(From 2003. It's dead Jim.)
Bad business plans can't be papered over. The truth comes out no matter if some want to hear it or not.
LM stated the other day things were gaining ground on the F-35 program. The lie of the $67M unit cost was "reported" by "journalists" with no follow up.
Years ago, LRIP-5 was supposed to be 120 jets. Today? hard to say; the contract isn't signed off on yet. Somewhere around 30-40-some; if the program is lucky.
Now we have additional news--again confirming what some of us already knew--alerting the faithful that the F-35 business plan is in trouble and if LM doesn't get some more cash for LRIP-6...by the end of the year...the company will hold over $1B in risk.
Big companies don't hold risk, they shed it. I suspect that since we are in a lame-duck Congress, LM won't see their money and, at some point, that big production line without big production orders, will be converted to something much smaller. And that assumes the large amount of technical difficulties don't get worse. All to build an aircraft ready to fight ALLIED FORCE 1999, which may be deployed for active service 20 or more years later.
More: someone who has been reporting what can only be unnamed sources, floats the idea that the Navy could ditch the F-35C. Big Navy has big grey floaty things to pay for which ignore the history of the Prince of Wales and Repulse.
So if the Navy kills the F-35C, that is less motor orders, less part orders, less of everything and...the death spiral of what was supposed to be a "model acquisition program", continues.
SME's (and their overly optimistic business plans), all the way up to the prime contractor, are in trouble.
15 comments:
No real point trying to post any comments is it Eric...after all you won't let any facts which disprove your little fantasy wrong get shown will you.
You really are a pathetic individual. I guess your comments regarding free speach are optional when it comes to yourself aren't they.
Ah well, keep living your dream along with Peter Goon, APA, Bill Sweetman and the rest of the looney fringe.
Submitted for your entertainment: an anonymous troll with no real, verifiable name, calling out people with real names.
Cowardice.
Unfortunately for USAF's solidified TACAIR recap strat, the 'plan-A-or-bust' next-gen roadmap was unleashed at just the wrong time.
By the late 90's the bubble-era exuberance was flying at extreme heights causing ridiculous miscalculation and fogged perceptions/assumptions even at the Pentagon.
At the turn of the Century however, just prior to 9/11, the reality was just starting to surface that the current levels of procurement funds at the time would not be anywhere close those necessary to support both the F-22 Program and JSF simultaneously, let alone the F-35 itself.
9/11 of course changed everything in all spheres and as a result, indirectly resolved any remaining start-up financing problems necessary to kick-start the F-35 business plan and ensure it's stake in fighter Program-industry history to a point unacceptable to fail.
All is fine, with the exception though that the USAF (primarily) needs to replace old, obsolete and time-to-retire F-16s, today.
Sadly, all is not fine since they are building the wrong aircraft.
Not only won't the JSF be competitive against the reference threats of today, let alone those in the post-2015 'stealth-on-stealth/counter-stealth world' but it won't deter nor encourage those operating and developing such threats to just stay neighbourly.
As Anthony Cordesman warned back in 2007, America was becoming its own peer threat and continuing with the JSF Program only makes this risk materialise sooner.
As for the first anon poster's complaints, let's see those facts you and your little band of misfits keep harping on about but never providing.
Be aware, though, things claimed as facts that are clearly based on logical fallacies like argumentum ad populam, hearsay, non-sequiturs, and your obvious predilection for argumentum ad hominem will only reinforce the already low opinion others have of what you post and your misguided, maladjusted self.
And while at it, why not grow some and come out of the basement by taking ownership of your convictions.
If you are so right, as you claim, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
At the moment, you are only an anonymous troll who can't get past name-calling and pouting like a four year old.
Here's your chance to change all of that. Take ownership of what you post and let's see your supposed facts that you say disprove what APA and others have been advising for years, much if not most of which history now shows to be correct.
ps
If you refer to this exercise in free speech as some kind of 'rant' when all it endeavours to do is to encourage a fellow human being to act like one, then you will only confirm to everyone else that your trollism is a truism.
Bill Sweetman is now part of "the looney fringe?" Says it all, really.
"If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking."
George S Patton.
Apply Zombieland Rule #2
"The Double Tap"
Do you understand what a "termination liability" actually is?
The Scarlet Pimpernel
"free speach"?I am sure that will be allowed.
Horde, what is the right aircaft?
The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Hey, Scarlet,
If you have actually read the works published by APA, you wouldn't have to be asking such a silly question.
Shouldn't that be the one that overmatches and, through further development, can continue to overmatch the aircraft and A2/AD IADS that the other guys keep putting up?
You know, aircraft like what the Russians and now the Chinese have finally disclosed!
Or, unlike LM, do you think the JSF is going to be able to do that job?
If so, then, as you keep saying, dream on.
I meant a REAL aircraft...
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Anonymous (your October 26 post); the F-16 is no more obsolete than other platforms, like the B-52 and F-15 that have been progressively enhanced. Obsolescent perhaps, but an enormous amount of R&D was done to optimize the design. The big mistake was not progressing an upgraded version to replace many of the 4,400 plus produced, which would have satisfied the requirements of many operators who do not see themselves involving in F-22 level concepts of operation.
The US Government should have insisted on enhanced F-16 production and continued F-22 optimisation with conceptual design of a possible derivative. Being dragged by L-M into having other nations involve in (subsidise) development of the F-35 will prove to have been a huge political blunder.
Why, Scarlet, can't you think of a REAL aircraft that fits the description I provided to you?
You really should read APA.
Hey, Scarlet -
How come you are so virally critical of APA when you haven't even read the centre piece of their grand strategy work and the supporting papers?
@ Bushranger 71
The US Government should have also insisted on advanced F-15 production to replace the C/D models and someone out there mentioned about developing a single seat "F-15SF" Silent Eagle variant. Yes, continue optimising the F-22 with conceptual design of a possible derivatives.
A mixed fleet of both advanced Eagles and Raptors will provide a potent combination of flexibility and capability.
Peter
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