F-35 JSF Hit by Serious Design Problems

Defense Industry Daily ^ | 3 December 2007 | Johan Boeder

[Yo-Yo]

The Eurofighter and the Grippen may stage a comeback if the JSF falls too far behind.

[TXnMA]

"The fault was caused by a shortcoming in the 270 volt system, when a lead inside a box touched the lid. A complete review of close-tolerance spacing and all electrical boxes is necessary."

Doesn't sound like a show-stopper to me. Put a good coating of insulating parylene on the inside of those box lids -- and, perhaps, shorten or tie down that "lead" a tad -- and they should be good to go.

[Parley Baer]

I agree. May take some doing for the fixes but is doable. Could be a lot worse.

[null and void]

Kapton tape. More wear resistant than Parylene.

I was afraid it would be something fundamental, like using a MicroSoft OS...

[Bender2]

Gadzooks! Those who moan and cry "The sky is falling!" fail to recall that there has never, ever been any airplane (or tank, rifle, ballpoint pin, etc) that went through initial testing without problems!

The Abrams Tank was a full and complete failure to folk of this ilk until it became the best MBT on the planet!

The list goes on and on and on...

[Eagle74]

This is so bogus, all new fighter designs are flawed. It takes years to work the bugs out. This is the problem with “Bleeding Edge Technology” the warrior’s want a technological advantage in combat, and they demand that they get it before any potential enemy does. This results in lower reliability, and sometimes the complete scraping of a weapon system if the bugs can’t be worked out. Just look at the engine problems with the F-15, or the problems with the V-22 osprey, or the turbine engine problems with the M-1 MBT. As far as competion from other designs goes, isn’t the F-35 JSF further along in development than any of these others, and what makes anyone think there will be no problems with their designs. “There are always design flaws” this is what all the testing is for.

[aruanan]

F-35 JSF Hit by Serious Design Problems

If they had only let it evolve!

[Fraxinus]

It sounds like the biggest problem is that the market for this plane might be occupied by other aircraft, if these design issues delay production too much.

[Yo-Yo]

Not when you include limited Stealth. The F-35 still has everybody else beat in that respect.

[steve86]

The F-35C naval variant's Hamilton Sundstrand power generator was mistakenly designed to only 65% of the required electric output.

Hard to understand how this kind of thing can happen in today's project management world. Kind of like the Mars probe with the miles/kilometer mixup (or whatever the story was).

To accommodate the required increase, it will also be necessary to redesign the gearbox for the standard Pratt & Whitney F135 engine

This isn't really superficial stuff.

During a test run of the F135 engine, part of the engine was blown up by overheating.

Glad it happened during a test run.

[jrp]

Normally whenever the JSF takes an itty-bitty baby step, the manufacturer reports it to the media for PR purposes. First engine run? Reported. Roll-out? Reported. First flight? Reported. First Wheel-up flight? Reported

First flight is an "itty-bitty baby step"?? No bias here...

[TXnMA]

"Kapton tape. More wear resistant than Parylene."

Same basic material -- but, I agree that Kapton tape is better, because it can be made thicker. I was just trying to save a few milligrams of weight...

"I was afraid it would be something fundamental, like using a MicroSoft OS..."

LOL!!! You nailed that one!!!

[TXnMA]

Technically Parylene is a polyxylene, and Kapton is a polyimide.

For the stated application, Kapton is superior, but you have to be careful in adhesive selection for the tape form in the avionic environment.

[Jet Jaguar]

Krapton wire shielding or kapton tape?

If it is the shielding, they should retrofit the wires.

[Wiz]

ping

[PGalt]

Interesting. Thanks for posting. Go Gordo!

America’s finest!

[TXnMA]

There are many things they could do to keep 270V “leads” from shorting to the “box lids”. Heck, the plane is full of composites — they could even make the “lids” out of a non-conducting material...

[Erasmus]

The real question is why the hell didn't they catch this in design reviews, or in unit testing?!

[CHEE]

If we had only outsourced this projects R&D and manufacture to China we could fly the F-35 right out of the box. Be sure to require a decal stating “Warning, do not lick the paint” on each unit.

Test flights are not required just for show. Even the 737 is still a “work in progress”.

[TXnMA]

My guess is that it was a manufacturing failure that left too much slack in the “lead”. Most things like that are left to “best practice” (rather than design toilerances) in today’s “QC-check your own work” idiocy...