The Pentagon Will Have to Live with Limits on F-35’s Supersonic Flights (excerpt)
By David B. Larter, Valerie Insinna, and Aaron Mehta
The deficiency, first reported by Defense News in 2019, means that at extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability.
The problem may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.
“This issue was closed on December 17, 2019 with no further actions and concurrence from the U.S. services,” the F-35 JPO statement read. “The [deficiency report] was closed under the category of ‘no plan to correct,’ which is used by the F-35 team when the operator value provided by a complete fix does not justify the estimated cost of that fix.
“In this case, the solution would require a lengthy development and flight testing of a material coating that can tolerate the flight environment for unlimited time while satisfying the weight and other requirements of a control surface. Instead, the issue is being addressed procedurally by imposing a time limit on high-speed flight.” (end of excerpt)
Click here for the full story, on the Defense News website.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: In separate stories, Defense News also reported that:
-- “Four additional CAT 1 problems have also since been added to the list, raising the total CAT 1 deficiencies to seven. The program office declined to provide additional details about those issues for classification reasons;”
-- “The F-35 Joint Program Office has put in place stopgap fixes for five key technical flaws plaguing America’s top-end fighter jet, but the problems have not been completely eliminated.”)
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