JSF family could face squabbles
by Reuben F. Johnson

When discussing the remarkable design and projected performance of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, representatives are keen to point out how it will alter all perceptions of the battlefield of the future. But the present difference in perception between the U.S. side of the program and that of some of its partner nations, suggests that there could be conflict down the road.

For instance, it is still unclear just how much of the export production will be carried on outside of the U.S. Giorgio Zappa, chairman and CEO of Alenia Aeronautica, told a press conference here at Le Bourget that his three objectives on the F-35 program are establishing a final assembly line in Italy, setting up a national support center similar to that established for the Eurofighter program and giving Italian industry full armament integration capability.

The Italian government is investing $1 billion in the F-35’s SDD (system development and demonstration) phase and has made it clear that it expects some return on that investment in the form of workshare. Not only would Italian companies (as well as other foreign partners) be counting on some of the F-35 assembly work to be performed in their countries, but they will also be looking for the full access to technical data and software source code in order to make their own configuration changes. Both points bring in the rather sticky issue of technology transfer of the aircraft’s next-generation on-board systems and the stealth material used in the airframe.

On the U.S. side, however, the official line from both LM F-35 program manager Tom Burbage and U.S. Air Force Col. Dwyer Dennis of the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) is that only when official memorandums of understanding have been drawn up will this matter be settled in detail. But both the JPO and LM say that the issues of best price and affordability are paramount in the program. A more suspicious person might be led to believe that down the road in the program technology transfer to foreign partners may not take place where it is not considered a good risk, but in such cases the technology being withheld will be justified not on security grounds but on the basis that the partner’s offers to perform work locally are not cost competitive.

Just how advanced and sensitive some of this technology might be can be seen in the F-35’s new design mockup that Lockheed Martin is showcasing at this year’s show. In contrast with the mockup seen last year at Farnborough, this model is complete with operational cockpit systems that showcase the new-generation technology that will be integral to the aircraft’s configuration. Unlike other fighters that are equipped with separate color multifunction displays, the F-35 cockpit instead features a single 8-inch by 20-inch panoramic display screen that spans the entire width of the instrument panel. This single continuous display screen can then be segmented into “windows” not unlike a personal computer. Information in these windows is displayed in a position and size of the pilot’s discretion. Moreover, the F-35 cockpit dispenses with a head-up display (HUD) completely, in favor of a sophisticated helmet-mounted display (HMD).

LM Aeronautics President Dain Hancock stresses that the capacity to provide not only senior commanders but also the trigger pullers with real-time information from a wide array of sensors will make the difference in future conflicts. “There has been a realization within defense agencies that the cognitive domain is where battles are truly won and lost. Having vast amounts of information is of marginal value if it cannot be quickly interpreted and applied to strategic decision making,” he added.

The downside of the equation is that the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, UK Royal Navy and other armed forces that end up operating the aircraft “will have to re-write and rethink the way that pilots are trained,” said one cockpit design specialist. Training a pilot to operate an aircraft usually depends upon some basic parameters that include instructing which indicators or displays divulge critical information needed in an emergency situation or loss of situational awareness.
More likely than not, this technological reach of the F-35 is going to redefine the role that the individual pilot plays in the air/land battle. What remains to be seen is how the battle for sharing this technology with the program’s partners will be resolved.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/a...s/20051118.aspx


Why Australia Went With the F-35

strategy page ^ | November 18, 2005 | Harold C. Hutchison (hchutch@ix.netcom.com)


The Royal Australian Air Force’s decision to go ahead with buying the F-35 might be surprising, but not when one looks at what the alternatives had been. The Australians had been considering ten options for the future of the RAAF. These options were a mixture of proven capability (like the F-15E and F-16), and the cutting edge (like the Eurofighter, F-22, and robotic warplanes, or UCAVs). Yet, not all of them made the cut. What is unique about the RAAF competition is the frank discussion of the pros and cons of the contenders that emerged. Usually, not a lot of information is released, either for the sake of the country doing the buying (in order to avoid tipping off potential opponents) and the companies involved (in order to preserve a chance at future sales by keeping competing aircraft firms from knowing weaknesses in another design).

Australia is planning to replace both its F-111s and F-18s with the F-35. The F-35 is a stealthy multi-role aircraft with a top speed of 1,900 kilometers per hour, and a combat radius of over 1,100 kilometers. The aircraft comes in at anywhere from $37 million (the U.S. Air Force’s version) to $48 million (the U.S. Navy’s carrier version). Why was the F-35, which is not yet in service, chosen over other aircraft, some of which have been proven in combat (like the F-15 and F-16), or which have had most of the bugs worked out (Rafale, Su-30MK, Gripen, F/A-18E/F)?

The answer is what Australia was looking for – they wanted a modern, multi-role fighter that could last a long time (the planned retirement date is 2040). They also wanted stealth, good sensors, and long range. Looking these requirements over helps explain why some planes did not make the cut.

The F-15 and F-16 were state of the art through the 1970s and 1980s, but fell behind the Rafale and Eurofighter, and are slated to be replaced with the F-22 and F-35, respectively. To an extent, the F-18E/F also fell victim, even though it had much in common with RAAF F-18s currently in service.

The Rafale had two problems. The biggest was interoperability. Australia and the United States have fought together in a number of major conflicts dating back to World War I. There is very little expectation that this will change, and Australia wants to simplify matters like logistics. What also plagued the Rafale, as well as the Gripen and Eurofighter were issue with stealth (not enough), and sensors (the small radomes raised concerns). The Gripen also failed on range.

The F-22 was one of the planes considered. Performance and logistics were not issues – cost was. The F-22 was coming in at $150 million a plane, and it was optimized for the air-to-air role, with the attack capability added on after many of the parameters were set. The most expensive variant of the F-35 comes in at $48 million. So, for the price of one F-22, one could get three F-35Cs or close to four F-35As (the variant Australia is purchasing). One F-22 can beat one F-35, but one F-22 would have a much difficult time beating three F-35Cs or four F-35As – and it cannot be in three or four places at once.

Two the competitors were never serious possibilities. The first was the Su-30MK, which was non-stealthy, had serious inter-operability issues, and would have been extremely controversial. In essence, there were some questions as to why it was even considered despite its range and powerful sensor suite. The other competitor quickly wiped out were unmanned air combat vehicles (UCAVs). The Australians figured that UCAVs would eventually supplement manned combat aircraft, but would not suffice as replacements.

The last aircraft standing was the F-35. While it is a paper airplane, it is well under way, and Australia will be able to get a version of the F-35 that will meet its requirements through 2040. Other countries will also be buying at least one variant of the F-35, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Turkey, and the Netherlands. The F-35 will likely be the F-16 of the early 21st century.

The USAF variant has a big chance of being cancelled by the Pentagon.

http://www.f-16.net/news_article1563.html


First F-35 nears completion
f-16.net


December 20, 2005 - With the installation of horizontal tails on the first F-35, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) team has completed assembly of the aircraft's major structural components. The next milestone in the aircraft's march to first flight is engine installation, planned for early 2006.

"The speed and precision of assembly on this airplane continues to impress even the most experienced aerospace veterans among us and far exceeds any program that has gone before it," said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 JSF program general manager. "The ease with which this aircraft has come together, along with the quality of the fit and finish, is simply unprecedented in a first-off-the-line aircraft. It puts us down the path toward meeting our affordability goals."

The stealthy F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5thgeneration fighter designed to replace aging AV-8B Harriers, A-10s, F-16s, F/A-18 Hornets and United Kingdom Harrier GR.7s and Sea Harriers. First flight is planned for fall 2006.

The horizontal tails installed on Dec. 8 and the vertical tails installed on Nov. 28 were designed and manufactured by BAE Systems in Samlesbury, England. Assemblers installed the aircraft's weapons-bay doors on Dec. 7. Final assembly began in May, when workers mated the Northrop Grumman-produced center fuselage to the Lockheed Martin-built wing at the F-35's final assembly operation in Fort Worth. The BAE Systems-produced aft fuselage and the Lockheed Martin forward fuselage were also joined to the overall aircraft assembly earlier in the year. Technicians switched on electrical power to the aircraft for the first time on Sept. 7.

Pratt & Whitney will deliver the aircraft's F135 engine before the end of December. The power plant, which produces 40,000 pounds of thrust, will make the F-35 the most powerful single-engine fighter ever to fly.

Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 with its principal industrial partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Two separate, interchangeable F-35 engines are under development: the Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan and the F136 turbofan from the General Electric Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team.

F-35 Pushing Down Price of F-16

December 27, 2005: With the new F-35 rapidly approaching introduction, many Western air forces are trying to unload late model F-16s. One such sale occurred recently when Chile got 18 second hand F-16s from the Netherlands. Another three were sold to Jordan. Buying second hand like this cuts up to 50 percent off the purchase price. Chile bought ten brand new F-16s from the U.S. for $60 million each. Chile also bought two second hand warships (frigates) from the Netherlands as well.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htproc/ar...s/20051227.aspx

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story...=180705&tref=po

New jet lets pilots' fingers do the flying
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's touch screens, voice activated commands and helmet-mounted displays are cutting edge.
By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© January 22, 2006

LOCKHEED MARTIN PHOTOS





VIRGINIA BEACH — Five dozen men, many of them former pilots who have helped shape naval aviation for the past 50 years, were spellbound as they looked into the simulated cockpit of the Navy’s next-generation fighter jet.

Two 8-by-20-inch touch screen displays dominated the dashboard.

Tapping the screen changes radio channels. Touching it elsewhere selects a weapon to use: missile, bomb, cannon.

Pointing to a landing spot on the map display tells the computer to fly the plane there – nearly hands off.

A visual system built into the pilot’s helmet projects an image onto the visor, giving real-time navigation and targeting information. No matter which way the pilot’s head turns, the data are always in view.

Voice commands are integrated into the controls to rapidly react to changing mission requirements.

There is no control stick in the floor. It’s been replaced by sliding knobs on each side of the cockpit, with fingertip switches.

The one on the left is the throttle. The right one controls direction.

“If you have two fingers and can touch the screen, you can fly this thing,” an F/A-18 Hornet pilot quipped from the back of the crowd of admirers.

This is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, an amalgam of cutting-edge fighter technology. It will cost between $37 million and $48 million, depending on which of three models is bought.

Although top Pentagon officials are thinking about cutting the size and scope of the F-35 program to reduce defense budgets, for now the plan is a $256 billion, 20-year program to build 3,500 to 4,000 planes.

Up to 6,000 could be turned out when sales to America’s NATO allies are counted.


Nearly ready for flight


The F-35 is scheduled to go into flight less than a year after the first plane rolls off a Texas assembly line in October. The planes could come to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach in about 2013 as a replacement for the F/A-18 C and D model Hornets.

Marine Corps Lt. Col. Arthur “Turbo” Tomassetti, the only pilot to have flown all three versions of the fighter, promises that its pilots are in for a treat.

“On the Navy and Marine side, we don’t have stealth airplanes yet, so just the fact we are getting one of those is a huge deal,” said Tomassetti, chief test pilot and commanding officer of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland .

At war, the F-35 would be among the first jets to enter the conflict to support troops on the ground or knock out missile sites. It also would be able to engage enemy targets in the sky.

It has two bomb bays and 11 places for wing-mounted weapons.

Its low radar profile gives it stealth, while a revolutionary new radar inside the plane will allow it 360-degree vision to better evade attackers.

It will be the first airplane that allows pilots to remain unseen yet still communicate by radio . The F-35 will not carry any iron, or “dumb,” bombs, only next-generation guided munitions.

The uniqueness of the F-35, Tomassetti said, is not in an individual piece of equipment.

“We already have touch screens, voice-activated cockpits and in-helmet displays,” he said. “But now what you are talking about is a combination of the helmet-mounted display, touch screens and voice activation. That’s never been done all in one before.”

Plans call for the F-35 to be a multi national premier strike aircraft through 2040. The plane will allow the Air Force to field an almost all-stealth fighter force by 2025.

