Posted on 04/02/2024 4:19:06 AM PDT by Fish Speaker
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has lifted lightning restrictions for the most widely used version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, allowing the Lockheed Martin jet to fly in thunderstorms for the first time since 2020, Breaking Defense has learned.
The Defense Department formally lifted the restrictions on March 19 after devising a hardware and software fix for the lightning protection system used aboard the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variant, JPO spokesman Russ Goemaere said in response to a press inquiry.
The F-35A had been prohibited from flying within 25 miles of lightning since June 2020, when damaged tubes were found installed on the On-Board Inert Gas Generation System (OBIGGS) in several planes.
The OBIGGS prevents a jet from exploding when being struck by lightning by pumping nitrogen-enriched air into the fuel tanks to make its contents inert, and damage to the tubes carrying the inert gas raised the specter that the system would not function properly in an emergency.
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingdefense.com ...
F-35... an overpriced POS that’s never performed anywhere near it’s design requirements. Failed miserably through out DT&E and OT so they just kept changing the requirements.
“The Pentagon has lifted lightning restrictions for the most widely used version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, allowing the Lockheed Martin jet to fly in thunderstorms for the first time since 2020”
Take that, Putin!!!!
(for once, it’s not sarcasm, we finally ‘added’ some military capability since the start of the war, rather than removed capability...but obviously too little, too late)
Ah, so its a woman in the military.
I wonder how the pilots are doing with their gas tubes?
Ride the lightning baby!
Why would anyone want to fly in a thunderstorm anyway?
To bomb things.
“Why would anyone want to fly in a thunderstorm anyway?”
I suspect it actually works well if you’re trying to evade people shooting at you from the ground or from the air, but the technology has changed significantly since my day, so not sure on this one.
So, our military went from the Lockheed Lightning (P-38) to Lockheed ain’t going in lightning, eh? I’d kill to fly a P-38 for a bit, but the F-35? Meh...give me an F-16 or perhaps a Raptor. I can’t take fugly.
“Why would anyone want to fly in a thunderstorm anyway?”
Commercial aircraft that use these same systems have to do it all the time. You just cannot go around every storm, you would never get to where you are going. This world would come to a stop if they never flew through storms.
The F 35’s just penetrated the best Russian air defenses in existence and wiped out the Iranian General and staff commanding the Hezbollah war against Israel.
That act alone makes the F 35 a truly great warrior aircraft
They find damaged gas tubes, take 4 years to conclude it was not a production defect, and label 'opsec' as a cover for damage which occurs either during normal flight operations or inadvertent/improper maintenance activities.
Nice. /s
That act alone makes the F 35 a truly great warrior aircraft
There you go again, stating something factual in a FR thread. Prepare to be scorched by all of the armchair experts.
Very very frightening.
The Iranian embassy (left) does not appear to have been damaged in the strike on the next door consulate building
somewhere, PukinDog is laughing...
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