Inside the Navy "F-35B Depot A Month Behind Schedule, Sees Much Room For Improvement"-05/26/2014-(subscription) reports that the Fleet Readiness Center East (FRC East) in North Carolina is behind schedule upgrading the aircraft. These upgrades are needed because the significantly immature and under-developed F-35 is a "mistake-jet" by any other name. This is the curse of the JSF business plan of leap-frogging several important aircraft design and development issues before they are resolved and standing up "operational" squadrons.
For example, the DOD has authorized low-rate initial production for the F-35 without a government procurement process known as milestone-C.
This is illegal and surprise, is one of the many problems of out-of-sequence F-35 aircraft development.
The aircraft is in no way ready as a weapon of war. Yet by some magic, the USMC will try to declare operational capability in 2015? Important to note that they busted this dream twice in 2010 and 2012.
What the article describes about USMC F-35B depot work in North Carolina and USAF F-35A depot work in Utah (where the Navy's F-35C will go once that is online) is that it takes significant learning curve and time, to grow aircraft depot repair workers on such a brand new system.
All this is what I observed for years with F-15, C-5, C-17, C-141 and C-130 depot repair processes (what some in the civilian world would call a "C-check").
Especially in the late-1990's when the USAF moved the C-5 depot repair process from Texas to Georgia. Most of the super-skilled C-5 depot workers did not want to move to Georgia. So, the USAF started over from square-one on how to do PDM (periodic depot maintenance) on the C-5. There were some significant disasters. Lower reliability rates at C-5 squadrons (for years) and some aircraft spending.... over a year... at a depot. No joke.
You can't just grow super-skilled depot workers over-night, in a year, or even 2 years, even if they have years working on other aircraft types.
So, the F-35B USMC IOC is put at risk for a third time because of depot learning curve on this most troubled and poorly thought out program.
The F-35B repairs involve the first USMC aircraft and the first UK aircraft. How would the UK respond if they knew that besides not being effective in hot/high operations, not being effective as a credible weapon system, that there are so many repairs involved in their brand new aircraft...
...fresh off the production line?
These repairs and modifications are not for "operational" aircraft that have already done 1500 hours and are coming back for their periodic depot maintenance. Again: mistake-jets: building things on the production line based on faulty design assumptions.
Time is short as the North Carolina depot will fill up with more aircraft in need of modification.
"Jeter's team will need to learn quickly from its initial experiences on the aircraft, as the depot will fill up with F-35Bs within the next several months. He said the facility was on track to induct a third jet on May 22 and will receive additional aircraft every four to six weeks until it hits its capacity of six Joint Strike Fighters at any one time. Those will generally go to MCAS Yuma or the Marine Corps' second operational squadron at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, SC."
Again, learning curve which will take time that some (who don't know jack about the real world of military aircraft depot work) are not happy with.
For example: the depot team also receives pressure from the DOD F-35 program office micro-managing and wondering why X-process took T-time when the people doing the work are starting on their first F-35B. They have never seen this aircraft before and assumptions on time and resourcing for tasks are just that, until depot experts refine a process.
Then there is workload:
"Bennett and Jeter said depot artisans are routinely working 40 to 80 hours of overtime each pay period and they both said they have worked close to 14 consecutive days at a time."
Also coming in for a mention was the depot team's response to the F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information System or "ALIS". True to form it doesn't work well (see the last DOD DOTE report). Depot personnel stated they never received sufficient training on how to use it.
The article also states that the depot team is being loaded up with mountains of data on the aircraft systems and that it is hard to organize. I see that in the long term as a feature and not a bug once depot people who each have 10, 15, 20, 25 years in the business of fixing large and small aircraft, come up with work tasks that meet their needs. However, ALIS was supposed to have most of this (as a form of worldwide logistics solutions) as good to go.
The root cause of these problems? Gross and consistent, incompetent management from the F-35 top DOD and industry teams.
A documented trend.
For years.
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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
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