The F-35 would replace the Marine Corps’ aging AV-8B Harriers, the Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolts and F-16 Falcons, the Navy’s F/A-18C Hornets and the United Kingdom’s Harriers, both its air force and navy versions.

Lockheed Martin is developing the plane with its principal industrial partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.

Two separate, interchangeable engines are under development: one by Pratt & Whitney and the other by the General Electric/Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team.


Headed to Oceana?


For Oceana, 100 or more F-35s could replace the F/A-18C Hornets. They would serve beside the newer F/A-18 E and F model Super Hornets.

Then again, that might not happen, said Rear Adm. Steven Enewold, the executive officer of the Joint Strike Fighter Program.

“It’s not clear to me yet that we wouldn’t have a consolidated JSF base somewhere that would have all three versions,” Enewold said from his Washington office.

It would be natural to bring them together because the planes have the same engines and avionics and require the same technical skills to maintain and operate them, he said.

“It is not a far stretch to think we might have an Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps consolidation base somewhere,” he said.

The Navy must decide this year where to base its F-35s.


The pros are impressed


Enewold brought his presentation and a mock-up of the F-35’s cockpit to Oceana in August.

Members of the Association of Naval Aviation’s Hampton Roads Squadron marveled at the aircraft’s gadgets and technology.

It has tools that weren’t even dreams 20 years ago, said retired Vice Adm. Dick Dunleavy of Virginia Beach.

“It is the future, and we are going forward with it,” said the former A-6 Intruder bombardier/navigator, who commanded the aircraft carrier Coral Sea and the Atlantic Fleet’s air arm.

Despite his concerns about the aircraft’s cost, he’s impressed by its innovations.

“That is our strength as Americans – our technology and our people – and they put both of them in there quite well.”

But the aviators also had questions. Among them: What about jet noise?

It is the No. 1 issue among many who live and work near Oceana, the Navy’s only master jet base on the East Coast.

“We don’t know yet,” said Enewold, who has been with the program since January 2002. “The engine is about the same thrust as the F-14 … and will make the same kind of noise.”

However, the plane’s single engine is so powerful that “we don’t see any reason to operate the afterburner around the field,” Enewold said.

Since the engine has not yet been mounted in the first F-35 – the Pratt & Whitney model is being installed –its exact loudness isn’t known.

The engine’s large size may help lessen its noise, though.

“I hear that because it is a bigger engine, it is not near as shrill,” said John Smith, a Lockheed Martin spokesman at the company’s Fort Worth, Texas, plant. “It has a lower sound to it, maybe the same decibels, but it is not the same ear-splitting decibels as the F-18” with its two smaller engines.


International interest


The F-35 program emphasizes collaboration among NATO nations, including Britain, Italy, Norway, Turkey, Australia, Canada and Denmark.

“It is like no other program I have been associated with,” Enewold said.

The plane is designed to have a long range, to use common hardware and software, to be used and maintained by all service branches and to be highly reliable.

“You can schedule maintenance when you want it, because it will tell you when it will break,” Enewold said.

Even its construction is revolutionary, according to Lockheed Martin.

There are three sub- assembly points: The forward fuselage is being buil t in Fort Worth by Lockheed Martin; BAE Systems is building the aft fuselage and tails in Samlesbury, England; and Northrop Grumman is constructing the center fuselage in Palmdale, Calif.

Once the sub sections are completed, they will be sent to the Fort Worth plant, Smith said.

The first production plane began to take shape just before Christmas in Forth Worth with the installation of horizontal tails, which joined the aft fuselage and forward fuselage.

“For the first time in history, we will have a moving assembly line for a fighter,” Smith said. “There have been moving assembly lines for commercial airliners and other things, but not for a fighter.”

Its engine is to be installed this week.

Final assembly will take five to six months instead of 13 months for previous aircraft, the company said.

“Once full production rates are achieved in the 2013 time frame, we will be building a plane a day. Our goal is 20 per month,” Smith said.


Love and hate


While Tomassetti believes former Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier pilots will be more than pleased with the F-35, he’s not sure other fliers will be.

“If you talk to a Harrier guy, they are very excited,” he said. “It’s all good to them.”

That’s mainly because the F-35 short take-off and vertical-landing model will have all digitized controls, allowing computers to do the things that burden a Harrier pilot.

“Basically you have three things to move with your two hands,” he said of the Harrier. “It’s a very busy aircraft.”

However, the F-35 is not without its detractors.

“Talk to the F-18 guys and they are complaining it is a single engine,” Tomassetti said.

Since the late 1960s, the Navy has preferred twin engines for its carrier-based aircraft but has lived with single engines in the A-7 Corsairs and A-4 Skyhawks.

Some Air Force pilots may not be thrilled either.

“The F-16 guys will say it is not as fast, or potentially maneuverable,” Tomassetti said. “Some of the folks flying the cutting-edge stuff say, 'They can’t do this thing that my current airplane can do.’”

All that aside, Tomassetti said, “there are some tremendous capabilities” with stealth and sensors far ahead of what’s now available in combat aircraft.

“Everything you will get in the F-35 is better than what we get today.”


Reach Jack Dorsey at (757) 446-2284 or jack.dorsey@pilotonline.com.

:drunk: damn!! is the PAF interested with the F-35 in its MRF acquisition in the future(yr.2022 maybe)??? :bow:

http://www.f-16.net/news_article1631.html



-- The first F-35A Joint Strike Fighter rolls out of Lockheed's Ft. Worth, TX assembly plant (Lockheed Photo).


First F-35 exits Lockheed Martin factory, prepares for testing
f-16.net


February 21, 2006 (by Jeff Hollenbeck) - The Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter team has completed assembly of the first F-35 aircraft and moved it out of the factory in preparation for an intensive period of ground testing. First flight of the F-35, a conventional takeoff and landing version, remains on schedule for this fall.

The first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter moves from the factory to a fueling facility at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, on Feb.19 achieving another major milestone toward first flight planned later this year. Workers completed assembly of the aircraft on Feb. 17.

The move on Feb. 19 capped a thorough design update from the Concept Development Phase of the program, and an innovative production process that yielded unprecedented levels of assembly accuracy, fit and finish.

"Our team's engineers, mechanics and assemblers deserve high praise for the precise way in which this airplane came together with very few issues," said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and JSF program general manager. "The fact that this level of quality was achieved on our first aircraft, at the beginning of our learning curve, signals good things for the reliability and affordability of the thousands of F-35s that will follow."

Mechanics transferred the airplane to a nearby fueling facility where it will initially undergo a thorough fuel-system check-out. Structural coupling and ground-vibration testing will follow. Engine runs will begin in late spring and will lead into taxi tests in advance of first flight.

"I look at what this airplane is going to do, how it is going to change the nature of tactical warfare, and I am amazed,"said Air Force Brig. Gen. C.R. Davis, deputy executive officer of the Joint Strike Fighter program. "This program is young, and plenty of hard work remains ahead, but the F-35's move to the flightline is a major milestone. It's a great day."

The stealthy F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5th-generation fighter designed to replace aging AV-8B Harriers, A-10s, F-16s, F/A-18 Hornets and United Kingdom Harrier GR.7s and Sea Harriers.

Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 with its principal industrial partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Two separate, interchangeable F-35 engines are under development: the Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan and the F136 turbofan from the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team. Each power plant produces 40,000 pounds of thrust, making the F-35 the most powerful single-engine fighter ever to fly.


-- if the PAF will get its first MRF by 2018(?), hopefully it will go for F-35A JSFs (goodness! it's really nice to dream, noh? :armyLol: )... :drunk:

DATE:24/02/06
SOURCE:Flight Daily News
JSF model highlights programme problems

A scale model on missile manufacturer MBDA’s stand at Asian Aerospace portrays a Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has unwittingly revealed a potential fit problem for the fighter's weapons suite.

The model (pictured below) is in UK Royal Air Force markings, carrying a pair of Storm Shadow air-to-surface missiles, a pair of Meteor air-to-air missiles underwing and with an ASRAAM visible in the open weapons bay. But Sky Shadow and Enhanced Paveway, the UK’s “first day of the war” weapons are too large to fit the short take-off and vertical landing version’s smaller internal weapons bays, and are thereby limited to non-stealthy external carriage.

There was an ambition to integrate the Meteor, selected by Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK for the Eurofighter Typhoon, by France for the Dassault Rafale and by Sweden for the Gripen on UK JSFs, but this plan has remained unfunded, limiting the JSF to AMRAAM, and ensuring that the UK will have two different BVRAAMs in its inventory, and making it unlikely that other JSF export customers will select the weapon.

While ASRAAM can be carried internally (and is the only short range air-to-air missile that can achieve lock before launch from inside the bay), it is not cleared for external carriage, and therefore uses up a weapons station that might more usefully be devoted to a heavier air-to-ground weapon. This limitation may place the weapon at a competitive disadvantage to the US AIM-9X.

Finally, it has been reported that plans to integrate the Storm Shadow cruise missile, and the Selective Precision Effects At Range weapon on UK JSFs have been delayed, while integration of the Brimstone anti-armour weapon have been cancelled.

LOCKHEED MARTIN F-22 AND F-35: THE 5TH GENERATION REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AVIATION

SINGAPORE, February 21, 2006 -- With the F-22 Raptor reaching U.S. Air Force Initial Operational Capability last December and the scheduled first flight of the F-35 later this year, the 5TH Generation of fighter aircraft is now a reality. Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT], which produces both aircraft, detailed some of the battle-changing advantages and unmatched capabilities the world's only 5TH Generation fighters now bring to the United States and its allies.


George Standridge, vice president and deputy for business development at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, presented an in-depth look at the state-of-the-art attributes uniquely integrated in the F-22 and F-35 5TH Generation fighters. “These fighters bring an order of magnitude increase in capability, survivability and supportability over legacy fighters, at a significantly lower cost and will transform defense worldwide,” said Standridge who briefed the press at the Asian Aerospace air show here today. Asian Aerospace is the region's foremost aerospace and defense technology exhibition.

“Lockheed Martin has launched the world into the fifth generation of military aviation,” said Standridge. “We believe the F-22 and F-35 represent a major inflection point in military aviation and all aviation for that matter. The F-22 and F-35 are battle-changing systems. These two aircraft, the only 5TH Generation fighters being produced or developed today, are the only fighters that can survive and defeat threats of tomorrow."

Standridge said numerous analyses of tactical aircraft operations from a variety of government sources have all reached the same conclusions: 5th Generation fighters are significantly more effective than legacy fighters in all air dominance mission requirements and are the best value for the money.

Without getting into detailed, classified information, Standridge noted that the F-22 Raptor's unique combination of stealth, speed, precision, agility, situational awareness, air-to-ground and air-to-air combat capabilities make it unlike any other military aircraft in the world. It is faster to the fight, two times more reliable, and three-plus times more effective than the F-15 it replaces. The Raptor also requires 1/3 less airlift to deploy.

Standridge added that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be:
• Four times more effective than legacy fighters in air-to-air engagements
• Eight times more effective than legacy fighters in prosecuting missions against fixed and mobile targets
• Three times more effective than legacy fighters in non-traditional Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) and Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD/DEAD) missions
• About the same in procurement cost as legacy fighters, but requires significantly less tanker/transport and less infrastructure with a smaller basing footprint

“The synergy that results from combining stealth, speed, maneuverability, persistence, information fusion and situational awareness, improved sustainability, lean deployment and the ability to work within and interact with a broad array of networked systems in a single platform represents a quantum leap in capability and survivability over previous fighters,” said Standridge. “No other fighter in the world today besides the F-22 and F-35 can make those claims.”


Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about 135,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2005 sales of $37.2 billion.

LOCKHEED MARTIN

My goodness.. If F-35 was meant to replace all the mention plane and roll into one, then it's one hell of a New Generation Plane.

Hmmm. Very interesting and maybe I'm going to switch my admiration from F-18 to F-35. Nice thread comrade :thumb: .. Peace to all.

F-35 links:

http://www.jsf.mil/gallery/gal_video.htm#x35



Time to change your signature edwin!

