{"id":178233,"date":"2019-02-01T19:43:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T00:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/02\/01\/the-mistake-jet-just-gets-better-and-better\/"},"modified":"2019-02-01T19:43:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T00:43:00","slug":"the-mistake-jet-just-gets-better-and-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/02\/01\/the-mistake-jet-just-gets-better-and-better\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mistake Jet Just Gets Better and Better"},"content":{"rendered":"
It now appears the first F-35s delivered will have only \u00bc the life originally promised<\/a>:<\/div>\n

Structural defects mean the earliest F-35Bs<\/a> delivered by Lockheed Martin<\/a> could reach a service life limit by 2026 after 2,100 flight hours, according to the Pentagon\u2019s director for weapons testing. <\/p>\n

The design specification of the F-35B called for a service life of 8,000 flight hours, but early production models fall \u201cwell under\u201d the durability requirement, Robert Behler, director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E,) wrote in his latest annual report to Congress. <\/p>\n

The new DOT&E assessment comes after several years of durability testing that exposed multiple structural cracks. Lockheed completed two service lifetime cycles of durability testing on a static F-35B airframe called BH-1, but canceled a plan in February 2017 to perform a third series.<\/p>\n

Structural redesigns, including a new approach for the wing-carry-through, had made BH-1 unrepresentative of the final production standard, the DOT&E report states. The F-35 program has obtained funding to acquire a new structural test article, but it was not yet on contract, the report adds. Bloomberg first reported the DOT&E\u2019s findings on the F-35 program.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, the new test article is, “Not yet on contract.”<\/p>\n

The B model is the STOVL version, and any weight increase would have potentially catastrophic effects on performance, but they have not let a contract for a test article yet.<\/p>\n

I’m SO reassured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It now appears the first F-35s delivered will have only \u00bc the life originally promised: Structural defects mean the earliest F-35Bs delivered by Lockheed Martin could reach a service life limit by 2026 after 2,100 flight hours, according to the Pentagon\u2019s director for weapons testing. The design specification of the F-35B called for a service …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,381,588],"class_list":["post-178233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-defense-procurement","tag-fail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}