The F-35 fleet has achieved 200,000 flight hours across global operations and within the same week, the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin also delivered the 400th production F-35.
“The F-35 air system is a key enabler of our National Defense Strategy and delivers the combat proven, advanced capabilities our warfighters and Partners need to meet mission requirements,” said Vice Admiral Mat Winter, Program Executive Officer for the F-35 Joint Program Office.
“This 400th delivery is a significant milestone as the F-35 Enterprise continues to grow and expand around the world. The collaborative efforts across the JPO, U.S. services, partners, and industry remain focused on driving costs down, quality up, and faster delivery timelines across our development, production, and sustainment lines of effort.”
The 400th production aircraft is a U.S. Air Force F-35A, to be delivered to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The production total is comprised of 283 F-35A, 87 F-35B and 30 F-35C deliveries. The 200,000 flight hours includes all F-35s in the fleet comprised of developmental test jets, training, operational, U.S. and international aircraft. Among the three variants, approximately 125,850 hours were flown by the F-35A, 52,410 hours by the F-35B and 22,630 by the F-35C.
“These milestones are a testament to the joint government, military and industry teams designing, building, sustaining, maintaining, operating and flying F-35s around the globe,” said Lockheed Martin Vice President and F-35 Program General Manager Greg Ulmer.
To date, 400 F-35s have been delivered and are now operating from 17 bases worldwide.
Recently, the 17th F-35B for the UK was delivered. Numbers right now are exactly where they’re expected to be and inline with the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review.
2 F-35B in LRIP run 3, 1 F-35B in LRIP run 4, 1 F-35B in LRIP run 7, 4 F-35B in LRIP run 8, 6 F-35B in LRIP run 9, 3 F-35B in LRIP run 10, 2 F-35B in LRIP run 11, 2 F-35B in LRIP run 12, 6 F-35B in LRIP run 13, 8 F-35B in LRIP run 14 and 7 F-35B in LRIP run 15. This brings us to 42 in 2023. The next run brings us to the total of the first batch of aircraft, 48.
It is hoped that 138 F-35 aircraft will have been delivered by the 2030s. Around 2023, the Ministry of Defence have indicated that the UK will have 42 F-35 aircraft with 24 available as ‘front-line fighters’ and the remaining 18 will be used for training (at least 4-5 on the OCU), be in reserve or in maintenance.
The problem for the USN’s “C” model is, they have no HOME….
https://news.usni.org/2019/06/03/congress-unhappy-with-ford-class-inability-to-deploy-with-f-35-fighters
Anybody else have an issue with this as well?
Cheers
What bargins the QEC are by comparison.
Less clout in the air group but the UK does not need super power levels of clout like that.
With the size of the DoD budget Helions it’s interesting that even you have budget issues.
I must be careful what I say about another country’s military but if i was an American taxpayer I would have some $17 Bn issues with the USS Ford. I say that figure as the R & D costs are somehow magicked away in that article
Launched (floated up) 9 months before the QE and it still does not work as designed and incapable of operations let alone combat. Forgive my waving my Union Flag here Helions but I think our $5 Bn QE looks a bloody good buy right now as at least it can sail oceans and operate 5th Gen aircraft. And PoW is due into sea trials later this year. I wish your Navy all the best but I can see the Royal Navy having two operating 5th Gen carriers before they have one.
Money Money Money…
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/06/house-armed-services-scrutinizes-f-35-costs-abms-army-modernization/
Cheers!
On a COMPLETELY different note: Will you PLEASE come and clean up your toys!!!??? 😀
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/06/03/revolutionary-war-shipwrecks-get-first-good-look-in-years/
It’s not POLITE to litter…
Cheers!
The F-35C can still deploy onboard the other USN CATOBAR carriers. Please see the link below from the same source:
https://news.usni.org/2019/02/28/navy-declares-initial-operational-capability-for-f-35c-joint-strike-fighter
So the F-35C still has MULTIPLE HOMES.
Hi Rokuth,
absolutely correct on the Nimitz class’s ability to fly Charlie models, however it’s not the F35C I’m concerned about. (despite it shortcomings, the F35 is what we have and it will have to do) my bigger point is that the “buggy before the horse” approach being used by the USN regarding the development of the GRF class has been a disaster from the start.