UK and Australia threaten to pull out of Lockheed Martin delays JSF over tech transfer

Australia and the UK have warned the USA that they will not buy the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as planned if they are not guaranteed access to the technology required to operate and support the aircraft.

The ultimatum was delivered during two days of Congressional hearings on the JSF programme prompted by the US Department of Defense's decision to cancel development of the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternative engine for the F-35.

The F136 would have powered the F-35B short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant, which entered production at BAE Systems’ Samlesbury site in the UK last month (an earlier X-35B prototype of which is pictured below).

Australia and the UK are among the eight international partners with which the USA is trying to a sign a memorandum of understanding covering the entire production, sustainment and follow-own development of the F-35. US technology transfer restrictions have emerged as a major obstacle to signing the MoU.

Testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee, UK minister for defence procurement Lord Drayson said "operational sovereignty" over the JSF "is of paramount importance". The UK must decide whether the JSF is "fit to fight" he said, adding: "If we do not have the information and technology needed to make that decision, then I shall not be able to sign the MoU."

Rear Adm Raydon Gates, head of Australia's defence staff in Washington, reinforced the message, telling the committee: "Guaranteed access to necessary JSF data and technology to allow Australia to support and operate the JSF will be required before we join the next phase of the project."

Guaranteeing technology access over the life of the programme would be a major departure for the US government, which has so far allowed only the phased release of technology to its JSF partners during development of the F-35. Signing of the MoU "will commit the UK to the whole life of the JSF programme", Lord Drayson said, adding that the UK must have "the ability to integrate, upgrade, operate and sustain the aircraft as we see fit and without recourse to others".

Both Australia, with a requirement for 100 aircraft, and the UK, for 150, remain committed to the JSF programme, the two men said. The US government hopes to sign the MoU for the next phase by December.

Lord Drayson said that the UK, as the only Level 1 partner in the JSF programme, should have been consulted on the DoD's decision to cancel the F136 engine, but was not. "The F136 inserts an important competitive element into the JSF programme," he said. "I still wish to see F136 funding included in the DoD programme."

Australia supports a second engine as long as it does not raise the cost or lower the capability of the aircraft, said Gates. But Lt Gen Giuseppe Bernardis, head of armament procurement programmes for Italy, the second largest international partner with a requirement for 136 aircraft, told Congress: "This should be a US decision, and Italy will adhere to it."

GRAHAM WARWICK / WASHINGTON, DC

Flight International

AF Says it Needs Joint Strike Fighter
Air Force News | Todd Lopez | March 21, 2006
Washington, D.C. - Keeping the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program on track is important because the Air Force needs to replace aging aircraft and it is an important complement to the F-22A Raptor aircraft.

That Capitol Hill testimony came March 16 from Lt. Gen. Carrol H. "Howie" Chandler, deputy chief of staff for Air Force air, space, and information operations, plans and requirements.

"The Air Force has been very successful with what we call the high/low mix," the general said. "The F-15, for example, is high end. (It has) fewer numbers and is more expensive because of its capabilities. The F-16 is the low end of the mix -- more affordable, more numbers, optimized for air-to-ground vice the air-to-air mission of the F-15."

The general told members of the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on tactical air and land forces that the Air Force meant for there to be a similar relationship between the F-22A and the F-35 aircraft, both "fifth generation" fighters.

"The two are very complementary to each other because of the optimization of the F-22A for air-to-air (combat), and its ability to suppress or defeat enemy air defenses. The Joint Strike Fighter is optimized for air-to-surface and its ability to strike hard ... (with the) persistent numbers that we would like to buy of the aircraft,” he said. “It is very important to us."

General Chandler also said aging aircraft are a reason to push forward with the JSF program. The new aircraft will relieve the increasing cost of maintaining an older fleet, while at the same time bring new capabilities to the Air Force.

"As we attempt to maintain the aging fleet that we have today -- as you know that becomes very expensive," he said. "We are able to sustain high mission-capable rates today because of the young men and women maintaining those aircraft. As the aircraft get older ... they are going to have to work harder to make those airplanes fly at the same rate."

As part of the fiscal 2007 president's budget, the Air Force recommends termination of the Joint Strike Fighter F-136 engine development program.

General Chandler said the cancellation will provide cost savings through fiscal 2011. The program was meant to provide a mixed engine to the F-35 fleet, with F-136 engines from one manufacturer and F-135 engines from another.

In written testimony, the general said the Department of Defense concluded that a single engine supplier provides the best balance of risk and cost based upon recent experience with engine development for the F-22A and F/A-18 E/F. He said the current F-135 engine continues to meet JSF performance requirements, but conceded that in the past the Air Force has had success with maintaining two engines for one airframe.

"That success ... stems primarily to contractor performance -- the contractor performed better under competition," he said. "And there were fleet operations issues, in that you were buying an insurance policy against a mass grounding of the fleet."

That "insurance policy" came at a cost, however. The general said the Air Force feels the costs are not worth the benefit to the Air Force to have a fleet of aircraft with different, competing engines.

"You pay for that insurance policy in terms of additional supply lines and additional training for your people," he said. "If you look at where we are today with the F-119 engine (in the F-22A), and you look at the other competing issues that we have in the department with trying to fund other programs, and you look at the reliability and the safety that we have developed with this program, you can make a prudent decision that says you can save the money that you would spend on the second engine."

The F-136 is a General Electric engine developed in partnership with Rolls Royce. The Air Force wants to use the Pratt and Whitney F-135 engine for the F-35 aircraft. That engine is also developed in partnership with Rolls Royce. The F-22A aircraft is currently fitted with an F-119 engine, also developed by Pratt and Whitney.

Committee members were also concerned with encroachment issues. Encroachment is when communities surrounding a military installation build closer and closer to an airfield or training area and civilian interests begin to compete with military training efforts. The general said the Air Force works with communities to prevent encroachment.

"Encroachment is always an issue ... we work very closely with the communities so we don't endanger people as we try to train as realistically as we can," he said.
Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.


Copyright 2006 Air Force News. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,9...C=airforce-a.nl

Norway's Future Fighter Competition: A Norwegian View
Posted 11-May-2006 16:02

F-35 JSF
Guest article by Endre Lunde
DID has previously covered the mixed signals coming from several of the embattled JSF program's foreign partners, including Britain and Norway. In an apparent response to the Norwegian announcement that they might be considering withdrawing from the program on account of their industrial share, representatives from Lockheed Martin, the US Government and Eurofighter have been campaigning intensively for their cause in the Norwegian news media. Drawing on Norwegian sources, I have compiled this following survey of the last months' events, and the war of words that finally led to the announcement on May 8th, 2006 that Norway will continue their participation with JSF - for now.

The lobbying effort did not begin well.

Timeline of a Fighter Duel

RAF Eurofighter
(click to view full)On March 28th, 2006, Lockheed Martin Executive President and JSF Manager Tom Burbage did an interview with Jane's, in which he made statements that were interpreted as direct threats of fines and sanctions against Norway should they go forward with their plans to pull out.

Two days later, on March 30th, Eurofighter Marketing Director David R. Hamilton called a meeting at the Norwegian capitols upscale Grand Hotel. He boasted of the problem-free relationship Norway could expect from their consortium, of which Norway is also a member.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2006/0...-view/index.php

DATE:27/06/06
SOURCE:Flight International

JSF special: Option 9 turns replan to advantage

The redesign and replan that stretched JSF system development and demonstration also changed the build sequence, or “firing order”, of the test airframes, with a significant impact on manufacturing.

Instead of being interleaved, the three variants will now be built in a “5-5-5-2-2-2” order – five STOVL aircraft, followed by five CTOL then five CV, and finishing with two F-35Bs, two F-35Cs and two F-35As. The 21 aircraft will include separate static and durability test articles for each variant, plus a CV airframe for drop, barrier and live-fire testing. The new sequence is called “Option 9”.

“The replan added 18 months and changed the firing order of the aircraft. It put the hardest-to-design aircraft up front,” says Bobby Williams, air vehicle team lead. “If we get STOVL right, the CTOL and CV should follow without a hitch. It allows us to deal with the challenges one at a time, and we can roll in the lessons learned with AA-1.”

Tom Fillingham, BAE System F-35 programme manager, says: “It’s a more pragmatic approach,” adding: “Option 9 gives us a little bit more time to build the first few aircraft, while maintaining the back-end dates for everyone, and we get to build more STOVL aircraft together, which improves our learning.”

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/...d+together.htmlDATE:27/06/06
SOURCE:Flight International

JSF special: Threaded together

Although a one-off, aircraft AA-1 has validated what the JSF team calls the “digital thread” – the electronic design database that runs from engineering through to manufacturing, and beyond. Constantly updated, this database of Catia three-dimensional solid models defining the F-35 stitches together the partners and suppliers around the world.

“AA-1 proved out the manufacturing processes using the digital thread – all of us using the same electronic master model,” says Edward Linhart, Lockheed Martin vice-president F-35 production operations.

“It went together better than anticipated – less than 10% off anticipated manhours. And that was mainly waiting for parts – we won’t make that mistake on the second one.”

The digital thread allowed manufacturing engineers to get more closely involved in the design, and to get an early start on developing numerical-control programs from the Catia models for automatic tape-laying and high-speed maching, resulting in a better first-time product.

“When parts went through we did not assume 100% yield – but it was over 70%, which is phenomenal for a first-off aircraft,” says Tom Fillingham, BAE Systems F-35 programme manager.

This design thread also reduced suppliers’ scrap and rework levels to a “historic low”, says Janis Pamiljans, Northrop Grumman F-35 programme manager. “This helps cut costs and helps affordability. We’re also seeing all the results of this hard work in terms of flow targets, which are beating all expectations,” he says.

Bobby Williams, air vehicle team lead, says: “Drawing release using the digital thread proved to work quite well, but we can do better and we are rolling [the improvements] into the design process to minimise the cost and schedule for the first STOVL.”

“AA-1 was quite well designed and machined, but we learned a lot that we are putting into BF-1,” says Fillingham. “We refined our manufacturing technologies, and with BF-1 we are getting even better quality and really seeing the benefits coming through.”

The digital thread joining the partners was tied tightly during the intensive effort to reduce the weight of the STOVL variant. The revised design came about through close work between the three team members, which share the practice of using key employees as “best athletes” to lead certain tasks irrespective of their parent company.

“We have Lockheed Martin and BAE people who will lead an integrated product team here and to this day you still have IPTs where a Northrop Grumman employee leads an Lockheed Martin or BAE team,” says Pamiljans.

DATE:27/06/06
SOURCE:Flight International

JSF special: Who will be building JSF?

The coming months will determine whether F-35s roll off the line anywhere other than in Fort Worth, Texas. Italy is the only partner nation to have formally expressed interest in hosting a final assembly and check out (FACO) line, but UK industry is pressing its government to invest in a similar facility.


“Italy has specified an interest in a FACO, and there is government-to-government agreement that this is acceptable,” says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin executive vice-president and general manager F-35 programme integration. “The next step is a decision by Italy.”


Burbage makes clear that Italy will have to pay to set up the FACO, and that it will be a Lockheed Martin facility. “There is a desire to establish a European footprint for JSF, to get some synergies across Europe and to share expenses,” he says. “But they would still be buying their aircraft from Lockheed Martin. We would use local manpower, but it would be a Lockheed Martin facility.”


Italy has offered to assemble aircraft for Denmark, the Nether-lands, Norway, Turkey and the UK. So far, only the Dutch have indicated an intent, signing a memorandum of understanding to take F-35s from Italy in return for the Netherlands becoming a centre for JSF engine heavy maintenance. The UK government has declined the Italian offer, Burbage says, but has not yet expressed a desire for its own FACO.


BAE Systems has proposed the idea of an assembly line to the UK Ministry of Defence “because of the synergy with major repair and upgrading”, says Tom Fillingham, F-35 programme manager. The MoD asked BAE to study a FACO with the Department of Trade and Industry and Regional Development Agency. The report was submitted last August, after which the MoD sought an independent view. “It’s in process and we expect a conclusion in the summer,” says Fillingham. The MoD says it will get a report on the viability of a FACO from the UK National Audit Office “by the end of summer”, and will only then make a decision.


