Spud – Pouring money into a program to recover schedule works up to a point. It takes wall-clock time as well as manhours to add more instrumented aircraft, induct and train test crews, increase telemetry capacity and so on.

It might have been practical to do this, even so, had the schedule problems been addressed in a timely fashion. The first warnings were in 2006 but it was almost four years later that anyone in the program chain of command admitted to a problem, and by then it was far too late to do anything except change the schedule.

The “notional” Block chart is from a 2007 glossy brochure supplied to Norway.

Also, the new 4.1/4.2 &c schedule extends to 2025 – Block 5.1 does not reach IOC until 2027.

Finally, “advanced” EO is almost certain to mean “attempting to narrow the chasm between EOTS and TDPs”. EOTS remains midband-IR only, while the trend in pods is towards fused dual- or multiband, and even active laser imaging. Since Litening 5 and Talios will be operational long before then, it would be ambitious to try to close the gap completely.

The biggest mil aviation story in town, and not even a whisper from aviation week.
Whats the story behind that?

http://m.aviationweek.com/defense

Errrr, wot?

Couple of points:

1 – Compare the pic of the EO-DAS module with the datasheet for the 4MP L-3 sensor engine.

The sensor engine is 3/4 the size of a 12-pack of beer cans (by volume). It doesn’t include the cooler, power supply or processor. That makes the EO-DAS module pretty huge. Is there anything other than the shape of the aperture end that suggests that the 4MP module is what’s in there?

2 – IRST is distinguished from a targeting pod or EOTS with an “IRST mode” by a much longer focal length and a mirror that moves fast enough to scan the field of regard.

Well, it should be known that in the early days the US was reluctant to even take Britain on board

Incorrect, unless by “early days” you mean “some pre-CALF studies”.

Deranged?

Pied piper? //checks six for column of rats

Define “competitive prices”.

Development costs are a sunk cost

Not all of them are, if you read the budget documents. But then, I wasn’t talking about development costs. A focus on acquisition and development costs is a besetting problem of military strategy worldwide.

Which five? You listed six, seven if you count LWF as two.

And money and funding are pretty much the same thing. I have heard vocal JSF shills announcing loudly that they don’t care how much money it costs, but that is merely an admission that they don’t understand strategy (“matching resources to goals” being a big part of strategy) and that they are unqualified to talk about anything.