F-35 Cancelled, then what ?
One of the interesting things that the Navy did this week was to place 14 additional Super Hornets on its unfunded priorities list, along with two F-35Cs. The F-35C is supposed to replace legacy Hornets (they are wearing out faster than anticipated causing a Strike Fighter shortage,) yet the Navy is choosing to purchase Super Hornets over F-35C. It seems like the perfect justification to order additional F-35s when the DoD/OSD is desperate to pump up the F-35 order book. Certainly the Navy (and others) are concerned about losing industrial base, but the department is on record claiming that this does not drive its acquisition strategy. Perhaps it is the cost differential between the F-35C and the Super Hornet: ~135M (+ concurrency costs) vs. ~85M. Or maybe the F-35C just isn't ready for service - it will not be able to employ the breadth of weaponry that the Super Hornet can until later blocks due in the 2020s - which is my personal opinion, and supported by statements by from naval aviation leadership. How many forward sensor nodes do you need?
Lawmakers: Give US Navy More F/A-18s
"...Citing overtaxed naval aviation assets, Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., and Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., asked the House Armed Services Committee to consider adding the aircraft through the 2017 defense policy bill expected to be drafted over the coming weeks. The chief of naval operations, Wagner said, will place the 12 aircraft on the service's unfunded requirement list.
“There is still a potential gap this year,” said Wagner, whose district is near where Boeing assembles the aircraft in St. Louis.
“Given the critical capability that the Super Hornet provides for ongoing wartime operations, any shortfall is dangerous to the Navy’s ability to project force throughout the world,” Wagner said. “This unfunded requirement request helps mitigate that shortfall, anticipating the Navy will follow through on its promise to add aircraft in the next year’s budget deliberations.”
Bost, whose district borders St. Louis, called the procurement of added Super Hornets, “critical to meeting the anticipated needs of the United States Navy and to keeping the production lines open as the United States prepares anticipated aircraft sales to allied nations.”
So perhaps this is not really about the F-35- it is about the pork going to congressional districts- and this is part of why the US has a huge spending problem. The "Navy" is being told what they want and get.
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@sandiego:
The unfunded priorities list is formulated by the services. The representatives in this case are urging that the request be considered in the upcoming budget process. There is a lot of "crosstalk" between the services and Congress about what goes on the list, and whether or not it is likely to be supported by lawmakers. So it's natural that the representatives from Illinois (Boeing HQ) and Missouri (F/A-18 plant) would be all about the request, aimed at their constituencies back home. There is also pressure from OSD about what should and should not be on the list (and whether it should exist at all,) but the purpose of the exercise is to bypass DoD/OSD politics and speak directly to Congress.
What not should be lost in attempting to discredit the request is that it is the Navy's number one item - the highest priority - on the list.
The unfunded priorities list is formulated by the services. The representatives in this case are urging that the request be considered in the upcoming budget process. There is a lot of "crosstalk" between the services and Congress about what goes on the list, and whether or not it is likely to be supported by lawmakers. So it's natural that the representatives from Illinois (Boeing HQ) and Missouri (F/A-18 plant) would be all about the request, aimed at their constituencies back home. There is also pressure from OSD about what should and should not be on the list (and whether it should exist at all,) but the purpose of the exercise is to bypass DoD/OSD politics and speak directly to Congress.
What not should be lost in attempting to discredit the request is that it is the Navy's number one item - the highest priority - on the list.
Yes Maus I understand it. The services all have wish lists, my pessimistic side thinks the "crosstalk" is much more involved and uglier than we would like to think. The service is put in a pickle- they don't want to say no to powerfull congressional input, especially when they know there is huge congressional support for something.
The real bad deal is when congress funds stuff to keep production going of something the service does not really want or fund the manufacturing but not fund the billets, fuel, spares and mission equipment to keep the items going.
