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F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sharpey
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And an op ed piece for the pile.... 

I still wonder how many Super Hornets we'll get for $9B....

Op Ed: Fighter jet procurement unwinding

Technical glitches, cost overruns jeopardize program's viability

By Michael Den Tandt, Edmonton Journal March 21, 2012

As the Tories batten the hatches ahead of an auditor general's report expected to be highly critical of the F-35 fighter jet procurement, indications are the government now in-tends to move into a holding pattern on the controversial project, awaiting further developments in the U.S. and internationally before making a final decision on a purchase, which could come any time between six months and a year from now.

Meantime, defence industry players in Ottawa are quietly laying the table for what many now expect will be the eventual unwinding of the sole-sourced program, which has been plagued by delays, technical glitches and cost overruns, to be replaced by an international competition. The likeliest contenders, should there be a competition, are U.S.-based Boeing, maker of the F-18 Super Hornet, and Dassault of France, maker of the Rafale.

Both are twin-engined aircraft, which adds an element of safety in the far north that the single-engine F-35 does not have. The Rafale, like the F-35, comes with radar-evading stealth technology, and, insiders say, could be built almost entirely in Canada. The Super Hornet has the advantage of being in wide use already around the world, and would be highly "interoperable" both with NATO air forces and with Canada's existing, aging fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighters.

So the Rafale can be built almost entirely in Canada...that's news to me.  I can see the NDP and Liberals talking points now - "So we can make our own first day of war stealth attack planes right here in Canada?  Mr. Speaker, we're a peaceful nation who doesn't need first strike capability...but since the plane is French, we'll disregard that point for now." 

And I had no idea the Super Hornet was in wide use around the world....unless they mean where they are currently or previously deployed.  I guess I have to believe that 24 planes in one other country constitutes wide use around the world....right?
 
WingsofFury said:
So the Rafale can be built almost entirely in Canada...that's news to me. 

Not that i think we should but, yes, it could.

Take the Saudi Typhoon buy as an example. The total buy was for 72 (IIRC) and the first (24 IIRC again) are built in the UK and the rest in Saudi Arabia.

I don't beleive that there any reason, should we chose Raffale, that licence production in Canada, could not be negotiated.

So, yes, Raffale could be built in Canada.
 
The end’s in sight for the Super Hornet. Or is it?
By Philip Ewing Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 3:51 pm
Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/02/23/the-ends-in-sight-for-the-super-hornet-or-is-it/#ixzz1pr6e28jv
DoDBuzz.com

link here http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/02/23/the-ends-in-sight-for-the-super-hornet-or-is-it/

Selected bites selected by Moi reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the copyright act here

Big B announced on Wednesday that it had completed early delivery of the Navy’s second-to-last multi-year batch of Super Hornets and E/A-18G Growlers — 257 airplanes — and that it’s on the glide slope to continue right on through into the final multi-year. That would involve another 66 Es and Fs and 58 Gs, “to be purchased through 2013.”  Under today’s deals, including existing international orders, that would mean Boeing would deliver its last jet in 2015, said company spokesman Philip Carder""


"Then there’s the possibility for international orders: “The Super Hornet is currently involved in competitions in Brazil, Malaysia, and countries in the Middle East. In addition to these countries, Boeing and our U.S. government customer are having discussions with numerous international military institutions and governments,” Carder said."


 
WingsofFury said:
So the Rafale can be built almost entirely in Canada...that's news to me. 
Nearly anything we buy could be built in Canada.  However, if it is not already a Canadian product, doing this will always add cost, time, and risk to the project
 
Australia Looking at Average $US70m Per JSF

(Source: Australian Associated Press; published March 22, 2012)
Australia can still expect to pay an average $US70 million ($A67 million) for each Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft, even as production of the next generation F-35s ramps up.

The head of the JSF program for US aerospace company Lockheed Martin, Tom Burbage, said production was now running at four aircraft per month.

"We believe over the purchase time of your 75 airplanes, that cost will average out somewhere around $US70 million ($A67 million)," he told reporters in Canberra. "The early ones will be more, the later ones will be less. It is dependent on an assumption that we are going to go up in the production rate."

