For the first time in the F-35 program, test pilots have performed a hover in a B-model aircraft at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas F-35 factory.
Two primary components provide the vertical lift necessary for hover, namely Rolls-Royce’s shaft-driven LiftFan and 3-Bearing Swivel Module (3BSM).
According to Lockheed Martin, the LiftFan is mounted horizontally behind the cockpit. As the aircraft transitions to hover mode, two doors open on top of the aircraft and the two counter-rotating fans blow approximately 20,000 pounds of unheated air straight down, producing almost half of the downward thrust needed for a pure hover mode.
The majority of the remaining vertical thrust is provided by the 3BSM at the rear of the aircraft. With the ability to quickly swivel ninety-five degrees downward, the 3BSM can direct up to 18,000 pounds of heated thrust from the engine exhaust.
Click here to read The Engineer’s report on how Britain’s vertical lift expertise is keeping the F-35B combat aircraft aloft.
OMG, it flies & for a reported cost of >£70 million each, that is definitely a plus point. Does this mean we can ditch the cardboard cut-out F35s recently deployed to deter the bad guys? Now if only we had somewhere to put them, a working aircraft-carrier, for instance.
Slightly puzzled – if the 20,000lb from theLift Fan is nearly half the required thrust the total required is in excess of 40,000b, but the rear nozzle gives only 18,000, so where does the rest come from?
“required thrust….where does the rest come from?”
“hot air from politicians, the PR puffers and meja!
Mike B
UK achieved this in 1960 with the Harrier!!!!!
That looks absolutely splendid.
Great achievement, and some UK involvement. Shows how difficult Supersonic and VTOL are to combine.
Sadly, after Wilson and Healey dismantled our aircraft industry in the 60s (including destroying our own supersonic VTOL programme in P1154 to buy the most expensive and slowest F4s ever built), our brilliant aviation industry has to make do with being parts and systems manufacturers and assemblers, no longer an aircraft industry. Remember when SBAC stood for “Society of British Aircraft Manufacturers”, then “Sole British Aircraft Manufacturer” now “Society of British Aerospace Companies”.
Aircraft carrier/s are on the way.
It looks like the US have now caught up with our(now defunct) Harrier program, so they are getting there gradually.
Biggest question is, can we afford the cost of these aircraft to use on our shiny new aircraft carrier/s when they eventually finish their development/testing/proving timetable ?
– even earlier than that – check out the Flying Bedstead Pathé News on YouTube from 1954.
Exactly Kevin, What is the huge difference between the F35 and the Harrier that warrants so much fuss 50 years after we did it?
Please explain someone !
“UK achieved this in 1960 with the Harrier!!!!!”
… and it didn’t need a barn door on top. I hope it can never get activated in full forward flight!
Next thing they’ll “invent” is the supersonic passenger airliner!
The reports make no mention of earlier items that stated the engine’s exhaust was so hot that on the full downward thrust needed to hover or take off, it melted and blew chunks of tarmac around, spalled concrete runways and potentially melts Aircraft carrier decking. Not exactly ideal for a plane that is supposed to be ‘portable’. It seems also not to have the vertical thrust vectoring ability of the Harrier (or AV8-B) that made it so lethal in dogfights. I’m at a loss to see what advantages this very expensive aircraft offers anyone. Oh, except for the ability to make some people very rich…
From what I understand, British engineers have had a very significant hand in this jet so don’t criticize it too much.
e.g. the system that allows the aircraft to land itself automatically, even onto a moving ship, was developed by Qinetiq on the VAAC harrier and adopted on the F35B. Then some Americans realised it could be adapted for the C model to land horizontally on carriers too.
This aircraft is a great deal heavier than the Harrier which is why it’s a notable achievement – it can carry more weapons/fuel. It is also much much easier to land safely so the training requirements will be less.
The lift fan and gearbox design, while invented by an American, are made by Rolls Royce.