The Ford is going to return to the fleet this year with only 2-3 of it advanced weapons elevators certified for use, testing ongoing on its EMALS, and numerous other issues. Yes, it is first of class and that is always a buy in terms of ironing out bugs in new unproven systems but the USN itself has admitted CVN 78 will take years to be fully deployable. It’s always been my contention that CVN 79 – the JFK – will deploy before the GRF.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18318/shock-trials-or-no-the-navys-newest-supercarrier-is-still-an-unreliable-debacle
We are putting all of our eggs into a very suspect basket at a time where the current paradigm regarding the operations of the fleet is in flux and changing rapidly to a future where carriers will be of limited value in a peer war due to the ever ongoing march of technology. The USN was right to propose the early retirement of the Truman to free up funds to pursue new concepts that their own internal wargaming has shown to be survivable in scenarios where supercarriers are not…
Please see below for an example of this.
Cheers!
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/june/corvette-carriers-new-littoral-warfare-strategy
Agree with you about the GRF. Problems with new tech is always going to be buggy at the beginning. Murphy’s Law in full effect on that ship.
However, isn’t the JFK going to have all the same new tech, like EMALS, on it as well? Only difference being that it will be built incorporating all the lessons learnt from the GRF.
The JFK is benefiting from the (many) painful lessons learned during the induction and trials of the GRF. The ship is ~ 90% physically complete with the installation of the island and several months ahead of schedule. A big advantage she’ll have during shakedown will be not having to remove and reinstall systems such as the balky weapons elevators, the EMALS should be functioning correctly by then, the radar problems will be fixed, the main thrust bearings on the shaft will not be defective ( a HUGE problem on GRF) – etc – all of the systemic issues plaguing the GRF should be known, solved, NA, or under control. It’s much easier to apply these fixes while the ship is still building than finding out about at sea.
Another big advantage the “Big John” will have is working through congress now – the previous fixed cost contract for the carriers did not include the funds to deliver the ships ready to fly the “Charlie” model F35s to save money. The GRF will have to have these modifications before it can fully deploy without restriction. The JFK should be delivered with them in place and ready to go. I really believe CVN 79 will deploy fully capable before the GRF will… CVN 80 – Enterprise – will be trialing before the GRF bugs are fully worked out IMO…
Cheers!
Forgive the waffle below but these comments I posted on another story might be appropriate. Especially the Chinese M band radar.
The F-35 will never be able to overcome its inherent weakness, its limited internal weapons load. It will always have to choose between acting as the eyes and ears operating in tandem with a bomb/missile truck or abandoning its stealth to carry a significant weapon load out using external pylons. Even in stealth mode as it reveals its presence with the first shot. So it must then manoeuvre to avoid getting itself into a dogfight which it would probably lose. There will never be sufficient numbers to overcome its limitations. So if it is limited in peer to peer engagements using a trillion $ plane to remove a pick up full of AK47 armed terrorists makes little sense.
A couple of points. Even if the F-35 is used as the eyes and ears role this would be result in diminishing returns. As soon as the F-35 transmits to Typhoons or to Meteors its EM emissions light up its position. The F-35 is not invisible. It is a low observable aircraft. Once it reveals its presence the task of tracking it is eased. I understand that the F-35 can only carry 2 Meteors internally (Meteors are too big for secondary internal hard points) and 2 ASSRAM. Not much to go up against an opponent with a reasonable air force. Despite the recent suggestions ( planted? ) that the F35 can stand up for itself in a dogfight, it has never been able to shake off the revelations that it could not escape the gun on 30 year old F16’s in mock dogfights. The National Interest said ” An F-35 stealth fighter that gets in a short-range duel with a Flanker-E will be in big trouble.” What chance against a SU-57 or even Chinese export J-31’s. Maybe due it is due the above limitations that the UK has basically only chosen the F-35 for carrier roles. And this may not have been as automatic as the sales pitch suggests. I do remember reading that when the UK appeared to be changing its mind and decided to install cats on the carriers the US declined to transfer catapult technology. The reason being if the UK dropped out of the F-35B order the entire development cost would come from the US marines budget. Given all the above surely the original statement that the F-35 will turn a “great fighter” is questionable. One thing is certain the F-35 will not be the supreme and CHEAP Jack of all Trades that it was originally advertised it would be.
