically said the Pentagon tester was all wrong about the plane ’s vulnerability .
“ stringent scrap analytic thinking bring out that the survivability improvement afforded by the engine safety fuse and firing extinguishing features were very small , ” Kent write . “ These change were exhaustively reviewed by the F-35 Operational Advisory Group and sanction through the joint JSF Executive Steering Board , which include rank from all nine JSF cooperator counties . All gibe that the weight saved by the elimination of these element would be better use in maintaining the performance capabilities of the aircraft . The present design meets the JSFPO ’s anticipation for vulnerability . ”
Well , yeah . That ’s true . “ With the exception of a 30 mm high - volatile incendiary bomb round typically associated with light anti - aircraft artillery , ” Trautman wrote . Like the kindRussiahas , andsellsallaround the world .
exposure : NG.mil
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