Australia is now committed to buying 14 of the advanced Lockheed Martin F-35 JSFs, with two arriving in 2014 and another 12 scheduled for delivery between 2015 and 2017.

Defence is likely to make a decision on the next tranche next year. But over time, Australia is set to buy as many as 100 of the advanced jet fighters to form the core of the nation's air combat capability out to the middle of the century.

Production of the first parts for the first Australian aircraft starts soon.

Australia's first JSF aircraft will be produced in what's termed Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) lots, with aircraft contracted at a fixed price.

Mr Burbage, who is in Australia for talks with the government, defence officials and local companies making JSF parts, also responded to criticism of the program which will also supply the aircraft to the US, UK, Canada and their allies.

There are concerns the program is costing too much, running late and the resulting aircraft will be outmatched by modern Russian and Chinese aircraft.

Mr Burbage said so far, 16 top tier air forces had fully assessed JSF and they were all still backing it.

"So I would put my stock in their evaluations and their take on what the airplane is going to be capable of doing," he said.

Mr Burbage said those views counted for more than those from a series of pundits who lacked access to all the JSF information and refused to accept that it would be highly capable.

"I often wonder to myself how much faster could we go and how much easier would this program be if we weren't constantly in a defensive crouch, trying to hold off these allegations," he said.

Mr Burbage said had Lockheed spent time trying to understand the capabilities of the aircraft most often tipped as fifth generation opponents to the JSF - the Russian PAK-FA and the Chinese J-20.

"We don't fully understand them yet," he said. "That they are going to that type of airplane and that type of capability would indicate that what we are doing is pretty important."

The F-35s will be used to replace Australia's existing Hornet and F-111 aircraft.


(EDITOR’S NOTE: Even knowing his precedents, it is truly remarkable that Lockheed’s Tom Burbage can claim -- presumably with a straight face -- a unit cost of $70M for Australia’s future F-35s in the face of all evidence to the contrary from a wide variety of official agencies in the US and in several partner countries.
Followers of the F-35 saga, and thus of Lockheed’s propaganda machine, will also appreciate Burbage’s blaming “a series of pundits” who have brow-beaten poor Lockheed into a “defensive crouch” as it tries to “hold off these allegations” that the F-35 is over budget and under-performing.)

link at Defense-Aerospace.com

PS - I included the editors comments as he/she saw fit to cast aspersions - their privilege.  Having said that I bring to the reader's attention that the ads surrounding Defense-Aerospace are for:

Rafale
Typhoon
Augusta-Westland
MBDA
Renault

One might be forgiven for suspecting a bias.

If Lockheed wants to sell aircraft based on production costs alone, exclusive of any development costs, which I understand to have been the arrangement all along, then who am I, or anyone else, to gainsay them?  Apparently the US government isn't. 
 
I know this article is about the UK's CVF programme but as it is intimately linked to the F35B-F35C question I opted to post it here.

Some interesting points in the article.  It looks like the Yanks want to help the Brits underwrite the cost of the carriers by covering the development costs of the launch and recover systems.  There are precedents.  The F35 programme itself comes to mind as do the Trident missile programme and the RN's nuclear reactor programmes.

Aircraft carrier costs will be half what you think, US tells ministers

The US Navy has intervened over the adaptation of a British aircraft carrier for a new generation of fighter jets, to assure ministers that the cost will be less than half the Ministry of Defence’s estimate.

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

8:00AM GMT 24 Mar 2012

Converting HMS Prince of Wales so that it can be used by the Joint Strike Fighter will require significantly less than the £2 billion quoted by officials, the assistant secretary of the US Navy, Sean J Stackley, insisted.


In a letter seen by The Daily Telegraph, he told Peter Luff, the defence procurement minister, that the necessary equipment would cost £458 million before installation. Defence experts estimate the installation cost at £400  million.


The letter was sent to Mr Luff before the Prime Minister met Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, at an emergency meeting about the carrier on Monday.


The carrier project has been overshadowed by cost and technical issues. In the Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2010, which scrapped Harrier jump jets, the Coalition opted for a conventional take-off and landing model of the new, American-built fighter instead of a jump-jet variant.