A good point which is one of the reasons the USAF wants to purchase these upgraded F15EXs to act as networked bomb trucks for F35s in the initial phase of a full scale war to avoid exactly that to which you refer…
https://warontherocks.com/2019/06/f-15ex-the-strategic-blind-spot-in-the-air-forces-fighter-debate/
Cheers
1 Cheap. The F-35 grew out of a program initially named “ Common AFFORDABLE Lightweight Fighter”. The objective was to develop a CHEAP fighter to support the F22 program whose unit cost had grown to such an extent that the F22 program was eventually shut down mainly because costs had become unacceptable.
2. I am not disputing the capability of the F-35 to collect and process data. Nor did I dispute that the F-35 is difficult detect with, C, X or Ku bands. But when it does emit or increase its RCS ( radar cross section ) it reveals its presence and all that flashy stealth goes out the window. My point was that stealth has its limits and the sales pitch is distracting from this. In addition to this weakness a technology development is almost certain to catch up with the F-35. It was a surprise in Gulf War 1 when the RN’s obsolete L band radars detected the F117. It had not been tested against this old tech. But the Serbs learned to exploit this weakeness when they shot down the Nighthawk. Similarly, the Chinese are now claiming to have developed a M band radar which eliminates current stealth. If this is correct the US and UK have got a lot of slow fighters with poor manoeuvrability, limited payload and range, demanding a huge amount of support for availability and the most expensive front line fighter in production.
I am not disputing the capability of the F-35 to collect and process data. Nor do I dispute that the F-35 is difficult detect with, C, X or Ku bands. But when it does emit EM or increase its RCS ( radar cross section ) it reveals its presence and all that flashy stealth goes out the window. Stealth has its limits and the sales pitch is distracting from this. A technology development is almost certain to catch up with the F-35. It was a surprise in Gulf War 1 when the RN’s obsolete L band radars detected the F117. It had not been tested against this old tech. But the Serbs learned to exploit this weakeness when they shot down the Nighthawk. Similarly, the Chinese are now claiming to have developed a M band radar which eliminates current stealth. If this is correct the US and UK have got themeselves a lot of slow fighters with poor manoeuvrability, limited payload and range, demanding a huge amount of support for availability and the most expensive front line fighter in production.
Simple fact is that until this aircraft faces a decent adversary no one will really know what it can and cannot do. Its very unlikely that we know all its abilities. Stealth will only really matter at the start of a campaign anyway, to get rid of the anti air obstacles that lower gen aircraft would struggle with.
The Harrier faced criticism when it was new and untested, once it saw action its apparent weakness’s mattered not one bit.
I tend to think that if an aircraft looks right, it is right. All the great fighters and bombers looked the part and for me the F35 is a stunning aircraft that is still very much in its infancy.
Lets not also overlook the pilot training aspects, even a bad tool can do a good job in the right hands. Every air system is a trade off and its the ability of the pilot to play to the systems strengths and not allow the enemy to play to its weakness.
Nothing is ever perfect.
David. I agree entirely. I freely accept I am no expert but it makes sense to question manufactures sales pitches. After all potential adversaries are looking to for weaknesses. But if the Chinese have actually produced this M band radar that would be a real game changer.
Your quite right John, manufacturers do like to play loudly to the products strengths and conveniently forget it’s weaknesses.
State sponsored statements of ability’s is also a political weapon, designed to create disharmony within the opposing states political heirachy. Saying you can defeat the main attributes of your adversaries newest tech helps fuel the sceptical sections of both government and society and if you get lucky the project runs into too much resistance and maybe gets down graded or even scrapped. No doubt people are working on radar or other detection systems but how effective they are remains to be seen. The Chinese don’t have an F35 or F22 to test against.
I think the F35 program has got a few country’s rattled and we are seeing the reaction to that. If it was a useless as made out it wouldn’t be selling in such good numbers. It seems every month you hear another country looking to acquire F35. It must have something special going for it, apart from it’s good looks.