Pentagon urges safety valve for F-35 to help jet survive attack

http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/05/15/4856584/pentagon-urges-safety-valve-for.html



Pentagon urges safety valve for F-35 to help jet survive attack
By Tony Capaccio
Bloomberg News
Posted Wednesday, May. 15, 2013

The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer is backing calls to restore a valve on Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet that improves the fighter’s chances to survive a hit from a high-explosive round.

Adding an improved valve “would result in the aircraft being fully compliant” with its operational requirements, Frank Kendall, the undersecretary for acquisition, wrote a lawmaker last month in a previously undisclosed letter.

The 2-pound valve system was part of 43 pounds of equipment removed in 2008 to save weight on the F-35, designed and built in west Fort Worth. The valve is intended to shut off the flow of a flammable liquid used to cool avionics.

A computer analysis of the pared-down F-35 design last year determined that its vulnerability to fires ignited by enemy bullets or missile fragments increased 25 percent from an assessment before the equipment’s removal, according to data from the Pentagon’s weapons-testing office.