Some news items and articles just out:
Flightglobal article that gives a flavour of some of the skills and co-ordination necessary for the efficient operation of a cat & trap carrier, the USS Stennis in this case.
IN FOCUS: Why the UK's carriers will not be 'airfields at sea'
Another
Flight item, this time reporting news of the Netherlands trimming their F16 fleet and capping expenditure on F35, the decisions on which will be deferred until 2015 elections (sound familiar?).
Netherlands makes final trim to F-16 fleet size
Lastly an update, courtesy of
Defense News, of the Canadian government's response to the criticism it received from the recent auditor's report on the F35 acquisition programme. F35 funding has been capped, the programme's control removed from the Department of National Defence, and further 'due diligence' is to be applied to the F18 replacement programme.
Canada Caps F-35 Funding After Audit | Defense News | defensenews.com
With a number of customers now capping funding for F35, it occurs to me that some of them could arrive at a crunch point
if they stick to these funding caps. Should unit prices continue to rise faster than currently projected (which must be a high risk), the number of aircraft that can be bought for the money allocated could drop to such a level as to become unworkable. It's unlikely LM will charge less than the budgeted amount, so what happens if this only gets you, say, half the numbers you originally wanted?
I sense that the delay that is F35's nemesis may be the politician's friend - someone else may have to make the call, or the economic and political climate might be such that the cost problem might be less of a stumbling block than it is right now. And F35 might be getting some good reports by then too - if it's known to work and work well, stumping up the huge chunk of cash might not seem such a bad thing by then.
One thing is depressingly consistent though. Most governments are woefully inadequate at applying proper processes and controls to complex military procurement programmes. There's clearly a different attitude when it comes to spending someone else's money.