But ministers were on the point of changing their minds after MoD officials forecast that the cost of adapting a carrier to use the conventional planes would rise from £500 million to £1.8 billion.

Following the intervention by the US Navy, David Cameron has ordered a Treasury-led re-examination of the project.

The Major Project Review Group will submit a report on April 16 which it is understood will be considered by the National Security Council the next day.

The letter from Mr Stackley outlined studies concerning a sophisticated but untested catapult system to help aircraft reach take-off speed.

He reassured the British that the risks of the project, and of a new arrester wire system for deck landings, would be underwritten by the US, which is installing the system on one of its carriers. Mr Stackley ended by saying: “The department of navy is committed to supporting the success of the UK CVF (conventional carrier).”

The Americans sent the letter following tense meetings with British officials on the margins of Mr Cameron’s trip to Washington last week.

“They want to ensure that the information the British Government is working from is accurate because currently that quite clearly is not the case,” said a Whitehall source.

Two British carriers are being built, but one will be mothballed following the SDSR. Reverting to jump jets for both of them would not help American military planners, who want to be able to base a squadron of their own jets on a British carrier.

Separate accommodation is being built on board HMS Prince of Wales with communications facilities that would be for “US Eyes Only”.

There are also said to be technological concerns over the jump jet version of the fighter and the Americans might be positioning themselves to ditch it altogether.

“This letter could be a warning shot saying if you Brits go back to jump jet carriers then there might be no planes to fly off it,” said a defence source.

Richard Scott, of Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: “The trouble the Government has is in getting reliable cost data but at least the costs the Americans are giving are quite reassuring.”

An MoD spokesman said: “Work is ongoing to finalise the 2012-13 budget and balance the equipment plan. This means reviewing all programmes, including elements of the carrier strike programme.”

 
And then there is this from Strategy Page via Mark Collins at CDFAI.

USN thinking of chopping its F35C order and increasing the rate of deployment of the UCAV X-47B.  Together with previously discussed possible cuts to the US Marines F35B order this would be one way to reduce the costs of the F35 programme.  If the programme converted the planned F35B and Cs to CTOL F35As for the USAF then the programme could still put the same number of platforms in the air and reduce the cost over-runs.

The notion that the USN is pushing the Brits to adopt the EMALS system could also suggest that they are looking at offering the X-47B (or perhaps the Brits would use their own Taranis) to the RN.

And here is another off the wall thought - it's Saturday morning and my coffee and brandy is kicking in  :nod: - perhaps it is time for the Brits to scrap the Trident and take the 1.86 BUKP annual savings (83.5 BUKP to 2062) and convert it to other RN programmes like the other CVF.  With a 2500 km range on the X-47B (longer with tankers) the CVF force could present a first strike/retaliatory alternatives for many Trident scenarios as well as being more generally useful.

PS - sorry GAP.  I knew I had seen that article somewhere before

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/22809/post-1126219.html#msg1126219

Credit where it is due.  :-[
 
CDN Aviator said:
Not that i think we should but, yes, it could.

Take the Saudi Typhoon buy as an example. The total buy was for 72 (IIRC) and the first (24 IIRC again) are built in the UK and the rest in Saudi Arabia.



So, yes, Raffale could be built in Canada.

I suspect that when hey say built in Saudi Arabia they mean delivered in big sub assemblies and final assembly on site

 
Pretty good read...

The Next Generation Fighter Club: How Shifting Markets will Shape Canada's F-35 Debate

by Marco Wyss and Alex Wilner

The international market for fighter jets is in for a period of tumultuous change. New aircraft that incorporate ‘fifth-generation’ technology will soon be entering the production phase, and are expected to enter military service in the coming decade. When they do, some producers of combat aircraft will find themselves overshadowed by rising challengers; others may cease to exist altogether. With little doubt, the fighter jet industry will become increasingly polarized. The Americans and the Russians will retain their preeminent positions but they will be joined by China. Europe, on the other hand, is likely ‘heading for the exit.’

