Thanks for the article Don!
via Aviation Week.
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| Amy Butler also known as Wonder Woman...reports. |
via Aviation Week.
Now, the Pentagon – by far the largest F-35 customer – is facing major budget cuts that could force the production rate to stay lower than planned for the fighter. The Air Force is looking at cutting as many as 24 aircraft over the next five years due to budget pressure, and the Navy is looking at far more drastic scenarios.Read it all here.
Butler plays it down the middle and reports all the Lockheed Martin talking points but lets use a little common sense.
The USAF, USN and USMC are all getting smaller.
Why would you buy the same number of aircraft when your forces are anywhere from 10 to 25% smaller than when the number of F-35's needed were first rolled out?
The statement that the Navy is looking at far more drastic scenarios is telling. Talking points be damned. Critical mass is approaching. Costs ARE NOT coming down and this program is in trouble.
My opinion? It couldn't happen to a better group of crooks.
Part of it I think is that the services now have enough airframes in-train to do Block 3 software to see if this thing will work at the end of SDD. Lot 6 and later have the TR2 hardware needed to drive Block 3 software. Why buy more aircraft until it is confirmed that SDD delivers on the promise? As for the Navy, well it has to trap at some point. And also, the helmet has to work for things like HOBS (for the external AIM-9X / ASRAAM) and the gun.
ReplyDeletei wish they were simply taking a pause to see if this thing will work but i don't believe they have that much integrity.
Deletethey have the inside information on where things stand so no confusion exists. they know if the hook works, they know if the software is gonna work, they're just pushing the meme that all is well.
this fraud is going to collapse and i can't wait.
There is still a fight over more Super Hornet orders since Forbes wrote that letter to the SecDef. We'll find out sometime between now and December 31st if the Navy is going to get additional Super Hornet orders that will extend the line past 2016. There's also a bill that just made its way through the House that might soften the cuts for sequestration by $20 billion that the SecDef is really hoping to make it through for the purpose of buying more F-35s.
DeleteEither way, this next year will be really interesting.
don't get too excited about the bill to ease the cuts to defense. the politics on it are awful. the republics threw military retirees under the bus and trust me there will be hell to pay. the biggest supporters of defense spending are retirees and if you want to make us mad then go after us instead of all federal workers. additionally the drawdown was slated to be accelerated. this might help ease it a bit. additionally readiness budgets have been slashed so some of this money must go to those accounts and last but not least this airplane still is in a bad spot as far as testing is concerned. money going to the F-35 will probably be targeted at briging previously built jet up to the same standard.
DeleteAs I've commented before, LRIP (low rate initial production) is supposed top be limited to building units which are required for SDD (system development and demonstration) however the F-35 program goes beyond that to produce planes given to the services for "training."
DeleteThe Milestone C decision at the end of SDD then enters into the full production of a proven design.
Currently Lockheed and the Pentagon, with the help of wonder woman (that's good), are talking about "ramping up" production, but it may in fact be a down ramp.
Two factors right now. The FY2013 OT&E test report is due soon, and this Japan thing could be a kicker if in fact they cut from 42 back to 28. Still nothing definitive on that. Mark Collins in Canada tweeted "Looks like 28 more F-35As in addition to current 42-A lot of new equipment purchases in latest 5-year defense plan" but I'm not sure that's true. No news report has said that, at least yet that I know of.
With the USAF trying to cut F-15C, A-10, and KC-10 fleets in order to pay for F-35... Isn't the USAF shooting itself in the foot by reducing the number of aircraft in need of replacing? Sooner or later, someone is going to ask why the USAF needs 2400 F-35s when most other F-35 customers are buying less than a hundred.
ReplyDeleteThings are going to look even worse when the USAF starts demanding more funding for it next generation bomber... Taxpayers are still reeling from the B-2.
its worse than that. no one is really looking at the personnel cuts. how are you going to sell to the public that you're cutting people to pay for questionable weapon systems? if the F-35 was perfect it would be hard. with its troubled development its gonnna be darn near impossible.
Deleteadd to it the fact that the USAF is getting smaller and it makes justifying the number of F-35's on the order books a bit hard to justify.
Also, serious cuts in personnel lead to cutting bases -- and politicians fear that more than they dislike cutting back on the production that Lockheed has scattered all around.
DeleteThe Obama administration only has another 3 yrs in office so if the military can endure that things will go the other way after he leaves.
DeleteAbout that next generation bomber, they aren't totally invisible so they need fighter escort and SEAD. If they get enough of that they can make whatever spaceship they want, but if the fighters are in question capabilities need to be prioritized. The nastiest bomb of them all is the 1.2 MT B-83 nuclear bomb which will fit on almost any fighter jet. So the need for a high tech heavy stealth bomber all revolves around the "deep conventional strike" capability of the USAF. The Air Force needs to be able to drop a MOAB and a massive ordinance penetrator. The B1B has a RCS 100 times less than a B-52, flies faster 25% faster, carries 25% more payload, and is twice as maneuverable as the B-2 at a third of the cost. I agree that a aircraft like the B-2 can penetrate more deeply than the B1B but if they aren't going to get adequate Fighter capability they need to focus funding on procuring a more affordable bomber like the B1B and using it in co-op engagement with the fighters to help them win so as to make capabilities like deep conventional strike plausible in the first place.
A terrible news for anti-F35 folks.
ReplyDeletehttp://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20131218/k10013915281000.html
Japanese government is considering buying 100 F-35s to replace early build F-15Js.
That would bring up the total F-35 buy to 142.