F-35 Fighter Grounded – The aircraft chosen to fly from the new Aircraft Carrier QUEEN ELIZABETH, which will be ready for sea trials in 2016, has been grounded by the Pentagon after the discovery of a half inch crack in an engine blade.      The existing fleet of 51 aircraft, including the machine (s) owned by the UK, were grounded when the cracked blade was detected during a routine inspection at Edwards Air Force Base (California) of an F-35A version of the aircraft of the US Air Force.

The MoD has actually ordered three just machines – two in 2009 with a third in January 2010.    The MoD prior to the 2010 SDSR had planned to procure up to 138 F-35B aircraft for the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm.    The intention now is to purchase 48 F-35B aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm with a further batch will be acquired for the Royal Air Force.   The F-35B Standard Take-off and Vertical Landing version is a single engine, fifth generation fighter aircraft designed and developed by Lockheed Martin and which in British service will be known as the LIGHTNING 11

The original interest in the F-35 programme included the option to have a “British” engine.   All early F-35s were to be powered by the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine but it was planned that engine contracts would be competitively tendered from Lot 6 onward. The engines selected would be either the F135 or an engine produced by General Electric/Rolls-Royce, the F136 engine, an advanced turbofan engine which was to be built in the Bristol (United Kingdom).   In February 2006 the US in its budget seemingly unilaterally announced that in effect the F136 engine was excluded from the programme leaving Pratt & Whitney, with its F135 engine, as the sole choice despite the General Electric/Rolls-Royce team successfully completing a three month preliminary design review by the F-35 Program Office.     From 2006 to 2010 the Defence Department has not requested funding for the alternate F136 engine program, but Congress has maintained program funding.      After self funding the project both GE and Rolls-Royce announced in December 2011, that they would not continue development of the F136 engine because as it was not in their best interest.

The F-35 Programme is the most expensive weapons programme, at a current cost of nearly US$400 billion and this is the second time in two months that aircraft from the F-35 programme have been grounded and the aircraft will remain suspended until the root cause of the blade failure is established.   The F-35B is to to replace the HARRIERs which were prematurely disposed of.  The F-35 has a top speed of 1,200mph (almost twice as fast as the HARRIER) and has radar transparency and stealth capabilities something unknown with the HARRIER.     The F-35 has a range of 450 nautical miles, compared with 300 nautical miles for the HARRIER.