Zitat:The biggest risk is that, since the F-35 cannot operate effectively without permanent data exchanges with its software labs and logistic support computers in the United States, any disruption in the two-way flow of information would compromise its effectiveness.

All F-35 aircraft operating across the world will have to update their mission data files and their Autonomic Logistic Information System (ALIS) profiles before and after every sortie, to ensure that on-board systems are programmed with the latest available operational data and that ALIS is kept permanently informed of each aircraft’s technical status and maintenance requirements. ALIS can, and has, prevented aircraft taking off because of an incomplete data file.

Given that the United States hopes to sell hundreds of F-35s to allies in Europe, Asia and Australia, the volume of data that must travel to and from the United States is gigantic, and any disruption in Internet traffic could cripple air forces as the F-35 cannot operate unless it is logged into, and cleared by, ALIS.

For example, “Mission data load development and testing is a critical path to combat capability,” Pentagon OT&E director Michael Gilmore said in his fiscal 2014 report. “Accuracy of threat identification and location depend on how well the mission data loads are optimized to perform in ambiguous operational environments.”

Updating and uploading mission data loads depends on a functioning Internet, and as Wired.com noted in an Oct. 29 story, “undersea Internet cables are surprisingly vulnerable.” It quoted Nicole Starosielski, a media scholar at New York University, as saying that “people would be surprised to know that there are a little over 200 systems that carry all of the internet traffic across the ocean, and these are by and large concentrated in very few areas. The cables end up getting funneled through these narrow pressure points all around the globe.”

Recent activity by Russian ships near crucial undersea cables has added to concerns about the vulnerability of Internet, as recently illustrated by the New York Times, which noted that “Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.”

The fear is that an “ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent,” the article said.

Whatever the other repercussions, such an event would severely limit the ability of the world’s F-35 fighters to fly – due to a loss of ALIS link – and to operate effectively, as their fighting ability would disappear if their software and mission data files could not be updated.

No Internet, No F-35 Operations

In a recent article, Aviation Week explored how F-35 operators “are being compelled to fund $150 million software laboratories, based in the U.S. and almost 50% staffed by U.S. personnel, that generate data crucial to the fighter’s ability to identify new radio-frequency threats.”

It noted that the MDFs “are twice as large as the equivalent data load in the F-22,” and that there are 12 packages covering different regions.

The JSF program is establishing two centers to produce and update MDFs, at Eglin AFB, Florida, and NAS Point Mugu, California. The latter will support Japanese and Israeli F-35s, Aviation Week reported, while an Australia/U.K. facility and a laboratory to support Norway and Italy will be established at Eglin. (Click here for a description of the Point Mugu reprograming lab.)

Given that the ALIS mainframe is located at Fort Worth, Texas, operating the F-35 will require three very large data conduits to and from these locations, again using Internet cables as the volume of data is too great for satellite transmission.

In fact, if the F-35 performs as advertised, it should gather very argue amounts of tactical data during each mission – data that it will have to transmit to the software labs in the US so they can be used to update the mission data files, adding another large volume data flow in both directions.

In addition, according to the OT&E FY 2014 report, 18,049 Joint Technical Data (JTD) modules have been developed for the aircraft, 3,123 for its engine and 1,775 for Supportable Low Observables; all are required for ALIS to operate as designed. While no information is available as to the data volumes involved, it seems logical to assume it is considerable.

The OT&E report mentions that “Maintenance downloads using the ground data receptacle … usually takes an hour, delaying access to maintenance information.” This is an indication of the data volume involved, especially as the upgraded ALIS runs on a standard Windows 7 operating system.

This was confirmed by Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan, the head of the F-35 Joint Program Office, in recent Congressional testimony.

“Currently, the pilot debrief timeline is too long as it takes approximately 1.5 hours to download a 1.5 hour flight. This is unacceptable and [we] are in the process of fielding an improved system [which] will decrease the timeline to download mission data by a factor of 8, meaning a 1.5 hour flight will be downloaded in about fifteen minutes,” he told the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces of the House Armed Services Committee on Oct 21.

Quintus Fabius schrieb:Sollte das so stimmen (was ich nicht beurteilen kann), wäre das ein unglaublicher Schwachsinn!

phantom schrieb:Was natürlich Schwachsinn ist, dass das Flugzeug bei einem "Gebrechen" nicht abheben kann. Selbstverständlich kann man immer in den Krieg ziehen, einfach ein paar Promille weniger sicher.

Nightwatch schrieb:

Quintus Fabius schrieb:Sollte das so stimmen (was ich nicht beurteilen kann), wäre das ein unglaublicher Schwachsinn!

Und nicht neu:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.forum-sicherheitspolitik.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3047&start=1875#p185106">http://www.forum-sicherheitspolitik.org ... 75#p185106</a><!-- m -->

Nightwatch schrieb:...

phantom schrieb:Was natürlich Schwachsinn ist, dass das Flugzeug bei einem "Gebrechen" nicht abheben kann. Selbstverständlich kann man immer in den Krieg ziehen, einfach ein paar Promille weniger sicher.

Nicht wenn die Software nö sagt.

Zitat:Das ist für mich jetzt ein typisches Problem was halt zu Beginn von neuen Entwicklungen anfällt. Zuerst muss man alles mal zum Laufen bringen.

Zitat:Pentagon testers have discovered cracks in a main structural element of the F-35C's wing
Government and prime contractor engineering teams are formulating a solution, and retrofits are planned on existing aircraft

Zitat:Das dürfte dann abermals für eine weitere Verzögerung sorgen!

