{"id":24114,"date":"2019-06-12T09:14:06","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T09:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2019\/06\/12\/the-f-35-has-to-keep-landing-in-cold-weather-heres-the-plan-to-fix-it\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:09:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:09:59","slug":"the-f-35-has-to-keep-landing-in-cold-weather-heres-the-plan-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2019\/06\/12\/the-f-35-has-to-keep-landing-in-cold-weather-heres-the-plan-to-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The F-35 has to keep landing in cold weather. Here\u2019s the plan to fix it."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Amid the cold winds and snow, a ghost is haunting F-35 jets in the far north<\/a>, and it\u2019s causing pilots to divert flights and land immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news: This ghost is digital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 2018, multiple F-35A flights out of Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska<\/a> were disrupted when pilots received warnings that a key battery in the plane was failing mid-flight. The pilots were forced to land as quickly as possible and switch out the battery, wiping out flying hours and raising costs for maintenance \u2014 and raising the fear that in an emergency, the U.S. would be unable to scramble its high-end fighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After studying the issue, the Air Force discovered the problem was a result of extreme cold entering the plane when the doors to the jet\u2019s nose landing gear were open, setting off alarm bells, according to \u201cfor official use only\u201d documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cold would enter the plane and overwhelm the battery heater blanket, which is installed to keep a 28-volt battery running at peak condition. The battery would not shut down, but because of the cold, the blanket could not heat the battery as quickly as intended, triggering warning lights in the cockpit that the battery was going to fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here for more on the hidden troubles of the F-35.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the plane is equipped with another 270-volt battery that serves as the main power, the redundant system is considered vital for backup power in case of a glitch, and safety protocols dictated that the pilots had to immediately land the plane, even if the battery ultimately would have heated up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pilots then had to go to \u201ccold iron\u201d to reset, or turning the engine and restarting the whole plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battery challenge \u201ccritically restricts the combat readiness\u201d of the Air Force, the document warned, adding that it is \u201cexpected to prevent launch of mission[s] on very cold days.\u201d It also leads to unnecessary maintenance performed on the batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue is particularly important for the F-35, which is expected to spend a lot of time in the coldest parts of the globe. In addition to partner nations like Norway <\/a>and Denmark, <\/a>who plan to use the fifth-generation fighters beyond the Arctic Circle, the U.S. Air Force has plans for the F-35 to be the core of its Arctic operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a January op-ed for Defense News<\/a>, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein and then-Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson wrote that the Arctic represents both a northern approach to the United States as well as a critical location for “projecting American power, its geo-strategic significance is difficult to overstate. Key defense assets dot the landscape. … One way to view the region\u2019s growing importance: By 2022, Alaska will be home to more advanced fighter jets than any place on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Rebecca Grant of IRIS Independent Research says there is \u201cno way\u201d the Air Force would let this issue scuttle missions if needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe USAF is not going to accept \u2018no-go\u2019 for cold weather launches,\u201d she said. \u201cThe F-22 and plenty of other aircraft have flown out of Alaska just fine for decades. The F-35 should have had all that sorted out in the climatic lab.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cold as ice<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the F-35 Joint Program Office seems to have found a solution, one that lets the flights go on, even if it is more of a workaround than a full solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One small step involves a recommendation that when the jet flies in particularly cold conditions \u2014 something fairly easy to predict, thanks to modern weather stations \u2014 the heater blanket be activated earlier than normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bigger step involves changing how the alert system recognizes a failure, through a software change. Essentially, because the battery ultimately was going to be OK if the warning light had not gone off so easily, the JPO and prime contractor Lockheed Martin agreed to change the levels at which the warning activates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBottom line, it was just saying: \u2018Your battery is not good to go,\u2019 \u201d according to a source familiar with the matter. “And we needed to change the logic so that the battery will be like: \u2018Yep, we\u2019re good to go.\u2019 It\u2019s changing the whole heater logic and how the heater works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to do that without creating a situation where the battery really will fail but pilots won\u2019t be alerted to it took \u201cseveral years\u201d of work and testing from Lockheed engineers, the source added, noting the software fix will be available to retrofit on existing planes later this year, and it will be incorporated into all new planes by 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat verification work is what typically takes a long time doing things like this, because you can\u2019t just go change stuff because often, if you do it wrong, you could mess it up,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Ulmer, Lockheed\u2019s vice president and program manager for the F-35, told Defense News that the issue was \u201cidentified during extreme cold weather testing at negative 30 degrees or below at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska in February 2018. The probability of the issue reoccurring on aircraft in the operational fleet is very low and with minimal impact to safety of flight or operational performance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valerie Insinna in Washington contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The F-35 battery is getting too cold to operate in Alaska \u2014 or it at least thinks it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":35469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["middle-column","home"],"primary_category":"middle-column"},"4":{"categories":["your-air-force","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters","left-column","home"],"primary_category":"your-air-force"}}},"categories":[7,160,32,36,30,117],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378],"class_list":["post-24114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-daily-news-roundup","category-disaster","category-newsletters","category-smr","category-hidden-troubles-f35"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GBET6SOTV5FHFOBSLTVSPGTUSE","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2019\/06\/12\/the-f-35-has-to-keep-landing-in-cold-weather-heres-the-plan-to-fix-it\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\nThe F-35 has to keep landing in cold weather. 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