An offshore FACO will be equipped with duplicates of the mate tools, assembly stations and test facilities in Fort Worth. One unanswered question concerns the application of low-observable coatings, a one-time operation performed after assembly is complete. The technology is sensitive, and a US-owned facility may be required in-country for coating application and subsequent radar cross-section measurement.

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/...ilding+JSF.html

DATE:27/06/06
SOURCE:Flight International

JSF special: Going global
By Graham Warwick in Fort Worth

At full rate, production of the F-35 will draw on the manufacturing resources of not only the USA and UK, but the industries of partner nations around the world.

Contrary to press reports, no-one has yet signed up for any Joint Strike Fighters. What the partner nations have done is agree the draft of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the production, sustainment and follow-on development (PSFD) phase of the programme, which includes statements of intent from the eight international participants to acquire a total of 710 aircraft. But each needs national political approval to sign the MoU, planned for December, and even that will not commit them to buying F-35s.


Italy will join the UK and US Marine Corps in operating the STOVL JSF


What it will do is enable Lockheed Martin and its partners to begin putting in place the global supply chain needed to produce and support the more than 3,000 aircraft planned. That includes establishing second sources within the partner nations for subassemblies and components that will be needed when the programme reaches full-rate production of some 200 aircraft a year. The industrial participation on offer will play a key role in whether all of the nations will sign the PSFD MoU.

“PSFD is the remainder of the life of the programme,” says Tom Burbage, Lockheed executive vice-president and general manager F-35 programme integration. “If a partner signs the MoU, it is acknowledging the fact that it will be part of the team going forward. It will be assessed a fee tied to a pro-rata share of the tooling and a share of the administration cost based on the number of aircraft planned,” he says. “But it is not a production order. It is not a commitment to buy.”

Orders will have to be placed 30 months before scheduled delivery, but most of the nations are not planning to make their next-generation fighter procurement decisions before 2008-2010 at the earliest. Other than “a couple of test aircraft” for Italy and the Netherlands, the first international purchases are planned for low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 4, for Australia and the UK. Second sourcing from international industrial partners is also planned to get under way later in LRIP.

The industrial participation plan presented to the partner nations is “quite specific”, says Burbage, and includes second sourcing of subassemblies and components by BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman as well as Lockheed. One deal agreed so far is for Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica to build the wing as a second source to Lockheed. Beginning with the outer wing, then the centre section, then mating and stuffing the complete centre wing, Alenia will eventually produce half of all wings at rate production.

Although industrial participation is key to winning production orders from the partner nations, outsourcing is also part of Lockheed’s plan to tap into the global supply chain to keep the JSF affordable. “We will not get to an affordable aircraft by keeping the work in-house,” says Edward Linhart, Lockheed vice-president F-35 production operations. “We have to move subassemblies to smaller, lower-overhead companies to get a better price.”

As the team plans ahead to rate production, it is analysing the capacity available and investment required and determining how much outsourcing is needed. “We are in the process of developing a second-source supply chain,” says Tom Fillingham, JSF programme manager for BAE, which is producing the aft fuselage, horizontal and vertical tails and CV outer wings. “We are working with local UK suppliers and also some of the international partners, principally Australia, Canada and the Danish.”

Northrop has already named several companies as second-source suppliers of composite parts and subassemblies for its centre fuselage, including Hawker de Havilland in Australia, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace in Norway, Stork Aerospace in the Netherlands, Terma in Denmark and Tusas Aerospace Industries in Turkey. Stork’s Fokker unit is also producing in-flight operable doors and inner weapon bay doors, while its SP Aerospace division is developing the CTOL arresting gear.

Industrial participation, and particularly return on investment, has become a sensitive political issue in several partner nations in the run-up to a decision on signing the PSFD MoU. Nurtured by the industrial offsets that accompanied the purchase of Lockheed’s F-16, some nations’ industries have had difficulty adapting to the company’s competitive “best value” procurement policy for JSF. This led to a more targeted “strategic best value” sourcing approach that has moderated the concerns.


© Lockheed Martin

Even the US Navy unique F-35C will benefit from economies of scale


Vocal critics

“Strategic best value acknowledges politics matters,” says Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s assistant defence minister. Oslo has been a vocal critic of the return on its JSF investment, but in May decided to stay in the programme – for now – after being presented with an improved package of Norwegian industrial participation in production and sustainment. Both government and industry believe Lockheed’s offer “is good enough to stay on board for now”, he says. The maximum potential is Nkr20 billion ($3.23 billion), “but NKr12 billion is quite certain if we stay on board”.

Norway is a good example of the task the JSF team faces in persuading each country’s industry and government to back the programme. “The MoU is a government-to-government issue. Our job is to make the industrial participation package attractive enough,” Burbage says. In Norway’s case, half is strategic sourcing and half is work that its industry will have “the opportunity to compete for and win”, he says.

Burbage cites Northrop’s letter of intent with Kongsberg to supply composite centre-fuselage components. “This is strategic, not competitive, sourcing. It is available to Kongsberg if it meets a competitive price.” An example of the second type is production of the conventional edges, for which Kongsberg is bidding now.

The process is being repeated across the partner nations, where much of the criticism has centred on the industrial return from their investment in the system development and demonstration phase. “Now we are talking about production and sustainment – and much larger funds,” says Burbage.

As well as second sourcing, a large part of the international participation is expected to come from the “global sustainment” plan to support the JSF in service. Although it is still being defined, global sustainment will involve supporting F-35s using the original equipment manufacturer infrastructure put in place for production.

Another issue to be resolved before the PSFD MoU can be signed in December involves restrictions on the transfer of US technology. Voiced most strongly by the UK, but also an issue for Italy and Australia, the concerns centre on ensuring “operational sovereignty” – their ability to maintain and upgrade the aircraft in service.

“The UK Ministry of Defence has identified technologies and capabilities that they feel are essential for UK operational sovereignty, and have provided those to the US government,” says Dan Bennett, director F-35 international programmes. “Lockheed Martin is working with the US and UK governments, along with BAE Systems and UK industry, to develop a technology transfer and licensing approach that will ensure we can deliver the industrial components of that capability.”

Technology transfer

A series of US/UK technical assistance agree­ments has allowed for the phased transfer of technology. Tom Fillingham, BAE’s F-35 programme manager, says: “We have everything we need for everything we do in SDD and production. The current technology transfer debate is about sovereign support, as sustainment will take UK industry into areas it is not currently involved in.”

US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in late May that the UK will have the ability to operate, maintain and upgrade the JSF such that it retains operational sovereignty. The details are still being negotiated, but both Lockheed and BAE point out that the first F-35s are not due to arrive on UK soil until 2014-15 as initial testing is planned to be conducted in the USA.

Although several are years away from making a procurement decision, Lockheed is confident all eight international partners will sign up for the production and sustainment phase. The alternative is for a nation to give up its representation in the JSF programme office and go to the back of the queue and buy its F-35s through the usual foreign military sales channel.

The next few months will be critical for the Joint Strike Fighter programme, as the draft PSFD MoU is shepherded through the national political approval process in each partner nation. In the USA, meanwhile, the programme faces a challenge in Congress to secure funding to begin low-rate production. A successful first flight of aircraft AA-1 by late October will be a vital boost for the JSF.

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/...ing+global.html

JSF special: Future fighter
By Graham Warwick in Fort Worth
Additional reporting by Guy Norris

In late October, five years after Lockheed Martin won the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) competition, the first F-35 is expected to take to the skies over Fort Worth, Texas. By then, the eight international partners in the US-led development programme should be well along their national political paths to a decision on whether to sign up for the next phase, launching a global effort to build and support more than 3,000 aircraft.

As that first F-35, aircraft AA-1, sits in a hangar alongside the ramp at Fort Worth being prepared for flight, the programme has entered a critical phase. Political decisions in the USA and abroad over the next few months will determine whether the JSF will be given a chance to fulfil its advertised potential to be an affordable, interoperable fighter flown in three variants by the air arms of nine or more allied nations.

All is not quite as it seems on the surface. Rather than the first of many, AA-1 is a one-off, orphaned by a redesign to reduce the weight of the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) version that irrevocably changed the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) aircraft and the carrier variant (CV), and added 18 months to the programme. The first “optimised airframe” F-35 is now scheduled to fly in February 2008.

Under the system development and demonstration (SDD) contract awarded in October 2001, Lockheed and partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are developing three JSF variants – the CTOL F-35A, STOVL F-35B and CV F-35C – while under separate contracts Pratt & Whitney is developing the F135 primary engine and the General Electric/Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team is developing the F136 alternate engine. R-R is also developing the shaft-driven lift fan, three-bearing swivel nozzle and roll posts that comprise the STOVL lift system.


© Lockheed Martin

The CTOL F-35A is in detail design.


Design refined

Rather than a setback, Lockheed portrays the efforts of the STOVL weight attack team (SWAT) as a valuable opportunity to refine the design through one more iteration. And, in addition to an extra year of engineering, the replan also changed the manufacturing sequence for the development aircraft, grouping each of the variants in turn and providing an opportunity to move down the learning curve during assembly.

“Although painful, the weight-reduction effort has benefited all of the aircraft,” says Bobby Williams, air vehicle team lead. “SWAT put a schedule delay in the programme, and allowed us to take a design that was pretty good and refine it through another iteration.” As a result of the redesign, he says, the aircraft is much more maintainable, as well as lighter. “We got 3,000lb [1,369kg] out of the aircraft – and weight equals affordability.”

The redesign began in late 2003, just two years into SDD, when it became clear the STOVL variant’s weight problems “were not going to disappear through hard work – we had to step back and do things differently”, says Williams. The SWAT involved around 500 engineers in a dedicated effort, plus stand-downs by other large groups, and generated several thousand ideas that were then sorted through and studied.

Design changes adopted range from the major, such as revising the way the airframe subassemblies are mated, to the relatively minor, such as going from a single nosewheel door to two. “It turned out that in the 25kt [46km/h] crosswind case the single door acted as sail, and its moment arm sized the vertical tail,” says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin executive vice-president and general manager F-35 programme integration. “Going to double doors reduced the sail area and we got 40lb out of the vertical tail.”

Some of the changes were limited to one variant, such as resizing the internal weapons bays on the STOVL aircraft around a 450kg, rather than 900kg JDAM precision-guided bomb. While others, such as a new generator technology that saved 57kg, applied to all three. And not all of the changes were weight reductions: reshaping the auxiliary inlet lip on the STOVL variant generated 600lb (2.7kN) of additional thrust, says Williams.

Certain changes to save weight also improved other aspects of the design. “Going from a single-piece wing skin to more traditional multi-piece made it easier to optimise thickness using steps, but it also provided better access,” says Williams. “There was equipment on the upper side of the engine that you could not get to without removing the engine or nacelle. Now we can access them through the upper skin.”



© BAE Systems

Inlet refinements increased STOVL thrust

Trading work

Changing the way the wing mates to the fuselage to reduce weight had a significant impact on who builds what pieces of the aircraft. “We gave up a bit of the key structure to Lockheed Martin to do what was right for the execution of the aircraft,” says Janis Pamiljans, Northrop’s F-35 programme manager. The company’s workshare was not rebalanced in terms of structures or systems, he says, adding that this is irrelevant as “we share a common award fee pool in which the three partners share an award fee equally”.

With structural design of the STOVL aircraft almost complete, weight is 0.5% under predictions and the team is positive of meeting its target. “We are confident the design is solid and robust, and we have capability to handle weight growth planned in – we not at the hairy edge,” says Williams. “We are very confident STOVL is going to work for us. A couple of years ago it was questionable – now we are there.”

Now the experience gained designing the F-35B is being rolled over into the F-35A. “With the lessons out of STOVL we are in great shape for weight on CTOL,” says Williams, who expects a “fairly uneventful” detail design phase for the F-35A. The F-35C is at the front end of detail design. One recent change to the CV aircraft was an increase in wing size to reduce carrier recovery speed. This and other changes to increase fuel capacity and reduce drag pushed the F-35C’s radius of action close to 1,300km (700nm) – “100nm more than the requirement”, he says.

