“Oinkers” in the Inventory: A Tale of Two Pigs
“A Tale of Two Pigs” by Winslow T. Wheeler and Pierre M. Sprey was first published by The Huffington Post on Dec. 23, 2009.
by Winslow T. Wheeler and Pierre M. Sprey
The Pentagon has a time honored tradition of assigning PR nicknames to its aircrafts. The moniker of Lockheed’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is “Lightning II”, named after Lockheed’s glitzy but rather unsuccessful WWII fighter, the P-38. A cursory examination of the record of the F-35’s namesake generates compelling evidence for why we need to rename JSF, quickly.
The darling of the Army Air Corps in the early 1940s and of vintage fighter buffs today, the P-38 was considered the high tech and high cost wonder of its time. It pioneered twin engines (with counter-rotating props and turbo-chargers), tricycle landing gear, stainless steel structural components, and a radical airframe design. At a time when fighters cost about $50,000, it cracked the $100,000 mark. Even so, it got torn apart so badly in dogfights against the far smaller, more agile, faster-climbing Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs that it had to be withdrawn from the skies over Germany as a fighter — in favor of the far more effective, half as expensive P-51. Relegated to the minor leagues of reconnaissance and ground support in Europe, mostly in Italy, the P-38 proved itself equally inadequate in ground attack; it was simply too flammable and too easily downed by rifle and machine gun fire.
Setting aside the not-so-proud history of the P-38, the Lightning II moniker is a poor fit for the F-35. Despite the F-35’s whopping (and still growing) $122 million per copy price tag, the Air Force and other advocates pretend it is the low-priced, affordable spread in fighter-bombers. Though horrendously overburdened with every high tech weight and drag inducing goodie the aviation bureaucracy in the Pentagon can cram in, the Lightning II is hardly a pioneer, being little more than a pastiche of pre-existing air-to-air and air-to-ground technology – albeit with vastly more complexified computer programs. The P-38 Lightning of the twenty-first century it is surely not, especially for those who hold the P-38 in undeserved high regard.
In the interests of giving credit where credit is due, a more historically fitting moniker for the F-35 would be “Aardvark II.” Aardvark — literally ground pig in Afrikaans — was the nickname pilots (and ultimately the Air Force) gave to the F-111–and for good reasons. The F-111 was the tri-Service, tri-mission fighter-bomber of the 60s, and also a legendary disaster. The F-35 is rapidly earning its place as the Aardvark’s true heir.
There are astonishing parallels between the two programs.
Both airplanes started life as misconceived USAF bombing-oriented designs, then were cobbled into “joint”, tri-Service Rube Goldbergs by Pentagon R&D civilians fronting for high complexity, big bucks programs advocated by industry. At birth, the F-111 was the Tactical Air Command’s 60,000 pound baby nuclear bomber designed around two high tech hooks: the glitzy swing-wing that NASA was pushing hard (now thoroughly discredited as a lousy idea) and the first big, complicated bombing radar on a so-called fighter.
In 1961, R&D chief Dr. Harold Brown (later President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Defense) sold then-SecDef Robert McNamara on the inestimable efficiencies of turning the F-111 into a common design for the Air Force, Navy, and Strategic Air Command, blithely asserting that it would be a piece of cake to incorporate in one airplane nuclear bombing, conventional bombing, air-to-air dogfighting, radar interception for the fleet, and even close support of ground forces. This fantasy called for buying 1,706 of these do-everything wunderwaffen at a bargain basement price of $2.9 million per copy, to be achieved by the wonders of the ephemeral “learning curve” wishfully attributed to such long production runs.
Quite similarly, the F-35 started life in 1991 as the USAF’s Multi-Role Fighter (MRF), a multi-mission bomber and fighter (mostly bomber) to replace the F-16. In other words, the plane’s real mission was not a well-defined combat task but rather to be the “low” end, yeoman-like counterpart to the more refined “high” end F-22 fighter. This was simply slavish adherence to the Air Staff’s simple-minded, misbegotten 30-year-old dogma of a “high/low force mix,” a slogan originally concocted to sell the F-15/F-16 mixed fighter buy to the Congress in 1974.
