US and UK officials the Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35B fighter jet can operate and be serviced at sea.
The statement came following nearly two weeks of testing of the jet on a ship, which was operating off of the North Carolina coast.
The testing proved that new warplane is set to mark another step to for initial combat use by the Marine Corps.
Marine Corps spokesman Major Paul Greenberg said that from May 18 to May 26, six F-35 B-model jets, completed 98 separate flights, logging 73.1 flight hours, on the USS Wasp.
The jets were due complete a final day of flight tests on Wednesday from the ship, which is operating about 100 miles off North Carolina coast. The work will be completed by maintainers working on the jets on Friday.
"Nearly two weeks." ... (from May 18 to May 26). Let us look at this 6-jet F-35B effort.
8 Days. 9 if you count Wednesday.
98 flights=12 flights per day; 2 flights per jet per day.
73.1 flight hours= 9 flight hours per day. Of 98 flights: average flight time is just under 45 minutes.
Find the STOVL USMC F-35B on this 2007 Navy League brief slide in regard to the operational requirement document.
A long way to go.
Reader M&S some months back pushed some numbers around on F-35B ship operations.
Counting reserve fuel and fuel fraction of the motor, he came up with a sortie time under... 45 minutes.
And consider that for some years, the F-35B, has been "leaking fuel".
USMC will declare "initial operating capability" in July. More than a few, label this "milestone", as a joke given all the troubles with the aircraft.
Over many years, it is odd how all the hard observers of this flying question mark, that don't have all the special access, come up with things...that end up being... more accurate than the F-35 program officials.
LOL from the F-35 fan-base:
They’re trying to begin the process of generating sorties at the same pace they might have to during a war. (We heard from one pilot that the F-35Bs had already met and beaten the ship boarding rate of the Harrier fleet.)
Based on the numbers, that isn't a good thing.
The 91 maintainers aboard the Wasp jacked up an F-35B and found they needed to come up with some new gear to do it easily and safely to manage the 32,300 pound aircraft.
Let us just put the thing aside that nearly 14 years after contract award, they haven't run practical maintenance simulations on POS-B for this kind of ship operation. That by itself, while common with this program is sad. It is the other part: 15 maintainers per jet.
Awesome.
-DOT&E Report: The F-35 Is Not Ready for IOC and Won't Be Any Time Soon
-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding
-F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour
-More indications that the F-35 is a failed program
-From the year 2000. Very insightful. The JSF: One More Card In The House (PDF)
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