Questions
Used to post here in a different life, many summers ago.
Having kept a "watching brief", I see the standard of discussion is still, in the main, professional though there seem to be a few petulent types in our midst.
Some rather pointed questions that are circling the globe just lobbed on my desk. Am pretty sure most will find of interest but a few others will start (or is that continue) frothing around the mouth over, particularly at the mention of Dr Carlo Kopp.
1. In the post-2015 stealth-on-stealth world, in which Counter-VLO capable A2/AD weapons systems will also abound, what is the role, let alone where is there a role, for the F-35A CTOL JSF other than in operations in low threat, permissive environments; that is, those operational environments in which the legacy aircraft the JSF is intended to replace are already more than effective, as well as far more cost-effective, though none of these aircraft (including the JSF) can assure air parity, even superiority, let alone air dominance in a post-2015 world?
2. As a counter-air fighter aircraft as well as a self-defence capable battlefield interdiction strike/bomber, how can the F-35A CTOL JSF be competitive against supercruising, extremely agile, VLO analogues of the F-22A Raptor, such as the Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA and Chengdu J-20, or even the non-VLO Su-35S Super Flanker, when these aircraft almost certainly have, as one of their principal design aims, the ability to compete with and defeat the Raptor?
3. Like the others, this question is extremely important but unlike the others, requires a bit of a pre-amble.
The seminal research and techno-strategic analysis works of Dr Carlo Kopp published since 1998 accurately predicted the emergence and techno/strategic consequences of (A) the Russian Su-35S Super Flanker; (B) advanced, rapidly deployable (i.e. high mobility) highly integrated air defence systems (i.e. Counter-VLO A2/AD weapons systems); and, (C) United States military and fiscal “overstretch”; and, (D) the rise of China and the concept of using military force as a form of coercive soft power.
Unequivocal official acknowledgement of the threats posed by (B), (C) and (D) may be found in the Pentagon’s 2010 QDR; the CSBA think tank papers on Air Force Strategy of 2009 and Air-Sea-Battle of 2010; and, more stridently, in the POTUS Defense Strategic Guidance of January 2012. However, little if any mention has been made in US Military planning documents of the Russian Su-35S Super Flanker or the emergence of the Fifth Generation Fighter analogues of the F-22A Raptor, such as the Russian T-50 PAK-FA and China’s Chengdu J-20.
Independent analyses, employing standard PARCAA* methodologies, of this situation combined with other events and statements (e.g. Slide 8 from JSF JPO Director of Engineering Briefing on JSF Systems Engineering, August 2011 – copy attached) have determined an almost certain probability that consideration let alone inclusion of functional requirements to address these “Reference Threats” could not have been the dominant part of the development of the JSF Operational Requirements Document (ORD) they should have been; nor its approval by the JROC in March 2000; nor, the revalidation of the JSF ORD by the JROC in 2010, following acknowledgement of the 2009 breaches of the Nunn-McCurdy Act.
Could you please check the JSF JPO/PEO records and files, as well as those of the JROC, back to circa 2000 to independently validate and confirm or, if you can, provide any evidence that contradicts/countermands, the results of this PARCAA work?
* PARCAA –Performance Assessment/Root Cause Analysis & Assessment
(Refer the US WSAR Act of 2009 and Systems Engineering Doctrine, Methods & Processes)
4. Do you agree that an independently supervised counter-air profile fly-off between the F-35A CTOL JSF and the F-22A Raptor be the quickest, cheapest and most effective way of getting objective data and reliable answers to these questions; answers that are also devoid of any of the contaminating/corrupting influences of the MICC about which the 34th POTUS warned his fellow Americans?
If you don’t agree, then please explain in PARCAA and the related Systems Engineering terms why that is so?