Final answer, the DOD thinks the risks of starting F-35 training sooner rather than later is the way to go: assuming other administrative issues like a safety certificate show up. More here.
There has also been another F-35 delivered to Eglin, while the first production representative F-35B STOVL has had its first flight.
In reference to my post on F-35 low rate initial production (LRIP) 5, Stephen Trimble has an additional look at the woe.
Bill Sweetman writes on F-22 and ATF program history. He states that the idea of budget growth on such projects is vague.
That teaches an important lesson: There are no overruns, only underestimates and external forces -- and in defense, the latter are usually less important.
The estimates were wishes. The Pentagon had cut the unit cost from $40 million at the last moment, but it meant about as much as Winston Smith's estimates of boot production in 1984. There was no authority behind it.
F-22 production was halted not just because of its "program of record" but because of the perception it was too expensive.
The F-35--with half the capability of an F-22 (if that)--is now facing similar troubles because of expense and lack of credibility.
The other expense being that of poor project managers on both sides of the fence.
4 comments:
...."the observed CTOL air abort rate was equivalent to 3,000 aborts per 100,000 flight hours, indicating the relative immaturity of aircraft. Although substantially reduced since July 2009, the "maturity" abort rate still exceeded projections based on historical experience: the historical model predicted one air abort during the maturity flights; four air aborts occurred. That experience indicates that the flight hours accrued solely on the CTOL aircraft are the appropriate measure of its maturity, rather than the 1,900 hours accrued during flight test of all the JSF variants. This is also consistent with the substantially diminished commonality of the three JSF variants relative to initial expectations."
Maybe I don't understand but it sure seems to me that USAF doesn't care how many hours the ENTIRE program has achieved, they seem only concerned about how many hours CTOL version achieved.
Notice how you will be putting regular USAF pilots in situations where failures will occur with no procedures to help the pilot.
Yeah,I wonder what pro F35 crowd is going to say about that little inside comment at the bottom of the paragraph about " substantially diminished commonality ", we keep hearing from the test pilots that they all fly the same so why USAF doesn't count all the hours?????
This isn't some regular Joe blogging, this is an internal DOD memo, you can't say they don't know about the program???
Nico:
They may, as reported, all seem to fly the same to the pilots.
In reality, this is somewhat problematic, given the physical differences in the flight controls and configurations.
Importantly, the question that needs to be asked is, "Do they all fail the same?"
This is significant when it comes to reliability/maintainability and FMECA.
The truth of the matter is that the USAF and the USMC are all in a hurry to get these planes at a place where they "look" operational because they've seen the writing on the wall.
It's much harder to kill a program building aircraft that "appear" to work vs. test aircraft with no real capabilities (which is what they really are).
At this point losing a pilot is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of churning out a thousand+ mistake jets.
Yes, come on in pleeeease... see our block IIB 4.5 G operational fighter ready for sale. Please, don't mind the price tag behind the curtains... How can we help youuu today...
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