Zitat:...The issue is not expected to affect flying operations for any of the three variants, nor will it alter the US Navy's (USN's) ability to meet its planned Initial Operating Capability (IOC) for the C-model in August 2018, according to the JPO. The cost of the retrofits is not yet known....

Zitat:Wann aber wird es endlich fertig sein? Die F-35 hat meiner Meinung nach das primäre Problem, dass man die Komplexität hier unterschätzt hat und daher die Beschaffung viel länger dauert als vorher geplant. Der Erstflug der Basisversion erfolgte ja schon im Jahr 2000.

Wann also wird die F-35 Kriegsfähig in relevanten Zahlen einsatzbereit sein?!

2020? 2025? 2030?

Zitat:Bei der derzeitigen Geschwindigkeit in der Entwicklung wie in der Produktion ist dieses System meiner Meinung nach zum Scheitern verurteilt.

Zitat:
Marines Pushing For Faster F-35B Spares Acquisition To Support New Squadrons
PENTAGON – The Marine Corps aviation community is keeping busy preparing to send its first F-35B Joint Strike Fighters to Japan in January 2017, ensuring the training and logistics pipelines are ready for global deployment of the new plane, the deputy commandant for aviation told USNI News.

The first F-35B squadron, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121, reached initial operational capability (IOC) in July and could, in an emergency, deploy overseas today......

Zitat:Pentagon's fiscal 2017 budget plan may slow production of key weapons programs, including Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet, in order to meet budget caps imposed by an agreement with Congress, the Pentagon's chief arms buyer said Wednesday.

Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters after a speech at an industry conference that the new radar-evading F-35 fighter was the Defense Department's "most cutting-edge capability," but other priorities needed funding as well.

"Dollar for dollar it probably gives us more combat capability than any other investment that we're making, but we've got a lot of other things that we need to do as well," he said. "It's not entirely fenced." Kendall gave no details on the likely scope of the expected cuts in production of the F-35 fighter jet, which is already cleared for combat use by the Marine Corps.

Read more at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/12/02/lockheed-fighters-idUSL1N13R13620151202#hbPcGM4wbgWFbQ48.99">Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2 ... gWFbQ48.99</a><!-- m -->

Zitat:Elected in June, the conservative-liberal Danish government continues to grapple with funding issues around the estimated $4.5 billion Fighter Replacement Program (FRP).

Progress in the FRP has also been complicated by rising development costs and technical problems relating to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning 11, which along with Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Eurofighter consortium’s Typhoon, is one of three short-listed candidate aircraft in the Danish competition.

That the Ministry of Defense has seen three different ministers come and go in the past two years, with political oversight for the FRP moving from Nicolai Wammen to Carl Holst and to the present minister, Peter Christensen, has also been a contributing factor in extending the decision-making process.

Christensen has told the Parliamentary Defense Committee (PDC) there will be no announcement on aircraft selection until all funding issues have been resolved and the government finalizes a finance plan.

This Danish government is set to announce a selection in the first quarter of 2016.

Zitat:Five months after it declared Initial Operational Capability of the F-35B fighter, and 14 years after award of the aircraft’s development contract, the Marine Corps is looking at how it will integrate the aircraft into its expeditionary units.

One of the first integration exercises, known as Steel Knight 2016, is taking place in Southern California, and has highlighted potential mismatches between Marine Corps plans for the F-35B and reality.

The Marine Corps is spending tens of billions of dollars to buy the F-35B Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant, which it says it needs to quickly deploy to beachheads to provide close air support to landing forces. Yet, the mechanics of getting it ashore are complex, and may make shore basing impossible.

“Quickly” is a relative concept, and the timelines necessary to prepare forward bases may be at odds with Marine amphibious warfare plans.

For example, one of four press releases issued to date about Exercise Steel Knight reveals for the first time that the Corps expects that building a 40,800 sq. ft. landing pad for the F-35B will take two months.

Zitat:This means that, for anywhere from 17 days to two months, Marines ashore would be left dependent on ship-based aircraft for close air support – the very thing the F-35B is supposed to avoid.

But the forward bases where the F-35 will refuel and rearm will also require taxiways (150’ x 96’), a short runway for rolling take-offs – the F-35B does not take off vertically on combat missions – shelters for the aircraft, their fuel and their weapons, and food and accommodation for their flight and ground personnel – a Composite Aviation Squadron consists of 417 Marines.

If building a single landing pad on a Marine base cans take 17 days, one can only speculate how long it would take to build one on a hostile beachhead, where heavy equipment would not be as freely available as at Twentynine Palms, and under fire.

Building a landing pad is not a straightforward affair. A 41,000foot landing pad requires about 800 pieces of matting weighing about 60 short tons. Getting that load to the beach during a landing would take up capacity more urgently needed for combat equipment.

Zitat:And once the matting has landed, one of the NCOs is quoted as saying that “one of the biggest challenges we face …. is getting the sand to compact as needed.” However, the Logistics Combat Element of Marine Expeditionary Units has two bulldozers and one excavator, but no steamroller, so sand is likely to remain significantly uncompacted.

Zitat:Worth the cost?

The latest available price for the F-35B, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee (see table below), is $251 million per aircraft, and the Marines plan to buy 340 of them at a total cost of $85.3 billion.

This price, reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee in July 2014, excludes research and development costs, of which the Marine Corps is paying its share separately.

The complexity and cost of deploying F-35Bs ashore to provide close air support, the amount of manpower and assets required to protect the bases themselves, and the cost of buying the aircraft makes the cost of shore-based close air support prohibitive.

But the entire exercise becomes pointless if it takes three weeks for onshore landing pads to be built, as the battle will likely be over by then.