Inevitably, the design changes mean the variants are now less common than originally envisaged. “The structure is less common, but not by a lot,” says Williams. “Some STOVL changes are not carried over, so as not to penalise the CTOL and CV with the most costly weight reductions. But we maintain a high degree of commonality where it matters most – in the mission system. That is what is expensive to test, and what gets maintained and upgraded over the life of the aircraft, and it is nearly 100% common.”

The concept of cousin parts has been maintained – the 7g-stressed F-35B may have thinner, lighter bulkheads than the carrier-capable F-35C or 9g-capable F-35A, but the difference is not visible, says Williams. There are also cousin parts in the systems: the electro-hydrostatic actuators on the power-by-wire flight controls are different sizes – the STOVL actuators were downsized to reduce weight, while the CV’s are bigger to provide higher control rates for low-speed approach – but they are all manufactured by the same supplier using the same process, he says.

“I think we have struck the right balance, and paid attention to ensuring that each of the variants meets the requirement while providing commonality for affordability,” Williams says. “The long-term cost is in maintaining the avionics – we pay for that once and apply it to all the variants.”

Avoiding pitfalls

Lockheed is keen to avoid the pitfalls of its F-22 programme, including the issues with avionics software instability that slowed flight testing. One reason for the problems, Burbage says, was the event-based software architecture mandated for the F-22. “We have gone back to a time-based system like the F-16 Block 60,” he says. While this architecture is more resilient and tolerant, an “extraordinary effort” is under way to ensure software ground testing is as close to a realistic flight environment as possible.

“All the sensors are running in the lab in a stressed environment, trying to force anomalies. They are running for up to 50h at a time,” says Burbage. The mission system hardware and software will be integrated and tested on the ground in the laboratory, then in the air in a Boeing 737 flying testbed, before it flies in the F-35.

Software is being developed in stages, building from around a million lines of basic vehicle-system software in the Block 0.1 release that will fly in AA-1 to a total of 6 million lines of code with the full-up Block 3 mission system. The same operational flight program (OFP) will be used by all three variants. “There will be one release to the aircraft – the aircraft will know if it is a CTOL, STOVL or CV; the engine will know if it is an F135 or F-136,” says Burbage. “We will release one OFP to the entire fleet; that way we will get economies of scale in software maintenance.”

As AA-1 is prepared for flight, Burbage is tracking “four or five critical paths”, including engine control software. Another, the helmet-mounted display (HMD), is not expected to be available for first flight. “We have protected and parallel paths – protected we must have for first flight; parallel we could support, but are not counting on,” says Williams. “HMD is on the parallel path.”

The F-35 is “helmet-centric”, Burbage says, but development of the HMD is proving a challenge. The biggest issue is clearing the helmet for ejection at 600kt while staying within the neck-load limits of the smallest pilots, he says, adding: “We are developing this for the broadest pilot population ever.”

Gearing up

Issues aside, the JSF is gearing up to begin risk-reduction flights with aircraft AA-1 as a pathfinder for the F-35s that will follow it into the air with gathering pace from early 2008 onwards. As the concurrency between development and production comes under critical scrutiny in US Congress, Williams believes the F-35 is in better shape than the F-22 was at this stage in its development. “Early in the F-22 programme, funding constraints led to cuts in risk reduction and laboratory investment. The F-35 is not funding constrained and investment at the right level in risk reduction and laboratories has put us on a much more solid footing.”

A successful flight of AA-1 in late October is likely to boost the F-35’s standing as the eight international partners in the JSF programme draw close to decisions on whether to sign the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on production, sustainment and follow-on development as planned in December. Signing the MoU will not commit any of the partners to buying the F-35, but it will start the global supply chain rolling and boost the JSF’s chances of fulfilling its potential. ■

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/...re+fighter.html

DATE:27/06/06
SOURCE:Flight International

JSF special: Moving on up
By Graham Warwick in Fort Worth & Guy Norris in Los Angeles

Advanced composite/metallic manufacturing and automotive moving-line assembly techniques are needed to build a next-generation fighter affordably

A buggy ride through the cavernous assembly building at Fort Worth shows a changing of the guard getting under way. The F-16 line, which filled this hall in its heyday, is winding down from its recent peak of nine aircraft a month to three a month – a rate Lockheed hopes to maintain until F-35 production ramps up.

Spaces are beginning to be filled as Lockheed installs tooling to support the 12-a-month rate due to be reached by the end of system development and demonstration (SDD) in 2013. The first aircraft has already left the building, and there is now a gap of several months before the next one begins to move down the assembly line, but the sense of a quickening pace is there.

Taking shape

The acceleration is already evident at partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, where subassemblies are taking shape for the next several aircraft in line. Responsible for the centre fuselage, which has the longest lead time, Northrop has six aircraft “in flow” at its Palmdale, California plant, and will have eight by the end of the year – and 18 by the end of next year. Leading the line is the centre fuselage for BF-1, the first STOVL aircraft and first optimised airframe, which is due to be delivered to Fort Worth in November.

Centre fuselage design work is based at Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems in El Segundo, California, which is also where the composite, bifurcated inlet ducts are fabricated, beginning the process of building an F-35. But the bulk of the company’s assembly work is performed at a new production site in Palmdale at the US Air Force Plant 42 complex.

Northrop has reached the 90% design release point on the STOVL centre fuselage and is “down just to the last brackets and tubes”, says vice-president and F-35 programme manager Janis Pamiljans. Following the five STOVL F-35Bs down the assembly line is the first CTOL F-35A with optimised airframe, AF-1. “We have the new lightweight CTOL going down the assembly line at Palmdale now,” he says.

Meanwhile, “build-to” packages for the composite inlet ducts on the first CV aircraft, CF-1, have just been issued, but the design release level for this third, F-35C, variant of the JSF is less than 10%. “In the summer we will start winding the first ducts, and we plan to begin jig loading on 3 November, when we will have 24 frames around the duct for the outer mould-line skins,” says Pamiljans.

Over in the UK, “the train is leaving the station”, says Tom Fillingham, BAE Systems vice-president and JSF programme manager. Responsible for the aft fuselage and horizontal and vertical tails, the company began assembly activity on BF-1 at the end of May, at its Samlesbury plant in north-west England. “Every six to eight weeks we will start another aircraft in assembly. We are into the heartbeat process,” he says.

Design work is split over three BAE sites: Brough for the horizontal tail, Woodford for the vertical tail, and Samlesbury for the aft fuselage and the outer wing panels for the CV aircraft, which the UK company will also produce. The assembly layout at Samlesbury is copied from the Eurofighter Typhoon line, “and the benefits were evident straight away”, says Fillingham. “The parts went together hand in glove.”

BAE is in the final detail design of aft fuselage and tails for the CTOL aircraft and will release build-to packages towards the end of the year and start assembly of AF-1 early next year. Meanwhile, the CV aircraft is in early design and moves into detail design late this year. Assembly activity on the first aircraft, CF-1, will start towards the end of 2007, says Fillingham.

Assembly activity

Back in Fort Worth, Lockheed is beginning assembly of its own sections of BF-1 – the forward fuselage, redesigned centre wing and outer wingbox. Forward fuselage subassembly is under way, the outer wingbox was loaded on 19 June and assembly of the centre wing will begin on 1 August. In the hiatus between completing AA-1 and beginning final assembly of BF-1 in January 2007, the company is finishing up the installation of the tooling and facilities needed to support rate production.


© Lockheed Martin

Self-rigging weapon bay doors simplify assembly


“We are ramping up to 12 a month in 2012, so we need rate tools in place,” says Edward Linhart, Lockheed vice-president F-35 production operations. Although there are fewer subassemblies in an F-35 compared with an F-16, Lockheed is putting in two of every key tool, to ensure a problem will not halt the line. To make room, the F-16 line will be moved elsewhere and, at full rate, the F-35 line will occupy the building, he says.

At Fort Worth, work begins with the arrival of carbonfibre skins for trimming and machining – from Alliant Techsystems for the upper wing, Vought Aircraft Industries for the lower wing and in-house for the forward fuselage. Whereas AA-1 had a one-piece upper wing skin, the new design has seven pieces. A flexible overhead gantry picks up each skin panel and a vacuum tool holds it in place while, after a temperature soak at 23°C (73°) to stabilise the tool, a five-axis machine trims the edges, cuts recesses and drills co-ordinating holes.

Fuselage skins are then flipped over and their inner surfaces machined where they will touch the metallic substructure. “Low observability requires we not have gaps or mismatches,” says Linhart. “We have half the tolerance of the F-22 – 10thou [0.25mm] versus 20thou. The machine is certified to hold 8thou, but is performing better – the 35ft-span [10.7m] wing skin [on AA-1] was trimmed one end to the other within 2thou.”

Afterwards, the tools are washed and dried “like a carwash”, and the composite particles captured, compacted and recycled. The skins then go to the laser ultrasonic test (LaserUT) machine to be scanned for defects. Developed by Lockheed, LaserUT scans composite skins at 10 times the speed of conventional water ultrasonic testing, and no tool is needed to hold the part in precise alignment with the sensor head.

LaserUT uses two lasers: one to heat the part to generate ultrasound through thermoelastic expansion; and the other to detect the ultrasonic vibrations. The system can work up to 45° off-axis, allowing complex shaped parts to be scanned. Lockheed is building LaserUT machines for partners BAE and Northrop, as well as Italy’s Alenia, which is expected to build half of all F-35 wings at rate production.

Northrop’s Pamiljans says assembly of AA-1 showed that metallic and composite parts could “fit brilliantly” together. The normal process is to attach skin to structure and drill through both, then separate them to deburr the holes, but BAE’s Fillingham says the accuracy of the electronic design database is such that the company has begun to drill the parts separately then assemble them. “They line up perfectly. It’s the first time we’ve been able to do this.” Such continuing improvements in manufacturing during development are necessary, he says, to reduce the manhours required to assemble the aircraft and keep it affordable.


© Northrop Grumman

Northrop's centre fuselage for AA-1 shows the waterline mate (rear) and hard splice (front) since abandoned


Assembly autodrill

Lockheed’s forward fuselage is built in three subassemblies – aft equipment bay, cockpit and forward equipment bay. After mating, liquid shims where the structure touches the skin are machined to maintain the inner mould line and control the gaps. The forward fuselage is then mounted on an autodrill pedestal, the skins temporarily attached, and 3,000 holes drilled and countersunk. The skins are removed and the forward fuselage stuffed with tubing, wiring and systems. The skins are then reattached and the completed forward fuselage tested – including mounting and cycling the nose gear, Linhart says.

Simulation played a key role in developing the assembly concept for the F-35. “We did as much as we could before building anything,” says Linhart. ERGOman digital manikins were used to make sure access holes were provided to allow assembly workers to get to equipment. “We did work-ups in tight places such as the IPP [integrated power package] bay, where we found there was a problem with how the precoolers were installed. You had to drop the whole thing to get them in. We caught that in simulation.”

Simulations used Delmia, the manufacturing software developed by Dassault Systemes and built on its Catia V5 three-dimensional design system. Moving parts like gear and flaps were simulated using the design data to check for interferences. “It still takes proficiency to take Catia into a simulation of components that move against each other,” says Linhart. But the effort paid off. “The only problem when we swung the gear on AA-1 was an actuator that needed an eighth of an inch more stroke. It had not been simulated.”

The redesign to reduce weight significantly changed the wing tooling concept. Beginning with BF-1, the new inner wing module is assembled in a vertical fixture, the work platform moving up as the wing is built up from the rear spar. Below it, a secondary platform provides access to any area needing additional work. The platform system was built by a Canadian company that normally works for Circle du Soleil. “It was their first aerospace job,” says Linhart.