In 1993, the Pentagon’s civilian high tech fantasists in the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) crossbred the Air Force’s MRF concept with a stealthy, supersonic, vertical takeoff, ultra-complex pipedream that DARPA and Lockheed had been secretly sponsoring for six years. The marriage, urged on by Lockheed, turned the Air Force’s single service, multi-role MRF into a common (well, almost common) design that would perform interdiction bombing, air-to-air, fleet air defense, and close support for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. DARPA dubbed their tri-Service concoction the Combined Affordable Lightweight Fighter (CALF).
Once again promising the imagined cost savings of a multi-role, multi-service aircraft, DARPA sold the concept to another unsuspecting secretary of defense, former congressman Les Aspin. He added the necessary political gloss by endorsing the project in his 1993 Bottom Up Review (BUR), the progenitor of future successive waves of bureaucratic self-review, persistently sold as DoD “transformation” and now called “Quadrennial Defense Reviews.” For the BUR, DARPA and Aspin’s coterie of newcomers to Pentagon procurement fiascos renamed the project JAST (Joint Advanced Strike Technology). Congress laid on generous funds and by the end 1996 two JAST technology demonstrator (not prototype) contracts at three quarters of a billion dollars each were awarded, one to Lockheed and one to recent entrant Boeing–thereby creating the veneer, if not the actuality, of competitive prototypes. The alphabet soup chefs celebrated the signing with yet another name change: JAST became JSF, the Joint Strike Fighter. The new JSF office promptly floated a plan, very much in the F-111 tradition, for loading up the Services with a long production run of nearly 3,000 planes at an ever-so-affordable cost of $28 to $38 million each.
Unlike the marketing appeal of the F-111’s super sexy swing wing, the JSF’s high tech allure was a bit wan: a warmed-over, lesser version of the F-22’s stealth; a little more data-linking; a few more bombing computers than the F-22 and way less air-to-air maneuverability (not that the F-22 was any world beater). The only real firsts were a helmet-mounted sight that displays everything in the world except internet video and the Encyclopedia Britannica–and a bank of onboard computers requiring a horrific 7.5 million lines of software code.
Both the initial F-111 and the F-35 designs–each grossly too heavy and hideously lacking in maneuverability from the very start–were further compromised by the bureaucratically invented requirement to serve multiple missions and multiple Services. The F-111’s drag was greatly increased by the Navy’s perfectly senseless requirement for side-by-side seating; the structural weight and the production commonality was compromised by having a different wing and nose section for the Air Force and Navy versions; and the Navy-instigated switch to an unsuitable high bypass fan engine caused endless problems with inlets, compressor stalls and excessive aft end drag. Similarly, the F-35, already overweight, has suffered serious structural weight penalties to accommodate the Navy’s much larger wing and carrier landing requirements as well as the Marines’ fattened Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) fan-carrying fuselage midsection with its shrunken bomb bay. The impact of the three Services’ disparate specifications is huge: the Government Accountability Office has found that only 30 percent of components of the F-35’s three models are shared. So much for commonality savings.
The funding for both the F-111 and the F-35 benefited from herculean PR efforts to tout their unparalleled effectiveness in each one of their multiple missions: air-to-air, deep strike bombing, air defense interception, and close support. In truth, neither plane has (or had) any real multi-mission ability at all. They can serve only as lumbering, loss-prone bomb trucks, vulnerable to antiaircraft guns at low altitude because of their thin skins and appallingly flammable fuel-surrounded engines—and equally vulnerable to surface to air missiles (SAMs) due to their hopelessly inadequate maneuverability.
In urgent need of PR to prop up the F-111’s already tarnished image and fading funding, the Air Force rushed six Aardvarks into Vietnam combat in early 1968. Though they flew only night bombing missions (for which combat losses are typically negligible) in the least defended areas, three were lost in the first 55 missions. Accuracy of the much-vaunted radar bombing system was another black eye: half the bombs hit a half mile or more from the target. An embarrassingly hasty withdrawal from combat ensued.
