{"id":181218,"date":"2016-08-25T20:53:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T01:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/08\/25\/speaking-of-defense-procurement-misconduct\/"},"modified":"2016-08-25T20:53:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T01:53:00","slug":"speaking-of-defense-procurement-misconduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/08\/25\/speaking-of-defense-procurement-misconduct\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking of Defense Procurement Misconduct\u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US Air Force has declared the F-35 A combat ready.<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon\u2019s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&amp;E) has <a href=\"http:\/\/aviationweek.com\/defense\/pentagon-weapons-tester-warns-f-35-combat-readiness-problems\">declared that it is not even close<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Pentagon\u2019s top weapons tester is again sounding the alarm over the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, warning that significant deficiencies with the gun, challenges integrating the short-range AIM-9X missile and unresolved software bugs could delay fielding of the jet\u2019s full capability.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">On the heels of the U.S. Air Force\u2019s milestone decision to declare the F-35A ready for battle, the Pentagon\u2019s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&amp;E) is raising new concerns about Lockheed Martin\u2019s fifth-generation fighter. In an internal memo to Defense Department leadership Aug. 9, the DOT&amp;E warned the jet still has a long way to go before full combat capability and may run out of funds to fix significant performance problems on time if late discoveries delay the end of the program\u2019s development phase.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">In response to Aviation Week queries, the DOT&amp;E reiterated concerns that the program\u2019s official start date for IOT&amp;E is \u201cnot realistic,\u201d repeating the agency\u2019s public assessment that the F-35 will not be ready to begin the test period until mid-2018 at the soonest\u2014assuming the JPO can provide production-representative test aircraft by then.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Late, over budget, and not combat ready.<\/p>\n<p>The <b><span style=\"font-size: 100%; font-variant: small-caps;\">internal<\/span><\/b> fun does not shoot straight, there are cracks in the carrier variant&#8217;s wings, external carriage of ordinance is at least 2 years away.<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon procurement process at its finest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Air Force has declared the F-35 A combat ready. The Pentagon\u2019s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&amp;E) has declared that it is not even close: The Pentagon\u2019s top weapons tester is again sounding the alarm over the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, warning that significant deficiencies with the gun, challenges integrating the short-range &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1007,1008,987,1006],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-defense-procurement","category-fail","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}