F35 jet has crashed into the sea...why?

[coppercone2]

how about a sea worthy roomba to clean the decks?

[wasyoungonce]

Rumour in the aviation world is FOD ingest on take-off leading to engine failure. 
Pilot ejected and landed back on the carrier deck. 

Did they not store enough brooms on the carrier when it left port?

FOD walks are routine done on Flightline (FL) every morning or before ops and if necessary during the day again.   Its somewhat common for ground support equipment like jammers (used to life bombs, fuel tanks) to loose nuts and bolts as they are not looked after as much as the Acft.   They are used constantly.

All those who work FL always look out for FOD, but it does happen things fall off, jeez I've seen a Flap fall off an F18(un-seen hinge fatigue cracks).   Plus the salt air environ is extremely corrosive.    I used to be amazed at the USN Acft patchwork paint as they cut back corrosion and re-painted areas.   The F35 in the Royal navy are the F35B so uses ducted fan for vertical take off....pretty difficult to FOD that but hey...never say never.

[TimNJ]

Anybody know why this £100 million pound F35 jet went down?...

The Western world has outsourced most of its “general electronics” out to the Far East now..

Nothing electronic on the F35 is made in China.   I'm ex Avionics many decades from mirage IIIO/FA18/F111/Pavetack/FLIR (Australia) ....no, repeat no Chinese parts were ever used in the F18 or I believe the F35.  The US would not allow it as the parts have to be all Mil Spec with full mil Spec supply line reporting and accounting.  That itself is a whole can or worms with bogus or fake parts.   Being Military Acft parts are not cheap its easy to see why people will make bogus parts.  The have been reports years back of some bogus F18 undercarriage brackets...that were easily identifiable as bogus.

There was some crap back awhile about a PCB mfgr taken over that had made PCBs for F35 Acft.  But it was never stated any of these went into the F35 and the PCBs were blank.  Being that Acft Avionic PCBs are multilayer Mil Spec ....you can bet they are USA sourced.

Oh I did use Russian miniature power valves in the Mirage servo control (flight controls).   They worked well, better than the French Valves, lower noise.  Oh those Ruskies......!  Make good valves

In the 1960s the german government bought from the US more than 900 "Starfighters" ....Regards, Dieter

Used to be called "widow maker" due to its instability in Roll and such high pwr, roll coupling.  The Mirage IIIO also had its issues, engine, Undercarriage and roll coupling (not as bad as F104).   The pwrs to be said they would never buy another single engine fighter.....apparently that lesson is lost in Australia.  I can count over a dozen times we save F18s from the mere fact it had 2 engines.   That said the old F404 was the beginning of the "hot high performance reliable" engines.

But this F35 crash...I think the Royal Airforce uses F35B so not sure it it was Duct fan fail on take off or it was short take off?  But it crashed soon after take off.

Oh my Chinese made Fluke and Rigol and PSUs work just nicely...along with my Chinese Uni-T meters

Don't military electronics use a ton of COTS (commercial off the shelf) components these days? Supposedly, the quality of COTS components is much better than 30 or 40 years ago. You can sort of prove this if you do an MTBF calculation for a given COTS assembly with both MIL-HBK-217 (1991) and Telcordia SR-332 (2011). You'll see the 1991 MIL-HBK number comes out way lower.

To me, it seems almost impossible to have a BOM with 100% Mil-spec parts these days. I have a hard time believing that even a deep-pocketed defense contractor can get TI, et. al. to make military grade versions of their normal stuff.

And to that end, I feel like there is a large percentage of (IC's in particular) that the main (only?) fab site is in China, so can you plain just not use those? Or maybe the Pentagon is just signing hella waivers.

[David Hess]

The sea came up and hit it.

[wasyoungonce]

To me, it seems almost impossible to have a BOM with 100% Mil-spec parts these days. I have a hard time believing that even a deep-pocketed defense contractor can get TI, et. al. to make military grade versions of their normal stuff.

I thik many mfgrs parallel run production but test and bin their best parts for MilSpec then tun them thru tighter testing and assurances.  Mil Spec covers all specifications of the part from tolerances, temp ratings, radiation hardened, QA inspection, storage and test process even the manufacturing conditions...yada yada yada.   