Shifting technological demands and the future structure of the fighter jet industry will leave a mark on Canada’s air force. Global trends in the production of military hardware matter because where Ottawa buys its weapons can be just as important as what it buys. The arms trade is a political minefield. There are costs associated with procuring fighter jets that go well beyond the monetary value of each aircraft. The arms trade and the transfer of sophisticated military technology between states are as much driven by political demands as they are by strategic rationales. All things considered, and notwithstanding the ongoing debate over Canada’s planned purchase of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the simple truth is that Canada has very few palatable alternative options.

The JSF remains a contentious albeit promising program. The aircraft is being produced by a U.S.-led consortium of eight (unequal) partners, of which Canada is a junior member.

More at the link ->  http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vol12/no2/18-wilner-eng.asp
 
While tangential to the F-35 program, this article describes the dysfunctional approach to programs in the United States (and we are hardly immune; what other organization takes a decade to design and field a rucksack [which turns out to have the size and weight of a truck?]).

One other problem is the risk of being overtaken by events; while we know that new technologies will eventually be able to supplement or even displace existing platforms (just as revolutions took place in the past, such as the introduction of breach loading weapons, or ironclad warships) we don't exactly know when. For example, a 747 sized aircraft packing a megawatt class laser is technically feasible, but probably not doable economically just yet. Should we wait for such a beast, or carry on with what we know works?

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/why-cant-the-air-force-build-an-affordable-plane/254998/

Why Can't the Air Force Build an Affordable Plane?
By David Axe
Mar 26 2012, 6:00 AM ET 74

Congress and the Pentagon want to commission stealthy new bombers at $550 million apiece. But it's not clear why we need so many expensive features.

When the Obama administration dispatched three B-2 bombers from a Missouri air base on March 19 last year to cross the ocean and reach Libya, it put roughly $9 billion worth of America's most prized military assets into the air. The bat-shaped black bombers, finely machined to elude radar and equipped with bombs weighing a ton apiece, easily demolished dozens of concrete aircraft shelters near Libya's northern coast.

The Air Force points to that successful mission, and thousands of others against insurgents in Afghanistan conducted by older B-1 bombers, while arguing that long-distance, pinpoint expressions of U.S. military power are best carried out by strategic bombers. As a result, th­­e Air Force says, the country needs more and newer versions of them, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars.

Its claims over the last year have impressed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who called the idea "critical" to national security in February budget testimony. It also charmed Congress, which in December slipped an extra hundred million dollars into the defense budget to speed the creation of a top-secret new "Long-Range Strike Bomber." Only that bomber -- among the dozens of major new weapons systems now in development -- was honored with a specific endorsement in the Pentagon's new strategic review, released on January 5.

But the new bomber's future is not assured. While Libyan and Afghan gunners may be no match, the new planes seem likely to encounter major turbulence at home, as a climate of financial austerity begins to afflict the Pentagon for the first time in a decade and other weapons compete to serve its military role.

Critics have expressed concerns that the Air Force will not fit the bombers into its budget, that their preliminary design is too technically ambitious, and that a key potential mission -- conducting bombing raids over China -- is implausible. They also have asked why new planes are needed when old ones are undergoing multi-billion-dollar upgrades.

By all accounts, the Air Force's track record of making bombers the country can afford is dismal. The B-1 program was cancelled mid-stream by the Carter administration after its cost doubled, then revived under President Reagan. The B-2 grew so costly in the early 1990s that the Pentagon ended up buying just a fifth of the aircraft originally planned.

The B-2s are actually not used much now, partly because few targets justify risking aircraft that cost $3 billion apiece in today's dollars, and partly because their flights by some estimates cost $135,000 per hour -- almost double that of any other military airplane.

The Air Force says the new bomber is slated to cost roughly $55 billion, or about $550 million a plane -- less than a quarter of the price of the B-2. If costs rise, "we don't get a program," Air Force chief of staff Gen. Norton Schwartz recently told reporters, citing a 2009 warning by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, an airpower skeptic, as Gates cancelled an earlier attempt to build a new bomber.

One of the skeptics is Tom Christie, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester from 2001 until his retirement in 2005. He says that if $550 million per copy is the target, "you're talking $2 billion by the time they build the damn thing .... How many times [have] we been through this with bombers? And look where we end up."

