ABC (Australia) '4 Corners' programme 18 Feb - F35 expose
 

This programme should put the cat among the canaries, both for the Australian government and for retired CDF Angus Houston.

It will be interesting to see if it causes a reaction anywhere near as precipitate as, say, the not so long ago live beef expose.

Somehow, I suspect not.

election coming up - some politician will jump on the band waggon for sure

It looked like a program made to order for a Minister about to ,make even further cuts to defence spending and pull the plug on our involvement.

I'm no fan of the F35 (I worry about my son having to take on Sukhois in it) but that show would have made A Current Affair or 60 Minutes proud.

Dare I say, "as expected", it didn't even rate a mention on the ABC news or "A.M." this morning. (Although I didn't catch all the news, so I might have missed it.)

Having been there, very closely, with the events in Canberra between 97- 02, I thought that the programme was quite well-balanced. (I'm neither a journo nor a politician).

Cuefaye
As you are in UK and RAF retired, I don't think you can imply you are an unbiased observer.
We are all parochial, including me.
So UK citizens aghast that the magnificent 5th generation Typhoon not selected by those ungrateful ex convicts, French citizens dismayed such imbeciles wouldn't select let alone consider Rafale, US citizens chuffed that those fine Aussies selected the obvious stand out, etc.
I think we should have gone Russian, so there!
By the way Cufaye, were you here in some capacity representing a vested interest?
John

Silly chap. I have no axe to grind. And a once friend of mine in those days, when CAF, replied to my question about the possibilty of a Flanker acquisition, that he'd do a deal with the devil if it was in the best interest of his RAAF.

cuefaye, I wouldn't use the word balanced, there were bad mistakes in it but the Howard and 2002 was accurate enough and for history prior to that there was also the UK/AU joint MOU to 'explore' procurement of next jet, where UK went to typhoon and AU declined and sat on the fence some more.

edit, as to flankers, there was a serious initial look and russia did offer

Cufaye.
You must be a politician (fine chaps they are too) - you skillfully avoided answering the question about whether you were here representing a vested interest.

Not a pollie! Ex-military and gunrunner - at a ministerial level :eek:

Neither of which, in reality, were more than brief, cursory exercises. I initiated the first of these - it was an engineering set-up, which was at best a sham. No doubt you'll say it led to some workshare (not a lot}, but it was never really going anywhere vis-a-vis a EF2000 project; especially after John Howard (and Angus) dismantled the Acquisiton Process!

I don't know about the engineering, I'm going by distant memories and it was seconhand info, but my feeling is that it was a broad look, was in place before UK was keen on the ef2000 and that MOU would of ended when UK went with the EF2000. I threw it in as a bit of history
There was a later EF2000 proposal where we would get work share, do you mean this?

I have often wondered why Australia did not look at the F-15E. The latest variants are pretty good.

For the benefit of those trawling through fast here, here is the
precis from the ABC Four Corners home page

Those in the wide brown land can see a repeat at 2335 tonight



The JSF project could cost Australian taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. Is this plane a super fighter or a massive waste of money?

VIDEO: Interview with Lt. General Chris Bogdan - F-35 Joint Program Office

VIDEO: Interview with Orlando Carvalho, Lockheed Martin

VIDEO: Interview with Peter Goon, Air Power Australia


It's been billed as the smartest jet fighter on the planet, designed to strike enemies in the air and on the ground without being detected by radar. But after a decade of intensive development, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is over budget, a long way behind schedule and described by one expert as "big, fat and draggy".

The JSF project could cost Australian taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. Is this plane a super fighter or a massive waste of money?

Four Corners reporter, Andrew Fowler, travels to the United States in search of answers. He goes to Lockheed Martin's top secret factory in Texas. He also secured the first television interview with the Pentagon's new head man on the project, whose candid assessment of the JSF would chill many in the Defence Department:

"Well, let's make no mistake about it, this program still has risks, technical risks, it has cost issues, it has problems we'll have to fix in the future."

The question is how and why did Australia lock itself into a project that both experts and senior US politicians say is dangerously flawed? Four Corners asks three crucial questions.

Why was the plane chosen without an open and competitive tender?

Why did the then head of the RAAF give the plane and the project his stamp of approval when it was barely off the drawing board?