In 1972, the F-111s tried a second turn in the combat limelight. The very first six-ship mission had four planes abort due to system failures; one never found the target and one reached the target but never returned. In toto, the 48 F-111s deployed only managed to fly about once every 2 ½ days. Flying night-only in low threat areas, they managed to lose 10 birds in the next six months. Day bombing was not attempted, and even the Air Force was not mindless enough to fly a single F-111 sortie anywhere near an enemy fighter. Nor, needless to say, did they fly a single close support sortie.
Similarly–and for the same reasons of unmaneuverability and high flammability–Air Force and Navy F-35s in combat will never fly anything but bomb truck missions in lightly defended areas out of reach of enemy fighters. As for the Marines’ range- and payload-limited, problem ridden, highly vulnerable STOVL F-35B, it will never deliver close support to a grunt on the ground from less than 10,000 feet without an ironclad guarantee that there’s not an AAA gun or shoulder-fired missile within five miles. With the F-35B’s miniscule loiter time, the grunts can forget about all-day air cover–a crucial component of effective close support in any war. Nor will the STOVL capability, a Marine Corps do-or-die requirement, ever let the F-35B operate impromptu close to the grunts in the foxholes. It can fly only from prepared concrete landing pads; a landing in the dirt close to the troops is sure to destroy the engine every time. Even flying off Marine/Navy ships may never happen: right now, the heat of the lift fan exhaust buckles the deck of any existing carrier or amphibious warfare ship.
High-tech dilettantes claimed (and claim) vociferously that both the F-111 and the F-35 could not be found or shot down by ground air defenses: the F-111 by virtue of its high speed and low altitude terrain following radar; the F-35 by virtue of its stealth. The terrain following radar proved to be a loser, costing several F-111s in Vietnam combat. As for the F-35’s stealth, it is easily detected by ancient-technology long wavelength search radars, which the Russians are happy to update and sell all over the world. Against shorter wavelength SAM and fighter radars, the stealth helps only over a very narrow cone of angles. These realities were an unpleasant surprise to our stealthy F-117s in the Kosovo air war in 1999. Against the Serbs’ antiquated Russian radar defenses, one F-117 was shot down and another so badly damaged it never flew again – a loss count twice that of the non-stealthy aircraft in the campaign. It is true, however, that the F-35, like the F-111 before it, will be hard to find in combat, though for other reasons: their long and frequent stays in the maintenance hangar dictate rather rare appearances over enemy skies.
Both Aardvark programs, the F-111 and the F-35, counted on foreign sales to keep unit costs down. The USAF and the Pentagon spent years marketing the F-111 to the UK, Australia and others. The UK bailed out of the F-111, and Australia unhappily learned to live with the ground pigs we talked them into. The F-35 program counts much more heavily on pie-in-the-sky foreign sales; six months ago the Pentagon’s program manager was touting the potential sale of thousands, well beyond the established plans for 730 for eight known foreign buyers. However, the UK is reported to be about to halve its F-35 buy, and a vocal faction in Australia wants to cancel their entire F-35 buy. Other foreign buyers are nervously monitoring F-35 cost growth, delays, and performance compromises.
The first Aardvark program produced one-third the number of planes planned at over five times the unit cost: 1,706 were planned at $2.9 million unit cost–in contrast to an actual 541 built at $15.1 million each, in 1960’s dollars. The F-35 was originally sold on the basis of buying 2,866 planes — for the US only — at $28 to $38 million each in contemporary dollars. Those Aardvark II promises are long gone; the current official estimate is to buy 2,456 aircraft for a combined research, development, and procurement cost of $299 billion, or $122 million each. The cost growth is far from over. A courageously independent evaluation group in the Pentagon, known as the Joint Estimating Team (JET), is predicting two or more years of delay and $16 billion or more in further cost growth – just for the next few years.
Again, however, that is just the tip of the iceberg. With 97% of flight test hours still unflown, we are certainly facing billions of dollars more in major rework to correct flight test failures sure to be found throughout the airplane: airframe, engine, electronics and software. Then, because the flight test program is designed to explore only 17 percent of the F-35’s flight characteristics, still more problems are sure to be found after the aircraft is deployed – at the potential expense of pilot lives and, of course, lots more money. In the end, expect F-35 unit cost to exceed $200 million. That means there’s no way our budgets will ever find room to buy 2,456 of them and, most probably, not half that number.
