Naval Aviation rejoined the fight against ISIL Nov. 19 when AV-8B Harriers from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM)162(Reinforced)launched from the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) to conduct their first missions over Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR).
The F-35B jump-jet version of the Joint Strike Fighter has completed its first takeoff from a ski jump, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.
The stealthy fifth-generation fighter jet designed to fly like a plane and land like a helicopter accomplished the task Friday from a test-ramp at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, according to Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 program.
“This test is one of the milestones along the way for integrating the F-35B aboard UK and Italian aircraft carriers,” he said in an e-mail.
Both countries plan to deploy their short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) versions of the jet aboard carriers equipped with a ski jump, a feature that allows aircraft to carry more weight despite taking off from a short runway.
China's aviation industry is working on the development of aircraft with short takeoff and vertical landing capabilities needed for an important role in the Chinese navy's future operations, military experts said.
"Research and development on components of STOVL aircraft, such as the engine, have started," Wang Ya'nan, deputy editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told China Daily.
"The aircraft's principles are not new. They have been known for more than 40 years, so our aircraft designers should be able to develop the plane on their own," Wang said.
In late March, the Aviation Industry Corp of China, the country's leading aircraft maker, announced on its website that two of its subsidiaries - AVIC Chengdu Engine Group and China Aviation Engine Establishment - have signed a cooperation agreement on the development of the STOVL aircraft's engine. The statement said the STOVL aircraft project aims to strengthen the People's Liberation Army navy's amphibious combat capability and address the absence of such a weapon in the PLA's arsenal.
Compared with conventional fixed-wing aircraft, a STOVL plane can be readied for action in a shorter period of time and occupies less space in a hangar bay or on the deck of a ship. These features have made it a popular choice for naval powers since late 1960s, when Britain's subsonic Hawker Siddeley Harrier became the first STOVL aircraft to be put in service.
Almost all STOVL aircraft in active service are based on the Harrier design, and they form the backbone of the naval forces of India and Spain.
This move is not the first time China has aimed to build a STOVL aircraft. In the late 1960s, the PLA asked the aircraft institutes to develop a fixed-wing plane capable of vertical takeoff and landing. The project was later abandoned due to technical difficulties.
The PLA also tried to buy the Hawker Siddeley Harrier in the late 1970s, but dropped the attempt because of cost, according to Western military observers.
This time, AVIC appears to have made the right decision at the right time as the PLA navy now needs a STOVL aircraft because it will "significantly supplement and improve its amphibious capabilities", Wang said.
"Though the PLA navy now has an aircraft carrier - the CNS Liaoning - it still lacks the experience of developing and manufacturing such a sophisticated naval platform, so there won't be more carriers in the short term," Wang said. "Let's assume that a conflict breaks out between China and another nation in the near future; the PLA navy's limited number of carrier-borne fighter jets, the J-15s, would have to engage in long-distance strikes as well as air defense for the carrier battle group, and they would have to be divided into small groups to perform these tasks simultaneously."
If China had STOVL aircraft, they could be deployed on the CNS Liaoning and other ships to defend against incoming enemy aircraft, relieving the burden on the J-15s, which could then focus on long-range operations, Wang said.
"Actually, in the foreseeable future, I don't see a high probability of China's involvement in a war far from its shores. Being dragged into limited amphibious conflicts in or near our territorial waters would be more likely. The STOVL aircraft will be the best choice for air support in such conflicts," Wang said, noting that it would be a perfect match for China's future amphibious assault ships.
The US Marine Corps is changing the way it plans to use its Lockheed Martin F-35B short take-off, vertical landing fighters, we report here (subscription required). Briefly, the new concept of operations envisages the use of mobile forward arming and refueling points (M-Farps) to support groups of F-35Bs, which would return to U.S. Navy amphbious warfare ships, allied carriers (special mention to the British Queen Elizabeth class) or even regional land bases for routine maintenance.
The new Conops addresses problems with earlier plans, which envisaged conducting sustained combat operations from both LHA/LHD-class ships and forward operating bases (FOBs) on land. Any naval force operating within 150 nm of a hostile coast would be within range of an increasing number of lethal and elusive ground-mobile guided missile systems, and would be hard put to avoid tracking by small unmanned air vehicles. That would make it very vulnerable, absent support from a carrier with its long-range airborne early warning coverage - and one of the major arguments for the F-35B is that it provides air power independent of the big carrier. The new Conops allows the ships to stand off outside coastal missile range because they support operations rather than launching airstrikes.
Meanwhile, large FOBs on land were considered by some (including deputy defense secretary Bob Work, in his days as deputy Navy secretary) as being vulnerable to guided missiles and rockets. The idea of the new Conops is to blunt this threat by making M-Farps much smaller and more nimble than FOBs (because most aircraft maintenance happens elsewhere). They will relocate every 24-48 hours, which is estimated to be inside an enemy's targeting cycle.
However, the new Conops looks remarkably like the way that the Royal Air Force planned to operate Harriers in the last few years of the Cold War. After experiencing great difficulty in operating Harriers in the often-soggy North German countryside, the RAF dispatched survey teams in civilian clothes, who covertly looked for sites that would provide parking, cover and storage for equipment and people, and a length of road long enough for STOVL operations. The actual war locations or Warlocs were highly secret and never used for training.
China has recently unveiled drones capable of taking off from ships to conduct patrol and possibly combat or attack missions at recent trade shows, according to the British military armaments journal Jane’s Defense Weekly.
