F-35 Cancelled, then what ?
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Makes you wonder what's going on in the black program world......
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...-f-22s-422950/
".........The service’s deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements said as much during a congressional hearing on 8 March, suggesting that fighter jet manufacturers like Boeing, Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin may decide to offer modifications to existing technologies and platforms in the next F-X competition.
“Because we want to do it faster and don’t want to do another 20-year development programme for a whole host of reasons, we’ll try and go with technology that are at a high readiness level now with manufacturing capabilities that are at a high readiness level now,” Lt Gen James Holmes tells a Senate Armed Services subcommittee panel in response to questions about restarting F-22 production. “I think it’s completely possible as we get the requirements that there may be competitors that bid on modification of an existing technology or platform like the F-22 and the F-35.”............
Holmes says pressing forward with the air force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance programme is the better way to make up for lower-than-planned fifth-generation fighter capacity, but cannot be a technologically exotic fighter jet that takes two or three decades to develop.
“They cost too much, they take too long, they make you drive for technology that’s so far into the future that it’s really hard to achieve and by the time you spend 30 years achieving it, it may not be exactly what you want,” he explains after the hearing. “We’re trying to move to a world where we go forward with new airplanes that take advantage of technology that’s ready to manufacture and we have the manufacturing skills to do it, and what could we produce in five years or 10 years instead of 30 years?
"It’s purely speculation on my part, but if I was going to ask a company to bid on what they could build for me in five years or 10 years, I’d expect that some of them would take advantage of work they’ve already done and base it on something they already have.”.......
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...-f-22s-422950/
".........The service’s deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements said as much during a congressional hearing on 8 March, suggesting that fighter jet manufacturers like Boeing, Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin may decide to offer modifications to existing technologies and platforms in the next F-X competition.
“Because we want to do it faster and don’t want to do another 20-year development programme for a whole host of reasons, we’ll try and go with technology that are at a high readiness level now with manufacturing capabilities that are at a high readiness level now,” Lt Gen James Holmes tells a Senate Armed Services subcommittee panel in response to questions about restarting F-22 production. “I think it’s completely possible as we get the requirements that there may be competitors that bid on modification of an existing technology or platform like the F-22 and the F-35.”............
Holmes says pressing forward with the air force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance programme is the better way to make up for lower-than-planned fifth-generation fighter capacity, but cannot be a technologically exotic fighter jet that takes two or three decades to develop.
“They cost too much, they take too long, they make you drive for technology that’s so far into the future that it’s really hard to achieve and by the time you spend 30 years achieving it, it may not be exactly what you want,” he explains after the hearing. “We’re trying to move to a world where we go forward with new airplanes that take advantage of technology that’s ready to manufacture and we have the manufacturing skills to do it, and what could we produce in five years or 10 years instead of 30 years?
"It’s purely speculation on my part, but if I was going to ask a company to bid on what they could build for me in five years or 10 years, I’d expect that some of them would take advantage of work they’ve already done and base it on something they already have.”.......
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
SNAFU, confirmation that slippages are adhering to normal schedule. ALIS and 3i - the fight to be last....
F-35 Logistics System May Not Be Ready for Air Force IOC Target
WASHINGTON – The latest version of the F-35's logistics system may not be ready by the time the Air Force wants to declare its jets combat-ready this summer, according to the program manager.
The Air Force has a window between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31 to declare initial operational capability for its F-35As. Aug. 1 is the target date for Air Force IOC, and the joint program office has promised to meet that goal. But the JPO may be about 45 to 60 days behind schedule due to problems with the aircraft’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), designed as a kind of internal diagnostic system that tracks the health of each part of each plane worldwide, according to JPO chief Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan.
“We’re going as fast as we can, industry is going as fast as they can, but we’re not 100 percent sure we can make up that time,” Bogdan said March 10 at the Credit Suisse/McAleese FY2017 Defense Programs Conference. “We will know as we get closer, this spring and this summer.”
Although the program office may not have the latest version of ALIS ready by Aug. 1, Bogdan does not see any risk to making the the Dec. 31 threshold date for IOC. Behind ALIS, the biggest risk to Air Force IOC is software development, Bogdan has said. The JPO is racing to finish the next increment of software, Block 3i, which the Air Force needs for IOC, as well as the final software block required for full war-fighting capability, Block 3f. The JPO is still seeing some problems with software “stability,” a measure of how well the sensors work, but has identified the root cause of the problem, he said. In essence, a timing misalignment of the software of the plane’s sensors and the software of its main computers are causing a “choking” effect, where the jet’s systems shut down and have to be rebooted.