The real bad deal is when congress funds stuff to keep production going of something the service does not really want or fund the manufacturing but not fund the billets, fuel, spares and mission equipment to keep the items going.
hours building fast
Sorry if old news (last month) but a few of the releases from the official JSF source show the hours really building fast:
http://www.jsf.mil/news/docs/20160210_Hours.pdf
A few things stuck out:
155 jets delivered.
12 flying locations.
Lt. Col. Hayden the first to get 500 hours on type.
F-35 fleet passed 50,000 hours in February. It took 6+ years to pass 25,000 hours, but only 14 months to get the second 25,000 hours.
Yes I understand the cost and problems, the inertia just stood out to me.
http://www.jsf.mil/news/docs/20160210_Hours.pdf
A few things stuck out:
155 jets delivered.
12 flying locations.
Lt. Col. Hayden the first to get 500 hours on type.
F-35 fleet passed 50,000 hours in February. It took 6+ years to pass 25,000 hours, but only 14 months to get the second 25,000 hours.
Yes I understand the cost and problems, the inertia just stood out to me.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
And not one of them Operational, testing years from completion, and every single one of them requiring extensive modification to reach a still undefined and uncosted final configuration.
Way to go........
Way to go........
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Russians have a huge dig: Is This Thing On? Pentagon?s Trillion Dollar Warplane?s Radar Doesn?t Work
Which makes me think that the F35 must be better than the pessimists say.
Which makes me think that the F35 must be better than the pessimists say.
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Or.... the reality is that the money will keep flowing to make it work and more and more jets will keep rolling off the line. Every jet that does roll off the line makes the F-35 Program stronger and harder to cancel (which answers the thread postulation btw!). Modification is more extensive on earlier frames because there's more to do. Cut-ins for such Mods are already baked into future LRIPs. The Mod program is therefore actually improving with time, not getting worse.
Testing will never be complete due to the extensive upgrade Program through-life.
I'd let the Services define their Operational criteria and assess it. Armchair enthusiasts need not be worried.
Testing will never be complete due to the extensive upgrade Program through-life.
I'd let the Services define their Operational criteria and assess it. Armchair enthusiasts need not be worried.
MSOCS,
I agree with pretty much everything you just wrote. Good logic.
However,
is not a great argument about the current state of op test and evaluation because it can (and should) be said about about any modern programme. The point for F-35 is simply that we can't do any op testing because we don't have the software yet. There is no shame in that, but it will continue to be the major factor in determining true op capability. We have no measures whatsoever of what that might be - simulation included.
Claims on both sides of the argument are worthless until we reach the appropriate phase in the programme, although we can make some educated guesses about some of the strengths.
I agree with pretty much everything you just wrote. Good logic.
However,
Originally Posted by MSOCS
Testing will never be complete due to the extensive upgrade Program through-life.
Claims on both sides of the argument are worthless until we reach the appropriate phase in the programme, although we can make some educated guesses about some of the strengths.
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Russians have a huge dig: Is This Thing On? Pentagon?s Trillion Dollar Warplane?s Radar Doesn?t Work
Which makes me think that the F35 must be better than the pessimists say.
Which makes me think that the F35 must be better than the pessimists say.
F-35 mission software stability poses greatest risk to USAF IOC F-35 mission software stability poses greatest risk to USAF IOC | IHS Jane's 360
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Looking for some clarity
I’m still trying to comprehend the issues contained in this 447-page thread. I'm looking for some clarity. Without resorting to the ad hominem and other logical fallacies, (e.g., red herring, non-sequitur, bandwagoning, either-or, card-stacking, and false equivalence) that certain F-35 fanboy lists are famous for, is a single word of the report (below) not factual?
The F-35: Still Failing to Impress
How about this easier to read article?
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Is Still a Huge Mess | War Is Boring
If either of these items are not factual, without using the above said logical fallacies, how are they not factual?
In reality, haven’t I proposed an impossible task? After all, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) has already confessed that, “the DOT&E report is factually accurate.”
Just trying to find some bedrock to begin understanding this issue.
