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Legion&s Fate: Some info on the F22 Raptor

xowesevou — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:38:20 +0000

Legion&s Fate: Some info on the F22 Raptor

F22 Raptor Supersonic Pass. An Air Force F-22 Raptor executes a supersonic flyby over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). F-22 Raptor executes a supersonic flyby An Air Force F-22 Raptor executes a …

Some info on the F22 Raptor. You might have heard that the Obama administration won&t sign off on any more F22s, and you may have read an article or two from some yahoo about how the F22 sucks. Well, Ace has come across some insider …

Obama may think its great that funding for the F-22 raptor is being cut, but a lot of people in Marietta Georgia won&t think its okay. It would be great if President Obama came down here and have a town hall meeting with us about how …

Obama Does A Happy Dance On The Raptor's Grave

Killian Bundy — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:48:52 +0000

Did Obama really say that a measly $1.75 billion to build seven more F-22 Raptors, the world’s premier air dominance fighter, was wasteful and that we couldn’t afford it? How wasteful is a $1 trillion “stimulus” fiasco that can’t be shown to have “created or saved” one job and spends money on ridiculous nonsense like $1.191 million for sliced frozen ham , $1.5 million on mozzarella cheese, and almost $17 million on canned pork? Or how about another trillion dollars for socialized healthcare that will degrade the overall level of medical care in this country and which the Congressional Budget Office has calculated will only increase our already unsustainable budget deficits and national debt, can we afford that?

Are you [expletive deleted] kidding me, we can borrow trillions of dollars to fund every Democrat and left wing pet project ever conceived, trillions it’ll take a miracle for us to ever hope to repay, and yet we can’t spend a comparative drop in the bucket $1.75 billion to defend ourselves against the Chinese and Russians, because it’s wasteful and we can’t afford it? We can’t spend $1.75 billion to save tens of thousands of highly skilled F-22 Raptor design and manufacturing jobs, because it’s wasteful and we can’t afford it, but we can spend more than $50 billion to bail out inept car companies to save Obama’s UAW buddies and their gold plated pensions?

Obama and the Democrats’ spending policies and priorities are not only depraved and thoroughly disgusting, they border on psychopathy and criminal insanity.

Shooting Down The Raptor

Defense Spending: The TARP bailout may hit $24 trillion, but the Senate says the F-22 is too expensive to build and maintain. So why are the Japanese so desperate to buy this “unnecessary” Cold War weapon?

By a vote of 58-40, the Senate on Tuesday voted to remove $1.75 billion set aside in a defense bill to build seven more F-22 Raptors, adding to the 187 stealth technology fighters already in the pipeline.

After some hope the production lines would be kept open, the Senate succumbed to arguments by the administration and others that the fighter was too expensive, too hard to maintain and not built for the wars America is fighting these days.

President Obama welcomed the Senate vote, saying he rejected the notion that the country has to “waste billions of taxpayers dollars” on outdated defense projects.

Well, the inspector general in charge of overseeing the Treasury Department’s bank-bailout program now says the massive endeavor could end up costing taxpayers almost $24 trillion in a worst-case scenario. Yet we can’t afford to build just seven more F-22s?

Keeping the F-22 production lines open would be a real stimulus saving real jobs. Lockheed Martin, the main contractor, says 25,000 people are directly employed in building the plane, and another 70,000 have indirect links, particularly in Georgia, Texas and California. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a supporter of the program, says there are 1,000 suppliers in 44 states. That’s wasteful?

Speaking to the Economic Club of Chicago last Friday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates repeated his assertion that “the F-22 is clearly a capability we do need — a niche, silver-bullet solution for one or two potential scenarios — specifically the defeat of a highly advanced enemy fighter fleet.”

But the “F-22, to be blunt, does not make much sense anyplace else in the spectrum of conflict,” he added.

Air dominance is not a “niche scenario,” and while we’re lucky the Taliban does not have an Air Force, other potential opponents do. It would prove quite useful over the skies of North Korea, if necessary, or in thwarting a Chinese threat in the Taiwan Straits. Gates forgets that it was high-tech “Cold War” weapons such as the stealthy F-111A that shattered Saddam Hussein’s air defenses and infrastructure and controlled the skies during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael M. Dunn, chief executive of the Air Force Association, notes that in last year’s conflict in Georgia, the Raptor was the only aircraft in our inventory that could have penetrated the defended airspace and had a chance of surviving.

