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F35 sea trials


SaintsPhil

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That's definitely a shape that's growing on me... it already looks a bit more aggressive and purposeful. I like the easy way it takes off, but it doesn't half discolour the deck when it lands! :jump_fire:

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That's definitely a shape that's growing on me... it already looks a bit more aggressive and purposeful. I like the easy way it takes off, but it doesn't half discolour the deck when it lands! :jump_fire:

It stains the deck alright, but it's not as bad as they all predicted. It's bloomin' steady on the landing, quite impressed.

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The STOs look impressive although from some angles the exhaust nozzle looks very close to the deck as the nose lifts.

I love the 'make your own rainbow' effect in one landing.

David

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Have to agree with Mike here, it's definitely starting to grow on me! (the price, however, isn't :lol: )

Dave

It'll still be cheaper than the hasegawa kit when its released lol

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There's word that the Government are doing yet another u-turn, and considering buying the STO/VL version afterall, with all that that implies with the carriers...

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Hmmmm. After the comments above and how it might grow to be liked, I can see why. BUT.... why does it have to have that great barn door up and open for a rolling take off? I noted that the rear nozzle is in the downward deflected position but would not the side intakes be enough for it for an conventional departure!? Just asking as I don't know much about the thing.

I can see early WIFs appearing here soon in 899 and other unit markings however!

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Hmmmm. After the comments above and how it might grow to be liked, I can see why. BUT.... why does it have to have that great barn door up and open for a rolling take off? I noted that the rear nozzle is in the downward deflected position but would not the side intakes be enough for it for an conventional departure!? Just asking as I don't know much about the thing.

I can see early WIFs appearing here soon in 899 and other unit markings however!

Tis a pity we cant buy British, ~Harrier3 anyone

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BUT.... why does it have to have that great barn door up and open for a rolling take off?

It's something to do with airflow, there's an opening for the forward lift fan and a another one to improve the airflow to the engine at low speed, the side intakes being optimised for high speed flight where there's a ram effect forcing air into the engine.

Buy and build British! That would be FAR FAR Better!!!!!

To be fair BAe and RR make a fairly large chunk of the aircraft, more so the B variant (the STOVL version).

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We saw exactly the same disdain over the F-18 when the Tomcat departed, the F-22 got the same treatment, and so it goes on. People are resistant to change, and when they're fed only the bad news by the gossip merchants... sorry "media", what're they going to think? :shrug:

As to the price? Yes - it's getting mighty fruity... but that's a discussion/argument for another forum. I wonder if war will one day get so expensive that they'll have to call it all off because they can't afford to lose any weapons? :hmmm:

To be fair BAe and RR make a fairly large chunk of the aircraft, more so the B variant (the STOVL version).

I'm glad about that. :) I'd be interested to see how many of those jobs are done in the UK though, as BAe have quite a presence over in the US these days, IIRC.

I love the 'make your own rainbow' effect in one landing.

I watched it again on the big TV afterward, and it's lovely shot... very theatrical :)

Incidentally, the bitrate is good enough to watch it comfortably on the telly without it looking blocky - a nice way to spend a few minutes :coolio: My son insisted I played it twice ^_^

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It's starting to grow on me, too. Nice video!

I'll have to check at work tomorrow, but somewhere I have a copy of UK Aerospace Manufacturing magazine which had a great article about the F-35 engineering and production work that is being done in the UK, and what's planned in the future. It is not unsubstantial.

Europe has led the way in collaborative military aircraft programs, and I expect to see this become the norm in the not-too-distant future. To maintain a qualitative edge over new and emerging threats, these programmes aren't going to get any cheaper.

Cheers,

Bill

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Hmmmm. After the comments above and how it might grow to be liked, I can see why. BUT.... why does it have to have that great barn door up and open for a rolling take off?

What about an engoine failure on takeoff, with the pilot having to leave in a hurry. I hope there are explosive bolts on the hinge of that door which fire when the seat does.

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Hmmmm. After the comments above and how it might grow to be liked, I can see why. BUT.... why does it have to have that great barn door up and open for a rolling take off? I noted that the rear nozzle is in the downward deflected position but would not the side intakes be enough for it for an conventional departure!? Just asking as I don't know much about the thing.

