3 ms·

Are you sure about that? I thought one of the drawbacks of the F35 was that it needs quite a bit of servicing in between flights, something like 7-10 man hours

Are you sure about that? I thought one of the drawbacks of the F35 was that it needs quite a bit of servicing in between flights, something like 7-10 man hours of servicing per flight hour and ~10 flight hours before failure. Genuine question. Seems a bit much if it’s just resupplying fuel and munitions, not that I know much about this.

jtriangle 3y ago
It should be serviced is much different than it has to be serviced. If you're in a position where, your airfields are getting holes blown in them, getting forces back up in the air is more important than having a guy double check a bunch of things that are probably fine anyway.
- haldujai 3y ago
  Well that’s my question. >Breaking down the engineering requirement for the three F-35 variants across the programme, the projected mean flight hour between failure was 10 hours for the conventional F-35A (from a requirement of six hours), seven hours for the STOVL F-35B (from a requirement of four hours), and 10.3 hours for the F-35C (from a requirement of four hours). Failure suggests it has to be serviced, I’m not sure how that’s exactly defined or if that flight hour number is for airframes receiving regular scheduled maintenance (which is substantial) or not. It certainly appears discordant with your statement of: “double check a bunch of things that are probably fine anyway.” Unless “failure” refers to non critical systems which may or may not be the case. I’m wondering if you are speaking based on knowledge / experience or conjecture as I have not read much on the topic beyond random news/magazine articles over the years and don’t know the answers to these. There is obviously still merit in being able to land outside of airbases but your description made it seem like this is a sustainable strategy rather than a backup landing and emergency take off situation 1-3 times to not lose the airframe. https://www.key.aero/article/lockheed-martin-reveals-f-35-maintenance-picture https://www.key.aero/article/lockheed-martin-reveals-f-35-ma...
  - jtriangle 3y ago
    I wouldn't take it as any failure has to be immediately serviced in order for the jet to be effective. Make no mistake, it's a maintenance nightmare for alot of reasons, but if all you want to do is put ordinance on target, which is probably your situation if you're using improvised runways, it'll be just fine for at least awhile. You'd be surprised at how many failures an aircraft is allowed to fly with, and, more than likely, unless you've flown on a brand new aircraft, you've flown exclusively on aircraft that had a dozen or more things that are wrong with them that need to be repaired. The military world is no different, and with lockheed's nepotic service contract on these jets, I'm sure they get grounded for all sorts of trivial stuff.

jtriangle 3y ago

It should be serviced is much different than it has to be serviced. If you're in a position where, your airfields are getting holes blown in them, getting forces back up in the air is more important than having a guy double check a bunch of things that are probably fine anyway.

haldujai 3y ago
Well that’s my question. >Breaking down the engineering requirement for the three F-35 variants across the programme, the projected mean flight hour between failure was 10 hours for the conventional F-35A (from a requirement of six hours), seven hours for the STOVL F-35B (from a requirement of four hours), and 10.3 hours for the F-35C (from a requirement of four hours). Failure suggests it has to be serviced, I’m not sure how that’s exactly defined or if that flight hour number is for airframes receiving regular scheduled maintenance (which is substantial) or not. It certainly appears discordant with your statement of: “double check a bunch of things that are probably fine anyway.” Unless “failure” refers to non critical systems which may or may not be the case. I’m wondering if you are speaking based on knowledge / experience or conjecture as I have not read much on the topic beyond random news/magazine articles over the years and don’t know the answers to these. There is obviously still merit in being able to land outside of airbases but your description made it seem like this is a sustainable strategy rather than a backup landing and emergency take off situation 1-3 times to not lose the airframe. https://www.key.aero/article/lockheed-martin-reveals-f-35-maintenance-picture https://www.key.aero/article/lockheed-martin-reveals-f-35-ma...
- jtriangle 3y ago
  I wouldn't take it as any failure has to be immediately serviced in order for the jet to be effective. Make no mistake, it's a maintenance nightmare for alot of reasons, but if all you want to do is put ordinance on target, which is probably your situation if you're using improvised runways, it'll be just fine for at least awhile. You'd be surprised at how many failures an aircraft is allowed to fly with, and, more than likely, unless you've flown on a brand new aircraft, you've flown exclusively on aircraft that had a dozen or more things that are wrong with them that need to be repaired. The military world is no different, and with lockheed's nepotic service contract on these jets, I'm sure they get grounded for all sorts of trivial stuff.