F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread

[Jeff Head]

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An ItAF combat pilot has recently become the first

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IP (Instructor Pilot) with the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke AFB, Arizona.

The Italian IP has got the qualification to train Italian and partner nations pilots on the Joint Strike Fighter through a 6-month syllabus made of two distinct classes respectively called “Transition” and “Intructor Pilot Upgrade” (IPUG).

During Transition the pilots train in various forms of flight: air-to-air combat, air-to-ground missions including SEAD/DEAD tasks (Suppression / Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses). At the end of this stage, the student IPs have gained skills to fly these missions in all-weather conditions.

During the subsequent IPUG class, the students are taught how to teach follow-on pilots to fly and fight in the F-35A. The IPUG course ends with a check ride required to achieve the IP qualification.

The syllabus has become more focused on full combat training last Spring, as the U.S. Air Force prepared to declare the

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ready for war by the U.S. Air Force with the 34th Fighter Squadron based at Hill AFB in Utah (that eventually achieved the Initial Operational Capability on Aug. 2).

[For a detailed analysis of the IOC milestone, please read our report published

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.]

The newly qualified Italian IP will serve in the

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at

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in Arizona, the world’s premier conventional F-35 training base where, under a pooling arrangement, USA,

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,

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and Italy, share IPs and aircraft to train new pilots and instructors within the same standardized framework.

Two Italian F-35As are already part of the “shared pool” at the airbase near Phoenix: the first one, dubbed AL-1 and serialled MM7332, the

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the first JSF built outside the U.S., arrived in the U.S. at the end of the

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...and the F-35 beat goes on!

 

[Jeff Head]

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The first F-35A Lightning II destined to the Italian Air Force rolled out of the Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO) facility at Cameri, in northwestern Italy.

The aircraft, designated AL-1, is the first

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assembled internationally, the first of eight aircraft currently being assembled at Cameri, that will perform its first flight later this year.

The Italian FACO, a 101-acre facility including 22 buildings and more than one million square feet of covered work space, housing 11 assembly stations, and five maintenance, repair, overhaul, and upgrade bays, is owned by the Italian Ministry of Defense and is operated by Alenia Aermacchi in conjunction with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. According to Lockheed, the current workforce consist of more than 750 skilled personnel engaged in F-35 aircraft and wing production.

The FACO will assemble the first 8

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s and the remaining F-35A and

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(for a total of 90 aircraft

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that should be procured by the Italian Air Force and Navy), will build F-35A for the

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and it was selected in December 2014 as the European F-35 airframe Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Upgrade center for the entire European region.

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, F-35s will replace the Italian Air Force ageing

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and

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attack planes and the

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​

To go along with the prior post. Exciting times for the F-35 Program as the bet goes on!

 

[Air Force Brat]

I am sure that the PLAN would be interested if they had the capability right now.

But I think first they will concentrate on ttgin those airwings up on their carriers, and getting better helos for their LPDs and LHDs.

Heck, they haven't even built an LD or gotten any experience with one yet...so the VTOL aircraft will come along perhaps after some of that?

All true, and yet I find it interesting that Lockheed purchased the lift fan technology from Yak, and the fan is driven by a drive shaft off of the main shaft??? Very innovative, gives you vertical thrust on both ends as opposed to the RR Pegasus, of the Harrier??

While I have never been a big fan of the Harrier, it is at least very technologically interesting?? on the other hand the F-35B appears to bring practicality and performance up to a level of functionality that we have never seen, although I will confess the Marines have made good use of the Harriers capabilities, while not being "turned off" with its operational considerations.

 

[Jeff Head]

All true, and yet I find it interesting that Lockheed purchased the lift fan technology from Yak, and the fan is driven by a drive shaft off of the main shaft??? Very innovative, gives you vertical thrust on both ends as opposed to the RR Pegasus, of the Harrier??

While I have never been a big fan of the Harrier, it is at least very technologically interesting?? on the other hand the F-35B appears to bring practicality and performance up to a level of functionality that we have never seen, although I will confess the Marines have made good use of the Harriers capabilities, while not being "turned off" with its operational considerations.

Yes...Lockheed has taken some technology from others and coupled it with the stealth, lift, sensors, etc. that they have and brought it all together in the F-35B which will be a game changer for any nation that can get them on their ski-jump carriers.

That alone will force the Chinese to take a hard look at it whenever they get a chance.

 

[delft]

You don't need to have to have a weapon system in order to fight it. If we add the costs increases of F-35A and -C due to the development within the same program of -B to the costs of the -B's these would have been seen to be ridiculously expensive. Besides the main purpose of the STOVL aircraft program is that it can provide a supersonic fighter bomber that can be used from ships that by law cannot be fitted with cats and traps. China doesn't have such a law.

 

[Iron Man]

All true, and yet I find it interesting that Lockheed purchased the lift fan technology from Yak

Wow, seriously? I had no idea. Why would Yakovlev sell this technology to LM? Wouldn't the Russian government have nixed such a deal in the bud?

 

[delft]

Wow, seriously? I had no idea. Why would Yakovlev sell this technology to LM? Wouldn't the Russian government have nixed such a deal in the bud?

Because it provided money in the early '90's. Lockheed bought an Antonov developed combination of welding and bonding, from the early 1950's and the production of An-2's, around 1970.

 

[Jeff Head]

Now THIS is what I am talking about. An F-35C landing with four pylons of ground pounding LGBs during DT III aboard the USS George Washington:



Let's zoom in on that baby:



Here's what the US Navy had to say:

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Aug. 23, 2016) An F-35C Lightning II carrier variant, assigned to the Salty Dogs of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23, approaches the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). VX-23 is conducting its third and final developmental test (DT-III) phase aboard George Washington in the Atlantic Ocean. The F-35C is expected to be Fleet operational in 2018.

Hmmm...looks a lot like my model building of the F-35C

 

[Jeff Head]

Seeing the F-35C, already flying off of US Nuclear carriers, testing with a load of four LGBs, has to give pause to others around the world.

A Sensor fused, stealthy, 5th generation aircraft, capable of carrying that same load internally if necessary, or ASMs internally like that, is a very sobering idea if you might be on the receiving end.

When they become operational in 2018, they will make a HUGE difference for the CATOBAR carriers.

The F-35B can already perform such fears off of US LHDs...or, for that matter, off of the big carriers too.

 

[Air Force Brat]

Seeing the F-35C, already flying off of US Nuclear carriers, testing with a load of four LGBs, has to give pause to others around the world.

A Sensor fused, stealthy, 5th generation aircraft, capable of carrying that same load internally if necessary, or ASMs internally like that, is a very sobering idea if you might be on the receiving end.

When they become operational in 2018, they will make a HUGE difference for the CATOBAR carriers.

The F-35B can already perform such fears off of US LHDs...or, for that matter, off of the big carriers too.

Exactly Master Jeff, and the bad guys are losing sleep over the possibility that F-35s are coming to a neighborhood near you??? Why the bad boys don't like F-22s snooping around gathering up data and operating practices. They are making hay while the sun shines, but the BHO team is on the way out, thank God for that, I thought the last eight years would NEVER end!