The F-35: Still Failing to Impress
How about this easier to read article?
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Is Still a Huge Mess | War Is Boring
If either of these items are not factual, without using the above said logical fallacies, how are they not factual?
In reality, haven’t I proposed an impossible task? After all, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) has already confessed that, “the DOT&E report is factually accurate.”
Just trying to find some bedrock to begin understanding this issue.
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"Tests of the F-35’s ability to fire and drop the majority of its planned weapons in a combat-realistic operating environment won’t actually begin until the Block 3F configuration in 2021. Accomplishing those will require a total of 50 test events."
This short passage (and the accompanying chart in the article) is why the USN wants more Super Hornets now. The F-35 is limited to what it can bring to the party in the next 6-7 years in terms of weapons - particularly AGM/ASuW missiles - which explains why the Navy talks about the F-35C acting as an armed scout / forward sensor node. That and the fact you can almost buy two Super hornets for the cost of one F-35C.
This short passage (and the accompanying chart in the article) is why the USN wants more Super Hornets now. The F-35 is limited to what it can bring to the party in the next 6-7 years in terms of weapons - particularly AGM/ASuW missiles - which explains why the Navy talks about the F-35C acting as an armed scout / forward sensor node. That and the fact you can almost buy two Super hornets for the cost of one F-35C.
That and the fact you can almost buy two Super hornets for the cost of one F-35C.
The F-35 cost will come down significantly once multi-year buys for that platform begin.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
For those of you who hold no truck with Sweetman - read no further......
Opinion: Timeless Insight Into Why Military Programs Go Wrong
The history of defense program failures was foretold in 1953
Mar 11, 2016 - Bill Sweetman
The best 4,000 words you’ll ever read about 21st-century defense procurement were written more than 60 years ago by a former Royal Air Force radar boffin, Arthur C. Clarke, who would go on to become a lauded science-fiction luminary.
“Superiority” was published in Clarke’s 1953 story collection, Expedition to Earth. The setting is familiar, because it’s the backdrop for the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises: civilizations that have developed interstellar travel but fight like battleship navies at close range. The real war is between the military commanders (including the narrator) and a young and inventive scientist who likes to create superweapons.
In previous superweapon fiction, the weapons worked. The office clerks manning H.G. Wells’s “land ironclads” take out their battle-hardened infantry opponents one by one, with guns that closely resemble the remote-controlled weapon systems on modern armored vehicles.
In Clarke’s universe, it all goes horribly wrong, in ways that match historical experience with spooky exactitude. “A revolution in warfare may soon be upon us,” the scientist tells the general staff at his first meeting. The adversary has matched today’s technology; the research and development organization has not invested in radical new weapons. “It is fortunate for us that our opponents have been no wiser,” the scientist warns. “We cannot assume that this will always be so.”
I suspect that everyone in the defense industry today has heard similar words, whether about the “revolution in military affairs,” “transformation” or even “Third Offset.” Note, too, how the scientist uses the fact that the enemy is sticking with existing technology to support his case.
The first new weapon, the Sphere of Annihilation, “produced complete disintegration of matter over a radius of several hundred meters.” Its main drawback: It required a bigger torpedo that could only be carried on larger ships. The production of existing torpedoes had to stop, but this was worthwhile: “It seemed to us that all our existing weapons had become obsolete overnight,” the narrator says.
But by the time the new weapon is ready, the enemy (having not read the scientist’s memo) has been churning out old-technology (fourth-generation?) ships, has launched offensives while the defender’s ships are low on torpedoes and has an advantage in numbers that blunts the superweapon’s impact.
This is a good time to recall that the Pentagon’s effort to replace thousands of fighters, bombers, cruise missiles and helicopters with stealthy vehicles went into high gear 30 years ago and that the average age of the U.S. fighter force has never been greater.
