"As a result of your hard work and the hard work of JSF's government and industry team -- and it's a tremendous team; I've had the opportunity to meet many of its members today -- 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."
What "sufficient progress"?
"It's not to say we don't have a long way to go; we do. We've got a long way to go with the JSF testing, and it's obviously not out of the woods yet. But I am confident that if we continue to do the hard work necessary, if we continue to do the dedicated work that all of you have been doing, that both the carrier and the STOVL variants 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."
If something is "not out of the woods yet", what justification is there for lifting the probation? Who is advising this guy? This report shows that the whole of the F-35 program is far enough in the woods not to see sunshine.
"Secondly, we can't hollow out this force. We've made that mistake in the past. Every one of those draw downs I talked about, there were cuts across the board. They took big numbers, cut everything across the board, weakened everything across the board. That's hollowing out the force.
We are not going to do that."
By spending money we do not have on over-priced and under-performing weapon's systems we will do exactly that. Money wasted on the F-35 is money that can be better used for any other operationally relevant community.
"We know we're going to be dealing with a smaller force. It was going to happen regardless of the budget constraints as we were beginning to draw down. So we're going to be a smaller force. It's going to be leaner."And with that, you can forget any peace keeping operations because those are inherently manpower intensive. We already experienced this from the end of the Cold War up to 9/11. This includes the fact that Operations: USELESS DIRT 1 and 2 have taken resources away from nuclear deterrence and numerous conventional deterrence capabilities.
As a review: 9/11 happened because of poor airport and airline security; poor visa control and agencies like the NSA having a raft of clues something was up but not communicating that correctly to national security decision-makers. The nation-building nonsense of OUD 1 and 2 ate up a lot of resources best used elsewhere.
On a side note, (get this) we need the F-35 STOVL because the Harrier is crucial to fighting terrorism. Can it get more silly?
Many news sources have given Panetta a free pass with the F-35B probation story. The lifting of F-35B probation isn't unlike giving false hope to a terminally ill patient.
9 comments:
Great news, the JSF can (almost) fly at night, -B is off probation (what ever that means), it's years ahead of Su37 and Burbage assured us that -C will be able to land on a carrier.
I guess Eric you can close shop now. :)
I get the feeling that there clearly is a group of military officials who want the 35B to continue despite it's issues. In an ironic way the 35B model is the one model that has no fall back. 35A models can be replaced by many an alternative 4.5-4.75G plan. I think C models will be DOA sooner rather than later, as the Navy will likely see UAV strike aircraft as the real way to pave a 1st wave attack, along with Arleigh Burke vertical launch systems and Ohio class "capital" subs with 154 TLAMs each. F-18 supers with the new enhancement options will be more than capable for CAP and 2nd tier strike for years to come.
I totally agree with ELP that money spent on over priced projects detracts from others and ultimately quickens the loss of real power of the military. Examples of this can be found throughout history. The Royal Navy stuck on pre-WW2 Battleships is a classic example.
One can find many an article talking about how the 35B deployed on Gator carriers will up Americas carrier force to 20+ flat tops. This is surely an overly expensive way to replenish Harrier aircraft on smaller flat tops given that there is only a market for several hundred at best. The UK already moving to CATOBAR for their QE carriers.
Regardless of Panetta's announcement today, budget reality will catch up to the US DOD in 2012 and beyond, and one by one overly expensive programs burning money will be eliminated or severely diminished. xturi
Of topic...
SAAB has offered Sweden 100 Gripen E/F (uppgrades and new), price: Sek 32-33 billion /$ 4,7-4,8 billion with an in-sevice date of 2020.
Sounds like a nice deal for a little country! But with a defence budget at aprox. Sek 47 billion/$ 5,4 billion... who knows?
PAK FA is much better than F-35.
In the end, U.S. will reproduce F-22.
Consequently, F-35 might fall in a Death Spiral.
Thanks Eric, for such a good information~!:-)
Anders: How many upgrades vs new builds for the Gripen E/F? Any breakdown of cost/unit for each?
Unknown: Unknown, SAAB releses no information. Mostly due to the fact that there is no RFI at the present.
Eric...sometimes the glass can be half-full. Smile once in a while buddy.
Panetta is making decisions driven by political necessities of an election year. The now huge amount of factual data indicating the many serious issues about the F-35B and the JSF Program as a whole are being ignored and will continue to be until the American political process plays out its regular 4 year cycle.
Politicians as a whole can best be summed up by this appropriate bit of wisdom!
http://www.despair.com/changediaper.html
Agree on the election year, 4-year cycle.
I don't see anything major happening in 2012 until the election is settled. Jobs, Foreign policy, military, industry...lots of excuses for politicians to hold off for 12 months. LRIP numbers may be limited or slowed down but that's about it.
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