The F-35 will be one Helluva fighter!

Testimony about the F-35 given to the Australian Parliament...via F-16.net (thanks Spudman)

Quotable Quotes
(Page numbers given are in reference to the PDF page, not the printed page number of the document)

Pg.6 Tom Burbage wrote:

The F35 configuration that Australia will take delivery of in 2014 is identical to the configuration of the US Air Force.

Can we finally put this "export model" BS to bed?

Pg.6 Tom Burbage wrote:

More than 80 per cent of all of our airborne software is flying today and all of our sensors are demonstrating the required performance. The implementation of the multilevel security design did in fact require approximately three more months than originally planned; however, recovery plans have been developed and implemented. We expect to recover two of those three months by mid-year and all three by the end of the year.

Pg.7 Tom Burbage wrote:

By September of this year, we expect to have block 2B, as we refer to its software, which is the software that marines will take as their initial operational capability to be flying in our test aircraft.

Pg.9 Mr Liberson wrote:

Our current assessment that we speak of is: greater than six to one relative loss exchange ratio against in four versus eight engagement scenarios—four blue at 35s versus eight advanced red threats in the 2015 to 2020 time frame.

Pg.10 Mr Liberson wrote:

And it is very important to note that our constructed simulations that Mr Burbage talks about without the pilot in the loop are the lowest number that we talk about—the greater than six to one. When we include the pilot in the loop activities, they even do better when we include all of that in our partner—

Pg.10 wrote:

ACTING CHAIR: Post 2015 and 2020 you have stealth on stealth. How are you going to kill either PAC FA or J20?

Air Cdre Bentley: We cannot answer that question, just as we cannot answer the threat question, because we get into classified areas very, very quickly.
ACTING CHAIR: It seems to be a very convenient excuse.

Air Cdre Bentley: No, it is not an excuse. All of the defence officials who are appropriately cleared in all of the nations that are participating in this country know exactly what we have briefed, what those briefings entail and what the analysis entails, and they have chosen F35. If you are purporting to be a huge—

ACTING CHAIR: So what you are saying is, 'Believe us; we've got all the classified data in a brown paper bag'—

Air Cdre Bentley: Believe the nine best air forces in the world as far as their operators and their analysts are concerned and I think that you will come to realise that it is not us telling the story; it is them telling the story to their governments and their governments making a decision to go forward with this aeroplane.

Pg.11 Tom Burbage wrote:

If you look at the STOVL jet and you look at our weight charts, which you are more than welcome to see, we have now gone two years without any weight increase on the STOVL jet, and that is while accommodating engineering changes to the doors, which we have replaced with heavier doors, and other changes that were made to the airplane. We manage the weight very tightly on that airplane—for good reasons, because it needs to be. The other two airplanes are not as sensitive to weight. We are actually probably several thousand pounds away from the first compromise of the performance requirements of those two airplanes.

So much for no growth margin

Quote:

Senator FAWCETT: I have one last question, if I can. Speaking of the key performance indicators, obviously for the overall program they are cost, schedule and performance. In cost and schedule we have seen a number of changes and rebaselining to allow for things that have happened. In terms of the KPIs against your original ops requirement document—you do not have to disclose which ones have not been met—but at this point in time have all of the original essential requirements from the ORD been met?

Mr Burbage: We have 16 key performance parameters on this airplane. Half are logistics and sustainment-related, half are aeroperformance-related and one or two are in classified areas. We have an oversight body called the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, the JROC, that looks at those requirements every year and makes decisions on them—'Are we going to meet them, are we not going to meet them? If we are not going to meet them, what is the impact of that?' We have one this year which was the range of the Air Force airplane which had a specific set of ground rules associated with how that range is calculated which is not similar to either of the other two airplanes. The airplane flies a large part of its mission at a non-optimised altitude in the original calculation. The JROC agreed to change the ground rules to fly that airplane as the other two were flown and, when that happened, the airplane had excess margin to the range requirement. For any performance-related requirements, we artificially penalise the engine by five per cent fuel flow and two per cent thrust. Those margins are given back as we mature the design and get more and more solid on exactly what it is going to do. They are there for conservative estimation up front. We have not taken back any of those margins yet so, when those margins are taken back, the airplane will continue to be well in excess of its basic requirement. The airplane is meeting all of the other requirements today.

Senator FAWCETT: So have those requirements like schedule and cost been rebaselined, or are they are still the original ORD?

Mr Burbage: Schedule and cost are not KPPs. I thought you were talking about performance.

Senator FAWCETT: No, I recognise that. You have rebaselined schedule and cost as you have gone along. What I am asking is have the KPIs been rebaselined and does the statement you just made apply to today's KPIs or does it also apply to the original ones?

Mr Burbage: To the original set. Today, all the KPPs are green because that ground rule was changed to be common across all three airplanes on the range. But we have not taken back the margins that are being withheld to make sure those performance predictions are conservative. We are not going to have degraded engines. We basically measure our performance characteristics with a highly-degraded engine capability. Our actual flight test information coming back from the engine is better than nominal. These calculations are not done using actual airplane test data. They are done using an artificial penalty that gets paid back as the design matures.

Pg. 15 Dr JENSEN wrote:

What is interesting with this is that the USAF test facility for measuring radar cross-sections and so on is S-band and higher frequencies. So you do not have a test facility for L-band, VHF and so on.

A quick check on the net shows that LM's Helendale RCS test facility has two systems that can test down in the VHF range (Mark Ve and BuleMax).

Stunning isn't it.

YOU DON'T GET THIS NEWS FROM THE AVIATION MEDIA.

Can we say compromised?

Can we say agenda filled?

Can we say that they're showing lemming like behavior?

I don't know how this entire industry became so sheepish in its behavior but the theme that the F-35 is an ineffective fighter has been allowed to fester and bloom---YET ITS ALL BULLSHIT!

We should see news organizations shut down because of the piss poor work that they've done on this subject.

We should see news organizations fire staff because of the stupidity they've exhibited.  We should see certain arrogant ass bloggers shut down their blogs or else stick to subjects they know about instead of following the crowd.

Oh and if you're one of the individuals that feel "pinged" ... I dedicate the following vid to you dumbasses....(thanks Joe)....