The JPO and industry team will fly an improved software load for Block 3i, which they hope will fix the problem, on flight test planes in late March or early April, Bogdan said. This does not leave much margin in the schedule, as Bogdan has said the JPO has until May to fix or at least mitigate the stability problems before the Aug. 1 IOC date could be affected.
However, Bogdan expressed confidence that the JPO and manufacturer Lockheed Martin can get the software fixed in time. The hurdle to meeting the Aug. 1 IOC date is ALIS, not software, Bogdan stressed. “The long pole in the tent is not software, it’s ALIS, so they are both vying for who is going to be later,” Bogan said.
F-35 Logistics System May Not Be Ready for Air Force IOC Target
WASHINGTON – The latest version of the F-35's logistics system may not be ready by the time the Air Force wants to declare its jets combat-ready this summer, according to the program manager.
The Air Force has a window between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31 to declare initial operational capability for its F-35As. Aug. 1 is the target date for Air Force IOC, and the joint program office has promised to meet that goal. But the JPO may be about 45 to 60 days behind schedule due to problems with the aircraft’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), designed as a kind of internal diagnostic system that tracks the health of each part of each plane worldwide, according to JPO chief Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan.
“We’re going as fast as we can, industry is going as fast as they can, but we’re not 100 percent sure we can make up that time,” Bogdan said March 10 at the Credit Suisse/McAleese FY2017 Defense Programs Conference. “We will know as we get closer, this spring and this summer.”
Although the program office may not have the latest version of ALIS ready by Aug. 1, Bogdan does not see any risk to making the the Dec. 31 threshold date for IOC. Behind ALIS, the biggest risk to Air Force IOC is software development, Bogdan has said. The JPO is racing to finish the next increment of software, Block 3i, which the Air Force needs for IOC, as well as the final software block required for full war-fighting capability, Block 3f. The JPO is still seeing some problems with software “stability,” a measure of how well the sensors work, but has identified the root cause of the problem, he said. In essence, a timing misalignment of the software of the plane’s sensors and the software of its main computers are causing a “choking” effect, where the jet’s systems shut down and have to be rebooted.
The JPO and industry team will fly an improved software load for Block 3i, which they hope will fix the problem, on flight test planes in late March or early April, Bogdan said. This does not leave much margin in the schedule, as Bogdan has said the JPO has until May to fix or at least mitigate the stability problems before the Aug. 1 IOC date could be affected.
However, Bogdan expressed confidence that the JPO and manufacturer Lockheed Martin can get the software fixed in time. The hurdle to meeting the Aug. 1 IOC date is ALIS, not software, Bogdan stressed. “The long pole in the tent is not software, it’s ALIS, so they are both vying for who is going to be later,” Bogan said.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
F-35 Chief: Think Very, Very Hard Before Making Another Joint Fighter
Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan has a bit of advice for Air Force and Navy leaders envisioning their next tactical aircraft.
Perhaps the only thing U.S. military leaders know about their next fighter jet is this: they want the program to go better than the F-35’s did.
The sixth-generation fighter effort is still in its infancy; the aircraft it produces may not fly for decades. The Pentagon hasn’t even decided whether to build separate planes for the Navy and Air Force. But the services’ leaders are already cooperating to figure out how the futuristic fighter will fit into the battlefield of the future — and how they can avoid another tactical aircraft program that winds up so late, over budget, and short of its goals.
Ask the F-35 program’s current director for advice, and you’ll get this gentle warning: joint programs are hard. “I’m not saying they’re bad. I’m not saying they’re good. I’m just saying they’re hard,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said Thursday. “You ought to think really hard about what you really need out of the sixth-generation fighter and how much overlap is there between what the Navy and the Air Force really need.”
