Category: Defense Procurement

The Next Gen Gripen Looks to Be a World Beater

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This is a lot cheaper

Saab put out a very impressive briefing on the next generation of Gripen at Farnborough, where the headline was much lower direct operating costs:

Third (and most important) is that all air forces are finally realizing that operating costs are more important than acquisition costs. The debate over JSF costs – from the Navair leaks of 2010, through program director VAdm Dave Venlet’s “it makes their knees go weak” quote in April 2011 to Lockheed Martin’s recent assaults on the competence of Pentagon accountants – revolves around operating costs, and that is a fight that Gripen wins.

Saab says that the E/F will cost under $5,000 per flight hour – one-third to one-quarter of its estimates for Eurofighter, Rafale or JSF (Saab uses Australian numbers for the latter, which are lower than some).

These numbers are not just pie in the sky. The Gripen has been in service for over a decade, as has its engine, and it’s half the size of its competitors, and you pay for aircraft like you pay for ground beef, by the pound.  (And yes, the numbers for the JSF are unsupportable)

However, what I found most interesting was the fact that they touted the advantages of non-integrated avionics, (page 33) explaining how you can move more quickly if your tactical avionics are separate from flight critical systems, which also allows greater access by the operating nations who might want to make their own upgrades and weapons.

This is a direct challenge to the tightly integrated, and inaccessible avionics package in the JSF.

PDF after the break. (H/T Eric Palmer for the embed.)

Dutch Parliament Deals Blow to JSF

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The Dutch Parliament has voted to ask the PM and cabinet to cancel the jet order:

The Netherlands should scrap plans to buy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets because it cannot afford the project’s ballooning costs as the country attempts to cut spending, a majority of parliament said on Thursday.

One leading party, Labour, will submit a proposal to the 150-seat legislature on the last session before Sept. 12 elections calling for an end to Dutch participation in the Lockheed Martin Corp warplanes project.

Whether the Netherlands, which has already ordered two F-35 test planes, will quit the project depends on the outcome of the elections, and the new government that takes office afterwards.

The Dutch government collapsed over painful austerity measures in April, but the state has to cut costs by billions of euros to meet EU guidelines. About 4.5 billion euros has been set aside for the F-35 jets.

During a debate with Dutch Defence Minister Hans Hillen, lawmakers complained about the project’s escalating costs and said there were no guarantees over Dutch jobs or future costs.

I’m beginning to think that this will end up a lot like the F-111.

The only people who bought that plane were us and the Australians. (The British canceled after escalating costs)

Israel Developing Python 6 Based on Stunner SAM/ATBM

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The Israeli defense company Rafael is working to develop a successor to the Python 5 and the Derby based on their Stunner surface to air missile (paid subscription required):

Rafael, Israel’s leading missile development center, continues to work quietly on an air-to-air derivative of the Stunner interceptor—to be designated Python 6, or the Future Advanced Air-to-Air Missile (FAAM).


The Stunner is a surface-to-air weapon being developed in partnership with Raytheon for Israel’s David’s Sling air and missile defense system. The Python 6 has been chronicled for almost a decade.


Although the Israeli air force (IAF) still has not officially endorsed an air-to-air version, sources at Rafael say consultations over the features of such a missile have been underway since the final stages of development of the Python 5, currently in production.


The IAF could avoid committing its own funding to FAAM development, hoping that Rafael can first strike a deal with a U.S. partner to obtain the next-generation air-to-air missile. But according to Chairman Ilan Biran, Rafael is in the meantime using its R&D budget, estimated at $125 million, to fund the project.


………


The Stunner was designed as a “platform-agnostic” missile that can be adapted for air and ground launch, from rail or ejector racks, in conventional or internal carriage configurations. The Mach 5.5, long-range missile is equipped with a dual electro-optic/radio-frequency seeker and an advanced multistage rocket motor. Designed as a hit-to-kill anti-missile weapon , Stunner has no warhead and instead can carry a more powerful rocket motor capable of ranges beyond any air-to-air missile available today.


Druker says the FAAM will likely cost significantly less than today’s AIM-120 , Derby or Meteor, but more than the current short-range missiles. Although the FAAM and Stunner do not share a common configuration, Rafael expects that the overall life-cycle cost offered by the Stunner will be much lower than any other missile combination.

Personally, I’m a little bit dubious that the missile will go completely without a warhead, the PAC-3 Patriot, for example is hit to kill, but contains a “lethality enhancer” (basically a tiny warhead to scatter shrapnel in the path of the target.

