The largest component of the navalized F-35's engine cannot be flown by air to an aircraft carrier. It cannot be transferred from a supply ship to a Nimitz-class carrier while both ships are underway. The only way that the "power module", which weighs almost ten tons (and that may not include the shipping crate) can be transferred to a Nimitz-class carrier is by a crane from either pierside or from a barge at anchor. Or it can be dangled from a MH-53 on a sling, but only if the carrier is about 12 hours steaming time away from the air base where the MH-53 is staging from.
Engines get used up. They suffer damage from foreign objects (FOD). They were out faster in the marine environment, which is hard on equipment. They wear out faster if the pilot has to fly through a sandstorm. So what happens in a cruise when the last spare power module is used up, you might ask? The next F-35C that needs a new power module becomes a hangar queen. The obvious answer of "so put more power modules on the ship" is a bad one. Space is at a premium on any ship and when you're talking about very large and very heavy parts, it's a big problem.
It boggles my mind that the Navy has gotten this far into the program without anybody noticing that a major engine component cannot be resupplied without taking the receiving aircraft carrier far off station. I don't know who the ensign or lieutenant was that discovered this, but that person deserves a medal.
(H/T)
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Thursday, December 2, 2010
8 comments:
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ReplyDeleteYet another case of the left hand not knowing what the right was doing.
ReplyDeleteAn acquaintance did some work on the Navy's Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System. Basically, it's a Bushmaster 30mm cannon mounted on an SH-60 Seahawk along with a laser guidance system. It's designed to kill surface and subsurface mines.
Well, during testing, they mounted the gun and guidance onto a tower over a pool. Bangity-bang it went, working beautifully, killing dummy mine after dummy mine. Everything looked great...
...until they then mounted it onto a Seahawk and took it out for some real testing. Well, apparently the gun folks didn't talk to the helo folks about this little thing us gun fans call "recoil". While the system worked great on a fixed structure, they hadn't taken into account the effects of a 30mm cannon's recoil on the airframe and accuracy.
Who knows how much will be spent to correct what should have been taken into account in the first place....
Canada just purchased a whack of F 35s. The was no bids or tenders for a contract of course. But some high ranking General AND polititian will land a job on the board of directors in the near future. It has happened in the past and it will happen again.
ReplyDeleteI am shocked, shocked, that you might think that there was corruption and self-dealing in defence procurement, Allan.
ReplyDeleteWe had a Chief Of Defence by the name of General Boyle (Air Force), who when retired, was given a seat on the board of directors McDonnell Douglas (sp?). The kicker here is, that before he was Chief Of defence, he was in charge of contract procurement and purchased many dozens of F-18 Hornets.
ReplyDeleteThe real slap in the face to us retirees was (he retired around the same time as me) was he passed a ruling that us retirees could not get a federal job for 5 years because that would be double dipping and double dipping is immoral.
And don't get me started on his extreme lack of honour during our Somali scandle where our airborn tortured a 14 year old kid to death.....Allan
Sounds like the Navy trying to get out of a joint service fighter program in order to get a new fighter all their own. Gee. That's never happened before.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite weapons system failure was the one featured in the book "The New Maginot Line" years ago, concerning an aircraft that had been assembled with one very important bolt placed upside down. When the plane inverted the misplaced bolt would slip in its hole, jamming the vertical stabilizers and rendering the plane unmanageable. They lost several before someone finally figured out the problem. One bolt had been assembled upside down, with the nut on the bottom instead of the top... oops...
ReplyDeleteSo again the Taxpayer (read us the middle class) gets it in the neck and the rich get to pay less taxes.
ReplyDeleteGE and the rest of the jet engine makers make a TON of cash on their engines...too bad they can't engineer them for the ACTUAL ENVIRONMENT they will be used in...
sigh