When the F-35 was conceived in the 1990s, the goal was to buy a common plane for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and even America’s allies. The Air Force version would fly from traditional runways, the Navy version would operate from aircraft carriers, and the Marine version would be built to take off from short runways and land vertically. The goal was to have all three have 70 percent of their parts in common, which was meant to save billions of dollars in development and logistics costs. But engineering changes have produced three variants that have only 20 percent of their parts in common,
Bogdan said at a conference sponsored by McAleese and Associates and Credit Suisse. If Pentagon leaders do choose to build a multi-variant plane to serve multiple sets of requirements, he said, the services will have to embrace compromise to a greater degree than happened in the $400 billion F-35 program. “Man, is [compromise] a hard thing to do when you’re spending billions of dollars,” he said. “You want what you want, [but] hopefully get what you need.”...........
Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan has a bit of advice for Air Force and Navy leaders envisioning their next tactical aircraft.
Perhaps the only thing U.S. military leaders know about their next fighter jet is this: they want the program to go better than the F-35’s did.
The sixth-generation fighter effort is still in its infancy; the aircraft it produces may not fly for decades. The Pentagon hasn’t even decided whether to build separate planes for the Navy and Air Force. But the services’ leaders are already cooperating to figure out how the futuristic fighter will fit into the battlefield of the future — and how they can avoid another tactical aircraft program that winds up so late, over budget, and short of its goals.
Ask the F-35 program’s current director for advice, and you’ll get this gentle warning: joint programs are hard. “I’m not saying they’re bad. I’m not saying they’re good. I’m just saying they’re hard,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said Thursday. “You ought to think really hard about what you really need out of the sixth-generation fighter and how much overlap is there between what the Navy and the Air Force really need.”
When the F-35 was conceived in the 1990s, the goal was to buy a common plane for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and even America’s allies. The Air Force version would fly from traditional runways, the Navy version would operate from aircraft carriers, and the Marine version would be built to take off from short runways and land vertically. The goal was to have all three have 70 percent of their parts in common, which was meant to save billions of dollars in development and logistics costs. But engineering changes have produced three variants that have only 20 percent of their parts in common,
Bogdan said at a conference sponsored by McAleese and Associates and Credit Suisse. If Pentagon leaders do choose to build a multi-variant plane to serve multiple sets of requirements, he said, the services will have to embrace compromise to a greater degree than happened in the $400 billion F-35 program. “Man, is [compromise] a hard thing to do when you’re spending billions of dollars,” he said. “You want what you want, [but] hopefully get what you need.”...........
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
ORAC. We can only hope that the experiences of the F-35 Program are used to evolve the US acquisition system for future programs.
Could have done with some balance in that video rather than just the bits that went well in 2015. What about telling us about the other bits that didn't go so well, the test points that have been removed from the programme and the good stuff they're going to be doing to make good all of that? Otherwise it's just another glossy brochure and what does that prove?
Last edited by Courtney Mil; 15th Mar 2016 at 12:40.
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Could have done with some balance in that video rather than just the bits that went well in 2015.
What about telling us about the other bits that didn't go so well, the test points that have been removed from the programme and the good stuff they're going to be doing to make good all of that?
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Nothing - but that's what happens when the contractor captures the people who are tasked to make it work........ not much future for someone who reports it's a crock.......
I agree that one can tout the good work of a certain team, like the Pax River test team in the linked puff piece, without covering the whole ups and downs of the program.
I certainly salute the smart and brave folks who do things first on a new platform, like dropping new ordinance, cats and traps, expanding the envelope, working on new maintenance procedures, flying very precise test parameters, night flights, landing on a ship, etc. etc. They don't write (or change) the specs, they don't design it or make it- they test stuff and do a great job- and they have not dropped one yet.....It's OK for them to roll out a video. Jeeez.
I certainly salute the smart and brave folks who do things first on a new platform, like dropping new ordinance, cats and traps, expanding the envelope, working on new maintenance procedures, flying very precise test parameters, night flights, landing on a ship, etc. etc. They don't write (or change) the specs, they don't design it or make it- they test stuff and do a great job- and they have not dropped one yet.....It's OK for them to roll out a video. Jeeez.