The VD200, China’s first drone to take-off and land vertically, showed off its capabilities for the first time at an international trade fair in Chengdu. The flying-wing drone can remain airborne for up to eight hours and lands on pods attached to its four vertical fins instead of wheels like conventional drones. It was built by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAIG) to be deployed by the coast guard from patrol vessels.
The VD2000 has capabilities similar to small tactical helicopter drones but not their vulnerabilities, according to the report.
A recent Guizhou trade fair also unveiled the Harrier II unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) which can carry bombs and missiles on its four wing pylons. It was built jointly by CAIG and Guizhou Aircraft Corporation (GAC), but its capabilities are so similar to those of the US MQ-9 that Washington Free Beacon alleged that it was developed using technology stolen from US defense contractors. The allegation may be based on more than the similarities between the two drones. A 2012 NY Times report on the successes of a PLA hacking unit in accessing the computer systems of numerous US defense contractors over a period of several years.
Preparations are underway for the first F-35 test flight aboard the United Kingdom’s new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier slated for 2018, BAE Systems officials said Tuesday at the Farnborough International Airshow.
BAE Systems engineers and UK Ministry of Defence officials are working with simulation technologies in order to ensure the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter will successfully take-off and land aboard the British Royal Navy’s newly christened HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier. The ship was christened July 4, 2014.
U.S. and British officials had planned for the F-35 to execute a fly over of the Queen Elizabeth on the day of its christening to be the F-35s first ever international flight before the grounding of the Joint Strike Fighter fleet canceled those plans.
“Overall, this ship has been designed with the F-35 in mind from day one,” said David Atkinson, BAE Systems, Team JSF.
Slated to enter service in 2020, the 65,000-ton Queen Elizabeth is the largest warship ever built by the UK. It will be the first in a series of two planned Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, ships being engineered to house and sustain as many as 36 JSF aircraft, BAE officials said.
While not quite the size of an U.S. Navy Nimitz or Ford-class aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth-class ships will be 280-meters long and carry a crew of 671. The ship will house a total of 40 aircraft including Joint Strike Fighters and Chinook and Merlin helicopters. The first helicopter trial flights from the carrier deck are slated for 2017, Atkinson said.
The ship is being built by a BAE Systems-led team including Babcock and Thales. Some estimates put the prince of the Queen Elizabeth at $5 billion U.S. dollars.
The design, configuration and deck space of the ship have all been engineered to accommodate the F-35B Short Take-Off-and-Landing, or STOVL, variant of the JSF – the same variant of the aircraft planned for the U.S. Marine Corps.
Will the F-35B land vertically at the Royal International Air Tattoo or the Farnborough Air Show? No. Will it hover? Yes.
One of my colleagues had raised the issue that the F-35B will not perform a vertical landing this July, inferring this might be because it would damage the plane or the runway.
F-35 program spokesman Joe DellaVedova told me that the Marine version of the Joint Strike Fighter will perform short takeoffs and landings and perform hovers at both shows. I’m betting you can expect the same at the July 4 christening of the HMS Queen Elizabeth.
The blast from an F-35B as it lands vertically is pretty fearsome, but the Marines, Navy and program office all say the effects are manageable. I’ve seen the landing spots on the USS Wasp after several days of F-35 testing and spoken unsupervised with crew members. The Wasp deck crew told me they were seeing less damage to the deck than it sustains from some other aircraft that routinely fly from the Wasp and other LHD class ships.
Australia will consider buying the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) in addition to the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant to which it has already committed, a spokesman for Defence Minister David Johnston confirmed on 26 May.
The spokesman told IHS Jane's that acquisition of the F-35B "would be considered within the construct of the Defence White Paper", which is due in the second quarter of 2015.
The spokesman was responding to media reports that Prime Minister Tony Abbott has instructed planners working on the White Paper to examine the possibility of buying F-35Bs to operate from the Royal Australian Navy's (RAN's) two Canberra-class landing helicopter dock (LHD) amphibious ships.
The first of the two 27,800-tonne LHDs is currently undergoing delivery trials. The second will be commissioned in 2016.
The government announced on 23 April its decision to acquire a further 58 F-35As to take Australia's total commitment to 72. The first two will be delivered later this year, although they and subsequent deliveries will not arrive in Australia until late in 2018.
It is unclear whether any F-35B acquisition would be in addition to the 72 CTOL variants or be subtracted from that number.
The U.S. Defense Department’s newest and most advanced fighter jet has cracked during testing and isn’t yet reliable for combat operations, the Pentagon’s top weapons tester said in new report.
The entire F-35 fleet was grounded last February after a crack was discovered in a turbine blade of an F-35A. While the order was subsequently lifted, more cracks have been discovered in other areas and variants of the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made plane, according to the latest annual report by J. Michael Gilmore, director of Operational Test and Evaluation.
Durability testing of the F-35A, the Air Force’s version of the plane designed to take off and land on conventional runways, and the F-35B, the Marine Corps’ model that can take off like a plane and land like a helicopter, revealed “significant findings” of cracking in engine mounts, fuselage stiffeners, and bulkhead and wing flanges, according to the document. A bulkhead actually severed at one point, it states.
“All of these discoveries will require mitigation plans and may include redesigning parts and additional weight,” Gilmore wrote in the report.
The F-35C, the Navy’s version of the plane designed to take off and land on aircraft carriers, has also had cracks in the floor of the avionics bay and power distribution center and, like the F-35B, in the so-called jack point stiffener, according to the document.
