Croyez-vous au programme JSF ?

Beau boulot, Rogi.

Merci Clansi !

Belle synthèse RogCas. Ca recadre et met les choses bien a plat. C'est sympa. Merci.

Thanx Pit !

You're perfectly welcome !

JSF : Tests en haute altitude complétés pour le moteur GE-Rolls-Royce

… [ce] moteur qui équipera le futur F-35, dont la version à décollage court et vertical doit équiper l'US Navy et la Royal Navy

C'est l'US Marine Corps. Pas la Navy.

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter costs less than expected

Lockheed Martin and Pentagon officials said today that a new Defense Department report shows the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is not the runaway budget-buster portrayed by some critics.

The report released late Monday by the Pentagon estimates that the total cost of developing and building 2,443 F-35s for the U.S. military has declined slightly in the last 12 months.

"It shows we've made some progress in controlling the costs," said Maj. Gen. C.R. Davis, the Pentagon officer overseeing the F-35 development effort, in a conference call with news reporters.

The annual report to Congress now estimates the total cost of the F-35 program at $298.9 billion, about $1 billion less than was estimated a year ago.

The latest Pentagon cost estimate is sharply at odds with a recent report by the Government Accountability Office that said various other internal Pentagon offices were expecting higher costs. In the worse case, the GAO said total costs for development and acquisition of the F-35 could top $337 billion.

"We do not agree with that estimate," Davis said. "There is no basis for that estimate. … There are no numbers that support it."

Davis and Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martine executive vice president for the F-35, said the new Pentagon cost estimates reflect experience gained in production of the first several test airplanes as well as negotiations with Lockheed and other contractors on the first two lots of production airplanes.

Earlier estimates of manufacturing costs were based on experience with other programs, Crowley said. As work continues on the first several test aircraft and workers gain experience, the costs are running below estimates.

Crowley said Lockheed is on track to fly the second F-35 test plane in late May or June, as planned.

http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/568197.html

Merci pour le message qui est somme toute une bonne nouvelle.

Mais qui suis-je le plus enclin à croire dans une situation pareille ? Un expert comptable ou une administration qui va rendre la main à la fin de l'année ?

Je dis ça, je dis rien.

US DoD withholds funds for six F-35Bs, pending first flight

The US Department of Defense, as expected, will hold onto funds to buy the next six Lockheed Martin F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, but will release funds to buy the next six F-35As. John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, signed the order on the JSF programme's second batch of low-rate initial production aircraft. The order means that funds to buy the short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs will be withheld until at least late May or early June, when the first prototype aircraft - BF-1 - is scheduled to fly for the first time. "The STOVL approval is contingent on certain events and a leadership review" by Young, the DoD says, without further elaboration. Lockheed's conventional take-off and landing AA-1 prototype (pictured above during recent inflight refuelling trials) first flew in December 2006, but the BF-1 airframe is the company's first to incorporate a "weight-optimised" design. The lighter airframe shaves more than 900kg (2,000lb) off the original design, and adds new aerodynamic and propulsion features to compensate for a large weight growth detected early in the aircraft's development. BF-1 is scheduled to enter hover pit tests in mid-May and, although it should fly within two months, the aircraft is not expected to fly in STOVL mode for at least eight months. The hover pit tests are critical for "retiring risk" for STOVL-mode tests later in the year. The STOVL-variant's unique engine - a Pratt & Whitney F135, including a Rolls-Royce shaft-driven lift fan - is on track to overcome a nagging reliability problem that causes a blade to prematurely fail in the low-pressure turbine. The JSF programme is scheduled to build 12 aircraft this year, as well as to receive long-lead funding to start building the next 19 aircraft in 2009. Next year's production lot should include the first three LRIP fighters to be purchased by foreign partners - the Netherlands and the UK.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/17/223079/us-dod-withholds-funds-for-six-f-35bs-pending-first-flight.html

Australia's new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) combat aircraft could be vulnerable to a Russian radar technology which appears to overcome their key stealth advantage, a defence analyst has warned. Dr Carlo Kopp, an analyst with the defence think tank Air Power Australia, says the risk was demonstrated almost a decade ago when Serbian air defences shot down a US F-117A Nighthawk stealth aircraft. That wake-up call evidently was not heeded in the west, he said. But the Australian Defence Force says stealth technology has advanced significantly since the Nighthawk and JSF will be very stealthy, even against the new Russian radars. Under present plans, the RAAF is set to buy 100 of the Lockheed F-35 JSF which will enter service around the middle of 2016 and serve as Australia's principal combat aircraft to mid-century.JSF is a very advanced combat aircraft specifically designed to be virtually invisible to radar…

http://news.theage.com.au/jsf-at-risk-from-new-russian-radars/20080501-29yn.html

Le débat est relancé personnellement cela ne m'etonne pas

Que resterait-il au JSF s'il devait perdre face à l'adversaire l'invisibilité "toute relative", selon certains, qui devrait être la sienne?

J'y vois plus une manœuvre de politiciens australiens afin de prouver que le seul appareil qui pourrait assurer leur tranquillité est le Raptor.

Toutefois, je vous rejoins lorsqu'il s'agit de se demander ce qu'il resterait au F-35 une fois sa furtivité enlevée…

S'il ne devait rien rester de la "furtivité" associée au F-35, que restait-il de celle associée au F-22?

C'est juste, mais ce n'est pas ce que je voulais dire.

Le "coefficient" de furtivité entre le Raptor et le F-35 varie dans une proportion de 1 à 10. Je veux dire par là que si on enlevait la furtivité au F-35, ce serait moins pénalisant que pour le Raptor qui bâti toutes ses missions de supériorité aérienne sur le fait qu'il est le premier à voir l'ennemi.

Pour le F-35, sa furtivité n'est nécessaire que pour un nombre restreint de missions, qui peuvent être presque toutes confiées à des B-2 ou des F-22, et finalement, je ne serais pas étonné de le voir régulièrement porter des missiles AA courte-portée (ASRAAM, AIM-9X) en points externes.