Italy=gone,
Dutch=much less than their original number –now crying for Denmark and Norway to make a joint force. Good luck with that.
Denmark=Has not committed to the idea of the F-35 being their next fighter
Norway=buyers remorse
UK=MOD going out of business sale and their second try at the F-35C having little or no chance of getting aboard ship.
Turkey=Hard to say, with all the other shaky partners… could be the strong horse
Canada=Be interesting given MacKay doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
Australia=Faulkner’s Folly will be come Smith’s buy for more Super Hornets

Confidence with the partner nations!

And all the raft of faulty development with not much to show for it.

USAF—Plans and programs office in 2008 stated they couldn’t afford more than 48 per year once full-rate production kicked in. Now we do not know when full-rate production will kick in. They were 120 per year for FRP at the start, then post-SWAT.80…It has gotten worse since 2008.

USN–Take a wild guess. It has to get aboard the boat and actually work

USMC–Too many things in the STOVL faults to mention not counting all the other stuff.

And…. Admiral Steidle, one of the early JSF program managers stated prices per jet don’t flatten out in the JSF business plan until you get to 1600 jets.

Where are the 1600 jets? Doesn’t matter. The current guy, Admiral Venlet has stated that the original JSF business plan was a “miscalculation”.

Tell that to the U.S. Congress which has trimmed LRIP5 to 30 jets because of massive design defects.

The overly optimistic plan that the gullible believed to invest in the Ponzi scheme looked like this:

And the investors are asking: Where is my money?

Fantasy indeed.

Plenty of jet aircraft have been built without the exhaust at the aft most position of the airframe. Ever heard of the F-4 Phantom? But in context with the F-35 perhaps the Yak-141 is the best example. Splitting the tail to either side of the exhaust so as to accommodate a VTOL lift-thrust capability is not unique to the F-35.

Well the F-4 had a successful operational career. A “joint strike fighter” even! The program also was built in an era when engineering leadership knew how to speak its mind. Oh, wait. Sorry, add this: in an era where those leading engineers were not deskilled and run down by the marketing department and Harvard Business School flunkies.

Probably a big difference there. Things like real risk management and analysis. “We are going to do this with the tail…. what are the risks?” The F-35 program has shown many times that they do not know how to program manage. And now we have the leadership of the DOD F-35 program proclaiming just as much with an on-going engineer reorg.

And, the F-4 was designed from the beginning to be a carrier capable aircraft and went on to do carrier suitability testing not too terribly long after the prototype was finished.

Over 10 years since SDD and no carrier capable jet for the F-35 program. Sad. Pathetic.

Oh but wait!!! The F-35C cleared CDR in 2007!

Someone remind me. How many operational squadrons of Yak-141s were there? How many years of successful operational service did it have? How many other problems in the Yak-141 program did we not know about?

Here are a few F-4 highlights not long after it was created.

1. December 6, 1959. Absolute altitude record of 98,556 ft (30,040 m).
2. September 5,1960. Attained and average speed of 1,958 mph over a triangular course for 15 min and 91 sec.
3. September 25,1960. 100 km closed circuit speed record of 1,390 mph (Mach 2) with a continuous
sustained turn of 3Gs.19
4. May 24,1961. Ontario, Ca to Brooklyn, NY (Floyd Bennett), 2 hr 47 min, @ average speed of
870 mph. 2,446 miles (3,936 km).
5. August 28,1961. Low altitude record of 125 ft (38 m) at 902 mph (1,452 km) for 1.86 miles (3 km).
6. December 5,1961. Sustained altitude record of 66,443 ft (20,252 m).
7. February 21,1962. Time to height record. 9,843 (3,000 m) in 34.52 sec.
8. February 21,1962. Time to height record. 19,685 (6,000 m) in 48.78 sec.
9. March 1,1962. Time to height record. 29,528 (9,000 m) in 61.62 sec.
10. March 1,1962. Time to height record. 39,370 (12,000 m) in 77.15 sec.
11. March 1,1962. Time to height record. 49,213 (15,000 m) in 114.54 sec.
12. March 31,1962. Time to height record. 65,617 (20,000 m) in 178.50 sec.
13. April 3,1962. Time to height record. 82,021 (25,000 m) in 230.44 sec.
14. April 4,1962. Time to height record. 98,425 (30,000 m) in 371.43 sec.
15. April 4,1962. Absolute altitude record of 100,000 ft (30,480 m). Not officially recorded by the FIA.

Amiga there is no correlation between the number of catapult launches and the number of arrested landings (and AFAIK no attempt at barrier landing which is a very different thing) during a land based initial testing phase. Also as is plain to anyone the current hook will not be the in service hook which is being sent back to the drawing board. I’ve already posted an early Northrop Grumman proposal and no doubt this kind of thing will be tested to ensure the hook can work. No need to write off the F-35C or turn to ELP’s rather dubious solution box.

…if…. and ….maybe….

Take a read of this:

A recent report from the head of U.S. DOD testing–

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/283239/section-on-the-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-from.pdf

….And explain to us why we should take the dumbassery of F-35 program management seriously.

The aircraft design will be lucky if it ever meets its requirements.

Operational Assessment

The JSF Operational Test Team completed an operational assessment of the F-35 program and determined that it is not on track to meet operational effectiveness or operational suitability requirements. The JSF Operational Test Team assessed the program based on measured and predicted performance against requirements from the JSF Operational Requirements Document, which was re-validated in 2009.

I’m beginning to suspect that ELP is not actually a person but a program that generates random F-35 criticisms in response to its every mention. Or what used to be called in the good old days: a broken record.

So says the un-named internet troll.

-“Maneuverability is irrelevant”

-“On track”

-“Tracking”

-“Fifth-generation fighter”.

-“Affordable”

And so many more examples that are THE ultimate and expensive broken record.