What is this hexagonal shape on the F35's belly?

[VictorbrineTheAradoAr 234]

So for so long this thing has been bugging me...

I have searched throughout the whole of Internet and have found nothing apart learning new things and features about the F35 but not the specific thing I searched.

Here is an image of the F35. Now I want to point your attention towards the center of the aircraft's belly. You can see a dark shape right at the center of the F35's underside.

It looks like a hexagonal shaped... thing... At first I thought it was a hole and maybe could be tied to air conditioning or heat exhaust however upon further inspection it didn't look like a hole. I ironically call it the "belly button" for now.

This has been bugging me for quite a long time as I don't really know what that shape is. If anyone one knows what that "belly button" is then that would be great!

The F35, despite the critics, is quite an awesome aircraft and has a lot of cool features in the mean time...

 

[Peter Gunn]

It's where Lockheed Martin, in a solemn ceremony wearing the appropriate robes and using the correct chants of worship, secretly attaches a small section from a P-51, the hexagonal shape forms a small cathedral that magnifies and then radiates the inherent greatness from the Mustangs aura and allows the F-35 to be almost as good as the Mustang itself.

Simple really...

 

[mikewint]

The F-35 has an optional pod which can be attached here. It contains a GAU-22, a four-barrel Gatling-type rotary cannon that fires 3300 25mm rounds per minute. This cannon was made especially for the F-35 according to General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products. The Pod when installed destroys the stealth qualities of the aircraft

 

[buffnut453]

The F-35 has an optional pod which can be attached here. It contains a GAU-22, a four-barrel Gatling-type rotary cannon that fires 3300 25mm rounds per minute. This cannon was made especially for the F-35 according to General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products. The Pod when installed destroys the stealth qualities of the aircraft

"Destroys" is a strong term. I suspect the reality is that carrying the pod makes the aircraft more observable than in a clean configuration...but the pod itself was designed to be as stealthy as possible. Aspect angle probably has a big impact on the degree to which a pod-toting F-35 is more visible.

 

[mikewint]

From The Aviationist:
The F-35 GAU-22/A gun has been among the most controversial topics: some criticised the fact that the Joint Strike Fighter's gun can only hold 181 20mm rounds, fewer than the A-10 Thunderbolt's GAU-8/A Avenger, that can hold some 1,174 30mm rounds.

Moreover, although it was designed with LO (Low Observabity) characteristics, the external pod degrades the F-35's radar cross section making the 5th generation aircraft more visible to radars. Still, this should be acceptable for the scenarios where the U.S. Marine Corps F-35B will be called to carry out CAS missions.

 

[Crimea_River]

I thought it was for the stand mount:

 

[Token]

Moreover, although it was designed with LO (Low Observabity) characteristics, the external pod degrades the F-35's radar cross section making the 5th generation aircraft more visible to radars. Still, this should be acceptable for the scenarios where the U.S. Marine Corps F-35B will be called to carry out CAS missions.

All external stores will increase the RCS of any aircraft, that is a given. Even aircraft designed with no thought to LO present a larger RCS when carrying external stores. Look at the F-4 for example, it was/is a huge target on radar, put external stores on it and I have seen mountains with smaller RCS's (and I am not really joking about that).


That is also why LO aircraft that will deliver weapons have internal bays. Of course, internal bays are limited.


Unfortunately people tend to think in terms of one aircraft at a time. The adaptability goal of the F-35 is part of its ability. You can send slick aircraft, using the internal bays, into high threat, denied access areas. After the air defenses have been reduced you can send in the same aircraft, or sister aircraft from the same or other units, with heavier external stores. The slick aircraft are the scalpel; the aircraft that follow are the machete.


T!

 

[vikingBerserker]

There is a heck of a difference between degrade and destroy.

 

[mikewint]

Here's what the new DOTE, Robert Behler, says about the F-35 Joint Strike fighter in his office's latest annual report:
The operational suitability of the F-35 fleet remains below requirements and is dependent on work-arounds that would not meet Service expectations in combat situations. Over the previous year, most suitability metrics have remained nearly the same, or have moved only within narrow bands which are insufficient to characterize a change in performance.

Overall fleet-wide monthly availability rates remain around 50 percent, a condition that has existed with no significant improvement since October 2014, despite the increasing number of new aircraft. One notable trend is an increase in the percentage of the fleet that cannot fly while awaiting replacement parts – indicated by the Not Mission Capable due to Supply rate.

Reliability growth has stagnated. It is unlikely that the program will achieve the JSF ORD (Operational Requirements Document) threshold requirements at maturity for the majority of reliability metrics. Most notably, the program is not likely to achieve the Mean Flight Hours Between Critical Failures threshold without redesigning aircraft components.

"The U.S. Reprogramming Laboratory (USRL) continues to operate with cumbersome software tools and outdated or incomplete hardware. The lab began creating Block 3F mission data files (MDFs) in the summer of 2017, and it will take 12 to 15 months to deliver a fully-verified mission data load (MDL), made up of a compilation of MDFs, for IOT&E." This is the F-35's threat library, with which Breaking D readers are very familiar.

The ALIS logistics and planning system remains vulnerable to cyber attacks, Behler writes. They and the threat to the system are so bad "the F-35 program and Services should conduct testing of aircraft operations without access to ALIS for extended periods of time." Behler says the plane can operate up to 30 days at a time without hooking up to ALIS. We hear the program is doing all it can to plug the cyber vulnerabilities. While there is certainly an endless cycle of threat, fix, new threat, fix etc, ALIS has been identified as an important cyber vulnerability for the F-35 for years and the program must do something to alter this cycle.

The heaviest of the three aircraft, the F-35B, didn't only shake apart under stress-testing more quickly than the other two aircraft, but, as the DOTE notes, "The program has struggled to find a tire for the F-35B that is strong enough for conventional high-speed landings, soft enough to cushion vertical landings, and still light enough for the existing aircraft structure. Average F-35B tire life is below 10 landings, well below the requirement for 25 conventional full-stop landings. The program is still working this problem, which will not be resolved within SDD."

The air refueling probe "tips are breaking too often, resulting in squadrons imposing restrictions on air refueling. The program is still investigating this problem." I hear that the program is focusing on improved maintenance for the hose reel mechanism, as well as design changes to the probe.

There's another important problem which will make it very difficult for the Air Force to argue that it can replace the A-10 with the F-35A, as planned: "The F-35A gun has been consistently missing ground targets during strafe testing; the program is still troubleshooting the problems." The gun shoots "long, and to the right." The Marine's F-35B and the Navy's F-35C guns, which are not built in, are apparently performing better. "Initial accuracy testing of the F-35B and F-35C poded guns showed better results than that of the F-35A model," Behler writes. "Both the F-35B and the F-35C gun pods exhibited the same right aiming bias as the F-35A, however the long bias is not manifested in the podded gun systems."

 

[nuuumannn]

I thought it was for the stand mount:

\
Beat me to it, mate! Have some bacon.