Another F-35 problem yet to be broached is the Navy’s very likely backing out of the program, a repeat of the Navy’s little known undermining of the F-111 program. The 1961 McNamara-Brown plan for a tri-Service F-111 was an illusion from the start. From the earliest days, Navy admirals were saying in private that the USN had no intention of ever building the carrier-based F-111B. They signed on to McNamara’s F-111 plan in order to extract funding for the engine (TF-30) and missile/radar (Phoenix/AWG-9) for their ardently desired all-Navy fighter. The USN was secretly developing that fighter, the F-14, with Grumman, the Navy-favored contractor they had planted inside the F-111 program to provide GD, ostensibly, with the carrier expertise to design the F-111B. In 1968, the year of the first sizable dollar commitments to F-111B production, the Navy announced that the F-111B’s carrier landing performance was unacceptably dangerous–a more-than-questionable assertion since the Navy’s in-service RA-5C Vigilantes had far worse carrier landing characteristics (and the F-14 itself would soon prove more dangerous than the F-111B in carrier landing characteristics). Simultaneously, the Navy told Congress it had in hand the design for a far better swing-wing fighter than the F-111, and it could build the aircraft right away for the same money as the F-111B. The Congress willingly went along with the gambit and authorized the Navy to apply the F-111B procurement money to the F-14.
The F-35 seems to be following the same trajectory. The Navy has been quietly reducing the number of Navy F-35Cs in the program plan and converting them to Marine F-35Bs. Alternatives to the F-35C have been discussed, and at least one has been briefed to top Pentagon managers. Meanwhile, both in the Navy budget and under the table with Congress, the Navy has successfully pushed for increased buys of their F-18E/F (an almost equally unworthy fighter and not much of a bomber). The Navy’s budget for F-35Cs is scheduled to steeply increase to $9 billion in fiscal year 2012. Expect the Navy to announce sometime before that the F-35C is simply carrier unsuitable. That will surely be accompanied by a simultaneous pitch that a hot new version of the F-18 is in hand, one that will cost less than the F-35C (which will not be difficult) and whose faster deliveries will cure the fighter “gap” that is causing the Navy to lose two much-lamented carriers from its future force.
The success of that pitch will spell the death knell of the F-35 program. Unit costs will automatically jump to a new peak. The performance deficiencies the Navy is sure to reveal at that point will add a sack heavy enough to bow the camel’s back, and the F-35 program will become nothing but a mad scramble to uncommit from as many Aardvark IIs as possible.
In the midst of their escalating program failures, both the F-111 and F-35 continued to be ever more intensely advertised as the future of U.S. combat aviation, the sine qua non of America’s continued domination of the skies anywhere in the world, and…
Both crapped out.
It’s all over but the shouting–and the wasting of many, many billions more before we’re rid of the second pig.
Winslow T. Wheeler is the Director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C..
Pierre M. Sprey, together with Cols John Boyd and Everest Riccioni, brought to fruition the F-16; he also led the design team for the A-10 and helped implement the program.
Both Wheeler and Sprey are authors of chapters in the anthology “America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress.”
By: jackjack - 18th January 2010 at 12:55
ok, i did a right click properties on the graph and saw erics site, eric, koop and co often make up charts, they think it adds credibility to their nonsense and i assumed this was just another one
my later wondering what the navair report was based upon, this has been shown in my post 391 above, we will have to wait for the budget request to see where the cards fall
“But the dispute is not a trivial matter. If the DoD decides to submit a budget request based on the JET’s higher estimate, Lockheed’s orders for production aircraft could decline. “
By: Wanshan - 18th January 2010 at 12:33
re the subs ?
in regard to navair, i think it is appropriated and responsible of navair to compile a report based on jet’s concerns
this however does not lend weight to the jet report, its simply wise to consider all opinions
No, the other ones, about the JSF chart (posts 380 and 389).