The F-22 Raptor is also perhaps the only plane that could evade the sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system Russia has contracted to sell Iran. Russia’s S-300 system is “one of the most lethal, if not the most lethal, all-altitude area defense” systems, according to the International Strategy and Assessment Service, a Virginia-based think tank.

Gates and the Pentagon prefer the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But many believe its lesser abilities have been further compromised by making it a one-size-fits-all aircraft for all services in all conflicts.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., in whose state final assembly occurs, says, “The F-35 was designed to operate after F-22s secure the airspace and does not have the inherent altitude and speed advantages to survive every time against peers with counter-electronic measures.”

In an interview with Human Events, Japanese ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki said Tokyo wants F-22s to replace its aging F-4s and F-15s. Japan is facing an increasingly capable and unstable North Korea armed with nuclear weapons and the weapons to carry them. It also confronts a future superpower in China, with which it has territorial disputes.

Japan wants the F-22 to deal with both threats. It will soon have to deal with fifth-generation Chinese fighter aircraft and aircraft carriers to carry them. Japan is wise to prefer the F-22, which can fly 300 to 400 mph faster and two miles higher than the F-35.

We would be too.

Well, hey, that’s another $1.75 billion that Obama can now spend on ham and cheese.

/for the first time in my adult life, I’m not proud of my country

Hacker Jebol Data Rahasia Jet Tempur Tercanggih AS

ridwan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:54:52 +0000

WASHINGTON, Ribuan data rahasia pesawat tempur paling canggih milik AS, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, telah dibobol hacker selama dua tahun terakhir.

Pembobol berhasil mengacak-acak sistem elektronik pesawat itu melalui komputer-komputer kontraktor Pentagon yang bertugas merancang dan mengembangkan pesawat tersebut. Demikian diungkapkan sejumlah pejabat yang enggan disebutkan namanya karena sensitifnya kasus ini.

Seperti dilaporkan CNN, Rabu (22/4), para hacker juga bisa memasuki sistem kontrol lalu lintas Angkatan Udara AS. Mereka bahkan bisa mendapatkan informasi tentang lokasi penerbangan pesawat militer AS.

Pesawat F-35 Joint Strike Fighter adalah pengembangan F-35 Lightning II. Pesawat baru ini dirancang menjadi pesawat tempur yang bisa digunakan bagi Angkatan Laut, Angkatan Darat, maupun Angkatan Udara. Proyek pembuatan pesawat itu bernilai 300 miliar dollar AS.

Sebagian besar data yang dibobol seputar rancang bangun dan statistik kemampuan pesawat, termasuk sistem elektroniknya. Dengan data itu, pembobol bisa dengan mudah menggunakannya untuk membuat pesawat tandingan.

Sementara itu, The Wall Street Journal menyatakan, hacker mampu menyalin beberapa terabyte data mengenai pesawat termahal itu. Satu terabyte adalah 1.000 gigabyte. “Tak pernah terjadi yang seperti ini,” kata seorang mantan pejabat.

Belum jelas seberapa parah penerobosan tersebut atau siapa sesungguhnya para peretas itu, tapi data paling peka mengenai proyek pesawat tempur dilaporkan disimpan di komputer yang aman dan tak tersambung ke internet.

Wall Street mengutip beberapa mantan pejabat AS yang tak disebutkan jati diri mereka dan mengatakan serangan itu “tampaknya berasal di China”. Satu laporan belum lama ini dari Pentagon menyatakan, militer China telah membuat “kemajuan pasti” dalam pengembangan teknik bagi peningkatan perang online sebagai bagian dari upaya mengimbangi militer yang kurang berkembang.

Awal April, China membantah laporan The Wall Street Journal bahwa para peretas China dan Rusia telah berusaha mengirim virus ke dalam instalasi listrik AS.

