"F-35 needs white fuel trucks to work" Topic

How bizarre!

Turns out F-35 has a fuel heat threshold that if reached, might prevent the aircraft from operating properly.

The problem is real enough to have prompted the repainting of fuel trucks with special paint at a cost of about $3,900 USD per truck.

Currently paint is white but they are looking at whether a green one will work.

Long term solution involves "parking shades" for fuel trucks.

defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/159421/f_35-needs-white-fuel-trucks%2C-parking-shades.html

Now it's clear that existing F-15/-16s didn't have this issue as trucks could operate in standard colours and paint, get hot and the jets would still operate.

Hmmmmm, that is more than a bit inconvenient.

I wonder how much they can market a "refrigerated fuel truck" for?

You know people in finance and new product marketing already have the answer, and probably a large, year-end bonus coming to boot.

Gotta love it when they come up with a plan to create a problem, so they can sell you a new solution.

Wonder what happens when flying low-level sorties in hot weather, over say, a desert environment?

General, you need to order more planes to account for "operational attrition".

Would be funny, if it wasn't so sad.

They also require a bowl of green M&Ms in their private trailer and their decaf mocha served iced.

darthfozzywig --

That weird rider for Van Halen was a canary in a coal mine. Basically, it told them that the venue had actually read the contract, and therefore had also performed all the proper safety measures.

If there were brown M&Ms in the bowl, then VH could assume that the venue wasn't safe to perform in, either.

This wouldn't be an issue if the US had Iraqi smarts and raised ghost armies rather than bothering with the real thing. I'm willing to sell you an imaginary white fuel truck for the the same cost as the regular trucks. Heck, if you want to imagine that is a refrigerated truck you can do that for just 10% extra.

Wow. Just wow. Is Lockheed even bothering to try to spin this or has this F-35 debacle now gone completely into the surreal environment?

I'm not entirely sure I believe this; I can't see why slightly warm fuel would have this effect -- it's compressed before injection anyway and 10 – 20 degrees less differential between injection and combustion temperatures (1600-1800C) can't be making that much difference. It makes *some* difference; planes are less efficient in warm climates, but that normally just means a small increase in fuel consumption.

The only thing I can think is that the VTOL capability drains off so much thrust that the aircraft is marginal and there's some restriction in the fuel system that means the flow can't be increased to compensate and that differential turns out to be important.

(I am not an aircraft fuel systems specialist.. but my dad is!!)

They should use red trucks. Red makes everything go faster.

"F-35 debacle now gone completely into the surreal environment?"

why yes the F-35 idea jumped a whole school of sharks years ago, Its just eaten so much money that people would go to jail if they closed the bunedogle down.

Is this for the normal Fook35 or the VTOL version? Everyone knows Lockheed-inc have duffed VTOL and the Brits now have A- Carriers without a plane for it, and another being built :xo. so much for British foresight :)
Bring back a redesign on the Hawker Harrier JJ. I say and guess what? It'll be cheaper too.

Hanging armament industry hacks (including all those darn retired idiot generals would be a great days entertainment :)
Cheers

LOL, Skippy!!!!

Naw – if the supply of F-35s from the States falls through we'll just buy Chinese. Cheaper and most of the parts are probably the same anyway.

Let's not sing the praises of the Harrier too much; over a third of the fleet crashed in non-combat related accidents. It was actually a bit of a pilot killer. One of the reasons I think the VTOL concept is entirely overrated.

-Will

As they're air force it's standard conventional F-35A, not VTOL F-35B.