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After a year of several fleet-wide groundings for the F-35, the latest problem to plague the fifth-generation fighter is forcing the U.S. Air Force to revamp an entirely separate fleet to support the military’s most expensive plane yet. The F-35 can only fly on jet fuel under a certain temperature due to a range of heating issues attributed to the F-35B variant’s short takeoff and vertical landing engine. According to the USAF, the dark-green trucks that carry that fuel absorb too much heat from the sun to keep the planes in the sky.

Israel is likely to place a second order for between 12 and 15 U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets, around half the number previously mentioned by defence sources in both countries, an Israeli newspaper reported on Monday. A reduced Israeli purchase may dent international confidence in the Lockheed Martin Corp plane and set back Israeli efforts to get a lower unit price because of advance orders. Israel bought 19 F-35s for $2.75 billion in 2010, with delivery scheduled between 2016 and 2018. Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, who visited the United States last month, agreed a preliminary deal for 25 to 31 more...

Military Superiority: China's new Shenyang J-31 stealth fighter could be the equal of our F-22s and F-35s, U.S. pilots say, and is just one of the weapons that may thwart America's "pivot" to the Pacific. The J-31, a fifth-generation stealth fighter, will make its official debut at the Zhuhai International Air Show Nov. 11-16 in southern China's Guangdong province. As one U.S. pilot with F-35 experience told USNI News of the J-31 and other new Chinese fighters: "I think they'll eventually be on par with our fifth-gen jets — as they should be, because industrial espionage is alive and well."...

Several ministers, headed by Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, strongly objected to purchasing more F-35 fighter jets at the ministerial committee for defense purchases’ meeting Wednesday. The Defense Ministry and Israel Air Force submitted to the committee a proposal to buy a second squadron of the advanced fighter jets at the expected cost of some $4.5 billion. Steinitz spearheaded the objection to buying 31 jets, which will be added to the 19 ordered in the first deal. Steinitz is in favor of buying numerous cheap missiles to be launched from the sea, surface and air, and for increasing...

China’s new Shenyang J-31 stealth fighter — making its debut next week at the Zhuhai international airshow — could eventually become more than a match for American stealth fighters in battle, several U.S. military and industry officials told USNI News. The J-31 is China’s latest crack at developing a modern so-called fifth-generation stealth fighter — equivalent in ability to Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor or F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter. “They’re still in the glossy brochure phase of development, so they still look ten feet tall and bulletproof,” one senior U.S. fighter pilot familiar with the F-35 program told USNI...

The U.S. Marine Corps will phase out the Boeing AV-8B Harrier II jump jet by 2025 — about five years earlier than planned — and will instead extend the life of its fleet of aging Boeing F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters, according to the service’s recently released 2015 aviation plan. In previous years, the service had said it would replace its increasingly older fleet of original model Boeing F/A-18A – D Hornet strike fighters before retiring the Harriers before replacing both fighters with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Now, the Harrier will be retired in 2025...

UK orders four more F-35B stealth jets as partners work to reduce the cost of the controversial fighter-bomber British defence and engineering companies including BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce have been given a boost after the Ministry of Defence struck a deal to order the first production batch of F-35 fighter-bombers. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the MoD had reached an agreement in principle to buy four F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft. About 15pc of each aircraft is manufactured in Britain and BAE is the only tier one partner in the F-35 programme, which is headed by Lockheed Martin and is...

Art presented by COPAC showing a Wide Area Display integrated to Gripen NG cockpit. In the art HUD is not presented. Art - FAB Gripen NG fighter contract, currently being dealt between Swedish SAAB company and Coordinating Commission for Combat Aircraft Program (Comissão Coordenadora do Programa Aeronave de Combate - COPAC), representing Brazilian Air Force (FAB) is in the last stages, one year after the formal announcement in December 18th, 2013. One relevant detail was defined by FAB. DefesaNet obtained from two sources near to negotiations that Gripen NG, Brazilian Version, will have a Wide Area Display. This is a...

Picture courtesy of Kongsberg. Australia’s new fighter jets could be armed with controversial robot-controlled missiles that critics claim can “make decisions to kill without human interference”. The Joint Strike Missile is close to final development by Norway’s Kongsberg Gruppen. It’s a $1.3 billion bet by the country to make it the standard weapon for the F-35. Back in June, Australia was one of the first countries to express interest in arming its F-35 fleet with the JSM. It’s also been pitched to Japan and South Korea but now it’s close to completion, it’s looking increasingly likely to become the missile...