And will the aircraft's capabilities have to be downgraded before it gets into service?

Reflecting on the decision not to open the purchase of a new fighter jet to competition, one insider told the program:

"Now we were proposing that we buy something being developed for the US Air Force if you like, on a whim."

Last year the Canadian Government was rocked by revelations that it had severely under-estimated the cost of the 65 Joint Strike Fighters it had contracted to buy. As a result Canada has been forced to halt the purchase and re-assess it through an open tender process. This has major implications for Australia. It suggests we could be under-estimating the JSF's true cost and it means if the Canadians pull out of the program the price of each plane will rise yet again.

That computersim shown - the one where the blue force lost all supporting assets (2 x AWACS, 6 x KC10) and 23 out of the 24 F35's - anyone know what parameters were used? How many enemy? What the combat loadings were? Relative positions at the start of the serial?

Could it be that you could construct a scenario where a squadron of F-22's gets hosed by a squadron of Sopwith Pups?

Mk1, the man running the simulation did say that that result was a bit more dire than most, but I don't think anyone wastes computer time on a totally unrealistic scenario. (I'll accept that they may have been attempting to make a point, but I can't believe they'd have put on something totally unrealistic for the cameras, if only because the opposing side in the argument - LockMart and DMO - would be so easily placed to refute their claims, making their whole argument fall over. I see that nothing's been said today about that simulation being unrealistic - or if it has, I haven't heard it. In fact, I've heard diddly squat about last night's 4 Corners on today's MSM news.)

Currently serving AAVN people have said here on Pprune in the past that they've been told by their political masters that the ADF cannot afford to lose an MRH-90 or a Tiger because of the cost, both politically and in $$$, that any such loss would entail. If that's true, imagine what restrictions the knucks will be under with the F35s when/if they ever arrive.

I'm reminded of when the RAN bought the FFGs. The whole concept of the frigate was that it operated as an ASW platform with its on board ASW helicopters providing the 'pointy end' of its ASW role. We bought the ship, but for a very long time, no state of the art helicopter that could operate from it. So what did they do when the first FFG steamed in through Sydney Heads? They flew a bloody Kiowa out from Watson to be placed prominently on its flight deck - and Bruce and Sheila Taxpayer and the useless media were happy and content.

I can't help but feel we're going to see something similar with the F35. They might be allowed out to provide a bit of noise at the opening of the odd Formula One meeting to impress the taxpaying punters - and after seeing its hourly operating costs, at precious few times in between.

'Andu' this would be a 'blanket denial':

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...ml#post7700706

ParlInfo - Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade : 16/03/2012 : Department of Defence annual report 2010-11

The RAAF apparently declined to participate in the Four Corners show.

Andu, that's because ADF has already said the sim is rubbish
apa/repsim did the sim and it's on youtube with the assumptions, f-16net did a reasonable takedown of it, worth a read...add to that that the aim-120 missile ranges of 20ml with a 5% hit rate over this, when russian sim site say it's rubbish who also looked at it, apa/repsim increased the range of russian and decrease the range of US missiles, and it doesn't even agree with RU manuals..so it's garbage in garbage out.. add to that that the capability of the actual simulator software is like a billy-cart to the F1 race car the air forces use.
add to that that the air force sims have actually increased from 3:1 to a 6:1 in 4 f-35 vs 8 red air, as more has become known

What I don't understand is why didn't the Australian MOD or one of the politicians that where involved in the original purchase deal at least try to explain their reasoning behind going so quickly for the F35 ?

The whole report was certainly informative at certain points, albeit being somewhat slanted towards the anti-JSF side at certain points (yes, the simulation part was kind of laughable).

All in all though, I think that General Bogdan was at least trying to be as open as possible about the program which did the JSF more good than bad.
As far as PR tactics go there are basically 3 ways an interview like that can turn out;
1. Participate like General Bogdan, fairly open and as honest as possible which only helps the F35 case.
2. Like the LM representative, going in with a clear distrust of the interviewing journalist, he looked like a shady arms-dealer but at least he was there and tried to make a case for his company
3.Not showing up like the Australian DoD or involved politicians which only can be interpreted negatively.

The whole program is available to watch via ABC iView.
ABC iview