It is of course not illegal to hire former officers as “consultants” or even as employees. It is not in any sense bribery, which is an inducement to a government or corporate employee to act in a certain way in their official capacity. Many former USAF officers are on company payrolls or consultant lists, and it would be surprising if none of the former RoKAF bosses were in that position. So no more ranting and blathering about conspiracy theories, please.

That said, I believe that a lot of active and former RoKAF leaders were keen to get their hands on the F-35’s stealth technology.

But guess what? It is not their final decision to make. The defense ministry and national government have a voice.

The original requirement balanced individual aircraft capability against force numbers, while respecting other defense and national needs, by setting a price ceiling.

The F-35 should have come in well under that ceiling if LockMart statements about its cost were accurate, but they were not, and that may have undermined the decision process. The RoK defense ministry, DAPA and the government as a whole made the mistake of believing LockMart, and set a price ceiling that (I believe) they were confident all contenders could meet.

When this approach yielded the wrong answer (in the view of some of RoKAF and most of Washington) things had to be changed hastily, and (as noted above) it would be amazing if no money changed hands.

Ha ha very funny FBW!

All of us who were saying through 2010 that the schedule (that still officially had USAF IOC in 2013 and Navy in 2015) was moonshine, that it would be the latter teens before anyone delivered an F-35A for less than an F-22, that land VLs would be restricted and that the operating cost goal was over-optimistic are just as embarrassed as all get out.

And one point (of many) about the sales brochure published by Breaking Defense: In what Block do we get all this fabulous cyber-stuff, tested, validated and ready for war?

PS Nice stuff Tu-22M. Been a while since I heard the expression “samverkan”.

Welcome to the wacky world of the F-35’s supporters, where not increasing the cash burn rate in an attempt to recover schedule (which would have been asinine in any case) is described as a “cut”, and the customer’s belated recognition that neither the design nor the production line was ready for full-rate production, and that they didn’t want to end up in 2017 with several hundred non-operational aircraft, is considered a political/budget move that undermined the program’s economics.

Sintra is right, although he only got to 1990, and not the long period in the 90s when the Germans wanted to scrap the whole thing and would not sign the full development contract, with the result that when that did eventually happen, all the tech standards had changed to the point where they needed a new batch of development aircraft.

Compared with the girth of the fan and the engine, the diameter difference between a Mk83 and a Mk84 is pretty small. I would compare the LMT CALF and JSF demo designs: the body shape is not that different.

Saab has a record of low-cost, on-time development of high-performance aircraft (not just prototypes) that cost less to acquire and operate than their competitors.

I am well aware of the marketing pitch on durable, maintainable LO.

I was given an exactly parallel pitch, albeit with different details, 16 years ago on the F-22. How did that work out?

http://www.tyndall.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/2013/08/130701-F-DY859-004.JPG

http://www.tyndall.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123359148

The USN has conceded the need to make sure that the skin is salt-free (salt is conductive). As for the austere basing for the F-35B, Spud, could you tell us when that was tested? When it will be tested this side of IOC? When we’ll see some VLs or rolling/creeping VLs on a surface typical of a third-world runway?

PS – Since 2004 or so, FUD has beaten the carp out of blind faith in program marketing when it comes to predicting the trajectory of this project.

The majority of the VLO Features are inherent to the shape of the F-35B and cannot be “undone”.

Except by a dousing of salt water or a quick dirtblasting with hot asphalt, that is…