"Besides, what do we need it for?" adds Christie, a sardonic scientist who in his three decades working for the military contributed to the design of many of today's most successful warplanes. A jowly man with snow-white hair, Christie has devoted his retirement to highlighting and criticizing what he sees as wasteful Pentagon practices.

The new bomber program has been accelerated at a particularly risky moment, when its design -- by the accounts of several top officials -- remains up for grabs. The Air Force has said, for example, that it may or may not be given a nuclear mission at some point in the future, a feature that would add to its price tag. The Air Force has also said it is to be "optionally manned," meaning it conceivably could be flown from a ground station, without a pilot in the cockpit. Nothing similar, involving unmanned, armed aircraft that must survive in a hostile environment, has ever been attempted.

Besides Gates, no critic has been more vocal and posed more of an obstacle to the Air Force's bomber efforts than Marine Corps General James Cartwright, a former fighter pilot who served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 until retiring in August 2011. The charismatic Cartwright was instrumental in persuading Gates to kill off the Air Force's earlier effort to develop a new bomber. It wasn't until Cartwright's influence waned that the Air Force succeeded in advancing its revived bomber scheme through the Pentagon bureaucracy and Congress.

Cartwright says the nation does need several hundred new "trucks" or inexpensive bomb haulers, without fancy sensors, capable of penetrating advanced air defenses to drop guided bombs. Such weapons can cost around $20,000 apiece, or about a fifth what modern cruise missiles cost.

But Cartwright says he doubts that the Air Force can develop an effective bomber cheap enough to be bought in adequate numbers. He adds that he is not sure why the Air Force feels a new bomber is needed now and, equally importantly, why the service believes it can afford it. "Those are the right questions," he says.

A record of cost overruns and shifting timetables

The Air Force's bomber troubles stretch a long way back. The last bomber to be developed and purchased without huge cost overruns was the B-52, which began development in the late 1940s. Twice in subsequent decades the Air Force launched a new bomber program in order to replace the now-classic B-52, only to see costs rise and production terminated early. Seventy years after its design was conceived, the B-52 remains America's most numerous strategic bomber.

In 2006, under then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon blessed the Air Force's plan to produce a new bomber by 2018 -- and began channeling money into design efforts. The new plane was supposed to include cutting-edge sensors, communications and weapons, potentially including the world's first operational air-to-air laser cannon -- all of which added to its pricetag.

But after Gates replaced Rumsfeld in late 2006 and Cartwright joined the Joint Chiefs of Staff the following year, Gates canceled the new bomber initiative, citing the same out-of-control technological ambitions that caused the B-2 to cost $3 billion per copy. "It makes little sense to pursue a future bomber ... in a way that repeats this history," Gates said.

"Gates was listening to Cartwright at this point in time," says Barry Watts, a bookish former Air Force and Northrop Grumman program evaluator now working for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

To lower the cost, Gates proposed the Air Force return to the drawing board and look at an unmanned design, echoing Cartwright's own preference. A strictly pilotless bomber could dispense with the cockpit, ejection seats and onboard oxygen systems, thereby reducing cost, Cartwright claims. "Today's weapons and platform technologies allow an aircraft to stay airborne far longer than a human can maintain peak mental and physical performance."

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which vets all federal spending, endorsed Gates' decision at the time. "Current aircraft will be able to meet the threats expected in the foreseeable future," OMB said of the bomber fleet in 2009.

"The OMB statement was actually something of an anomaly," counters Deptula, a former fighter pilot and air power champion. "OMB has no military competence and should not be attributed any."

In May last year, Ashton Carter, the deputy secretary of defense, met with executives from Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin to discuss the bomber and its technologies in Palmdale. "His intent was to understand what was resident in various contractors' capabilities," a source at the meeting said of Carter. Details of the meeting have not been disclosed, but when Panetta left as head of the CIA to replace Gates and Carter became the deputy defense secretary, both embraced the bomber enthusiastically.

