F-35 suffers setback

Found this on nuclear EMP. It's interesting. It says most military systems are shielded to a degree some more than others and the exact effects of EMP and how to shield against them are highly classified.
I'd say most military hardware designed in the cold war was designed to be operational after a nuclear war had started so most hardware would probably be shielded but to what extent and exactly how is classified.

There have only been a few high altitude nuclear explosions. There have been none since November, 1962. At that time, scientists were just beginning to understand the phenomenon well enough to even know what to try to measure. This means that there is a very limited amount of data available, and only a part of that data is unclassified.

www.futurescience.com...

It seems the whole EMP issue is highly classified and no simple matter at all.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by maintainright

 

Sorry, won't go into detail with what I know here.

Just giving a teaser.

The last truly black aircraft that came out was the F-117. Just before we left Pease AFB in 1983, they took something like 100 pilots and maintenance personnel from the 509th Bomb Wing to work on making the A-7 Corsair supersonic and night capable. *coughcough* We found out years later they went to Tonopah and were with the Nighthawk program.

edit on 1/16/2013 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)

Are you saying the YA-7F was the sort of 'misdirection' programme that the anti-grav's think the F-22 was?

That could be realistic to me because at least the supersonic Corsair was abandoned before the hardware stage.

reply to post by waynos


Oh yeah, it was. They told everyone that they were heading out west to Arizona I think it was, which was home to one of the bigger A-7 bases. They even told their family that, and actually moved to the base in question (I can't remember all the details, since this was 20+ years ago). Then they told them that they were going to work, hopped on the morning Janet flight to Tonopah, and hopped the afternoon flight home. Never even saw an A-7 except the ones parked on the ramp when they were taxiing out.

LM has responded to the report, in the usual fashion. They say 2012 was their best year yet for the program. They completed 5,000 flight hours, the A and B both completed engine air start tests, etc. The problems outlined are known issues, and they're on schedule for a 2016 completion of development.

The Block 2A software is at Edwards for testing, and should be delivered to Eglin later in the year. That means the instructors can finally use their radar, EW equipment, and infrared sensors.

Lockheed Martin says it is not disputing the facts laid out in the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test Evaluation (DOT&E) report on the company's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), but says that many of the issues raised have already been addressed.

"The challenges that are identified in the report are known items, normal discoveries," says Steve O'Bryan, Lockheed's F-35 business development director. "When you look at it from a holistic sense, when you really talk about beginning OT [operational test] in 2017, these are known discoveries, known challenges, and the kind of normal discoveries you'd see in a flight test programme of this size and complexity." Despite the problems highlighted in the report, O'Bryan says 2012 went very well for the stealthy tri-service fighter. "In my humble opinion, it was our best year on the programme," he says.

There have been a number of significant achievements over the course of the year-more than 65% of the F-35's total of 5000 flight hours have been accumulated in 2012, O'Bryan says. "If you look at flight test overall, we remain about 5% ahead of plan," he says. The F-35 has had its first weapons release and the A-model has flown to its maximum speed, altitude and angle-of-attack. Also, both the A and B model jets have completed engine air-start tests. O'Bryan adds that at this point, the F-35 is more than one-third of its way through its flight test programme. "We are on track to finish development in 2016," he insists.

www.flightglobal.com...

They also say that the problem of damage by the afterburner and high speed flight is caused by a "coating problem" and a new coating has been applied to the A model that should fix it. The B and C are being tested to see if the same coating will have the same effect.