Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Just what you need when attempting a take off — a big freakin air brake.
Nifty, but what happens when a piece of all that Origami doesn’t fold back in? That thing makes the operation of Cybertron’s Optimus Prime look simple.
I’m with you, looks like too many moving parts for me.
It will be interesting to see the operations when the deck is pitching and rolling.
God, I hope these can match what the other sides are going to be putting up in the air.
Wonder how much go juice is left after all that huffing and puffing at the deck…
So does the flight deck crew come with the ship or with the squadrons? I’m just wondering if they had a lot of guys standing around because they only had two planes to babysit, or did those guys come out to the ship just for the flight testing?
Also… I wonder when they’re going to finally put a ski jump of sorts up front on one of the LHx’s?
Navy Sees Few Anomalies in F-35B Ship Trials Oct 31, 2011 By Amy Butler Onboard the USS Wasp:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awst/2011/10/24/AW_10_24_2011_p30-384427.xml&headline=Navy
“…STO operations do vary for the F-35 owing to the different lift qualities of the F-35s’ stealthy, supersonic-capable design. For testing on the Wasp, the nozzles and control surfaces actuate with 225 ft. of runway remaining on deck, creating an angle of attack and allowing for the wings to produce enough lift for takeoff from the deck, Cordell says. The Harrier’s rotation line is at the bow, owing to its wing design creating the required lift without the corresponding angle-of-attack change. Cordell says that the testing equipment at the ship’s bow has also not detected any problems with the F-35’s nozzle clearance as it takes off.
Pilots were qualified using the heart of the Harrier wind envelope. During testing they have expanded that up to a 30-kt. headwind, 10-kt. crosswind and 5-kt. tailwind. Pilots report good handling qualities, Cordell says.
The goal for STO testing was to establish the wind envelope for at-sea performance of manual settings on the aircraft. There are three methods for takeoff: manual (pilot pulling back on the stick); using a button that actuates the nozzle at the rotation line; or auto STO, which places the aircraft at a known distance from the rotation line. In this auto setting the aircraft will actuate automatically when the pilot reaches that rotation line. Cordell says pilots were able expand the scope to experiment with the auto-STO mode….”
I was aboard USS Okinawa (LPH-3) when we conducted the initial shipboard testing of Harrier ops. Lots of lessions to be learned at that time. Biggest thing to work out was how to launch/recover Harriers and helos from the same small deck so that they would arrive over the beach at the same time with enough fuel to carry out the mission.
SSG Jeff — Unless things have changed in the intervening years, the flight deck crew is a mixture of ship and squadren personnel; just as on a big-deck carrier.
Thanks, Lex! Here’s a good one where the Chief Test Pilot describes the airplane:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-J1KksHUQ&feature=related
The nozzle pointed downward does create a lot of deck heating. Same problem with the MV-22 on deck. Ships with the MV-22 have had a hard time keeping the non-skid, and I’m sure the same problem will occur with the F-35B. As a former 1st LT I can attest to the difficulty of keeping non-skid down on mild steel decks exposed to constant salt spray. It can’t be any easier with high temperature jet blast.
THERMION is the new deck coating under test: http://defensetech.org/2011/10/25/the-wasps-new-heat-resistant-flight-deck-coating/
That nozzle comes alarmingly close to the flight deck on rotation, however.
Nah. If it clears by a millimeter, it clears. Piece of cake. No worries. Nosirree….
Eric Hines
Two questions:
1. I saw no stores on wing or underneath. What kind of payload does this machine have for a vertical take-off? I’d like to see what it can do with a full load or maybe all fuel, bombs and rockets are stored internally and what we were watching was at max gross weight? Somehow, I doubt it.
2. On the vertical descent to the deck, especially in the last landing, the nose gear looked to be experiencing unusual side loads….what’s with that and are F-35 airframes stressed for that? Seems like most of the nose wheel loads under normal carrier landings are either fore and aft or up and down…all along the same vertical axis.
Check out this video, which I think answers your questions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-J1KksHUQ&feature=related
AV,
Yes thanks, on the internal stores, I acknowledge.
Would like to know if these initial sea trials tests are done a max gross weight. Seems to me the MGTOW performance will be a lot less agile or sprightly. Am still betting the sideloads on landing will be a problem for the nose gear.
Harriers experience the same sort of side loading on their landing gear as well. During the Harrier at sea testing, we started out with minimum loads and ideal wind across the deck and gradually expanded the envelope – pretty much like any other test program. Vertical takeoffs under full load consume so much fuel that it is pointless for combat. That is why on the LPH we would launch all the helos into orbit to clear the flight deck, launch the Harriers on a roll, then bring the helos back down for a hot pump and then relaunch them to rendezvous with the Harriers enroute to the beach.
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/f-35-frontal.jpg
She sure is pretty….
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/f-35-frontal.jpg
Some significant oscillations on the nose wheel during touch down towards the end, the fatigue damage will be interesting to see.
The nozzle and nozzle doors come really close to the deck on rotation, not sure about how to mitigate that. The takeoff run and rotation at about 1:53 is pretty cool, the nozzle gyrates to a more downward-oriented position and the control surfaces dance to keep the plane steady. It looks like the software automatically compensates for thrust vector changes while the nozzle adjusts. No doubt the plane is lightly loaded, but once the nozzle repositions it really puts the spurs into the takeoff.