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

... Turkey is a Partner nation with 120 units on order.
...
while after a quick google search ...

"Turkey said in 2012 it was sticking to its plans to buy 100 of the planes with an initial order of two planes for delivery in 2015."
Turkey to Order Four More F-35 Fighter Jets
January 07, 2015
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then "Turkey plans to order 100 conventional takeoff and landing F-35As and has funded a total of 30 jets so far, with eight aircraft scheduled for lots 12, 13 and 14."
Turkey confirms second F-35 order
31 October, 2016
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and "Under the JSF program, Turkey has committed to procure a total of 116 aircraft."
Turkey to Order New F-35 Lightning II Jets
October 31, 2016
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oops it was linked to F-22 Thread ... reposting here


Jul 6, 2016
...
Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)
document
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at p. designated 1-7 (15 of 83 in PDF)
EDIT in Table F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
summarizing money actually spent LOL
Procurement (excluding R&D) cost ($m / # of aircraft):
2015 6675/38 = 176
2016 9476/68 = 139
2017 8286/63 = 132
(retyped, rounded by me)
and one year later ...
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in the table at the bottom of p. '1-7' (15 out of 87 in that PDF document):
2016 entry fits what's in the above post, which is 'Procurement' of 68 copies for 9476 mil
2017 now is 68 copies for 8885; 8885/68 = 131
2018 is 70 copies for 9117; 9117/70 = 130

I guess you know what I'm going to do one year from now


now adding Dec 20, 2016
...
the cost of the F-35 Program can be found out by looking BACK at Comptroller's data who counts what's really been thrown into the F-35 Program in a given year under all the contracts, and the cost of the F-35 Program cannot be found out by listening to LockMart sales talk about what "will" be the "target" cost, how "ultimately" the price "drops to ...", "eventually" be "lower than ..." etc. etc.

...
 
Jul 7, 2016
Per the document you provided, the cost per unit for the F-35A are $123 million and $116 million for FY2016 and FY2017 respectively.
...
IMO, the prospect of achieving $80 million per unit on the F-35A by 2018/2019 is too unrealistic but $90 million per unit is probably achievable. ...
I quickly scrambled this:
3dDGJ.jpg

and will wait about three years, I guess :) EDIT and while it sounds as a long time, last week I obtained a new credit card which expires, quote, 12/20, end of quote LOL
that chart is in the old notebook, Brumby no longer posts, but anyway:

tN5f.jpg

what I now approximately marked with x in blue is 5393/46=117 (I repeat it's F-35A Procurement cost; ironically :) it's a little bit higher than the 2017 figure, which indeed is 5578/48=116 in both the old and new Comptroller's documents) according to the source I posted 21 minutes ago

looks like we're waiting to see the "shoulder"
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
I catch on Scramble, AF-113 don't mean 113 A delivered, 136 in 01/2017 about 2 - 3 new by month so now about 145+ whose about 30 Block 3i really operationnals.

First Flights:
May 25, 2017 - F-35A (AF-118) 15-5127/HL (388 FW, 34 FS).

Deliveries:
May 24, 2017 - F-35A (AF-113) 15-5122/HL (To Hill AFB - 388 FW, 34 FS).
May 25, 2017 - F-35A (AM-05) 5145 (To Luke AFB - 56 FW).


AF-78 (13-5072/HL "388 FW") and AF-101 (14-5100/HL) are at NAS Fort Worth JRB ramping up for the airshow in Paris later in June.
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
The F-35s AIM-9X, Small Diameter Bomb & 500-lb JDAM to be Operational Soon
Block 3F will increase the weapons delivery capacity of the JSF as well, giving it the ability to drop a Small Diameter Bomb, 500-pound JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) and AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile.
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F-35 related part of The National Interest article
America's Aircraft Carriers Might Be Obsolete (And the F-35 Will Only Make the Problem Worse)
May 28, 2017
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:
While many within senior Navy leadership know and understand the problem—the protracted and expensive development of the Lockheed Martin F-35 has left the Navy gun-shy. “The plain truth is that the F-35 acquisition has negatively reinforced learned behavior in naval aviation acquisition. There is real fear in what you hear acquisition officials saying in why they want to slow-roll UCLASS into a tanker/ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platform rather than a rangy, semi-stealthy, striker,” McGrath said. “Of course the tanking and the ISR are important… But they are additive to what is already in the Joint architecture. What the Joint architecture lacks is mobile, semi-stealthy, long-range strike. Utterly lacks it. But the technical challenges are judged to be more difficult than those associated with an ISR/Tanker bird, and there is no appetite or stomach—or any other appropriate noun—within the acquisition community to take on tough technical challenges.”