That being said, using a dual mode seeker (you can see how the IR seeker is offset so as to allow a radar to be placed behind it) the missile’s accuracy should be pretty high.

They also expect this to be the last AAM they develop.

Yosi Druker, director of Rafael’s Air-to-Air and Air Defense Directorate, suggests that they will be superseded by new technologies, because “the next generation of interceptors will employ other kill mechanisms, not necessarily a missile, to defeat airborne targets,” which I take to be a reference to directed energy weapons.

I’m dubious of this, but I’ve been wrong more often than not when I have been dubious about a technological development.

Background here.

Another Defense Procurement Fail

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The US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) was billed as a modern replacement for the frigate.

It combines the size of a frigate with the firepower of the (smaller) corvette, with the (alleged) advantages of greater flexibility, through the use of swappable mission modules, and a smaller crew. (They also go like scorched cats, topping out at over 40 kts)

As I’ve noted earlier, the mission modules don’s fit as well as they should, and now the navy has realized that they cannot run the ships at their current crewing levels, and they are increasing crewing levels by 50%:

Years after sailors and planners realized the crew size of littoral combat ships was too small, the U.S. Navy has decided to increase the number of sailors on the ships.

The changes will be made on the first LCS, the Freedom, starting in July — in time to beef up the crews for next year’s 10-month deployment to Singapore.

Twenty additional berths will be permanently installed onboard Freedom — two for officers, two for chief petty officers and 16 for other enlisted — but the final manning plan has yet to be decided, Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, the director of surface warfare, said during a June 26 interview at the Pentagon. The ship right now has a core crew of 40, but because there is no manning plan, it’s still unclear how many sailors will be added to the crews.

The added billets “will run the gamut, from support to engineering to operations to boatswain’s mates,” Rowden said. “We’ve got to get the right skill set and the right seniority.”

Among the known manning deficiencies is the need for more junior sailors, Rowden said. LCS crews tend to be more senior, reflecting the need for sailors with multiple qualifications in a small ship.

So, the latest whiz bang navy idea appears to have failed to achieve every one of its goals.

Another Day, Another Failed Military Procurement Program

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The US Army has canceled the Boeing Hummingbird:

This month, the Army planned to deploy to Afghanistan an unusual new drone: an unmanned eye-in-the-sky helicopter programmed to use high-tech cameras to monitor vast amounts of territory. But now the drone might be lucky to be deployed at all, as the Army has moved to shut down production — possibly ending the program forever.

That drone would be the A160 Hummingbird, which the Army planned to equip with the powerful Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, or Argus. But earlier this month, the Army issued a stop-work order — one step away from termination — to the drone’s developer Boeing. The reason? A high “probability of continued technical and schedule delays,” costs and risks that have “increased so significantly that program continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government,” said Donna Hightower, the Army’s acting product manager for unmanned aerial systems modernization.

The A160 was set to be one of the Army’s most radical new drones. The chopper-drone could loiter for 20 hours at up to 15,000 feet, with a range of 2,500 nautical miles. It could observe up to 36 square miles, thanks to its Argus sensors. Also, Argus has a 1.8 gigapixel camera. Viewed through 92 five-megapixel imagers and 65 video windows for zooming in at ultra-high resolution, the the A160 drone would have been well-suited for spying on enemy fighters in vast and remote terrain like in Afghanistan, where three of the drones were scheduled to deploy this month. The A160 has also been sent on special operations workouts.

It appears that there were problems with the sensor suite, but perhaps more significantly, the aircraft experienced vibration problems during a flight test, and it’s innovative variable speed rotor system was supposed to address this, so it puts the basic architecture in question.

And the LCS is Beginning to Look Like a Real Dog

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Serikously, the most recent list of problems with the ships makes one wonder if they will ever be combat ready:

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom is plagued by extensive corrosion and manufacturing issues more recent and serious than anything the Pentagon or prime contractor Lockheed Martin has publicly acknowledged thus far.

This is based on a guided tour of the ship in dry dock, as well as sources intimately familiar with Freedom’s design, repairs and operations, U.S. Navy documents and defense analysts.

The vessel is rusting and blistered by corrosion in many areas, marred by crack repairs throughout the deckhouse and hampered by what appear to be flaws in vital piping systems.

Corrosion is particularly evident throughout the ship’s waterborne mission area, located at the Freedom’s stern, because of a large gap between the stern doors and the vessel’s deck floor, which allows water to pour in when the doors are closed. They are supposed to form a watertight seal (see photo.)

As part of its plan to address some of the Freedom’s problems, the Navy is apparently adding more sailors – a move that runs counter to the ship’s basic concept of operations, which are meant, among other things, to reduce weight and costs by deploying a ship with as few crewmembers as possible.

