Are you acknowledging that the engine had issues and got 'fixed'?
I was one of the first persons on this board to report the problem of the engine fire. If you'd bother looking up the timelines, you would find that I posted about the incident before most major news agency reported it on their website.
Because a week back you were still abusing me when I pointed this out.
Not in a habit of abusing anyone, especially not on a forum. Please point me to a post of mine where I abused you? and while you are at it, kindly report that post to the moderators as well.
Secondly, the issue with the engine was that of excessive rubbing of the blades, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the F-35 would have to use the afterburner most of the time or more times compared to the aircraft it is replacing. Has the F-135 had issues through its development? Of course, which new generation engine has not. Is this a deal breaker? Not really, since the customers are protected through the updated concurrency contracts and none of the stakeholders are worried about a slippage in overall time-lines because of this.
And a day into the news coming out all of you know that the fix works?
What does this mean? Has the fix been tested sufficiently? I am not sure as I haven't been keeping up with this, but if they are planning to implement this fleet wide, they would have some sort of evidence that it does indeed solve the problem of excessive rubbing.
F 35 T/W ratio without afterburners against Empty weight (no arms, fuel, nothing)
F 35 A = .96
F 35 B = .87
F 35 C = .80
Your Standard empty (No fuel, No weapons) F-16C weighs in @ just over 18,000 Pounds with a 17,000 pound class (dry) P&W engine. This gives you a thrust to weight ratio of less then the .96 of the F-35A. The F-18C performs a little better than the Charlie with a thrust to weight ratio (empty) of around .95 with a 404-402.
F 35 T/W ratio without afterburners against MTOW
F 35 A = .4
F 35 B = .43
F 35 C = .4
T/W ratio of an F-16 @ its MTOW is is around .4 (43k+ weight with a 17K non-afterburning engine (P&W)). For the F-18C its around .4 as well with its MTOW. Even the Rafale will give you around .4 and .5 as the T2W ratio @ its maximum MTOW, and the F-22A gets you around .5-.6. No one expects any of these fighters to be doing DOGFIGHTS @ their MTOW's. An F-35 or an F-16 with a huge load out that is very close to its MTOW would most likely be accompanied by performance requirements that closely mimic those of say an F-117 (T2W ratio of .4). Entering air combat on the other hand would involve loosing a lot of the ordinance and keeping a watch on the fuel. Neither the F-35, rafale or the F-22 would enter air combat with a T2W ratio of .4-.6, heck even dry. This is just not how its done. One problem that comes with the legacy aircraft (F16 and F18) is IADS dodging which for them involves massive re-routing, support assets and the ability to have the flexibility to go AB's to get performance bumps to have a fighting chance against SAM's. The F-35 solves this problem @ multiple levels, some come from performance (internal everything) and the others come form its Low RCS (shrinking SAM envelopes) coupled with an integrated Active/Passive suite that has the ability to geolocate threats, avoid if possible or take countermeasures much earlier then legacy aircrafts.
The analysis however is flawed. Thrust performance @ MTOW is one metric but it by itself is not really very useful. The F-35 carries its weapons internally, and all of its maximum fuel ( 18,000+ for the Alpha) capacity is carried internally. The Viper and the C-Hornet on the other hand really take a HUGE PENALTY when they start approaching carriage and range requirements that begins to move closer to the hypothetical MTOW. Carrying a couple of 2K bombs brings in drag, and carrying EFT's further adds to the drag. The F-35 is also designed from the outset to give range improvements over and above the baseline Viper or Hornet. Simply put, it is a fighter that for its strike role approaches the F-15E level of performance on some missions as opposed to sticking to a moderately kitted F-16C. I have provided a work which shows this trend quite clearly in one of my earlier responses on this matter on the other thread.