A bright yellow automatic guided vehicle, navigating via lasers and angles on the building walls, picks up the wing and moves it to final drill where, Linhart says, “the mother of all autodrills” – a six-axis gantry with dual independent heads – drills and countersinks 6,700 holes in the lower wing and 4,400 in the upper, through skin and structure. “We’ve had very few defects in autodrill – orders of magnitude less than in manually drilled legacy aircraft,” says Bobby Williams, air vehicle team lead.

One last step before mating is to apply a low-observable (LO) coating to those areas that will be inaccessible after assembly. This is performed by an eight-axis robot in a climate-controlled room. “By hand, you could not hold the accuracy,” says Linhart. “This is a heavy material – 1thou too thick over the whole aircraft would add 400lb - and it needs to go on at 400°F.” An LO facility to coat the completed aircraft is being built at Fort Worth, where the radar cross-section measurement building is already complete.

Electronic alignment

The F-35 comes together in the electronic mate and alignment system, where Northrop’s centre fuselage is spliced first to the forward fuselage and then the centre wing, to which BAE’s aft fuselage is then mated and, finally, the horizontal and vertical tails are joined. The airframe sections are supported by servo-driven jacks that are part of a laser-guided alignment system that automates mating. “When we did the AA-1 aft-to-centre mate, the lasers said we were 12thou too far right. The operator keyed it in and it mated,” says Linhart. “The system provides micrometer-level readings. They’ve never done that before; older laser alignment accuracy was not that great.”

Where to join the aircraft was a lesson learned from the F-22, says Linhart. “There was big problem on the F-22 where the inlet runs across a manufacturing joint and requires close tolerances. On the F-35 we made sure we did not have an inlet mated across a manufacturing joint. The forward-to-centre fuselage joint is ahead of the inlet.” The F-35’s diverterless inlets are also easier to manufacture. “We learned how to take care of hammer shock without drilling thousands of holes in the inlet,” he says. “The bump on the forward fuselage eliminates moveable parts and holes.”

Self-rigging doors

Another first-time technology that has simplified assembly is the self-rigging weapon bay doors. Although extremely rigid and rapid-acting, these doors carry missiles and there can be some deflection under load, but there can be no mismatch of the edges to the fuselage. A system of sensors, drive motors and cams in the hinges pull up the doors so they need no adjustment by mechanics on the line. “It is quite a contraption, but it has worked every time,” says Linhart.

Once mated, the airframe joins what will become a moving final assembly line. At each station, the aircraft is connected up to a swivelling boom that carries all air, cooling, electrical and hydraulic supplies. At the end of the boom’s arc, the aircraft is unhooked and connected to the next station in line. By the final station, all systems have been installed and tested and the aircraft is ready for painting. “We designed it with the same Toyota experts that did Boeing’s 737 moving line,” says Linhart.

A moving line adds pace to assembly and urgency to solving problems that halt the line. Lockheed will experiment with pulsing the line during SDD, and will it start moving in low-rate initial production – just 25mm (1in) per hour at first. By full-rate production the line will be moving at 1.2m (4ft) per hour. “We have not figured out how to install the engine when the aircraft is moving,” says Linhart.

Partners and suppliers are gearing up to feed the moving line. “The rate has to be designed so that the line only moves as fast as the slowest builder. The supply line also has to be ‘just in time’,” says Northrop’s Pamiljans. Using Toyota production system techniques and an integrated assembly line designed by a Detroit-based company specialising in automobile production lines, Northrop is gearing up to deliver around 200 centre fuselages a year to Fort Worth.

Reducing intervals

The line, which will eventually move on rails, will have 82 positions, or stations, and is designed to produce one centre fuselage a day. “On current plans, that’s what we should be producing by 2012-13,” Pamiljans says.

Northrop has already reduced the production interval for the centre fuselage from 30 to 25 working days and will go from “25 to 20 to 15 days” during SDD, Pamiljans says. The interval will further reduce during LRIP until it reaches the planned full-rate production level of around one per day. “That seems aggressive, but it’s not really as it allows you to cycle people, improve efficiency and cut costs even more,” he says. ■

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/...ving+on+up.html

DATE:27/06/06
SOURCE:Flight International

JSF special: Time for testing
By Graham Warwick in Fort Worth

Ground laboratories and flying testbeds will play a key role in ensuring the F-35 is ready for productive flight testing at sites across the USA

A pathfinder for manufacturing of the JSF, aircraft AA-1 will also pave the way for flight testing of the 14 development F-35s that follow, blazing a trail from Fort Worth in Texas to the US Air Force test centre at Edwards AFB in California and US Navy test centre at NAS Patuxent River in Maryland.

“AA-1 is the only aircraft in the original configuration, but the differences are not visible and it is very representative for the type of flight-test tasks planned,” says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin executive vice-president and general manager F-35 programme integration. AA-1 will evaluate aerodynamic performance, flying qualities and systems over two years of flying before handing over the test baton to the optimised-airframe F-35s that follow.


© Northrop Grumman

The APG-81 radar has already flown on Northrop's BAC testbed


“AA-1 is an outstanding learning tool. It allows us to go fly and collect real data,” says Doug Pearson, Lockheed vice-president F-35 integrated test force. “AA-1 will do a lot of performance work, evaluate vehicle systems and basic flying qualities, validate our analytical tools, demonstrate credibility and build confidence,” he says. “We will take it to Edwards and Pax and get their infrastructure up and running.”

Although looking complete when it rolled off the assembly line in February, AA-1 was not ready to fly. After fuel system testing and structural coupling and ground vibration tests, the aircraft is in the final build – or “box swap” – phase, where flight-qualified parts not available earlier are being installed. While there are “orders of magnitude fewer such issues” than in previous programmes, final build will continue to the end of July, says Pearson.

Once completely built, the aircraft will be powered up for another system check-out, the integrated power package (IPP) will be started, then the engine, and the aircraft will be ready to begin taxi tests. “There is 40-45 manufacturing days of negative float, which we have had for a year. If we do not recover that, we will fly in late October,” says Burbage. The company had set an internal “challenge” date of 28 August for the first flight, but “it’s remarkable we’re as close as we are”, says Pearson.

“We were in and out of the fuel barn ahead of schedule,” he says. The 46 fuel probes and electrical harnesses were checked, and some replaced, but the tests were “extremely successful”, he says. “The first aircraft built usually leaks, but this did not. And manufacturing debris in the tanks is typical, but there was none. We had to flush the F-22 fuel system 70 times to get it clean, but after only 27 times the F-35 was below 200 microns.”

Structural coupling tests were also completed ahead of schedule. In these pilot-in-the-loop tests, the aircraft’s flight controls were used to excite structural vibration, to see how the control system reacted to aircraft motion. “We refined the filters in the flight control system, but few changes were required, which built confidence,” says Pearson. Ground vibration tests, to demonstrate flutter resistance, were also finished early, with no significant findings.

Software progress

Software development is progressing in parallel with work on the aircraft. “AA-1 is running with the ground software load,” says Pearson. “We get one more load to start the IPP and the engine, then we get the flight clearance load. It’s running in the lab and on track for the end of October.” AA-1 will have about 80% of the vehicle system software planned for the F-35, but none of the mission system software.


© Lockheed Martin
F-35 chief test pilot Jon Beesley flies AA-1 during ground tests


Vehicle system software, including flight controls, utilities and displays, involves around a million lines of code in AA-1 – the fully operational F-35 will have 6 million lines. The software will be released in phases, beginning with Block 0.1 in AA-1, 0.1A in the first STOVL aircraft, BF-1, and 0.1B in the first CV aircraft, CF-1.

The first F-35 with mission-system software will be BF-3, the third STOVL aircraft, due to fly April 2008. “Block 0.5 is the first mission-system software load, and is not ‘go to war’,” says Burbage. “Block 1 could go to war, and provides an early versus full capability.” All hardware will be in the aircraft by Block 1, and subsequent upgrades will be software-only. Block 2 will introduce additional weapons, sensor fusion and prognostic health management (PHM). Block 3 is the full-up capability planned for the end of system development and demonstration.

“The labs are full for AA-1. We are done with testing functionality and the software for flight test will be ready within the next two months,” says Bobby Williams, air vehicle team lead. “AA-1 is the pathfinder for the software process. It has proved the development toolsets, release processes and test procedures. It has driven the team to get the labs up and running early in the programme.”

About the same time that AA-1 is due to fly, a Boeing 737 is expected to arrive at Fort Worth from BAE’s Flight Systems division in Mojave, California where it is being converted to the Cooperative Avionics Test Bed (CATB), or “CATBird”. Modified to mimic the F-35 by mounting sensors and apertures in almost exact alignment, using the same cable lengths and power systems, the 737 will have 20 engineering stations and an F-35 cockpit simulator on board.

Initial flights will validate the structural modifications, including radar nose and stub wing, after which systems will be installed and the CATBird will begin flying as an avionics laboratory early next year. Beginning with the BAE Systems North America-supplied electronic-warfare system, each element will be flight-tested independently, and then integrated, to clear the mission-system software for F-35 flight.

AESA radar

“All the sensors have already flown on surrogate aircraft, and all are now in the lab being integrated,” says Burbage. This includes the APG-81 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar developed by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, and the distributed aperture system (DAS) and electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) developed jointly with Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control.

AESA, DAS, EOTS and EW will fly together on the CATBird. “This is the first time we will fly a testbed that is fully integrated. Previous testbeds were federated and tested one system at a time” says Burbage. “We will test all the software, including fusion, up to the full Block 3 configuration. The only thing this aircraft will not replicate is high manoeuvrability.”

Aircraft AA-1 will get F-35 flight tests rolling, but at a relatively slow pace and largely as a risk-reduction tool. Initial airworthiness flights will be limited to 350kt (650km/h) and 4g, after which the aircraft will stand down for proof-load tests, during which the software will be updated and the helmet-mounted display (HMD) installed, says Williams.

The first STOVL aircraft, and first optimised airframe – BF-1 – is set to fly in February 2008. After initial “up-and-away” flights to confirm flying qualities, work will focus on hover testing and BF-1 will stay at Fort Worth for six months, says Pearson. During 2008 and 2009, BF-1 to -5 will go to Pax River for testing, followed by CV aircraft CF-1 to -4, while CTOL aircraft AF-1 to -5 will go to Edwards.

Although an orphan because of design changes, AA-1 has a key role to play in wringing out the basic aircraft systems ahead of JSF flight testing at Edwards and Pax River. “Each aircraft we deliver should be a full-up test article, and not just an aircraft to fly,” says Pearson. “We have to do things now to prepare for success flight test. If we wait till the aircraft get on ramp, it will be too late.” ■
http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/...or+testing.html

F-35 is now know as "LIGHTNING II"

Farnborough: F-35 workshare 'secure' even if UK pulls the plug, says Lockheed Martin
By Jon Lake at the Farnborough air show

JSF workshare ‘not contingent’ on UK buy: Burbage

Britain will keep its workshare on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II whether the UK buys the fighter or not, the head of the programme affirmed at Farnborough yesterday.

“BAE Systems' participation has never been contingent on the UK buying 150 F-35s,” said Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin executive vice-president and general manager F-35.

He said the company’s role extends far beyond merely manufacturing the rear fuselage and empennage of the aircraft, highlighting BAE’s design leadership of the fuel, pilot and prognostic health monitoring systems for the Joint Strike Fighter.

Burbage’s comments come as reassurance to an industry worried despite BAE’s insistence that UK industrial participation had been allocated on the basis of UK industrial capabilities and its $2 billion investment in the programme, and was entirely unrelated to any UK buy of the aircraft.

He was effusive in praising BAE’s “industrial strengths” and stressed the company’s vital place at the heart of Team JSF alongside Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

Lockheed had gathered the “most powerful team for industrial reasons”, he said.
Many who heard Burbage were surprised at the clarity of his answer, since it makes any threat of UK withdrawal over technology transfer far more credible. It is now clear that the UK could cancel its F-35 purchase without sacrificing workshare or jobs.

This may be because the threat of a UK withdrawal is receding. Earlier this year, defence procurement minister Lord Drayson made it clear that without sufficient technology transfer to ensure operational sovereignty, he would not view the aircraft as “fit to fight”. He defined operational sovereignty as “the ability to integrate, upgrade, operate and sustain the aircraft as we see fit and without recourse to others”.

Flight Daily News has learnt there have been extensive discussions to define exactly what the UK requires for ‘operational sovereignty’, and that many of the UK’s concerns have now been addressed. The two sides are apparently close to signing a full memorandum of understanding on operational sovereignty though this is unlikely to happen until after Farnborough.

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/...s+Lockheed.html

[FONT=Arial][SIZE=7][COLOR=blue] Watch out to the world's first stealth fighter-- F-22 Raptor and it's partner F-35 codenamed Lightning II will rule the skies of the century. Both created and designed by the biggest names in aerospace industry the Lockheed martin, Northrop grumman, Boeing, BAE systems, Pratt and whitney etc.... Both jet are capable of carrying ARMMD, GBU'S, WCMD(Wind corrected munitions dispenser), JDAM(JOINT DIRECT ATTACK MUNITION), JSSM, JSOW missiles. It is also designed to fit the newest bomb of the airforce, the Small diameter bomb. The price tag of F-22 IS $140+MILLION, THE F-35 is cheaper by $45+million, they are both sold to U.S allies like Britain,Canada and Australia, all those who can afford should not think twice bcoz " it's the plane that no one can touch!!"

Heard that before during the F-117 introduction.

no, its just a new project dude, f-117 is a predecessor of "have blue' project way back in 1970's by lockheed.

I'm implying on the quote not the plane. Always been said when there's something new.

correct ka dyan after a while some nighthawks got shot down after the desert shield...

what u think the RP should buy one i mean its 45 million dalars man thats alot for a goverment like the RP its too much do the math man

Britain should pull out of jet deal if US holds onto secrecy

LONDON (AFP) - Britain should cancel a deal with the United States to purchase Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jets if America does not share sensitive technology by the end of the year, a report by the parliamentary defence committee will say, the Financial Times reported.

The yearly report on British weapons spending, which is due to be released Friday, says "it is still uncertain whether the US is prepared to provide the required information", despite Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush agreeing in May that Britain would get the technology it needed.

Bush and Blair had said then that they agreed that Britain "will have the ability to successfully operate, upgrade, employ, and maintain the Joint Strike Fighter such that the UK retains operational sovereignty over the aircraft."

Britain was planning to purchase 138 JSF aircraft that would be operated on two new aircraft carriers by 2013, but the MPs' report said: "If required assurances are not obtained by the end of the year, we recommend the MoD (Ministry of Defence) switch the majority of its effort and funding into a fallback 'Plan B'."

Britain has thus far committed three billion dollars (2.25 billion euros) to the JSF project, a spokesman for the defence ministry told AFP. It was planning to buy 150 fighter jets at 104 million dollars each, the defence ministry said in May.

The defence ministry spokesman said, however, that the final figure for how much the deal would be worth was not yet clear.

According to the FT, the issues lie in the aircraft's advanced missions systems and its stealth capability. Britain wants key technical details so that it can upgrade the jets without having to send them to the United States.

"I have been absolutely crystal clear on this issue. Our 'Plan A' is to buy this aircraft, but our ability to buy it depends on having operational sovereignty," Paul Drayson, the British defence procurement minister, was quoted as saying by the daily.

"We will not buy the aircraft until we have that."

He said that he had a "Plan B" if the JSF project was abandoned, but declined to give details.

Drayson is to travel to Washington next week to try and break the deadlock over the project.

The JSF has been billed as the United States' biggest fighter program. The Pentagon has planned to buy 2,400 of the stealthy multi-role fighters and other countries could purchase another 2,000 to 3,500 aircraft.

The aircraft is manufactured by Lockheed Martin with funding from the US armed forces along with international partners Britain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore and Turkey.

The MPs' report also criticises the government for its inadequate provision for troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying they are "desperately short" of equipment, according to The Independent daily.

They also criticized the defence ministry for mistakes made in an order of Chinook helicopters from Boeing which have resulted in eight Chinooks being grounded in Britain, with the defence ministry writing off the 200 million-pound cost involved.

"During our visits to the UK armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq we were told that additional equipment was required urgently, such as the helicopters," the report reads, according to The Independent.

A spokesman for the ministry, however, was quoted by The Independent as saying: "We haven't had any requests for additional helicopters since we went out two additional Chinooks to theatre in July."


http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryID=58725

Pentagon OKs funding to build military fighter jet

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Thursday signed off on initial production of the Joint Strike Fighter, a single-engine military fighter jet built by Lockheed Martin Corp.

Defense Under Secretary Kenneth Krieg approved funding for two F-35 aircraft and advanced materials to build 12 other planes after a senior advisory panel signed off on terms of the deal.

Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin will build the F-35s for the Marines, Air Force and Navy. At an expected cost of $276 billion when the entire project is complete, it will be one of the largest defense projects ever.

read more

Japan is urged to consider F-35 jets

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Published: May 14 2007 22:53 | Last updated: May 14 2007 22:53

Japan should consider buying the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter instead of the more advanced F-22 Raptor if Tokyo wants a fleet of next-generation fighter jets, says the top Pentagon acquisitions official.

“[The F-22] was never considered for export when it was designed, developed and built,” Kenneth Krieg, the under-secretary of defence for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the Financial Times.

The Raptor is the most advanced of the latest family of fighters, known as fifth generation, in production for the US Air Force. “I have supported the position that says the fifth-generation aircraft for an export market...is the Joint Strike Fighter and not the F-22.”

The comments from the head of procurement at the Pentagon follows heavy lobbying of the Bush administration by Japan for the Raptor last month. Japan is expected to choose a replacement fighter for its ageing fleet of F-4 Phantoms next year. Its air force favours the F-22, which is built by a Lockheed Martin-led consortium.

But Tokyo is also considering Lockheed’s F-35, which is already on order with a number of foreign air forces, including the UK and Italy. Tokyo will also assess Boeing’s F-15 and F-18 and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Current US law prohibits export of the F-22 and the US has previously rebuffed an approach by Australia, another strong US ally, for the aircraft.

While some administration officials support providing the close US ally with the F-22, others, including Mr Krieg, are concerned about sharing sensitive technology. But he acknowledges he is only one part of the decision-making process. “The extent to which there is a debate and a discussion happening above me, that discussion happens,” he said. Some officials are also wary about antagonising China by selling Japan the F-22, by far the most capable fighter.

Fumio Kyuma, the Japanese defence minister, raised the F-22 issue during recent meetings in Washington with Robert Gates, the US defence secretary. Thomas Schieffer, US ambassador to Tokyo, recently said he hoped Japan would end up with a new fleet that combined the JSF and the F-22.

link

Take me to your leader...

HUD Begins to Fade Away

April 12, 2007: The U.S. F-35 fighter-bomber will be the first fighter in a long time to lack a HUD (head-up display). The HUD will still be present, but as part of the Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS). In other words, the HUD information will be displayed on the inside of the pilots visor, while still enabling the pilot to see through the visor. This type of helmet visor has been around for over a decade, but concentrated on allowing the pilot to control weapons by just looking at targets, and pressing the "fire" button at the right time. Now, the display technology inside the helmet has reached the point where it can handle the HUD stuff as well. The weight of these HMDS systems has come down as well, making it easier to wear them for long periods of time.

The HUD was a big innovation for fighters, as it made it possible for the pilot to spend more time with his head up, keeping an eye on the sky, or an ongoing battle. The military HUD has been around for half a century, but appears set to disappear as more pilots shift to HMDS.

Over the last few years, the visor displays have added the display of critical flight and navigation information. This, in addition to the basic function of enabling the pilot to turn his head, get an enemy aircraft into the crosshairs displayed on the visor, and fire a missile that will promptly go after target the pilot was looking at.

These helmet displays allow the pilot look around more often without having to look down at cockpit displays, or straight ahead at a HUD (Head Up Display.) This kind of freedom gives an experienced pilot an extra edge in finding enemy aircraft or targets, and maneuvering to get into a better position for attacks. It's also useful for air to ground attacks.


http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/a...s/20070412.aspx

Strong endorsement by the U.S. Defense Dept. is bolstering Lockheed Martin's multinational F-35 after it achieved a critical flight milestone last week. However, the company is facing a loss of support for its F-22 after the program's top two champions were ousted from the Pentagon's inner circle.

Pentagon acquisition czar John Young, known for setting rigorous technical maturity milestones for weapons programs, took the unusual step of releasing a statement only hours after the June 11 first flight of the short takeoff and vertical landing (Stovl) F-35B - the first production-representative Joint Strike Fighter. "The JSF program is ahead of similar programs in terms of quality, software, testing and manufacturing readiness," he said, praising "the maturity and progress being made on JSF."

Initial flying is in conventional take-off and landing mode, and Stovl testing is still months away, but the first flight of the F-35B clears the way for release of $1.3 billion in funding to produce the first six aircraft for the Marine Corps. The contract should be awarded after Young has been briefed on the resolution of blade failure issues with the Stovl version of Pratt & Whitney's F135 engine.

Despite the engine problems, the flight took place within weeks of the late May target set in August 2006, says Marine Corps Brig. Gen. David Heinz, deputy JSF program director. The much-anticipated milestone is likely to shore up international support for the JSF. Japan, worried about the impending shutdown of the F-22 line, is turning its attention to the F-35 (see p. 55).

With the surprise resignations of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley this month, the stealthy Raptor, in contrast, appears to be without a champion in the Pentagon's upper ranks; without new funding, production will begin winding down. The ousted USAF leaders clashed with Defense Secretary Robert Gates over their dogmatic support for the F-22.

Lockheed Martin says it needs long-lead funding for an additional lot of F-22s by November to avoid having to begin shutting down the supply chain, but the nominated Air Force secretary and chief of staff are not expected to step in with support for the Raptor.

"The leadership change will prevent the Air Force from pursuing additional F-22s in Congress for the remainder of the Bush presidency," says Loren Thompson, a defense analyst and consultant with the Washington-based Lexington Institute. "That diminishes the outlook for the program because neither of the major [presidential] candidates likely to succeed Bush is favorably disposed to the Raptor."

The timeline for Boeing, which makes the wing and aft fuselage, is even tighter. "Advanced procurement for Lot 10 must be added to the FY [Fiscal Year] 2009 defense budget this fall to avoid the initiation of shutdown in October 2008," says Bob Jenkins, Boeing's F-22 business strategy director. Although Lockheed and Boeing are funded to produce aircraft until 2011, the long-lead suppliers will deliver their last parts as early as mid-2009.

The termination threat comes as the program is stabilizing, says Larry Lawson, Lockheed Martin vice president and F-22 program manager. Aircraft are being delivered with zero defects, a month ahead of schedule, and the mission-capable rate of the fleet is running at a "pretty good" 70%, he says.

The F-22 has faced termination since February, when the Defense Dept.'s Fiscal 2009 budget request omitted funding for the fighter, leaving its fate to the next administration. Both defense authorization committees proposed plus-ups in order to procure some long-lead items, but a final decision awaits a negotiation between the House and Senate.

The U.S. Air Force added to the pressure for funding by sending a letter to the Senate on June 3 "outlining the potential impact to the F-22 if the decision is not made by Oct. 31," says Jenkins. Although exact figures are not being disclosed, Jenkins says "a gap of a year and you're talking close to a $1-billion impact." Restarting production, and covering supply-chain expenditures, would raise the unit cost of future aircraft.

The F-22 production line in October enters the final 12 months of a three-year, 60-aircraft buy. In total, USAF has ordered 187 aircraft, of which 119 have been delivered. Two arrived last week at Holloman AFB, N.M., the third of four planned F-22 bases. But the "combat need" identified by USAF remains 381 aircraft, while any future export hopes for the F-22 will only remain alive if costs are amortized across production beyond Lot 10, says Jenkins. Additionally, Congress would have to lift a restriction on its export.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin are considering using company funds to keep the supply chain alive, but "there's no commitment to do that," Jenkins says. Continuing lean production initiatives have, meanwhile, seen a 10% reduction in cost "lot-over-lot on the first eight production lots," he says, despite a production rate drop from 24 aircraft in Lot 6 to 20 in Lot 7.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/sto...es%20Supporters

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will “redefine the concept of multirole strike” aircraft, Lockheed Martin officials say, but they offer few details to flesh out that claim.