"Rebalancing our global posture and presence to emphasize the Asia-Pacific and Middle East areas ... requires an Air Force that is able to penetrate sophisticated enemy defenses and strike over long distances," Panetta said in a February press briefing. "So we will be funding the next-generation bomber."

At the same time, Panetta required that senior Defense Department officials jointly oversee its development. He also opted to defer efforts to certify it for carrying nuclear weapons. That decision reverses the development course of the B-1 and B-2, which were designed to be negligible from the outset and then re-engineered to carry largely nonnuclear weaponry. That change cost around $4.5 billion for the B-1 fleet alone, in 2001. The Air Force has declined to say what the cost will be of "certifying" the planes later as nuclear-capable.

A cockpit without a pilot

While meant to be at least as stealthy as the B-2, the new bomber is not meant to fly mostly alone into battle, using its own sensors to spot targets and its own electronic defenses to defeat enemy radar. It "won't be a Swiss Army knife" like the B-2, explains Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, "Instead, it will rely on its integration with other systems" -- such as satellites, spy drones and radar-jamming planes.

But one challenging requirement has already crept into the design: It is supposed to be flown as a pilotless drone with only minor tweaks. "It could be manned; it could be unmanned," Meyer says. On some missions, in short, it might look like a ghost-plane, flying perfectly with no crewmembers in the installed seats.

The Air Force is no stranger to drones -- even large ones. The Northrop Grumman-built Global Hawk, with a wingspan greater than the ubiquitous Boeing 737 passenger jet, can stay aloft for 35 hours. Even the Air Force's standard Predator and Reaper, each around the size of a Cessna, routinely fly for 14 hours or more over Afghanistan.

But the Global Hawk is unarmed, and the propeller-driven Predators and Reapers are loud, slow and intended only for patrols in undefended airspace. The Air Force has never fielded a large, high-performance, armed drone warplane -- much less one that can switch between manned and unmanned modes with minimal changes.

From the mid-1990s until 2006, the Pentagon started to develop such a drone under a contract with Boeing and Northrop Grumman. But the program has not produced a combat-ready copy.

Cartwright and Gates said they favored a purely drone bomber -- a sort of pilotless B-52 priced to buy in large numbers. But the Air Force, with a senior leadership dominated by traditional pilots, pushed back; it insisted that a drone would not save money. "By the time you look at a payload of 40,000 pounds, onboard fuel and the airframe itself, adding a crew and cockpit module aren't that big a deal," Rebecca Grant, a consultant to major aerospace firms, told Aviation Week, a trade magazine.

The Air Force also refuses to accept the notion of a pilotless bomber with a possible nuclear mission. "Could you be comfortable with a nuclear-laden RPA? I wouldn't," Air Force chief of staff Schwartz said in a recent speech, using the acronym for "Remotely Piloted Aircraft." As a drone advocate, Cartwright wanted to change that policy. "I don't remember the last time I manned an ICBM," he told a group of Washington, D.C., defense reporters last July.

But with Cartwright out of the picture, the Air Force is not about to shift positions. That means that the new bomber will retain all the risks incumbent in drone design, without the benefit of the potential cost savings that attracted Gates and Cartwright.

All three existing bombers are also getting new sensors, new radios and structural enhancements. Air Force spokesman Sholtis says that "continued modernization of existing aircraft at the expense of any larger leap in technology comes with serious risk. To the extent that we may be required to put our existing, upgraded forces up against more fundamentally advanced air-to-air or surface-to-air threats, we're looking at more airmen potentially dying and more battlefield targets not being hit."

But Christie, a veteran observer of the military services' budgetary stratagems, speculates that other factors are at play besides military need. "You have new [Asia-centered] strategy which, on the surface, would seem indicate some rationale for something like this [bomber]," Christie says. But he says it's really an effort to "take advantage of things and jump in there while we can."

Christie says the service might be acting now to prop up its budget and thus protect itself from financial ruin in the early 2020s, when two other major Air Force programs -- a new tanker and the stealthy Joint Strike Fighter -- will also begin full-rate production, potentially under a flat or falling overall defense budget.