The vessel – the first ship of what is supposed to be the future cornerstone of U.S. surface naval power – left dry dock at the end of April for tests off the California coast. Equipment failures had cut short previous test attempts in January and February. The Freedom had been at sea 15-20 days in the 16 months before leaving pier side for the recent tests and underway 12 hr. since June 27, 2011, when it docked for recent repairs.

This is further complicated by the fact that the one of the Navy’s goals on this ship was to completely minimize crewing, which means that there is little, if any capability to fix problems as they develop:

But some members of Congress see it differently. “Making sure the stern door seals shut is shipbuilding 101,” says U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “I’m troubled that the Navy would accept so many deficiencies in a program that seems to be riddled with serious problems,” Speier said after Aviation Week shared with her staff photographs and other material gathered from the ship tour.

Navy officials and program supporters say some of the problems are due to first-of-class growing pains and the learning curve achieved by getting to know the maintenance needs of a ship that until about a decade ago was little more than a concept.

LCS is meant to be maintained differently from other Navy vessels. “Crews do minimal maintenance on board,” Capt. John Neagley, the acting LCS program manager, said during a briefing at the Navy League’s recent annual Sea Air Space conference.

And the ship’s current concept of operations, or conops, reinforces that idea. “The crew has no surplus capacity to absorb additional duties,” reads the conops, last revised in 2009. “There are no spare sailors or officers assigned to LCS.”

To further address some of the corrosion problems on both the Freedom – developed and built by a team lead by Lockheed – and the LCS-2 USS Independence – developed and built by a team lead by General Dynamics and Austal USA – the Navy has put in additional cathodic protection systems, which protect metal surfaces by making them cathodes of an electrochemical cell.

BTW, there are reports that Austal, which uses cathodic systems on its civilian high speed ferries, suggested putting in such a system for their LCS, but the Navy shot it down. (Smooth move, USN)

I don’t think that the Navy’s fetish of cutting crewing is producing a viable platform.

MoD Goes Back To Jump Jet

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About a year ago, the British decided to switch from the STOVL F-35B to the catapult and arrestor hook F-35C.

They were building two carriers, but they would only equip one with the necessary equipment to launch and land the aircraft, leaving the remaining carrier as the world’s most expensive helicopter carrier.

Well, they are back to the B model: (Paid subscription required)

In the depths of the crisis about 18 months ago surrounding the Stovl model, the U.K. walked away from the F-35B, saying it would instead buy the F-35C and denigrating the jump-jet version as an inferior aircraft. But since the F-35B gained the Pentagon’s blessing as having its Stovl-unique questions resolved, London is now embracing the variant it abandoned, in part citing the development progress. “The Stovl aircraft has made significant progress since the SDSR was published over 18 months ago,” the Defense Ministry says.

The back-and-forth is not just about semantics. The U.K. decision during the 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review to opt for the F-35C added weight to those hoping to cancel the F-35B, irking U.S. Marine Corps officials who were eager to see the version survive.

U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, in announcing the move to Parliament, still defends the 2010 ruling. He says the decision on carriers “was right at the time, but the facts have changed and therefore so, too, must our approach. This government will not blindly pursue projects and ignore cost growth and delays.”

The U.K. expects to take delivery of its first Lockheed MartinF-35B Joint Strike Fighter in July. Credit: Lockheed Martin

In the end, it was cost that brought the U.K. back to the F-35B. The price to fit HMS Prince of Wales—the second Queen Elizabeth-class carrier—with catapult launch and arrestor gear doubled to £2 billion ($3.2 billion) since the initial estimates were made going into the 2010 review , Hammond asserts. Moreover, U.K. planners were increasingly concerned about higher manpower costs associated with operating such an aircraft carrier. The decision is a setback for General Atomics, which hoped to sell its electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) to the U.K.

Hammond also says the conversion would have delayed the restoration of the U.K.’s carrier strike capability by three years to 2023. The current plans call for HMS Queen Elizabeth to begin sea trials in 2017, with aircraft to fly from the deck in 2018 in preparation for an operational capability around 2020.

Understand that the Brit carriers are gas turbine powered, and so could not be retrofitted with steam catapults, and EMALS is still showing problems, and the cost is increasing.

Also, the MoD was committed to building both ships (the cancellation clauses are pricey) but only had money to convert to CTOL, which meant that when it was in retrofit, they would have no carrier capabilities.

