It did. They are now focusing on the Lifetime costs which sit at 14% above the F-16C.

Yes, this is being headed by the OSD per SecDef’s Jan2017 memo (attached).

That’s the good news.

However, there is potential bad news. The 2nd part of the memo directs the DepSecDef to conduct a comparison of the F-35C and the Super Hornet with an eye towards determining if SH upgrades will make it competitive to the F-35C. That’s not a problem on it’s own….

What is a potential problem is that the DepSecDef, as of less than a year ago, was a Senior Vice President at…. Boeing. 😮 Conflict of interest much?

To be fair to SecDef Mattis, Shanahan was not the DepSecDef or even known to be in the running when he wrote the memo in Jan of 2017.

Patrick M. Shanahan became the 33rd Deputy Secretary of Defense on July 19, 2017.

Mr. Shanahan most recently served as Boeing senior vice president, Supply Chain & Operations. A Washington state native, Mr. Shanahan joined Boeing in 1986 and spent over three decades with the company. He previously worked as senior vice president of Commercial Airplane Programs, managing profit and loss for the 737, 747, 767, 777 and 787 programs and the operations at Boeing’s principal manufacturing sites; as vice president and general manager of the 787 Dreamliner, leading the program during a critical development period; as vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems, overseeing the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, Airborne Laser and Advanced Tactical Laser; and as vice president and general manager of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems, overseeing the Apache, Chinook and Osprey. He previously held leadership positions on the 757 program, 767 program and in the fabrication division.

Mr. Shanahan is a Royal Aeronautical Society Fellow, Society of Manufacturing Engineers Fellow and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Associate Fellow. He served as a regent at the University of Washington for over five years.

Mr. Shanahan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington and two advanced degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering, and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

There is little or no chance of that as the USMC has already used the F-35B in “austere” environments on non-prepped surfaces (ie no matting). Besides, the F-35’s STOVL fan prevents anything dislodged from the engine excuse from reaching the inlet.

Source: Japan’s Largest Warship Was Designed as an Aircraft Carrier

By Franz-Stefan Gady
February 27, 2018

Blueprints reveal that Japan’s latest class of helicopter destroyers has been designed to operate the F-35B.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (JMSDF) largest warship, the so-called helicopter destroyer JS Izumo, the lead ship of the Izumo-class, along with its sister ship, JS Kaga, have already been designed to operate short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) fighters such as Lockheed Martin’s F-35B, retired JMSDF sources told Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper last week.

While Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has repeatedly denied plans to retrofit the Izumo-class into full-fledged aircraft carriers–euphemistically classified as helicopter destroyers by the JMSDF to downplay the ships’ offensive warfighting capabilities– a JMSDF executive said that a consensus was privately reached at the inception of the Izumo project that the warships should be designed allowing for a future conversion into a F-35B-carrying naval platform.

“It is only reasonable to design (the Izumo) with the prospect of possible changes of the circumstances in the decades ahead,” the JMSDF executive said. “We viewed that whether the Izumo should be actually refitted could be decided by the government.” Indeed, it is unsurprising that consideration was given to operate the F-35B–the U.S. Marine Corps variant of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter capable of vertical or short takeoffs and vertical landings without requiring a catapult launcher—from the Izumo’s flight deck, as the ministry has repeatedly expressed interest in acquiring the aircraft over the years.

MoD sources have only recently reiterated the MoDs interest in procuring F-35Bs for service aboard the Izumo-class and from airfields on Japanese-held islands skirting the East China Sea. Modifications on the Izumo-class, among other things, would require the installation of a ski-jump. Contrary to earlier reports, the JMSDF executive claims that the flight deck has already been coated with paint that can withstand the exhaust heat generated during F-35B landings and takeoffs. Additionally, the aircraft elevators connecting the flight deck with the hangar was reportedly specifically designed to accommodate the F-35B.

The Izumo-class is the biggest class of surface warship to be operated by the JMSDF since the end of World War II. While it is a multi-purpose warship, the Izumo-class’ biggest comparative advantage to other vessels in the JMSDFs surface fleet is its sophisticated anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability. For example, Izumo-class ships can operate a large number of Japan’s most advanced sub-hunting helicopter. “The ship is designed to accommodate up to 14 helicopters (seven Mitsubishi-built SH-60k ASW helicopters and seven Agusta Westland MCM-101 mine countermeasure helicopters), five of which can simultaneously take off and land, given the Izumo’s large flight deck and five landing spots,” I explained previously.

Should the Izumo-class undergo a retrofit to accommodate the F-35B, the ships’ ASW capabilities would be somewhat curtailed, as numerous defense analysts have pointed out. The Izumo-class conversion debate in Japan occurs in the context of an increasing vulnerability of Japanese airbases to Chinese and North Korean cruise and ballistic missile strikes. F-35Bs operating from Izumo-class carriers would at least theoretically increase the chances of Japanese airpower surviving a possible Chinese or North Korean first strike in the event of a military conflict.

https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/source-japans-largest-warship-was-designed-as-aircraft-carrier/

UK government addresses F-35 concerns, states continued commitment to programme

UK government addresses F-35 concerns, states continued commitment to programme
Gareth Jennings, London – IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly
26 February 2018

The UK government has responded to a parliamentary report that was highly critical of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme, saying that it remains committed to delivering the capability on time and within budget.