By: jackjack - 18th January 2010 at 11:57
Relax, I’m just poking a bit of fun in view of your posts on the previous page :rolleyes:
re the subs ?
in regard to navair, i think it is appropriated and responsible of navair to compile a report based on jet’s concerns
this however does not lend weight to the jet report, its simply wise to consider all opinions
By: Wanshan - 18th January 2010 at 08:21
i’m not going to argue with you, if you dont know whats happening re jet, so be it
Relax, I’m just poking a bit of fun in view of your posts on the previous page :rolleyes:
By: jackjack - 18th January 2010 at 01:22
i’m not going to argue with you, if you dont know whats happening re jet, so be it
By: Wanshan - 17th January 2010 at 22:57
For the service of “loose lips sink ships”, the Navy leaked the blandly titled “Joint Programs TOC Affordability” document through more holes than IJN Yamato off Okinawa. This was no baby-seals-type accident. It’s a deliberate hit at the highest level.
What matters is that the admirals and senior Navy leaders believe the report is roughly accurate, or it wouldn’t be on the street in the first place.
So, it is safe to assume that the Burgess document is ‘ navy acknowledged’ then?
:D:p
By: Wanshan - 17th January 2010 at 22:54
… and I quote from this article:
The US Naval Air Systems Command’s top cost estimator has warned in a new internal briefing obtained by Flight International that the Lockheed Martin F-35B/C variants are getting harder to afford
the NAVAIR briefing, presented to US Navy officials on 4 January
That top cost estimator would be mr. Burgess and the briefing contained the slide presented earlier. Just so we get that straight.
:D:p
By: SpudmanWP - 17th January 2010 at 17:44
News flash…. Development cost are NOT part of TOC. They are a separate line item and are not paid by the service that buys the F-35. They were only added to make the true TOC look worse than it actually is.
About Plan B. The USAF could always order more F-16s and F-15s as the lines are still open. Hell, for the next 1-2 years, they could even order some more F-22s and keep the line open.
By: Colombamike - 17th January 2010 at 13:59
JSF – Navy Ready To Abandon Ship?
The Navy is not happy with the new joint-service fighter. It’s gained weight during development, but more importantly, the Navy isn’t sure that the capabilities it provides are what they want to spend more money on. It’s tempting to scrap it and go with an alternative, from a company with recent carrier-jet experience. The obstacle is a headstrong Secretary of Defense who’s staked his reputation on the joint program, but the signals are clear: the moment he’s gone the Navy’s going to bail.
Enough about the F-111. What about JSF?
For the service of “loose lips sink ships”, the Navy leaked the blandly titled “Joint Programs TOC Affordability” document through more holes than IJN Yamato off Okinawa. This was no baby-seals-type accident. It’s a deliberate hit at the highest level.
blog post photo
The key chart is page 10, which shows that – over the lifetime of the fleet – the carrier-based and STOVL JSF versions will cost the Navy 40 per cent more, in total operating costs, than the F/A-18C/Ds and AV-8Bs that they replace. (The older aircraft costs are taken from FY2008 and include a lot of aging-aircraft issues.) This is despite a smaller fleet and fewer flight hours: the new aircraft are expected to cost more than 60 per cent more to fly per hour than their predecessors.
The Navy report suggests that the total cost of the Pentagon’s JSF program will be $705 billion in FY2002 dollars, just over twice the figure predicted at the program’s inception.
Lockheed Martin and the JSF program office will respond that the Navy figures are conjectural, based on experience with legacy aircraft, and not applicable to the JSF’s cutting-edge technology. This matters not a hoot. What matters is that the admirals and senior Navy leaders believe the report is roughly accurate, or it wouldn’t be on the street in the first place.
So where are all those billions in extra O&S money going to come from? The answer is “nowhere”. When the report states that “JSF will have a significant impact on naval aviation affordability”, what it means by “significant” is “about the same as the ten torpedo and seven bomb hits on Yamato.”
But wait – there’s more. The Navy is not talking exclusively about the F-35B/C. If similar TOC comparisons hold for the F-16, USAF TacAir plans have some challenges ahead. Moreover, the Navy notes an “upward” pressure on the $705 billion – indicating that the program team will be doing well to hold it level.
