Commenter Lou G stated that the grounding of the F-35 is no big deal.
I beg to differ.
If the F-35 fan boys are successful (and I don't believe they will be) then you can look to a future where the USMC is flying only F-35s. If they're grounded then that means that if the balloon goes up we won't have fast mover air support.
The same will apply to the USAF. The majority of their fighters will be F-35 if the plan carries the day.
A grounding for safety concerns can effectively cripple at least 2/3rds of the available fighters available to a future USAF/USMC/USN.
That is unacceptable.
This points out the need to have proven airframes in service for the foreseeable future. This is why we need the Super Hornet in USMC colors!
I've always wondered why the missile bay doors open up during vertical landing....don't you want the weapons and internal systems protected from hot exhaust and flying debris??
ReplyDeleteExactly, the last i heard abou the downward exhaust of the STOVL F-35, it was powerfull enough to rip small debris off even prepared runways. Let alone landing on a dirt tarmac with loose pebbles and dirt particles. A little know secret about the Harrier is that pebbles and dirt/debris sometimes used to cause engine problems while landing/taking off from dirt patches.
DeletePeople are comparing F-35 to other aircraft only when it's convenient to do so. When it fails in development or operations, it's oh well, it's no big deal, every plane has done that. And then they'll claim that wow, this is a terrific aircraft that does everything including fusion of every sort of information available and it's worth every penny of the $200 million each one costs.
ReplyDeleteSo my point is that grounding of this aircraft is important because it is supposed to be (it isn't) so wonderfully deserving of being the largest military procurement, by far, in human history. Ground $20 billion worth of experimental planes at the very time when the Pentagon is conducting a panic meeting of all the F-35 partners, and has even suggested penalizing those countries who don't procure some worthless samples of this turkey and it's a big deal, which is why it's been hushed up except at SNAFU..
Let's look at the last time this happened, with fewer aircraft:
Australia, Feb 2013
(Reuters) - This year's second grounding of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 warplane, plus looming U.S. defense cuts, will complicate a push this week by Lockheed and U.S. officials to convince Australian lawmakers and generals to stick to a plan to buy 100 of the jets.
Subsequently Australia has dipped to 72 F-35 on its wish list.
The Canadian government is said to be close to an actual commitment as well. I wonder how this news will affect that.
DeleteBut with the F-35 an "actual commitment" doesn't put money on the table, which is why Frank Kendall the Pentagon acquisition czar has proposed penalizing partners who don't come through.
DeleteCanada reminds me of Netherlands -- remember all the hooplah last fall about the Duct support for F-35?
September 17, 2013 -- Dutch to buy the F-35 jet fighter
The Netherlands plans to buy 37 [down from 85] F-35 joint strike fighter planes from Lockheed Martin, the European country announced on Tuesday.
The Dutch government will use the planes, which are made at Lockheed's facility in Fort Worth, to replace their aging F-16 fleet which they expect to phase out by 2023. The contract for the purchase of fighter jets is expected to be signed in 2015.
So nothing happens right away, and maybe someday the Dutch will end up with a possible four aircraft in the air.
year (aircraft type)--aircraft owned--maximum aircraft deployed on missions
1999 (F-16) -- 120 -- 54
2023 (F-35) -- 37 -- 4
--from Netherlands Court of Audit pdf, Sep 19 2013
Will Canada "stand on guard for thee" with four aircraft too?
"Penalizing partners who don't come through"?
DeleteI'm curious how he would do this, as the "partners" have already spent lots of good money simply to be "industrial" partners and bid on contracts. This partnership no way guarantees a commitment to buy.
Any talk of "penalizing" industrial partners who don't buy will not only fail outright, but will likely do the exact opposite and drive potential buyers away in droves.
The Canadian government has backed themselves into a corner. Although they swear up and down that the F-35 is the only answer, they also tied themselves to 65 JSFs for $9 billion. Any fewer aircraft, and the RCAF can't do its job. Any increase in price, and it becomes unaffordable.
Even worse for the current Canadian government... There's an election next year. The JSF will be a huge albatross around their neck until then.
nasdaq.com, Jun 12, 2014
DeletePentagon Looks to Lower Costs of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program
by Doug Cameron
...Mr. Kendall also said for the first time that the Pentagon is looking for ways to bind overseas governments to their commitments to buy the plane, though it has yet to introduce any penalties or incentives.
F-35 Partners
Deletecountry-orig rqmt-current rqmt-contracted*
Australia-100-72-2
Canada-80-65-0
Denmark-48-30-0
Italy-131-90-6
Netherlands-85-37-2
Norway-48-52-2
Turkey-100-100-0
UK-138-48-4
-----
*LRIP 1-7
The basic problem is that any "commitments to buy the plane" would (or should) only apply to a system approved for production, not an experimental prototype. The Pentagon, I would think, has no legal basis to require countries to buy unfinished products.
DeleteBut the US, because its military prowess has been proven to be rather unsuccessful, has turned to other means of coercing obedience. Particularly the US Treasury Department has been quite successful influencing foreign banks with threats of money-laundering charges, and from the banks all things flow.
So any penalties, or threats of penalties, which are often sufficient, for not supporting the US in its hour of need for (X)F-35 procurements might be hidden to the general public.
Don, for someone who claims (though we doubt that was nothing but more fiction) to have been a US Army Colonel with years of experience in the acquisition world you display amazing ignorance of how the world really works in programs such as this. Mind you, you and your buddies are desperate to portray this as being only a day or way from cancellation so anything is possible from you.
DeleteTalk of penalties is pure fiction and you know that (or perhaps you don't understand the difference between truth and fiction in your little mind now).
Welcome to the real world -- penalties, and threats of penalties, are a regular part of the game, a normal part of US diplomacy. That's why Norway got stuck with F-35 vs. a Gripen selection from a neighbor for example.
DeleteThis discussion reminds me of Rodney Dangerfield's middle-aged character Thornton Melon when he enrolls in college and has a business professor present Melon with an idealistic scenario for locating a new factory. Melon, with real-world business experience, knew better:
*Thornton Melon: Oh, you left out a bunch of stuff.
*Dr. Phillip Barbay: Oh really? Like what for instance?
*Thornton Melon: First of all you're going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya. Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there's long term costs such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it's not the boyscouts. . . .
Didn't Gen Hostage talk about the need for the F-35 to go in groups of eight as it can not handle the threat by groups of two or four?
DeleteSo the deployment of F-35 against a threat might look like a swarming group of bumble bees. This would consume a wicked amount of aircrafts and ground personel to keep a swarm in the air.
How many aircrafts deployed on missions might be an outdated measurement.
How many swarms, would be more correct. And that will be a piss poor number.
How the hell are smaller air forces like The Netherlands or Canada going to be able to commit to 8 aircraft missions?
DeleteEven if Canada does end up buying 65 F-35s... What scenario are they going to commit 1/8th of their entire fleet on a single mission? Netherlands would be committing almost an entire 1/3rd!
Not going to happen. The US will find itself going it alone more and more.
Americans Penalizing Other countries for not meeting their Qouta for literally flying WMD purchases ???....hohohoho....I'de love to be an American Lawyer. Dont worry, I'll defend Gun Owners Pro Bono.LOL.
DeleteDid they not think about the possibility of future problems with the plane? How do they intend to fend for themselves if the whole fleet is grounded, reactivating the planes stored in Arizona?
ReplyDeleteUm... no?
DeleteJust for reminding, you could have build more than 20000 Rafales for this budget, more than every stock of SAMs that can PERHAPS hit him !
ReplyDeleteExcept no-one wants Rafales…or have you been in a cave for the last 15yrs.
DeleteNo one wants Rafales ?
DeleteYou Sir, I challange you to a duel.
Pistols, Knives, Cutlas.....Take your pick.
Dont worry fabsther, us Indians and the French will end up building more than 500 at the very least. Once we bought about 700 Mig-21's as a poorer than 3rd world nation. Now every one of those Mig's will need replacement. A combo of Su-50's and Rafales will easily breach the 500 total number for Rafales.
DeleteI would be less worried about this if the program had already delivered a reliable, combat-capable aircraft. As it is, something this faulty still has a lot of issues.
ReplyDeleteAfter I suggested to another reader that the F-35 should really be the XF-35, I've been researching the regs. The Army uses "XM" until the system is "type classified" when it goes to "M". The regs say the X -- for experimental, in development -- is optional. The other two services like to buy before the test are completed so apparently they exercise the option not to use the "X" in front of the model designator.
DeleteBut we should think of this aircraft as the XF-35 and not the F-35, IMHO.
It's here:
Table A3.3 - AFI16-401 16 MAY 2014
X (Experimental)—Aircraft in a developmental or experimental stage.
Y (Prototype)—A model suitable for evaluation of design, performance, and production potential
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar70-50.pdf
Oh look, the little photo man from Australia raises his head. Sounds like someone starting a exit strategy. Any platform of this complexity has issues - in fact if you look, many platforms that have been in successful service for decades still have issues. Stop pretending the F-35 is any different.
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Deleteexit strategy ?....Read his words correctly. He said he'd be less worried If....If there was a reliable bird out there. Meaning that he'd still worry about it a little even after it gave a reliable combat capable aircraft.
DeleteThat worry could stem from high maintenance cost, high downtime for maintenance, high fuel costs, low range, a medieval baggage caravan like logistics chain.
You see, this is where no one else has thought how a BUSINESS MAN thinks. When a BUSINESS MAN who owns a factory or a component supplier somes to know that his components are going into something valueing 200 million or thereabouts and that more that 2000 of these things are going to be built, he reverse engineers the calculatoion for his benefit. First, he grossly over valuates his own component or logistical servise or manitenance servise to be more respectable in front of the total cost of 200 mission. Then he thinks..........hmmm, 2000 aircraft. Each need 20 thingamajings per aircraft. 1 thingamajing is 500 dollars. 20*500= 10,000 dolalrs per aircraft. 2000 aircraft X 10,000 dollars= 20 million dollars. So in effect, I as a businnesman get a certain percentage of this F-35 Project. Yes, I will name it as a project because i need to earn more and more for a lenghtier period of time from this project. Spares, servise agreements, patents, overtime, cost savings by hiring mexi....oops, etc. etc. etc.
The F-35B as a jobs program.
ReplyDeleteEDP24, Jun 13, 2014
MOD plans £7.5m revamp at RAF Marham so new aircraft can land
South-West Norfolk MP Elizabeth Truss has called for local firms to be used where possible for the multi-million project to build three new “landing pads” alongside the existing runway.
The new Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, which are currently being developed in the United States, are able to land normally on the current runway, but the RAF base, near Swaffham, will need three landing areas which can withstand high heats, so that the aircraft can also land vertically.
The Ministry of Defence has not yet awarded a contract for the multi-million pound project, and was unable to say if its plans would involve local businesses or create local jobs.
More on jobs in the UK:
DeleteTelegraph, Jun 14, 2014
Marillyn Hewson: the F-35 fighter jet is going to support 25,000 jobs in the UK
Marillyn Hewson has worked her way up the corporate ladder at Lockheed Martin for more than 30 years but even she was surprised when, at the end of 2012, she was named chief executive of the defence giant. . . .
Some 15pc of every plane is produced in Britain, often drawing on the expertise of small, family-run companies. A west London business called Martin-Baker makes the ejector seats; RE Thompson in Whitchurch, Hampshire, produces the boxes that house the power management system. In total, a supply chain of around 500 UK businesses is engaged in making the jet fighter.
"It is going to support 25,000 jobs in the UK over the next 25 years," Hewson says.
The telegraph has some of the worst Defence related Jorunalism. Dont read that paper unless you want some decent news about Premier League Football. And even then, there is Mirror and The Sun.
DeleteI wonder Don - is this your real gripe - didn't anyone offer you a job on the program?
ReplyDeleteI think I've seen you around the office, haven't I? At the water cooler perhaps?
DeleteI shouldn't share this with you, but I am on the JPO SRT (Secret Red Team). I know, it's not right that I get paid so much for such an easy job, finding faults in the F-35 program, so I back up to the pay table.
Don, you really need to stop all these lies - you have become a joke.
ReplyDeleteAgain, you get it backwards. Are you dyslectic? I'm not the joke, the F-35 is -- except it's sort of a tragic joke when the LockMart/JPO junta irresponsibly makes claims for F-35 performance which come out of a sales brochure and haven't been verified by test and evaluation.
DeleteNo, Don. Scar Lett is right. You're just a joke now.
Delete2 X 0 = 0
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Deletehttp://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-right-fighter-for-canada-is-the-super-hornet-not-t-1587492909
ReplyDeleteExcellent. "Although the F-35 may be the most expensive fighter option available to Canada today it is far from the most suitable for their unique needs and budgetary constraints."
DeleteCanada needs range, reliability and numbers, and doesn't need stealth, complexity and high cost at a time when Canada is parking military wheeled vehicles because of a funds shortage.
On an unrelated Topic, does anyone have any news about the F-22 US-Malay Air force exercise ?
ReplyDelete