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One Australian think tank is floating the idea of reducing their F-35A acquisition, buying an equal number of Super Hornets, and waiting for the next (F-X, F/A-XX?) tactical aircraft generation:
F-35: keep calm but have a plan
15 Mar 2016|Andrew Davies and James Mugg\ ASPI The Strategist
"....For a couple of reasons, we decided not to enter the debate about the merits of the F-35 as a platform in our submission. First, and in common with the most vociferous critics of the aircraft, we don’t have the data required to do so. Second, and more important, there aren’t a lot of options in any case. It’s either the F-35, or something from an earlier generation of combat aircraft design—an unappealing option for an air force looking to recapitalise an ageing fleet of 1980s built Hornets....
....Having limited choices isn’t great, but it’s a direct consequence of Australia’s precipitous decision to go all-in for the F-35 back in 2002, shutting down a study into future air combat options that was in progress at the time. If it hadn’t been for then Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s 2007 intervention—despite advice to the contrary from the RAAF (PDF, see p.71)—to buy an ‘interim air combat capability’ in the form of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets, today’s RAAF’s air combat force would be much less capable, given that the F-111 was retired six years ago....
....So instead of an all-in approach on the F-35 (that ship sailed when the Super Hornets were ordered anyway), we wonder if there’s another answer that’s more ‘future proof’. A mix of 50 Super Hornets and 50 F-35s, with the Super Hornets to be replaced around 2030 by 50 of ‘whatever comes next’, might be worth contemplating. In any case, some contingency planning is in order."
F-35: keep calm but have a plan
F-35: keep calm but have a plan
15 Mar 2016|Andrew Davies and James Mugg\ ASPI The Strategist
"....For a couple of reasons, we decided not to enter the debate about the merits of the F-35 as a platform in our submission. First, and in common with the most vociferous critics of the aircraft, we don’t have the data required to do so. Second, and more important, there aren’t a lot of options in any case. It’s either the F-35, or something from an earlier generation of combat aircraft design—an unappealing option for an air force looking to recapitalise an ageing fleet of 1980s built Hornets....
....Having limited choices isn’t great, but it’s a direct consequence of Australia’s precipitous decision to go all-in for the F-35 back in 2002, shutting down a study into future air combat options that was in progress at the time. If it hadn’t been for then Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s 2007 intervention—despite advice to the contrary from the RAAF (PDF, see p.71)—to buy an ‘interim air combat capability’ in the form of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets, today’s RAAF’s air combat force would be much less capable, given that the F-111 was retired six years ago....
....So instead of an all-in approach on the F-35 (that ship sailed when the Super Hornets were ordered anyway), we wonder if there’s another answer that’s more ‘future proof’. A mix of 50 Super Hornets and 50 F-35s, with the Super Hornets to be replaced around 2030 by 50 of ‘whatever comes next’, might be worth contemplating. In any case, some contingency planning is in order."
F-35: keep calm but have a plan
....So instead of an all-in approach on the F-35 (that ship sailed when the Super Hornets were ordered anyway), we wonder if there’s another answer that’s more ‘future proof’. A mix of 50 Super Hornets and 50 F-35s, with the Super Hornets to be replaced around 2030 by 50 of ‘whatever comes next’, might be worth contemplating. In any case, some contingency planning is in order."
F-35: keep calm but have a plan
F-35: keep calm but have a plan
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"Once again, the test folks are bought and paid for stooges of LM. Don't you guys ever get tired of trotting that out?"
Bill Gunston remarked more than once on the tendency of both Russian & US industry to put new aircraft that weren't fully developed or bug-free into the hands of the military and then use the "Wow this is an AWESOME aircraft" feedback to bulldoze ahead.................
Bill Gunston remarked more than once on the tendency of both Russian & US industry to put new aircraft that weren't fully developed or bug-free into the hands of the military and then use the "Wow this is an AWESOME aircraft" feedback to bulldoze ahead.................
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Bill Gunston remarked more than once on the tendency of both Russian & US industry to put new aircraft that weren't fully developed or bug-free into the hands of the military and then use the "Wow this is an AWESOME aircraft" feedback to bulldoze ahead.................
And it seems to me that operational military pilots saying "Wow this is an AWESOME aircraft" and "the test folks are bought and paid for stooges of LM" are two very different things. And if there is no difference, then all the folks on this forum singing the praises of the Lightning, Phantom, Tornado, Typhoon, Harrier, etc etc are all bought and paid for stooges of their respective manufacturers. Surely not?!
You are welcome to disagree on all points.
Last edited by KenV; 15th Mar 2016 at 20:38.