The Navy is the only US JSF customer with a ready Plan B, in the shape of the Super Hornet. (And GE has developed a thrust boost for the F414 and Boeing has muttered quietly about stealth enhancements.) What would the Navy do about the Marines? That wasn’t in the report’s terms of reference.
The Navy is not identifying factors behind the per-hour TOC number. However, the JSF is Super Hornet-sized, and bigger than either of the aircraft it replaces. The F-35B includes a complex lift-system full of critical components. And JSF includes stealth technology, which has yet to prove as affordable in service as the engineers promised it would be.
No one presentation or study is definitive, but this latest disclosure places more pressure than ever on the JSF program to perform.
By: jackjack - 17th January 2010 at 12:37
as i said, its early days and in a week, there will be enough info for me to base a personal opinion on
the production cut has been stated, there was an increase that was cut back and the money transferred to R&D, which can be moved back to production if all goes well
as far as australia goes, its a non issue as we are just getting the A
worst case scenario if there is a total cost blow out, we go for a f-35 and another plane, probably the fa-18f as a mixed fleet of hi-lo
50 f-35 and 26 f-18f, with the already ordered 24 with the 12 wired as growlers will be fine for us
but cost effective ratio will be considered and if our gov accepts the loss exchange ratio of 4:1 even a doubling of the price still has the f-35 as a cost effective plane
By: Wanshan - 17th January 2010 at 12:33
What is the source link on that?
By: jackjack - 17th January 2010 at 11:48
i will post my reply in a week when more info is available,
at this stage there is just a simple reply from LM that the f-35 forecast a reduced running cost to the fa-18
here is another global write up
The US Naval Air Systems Command’s top cost estimator has warned in a new internal briefing obtained by Flight International that the Lockheed Martin F-35B/C variants are getting harder to afford.
Lockheed continues to insist, however, that cost estimates within the programme have not changed since 2007, which it says is supported by its recent contractual performance.
But the NAVAIR briefing, presented to US Navy officials on 4 January, adds fuel to a series of recent reports that the Department of Defense is taking a more conservative approach to estimating the F-35’s overall costs, with potential production unit cuts likely in the fiscal year 2011 budget request scheduled for release in February.
According to NAVAIR’s cost department, the F-35’s total ownership costs, including development, production and sustainment, has doubled to $704 billion since Lockheed won the contract eight years ago.
Moreover, NAVAIR estimates the total of 680 short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs and carrier-variant F-35Cs, ordered by the US Marine Corps and USN, respectively, will cost $30,700 to fly each hour. This compares to $18,900 for the Boeing AV-8B Harrier II and Boeing F/A-18A-D, the aircraft types the Joint Strike Fighter will replace.
Although NAVAIR projects the F-35 will fly 12% fewer flight hours than the AV-8B and F/A-18A-D fleets, the agency expects the modern aircraft to cost as much as about 25% more to operate at peak rates, the briefing says.
The unexpected cost increases mean the F-35 “will have a significant impact on naval aviation affordability”, the NAVAIR document concludes.
Dan Crowley, Lockheed executive vice-president for the F-35, says the presentation reflects an ongoing dispute between the programme and the Joint Estimating Team (JET). The NAVAIR presentation bases its cost assumptions on the latest JET study.
The programme uses a “bottom-up” approach to estimate costs, while the JET and NAVAIR estimates use a parametric model, Crowley says.
But the dispute is not a trivial matter. If the DoD decides to submit a budget request based on the JET’s higher estimate, Lockheed’s orders for production aircraft could decline. Such a reduction sets the stage for the so-called “acquisition death spiral”, as fewer orders lead to higher unit production costs, which in turn cause further cuts.
But Crowley says that a production cut next year would not necessarily trigger a death spiral. Under Lockheed’s interpretation of recent acquisition reform laws, the company could deliver more aircraft to the government than are put under contract.
The first test of this theory could arrive during negotiations for the fifth annual lot of low rate production. “The government will be monitoring our prices for LRIP-5,” Crowley says.
Meanwhile, Lockheed will continue to develop its capacity planning based on the assumption that it will deliver one jet every working day by 2015 or 2016, says Crowley.