Like I said in my earlier post on the matter, there are Engine experts on the web and on forums that have worked, for and on with both GE and P&W's products for more then a decade, and they can be reached out to get an understanding or clarification on the matter. There are also ex-F-16 pilots who routinely interact with current F-35 pilots over at the F-16's web forum and they can elaborate upon how the F-35 performs compared to a clean F-16 or a loaded one. There have also been pilot interviews where they have talked about how the aircraft performs vs the aircrafts it is replacing. There is no reason to believe that the F-35 would need to be in after burners any more then the aircraft it is replacing in similar situations and for similar missions. Taking MTOW is also a flawed way of comparison because most missions would not involve the aircrafts going out on MTOW, and those that would (Bombing ISIS for example) would have plenty of tanker cover and would not require air to air combat. Ultimately, where the F-35A scores of the F-16 for well-loaded and long(er) ranged missions is due to the fact that it carries its weapons internally, has all of its max fuel internally carried and does not need to optimize its ingress and egress paths due to a massive signature like the F-16 would require to.
From
"Lt Col Lee Kloos, the commander of the58th Fighter Squadron"- An experienced F-16 pilot transitioning onto the F-35A
But compared to other aircraft, a combat-configured F-35 probably edges out other existing designs carrying a similar load-out. “When I’m downrange in Badguyland that’s the configuration I need to haveconfidence in maneuvering, and that’s where I think the F-35 starts to edge outan aircraft like the F-16,” Kloos says.
A combat-configured F-16 is encumbered with weapons,external fuel tanks, and electronic countermeasures pods that sap the jet’sperformance. “You put all that on, I’ll take the F-35 as far as handlingcharacteristic and performance, that’s not to mention the tactical capabilitiesand advancements in stealth,” he says. “It’s of course way beyond what the F-16has currently.”
The F-35′s acceleration is “very comparable” to a Block 50F-16. “Again, if you cleaned off an F-16 and wanted to turn and maintain Gs and[turn] rates, then I think a clean F-16 would certainly outperform a loaded F-35,”Kloos says. “But if you compared them at combat loadings, the F-35 I thinkwould probably outperform it.”
The point is quite obvious, the F-35 with its internal carriage of fuel and weapons begins to shine as mission requirements call for greater range, and a different weight-payload balance. No longer are Massive CFT's, or multiple EFT's required to go the same distance. This is obviously before the changes and plans to up the thrust as well make the engine more efficient kick in (both for this current F-135 engine and for the future Variable Cycle engine that is in development)
It will be a day of great celebration for the F 35 program when one of their engines completes a 1000 hours without going kaput. And that day is yet to come.
Realistic T/W of F 35 without AB would be about between .5 and .6 after some fuel and ammo dump.
.65 T2W with 50% fuel, 2x2000lb bombs and 2 self defense missiles (all weapon and fuel carried internally). The F-16C gives you .60 with just 3500 pounds of fuel and same weapons load. All those weapons would be hanging off of the aircraft. Up the fuel and you need to carry EFT's beyond 7000 pounds. I seriously cannot recall the last I heard that F-16C's were going into combat without EFT's for extra fuel.
No one is saying that the F-35 will never require after burner use. Even the F-22 requires them. What I am contesting is that assertion that somehow the F-35 would have to use the AB's any more then the F-16C for a similar mission. In fact on actual missions the opposite may well be true. Currently the F-16's and all legacy fighters operated by the USAF or USN need a set maneuvering capability along with endurance while engaging an enemy either by penetrating an air cover or by doing so on an area defended by SAM's. This is so that here is a quick escape route (light up the burners) and performance margins while having to dodge detection and targeting. The F-35 due to its stealth, and internal carriage shrinks SAM and IAD envelopes thereby increasing the amount of time it spends in the Enemy_SOI without having to be restricted/slaved to the fuel requirements for a "duck and run" type of a contingency.
Its an in-development program and there are only 2 (maybe 3 now) F-35's in total that have clocked greater than 1000 hours (with AF2 being the most recent one). The short of statistics you are requiring are not characteristic of of jets at this particular point in time. BTW, since 2010 the F-135 has had a Mission availability rate of 98%, for a jet that is still in LRIP and technically in "development". Issues have been identified during development, solutions have been designed and testing has gone on. Same has happened for the fan rubbing incident. Other incident was that of supply quality and that is a legal and logistical matter not a technical one. The F-35 program much like the F-16 program has a Concurrency model ( although this model is not as aggressive on the F-35 as it was on the F-16 )development program therefore such things are a part and parcel of LRIP and not something that occurred by accident (isolating issues, and bringing concurrent changes while maintain LRIP is a program design, not an accidental consequence of something).
It is actually quite simple unless you want to prove that F-35 can supercruise. Please understand:
