F-35 Cancelled, then what ?
Well, your own references quote the UK, Netherlands and Swedish Governments as saying the ECA has not given an unqualified statement of Assurance for the last 19 years. Current (2012) "error" equates to 6.2 billion euros per year.
Do a Hover - it avoids G
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I think there is a good chance he meant:
“This exercise will evaluate the full spectrum of F-35B measures of suitability and effectiveness to the maximum extent possible from this particular ship"
I think there is a good chance he meant:
“This exercise will evaluate the full spectrum of F-35B measures of suitability and effectiveness to the maximum extent possible from this particular ship"
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Which is very far from saying the accounts have not been signed off. Stating they have not been signed off is in fact a lie. European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - EU accounts signed off, but errors persist in all main spending areas, say EU Auditors
6.2 billion equates to around 4% of the budget.
In addition most, if not all of the "error rate" as the auditor puts it, is down to national governments and / or the organisations that receive the funding, not the EU itself.
6.2 billion equates to around 4% of the budget.
In addition most, if not all of the "error rate" as the auditor puts it, is down to national governments and / or the organisations that receive the funding, not the EU itself.
T-50 in trouble
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
The software reminds me of the saga of Windows 3.0.... 
Problems plaguing F-35's next-gen maintenance system
The F-35's highly touted, next-generation software system designed to detail maintenance issues on the jet is plagued with problems that could lead to more delays with the jet's development. The F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information System is a program that a maintainer plugs into the jet, and it is expected to outline what is wrong and what is working, and to streamline the process of identifying replacement parts. It has been a touted as a game-changing technology to simplify the maintenance process for the new jet.
But members of the House Armed Services tactical air and land subcommittee who spoke with maintainers last month at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, heard a different story. Maintainers there said 80 percent of issues identified by ALIS are "false positives." Additionally, the program is sluggish, slowing down maintenance instead of streamlining it, subcommittee chairman Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said during a hearing Tuesday..........
The system is not meeting requirements for service members operating the jets, said Sean Stackley, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition. "The issue of false positives is very real," Stackley said. "The concerns with regards to the reliability, responsiveness, the timeliness of ALIS informing the war fighter is at the top of our priority list." The solution going forward will not be one simple upgrade, he said. The program is testing software upgrades to capture the known deficiency, but it won't be immediate. "The program is improving, but it is not where it needs to be," Stackley said.
The ALIS system is currently computer racks totaling about 1,000 pounds, and was too big to be used during carrier testing. The program is developing a deployable, two-man portable version of the system that will be ready in July. The version, currently a software suite called 1.0.3, will be incrementally upgraded, with the Marine Corps going to its initial operating capability with a 2.0.1 version later this year and the Air Force getting another upgraded version, 2.0.2, for initial operating capability next summer. The Navy is expected to have initial operating capability in 2018.
Problems plaguing F-35's next-gen maintenance system
The F-35's highly touted, next-generation software system designed to detail maintenance issues on the jet is plagued with problems that could lead to more delays with the jet's development. The F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information System is a program that a maintainer plugs into the jet, and it is expected to outline what is wrong and what is working, and to streamline the process of identifying replacement parts. It has been a touted as a game-changing technology to simplify the maintenance process for the new jet.
But members of the House Armed Services tactical air and land subcommittee who spoke with maintainers last month at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, heard a different story. Maintainers there said 80 percent of issues identified by ALIS are "false positives." Additionally, the program is sluggish, slowing down maintenance instead of streamlining it, subcommittee chairman Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said during a hearing Tuesday..........
The system is not meeting requirements for service members operating the jets, said Sean Stackley, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition. "The issue of false positives is very real," Stackley said. "The concerns with regards to the reliability, responsiveness, the timeliness of ALIS informing the war fighter is at the top of our priority list." The solution going forward will not be one simple upgrade, he said. The program is testing software upgrades to capture the known deficiency, but it won't be immediate. "The program is improving, but it is not where it needs to be," Stackley said.
The ALIS system is currently computer racks totaling about 1,000 pounds, and was too big to be used during carrier testing. The program is developing a deployable, two-man portable version of the system that will be ready in July. The version, currently a software suite called 1.0.3, will be incrementally upgraded, with the Marine Corps going to its initial operating capability with a 2.0.1 version later this year and the Air Force getting another upgraded version, 2.0.2, for initial operating capability next summer. The Navy is expected to have initial operating capability in 2018.
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How do you get to spend 400 billion dollars and still not meet the requirement?
Let's hope that things do get better, and soon. Otherwise the US will run out of money before they have a replacement for the A10.
Marine Corps pilots of the first F-35 joint strike fighters scheduled to begin flying this summer will not be able to use night vision technology or carry more than four bombs and missiles, Defense Department officials testified in the House on Tuesday.
Overall, the first variant aircraft will have a range of lingering shortcomings when it goes into operation and will not be able to best the capabilities of the 1970’s era A-10 Thunderbolts it was designed to replace, according to Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation at the Defense Department.
The F-35 program began in 2001 and has since racked up nearly $400 billion in costs — one of the most expensive and troubled Defense Department acquisition programs. It has also led to a controversial plan to retire the A-10, a close air support stalwart that many believe provides crucial cover for troops on the ground.
Overall, the first variant aircraft will have a range of lingering shortcomings when it goes into operation and will not be able to best the capabilities of the 1970’s era A-10 Thunderbolts it was designed to replace, according to Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation at the Defense Department.
The F-35 program began in 2001 and has since racked up nearly $400 billion in costs — one of the most expensive and troubled Defense Department acquisition programs. It has also led to a controversial plan to retire the A-10, a close air support stalwart that many believe provides crucial cover for troops on the ground.
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Originally Posted by airpolice
Let's hope that things do get better, and soon. Otherwise the US will run out of money before they have a replacement for the A10
Objectivity may be in doubt. In her defense, I think we have a thread running here at PPRuNe Mil Forum wherein the premise that NOTHING can replace the Warthog is well enough supported.
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Originally posted by Lone_Wolf:
It is worth noting that said rep was an A-10 pilot her own self. Objectivity may be in doubt.
It is worth noting that said rep was an A-10 pilot her own self. Objectivity may be in doubt.
Other live-fire test shots into the propulsion system revealed that “sustained fires were created in the shot into the variable area vane box nozzle due to leakage in the actuating hydraulics, and the shot into the roll duct nozzle door due to damage to the adjacent fuel tank. These fires would ultimately have led to cascading structural damage.”
We have spent and continue to spend an ungodly amount of money on the Marine version of the F-35 which doesn't have the CAS or survival capability of the A-10. So what role does it really have? What role will it have? The DoD now has an unlimited credit card, having run out of blank checks…
When it was first procured, the F-35, aka Joint Strike Fighter, was not "this is the plane to replace the A-10" was it?
No, it wasn't.
The B is to replace the Harrier.
The A the F-16.
The C the F-18.
(Whether or not this is all in all a good idea is another matter, long argued from program inception to this morning, and beyond)
None of those previous models were a replacement for the A-10 either.
Right?
The A-10 fitted a unique niche, but if you look in the other direction, it can't replace the Viper, the Hornet, nor the Harrier in their multiple missions. Doctrinally, Strike and CAS are distinct missions, though perhaps the authors of doctrine make distinctions that eventually blur in combat. You'll note that the competition was not for a Joint CAS Fighter.
I'll stand by the point already made in the other thread: nothing can replace the A-10. And nothing will, by itself. If you bother to roll up an echelon, the joint fires necessary to support the close fight will need to be provided by a mix of direct, indirect, and airborne fires (like Apache/Cobra attack helicopters) even though they are not an exact match for that lovely Warthog gun. A piece of it will come from strike aircraft like the
Harrier
Viper
Hornet
Strike Eagle
Lightning II
With the increasing use of "smart munitions" "brilliant munitions" and various flavors of guided sub-munitions, the menu of fires in support of the close fight is pretty well set up, with columns A and B, like a good Chinese menu.
The complaint that F-35 has not yet demonstrated strike and CAS in finished form (yet) I won't argue: I'd say it hasn't yet.
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Lonewolf, spot on chap.
Will the F-35 be a capable CAS platform? Yes, I have no personal doubt that it will! It is already performing well in the CAS environment, even with its limited number of cleared weapons. How can it move forward further? Well, expansion of weapon carriage types will eventually bestow a larger mixed-load capability that is the very essence of flexibility in most CAS regimes - think low collateral-to-big kaboom (scalable); cockpit-selectable effects; multi-spectral sensors, etc. That mixed load capability won't come early - most likely to be Blocks 4 and 5 so 2020-30. Wish it could be sooner but that's programmatics folks. You won't do it all stealthily of course. The weapon bays are fixed sizes and yes, the B variant has the smaller bay. The counter to that is that F-35 doesn't need to be the CAS master. She has a large array of other missions to fulfil. Most within the same sortie and all against threats that would make an A-10 pilot poop into his/her nice titanium bathtub. You talk survivability against direct hits. I challenge you that the A-10 is designed to take some direct hits because it is MUCH more likely to take one given its operating regime - i.e. in your face. So, the "spin" i'm reading above is apples-to-oranges, like so many other points made.
The A-10 doesn't kick the proverbial door down (access) and clean up the AOR for itself (airspace dominance). It waits for a massive package to do that job for it. 5th Gen platforms do (and will continue to) in relatively much smaller packages which is why we're investing in that future.
(yes, I wrote massive package.....)
Will the F-35 be a capable CAS platform? Yes, I have no personal doubt that it will! It is already performing well in the CAS environment, even with its limited number of cleared weapons. How can it move forward further? Well, expansion of weapon carriage types will eventually bestow a larger mixed-load capability that is the very essence of flexibility in most CAS regimes - think low collateral-to-big kaboom (scalable); cockpit-selectable effects; multi-spectral sensors, etc. That mixed load capability won't come early - most likely to be Blocks 4 and 5 so 2020-30. Wish it could be sooner but that's programmatics folks. You won't do it all stealthily of course. The weapon bays are fixed sizes and yes, the B variant has the smaller bay. The counter to that is that F-35 doesn't need to be the CAS master. She has a large array of other missions to fulfil. Most within the same sortie and all against threats that would make an A-10 pilot poop into his/her nice titanium bathtub. You talk survivability against direct hits. I challenge you that the A-10 is designed to take some direct hits because it is MUCH more likely to take one given its operating regime - i.e. in your face. So, the "spin" i'm reading above is apples-to-oranges, like so many other points made.