By starting a major program now -- any major program -- the service can keep its spending high enough to fend off Pentagon planners seeking funds for the Army, Navy and Marine Corps "You strike while the iron is hot and look at where you are five to 10 years from now," Christie says. Officials think that "hopefully nirvana will come and we'll have double the budgets we had. "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A version of this post also appears at the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to producing original investigative journalism.
 
The Air Force points to that successful mission, and thousands of others against insurgents in Afghanistan conducted by older B-1 bombers, while arguing that long-distance, pinpoint expressions of U.S. military power are best carried out by strategic bombers. As a result, th­­e Air Force says, the country needs more and newer versions of them, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars.

But what does strategic mean?  >:D
 
Slight thread hijack, but I love the comment in the Atlantic article by USMC General Cartwright about the USAF's perceived danger of RPA/UAV combat aircraft (esp. with nukes) - "I can't remember the last time I manned an ICBM." 

Not that it'll change any "traditional" (ie. Aircraft without cockpits are the devil's work) aviators' views on the matter, but it does show how ridiculous some of the "dangers" are.
 
Anyone catch  CBC/Power & Politics today?

Evan had a breathtaking exclusive on the F-35 and the SOR.

There were just too many ludicrous and funny moments in one single 5 minute story but a couple of highlights.

The NDP  guy on the right half screen saying the F-35 is an imaginary plane that hasn't even flown yet while on the left hand screen they ran stock video clips of the F-35.

The LPC guy going uber hysterical (something to do with Lindsay Lohan's acting talents) about the F-35  program and how the Canada's F-35 was screwed up from the get-gp, apparently ignorant that it was the Martin/LPC government that did the "get-go"

CBC presenting Alan Williams as some kind of fighter aircraft expert.

The highlight of the segment was Mr. Williams ever so jaunty bow tie. 







 
More on the CBC bit (note - no sign of sharing the document, so we have to take what they tell us is important in it):
he federal government didn't follow normal procurement procedures to buy the F-35 fighter jets and the plane fails to meet at least one critical feature the government stipulated must be met, documents viewed by CBC News suggest.

CBC Power & Politics host Evan Solomon reported Monday that the exclusive new evidence reveals for the first time the Canadian military's requirements for the aircraft that are to replace the aging fleet of CF-18s.

Solomon said the statement of operational requirements, a document that has never been made public, outlines what the plane must be able to do in order to be purchased.

It describes specific mandatory characteristics without which the overall operational capability would be "unacceptably diminished."

One of the 28 mandatory requirements listed is for the plane's sensor requirements. The document says the plane must be capable of providing the pilot with 360-degree, out-of-cockpit visual situational awareness in a no-light environment.

"According to the U.S. Department of Defence there are so many problems with this feature that they're actually designing a backup. In other words, the plane can't do it," Solomon reported ....

.... and more face time for Alan Williams (with nobody apparently asking why he's changed his mind since he was working in the system when the F-35 process was first begun):
Department of National Defence officials charged with selecting Canada's next fighter jet met with Lockheed Martin — maker of the F-35 — more times than with all other bidders combined before their billion-dollar decision to select it, access to information documents reveal.

Between 2005 and 2011, officials from DND's Next Generation Fighter Capability Office held a series of meetings with five major aircraft manufacturers "to evaluate and discuss potential replacements for the CF-18."

DND officials met with Lockheed Martin 21 times over the six-year period, the documents show, and it was the only company granted face time with key figures such as the chief of air staff and the parliamentary secretary for defence.

Lockheed's competitors didn't have it so easy.

F-18 Super Hornet manufacturer Boeing landed seven meetings, while BAE, makers of the Eurofighter Typhoon, had eight meetings with Canadian officials. France's Dassault got only two meetings in which to pitch its Rafale jet, while the Swedish-made Saab Gripen was dismissed after only one.

Alan Williams, who retired from his role as DND's assistant deputy minister for materiel in 2005, said the military never seriously considered buying anything other than the F-35.

"The Gripen, the Typhoon, the Super Hornet, the Rafale — these were not on the radar," he said. "These are not what they wanted, so the meetings were mostly pro forma."

"It seems to me if you made up your mind what product you're going to buy, you won't waste time with anything else," William added ....
 