Not only has the F-35 experience scared the Navy away from developing an unmanned strike aircraft, it is also one of the major factors behind the sea service’s vision for a
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that is little more than a ‘super’ Super Hornet. “They’ve been burned by F-35, and no one wants to get burned again. But this is exactly the wrong lesson to be taken from F-35,” McGrath said. “What should be taken from F-35 is how difficult it is to create a ‘one-size-fits all’ solution to a great variety of missions and conditions. We can, should, and must design and build a largely unmanned semi-stealthy long-range carrier strike aircraft purpose built for carrier aviation.”

However, if the Navy doesn’t embark on developing a long-range penetrating strike aircraft, at a bare minimum, the service needs a stealthy new air-launched cruise missile—ideally with supersonic terminal speeds—with a range of more than 500 nautical miles. That missile would have to fit onto pylons underneath either the Super Hornet or the F-35C—which would carry the weapon the first 600 or so miles before releasing it. However, the problem would still be targeting. But Hendrix and McGrath also noted that the carrier needs an organic tanker to refuel those jets while they are enroute. “It should have 30,000 lbs of give,” Hendrix said “But it must be able give at least as much as the KA-6 (26,000 lbs).”
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Well with last F-35C orders now sure the number of VFA equiped will not be very important before 2025 - first VFA ready for 2019 and deployed 2021 - and we can envisaged 2030 for the 1st CAW with 2 F-35C VFAs or eventualy the CAW based to Iwakuni now Atsugi benefit a preferential treatment cuz the first to have a all Super Hornet Fleet.

But we wait initialy an armed UAV and finaly better a tanker cheaper more easy to afford in number for replaced Super Hornets as tankers not a mission for a combattant ofc !
 
Saturday at 12:46 PM
oops it was linked to F-22 Thread ... reposting here


Jul 6, 2016

and one year later ...
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in the table at the bottom of p. '1-7' (15 out of 87 in that PDF document):
2016 entry fits what's in the above post, which is 'Procurement' of 68 copies for 9476 mil
2017 now is 68 copies for 8885; 8885/68 = 131
2018 is 70 copies for 9117; 9117/70 = 130

I guess you know what I'm going to do one year from now


now adding Dec 20, 2016
OK the Comptroller one year from now, but in the meantime ... I checked myself what I found in Internet ... well it doesn't seem to make sense but:

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says 'Lot IX' $698032385

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says 'Lot IX' $60000000

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says spares for Lot 9 $237765479

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says nonrecurring items for 'Lot IX' for $431322997

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several items for Lot 9 $430878490

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something for 'Lot IX' for $120555991

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says 'Lot IX' $ for $5370955495

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several items for Lot 9 $181765203

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says Lot 9 $743169377

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this one is particularly funny: "... to provide additional funding for affordability-based cost reduction initiatives in support of low-rate initial production Lot 9 F-35 ..." $137834819

LOL I skipped several contracts below $100m but still:
698032385+60000000+237765479+431322997+430878490+120555991+5370955495+181765203+743169377+137834819 = 8,412,280,236
(of course they said 'a $6.1 billion deal'
Lockheed ‘Disappointed’ by Pentagon’s Latest F-35 Contract November 2, 2016
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)
8412280236/57 is almost 148m ... for one of Lot 9 without an engine and so called LOT 9 AIRFRAME UPGRADE AND RETROFIT CONTRACTS
... apparently also documented in the mind-boggling link
Unit Cost of F-35s Delivered This Year Still Exceeds $206M
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