The Hidden Troubles of the F35

The Hidden Troubles of the F-35 | Defense News

The link takes you to Defense News, which has on the page links to various articles showing the various issues the F35 has currently (I believe currently as the articles do not have dates on them)
Supersonic speeds could cause big problems for the F-35′s stealth coating

[h=1]Supersonic speeds could cause big problems for the F-35′s stealth coating[/h][FONT=&quot]At extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability, a problem that may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.
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[FONT=&quot]The Defense Department does not intend to field a fix for the problem, which influences not only the F-35’s airframe and the low-observable coating that keeps it stealthy, but also the myriad antennas located on the back of the plane that are currently vulnerable to damage, according to documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.
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[FONT=&quot]The F-35 Joint Program Office has classified the issues for the "B" and "C" models as separate category 1 deficiencies, indicating in one document that the problem presents a challenge to accomplishing one of the key missions of the fighter jet. In this scale, category 1 represents the most serious type of deficiency.

snip


The F-35B can fly for 80 cumulative seconds at Mach 1.2 or 40 seconds at Mach 1.3 without risking damage.

But for both the C and B models, flying at Mach 1.3 over the specified time limits poses the risk of inducing structural damage to the aircraft’s horizontal stabilizer.

It is infeasible for the Navy or Marine Corps to operate the F-35 against a near-peer threat under such restrictions, the documents acknowledge.

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Shhh, we got the Poles to buy 30+ of them.

Gosh, why do so many things related to the Pentagon remain "hidden"?

The f-35 has more problems than that, the vtol version is know for extreme frame failure under low flight hours, as well as tires rapidly failing as well. The marine vtol version though has an accurate cannon while the airforce and navy version the cannon can not hit the broad side of a barn with the difference being the marine version is wing mounted while the airforce and other versions are internal, which means since they are the same cannons it is a frame flex issue not a cannon issue itself.

The stealth coating thing has been a problem with the f-22 as well as the f-35, with the f-22 it works unless a harsh environment like the desert is around it, in which the dust rapidly strips the coating requiring it to need more frequent coatings in harsh environments. The f-35 coating however has been accused of being vastly inferior to the f-22 coating, so bad that lockheed has been accused of applying multiple thick coats to cover up how easily the coating fails.


There are also major issues with the air delivery system used by the f-22,f-35 and newer f-16 systems that uses ambient air rather than air tanks. The system had been known for multiple blackouts for pilots, however in the f-35 the export requirement forbids modification of any systems except for israel. The japanese f-35 that went down is widely speculated to be a failure of the same system, a system that has performed poorly enough that russia has mocked it endlessly for the us making their jets unsafe for pilots, and this is coming from a country with a history of putting safety last.

There are also numerous software glitches, a run of pratt-whitney engines prone to catching on fire and exploding due to improper clearances which required the engines being recalled and replaced, and the first few hundred being unable to do any combat without a massive costly upgrade which did piss off customers who already bought the system, to pay full price for a semi functional system under hopes the updates would fix them, only to be told you have to pour out bucketloads of money to get your aircraft upgraded to what you were promised it would do when you bought it.