Only about half of the Air Force's next-generation F-35A fighter jet, which cost a hefty W121 billion, will be fully armed due to lack of combat weapons (US$1=W1,062). Seoul decided to buy 40 F-35As at a total cost of W7.34 trillion last month and claimed that would allow the Air Force to "overwhelm" North Korea. But it has bought only half the weapons needed for the F-35As in a war, according to Air Force data submitted to Saenuri Party lawmaker Song Young-keun Wednesday. The Air Force has secured a mere 45 percent of air-to-air missiles that would be used against...

Kongsberg Gruppen ASA says its Naval Strike Missile (NSM) and a sister missile developed to go into the bomb bay of the F-35 fighter jet could generate billions of dollars of new revenues for the Norwegian company in coming years. Walter Qvam, president and chief executive of Kongsberg, told Reuters that Russian aggression in Ukraine was seen as a "serious new situation" in Europe, and was already starting to drive European defense spending higher. Kongsberg was seeing higher demand for its air-defense system, he said. Kongsberg, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, is trying to pump up its...

Outgunned by the Su-30 family of aircraft and suffering critical design flaws, the American F-35 is staring down the barrel of obsolescence – and punching a gaping hole in western air defences. Built to be the deadliest hunter killer aircraft of all time, the F-35 has quite literally become the hunted. In every scenario that the F-35 has been wargamed against Su-30 Flankers, the Russian aircraft have emerged winners. America’s newest stealth aircraft – costing $191 million per unit – is riddled with such critical design flaws that it’s likely to get blown away in a shootout with the super-maneuverable...

J-31 mock-up appears on carrier deck A full-scale model of China’s J-31 stealth fighter prototype has appeared on the flight deck of the Chinese navy’s aircraft carrier mock-up, fueling speculation that the radar-evading jet could become part of China’s carrier air wing. If so, China would enter the race alongside the United States to be the first to deploy a stealth jet on a flattop. The U.S. Navy is struggling to develop the F-35C stealth fighter to fly from the American fleet’s 10 large carriers starting no earlier than late 2018. China often builds mock-ups of its new warships on...

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea formally announced on Wednesday that it would buy 40 F-35A fighter jets from the American defense contractor Lockheed Martin in a deal that includes transfers of technology for the development of the country’s own advanced fighter jet. South Korea picked Lockheed Martin’s F-35A as the sole choice for its air force’s new fighter jet in November and has since been negotiating the terms of the deal. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Han Min-koo called a meeting of top military procurement officials to approve the purchase, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said in a news release....

One of the most 'popular' features on the controversial F-35 is the jet's Distributed Aperture System (DAS). DAS creates an all-seeing sphere and classifies and relays data and video to the pilot's helmet and to the jet's mission computers. This game-changing system has now been adapted for the high seas, and it won't stop there. DAS accomplishes its unique task via a constellation of electro-optical cameras installed around the F-35, each staring in a separate direction. Then, a powerful computer processor "stitches" these video images together to create a continuous viewable video "sphere." When the DAS imagery is paired with...

British combat air post-2020 will depend on the RAF’s Typhoon fast jet fleet – currently planned to total 107 aircraft at the end of this decade – and the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter, operated jointly by the RAF and the Royal Navy. Then-Secretary of State for Defence Phillip Hammond said in July 2012 that the UK would buy up to forty-eight F-35B short take-off, vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft in the next ten years of the newly agreed equipment plan. These will not only form the fixed-wing complement of the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, but will also deploy with...

(Reuters) - Canada is likely to choose between two major U.S. firms when it buys a new fleet of jet fighters, excluding two European competitors, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 stealth fighter and Boeing Co's F-18 E/F Super Hornet were deemed more suitable for the variety of tasks the military has laid out. The source said that while the F-35 had scored well on the various tests laid out by the military, the Super Hornet was almost as capable and had...

Pierre Sprey is one of the original designers of the A-10 Warthog during the 1970s. He provides insight into why the aircraft is so loved by ground troops in the military, and why its recent retirement from Air Force operations is so hotly debated.

FAIRBANKS - Eielson Air Force Base is the leading candidate among Pacific air bases to house two squadrons of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. Eielson, near North Pole, had been on a short list of five candidates prior to an announcement Thursday morning. Eielson is named as the preferred site for the F-35s, although the announcement notes that the final decision will depend on an environmental study scheduled to finish in November 2015. Each squadron consists of 24 planes and would require hundreds of civilians and airmen at the base, a potential boon to the economy of whichever...

A longtime defense analyst and critic of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program says taxpayers next year will pay between $148 million and $337 million per jet, depending on the model. Winslow Wheeler, a staff member at the Project On Government Oversight who has worked on national-security issues for the Senate and the Government Accountability Office, detailed his cost estimates for the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made fifth-generation stealth fighter in a recent article on Medium​.com. Wheeler puts the per-plane production price tag at $148 million for the Air Force’s F-35A, which can take off and land on conventional runways; $251 million...