Lockheed was awarded $82 million this week to build 10 "production" F-22's.  These airplanes will be delivered in 2003.  Low Rate Initial Production is slated to begin in 2005.

The announcement of the winner of the JSF contract is currently scheduled for the end of October - don't hold your breath.  Boeing submitted their "Best and Final Offer" yesterday.  The current war and budget it demands are likely to cause many delays before announcing the contract award, if ever.  Don't expect to see airplanes until circa 2010, and fully operational airplanes until 2015 if go ahead is given.

Frankly, IMHO, the JSF in its current configuration (either contractor's airplane) is a bad deal for US taxpayers.  On the bright side, any production version won't look much like the POS's both companies propose because the deficiencies will have to be fixed.  There is talk of deleting the STO/VL (Short Take Off / Vertical Landing) capability to speed up development and aquisition.  This will probably kill the program - the USAF and USN support is very weak for this airplane, only the UK and USMC are really pushing hard for the project, and they both want the STO/VL capability.

Try logging into the public web sites for Boeing and Lockheed to keep abreast of their press releases -

www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/jsf/

www.lockheedmartin.com/

www.lmaeronautics.com/news/press/jsf_press.html

Hope this helps.

I agree with ArmdLbrl to a point -

- We are swimming in UCAV ideas around here, but software remains the "long pole in the tent" for getting successful aircraft flying.

- UCAV's are less capable than an airplane with a man-in-the-loop; how can you beat the processing power of a pilot that can assess and solve (within the system's limitations) a problem in real time.  What UCAV's bring to the fight are specialization at low cost, allowing many vehicles that are good at one mission to be fielded.  Since there is no pilot, these machines can trespass in very dangerous territory that exposes a man carrying vehicle to unacceptable financial risk (loss of vehicle and pilot).

Many years will pass before UCAV's possess anywhere near the capability of a manned airplane.


Armed Scientist

We only started designing the current version of JSF two and one-half years ago - it is very up to date.

Armed Scientist
I work at the Boeing-St. Louis Phantom Works, ex McDonnell Douglas Corporation.  I supported our JSF proposal work in 1999 and 2000 in a proprietary role.

The government and the contractors are interested in export sales of all versions JSF to reduce the cost.  Foriegn governments like STOVL because large deck carriers are not required - you can operate from a barge.  This is part of the reason the USN does not like STOVL, because a truly capable airplane threatens the large deck carrier Navy; the admirals adore their big boats!

British Aerospace will be a 25% partner with LM if they win the contract.

Both airplanes have propulsion problems.  Engine reliability is not the principal concern.  The LM design uses a lift fan arrangement consisting of a ducted fan and gear box driven by a long, clutched drive shaft taking power from the fan section of the engine.  A simlar MDC design I worked on in the early 90's was extracting ~25000 hp from the engine, the 10 to 12 foot long shaft turning at about 10000 rpm.  We were proceeding on faith that a lift fan assembly could be designed and built; no one had ever built a hypershaft and gearbox with more than a thousand or so horsepower.  We couldn't figure out to shed the huge amount of heat genrerated in the lift fan gearbox. I recommended to the project manager that we needed to start building gear boxes immediately (1990).  Now it is 2001, and LM has clutch and gearbox reliability problems - this is the main reason the government is getting nervous about proceeding with the STOVL airplane.  The nozzle born flights X-35 made were risky flights for publicity (mostly; this flight was an add-on to their original flight test schedule) IMHO, but that is experimental flight test (and the risk was not so high to prevent the flight; every detail would have been considered extremely cautiously before go ahead from the flight test director).

I'm not saying anything about the performance of Boeing's propulsion system, because it is probably competition sensitive.

The flight tests of X-32 and X-35 were both successful (no show stopper problems, or fatal crashes), but these are concept demonstrators, nowhere nearly ready to go to war.  The fact that the airplanes flew well is just one requirement (almost a secondary factor) in a long list that must be satisfied to produce a fighter airplane.

These airplanes are being procured on price.  Once the price is set, the vehicle weight is determined, and once the weight is known, the fuselage length is set (I know it sounds crazy, but it is only a little simplistic; fighter airplanes are bought by the pound) - and this is the airframe's principal weakness (both contractors), the fuselage is too short to install the equipment efficiently, especially where there is an emphasis on maintainability.  Internal weapons carriage severly complicates the problem by using up volume that would normally be occupied by equipment.  I bet the airplane will grow by three or four feet in length.

Oh baby...I think that has got to be my favorite plane of all time...So very sexy, if a plane can be that... I wish it had won out over the 22.