The A-10 doesn't kick the proverbial door down (access) and clean up the AOR for itself (airspace dominance). It waits for a massive package to do that job for it. 5th Gen platforms do (and will continue to) in relatively much smaller packages which is why we're investing in that future.
(yes, I wrote massive package.....)
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Originally Posted by Lonewolf_50
When it was first procured, the F-35, aka Joint Strike Fighter, was not "this is the plane to replace the A-10" was it?
No, it wasn't.
The B is to replace the Harrier.
The A the F-16.
No, it wasn't.
The B is to replace the Harrier.
The A the F-16.
From the earliest days, the JSF was always described as replacing both the F-16 and the A-10. Examples from 1996 (DoD TACAIR speech) and 1997 (JSF SAR).
I/C
Originally Posted by Turbine D
We have spent and continue to spend an ungodly amount of money on the Marine version of the F-35 which doesn't have the CAS or survival capability of the A-10.
Here's how I see it: part of the CAS need/requirement will be fulfilled by the UH-1Z, in terms of how the USMC combined arms fighting doctrine applies airborne fires. I may be wrong, having been out of that side of the business for a few years. I do recall that the Marines surely appreciated A-10's overhead when they could get them, as part of the joint force.
As above: nothing replaces the A-10, for better and worse, and that seems to be how the USAF wants it in the future, and has wanted for over a quarter of a century. The push back from the Army, whose requirement it met in the original sense (60's - 70's era requirements formulation) is part of the never ending inter-service bickering. We could also return to the rage from the USMC about the loss of the 8" gun, the 8" gun cruisers (for Naval Gunfire Support) and the second retirement of the Battleships and their NGFS. Nothing can or has replaced the BB, Iowa Class, but somehow the Marines have managed to figure out how to fight without them.
Quite correct, Ian C - the "spin" in this case is to state that "the JSF was never designed to replace the A-10", which is flat-out false: the USAF did not say it would abandon CAS or develop a separate A-10 replacement. And of course CAS remains a primary reason for the Navy's army having its own air force.
That said, the F-35 will do CAS in the same general way as other FJs - primarily with guided weapons, the targeting pod and digital comms with the ground and other assets (like UAVs). However, there is no Rover yet and the limitations of the EOTS (no HDTV, limited field of regard) have been discussed here.
MSOCS is right, however, to say that it's not a driving requirement and that JSF is designed to do things that the A-10 can't (we all knew that). However, that underscores another point: the USAF could afford to run an A-10 force alongside F-16s and F-15s. The F-35 business case involves eliminating every other tactical aircraft except the F-22.
That said, the F-35 will do CAS in the same general way as other FJs - primarily with guided weapons, the targeting pod and digital comms with the ground and other assets (like UAVs). However, there is no Rover yet and the limitations of the EOTS (no HDTV, limited field of regard) have been discussed here.
MSOCS is right, however, to say that it's not a driving requirement and that JSF is designed to do things that the A-10 can't (we all knew that). However, that underscores another point: the USAF could afford to run an A-10 force alongside F-16s and F-15s. The F-35 business case involves eliminating every other tactical aircraft except the F-22.
MSOCS is right, however, to say that it's not a driving requirement and that JSF is designed to do things that the A-10 can't (we all knew that). However, that underscores another point: the USAF could afford to run an A-10 force alongside F-16s and F-15s. The F-35 business case involves eliminating every other tactical aircraft except the F-22.
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Originally posted by Low Observable:
The F-35 business case involves eliminating every other tactical aircraft except the F-22.
The F-35 business case involves eliminating every other tactical aircraft except the F-22.
Originally posted by Lone_Wolf: Contra Turbine D's assertion, no, there isn't an unlimited credit card account
Originally posted by MSOCS:
Will the F-35 be a capable CAS platform? Yes, I have no personal doubt that it will! It is already performing well in the CAS environment, even with its limited number of cleared weapons.
Will the F-35 be a capable CAS platform? Yes, I have no personal doubt that it will! It is already performing well in the CAS environment, even with its limited number of cleared weapons.
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I'm not being "disingenuous" Glad Rag but it's your opinion, which you're entitled to.
I think I've been quite honest as to what the limitations are in the CAS mission at the moment as well as being clear when I think it's likely to see improvement (Block 4/5) with increased weapon clearances across the US Services and International partners.
Please be specific in calling me out and I'll be only too glad to explain my reasoning to you if appropriate.
I think I've been quite honest as to what the limitations are in the CAS mission at the moment as well as being clear when I think it's likely to see improvement (Block 4/5) with increased weapon clearances across the US Services and International partners.
Please be specific in calling me out and I'll be only too glad to explain my reasoning to you if appropriate.