JohnK. The benefits of viffing are very debatable, and are hotly debated by pilots. 1g where planes can pull 9 regularly. Even the crowd pleasing Cobra manoeuvres of the Russian fighters are often rubbished as stunts by those who’ve been to war and never surrender their energy. Harrier, great aircraft though it is, has never gone air to air against a competent or well equipped enemy. It was designed for ground attack. In the Falklands, low and slow, fighting a virtually third-world enemy, it was perfect. High and fast against a modern enemy, it would have been a deathtrap.
Lets not be cynical. Yes we did invent the VTOL principle and proved it works. But this aircraft is also supersonic so the aerodynamics change. In my view the design is not pretty but it is employing British engineers in the North West and will continue to do so. It would be great to turn the clock back to the fifties and sixties but we can’t so lets live with where we are.
I am old enough to remember the ‘flying-bedstead’ and recall press reports that on one sad occasion, its control mechanism (surely very (too early?) early electronics!) caused it to literally fly itself directly down into the ground, killing the pilot.
Notwithstanding the many differences between my thinking and several other grumpy old Engineers, it is comforting to read (based upon their topic knowledge (better and more specific than mine) and rational thinking that they do admit to limitations in the Harrier.
I have no idea of the entire ‘costs’ of the Harrier programme (I mean its development, manufacture, training of pilots, distribution to theatre (an appropriate contradiction unless one accepts that all wars are tragedies!) arming, fueling, and so on…expended to destroy a few Argentinian planes..but am reminded of de Bono’s suggestion (as it was costing Uncle Sam £1,000,000 each to remove the VC from the battlefield, that bribery [$50,000 would have bribed anyone in Asia in the 1960’s] was surely a serious option.
cycnical old engineer | 7 Nov 2014 4:41 pm
Actually the Sea Harrier was a very good fighter for its era and the Argentinians were very competent and well equipped. The Sea Harrier FA2 was even better with superb radar and medium range missiles which negated its lack of speed.
The Harrier did it better. And with flaky stealth coatings ,smart helmet that has problems together with lack of power and too small weapons load I would by-pass the F-35 altogether . Instead either the SAAB Gripen Next Gen or Super Hornet E/F would be my choice to shoo away any Russian Bears/Su-30’s
COE – The secret surely is to fight battles to your own strengths. Why would you want to try and chase fast planes around when it is more efficient to ‘loiter’ and then shoot them down using your much better three-dimensional maneuverability. As Mike says, the Argentinian pilots were very competent and were flying advanced French supersonic Rafale fighters but despite this they managed to shoot down no Harriers and suffered serious losses themselves. Results speak for themselves.
Tim – The F.35 may eventually have greater range and load carrying capability then the Harrier and variants but if it destroys any non-specific landing pad material in a vertical landing, it makes it a tad limited in application. The current landing pad material ‘difficulties’ faced by the F.35’s are well documented. These ‘difficulties seem to make it logistically impracticable (impossible?) to utilise the F.35 as a forward/front line tactical fighter-bomber unlike the Harrier which is easy to conceal and can land and take off from a grassy clearing.
Given these shortcomings it makes no sense to me why we did not design our new carriers to be able to use ‘conventional’ Carrier based aircraft as well as VTOL/STOL ones. I believe the Swedish modified multi-role Saab ‘JAS 39 Gripen’ is a very good all-rounder. A sea going version of the Eurofighter Typhoon would maybe also serve well, unless design limitations prevent such a version.
When the vertical take contest was taking place; it became very obvious that carrying extra equipment just for vertical take off – such as extra engines and or special lift fans. Resulted in no lift being left for taking off with any ordinance.
All the designs that used such extras failed.
The proposed 1154 (Harrier++) would have been much more advance and would in effect be more advanced than this F35, which currently appears to be capable of lifting very little (what fuel load? No ordinance so far).
Pure politics and American pressure destroyed the 1154 and the TSR2.
Regards
Alex
Er, the Argentinians flew Mirages, not Rafales!!!!
