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An F-35C Joint Strike Fighter was involved in a mishap today while landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, which is currently operating in the South China Sea. The pilot ejected from the aircraft and is in a stable condition, while seven other sailors aboard the ship were injured as a result of the accident. The fate of the aircraft is uncertain.USNI News was the first to report on this incident, citing a U.S. Navy release. That release also said that of the seven injured sailors, four received treatment aboard the Carl Vinson, while three were evacuated to a...

The House Armed Services Committee chairman railed at the expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on Friday, saying he wants to “stop throwing money down that particular rathole,” ― just days after the Air Force said it too is looking at other options. “What does the F-35 give us? And is there a way to cut our losses? Is there a way to not keep spending that much money for such a low capability because, as you know, the sustainment costs are brutal,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said a Brookings event. Air Force officials recently said they are conducting a study...

Seoul, South Korea (CNN)South Korea plans to start building its first aircraft carrier next year, and acquire fighter jets to operate on it, the country's Defense Ministry has announced. Last year, South Korea hinted at its interest in an aircraft carrier, saying it would build a "multi-purpose large transport vessel." But in its national plan for 2021-2025, published this week, the government for the first time explicitly committed to building the billion-dollar equipment. "The 30,000-ton level aircraft carrier can transport military forces, equipment and materials and can operate fighter jets that are capable of vertical take-off and landing," said...

A Norwegian fighter pilot has published a soft rebuttal to a damaging critique leaked last summer about the Lockheed Martin F-35A’s dogfighting prowess, contradicting many of the critical points made in the scathing review written by a Lockheed test pilot. Royal Norwegian Air Force Maj Morten “Dolby” Hanche, a US Navy test pilot school graduate with 2,200 flight hours in Lockheed F-16s, has flown several mock dogfights from Luke AFB in Arizona since becoming the nation’s first F-35 pilot last November. These have yet to advance to performing "dissimilar" training against other aircraft types. In a blog post on Norway’s...

The F-35 is an absolute disaster, and it needs to go. The scandals around it are legion. The supersonic stealth plane called F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was supposed to be the greatest and best military plane the world has ever seen. While the United States' stealthy F-22 is an "air superiority" plane, ensuring the country's dominance over the skies, which is why exporting it is illegal, the F-35 was supposed to be able to do everything, and be the standard fighter-bomber of the U.S. and most countries with which the U.S. has friendly relations. It was supposed to be stealthy,...

The Pentagon’s embattled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter continues to be plagued with so many problems that it can’t even pass the most basic requirements needed to fly in combat, despite soaring roughly $170 billion over budget. As the most expensive weapons program in the Pentagon’s history, the $400 billion and counting F-35 is supposed to be unlike any other fighter jet—with high-tech computer capabilities that can identify a combatant plane at warp speed. However, major design flaws and test failures have placed the program under serious scrutiny for years—with auditors constantly questioning whether the jet will ever actually get off...

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will not receive the software package required to operate the Pentagon’s top close-air support bomb until 2022, according to military.com. The article also stated that the JSF office already had discovered earlier that the precision-guided air-dropped Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) does not fit onto Joint Strike Fighter Marine Corps variant without modifications to the aircraft’s weapons bay. Yet the Department of Defense will wait until the F-35 B (the Marine Corps variant of the F-35) reaches initial operability before modifying the F-35’s armament bay, since the weapon will be useless without the right...

Americans should be worried. The U.S. military has grounded all its new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters following an incident on June 23, when one of the high-tech warplanes caught fire on the runway of a Florida air base. The no-fly order — which affects at least 50 F-35s at training and test bases in Florida, Arizona, California and Maryland — began on the evening of July 3 and continued through July 11. To be fair, the Pentagon routinely grounds warplanes on a temporary basis following accidents and malfunctions to buy investigators time to identify problems and to give engineers time...

Mozaffar Khazaee, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen who worked for defense contractor Pratt & Whitney, was arrested last week for allegedly trying to smuggle boxes of documents related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the plane expected to be the Pentagon’s next generation fighter jet. He was picked up in New Jersey on his way to Iran.

The Pentagon is focused on resolving complex software issues on the new Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet, even as it struggles to drive down costs, a top Pentagon official said on Friday, noting that software failures could "bring us to our knees." Air Force Major General John Thompson, the No. 2 official in charge of the huge multi-nation warplane development program, said the latest restructuring of the program had given officials enough resources and time to address future challenges. "Both the hardware and the software issues that we're addressing are all within the realm of being resolved," Thompson told...