It is yet another testament to David Cameron’s “genius” at governance:

For the government, the about-face on JSF is domestically embarrassing. While vowing to fix the lax acquisition practices that it blamed on the Labour administration, it is now reversing course on the first major item in its procurement agenda.

Yeah, like that competence is fairly oozing from the Tories.  (Not)

It Won’t Happen, It Makes Too Much Sense

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In consideration of the current budget trends the US Air Force is looking at smaller and simpler single purpose satellites:

Smaller, simpler satellite designs could begin making their way into service for mainstream U.S. Air Force missions in the middle of the next decade, a shift that would break with a longtime tradition of building large, expensive spacecraft for the Pentagon.

This shift from complex and expensive satellites could come about because Gen. William Shelton, Air Force Space Command chief, and other military leaders are embracing the concept of “disaggregation,” or separating capabilities once resident on a single platform onto multiple systems. It could simplify satellite design and create what Shelton calls a “targeting problem” for an adversary looking to cripple U.S. space-based services, by expanding the number of satellites in a constellation.

If disaggregation materializes, it could underpin a shift for major constellations—military satellite communications, missile warning, precision timing and navigation, weather and space situational awareness. While it could prompt an end—or at least slow procurement—of today’s satellites, the strategy could also be an opportunity for an industry facing reduced government spending to keep design teams intact.

Two possible near-term opportunities could be Shelton’s interest in using a smaller, simpler approach for both the next-generation space situational awareness (SSA) and weather spacecraft.

The advantages are:

  • You can develop and field satellites more quickly.
  • If a contractor really screws the pooch in terms of performance, schedule, or cost, it’s small enough to cancel.
  • You can have real competition, or perhaps competitive dual sourcing between vendors.
  • The resulting network would be a much more tolerant to a failure of a single satellite.

The downside is that the contractors who make this stuff will have less of an opportunity to over-promise and under-deliver, generating the necessary profits to employ retired generals as high priced consultants.

All things considered, I consider this initiative doomed because of this, but I’m a cynic.

Huh, I Interviewed There

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RedX Defense, where we now have allegations of self dealing on DARPA contracts:

Top Pentagon research arm Darpa gave a well-connected firm millions of dollars to build bomb-detectors — despite deep internal reservations about the technology involved. After years of work and millions spent, the company’s sensor was less effective than “a coin flip” in spotting homemade explosives, in the words of one military insider.

By itself, the washout wouldn’t be terribly remarkable. Darpa’s charter is to try out risky technologies, many of which don’t pan out. It’s that dedication to high-risk, high-reward projects that leads to breakthroughs like GPS and the internet. But these contracts were given to RedX Defense, a company partially owned by outgoing Darpa director Regina Dugan and led by Dugan’s family. Agency bosses were repeatedly told that investing in RedX was a waste of time — and moved ahead with the contracts anyway. The bottom line, says a second source familiar with RedX’s work: “The technology just didn’t work.”

………

Then, in July of 2009, Dugan was named the director of Darpa. Her father, Vince, became RedX’s CEO. Her sister, Christina Haney, worked as vice president of marketing. Some Darpa employees assumed Dugan would sell her shares in RedX, since the firm continued to pursue contracts from an agency now headed by its co-founder and former chief executive. Dugan didn’t sell those shares, however. Nor did she forgive the $250,000 loan she gave to RedX.

Dugan did officially recuse herself from any business dealings between the agency and the company. An internal Pentagon review later found that the recusal was “consistent with the letter and spirit of relevant laws, regulations, and policies governing conflict of interest,” according to Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokesperson. But the move wasn’t consistent with Darpa’s recent history. Under previous director Tony Tether, contracts that posed a potential conflict of interest were passed to someone higher up in the Pentagon hierarchy, who would theoretically be immune to pressure from subordinates. Instead, Dugan left the decisions about RedX to her employees — people acutely aware of their new boss’s background and her family ties to RedX.

A few weeks after Dugan assumed command of the agency, her family firm submitted a proposal to fund MAE WEST for $3.5 million. The proposal ignited a firestorm within the agency, one source familiar with the inspector general’s investigation says. Not only was the company tied to the new director, there were glaring gaps in the proposal — everything from the schedule of experiments to the scientific approach involved. Nevertheless, this source contends, agency deputy director Ken Gabriel told employees to put the RedX proposal at the “top of the list.”

“No other program had this kind of pressure,” the source adds. “Or even this much interest.”

Dogs still work better than anything else, FYI.

The revolving door is spinning awfully fast.