Next, the scientist offers the disappointed commanders what today’s salesmen would call a force multiplier. “What did it matter, he said, if the enemy had twice as many ships as we—if the efficiency of ours could be doubled or even trebled?” The key was a powerful computer, the Battle Analyzer, which turns out to be decisive—at least in modeling and simulation. “After we had run through several very complex dummy battles, we were convinced.”
The problem is the human factor. It proves impossible to train enough technicians to maintain the complex machine, with almost a million vacuum tubes. The Analyzer becomes a classic low-density, high-demand asset and a single point of failure, and the enemy responds by targeting it.
What is the primary target set for the Chengdu J-20 fighter, aside from small fleets of RC-135 Rivet Joint and E-3 Sentry surveillance aircraft?
The enemy has been continuing to out-produce the narrator’s side and is winning on all fronts. But “we could not now turn back—the search for an irresistible weapon must go on.” The final new weapon is a form of stealth, a space-distorting “exponential field” that allows a ship to approach the enemy unseen and appear in their midst on demand. In the rush to deploy it, snags in operational testing—“a whole flock of minor technical troubles in various pieces of equipment, notably the communications circuits”—are dismissed as trivial.
Apparently, Clarke’s future world has taken the advice of its industry-paid consultants and dispensed with an independent director of test and evaluation.
By the time it is found that the field leaves minute, permanent distortions throughout the ship that become worse every time it is used, to the point where not even the nuts and bolts are interchangeable, it’s too late. Defeat “by the inferior science of our enemies” is inevitable.
Is “Superiority” a parable? Clarke would have known very well how the U.S. 8th Air Force had arrived in Britain in 1942 and how its leaders planned to win the war with precision bombing, thanks to a specific, highly secret weapon-aiming system. It might be a coincidence that Clarke’s arrogant scientist is named Professor-General Norden, but I doubt it.
Opinion: Timeless Insight Into Why Military Programs Go Wrong
The history of defense program failures was foretold in 1953
Mar 11, 2016 - Bill Sweetman
The best 4,000 words you’ll ever read about 21st-century defense procurement were written more than 60 years ago by a former Royal Air Force radar boffin, Arthur C. Clarke, who would go on to become a lauded science-fiction luminary.
“Superiority” was published in Clarke’s 1953 story collection, Expedition to Earth. The setting is familiar, because it’s the backdrop for the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises: civilizations that have developed interstellar travel but fight like battleship navies at close range. The real war is between the military commanders (including the narrator) and a young and inventive scientist who likes to create superweapons.
In previous superweapon fiction, the weapons worked. The office clerks manning H.G. Wells’s “land ironclads” take out their battle-hardened infantry opponents one by one, with guns that closely resemble the remote-controlled weapon systems on modern armored vehicles.
In Clarke’s universe, it all goes horribly wrong, in ways that match historical experience with spooky exactitude. “A revolution in warfare may soon be upon us,” the scientist tells the general staff at his first meeting. The adversary has matched today’s technology; the research and development organization has not invested in radical new weapons. “It is fortunate for us that our opponents have been no wiser,” the scientist warns. “We cannot assume that this will always be so.”
I suspect that everyone in the defense industry today has heard similar words, whether about the “revolution in military affairs,” “transformation” or even “Third Offset.” Note, too, how the scientist uses the fact that the enemy is sticking with existing technology to support his case.
The first new weapon, the Sphere of Annihilation, “produced complete disintegration of matter over a radius of several hundred meters.” Its main drawback: It required a bigger torpedo that could only be carried on larger ships. The production of existing torpedoes had to stop, but this was worthwhile: “It seemed to us that all our existing weapons had become obsolete overnight,” the narrator says.
But by the time the new weapon is ready, the enemy (having not read the scientist’s memo) has been churning out old-technology (fourth-generation?) ships, has launched offensives while the defender’s ships are low on torpedoes and has an advantage in numbers that blunts the superweapon’s impact.
This is a good time to recall that the Pentagon’s effort to replace thousands of fighters, bombers, cruise missiles and helicopters with stealthy vehicles went into high gear 30 years ago and that the average age of the U.S. fighter force has never been greater.
