JSF Delay concerns Australia and Canada

Australia and Canada share a common concern that the new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will be delayed, possibly requiring acquisition of an expensive interim air combat capability.

To present a united front, Australia and Canada will now conduct top level talks on procurement and capability issues of mutual concern.

As well as JSF, that will also touch on submarines, with both Australia and Canada experiencing big problems on maintaining submarine capability.

Visiting Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Canada wasn’t backing away from plans to acquire 65 JSF aircraft but shared all of the same concerns as Australia.

He said the good news was that the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant of JSF, to be acquired by both Canada and Australia, was progressing well, unlike the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) and carrier variants.

“We are purchasing them at a time when they will be in peak production around 2014-15. Our fleet of F-18 Hornets will have to be taken out of use in 2017,” he told reporters.

“So there is a degree of urgency for us when it comes to this procurement being on time and being on cost.”

Australia is considering acquiring up to 100 JSF aircraft but has so far contracted to buy just 14, with the first to be delivered in 2015. Decision time on the next tranche of 58 will come in 2012-13.

The JSF has faced steady criticism that it will be late and too expensive and won’t deliver the promised level of capability.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith said he and Mr MacKay had agreed to conduct a regular strategic dialogue on shared procurement, acquisition, capability issues.

He said he was very concerned that delay in JSF meant it was rubbing up against the Australian schedule for retiring older F/A-18 Hornets around the end of the decade.

“I have always been of the view that this project will get up because the US is absolutely committed to the capability,” he said.

“But the risk for Australia and other partners like Canada is on the delivery side, on the schedule side and also on the cost side.”

Mr Smith said an an exhaustive risk assessment would be conducted next year.

“If I am concerned or worried or not dissuaded there won’t be a gap in terms of delivery of the JSF, then an obvious option for us is more Super Hornets,” he said.

“The last things I will allow to occur with our procurement of the JSF is a gap in capability.”

 

-au.news.yahoo.com

Steam catapult launches F-35C

The F-35C completed its first steam catapult launch July 27 marking another milestone toward initial ship trials in 2013. Chief Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Launch and Recovery Equipment) Brandon Barr used a TC-13 Mod 2 test steam catapult, representative of current fleet technology, launching F-35C test aircraft CF-3 into the sky.

“It was great to be able to be a part of this milestone in the F-35C test program,” said Navy test pilot Lt. Chris Tabert.

CF-3 is the designated carrier suitability testing aircraft, assigned to the F-35 integrated test facility at Naval Air Station Patuxent River.

“Our first trip here to Lakehurst went very smoothly because of the true collaboration and hard work from the integrated team,” said Tom Briggs, government air vehicle engineering manager. “We look forward to another productive visit and staying on track for initial ship trials.”

In addition to the catapult launches at varying power levels, the integrated test team will execute a test plan over three weeks to include dual-aircraft jet blast deflector testing and catapult launches using a degraded catapult configuration to measure the effects of steam ingestion on the aircraft.

The F-35C carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is distinct from the F-35A and F-35B variants. It has larger wing surfaces and reinforced landing gear for slower catapult launch and landing approach speeds and deck impacts associated with the demanding carrier take-off and landing environment. The F-35C is undergoing test and evaluation at NAS Patuxent River prior to eventual delivery to the fleet.

Source: NAVAIR

Review of F-35 program delayed

A high-level Pentagon review of Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 fighter program has been delayed until later in the year to allow time to gain more test and production data, the Defense Department said on Wednesday.

Cheryl Irwin, Pentagon spokeswoman said the meeting of the Defense Acquisition Board, which includes senior defense officials including Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter, had been deferred a few months to incorporate information from the fiscal year 2013 budget process and to include the latest updates to the program’s schedule.

The meeting of the panel would likely be rescheduled sometime in October, said a senior defense official who was not authorized to speak on the record.

At the meeting, the panel is due to establish a new procurement baseline for the radar-evading F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, currently estimated to cost $382 billion.The review was initially expected in late May, and had been set for mid-June before the current delay.

The F-35 JSF  is a joint, multinational acquisition program for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and eight cooperative international partners. Expected to be the largest military aircraft procurement ever, the stealth, supersonic F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) will replace a wide range of aging fighter and strike aircraft for the U.S.

Source: Reuters, GlobalSecurity.org

Israel in talks to build wings for F-35s

Last Monday, an Israeli official who declined to be names said that Israel is in talks to build the wings for about a quarter of the United States’s new F-35 stealth fighter aircraft. The Israeli official said state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries would build the wings. “We are in advanced talks for the IAI to produce around 800 sets of wings,” he told Reuters.

Lockheed Martin currently plans to build some 3,200 F-35s costing about $96 million each. Lockheed Martin declined to comment on the details of a possible deal involving the aircraft, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved in principle the purchase of 20 of the radar-evading fighters, in a deal worth $2.75 billion, earlier this month.

Israeli and U.S. officials expect final approval of that deal by the end of September. The planes would be delivered in 2015-2017. The cost of the purchase would be covered by an annual U.S. defense grant of $3 billion.

Israel would be the first foreign country to sign an agreement to buy the F-35 outside the eight international partners that have helped to develop the plane. Israeli and U.S. officials with knowledge of the deal said Israel has an option to buy a further 55 aircraft.

An Israeli official said reciprocal purchase deals worth $4 billion had been secured for Israeli companies for their participation in the plane’s manufacture and might be increased to $5 billion although it would be conditional on Israel exercising its option to buy the additional 55 planes.

The F-35 is designed to avoid detection by radar and could play a role in any Israeli effort to knock out what it regards as the threat to its existence posed by Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran denies Western and Israeli allegations that it is trying to produce atomic weapons.

- planenews.com