Our Military-Industrial Complex in a Nut Shell

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So, the USAF decides to buy a few dozen Global Hawk Block 30 drones to replace its existing inventory of U-2 spy planes, and finds out that they are more expensive and less capable than the 5y year old platform, so they are mothballing the drones:

It has been quite an expensive week for the US Air Force. Not only did Congress halt funding on a surveillance blimp project that they already invested $140 million in, but now the Pentagon says $3 billion worth of drones could be canned as well.

The United States military has already ordered a dozen unmanned surveillance drones at a combined cost of $3 billion, but realizing that the stealth, high-tech spy crafts aren’t as capable as the antiquated, old-school planes already in their arsenal, the Pentagon is pulling the plug in terms of acquiring any more.

In addition to ending the acquisition of Global Hawk Block 30 drones that the military had planned for, the Air Force will take the 18 they’ve already received, leaving them to hang around the hangar for now.

Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told a Senate committee this week that between acquiring any more drones and maintaining upgrades and repairs on those and the ones already purchased, the military would practically go bankrupt. Gen. Schwartz says that the new plan will save the Pentagon $2.5 billion, but will also lead the Defense Department to let the $3 billion worth of surveillance drones already under their command to just collect dust from now on.

“This was a choice [where] we had an asset that can do the mission as it’s currently specified and could do it overall at much less cost,” Schwartz said before the Senate this week. “Sustaining the U-2 was a better bet.”

So, they spend billions on a system that is more expensive and less capable than its predecessor, and somehow or other, the contractor will sill get paid for the unusable crap that they delivered.

Cyberwar Is the New Profit Center

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Seriously, we are seeing yet another hyped up bit of pants-wetting terror in order to create another way for defense contractors to rip the taxpayers off:

In last month’s State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to pass “legislation that will secure our country from the growing dangers of cyber threats.” The Hill was way ahead of him, with over 50 cybersecurity bills introduced this Congress. This week, both the House and Senate are moving on their versions of consolidated, comprehensive legislation.

The reason cybersecurity legislation is so pressing, proponents say, is that we face an immediate risk of national disaster.

wired guest column“Today’s cyber criminals have the ability to interrupt life-sustaining services, cause catastrophic economic damage, or severely degrade the networks our defense and intelligence agencies rely on,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said at a hearing last week. “Congress needs to act on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation immediately.”

Yet evidence to sustain such dire warnings is conspicuously absent. In many respects, rhetoric about cyber catastrophe resembles threat inflation we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War. And while Congress’ passing of comprehensive cybersecurity legislation wouldn’t lead to war, it could saddle us with an expensive and overreaching cyber-industrial complex.

Every so called case of a major attack on meat-space infrastructure has turned out to be false, but we’re gonna spend billions on it.

Huh, I Don’t Know How I Missed This………

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But the Dassault Rafale has won the Indian MMRCA competition, and will be delivering 126 fighters.

It appears that the Rafale largely beat the Typhoon largely on the basis of cost, though the fact that the Rafale is currently more capable in the strike role probably helped, as did what appeared to be a pretty good offset deal.

It’s interesting that the final decision came down to the cheapest of the two most expensive competitors (other competitors, were the MiG-35, Gripen, F-16, and F/A-18).

I still wonder how much of this was driven by a concern that the French were seen as more independent of US foreign policy.

What a Surprise

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The USAF is determined to avoid having a meaningful close support capability. Case in point, they are cutting 5 to 10 A-10 squadrons:

The A-10 Thunderbolt II provides the type of close-air support that ground-pounders love and the Taliban dread. Although the A-10s are workhorses in the war on terrorism, the Air Force in its new budget request is planning to get rid of five squadrons.

As part of the Defense Department’s efforts to trim close to $500 billion in spending over the next decade, defense officials said Friday that the service intends to cut five A-10 tactical squadrons and two other squadrons as well.

The Thunderbolt squadrons to be stood down encompass one active-duty, one Reserve and three National Guard units. The remaining two squadrons disappearing are a Guard F-16 tactical unit and an F-15 training squadron.

Let’s be clear about this: The F-35 and the F-22 cannot take over this role effectively.

The A-10 can deploy and loiter over the battlefield for hours below 15,000 feet, while the two supersonic stealth jets can loiter for something like 15 minutes before calling bingo fuel.

This is Called Circling the Drain

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It looks like yet another capability is being removed being removed from the JSF (Paid subscription required):

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, long touted as the follow-on to the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, is no longer heir-apparent as the king of nonkinetic warfare.

The often-delayed Lockheed Martin JSF program is being more narrowly focused on its conventional attack role. Jamming is no longer a priority for the stealthy fighter. The airframes expected to carry the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) are conventional-signature unmanned aerial systems and will be followed by stealthy unmanned designs.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, long touted as the follow-on to the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, is no longer heir-apparent as the king of nonkinetic warfare.

