"The nation must field the F-35 joint strike fighter at a cost that permits large enough numbers to replace the current fighter inventory and maintain a healthy margin of superiority over the Russians and Chinese."
Here is some additional reading for you and your replacement Mr. Gates.
4 comments:
Hi Eric,
This doesn't exactly fit in here although it should be noted by Gates and the designers of the F-35.
I was trawling the net looking up some facts about the late great designer Ed Heinemann. And stumbled upon a list of rules he apparently said he used when dealing with people and managing them in projects. I found them on the A4 Skyhawk association website.
http://a4skyhawk.org/2b/heinemann.htm
They are as follows:
1) Tell people what is expected of them.
2) Tell them in advance about changes that will affect them.
3) Let those working for you know how they are getting along.
4) Give credit where credit is due, especially for extra effort or performance. Do it while it's hot. Don't wait.
5) Make the best use of each person's ability.
6) Strive to keep ahead of schedule.
7) Don't waste time.
8) If you're the boss, give guidance, direction, and most important, decisive answers to questions.
9) Make sure people know where to go to get answers.
10) Beware of office politicians.
11) If you want to pick a man for a difficult job, pick one who has already thought out the problem or is capable of doing so quickly.
12) Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
13) A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. Beware of these.
14) Respect the specialists -- those who are masters of a particular phase of an operation. But be wary of allowing them to make big decisions.
15) Avoid lengthy committee meetings.
16) Avoid paralysis by analysis.
17) Plan ahead.
Pretty much everyone of these rules has been broken by Gates, LM, and the whole development team for the JSF and look at the result.
Sometimes it pays to listen to an old engineer.
And the designer of the A-4 Skyhawk was rabid about K.I.S.S.
Keep It Simple Stupid.
“We cancelled or curtailed modernization programs that were egregiously over-budget, behind schedule, dependent on unproven technology, supplied a niche requirement that could be met in other ways, or that simply did not pass the common sense test,” he said…
“So with the important exception of air superiority fighters and other high-end systems,” he said, “pursuing costly, leap-ahead improvements in technology and capability is not necessarily required."…
WTF? One of the successful media plays against the F-22 was that it was too good and not required. Something less than excellent, like the F-35, was recommended as all that was needed. Apparently, the F-35 is now being sold as the exception mentioned in the above statement. I sense there is some backside covering going on here. If there is chaos and catastrophe in the defense procurement agencies, Gates is responsible for a lot of it because he had six years to fix all the things he now says are still wrong. It happened on his watch. It is very troubling he is being allowed to exit without being called to account.
so where did kurt disappear?
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