Because the engine is buried in the rear of the aircraft, it has a separate lift fan up front to keep the centre of lift under the centre of gravity of the aircraft without having to direct bypass air from the engine back towards the front which would incur massive pumping losses. The big horizontal fan behind the cockpit (the bit that is made by rolls-royce) is driven from a driveshaft and gearbox from the front of the main jet engine. The big barn door doesn't let air into the engine itself, it just supplies the lift fan. The side intakes only supply air to the jet engine. The rolling takeoffs shown here are more like the ski-jump takeoffs the harrier used to do, only without the ski-jump. They're using forward velocity to generate a degree of lift from the wings, and supplementing it with the lift fan and vectoring the jet nozzle at the last second to support the aircraft's weight. It's not a conventional, 180-odd knot, wing lift only takeoff.

Has to be said it looks much more stable and cotrolled in the hover than the harrier ever did (blasphemy I know!) but look at the nose strut at 2:55sec, it looks a bit bendy!

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It looks impressive when it works, but all that flappery looks wierd and yes there's the barn door as it takes off. What if some of the flaps/doors don't work at the critical moment - pull handle and exit?

Then there is all that dead weight of the fan when it's not working. What was wrong with vectored thrust? If we're getting them then the -C seems to be the best bet for interoperability between the FAA/RAF.

Apparently the F-22 is a problem to keep it's 'stealth' coating effective. Will the F-35 be any different?

Trevor

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It looks impressive when it works, but all that flappery looks wierd and yes there's the barn door as it takes off. What if some of the flaps/doors don't work at the critical moment - pull handle and exit?

If a Harrier's engine cuts on takeoff, it's bang-out time anyway... I imagine they've thought about re-attaching the pilot's head after ejection... either that, or they've engineered a solution of either blowing the "barn door" off, or retracting it quickly before it decaffeinates the pilot.

C'mon, they don't doodle these things on the back of a fag packet and then build one in a day :rolleyes:

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It looks impressive when it works, but all that flappery looks wierd and yes there's the barn door as it takes off. What if some of the flaps/doors don't work at the critical moment - pull handle and exit?

Then there is all that dead weight of the fan when it's not working. What was wrong with vectored thrust? If we're getting them then the -C seems to be the best bet for interoperability between the FAA/RAF.

Apparently the F-22 is a problem to keep it's 'stealth' coating effective. Will the F-35 be any different?

Trevor

The nozzle arrangement on the harrier meant that some fairly huge compromises had to be made with the design of the airframe- the engine has to be smack bang in the middle, meaning a high wing, which is very bad for agility due to "effective dihedral". Basically interactions between te wing and fuse cause a strong stabilising effect that makes the aircraft want to fly in a straight line. All that anhedral on the harrier (the wings slope downwards) was to try and regain some sort of manoeuvrability by intentionally destabilising the aircraft, but even then, the harrier was never known for it's dogfighting ability. Also means you need a funny undercarriage, as hot jet thust doesnt mix too well with the tyres of a conventional tricycle arrangement and a centreline main u/c gear doesn't work too well if you need to launch the aircraft from a catapult. The naval version of the stillborn P1154 had to resort to big pods on the wings to house the main u/c legs, adding weight and drag.

Making thrust go round bends isn't very efficient either, so in conventional flight you want all the thrust going straight out the back, not being forced through two 90 degree bends all the time. Also makes fitting an afterburner for supersonic flight very difficult. Rolls-royce explored PCB (plenum chamber burning- a form of afterburner inside the vectoring nozzles) for the pegasus but it was a massive technical challenge.

The F22 is being repainted in the new stealth coating from the F35 program as apparently its much more durable.

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Well I was surprised by all the twisting and wobbling the undercarriage was doing at the end of that video-in perfect weather conditions too!

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One of the reasons why the Harrier was not a huge export success has always been that many air forces found it overcomplicated: rotating nozzles and puffer jets for control have always been seen as potential causes for accidents in case of failure. So nothing new under the sun here !

Now if someone wants VTOL operations, they have to live with the extra complications, be it the rotating nozzles or flaps and doors or a combination of the two.

In the same way as the Harrier always had a worse attrition rate compared to conventional aircrafts, the F-35B might have a worse attrition rate compared to the other versions of the same aircraft. Again, it's a compromise that must be accepted in return of VTOL capability.

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