Lockheed Martin F-35A, B, C and other ideas

[rickshaw]

I cannot really imagine there being too much of interest inside an engine exhaust.  Its not as if it would be too hard for a competent engineer to work out how both the F-22's and the F-35's work simply by observing and reading about their operation.  It's not as if it's rocket science... 

Good points as to the costings.  Mary Kolder, in her book "The Baroque Arsenal" forecast way back in the early 1980s that due to the escalating costs of weapon systems, eventually no one would be able to afford more than one fighter or one bomber or one ship or one...   IIRC her prediction was that would eventuate around about 2030.  Seems her predictions are coming true.

[Taiidantomcat]

I cannot really imagine there being too much of interest inside an engine exhaust. 

guess again. 

[Old Wombat]

I cannot really imagine there being too much of interest inside an engine exhaust.

guess again.  

Methinks you missed the sarcasm.

Or, maybe not.



Guy

[wuzak]

What I love is that recently one of our current affairs TV programmes did a show on the F-35.  During it, the people from Lockheed stated on camera that they weren't allowed to film the aircraft from certain angles "for security reasons".  Kitnut617 has provided pictures from the same angles.    

Those big red FOD guards protect what they want to keep secret. in that program you mention the FOD guards weren't in-- hence the "dont film that" reaction. there are things in that engine that we don't want people seeing same goes for the F-22.



You can take pictures of that^ all day long. Remove that FOD guard and its a different story.
[/quote]

I doubt that there is actually anything secret or sensative in the F-35's exhaust. Making it an issue could be an effort by the USAF or Lockheed Martin to distract the media/general public from areas that are actually secret/sensative or simply trying to build the mystique surrounding the aircraft.

[PR19_Kit]

Exactly similar attitudes obtained about the B-2.

When they first flew one into Fairford the aircraft had ARMED guards surrounding it all through the weekend's public days. The guards all wore the Secret Service trained 'Don't mess with me' stern looks as they held their weapons at the high port.

However on the Friday when the aircraft arrived it taxied past the assembled aerofans at around 150 ft range without a guard in sight......

Anyone who SERIOUSLY wants to know what's inside that exhaust wouldn't start by taking piccies at an airshow, they'd get a job with Pratt and Whitney.

[Taiidantomcat]

I doubt that there is actually anything secret or sensative in the F-35's exhaust. Making it an issue could be an effort by the USAF or Lockheed Martin to distract the media/general public from areas that are actually secret/sensative or simply trying to build the mystique surrounding the aircraft.

You are welcome to believe what you want, the engine exhaust is classified, just like on the F-22. Its on record as being classified. Its not made up. pretty sure the young lady who stopped the filming was USAF, and the engine is made by Pratt and Whitney.

Exactly similar attitudes obtained about the B-2.

When they first flew one into Fairford the aircraft had ARMED guards surrounding it all through the weekend's public days. The guards all wore the Secret Service trained 'Don't mess with me' stern looks as they held their weapons at the high port.

However on the Friday when the aircraft arrived it taxied past the assembled aerofans at around 150 ft range without a guard in sight......

Well as we all know if you can't see guards, then its unguarded. Don't confuse men with guns around an aircraft as trying to protect people from seeing the aircraft visually. The men with guns are to protect the aircraft physically. If the USAF didn't want people seeing the B-2 then they would have never moved it from the hanger. right? They kept it secret for years only to forget that men are not hangers?

Anyone who SERIOUSLY wants to know what's inside that exhaust wouldn't start by taking piccies at an airshow, they'd get a job with Pratt and Whitney.

Yes, showing classified information is a part of the day-1 orientation if I recall. The janitors are always bragging about it now.

Exhausts Get Stealthier As Radars Improve
Aviation Week & Space Technology
05/28/2007, page 31


Edited by David Bond

Printed headline: S-Shaped Stealth


Stealth technology continues to improve, mainly because radars are getting better, too. Active electronically scanned radars, built with a thousand or more radiating elements in arrays that can be tens-of-feet long and wide--and with more power output and range --can now see small targets, like stealthy cruise missiles from head-on. So there are lots of ideas about how to defeat them. For example, after focusing for decades on protection from X-band radars, designers are now building aircraft that also are protected from low frequencies. Exhaust also figures in stealth advances. Stealth aircraft have always been vulnerable down the tailpipe, because radars respond in particular to rotating parts. F-22s have a big, expensive, heavy blocker in the tailpipe. The B-2 has a stair-stepped exhaust. Now, both Boeing's X-45N and Northrop Grumman's X-47B-like design for the Navy's unmanned combat aircraft demonstration will have a snake-like, S-shaped exhaust--as well as the now-standard curved inlets--that traps radar signals and cools the exhaust, reducing the aircraft's infrared signature."