I pulled up an old USA electronics parts 1987 MIL spec doc....for a gander...was stating that for Metallised Film capacitors must be +/-2% tolerance and this was measured at end of life.  I have no idea how they determine EOL, Jeez that's tight.

So yes, the only way you can guarantee this is to be a certified Mil Spec parts supplier meaning your parts will not be cheap this is why these Acft cost so much.  To think the buy price is just a portion, the ongoing life support costs are far higher.

This doesn't mean everything is perfect.  I've seen repaired F18 flap from external supplier repaired to Mil Spec.....we boroscope inspected thru its weep holes..could see de-bonded rivets  not clinching alloy doubles and carbonfibre.   The crap that some suppliers tried to get away with defies belief.  F18 flir LASER assy straight from factory.....qty 10, 2 were rattling inside...loose or extra screws...total fail.

So much for standards.

[Monkeh]

The F35 in the Royal navy are the F35B so uses ducted fan for vertical take off....pretty difficult to FOD that but hey...never say never.

Ducted fan driven by the turbofan, which is highly FODable, and there's no way that 15 tonne brick can take off vertically with any form of useful payload up to and including enough fuel to keep a pilot amused for an afternoon. Thrust to weight of 1.04 with a 50% load vs the ~1.3 of a Harrier, which could just about do it as a party trick with a headwind.

[David Hess]

The F35 in the Royal navy are the F35B so uses ducted fan for vertical take off....pretty difficult to FOD that but hey...never say never.

Ducted fan driven by the turbofan, which is highly FODable, and there's no way that 15 tonne brick can take off vertically with any form of useful payload up to and including enough fuel to keep a pilot amused for an afternoon. Thrust to weight of 1.04 with a 50% load vs the ~1.3 of a Harrier, which could just about do it as a party trick with a headwind.

I just checked and the F35 can also use its ducted fan for short takeoff instead of vertical takeoff.

[Rick Law]

I'm not an expert, but the idea of a "jack of all trades" one plane for all doesn't strike me well.  Each branch of the military has their requirements and this one plane has to fill them all.  Looks to me like a classic case of "a camel is a horse designed by committee."

Besides it not being able to do as good a job as something designed solely for that job, the compromise to make it multi-function likely made the systems more complex and increased the likelihood of failure.

[Monkeh]

The F35 in the Royal navy are the F35B so uses ducted fan for vertical take off....pretty difficult to FOD that but hey...never say never.

Ducted fan driven by the turbofan, which is highly FODable, and there's no way that 15 tonne brick can take off vertically with any form of useful payload up to and including enough fuel to keep a pilot amused for an afternoon. Thrust to weight of 1.04 with a 50% load vs the ~1.3 of a Harrier, which could just about do it as a party trick with a headwind.

I just checked and the F35 can also use its ducted fan for short takeoff instead of vertical takeoff.

Short take-off is the whole idea of it, yes.

[Gyro]

The F35 in the Royal navy are the F35B so uses ducted fan for vertical take off....pretty difficult to FOD that but hey...never say never.

Ducted fan driven by the turbofan, which is highly FODable, and there's no way that 15 tonne brick can take off vertically with any form of useful payload up to and including enough fuel to keep a pilot amused for an afternoon. Thrust to weight of 1.04 with a 50% load vs the ~1.3 of a Harrier, which could just about do it as a party trick with a headwind.

Bring back the good old sea Harrier. It may not have been supersonic, but it's ability to suddenly stop or go backwards mid flight without having to deploy a silly flappy thing on top, was impressive. It confused the hell out of the enemy.

[Faringdon]

Nothing electronic on the F35 is made in China.   I'm ex Avionics many decades from mirage IIIO/FA18/F111/Pavetack/FLIR (Australia) ....no, repeat no Chinese parts were ever used in the F18 or I believe the F35.

Thankyou very much.
As you know,  this line of your post is not relevant to the top post, but many thanks anyway, as it was interesting.