Sumber: DISINI

JSF STOVL Lift Fan Tests Begin in April 2009

worldmilitaryhistory — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:13:03 +0000

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The Joint Strike Fighter program will wait until April to start transitioning the short-take-off, vertical-landing (STOVL) variant of the aircraft in vertical lift mode during tests, when the aircraft will have a fully qualified motor, the program’s deputy executive officer told Inside Defense.

Read the full report at www.insidedefense.com (paid subscription required)

F-35 Lightning II Avionics Tested

worldmilitaryhistory — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:59:16 +0000

Lockheed Martin’s Cooperative Avionics Test Bed, or “CATBird,” has begun in-flight integration and verification of the F-35 Lightning II mission systems suite, launching another stage of risk reduction for the world’s newest fighter.

The CATBird, a highly modified 737 airliner, will test the avionics suite thoroughly for several months before the complete system begins flying in an F-35 aircraft. The entire F-35 avionics system is slated for airborne testing in the CATBird in 2009.

“The F-35 mission systems suite is the most sophisticated and powerful avionics package of any fighter in the world,” said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 program general manager. “The CATBird is a shared industry and government investment that continues our risk-reduction work as we prove that the F-35’s advanced avionics work as advertised, three years before the first F-35 goes operational. This is the start of what will no doubt be an exciting period of validation and confidence building regarding the capabilities of this 5th generation, multi-role, multi-service aircraft.”

The F-35’s avionics include on-board sensors that will enable pilots to strike fixed or moving ground targets in high-threat environments, day or night, in any weather, while simultaneously targeting and eliminating advanced airborne threats.

The CATBird’s 40th flight, on Tuesday, Nov. 25, was its first configured as a complete classified mission systems laboratory. All test objectives were met in the 2.4 hour sortie.

“We were able to transmit using the radar for 23 minutes and selected six different TACAN (tactical control and navigation) stations, with data displayed on the F-35 cockpit that resides in the CATBird,” said Eric Branyan, Lockheed Martin vice president of F-35 Air System Development. “The results matched our predictions.”

The first Lightning II aircraft to fly with the full avionics package will be a short takeoff/vertical landing F-35B, called BF-4. All previous F-35 test aircraft are “flight sciences” aircraft, designed to validate the fighter’s aerodynamic performance. BF-4 is the first F-35 “mission systems” aircraft and is scheduled to make its first flight in mid-2009.

The F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5th generation stealth fighter. Three F-35 variants derived from a common design, developed together and using the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide will replace at least 13 types of aircraft for 11 nations initially, making the Lightning II the most cost-effective fighter program in history.

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 and the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team F136.

F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter

worldmilitaryhistory — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:09:48 +0000

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter or JSF is the next-generation multirole strike fighter aircraft of the US Air Force, US Navy, and US Marine Corps.

‘Independent' DOD Assessment Finds JSF Underfunded by $15 Billion

worldmilitaryhistory — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:50:24 +0000

Aviation Calendar 2009

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Inside the Air Force reports that Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has directed the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps to all but disregard a recent assessment by a highly esteemed team of
military cost estimators that concludes the Joint Strike Fighter program requires two additional years of testing and development — and a staggering $15 billion more than is currently programmed over the next six years.

Norway Opts for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

worldmilitaryhistory — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:24:19 +0000

Aviation Calendar 2009

The Norwegian Minister of Defence, Ms. Anne-Grete Strøm Erichsen, recommends that the F-16 is replaced by the American F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

11/24/2008 :: Lockheed Martin’s JSF is the only candidate which fulfils all the operational requirements specified by the Norwegian Government and is furthermore offered at a lower price than the Gripen NG. The selection of the Joint Strike Fighter rests upon a clear recommendation from Project Future Combat Aircraft Capability. External auditors have concluded that the evaluation has been carried out in a professional and ethically sound manor.

– Combat aircraft is a crucial capability for Norway’s defence. The procurement of new combat aircraft is therefore an essential element in the Government’s Long-term Defence Plan, states Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

– Both candidates’ performance have been evaluated against a number of different scenarios. The scenarios used in this evaluation are the same as the ones used in the Long-term Defence Plan, says Minister of Defence Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen.