Its pretty standard actually. For a what if site, everyone sure seems to be without imagination. rickshaw asked why, I provided an answer, and it must be wrong because everyone decided so based on...? whether you want to believe there is a radar blocker or a warp drive, there is classified stuff beyond that FOD cover.  and thats why the Australian program was not allowed to film the back sans FOD cover.

However if you want to think its all nothing, and all for show thats just fine with those concerned. Pay no attention to the classified nothingness  nothing interesting behind this forbidden cover of mystery, i'll tell ya that.

[wuzak]

You are welcome to believe what you want, the engine exhaust is classified, just like on the F-22. Its on record as being classified. Its not made up. pretty sure the young lady who stopped the filming was USAF, and the engine is made by Pratt and Whitney.

Watched the story last night, and saw where the crew was prevented from filming the rear of the aircraft. But I do believe the engine assembly, including the nozzle, was filmed in the same program.

Also, I don't think the USAF said they couldn't film the exhaust, but did say they couldn't film from the rear of the aircraft.

[Taiidantomcat]

[Madoc]

Guys,

"Classified" can mean a whole bunch of things and be stated as such for a whole bunch of reasons.  Some of the reasons are patently absurd and have long passed their relevance.  There's plenty of times when such levels are security may seem absurd but actually isn't.  And there's no doubt some political showboating and PR going on as well.  It's a murky thing and the murkiness is there for a reason.  Sometimes that reason is valid and other times that reason is just because no one has exerted the effort necessary to get something de-classified.

Back in the mid-80s I was touring the Paul E Garber facility of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.  Back then, that was where the NASM folk did their restoration of their aircraft to put them on display down on the Mall.  The tour was a very intimate thing as we moved around from one area to the next and walked amongst the aircraft and aircraft bits that were all piled together in the many warehouses of the facility.

In one of the restoration warehouses they were working on the Enola Gay.  At that time they'd about gotten done with the forward fuselage and we all got a chance to peer into the cockpit through the nose panel glass panes and well as duck our heads into the bomb bay.

Our guide pointed out the single point bomb shackle and release mechansim.  The story he told about that was that the Smithsonian folk tried getting the blueprints for the thing from the Air Force and got stonewalled.  Turns out the Air Force deemed that mechanism to be a highly classified item and would not authorize the release of its design specs.  This, even though it was almost half a century in the past since the thing was first used.  I don't know if the tale was true and I can imagine the reasons why the USAF would still be inent on holding dear the design.  But it did mke for a good tale.

[McColm]

The USNavy is considering putting comfumeral tanks on their F/A-18s if there are any more delays.

[Taiidantomcat]

[Go4fun]

When I was a TOW gunner in the early 1980s we had to get a Secret clearance to go to  Advanced Training for the weapons system. We had  to renew it at every post we went to even though I read an article in Soldier of Fortune magazine that covered the system from top to bottom, with correct specifications, abilities and all!  

[rickshaw]

When I was a TOW gunner in the early 1980s we had to get a Secret clearance to go to  Advanced Training for the weapons system. We had  to renew it at every post we went to even though I read an article in Soldier of Fortune magazine that covered the system from top to bottom, with correct specifications, abilities and all!  

When I joined up, we were still getting rid of the last of the old British radios that we'd got in the 1950s, which the UK had first used in the late 1940s.  They were just being replaced with newish AN/PRC-25/77 sets which were US made (and were themselves despite the designation over 15 years old as well).  Despite the British radios being over 20+ years old, being decommissioned in our system and had been out of service in the UK and everywhere else for at least 10+ years, they were still covered by the Official Secrets Act.   I suspect it was a plot to confuse the enemy 'cause we could never get them to work properly.   If the enemy OTOH wanted to steal the secrets of those Sets they were very welcome to them as far as I was concerned, I doubt they'd have been able to make them work either!  They still used valves as far as I could figure out, when I looked inside them.  I could get better reception out of a crystal set. 

[Thorvic]

Now that F-53A looks like something the USAF should have had as the SF to replace the F-16's.

I know is fan-fiction but that would make an interesting model 

[rickshaw]

Is it a trick of perspective or are the wings in the top picture of the F-35 longer than normal?