I PVR'd the segment and just watched it again, as painfully hilarious as that was.

It seems that the "big story" about not meeting the SOR is all about the helmet issues.

Seems these highly intelligent folks at CBC haven't figured out what a Test Program is all about and that if something doesn't work perfectly as designed then it is a "failure"

Who knew that was how the world worked, how modern, highly complex aircraft are designed, developed and fielded?  So glad the tall forehead types over at CBC explained that to us.  Maybe these CBC experts could explain that to the Sikorsky guys working on  NSH or the Airbus guys working on the A400.

One thing Evan & Co. might want to do is actually talk to someone who knows about the topic. Although I would expect Mr. Williams is an expert in the minutia of procurement contracts and the byzantine world of provincial offsets, I am not aware that he has a credible background in Systems Engineering, Software Design and Development and Test engineering to make a decision about the success or failure of any any components of the F-35, including the helmet.


On the other hand Admiral Venlet has the necessary background and he's not worried about the helmet.

http://defense.aol.com/2012/03/08/f-35-program-head-expresses-great-confidence-in-stealth-senso/

Take a deep breath Evan. We know it is difficult, being a good little downtown Toronto city boy CBC type, to understand guns & military stuff, but even a few minutes of really, really simple internet research would have prevented you from making this comedy masquerading as news segment. 

You might want to consider in your zeal for an anti F-35 "scoop", some people have played you and the CBC like a cheap piano and set you up to take over the village idiot job.

On the other hand, the amusement value of watching you make a fool of yourself is priceless.

Carry on.



 
Wow.

I so hope the CBC has some flunky assigned to read Army.ca andhe/she/it comes across that post.

Excellent work Haletown!
 
Thucydides said:
...I so hope the CBC has some flunky assigned to read Army.ca andhe/she/it comes across that post...


You don't really believe it would ever do that, do you? 


The CBC seems to want to continue to avail themselves of the services of people who were once the strongest proponents of a program that is fundamentally the very same project it was ten years ago...but now, it is politically expedient to take an opposing view.

You'll likely never see the CBC address the original competition within the JSF program itself -- a competition that took place between Lockheed-Martin (X-35) and Boeing (X-32), ending in 2001 when the X-35 was chosen as the winning design...just several months before Mr. Williams travelled to Washington to commit Canada to the program.


Regards
G2G
 
In this case history may not repeat itself but it sure does seem to rhyme.

The last time the USAF went this route resulted in a mix of high/low cost options. Col John Boyd led the charge for the low-cost option.

High Cost - F-15 and its replacement the F-22 - Main role air-superiorty

Low Cost  - F-16 and its replacement the F-35

I referred back to the original competition that started in 1993 was was called the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter (CALF)

Perhaps future historian's looking back will decide that things started to go wrong when CALF was renamed JSF.

I also note that the M2 Bradley  development cycle was used as an example of how this type of development cycle worked out well.

Let me simply suggest that if you haven't already done so, either viewing or reading "The Pentagon Wars"might be in order.

You'll laugh!!!!!! You may cry. It's an extremely unfunny true comedy documentary.  The last part perhaps not so much.

The reason for that the above rant is that someone, pretty sure that it was the CEO of Northrup-Grumman said that if this kind of nonsense keeps going on that by 2050  that American Airpower will consist of one plane, with equal use of USAF and Navy, and the Marines getting to use it every leap-day.


 
milnews.ca said:
More on the CBC bit (note - no sign of sharing the document, so we have to take what they tell us is important in it):
.... and more face time for Alan Williams (with nobody apparently asking why he's changed his mind since he was working in the system when the F-35 process was first begun):

I must be incredibly stupid, but I don't see why this is even an issue.  Why should Alan Wilson, a support person skilled in procurement contracts, have any say about which aircraft the users say they need?  Why should the budget gurus control the choice of what is needed are they the ones who will fly and fight it?

No question that the aircraft is very impressive and also very expensive.  Mayhap we are going through another Avro Arrow CF105 situation, where the service chiefs will decide getting the aircraft will cost too much that it would cripple their ability to perform their functions. That is their duty to make that decision not a TB functionary.
 
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