Quick-leap, Quickstep, Quick-sand?

Quickstep is one of the hallmark industry poster-children for the triple-H (Hill, Houston, Howard) F-35 dream of 2002.

Quickstep and its' investors believed things like this from a 2004 Defence/LM sponsored brief.








(click images to make larger)

Hold that thought and consider  this article from today's The Australian.

In it, Quickstep Holdings chief Philippe Odouard states that the F-35 program is "very interesting and very controversial."

I guess it would be when investors thought they were buying such (alleged) technology at such a high speed. More old Defence slides:





(click images to make larger)

Today, those Blocks are watered down, the schedule is very late, and there are few jets being made. This is a lot of lost money.

Not long ago, Quickstep told its' investors this:

In The Australian article, Odouard says, "It's (the F-35) killing a number of other aircraft makers." True but maybe for not all the reasons he thinks?

The reporter for today's The Australian article states the following without attaching it to another person:

"Conspiracy theories aside, the Bankstown-based listed minnow has its' own skin in the JSF game as the producer of carbon-fibre skins and other components for the F-35s."

What "conspiracy theories"? Most of the delay and troubles in the program are due to a faith-based belief system projected by a group of people that didn't know, what they didn't know, and as it seems, couldn't be bothered to find out.

Also, there is this un-fact in the story:

"The top-guns' grievances ranged from their helmets causing headaches to design flaws that meant the $90m planes could be shot down too easily."

In regard to the F-35, there is not a "$90m" plane anywhere on the horizon.

Odouard says part of the problem of delays in buying aircraft is that Norway and The Netherlands "dithered". Maybe because they both start with "N" Odouard is confused. Norway went full throttle and believed a ridiculous low price guess only to have it blow up in their face. The Netherlands has a variety of issues with the F-35 faith-based program management but they have bought two early F-35 mistake-jets only to see them parked.

Value !!!

Quickstep has fed off of the taxpayer pretty well for such a high risk project:

"Quickstep has also benefited from a flow of government grants: $4.2m last year and $5m in 2011, including a $4m NSW government relocation payment to prevent the company from being lured by the Victorians."

Also interesting is that we know the ANZ debt is guaranteed by the Fed.

In any event, SME's tied to the troubled F-35 program are high-risk.

In 2011, Australia's Production Parts, (who were not as diversified as Quickstep) died due to over-optimism. and/or belief in the Ponzi scheme.

I hope Quickstep avoids damage.

However, Odouard telling investors fibs, won't help.

"There's a lot of rhetoric about the aircraft. The fact is it's the best aircraft that flies."

Really?