– The Joint Strike Fighter is considered to be the better of the two candidates regarding intelligence and surveillance, counter air, air interdict and anti-surface warfare, says Strøm-Erichsen.

– An investment of this magnitude offers substantial opportunities for Norwegian industry. Throughout the process, the Government has communicated clearly to the candidates the significance of securing industrial opportunities, and the results of that focus is clearly evident today, states Minister of Defence Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen.

The Government underlines that from a Norwegian security policy viewpoint, both candidates have been fully acceptable. Nordic defence and security cooperation will proceed independently of the procurement of new combat aircraft and will receive our continued support.

– We are pleased that we have conducted a transparent, just and credible competition and that the candidates themselves so far have confirmed this. I would also like to credit the Swedish and American authorities and the suppliers, SAAB and Lockheed Martin, for the professional manner in which they have supported this demanding process, declares Strøm-Erichsen.

(Norwegian MoD Press Release)

Young Considering $3 Billion, 17-Plane F-35 Buy

worldmilitaryhistory — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:08:26 +0000

In a few years, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter will begin its ascent to become the dominant combat aircraft in the US and allied inventories.

Find this and other thrilling military aviation posters, framed art prints, and greeting card sets at The PatriArt Gallery – your one-stop destination for military and patriotic themed holiday shopping. Worldwide delivery available.

The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer is considering a $3 billion installment order for the military’s largest fighter jet program, — a decision that could allow the Air Force, Navy and two European allies the opportunity to move forward with the purchase of 17 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, writes Defense Newstand.

John Young — the Pentagon’s acquisition executive — received a proposal from the JSF program office on Nov. 12. The program manager, Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, asked for the authority to proceed with the third phase of low-rate initial production.

A Pentagon spokesman said a final acquisition decision memorandum could be issued as early as this week, reports Defense Newsstand.

F-35 Lightning II Goes Supersonic

worldmilitaryhistory — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:15:52 +0000

The F-35 Lightning II — also known as the Joint Strike Fighter or JSF — will one day make up 90 percent of USAF’s combat fleet, and will also be a major force in the Navy’s and USMC’s air arms.

The Lockheed Martin [ F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flew supersonic for the first time November 13th, achieving another milestone. The aircraft accelerated to Mach 1.05, or about 680 miles per hour.

The test validated the F-35 Lightning II’s capability to operate beyond the speed of sound and was accomplished with a full internal load of inert or “dummy” weapons on the one-hour flight.

“The F-35 transitioned from subsonic to supersonic just as our engineers and our computer modeling had predicted,” said Jon Beesley, Lockheed Martin’s chief F-35 test pilot. “I continue to be impressed with the aircraft’s power and strong acceleration, and I’m pleased that its precise handling qualities are retained in supersonic flight, even with a payload of 5,400 pounds (2,450 kilograms) in the weapons bays.”

Beesley said it was also a significant achievement for a test aircraft to fly supersonic for the first time with the weight of a full internal load of weapons. The milestone was achieved on the 69th flight of F-35 aircraft AA-1. Beesley climbed to 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) and accelerated to Mach 1.05, or about 680 miles per hour, over a rural area in north Texas. The F-35 accomplished four transitions through the sound barrier, spending a total of eight minutes in supersonic flight. The flight was preceded by a high-subsonic mission earlier in the day. Future testing will gradually expand the flight envelope out to the aircraft’s top speed of Mach 1.6, which the F-35 is designed to achieve with a full internal load of weapons.

F-35 AA-1, a conventional takeoff and landing variant (CTOL), and F-35 BF-1, a short takeoff/vertical landing variant (STOVL), together have combined for 83 test flights.

Air Force Moving to ARM F-35S With 5,000-Pound-Class Bunker-Busters

worldmilitaryhistory — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:18:25 +0000

In a few years the F-35 Lightning II will constitute the backbone of US combat aviation. Get in ahead of the pack. Secure your F-35 Lightning II poster, framed print, or 2009 calendar today at The PatriArt Gallery.

Air Force officials plan on including funds in the 2012 program objective memorandum for developing a bunker-busting bomb with a “5,000lb penetration capability in a 2,000lb class weapon” to be carried by the F-35 Lightning II, reports Inside Defense (subscription required)