By: Wanshan - 17th January 2010 at 11:34
i still cant see where the naval acknowledged report is coming from
FYI, the text of the NAVAIR document is included at the bottom of the page to which you linked:
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/01/lockheed-says-leaked-f-35-stud.html
It is acknowledged as such by LMCO in its reponse, which at the same time authenticates the source:
“The NAVAIR figures cited in the leaked internal document are an independent assessment and are not definitive.”
IMHO that means it is a) from NAVAIR, b) not an official standpoint (i.e. possibly dissenting but not necessarily incorrect) and c) subject to discussion (as a lot of internal documents tend to be in a large government organization)
Also, as is explained, it is a leaked, internal Naval Air Systems Command document. Now, if it is a leaked internal study, that means it is not (or at least not yet) officially released. Hence, it CAN’T be navy acknowledged. In fact, you can’t trace the document in public sources as you could with e.g. an official government publication such as a CBO or GAO report or an offical agency release.
Also, if someone leaks a report (first page: ” intended for official use only” ), do you think the leaker generally wishes people (including e.g. their superiors) to know they (usually a person typically professionally required to keep certain matters secret untill explicitly authorized to make public) are the source, especially in a large bureaucratic organisation, in which the individual can easily be sanctioned?
Finally, how unbiased do you think Lockheed Martin is in all this? Don’t you think they have a stake? And how would that affect the position they take?
ps: googled Burgess and Navair and got a lot of credible hits, which indicates this is a real person in a real position. Even if the document doesn’t represent the official organizational point of view, imho you don’t get to be director of a unit within NAVAIR unless you know your business, and that imho makes Burgess’ pov a lot more credible than that of anybody posting here, including myself.
By: jackjack - 16th January 2010 at 13:21
See also: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/01/chart-f-35bc-operating-costs-v.html
i still cant see where the naval acknowledged report is coming from, do you know what it is based from
it needs to be looked at and assessed for credibility, there are a wide range of opinions presented to the pentagon, it isnt automatically creditable
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/01/lockheed-says-leaked-f-35-stud.html,
LM reply
and of course eric is one of the first to post his view, i saw the same nonsense from him when the sh and sh blk2 was released, he is a funny guy
his in print solution is to cancel the f-35 and buy 1000 f-16’s
By: Colombamike - 16th January 2010 at 12:55
Well played Wanshan 😀
😉
Regard
🙂
By: Wanshan - 16th January 2010 at 12:21
yes i always use eric palmer as a creditable sourse when i’m drunk and strung out on drugs in a psychotic state
when i’m sober and sane, he is just another pedaler of nonsensedo you have a link to his claim, i’m sure it will be falsely presented nand biased
See also: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2010/01/chart-f-35bc-operating-costs-v.html
A Pentagon briefing dated 4 January shows a larger number F-35B/Cs in 2029 will cost more to operate over dramatically fewer flying hours than today’s fleet of AV-8Bs and F/A-18C/Ds.
The presentation is authored by David E. Burgess, director of the cost department for the Naval Air Systems Command.
The chart shows predictions that the F-35B/C fleet will cost more to operate from Fiscal 2020 to FY2045 than the aircraft they replace. The data could be significant as the F-35 program has been justified primarily as a cost-saving effort, with three variants sharing a common design.
By: jackjack - 16th January 2010 at 11:47
you missed my edit,
which brought about the leasing of non-signature managed coastal subs and the co-development with australia of the cbass torp
if you go to http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/navy-maritime/
and read some of gf0012-aust posts or ask him about whats publically relesed, the west isnt looking too bad
By: Wanshan - 16th January 2010 at 11:37
yes in exercises, our own collins has shown a thing or two
exercises and real war mode are 2 different things
you dont think usa knew the sub was there and they wouldnt react to give range detection info to the chinese
at this point of time, even though russia, through japan has usa screw tech, both can be heard from miles and they sneak nowhere
Now now, there there:
– where did I say war and exercises are the same?