F-35C meets US Navy's single-engine derision By Stephen Trimble When Lockheed Martin rolls out the F-35C on July 28, US Navy pilots will be one step closer to operating a single-engine fighter off a carrier deck. The DEW Line contributor Dave Majumdar explores this issue with an active F/A-18 pilot with more than 1,700 flying hours, who asked to remain anonymous. If there is any doubt that the US Navy aviation community will accept a single-engine fighter, such as the F-35C, one pilot has a clear answer: That "decision has been made" already and, after all, "the Navy is not...

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is slated to become the backbone of the U.S. tactical aviation fleet. This ambitious program aims to replace the combined U.S. Defense Department arsenal of F-16 Fighting Falcons, F/A-18 Hornets, A-10 Thunderbolts, and the AV-8B Harrier combat aircraft with a single platform capable of being adapted to the divergent needs of the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps. The new fighter will not only replace those rapidly aging aircraft in the colossal American inventory, but the jet is also expected to become the mainstay of Allied air...

Canada raises the spectre of abandoning Lockheed’s F-35 Analysts say Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) doesn't meet Canada's requirements even as earlier this week a top Canadian official raised the spectre of leaving the programme. "We have not as yet discounted the possibility of backing out of the program," Canadian associate defence minister Julian Fantino told Canada's parliament on 13 March. "The determinate decision has not yet been made about whether we're going to purchase, buy, [and] acquire the F-35," he adds. The Canadian government, lead by prime minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party has been a particularly vocal...

US Air Force operational testers will start receiving their first Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters at Edwards AFB in California in late June, a service official says. According to the official, the 31st Test and Evaluation Sqn will initially receive four aircraft, with more to follow later. If flight operations at Eglin AFB, Florida - scheduled to start on 6 March - ramp-up quickly to begin pilot training, the official says he is optimistic the operational testers can start flying by the end of June. The unit will initially start with local area flight operations designed to familiarise pilots...

The US Air Force's top civilian leaders say that orders for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be cut if costs continue to rise. "We have told the contractor and the programme office that there is no more money," USAF secretary Michael Donley told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on 20 March. "To the extent that if there continues to be cost growth or challenges it's going to be paid for by tails." Donley said that a fiscal year 2013 budget decision to defer production of some aircraft will cost money, but that those numbers are not...

The X-35 Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator performs flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base, California (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The tortured path of the Pentagon’s biggest weapon program is beginning to look like a case study in poor management. The problem isn’t the F-35 fighter, which is making steady progress towards becoming the best tactical aircraft ever built. The problem is a federal acquisition culture that has grown so risk-averse it no longer cares about long-term consequences. That bureaucratic myopia will be in abundant display next month, when the Department of Defense releases updated cost estimates for the fighter program. The...

Canada's government is nervously awaiting an Auditor General's report, which is expected to be highly critical of the F-35 fighter jet procurement program. Some commentators have said that in the aftermath of the report, the government may retreat into a "wait and see" attitude on the project, gauging further developments both in the United States and abroad before making a final decision on purchasing the aircraft. That process could take up to a year. Cost overruns and technical delays have contributed to rising concern with the $382 billion Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program. The General Accounting...

The F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter program -- the centerpiece of future tactical aviation and a key to implementing new military strategic guidance -- made strong progress in its development last year, a defense official said today. Frank Kendall, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the House Armed Services Committee that the fighter aircraft is essential to the Defense Department, and that it made "strong progress" in 2011. "Last fall, the department engaged in a strategy and budget review, where everything -- and I do mean everything -- was on the table," Kendall said. "After...

It is reported that spiralling costs for the new aircraft carrier programme could force the Government to scrap the cat and trap version of the new Joint Strike Fighter in favour of a jump-jet variant. The Guardian and the Telegraph newspapers both report Defence Secretary Philip Hammond wants a U-turn after projected costs for modifying the carriers to take the F-35C fighters reached as much as two billion pounds. It is understood Prime Minister David Cameron has been warned the carrier programme could be delayed by as much as seven years – or until 2027 – if existing plans are...

Lockheed Martin expects to advance its F-35 deals with Japan and Israel within the next few months, leading to combined orders for more than 60 Joint Strike Fighters. Earlier this month, company officials visited Japan to discuss the nation's planned F-X purchase of 42 F-35As, following a competitive selection made last December. Tokyo is expected to approve a letter of agreement for the deal in March, with this document likely to be signed in June, says Stephen O'Bryan, Lockheed vice-president F-35 programme integration and business development. Dismissing Japanese media reports raising concerns over a possible increase in the F-35's unit...