The often-delayed Lockheed Martin JSF program is being more narrowly focused on its conventional attack role. Jamming is no longer a priority for the stealthy fighter. The airframes expected to carry the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) are conventional-signature unmanned aerial systems and will be followed by stealthy unmanned designs.

One of the sales pitches for the JSF was that it’s engine, because it carried a lot of extra hardware to drive the lift fan, which would have allowed for it to be a stealthy platform with a few dozen megawatts of capability.

The can’t make the program work, so they are removing bits to ease the cost, weight, and schedule issues.

It will eventually enter service, but it’s going to be a lot less capable than it has been billed.

Defense.gov News Article: Panetta Lifts F-35 Fighter Variant Probation

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In a move that surprised no one, SecDef Leon Panetta has lifted the probation for the F-35B variant:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ushered the F-35B out of the penalty box, after the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (Stovl) version of the stealthy fighter was sidelined for poor performance for more than a year by prior Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Standing in a hangar in front of BF-4, one of two F-35Bs to conduct testing on the USS Wasp amphibious ship last fall, Panetta spoke to a small audience of government and industry workers on the Joint Strike Fighter test team.

“We now believe that because of your work the Stovl variant is demonstrating the kind of performance and maturity that is in line with the other two variants of JSF,” Panetta said here Jan. 20. “The Stovl variant has made — I believe and all of us believe — sufficient progress so that as of today I am lifting the Stovl probation.”

……………

George Little, Panetta’s spokesman, said the secretary’s decision to lift the probation was underpinned by improvements in five key areas: structural shortcomings in the Stovl bulkhead, flutter in the auxiliary inlet door, problems in the lift-fan clutch, unexpected wear and tear on the drive shaft, and heating on the roll-post actuator.

The writer also notes that, “Thus far, the F-35B has been flown to Mach 1.4,” which must have been before one of the “A” model test articles flew to Mach 1.6, and suffered significant damage, and the entire fleet was prohibited from supersonic flight.

The fact is that the real reason for the probation, and the one that Panetta and the Pentagon have neglected to mention, is that the F-35C is still significantly over weight, and for an STOVL aircraft, that doesn’t just mean a few percent drop in performance, it means that it cannot perform its allotted missions, because it cannot make a vertical landing.

This was why the British, before switching to the catapult launched and arrested recovery F-35C, were looking at a Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing at about 100 km/h forward speed.  They were afraid that the lack of performance would require aircraft to jettison (multimillion dollar) munitions before landing.

Those problems are still there

Full Pentagon press release after the break:

Panetta Lifts F-35 Fighter Variant Probation

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
American Forces Press Service

NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Md., Jan. 20, 2012 – Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced today he’s lifted probation from the Short Takeoff, Vertical Landing variant of the fifth generation F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter which is absolutely vital to maintaining air superiority.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland look at the cockpit of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with Navy Capt. Erik “Rock” Etz on Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., Jan. 20, 2012. Panetta and Hoyer toured several facilities related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is in its test phases at the base. DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.!

Speaking during a town hall-style meeting here, the defense secretary discussed the latest development in the progress of the joint strike fighter program as service members, politicians and the civilian workforce listened.

“Early in 2011 DOD was compelled to put [the Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing] … on probation,” he said.

“Over the course of last year, you here at Pax River helped make an incredible difference by completing tremendous amounts of STOVL testing,” Panetta noted. “You demonstrated that we’ve made real progress towards fixing some of the known problems that we had with STOVL.”

Panetta lauded the joint strike fighter’s workforce at NAS Patuxent River for their efforts to bring the STOVL variant up to the standards of the two other existing versions of the F-35, the Conventional Takeoff and Landing and Carrier Variant.

“We now believe that because of your work, that the STOVL variant is demonstrating the kind of performance and maturity that is in line with the other two variants of the JSF,” Panetta said.

“As a result of your hard work and the hard work of JSF’s government and industry team … the STOVL variant has made, I believe and all of us believe, sufficient progress so that as of today, I am lifting the STOVL probation,” he announced.

Panetta commended the crowd for their hard work, but cautioned that the JSF program still has more work to do. “We’ve got a long way to go with the JSF testing, and it’s obviously not out of the woods yet,” he said.

“But I am confident that if we continue to do the hard work necessary … that both the Carrier and the STOVL Variant are going to be ready for operations and are going to be ready for doing the work that they have to do, which is to help protect this country,” Panetta said.