– where did I say the US didn’t know the sub was there (they couldn’t very well sink her in peactime in international waters, could they now and they certainly wouldn’t want to give the Chinese a clue as to their actual ASW detection capabilities 😉
In fact, in relation to this incident:
Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s submarine force, tells us not to be to hard on the sub-hunters:
“I have no inside information on this event, but it is very difficult to detect a quiet diesel submarine and the Song–class submarines are quality submarines. Operating in international waters in the vicinity of a US battle group is perfectly normal — good operational training.
The Chinese very well could have staged this event to make a point about the vulnerability of the Battle Group to submarine attack. The US Navy is fully aware of [those] vulnerabilities…The Chinese are building a credible submarine force which will make it very difficult for the US Navy to maintain sea control dominance in or near coastal waters off of China.”
http://defensetech.org/2006/11/14/behind-the-kitty-hawk-incident-updated/
There simply is no denying that submarines pose a credible threat, even to USN (after all, they openly recognize it as such).
Also, there’s no denying that detecting and countering a sub is not the same as detecting and countering a torpedo launch by a sub.
As for the article I referred to earlier to look up:
The Navy Searches for a Way to Detect Antiship Torpedoes Well Before Impact
2006-09-06
Article from Navy League of the United States
By Richard R. Burgess, Managing Editor…
The antiship torpedo — a century-old weapon — remains the most dangerous, stealthy threat to a surface ship in hostile waters. That threat has risen with the proliferation of a new generation of diesel submarines, which are difficult to detect. Countering incoming torpedoes is a serious challenge for ships unlucky enough to get too close to a hostile submarine. They must determine the range and direction from which the torpedoes are approaching, and respond rapidly enough to outmaneuver or destroy them.Effective detection, classification and localization of torpedoes are critical to protecting high-value ships from torpedoes.
…
the focus of antisubmarine tactics is to avoid submarines so as to “not get shot at” before the submarine can be attacked.
…
The only torpedo detection system for surface ships currently in use by the Navy is passive acoustic software on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. However, it is not used by other Navy ships and lacks an active acoustic feature necessary for the rapid and accurate location of an incoming torpedo.Even when torpedoes are detected, the Navy currently has no dedicated means of destroying them, though an antitorpedo torpedo is under development (see Seapower, June issue). The only countermeasure system currently available to surface ships is the SLQ-25A Nixie, an electro-acoustic decoy designed to deceive acoustic torpedoes which home in on a sound source such as the ship’s propulsion plant.
http://www.aactech.com/article.jsp?id=36
As for other material on the state of torpedo defences:
David Howard & Scott. C. Truver (2006) Anti-Torpedo Defense: Defeating a Ubiquitous Threat to Naval Superiority, in: Undersea Warfare, the Official Magazine of the U.S. Subrmarine Forces, Fall 2006, Vol. 8 No. 2
By: jackjack - 16th January 2010 at 11:29
It’s actually rather straightforward. The F-35C is not worth the money for the capability it brings to naval aviation.
gee, i wonder why usa wont listen to you, do you think its stubborn stupidity on their part ?
By: jackjack - 16th January 2010 at 11:23
I think you are underestimating SS(K) capabilities and overestimating ASW prowess.
In NATO and other naval exercises at least, SS(K)s have (more or less routinely) managed to score quite well against US carriers and their escorts. You might also remember the incident where a chinese Song class sub popped up within a few miles of USS Kitty Hawk a couple of years ago. You might also recall USN leased a Swedish Gotland class SS for ASW training: there is a reason for that you know.
As for anti-torp capability in the USN: IIRC, with respect to surface ships, only USN Arleigh Burke DDGs can detect weapons launches. Most ships have a Nixie-decoy (noise maker) for self defence against accoustic homing torps. That is about the extent of passive countermeasures. There are no active torpedo countermeasures in service at this time. ( I read an article about this recently, which I will try to find a link to). See also the last link of my previous post about torps: I think it has some discussion of torpedo defences as well.
yes in exercises, our own collins has shown a thing or two, which brought about the leasing of non-signature managed coastal subs and the co-development with australia of the cbass torp
exercises and real war mode are 2 different things
you dont think usa knew the sub was there and they wouldnt react to give range detection info to the chinese
at this point of time, even though russia, through japan has usa screw tech, both can be heard from miles and they sneak nowhere
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January 1, 2010 at 4:44 pm