Still, while the future concept of operations, electronic attack (EA) capability and derivative options remain undefined, at least publicly, some capabilities can be picked out of their purposely vague descriptions.

Starting from the notion that new hardware is the least likely addition to the aircraft and that it has an open architecture for avionics, look for the big multirole capability additions to involve electronic attack.

Because of the ability to penetrate while using low-probability-of-intercept radar and passive sensors, the JSF will not operate in proximity to current, so-called fourth-generation aircraft. It will instead roam well-defended enemy airspace while feeding precision targeting data to nonstealthy aircraft with standoff-range weapons.

Tailored for EA

The F-35 aircraft is being designed to deliver electronic attack (jamming, spoofing and pulses of energy) with the same ease that it can deliver explosive weapons. Moreover, Lockheed officials say the F-35 – first of all a combat aircraft – will have full 360-degree awareness of what is going on around it.

That presents an interesting dilemma for EA versus kinetic weaponry. The new AIM-9X air-to-air missile can perform high off-boresight shots without turning the aircraft’s nose toward the target. However, delivering electronic effects require specialized antennae pointed toward the target. As far as is known, JSF has only its advanced active, electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar antenna in the nose to pump out its electronic firepower. It would then have the weakness of any AESA array in that it is flat with a field of view of less than 180 degrees, perhaps an effective field of regard for effective attack of 60-90 degrees.

Some radar specialists and Air Force planners already say they anticipate flying the F-35s in line, with the first aircraft being passive and the second emitting and passing target information to the first so that it can remain undetected. Therefore, it appears that without an add-on antenna, the JSF’s EA capability will be limited to the forward quarter.

However, within that field the electronic effects generator can be routed through the AESA radar, which allows the F-35 to invade, blind or fool enemy sensors and radars at ranges of up to hundreds of miles.

Sensors

Lockheed officials do admit that the F-35’s sensor capabilities include advanced electronic surveillance allowing development of an instantaneous electronic order of battle – what’s emitting and from where.

Along with EA, the JSF will take on the mission of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. So instead of depending on a few specialized high-demand aircraft like Rivet Joint (for signals intelligence), Cobra Ball (measurement and signature intelligence) or Compass Call (EA) that can’t venture into enemy airspace, a fleet of F-35s will be able to conduct those missions deep into enemy territory to take advantage of physics (by being nearer the targets) while deepening the areas of surveillance.

They won’t say if information warfare is part of the package. Info warfare is generally the bailiwick of Commando Solo and Compass Call (including network penetration and attack), but with software upgrades radar specialists expect the capability to appear soon.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/sto...channel=defense

JSF Office Makes Buyers an Offer They Cannot Refuse

Within a year, Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter team expects to make firm offers to its eight partner nations: the U.K., Italy, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Turkey. In exchange for a commitment by all eight to aircraft numbers and delivery dates, they will get a firm price, several years before that would normally be possible under U.S. procurement rules.
The move is necessary because competitors are offering fixed prices, and because some partners need many of their aircraft from early production batches, which normally carry a high price.

Those commitments will be backed up by sanctions. “Partners who do not buy according to the program of record will cover the costs incurred by other partners,” says the Program Office director, Maj. Gen. Charles Davis.

Davis says the final price is the subject of intense discussions within the team, but numbers in the $58-63-million realm—flyaway prices in current dollars—have been mentioned. Given that total acquisition unit costs in export sales tend to be about twice the flyaway cost, this places the JSF unit cost close to that of Typhoon.

The partners should be clear about what they are getting for the money. At the inception of the JSF program, in 1995, then-project director George Muellner described the aircraft as “70% air-to-ground, 30% air-to-air.”

The F-35 is not optimized for air-to-air combat. JSF is neither fast nor agile enough to choose whether to shoot or scoot against an adversary like the Su-30. It either carries a maximum of four AIM-120 missiles—the capability is little publicized, although Davis confirms that it will be part of the systems development and demonstration program—or operates with compromised stealth. (A reduced-signature pylon for the outboard wing stations, designed to carry AIM-9X or Asraam missiles, is being developed.) Success in air combat depends on stealth, but although the F-35 should detect targets at long range before being detected, it will have to close to shorter distances to achieve an acceptable kill probability with the AIM-120C7, particularly against an agile target using jamming and decoys. The U.S. acknowledged this by developing the AIM-120D, designed to be compatible with new active electronically scanned array radars, but it will not be available for export in the foreseeable future.

Moreover, there is no longer any serious doubt that not all F-35s will be equal in stealth. Asked earlier this year to confirm that all would have the same signatures, George Standridge, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for business development, responded: “That is a matter for the U.S. government. I cannot and will not answer that question.”

The partner countries so far show signs of being able to live with the aircraft’s performance and the stealth capabilities they have been offered. The main exceptions are the U.K. and Italy, which will use the Typhoon as their primary air-to-air fighter.

Another major advantage of the JSF is the potential for spreading through-life upgrade and support costs over a large fleet of aircraft. This depends, however, on keeping numbers at their planned level, including 730 aircraft for partner nations, which means overcoming three obstacles.

The first is direct competition. Norway and Denmark are evaluating the JSF against other aircraft, mainly Saab’s Gripen Next Generation (NG). In May, the Netherlands government, under pressure from its Labor coalition partner, agreed to carry out a final assessment of other aircraft, including Gripen NG, Typhoon and Rafale, before making a commitment. Canada also intends to conduct a competition.

The second is budget concerns in the U.K. and Italy, where JSF procurement will be weighed against the final batch of Typhoon fighters unless money can be found for both types.

Third, U.S. numbers are shaky. Senior Air Force officers have stated that the service can afford only 48 JSFs per year rather than the 80 that the current program envisions, unless it gets more topline funding in the defense budget. The Navy and Marine Corps told the Government Accountability Office that they expect to buy 35 JSFs per year, versus 50 in the current plan. Davis says the JSF office “is waiting for the POM (program objective memorandum) process to see those numbers get adjusted.”

Technical risk is another factor. Later this year, the project office is expected to confirm a slip of 9-12 months in the completion of operational testing, with a consequent increase in development costs.

Davis minimizes its impact, saying it reflects the fact that early low-rate initial production (LRIP) batches have been reduced in size (12 aircraft on contract in 2008, for instance, versus 18 envisioned earlier), and observing that it is “at the discretion of the combatant commander” when to declare initial operational capability. Davis makes much of the flight of the first F-35B, on June 11, within the schedule planned in August 2006. “People said the program couldn’t make it, but this shows that we’re capable of performing to schedule.”

More important, though, is the Stovl (short takeoff and vertical landing) testing of the F-35B, which is, by Davis’s count, three months behind schedule. In the first quarter of 2009, the F-35B will start a series of 20 sorties at Fort Worth, Tex., in which the jet progressively slows down, leading to a slow landing. BF-1 will then be ferried to the Navy’s flight-test center at Patuxent River, Md., for tests leading to a vertical landing. The time­scale for that is not certain, but a vertical landing doesn’t look likely until well into the second quarter.

The U.K. has voiced concerns about vertical landings. Added to F-35B testing under a U.K. initiative is a new flight mode, shipboard rolling vertical landing (SRVL), in which the aircraft approaches the ship with about 60 kt. airspeed and 25 kt. wind-over-deck—the maximum design speed of the Royal Navy’s new carriers (see story, p. 51)—for a 35-kt. relative deck speed. Davis characterizes SRVL as a means to improve hot-day performance. The U.K. National Audit Office, in a November 2007 report, linked the move to SRVL to “weight challenges and propulsion integration issues.”

SRVL trials were carried out in May 2007, using the fly-by-wire Harrier operated by Qinetiq on the French carrier Charles de Gaulle. Challenges include the fact that the aircraft has to stop using wheelbrakes alone—37,000 lb. of aircraft at 35 kt. represents a lot of energy—on a deck that will likely be wet. A classic “bolter” will not be possible because power has to be reduced on touchdown to put the airplane’s weight on its wheels.

Vertical landing tests depend on the successful resolution of problems with the low-pressure turbine of the F135 engine, whose unusually large blades are designed to deliver power to the lift fan. A number of changes have been implemented, and tests continue to pin down the exact combination of circumstances where failures occur.

Two milestones are coming up: further analysis should lead to a limited clearance of the existing engine for inflight vectoring in October; and a modified, fully cleared engine should be ready to fly by late 2008.

The other main challenge in the JSF program will be ramping-up LRIP. Davis told an Aviation Week conference in early 2008 that he was “worried about getting the manufacturing lines down the learning curves.” Some problems stem from the weight-reduction redesign in 2004-05—the wing, for example, is harder than expected to assemble. These issues have to be sorted out by 2010: in 2011, production starts a steep acceleration, from 47 aircraft ordered in 2011 to 205 in 2014.

If the JSF program succeeds in locking up its international partners, the project could be within reach of its goal of an F-16-like, mid-four-digit production run and a near-monopoly of the fighter business outside Russia and China. The only other Western program with a long-term future will be whichever team wins India’s 126-aircraft order. But if JSF falls short of its goals—as almost every major military aircraft program has in the past 25 years—it will throw the re-equipment plans of a dozen air arms into disarray
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/sto...Cannot%20Refuse

Lockheed Touts F-35 Lightning II Capabilities

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 12th, 2008 -- A Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] Joint Strike Fighter executive said today that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is living up to the originally conceived ideal of a tri-service combat aircraft that leverages stealth technology, introduces multi-service interoperability, achieves economies of scale to drive down costs and strengthens important international alliances.

Tom Burbage, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company and general manager of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program Integration, reviewed the F-35 operational requirement and provided his thoughts on the game-changing technologies that are ensuring the delivery of dramatic improvements in fighter capability envisioned when the program was conceived more than a decade ago.

“The F-35 is designed to satisfy a very challenging operational requirement — to go deep into enemy territory against the most lethal surface-to-air missile threats. The aircraft is also designed to destroy targets through any weather while outnumbered by the most advanced current-generation fighters equipped with highly sophisticated air-to-air missiles,” Burbage said. “The F-35 can perform that mission from any base and at a lower cost than legacy programs. It’s a daunting expectation but we are on the way to fulfilling it.”

The intent of the program was to leverage recent major national investments in technology, introduce true service interoperability and achieve economies of commonality and scale as legacy combat aircraft fleets were replaced, according to Burbage.

In addition to its strategic military importance, the F-35’s integrated global production structure will promote worldwide allied collaboration and significant maturation of the global industrial base.

“The ongoing National Security strategy to require coalition based operations had also exposed significant capability gaps between U.S. and allied forces equipment,” said Burbage. “To address these gaps, a decision was made to allow participation by selected nations in the development and procurement of the JSF. The sharing of the technology capability with allied nations implies that future coalition combat operations will be more synergistic and much less expensive from a logistics standpoint.”

Drawing upon global supply resources and strategically positioning parts and services around the world enable our allies to expand their local economies. The F-35 will strengthen international relationships and fortify political ties among the United States and its allies.

The F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5th generation stealth fighter. Three F-35 variants derive from a common design. Developed together, they use the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide. The fighter will replace at least 13 types of aircraft for 11 nations initially, making the Lightning II the most cost-effective fighter program in history. Two F-35s have entered flight test, two are in ground test and 17 are in various stages of assembly, including the first two production-model jets scheduled for delivery to the U.S. Air Force in 2010.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2007 sales of $41.9 billion.

F-35 and Lightning II are trademarks of Lockheed Martin Corporation.
http://www.air-attack.com/news/news_articl...pabilities.html

Yet another disappointment- the UK MoD might probably pull out of the JSF project in order to save more money to plug other needs:

From the Times Online, UK:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4837746.ece