I am so old…that in the summer of 1962 I was at Bristol Siddeley Engines during University vacations, working (in a VERY minor capacity) on the development of manufacturing techniques for various variants of the Olympus Engines-including those for the TSR2. As another ‘poster’ describes, this was scuppered by politics and cash!
If I recall, not only was the decision -from across the pond and to permit a loan to be given…to cancel TSR2 implemented: part of the agreement required the jigs and fixtures (including mine! for a small but important part of turbine blade modification) to be destroyed.
Though perhaps we, in the UK got our own back years later: fellow bloggers may recall my work in specialist functional textiles. I assisted several US firms in important elements of NBC development of the next generation of protection: the subsequent US developed suits and facilities were recognised as world-beating. Unfortunately the UK version of these suits, which ‘ours’ would have replaced, (and which were offered to the military at highly advantageous prices) were based upon technology from a firm in an area of the country with high unemployment.
Unless things have altered in the past few years since my involvement…UK armed forces still go ‘foreign’ with outdated suits! and the civilian services likewise.
Hey Ho
Mike B
TP – I happily stand corrected but I believe my discussion topics about the F.35 and the limited design brief of our new Carriers remain perfectly valid.
JohnK, indeed your argument is sound. I just wanted to correct the type of aircraft involved in the Falklands conflict, as the Rafale was still 4 years away from its first flight, and is a significantly more capable machine than the Mirages actually used. Not wishing to denigrate the work of the Harrier pilots in any way, but they might have had a few more problems had they been facing Rafales and not Mirages!
Thanks Tim. As for Rafale vs Mirage, both are designed for supersonic capability and thus have the same limitations in their ‘turning circle’. The Harrier was able to turn ‘on a sixpence’ in comparison and therefore able to target the offenders for a much longer period. So long as the Harrier could avoid/destroy/confuse incoming ordnance they had a significant tactical airspace advantage. The F.35 does not have the same ‘3D’ maneuverability and will therefore in all probability fight on maybe less than level terms against lighter and more agile opponents. This is my opinion only but unless absolute proof is given that I’m wrong, I’m sticking with it…
How delightful to see/read two persons technically trained dealing with a difference of opinion courteously and effectively: not with a blinding arrogance -and a dash of UN-necessary ignorance! “Until absolute proof is given…” is surely the basis of decisions by all who direct those great forces of Nature to the benefit of mankind -not not of those who manipulate man’s puny laws to the benefit of whoever will pay the most. The outcome…irrelevant to them: what they are interested in is the ‘income’. And amazingly, to protect this ‘outrage’ from disturbance is what apparently all the military preparedness is for. Our world has indeed gone mad!
RE: the missing 2,000lbs thrust (18k + 20k + x = 40,000) – there are additional jets at the wing tips for stability. I believe this should account for the difference.
Hey MB – I always read your posts with interest (and a degree of awe) and am tickled pink(ish) by your comments on my and Tim’s exchange. Courtesy costs nothing and gains much. Using insults conversely inform only of the person using them and little else.
R’s
JohnK
I subscribe exactly to your view. Somewhere I read that one definition of a ‘gentleman -and I am sure a lady as well- is that they never knowingly give offense. My Prof at St Andrews (60-64) always maintained that part of his role was to create ‘civil’ Engineers! I must admit There have been a few occasions in my life when I have deliberately given offense! -often to put in their place jumped-up clerks masquerading as professionals. If you would like sight of more of my ‘past’ (and our long-suffering editor/moderator is aware of some) I will be happy to supply it. my e-mail mikeblamey@yahoo.co.uk. Send me yours and I will respond. In fact Jack B -another regular blogger- has reviewed my ‘magnus-opus’ and delighted if you would like to do the same.
Best
Mike B
How is this an improvement over a Harrier. Seriously, doors have to be opened to transition to hover mode. What happens in the process of switching from one mode to the other. In other words how do you maintain lift if you have to slow down to a crawl before opening the door so the liftfan can take over. I will take a Harrier any day.