Next, the scientist offers the disappointed commanders what today’s salesmen would call a force multiplier. “What did it matter, he said, if the enemy had twice as many ships as we—if the efficiency of ours could be doubled or even trebled?” The key was a powerful computer, the Battle Analyzer, which turns out to be decisive—at least in modeling and simulation. “After we had run through several very complex dummy battles, we were convinced.”
The problem is the human factor. It proves impossible to train enough technicians to maintain the complex machine, with almost a million vacuum tubes. The Analyzer becomes a classic low-density, high-demand asset and a single point of failure, and the enemy responds by targeting it.
What is the primary target set for the Chengdu J-20 fighter, aside from small fleets of RC-135 Rivet Joint and E-3 Sentry surveillance aircraft?
The enemy has been continuing to out-produce the narrator’s side and is winning on all fronts. But “we could not now turn back—the search for an irresistible weapon must go on.” The final new weapon is a form of stealth, a space-distorting “exponential field” that allows a ship to approach the enemy unseen and appear in their midst on demand. In the rush to deploy it, snags in operational testing—“a whole flock of minor technical troubles in various pieces of equipment, notably the communications circuits”—are dismissed as trivial.
Apparently, Clarke’s future world has taken the advice of its industry-paid consultants and dispensed with an independent director of test and evaluation.
By the time it is found that the field leaves minute, permanent distortions throughout the ship that become worse every time it is used, to the point where not even the nuts and bolts are interchangeable, it’s too late. Defeat “by the inferior science of our enemies” is inevitable.
Is “Superiority” a parable? Clarke would have known very well how the U.S. 8th Air Force had arrived in Britain in 1942 and how its leaders planned to win the war with precision bombing, thanks to a specific, highly secret weapon-aiming system. It might be a coincidence that Clarke’s arrogant scientist is named Professor-General Norden, but I doubt it.
Channel: looks to me like you're trolling.
The title of this thread is "F-35 cancelled, then what."
It's about five and a half years since its inception, and the F-35 isn't cancelled. (For better and for worse).
The program's core problem is rooted in how the DoD has tried to apply the 1986 Goldwaters Nichols act and an imperative to do things more jointly (with the belief that this will save money -- in some cases, it does).
As you can see, trying to create a high performance aircraft that can do every thing isn't saving much money. Nor is it necessarily giving the three services what they need in a timely fashion. But because a lot of other options have long since been foreclosed, it's the girl the services will bring to a lot of future dances. Sadly, she is not the homecoming queen.
I have a suggestion. Start a new thread. Call it "F-35 not cancelled: now what?"
This thread is, as you note, 447 pages long. Oddly enough, AF 447 is one of the first topics on PPRuNe that really got my interest, and it was about a disaster, a horrific wreck.
Maybe this thread needs to end at 447, because as a thread it's become a train wreck.
By the way, some of you may remember an aircraft called the Hornet. When it came out, to replace the Phantom and the A-7, the Effin A Teen got substantial criticism and had some problems. The Pentagon Paradox was written as the usual blistering critique on the program (which had its share of FUBAR ). Here we are, 30+ years later, and people love the Hornet. Oh, wait, when the E/F was being bandied about, the "it's not really an F-18, this is a scam" arguments flew about. I remember them well. Here we are 20 years later, and people love the Super Hornet.
We've Seen This Movie Before!
The title of this thread is "F-35 cancelled, then what."
It's about five and a half years since its inception, and the F-35 isn't cancelled. (For better and for worse).
The program's core problem is rooted in how the DoD has tried to apply the 1986 Goldwaters Nichols act and an imperative to do things more jointly (with the belief that this will save money -- in some cases, it does).
As you can see, trying to create a high performance aircraft that can do every thing isn't saving much money. Nor is it necessarily giving the three services what they need in a timely fashion. But because a lot of other options have long since been foreclosed, it's the girl the services will bring to a lot of future dances. Sadly, she is not the homecoming queen.
