November 17 has become a memorable day for world military aviation, writes Aviation Week. First (and this is confirmed by Lockheed Martin), a crack was found on one of the main bulkheads of the F-35 airframe, which is undergoing fatigue tests at Fort Worth, and secondly, the US Air Force is looking for an F-22 fighter that has disappeared in Alaska.
A fatigue crack on one of the F-35 bulkheads was discovered after only 1,500 hours of static testing. The bulkhead was made of aluminum alloy. The fighter's glider is designed for at least 8000 flight hours, and the test was to double this figure. How serious the crack is remains to be seen. It happened on the F-35B glider, in which the titanium bulkhead was replaced with an aluminum one in order to reduce weight. If it is a manufacturing error, then this is one thing, and if it is a design defect, then it is quite another.
At the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, four F-35Bs are already involved in flight tests. Currently, five prototypes are in various stages of construction, with an additional four or five machines to be produced.
The Pentagon is trying to figure out what to do with the F-35 program, which continues to be behind schedule and over budget, and this is largely attributed to the F-35B's problems. It was widely reported that the US Navy made another attempt to persuade Secretary of Defense Gates to abandon the continuation of the Marine Corps F-35B variant of the short-take-off and vertical landing fighter.
As for the F-22 disaster, this is the third lost aircraft of this type. The first one (number 014) was lost on December 20, 2004 due to problems in the control system. The second (number 008) crashed on March 25, 2009, when test pilot David Cooley lost control of the vehicle for 4 seconds during a 9 g maneuver.