In its response to the December 2017 report titled Unclear for take-off? F-35 Procurement , the government on 26 February clarified a number of the concerns raised with the aircraft’s next-generation Multifunctional Advanced Data Link (MADL); the capacity of the internet broadband fitted to the Queen Elizabeth-class (QEC) aircraft carriers; the reported cyber vulnerabilities of the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS); a lack of information on the current or the final costs of the programme; as well as software and hardware development problems.

In the original report published on 10 December 2017, the Parliamentary Defence Committee noted a lack of transparency in the F-35 programme in general and inadequate responses to a critical article published in The Times earlier in the year in particular, both of which could risk undermining public confidence in the project that is critical to the future of the UK defence.

The government said MADL is just one of a number of solutions that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is actively pursuing as it looks to improve the interoperability between defence and security systems across the air, land, sea, and cyber domains, and for the F-35 to share data covertly across the battlespace in particular. “The MoD has undertaken a series of trials of communication nodes between the Link 16 format and the MADL format using F-35 and [Eurofighter] Typhoon aircraft [.…] The MoD, alongside the US services and industry partners will continue to explore the value of exchanging data through the classified series of Babel Fish trials,” the government said.
(318 of 1219 words)
http://www.janes.com/article/78168/uk-government-addresses-f-35-concerns-states-continued-commitment-to-programme

Sorry for the paywall

F-35 By the Numbers (Feb 2018)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1gEatZFndU

ALIS 3.0 Testing Complete But Improvements Are Slow

ALIS 3.0 Testing Complete But Improvements Are Slow
2/21/2018
—JOHN A. TIRPAK

The F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Integration System, or ALIS, completed operational testing on Feb. 19 and fielded units will be updated with this version on a priority basis, based on which units have the most pressing need, Lockheed Martin Vice President and General Manager for Training and Logistics Solutions Amy Gowder told reporters Feb. 21.

Speaking at the unit’s Orlando, Fla., facility, Gowder confirmed that ALIS 3.0 had completed “flight testing” at Nellis AFB, Nev., although this is an in-house company term and the system does not actually fly.

ALIS is a series of mobile servers mounted in two vertical racks—one classified and one not—that gathers and processes the flight experience of all the F-35 jets in a squadron, automatically ordering parts and maintenance actions as required. The 13 or so servers are transportable and go with the unit when it deploys. Lockheed and its F-35 military customers are looking at a somewhat smaller system that could deploy with a detachment of, say, six jets, as the Air Force has said it will be doing more frequently.

A team of installers travels to F-35 operating locations and updates ALIS hardware over a weekend, when missions are typically not flown, Gowder explained. Units receiving the update first will be those that are operational and flying real-world missions, followed by those doing training.

Despite it being the most up-to-date version of the logistics system, Gowder said Lockheed recognizes it must improve ALIS 3.0, as one of the major elements in its sustainment cost reduction efforts.

“One area [that] we do know” needs improvement is in the number of ALIS administrators, Gowder acknowledged. There are eight needed per squadron, and that must come down, she said, because manpower is a “key driver” of sustainment costs. Future versions will be more centralized to reduce the number of people needed to feed and maintain aircraft information.

She said the company is also looking to improve “usability liability” issues, which means that some ALIS functions actually take longer to perform than they do in legacy logistics systems. The Joint Program Office is allowing Lockheed to “roll in fixes” to both earlier versions and 3.0 to “improve usability.”

Another area slow to pay off is in automated test. ALIS performs this function at the unit part level, but not yet for the overall system, which Gowder said is “where the big bang for the buck is.”

The company and JPO are deeply into discussions about version 4.0, which was originally slated to be released in 2019, but Gowder suggested that target won’t be met, because of new requirements being added and the differing needs of international users.

“We may choose to defer some nice-to-have” features from 4.0 to accelerate more urgently needed improvements, such as cybersecurity, she noted. The focus will continue to be on “quality data integrity,” Gowder noted. The propulsion system—the F135 engine and its performance and parts—was added to ALIS in 2017, greatly expanding the amount of data it amasses and tracks. The company is trying to make sure that flaws from “legacy” logistics systems don’t migrate into ALIS when data is ported over to it.

Gowder asserted that the release of 3.0 fixes some of the problems that have led to F-35 sustainment costs taking too long to come down, and as it spreads throughout the fleet in 2018, “I think you’ll see a big improvement” in sustainability this year, she predicted. With a further update in 2019, more progress should be made, she added.

http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2018/February%202018/ALIS-30-Testing-Complete-But-Improvements-Are-Slow.aspx