“I want you all to know that as secretary of defense, my department is committed to the development of the F-35,” he said. “It’s absolutely critical … that we get it right. And that’s why you’re here. The developmental testing that’s going on here will ensure that we get this right.”

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James F. Amos called Panetta’s decision to lift the probation of the F-35B “hard-earned.”

“Secretary Panetta’s decision to take the F-35B Lightning II Short Takeoff, Vertical Landing variant off probation was a hard-earned and rewarding announcement for the entire DOD/industry team that worked very hard last year,” he said.

“Successful F-35B performance ashore and at sea has very positively advanced the state of demonstrated capability in 2011,” Amos said. “The positive momentum generated during 2011 will continue as testing proceeds, production aircraft are delivered, and fleet training begins in 2012.”

Panetta said it is important that the U.S. military maintains its technological edge into the future.
“That’s where we have to be,” he said. “We’re going to have a strong defense; we have got to be there.”

Panetta praised the capabilities of Patuxent’s workforce.

“Because of you, because of the very unique testing and capabilities that are offered here, we are able to maintain that technological edge,” Panetta said. “And I want to thank you again for your dedication, for your commitment, for your great skills.”

Panetta lauded the Patuxent River installation calling it “a very unique facility” and “a national treasure” that is important to maintain.

“These are world-class facilities … that [are] important to our military, important to our men and women in uniform who have to put their lives on the line, and it’s important to our national security,” Panetta said.

“Please accept my deepest thanks for your work and dedication,” he said. “I couldn’t do it without you.”

Seriously, We Are Becoming Incapable of Develping New Weapons Systems

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We’ve seen this with the Future Combat Systems, EFV (the landing craft former known as the AAAV), the Comanche helicopter, DDG-10000, and the slow motion implosion of the LCS and the JSF.

We see that the programs start with over-ambitious requirements, which lead to protracted development schedules, escalating costs.

This leads changes to the requirements, leading to further schedule and cost slippage, rinse, lather, repeat.

I’m generally not to concerned about this, I’m of the belief that superior training, tactics, and situational awareness will win the day. The success of the F4F Wildcat versus A6M Rei-sen (Zero) is an example of this.

Superior tactics and situational awareness are largely function of effective communication, so to my mind the cancelation of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) is a bigger deal than most of the higher profile cancellations:

…

What tied them down was their radios: a forest of plastic and metal cubes sprouting antennae of different lengths and sizes. They had short-range models for talking with the reconstruction team; longer-range versions for reaching headquarters 25 miles away; and a backup satellite radio in case the mountains blocked the transmission. An Air Force controller carried his own radio for talking to jet fighters overhead and a separate radio for downloading streaming video from the aircraft

…

Almost fifteen years ago, the Army launched an ambitious program, the Joint Tactical Radio System [3], aimed at developing several highly-compatible “universal” radios. Together, the JTRS radios would replace nearly all older radios in the American arsenal, greatly simplifying communications and freeing up combat units “to tap into the network on the move,” according to Paul Mehney, an Army spokesman.

But JTRS, pronounced “jitters,” failed to live up to its promise. Overly ambitious, poorly managed and saddled by incompatible goals, the program burned through $6 billion dollars while producing little working hardware. Delays forced the Army to spend $11 billion more on old-style radios to meet the urgent demands of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The Army eventually reduced the planned purchase of JTRS radios and cut the types of radios in development. In October, it canceled the vehicle-mounted version of JTRS, the most important of the new radios, which by then had grown to the size of a dormitory-sized refrigerator. For all practical purposes, JTRS is dead — at least in its original guise.

…

JTRS’ history is one of grand but naive technological ambition colliding with the unbending laws of physics and the unforgiving exigencies of modern warfare. After years of work, the Army discovered for itself what experts had been warning all along: It’s impossible for a single radio design to handle all the military’s different communications tasks.

The more capabilities that the Army and prime contractor Boeing packed into JTRS, the bigger, more complex and more expensive it became — until it was too bulky and unreliable for combat. In its relentless drive for conceptual simplicity, the Army found itself mired in mechanical complexity.

The Army wasn’t alone in its doomed pursuit of a technological pipe dream. The past decade has by many accounts been an era of grand ambition, flawed management and wasted treasure for all the military branches. A lengthy Harvard Business School study for the Pentagon concluded in April that despite many attempts at reform, “major defense programs still require more than 15 years to deliver less capability than planned, often at two to three times the planned cost.”

Unlike most of the high tech systems, which have next to no relevance in our current conflicts, there are very real shortcomings in the complex and frequently non-interoperable hodgepodge of communications equipment used by our forces. (The article linked above refers to one such situation in Afghanistan)

If our defense procurement and R&D system takes 15 years to take a radio system from concept through cancellation, we are completely f%$#ed.