I have a suggestion. Start a new thread. Call it "F-35 not cancelled: now what?"
This thread is, as you note, 447 pages long. Oddly enough, AF 447 is one of the first topics on PPRuNe that really got my interest, and it was about a disaster, a horrific wreck.
Maybe this thread needs to end at 447, because as a thread it's become a train wreck.
By the way, some of you may remember an aircraft called the Hornet. When it came out, to replace the Phantom and the A-7, the Effin A Teen got substantial criticism and had some problems. The Pentagon Paradox was written as the usual blistering critique on the program (which had its share of FUBAR ). Here we are, 30+ years later, and people love the Hornet. Oh, wait, when the E/F was being bandied about, the "it's not really an F-18, this is a scam" arguments flew about. I remember them well. Here we are 20 years later, and people love the Super Hornet.
We've Seen This Movie Before!
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LoneWolf,
I second CM's response!
Relative to a new thread title:
The answer is we are just going to keep rolling along, it's too late to go any other way and we will somehow live with whatever it turns out to be. Now we do need a replacement for the F-22 and certainly more of them than the limited edition F-22s we have.
I too became highly interested in AF447 and joined PPRuNe because of it.
I second CM's response!
Relative to a new thread title:
"F-35 not cancelled: now what?"
I too became highly interested in AF447 and joined PPRuNe because of it.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
It should be pointed out that the Super Hornet - a substantially different aircraft - was developed at great expense because, despite all the warnings, the Hornet was FUBAR in terms of the required range/payload.
Which has an ominous ring to it.......
Super Lightning anyone??????
Which has an ominous ring to it.......
Super Lightning anyone??????
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Originally Posted by melmothtw
Not sure that's correct, now that the multi-year buys for the Super Hornet have ended. The latest request for the additional platforms gives them a unit cost of close to $100 million, which is in the same ballpark as the F-35 currently is.
The F-35 cost will come down significantly once multi-year buys for that platform begin.
The F-35 cost will come down significantly once multi-year buys for that platform begin.
Flyaway Unit Cost FY17
-18E/F: 77,791,000
-35C: 166,829,500
2.1x more expensive than Super Hornet
Gross Procurement Unit Cost FY17
-18E/F 92,456,000
-35C: 234,820,000
2.5x more expensive than Super Hornet.
The gross numbers in the unfunded priorities lists are just that: things are included and left out, and are rationalized later. The Super Hornet numbers from the FY17PB are skewed higher by having no advance procurement "discounts" or MYP in place. They are also higher than in past years due to adjustments wrt Growler airframes. But I would expect about 10% less mainly because that bring the amounts in line with costs in FY16 when only five E/Fs were authorized.
But the important point is the -35C will cost significantly more for a less capable aircraft in terms of weapons carriage than the Super Hornet (and legacy Hornets) for years to come.
The Super Hornet numbers from the FY17PB are skewed higher by having no advance procurement "discounts" or MYP in place.
But the important point is the -35C will be less capable in terms of weapons carriage than the Super Hornet for years to come.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
F35C is not a Super Hornet replacement - that will be the F/A -XXX. The F35C is only replacing the F-18A/B Classic.
The additional Super Hornets are being bought to replace F-18A/Bs which are wearing out as the F-35C slips into the distance. The new Super Hornets will remain in service for many years, every Sqn which transitions to the F-18E/F/G is one that will not transition to the F-35C which will be bought in lower numbers to fit within the remaining cash pile.
As the Sec Def fo Defense stated, there will be no additional funding.
The additional Super Hornets are being bought to replace F-18A/Bs which are wearing out as the F-35C slips into the distance. The new Super Hornets will remain in service for many years, every Sqn which transitions to the F-18E/F/G is one that will not transition to the F-35C which will be bought in lower numbers to fit within the remaining cash pile.
As the Sec Def fo Defense stated, there will be no additional funding.