My Mate is a software engineer, and he has worked at places that are making prototype equipment for the UK military (that could be used by “teeth arms”)  when most of the  substantial electronics/electrical equipment used in that prototype  is designed and built in China. But it was a prototype, so I suppose buying in from China so you can get it working as soon as possible makes sense in some ways. After all, you just kind of want to test the concept, to see if its worth taking forward.

[bdunham7]

Besides it not being able to do as good a job as something designed solely for that job, the compromise to make it multi-function likely made the systems more complex and increased the likelihood of failure.

That's why there are three versions of the F35.  The 'A' for normal land runways, the 'B' for STOVL operations and the 'C' for CATOBAR.

[David Hess]

I'm not an expert, but the idea of a "jack of all trades" one plane for all doesn't strike me well.  Each branch of the military has their requirements and this one plane has to fill them all.  Looks to me like a classic case of "a camel is a horse designed by committee."

Besides it not being able to do as good a job as something designed solely for that job, the compromise to make it multi-function likely made the systems more complex and increased the likelihood of failure.

I disagree; eventually that is all the military will be able to afford, so the aircraft must fulfill the requirements of all services.

In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine%27s_laws

[coppercone2]

might as well be the ferengi rules of acquisition lol

[Rick Law]

Besides it not being able to do as good a job as something designed solely for that job, the compromise to make it multi-function likely made the systems more complex and increased the likelihood of failure.

That's why there are three versions of the F35.  The 'A' for normal land runways, the 'B' for STOVL operations and the 'C' for CATOBAR.

Exactly.  Case and point of added complexity to support the different versions.  Each does the job to some degree but not as well as one designed solely to do that job.

Even with that complexity, we will still be lacking an "air superiority" fighter capability, lacking a durable ground attacker (like the A10), a durable twin engine (like the Tomcat) for over-water flying...

I think the F35 will accelerate the drones-only future.  That may not be bad, but we don't need to spend trillions getting there.

[BravoV]

F-35 is a scam by MIC, you do not need to be an expert to know, that this flying submarine does not ooze confidence, looking at it's track record of keeps diving into the sea while not even in fighting.

[G7PSK]

So how many Harriers went for a swim when they first came out. What beats me is they spend so much money on a plane that under war time conditions life span will be measured  in hours if no minuets. Guess that is why the shift to drones and missiles.

[BravoV]

Guess that is why the shift to drones and missiles.

Yet, they can not beat farmers wearing slipper carrrying half century AK-47, for 20 years. 

[coppercone2]

well the harrier makes other safety records look great. But I think the branch using them has some responsibility, I recall reading angry rants from marine air mechanics and pilots that had to work 80+ hour weeks dealing with harriers, with the notion that the air-force counterparts worked ~45 hour work weeks on/with their planes (a general long term average number that someone conjured), they claim the long hours lead to poor safety and accidents

at the end of a 80 hour work week I would not be surprised if someone tried to tank one up at a 7/11

[Oldtestgear]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10236491/100m-F-35-fighter-jet-crashed-cheap-rain-cover-hadnt-taken-off.html



Well that explain it!

[coppercone2]

sounds like they need a check list in the form of a deck tarp that they throw everything that should not be on the plane on and inventory prior to take off. thats a good construction site method if no one steals, but since its a ship no one can steal too well. Or just a wheeled box if the parts are small enough. like a mail cart

[Bud]

The article says the pilot walks round after the ground crew finished preparations. How come the pilot did not see the cover not removed, unless he did not execute that procedural control.

[coppercone2]

the problem is they make someone walk (doing something), they need to pile it in the middle and make him look at it without the walking. they might actually comply with that. I don't think they can effectively make someone actually walk around and look, given my understanding of humans, but it is possible to compromise, hence the tarp method. Its essentially asking less of someones brain, and also applying a contrast for quick counting.

[xrunner]

The procedures for launching jets from boats has been around for many decades. It's all been figured out and trained for - every detail. If this is the cause, it is a lack of attention. Human error.

[dietert1]

A military airplane that is best kept dry. Might be another parallel to the Starfighter i mentioned above, besides the one engine design and besides the Lockheed origin. If the Daily Mail report is about correct, the accident is completely ridiculous. Nothing went bad or amiss, but some excess part..

Regards, Dieter