Our own corrupt military-industrial complex appears ready to implode under the weight of its own dysfunction.

The Euro Crisis Starts to Hit Defense Contractors

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It looks like Italy is having 2nd thoughts about its JSF purchase🙁paid subscription required)

The Italian government is ushering in a new round of defense cuts in which, for the first time, the fate of Rome’s participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will be seriously threatened.

The newly launched defense review not only has sweeping implications for Italy’s defense ambitions but also rings in a further belt-tightening in Europe among countries that are just beginning to come to grips with the scale of their budget and debt problems. Spain, where a new conservative government is grappling with greater-than-anticipated economic troubles, may follow with budget reductions. France is also expected to scale back defense spending after presidential elections in May.

In Italy, much of the work on the military review remains to be completed. Nevertheless, a sharp reduction in the number of F-35s Italy will buy is virtually certain, military officials say. At least a third of the 131 fighters slated for procurement will likely fall under the budget ax, with some minority parties arguing for an outright program termination.

Rome is one of the largest international buyers of the F-35—after the U.K. drastically cut its procurement objective in its 2010 spending review. Italy plans to spend €13 billion ($16.7 billion) to buy and sustain both the F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing and the F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing versions, though it has not ordered any aircraft yet.

I wonder how people are going to start feeling about the austerity fairy fixing everything now that it’s defense spending on the block.

The folks who endorse austerity always seem to think that it’s just things like healthcare and the social safety net that need to be cut, and that somehow, the bloated derfense procurement programs all over the world will somehow continue apace.

I think not.

Well, What Do You Know, Another DoD Cost Overrun

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The Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship in the first new US carrier class in 35 years is seriously over budget:

The Navy has estimated a worst-case cost overrun of as much as $1.1 billion for the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the service’s most expensive warship.

The carrier is being built in Newport News by Huntington Ingalls Industries under a cost-plus, incentive-fee contract in which the Navy pays for most of the overruns. Even so, the service’s efforts to control expenses may put the company’s $579.2 million profit at risk, according to the Navy.

A review of the carrier’s rising costs began in August after the Navy’s program manager indicated that the “most likely” overrun had risen to $884.7 million, or about 17 percent over the contract’s target price of $5.16 billion. That’s up from a $650 million overrun estimated in April, according to internal Navy figures made available to Bloomberg News. The worst-case assessment would be about 21 percent over the target.

I would suggest, given the record of the DoD, as well as the well documented issues with getting its new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) catapult, that the worst case assessment is at least 10% below the final overrun.

Japan Orders F-35

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This is very good news for Lockheed-Martin.

I think that the devil will be in the details though.

The details that most likely cause problems is that, “But Japanese companies are likely to be excluded from work on the confidential and more lucrative stealth and radar capabilities of the fighters.”

Seeing as how Japanese defense contractors are constitutionally prohibited from exporting their wares, I think that this might end up a major area of contention with their defense contractors.

The JSF, It Just Gets Better and Better

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Seriously, this is seriously f%$#ed up:

When the Joint Strike Fighter team told Guy Norris about the jet’s first run to its Mach 1.6 design speed, a couple of minor facts slipped their minds. Nobody remembered that the jet had landed (from either that sortie or another run to Mach 1.6) with “peeling and bubbling” of coatings on the horizontal tails and damage to engine thermal panels. Or that the entire test force was subsequently limited to Mach 1.0.

(emphasis mine)

So, they took the aircraft to its design speed, and it melted.

In addition to this, we have (to name a few):

  • The helmet mounted display that gives the pilot 360° visibility, and “makes maneuverability irrelevant,” does not work, and has been replaced by a less capable system.
  • The emergency fuel dump system, is likely to cause flammable accumulations of fuel next to the integrated power package (IPP) exhaust.
  • The IPP itself is unreliable, and has been failing and throwing out bits that have punctured fuel tanks.
  • The arrester hook for the naval version is improperly located, and simply won’t work, requiring a relocation, and a major structural redesign.
  • Excessive buffeting, causing control as well as fatigue issues.

The problem here has been exacerbated by the fact the, true to the latest theories of American techno-whiz bank, everything was supposed to work out of the box, because analysis and simulation techniques have become so sophisticated.

So testing became validation, and every test is supposed to be a success, and this (erroneous) assumption allowed to proceed and build of systems in parallel, even though a failure of one system could (and has) cause a disastrous cascade of delays.

Epic fail