Comment of the week

Comment of the week by reader M&S.

M&S

>>
They are not actually producing F-35 aircraft, but developmental
prototypes. Actual F-35 aircraft won't be available until after the
Milestone C production decision. Milestone C, which initiates the
Production and Deployment Phase, is currently scheduled for 2019.
>>

The contract will be effectively signed when the Marines declare IOC
in 2015. At that point, any default of the contract (which is the
natural outcome of failure to pass Milestone C) will be 'for
convenience of the government'.

See: A-12 and 25 years of litigation.

>>
The Production and Deployment phase is where a system is produced and
deployed. To enter this phase, a program, among other things, must
have passed developmental testing and operational assessment,
demonstrated that it is interoperable with other relevant systems, and
can be supported operationally, shown that it is affordable, be fully
funded, and pass Milestone C.
>>

The F/A-18E/F _failed_ the pass:fail portion of the naval OPEVAL,
across the board on acceleration, radius, turn rate, radar, EW suite,
FLIR and other major areas.

They 'built into' the Lot II which had the configured cockpit and NFF
to support the APG-79 and the ASQ-228 and 'full function' ALQ-214 as
they came online but the jet is still a dog aerodynamically and will
remain so until more powerful F414s are introduced, at which point it
will be a dog with a pedigree because the F414s will burn more fuel
and the jet is already at least 187nm short of radius (550nm promised
vs. Tomcat 21, 393nm mandated in adjusted KPP, 363nm achieved).

According to WAPJ, the F/A-18E/F is slow to roll, cannont maintain a
loaded roll reversal, slow to pitch and slow to come off the pitch
with slow acceleration in both loaded and unloaded states.

Since we will not stop buying underperforming cows that pass
themselves off as fighters under circumstances where the testing
parameters -don't- include 'classified because it's penetration
signature related'; how do you expect either a fair or an open to the
public debate on the JSF Milestone C event?

The Navy will take the F-35 because the other services will crush them
if they don't. The Marines clearly don't give a damn about performance
and only want a new toy since they are willing to drop the requirement
for any kind of comprehensive testing altogether.

It's a hopeless case of the military wanting job security for their
flyboys, no matter how likely they are to become obsolete to robotics,
fuel crises and directed energy weapons.

And the Congress and corporate sides having their own spoon in the pot
and thus p ressing for a jet that this nation doesn't need and cannot
afford.

>>
At Milestone C, the MDA (normally) authorizes the beginning of
low-rate initial production, which is intended to both prepare
manufacturing and quality control processes for a higher rate of
production and provide test models for operational test and evaluation
(OT&E).
>>

Again, I ask you, if everything that matters relative to the F-35s
testing comes down to stealth and cyber (because PEO Bogdan has
stated, in public, that he doesn't care if it doesn't meet the promis
ed F-16 level performance spec and is, in fact, barely equal to the
F-4), why are we playing this game that says that 'Testing Means
Everything!' when in fact, all signs point to the Services generating
substantial slack for their chosen aircraft and doing everything
possible to undermine those they don't want?

The F-111B was a substantially superior Fleet Air Defender to the
F-14. It was a better carrier landing aircraft, it carried the
required number of missiles and while it missed it's loiter target by
about 20%, it was nothing like the F-14 which missed it's target by
almost 50% _with only 4 missiles_.

The Navy wouldn't speak up at meetings, wouldn't sign off on
pressuring Pratt or Hughes to lighten the avionics suite (though they
subsequently did so for the Tomcat) and whien finally pressured to
come up with a series of 'fixes' which would ameliorate the aircraft's
deficiencies in meeting their needs, did so with the N-1 series of
mods which did NOTHING to improve the jet's combat capabilities but
late-demand ruined the aircraft's development timelines to the point
that cancelling the F-111B occurred before carrier flight testing (by
Grumman test pilots, who said the jet passed) even began.

Please.

With that kind of institutional corruption, there is no hope for
honest in the JSF testing process because there is no independent
design and test agency, specifically set up like The Fed, to be beyond
the grasping clutches of either Congress or Services to make the
laughing stock known for what it is.

>>
Upon completion of OT&E, demonstration of adequate control over
manufacturing processes, and with the approval of the MDA, a program
can go into full rate production. When enough systems are delivered
and other pre-defined criteria are met, an Initial Operating
Capability (IOC) can be attained, allowing for some degree of
operations. Full Operational Capability (FOC) is a chieved when the
system is ready to operate as required.
>>

Let's read this like it should be said, relative to the JSF:

"When there are enough jets in service to make the obvious
king-is-dead new platform obvious and essential because enough -time-
has passed in which the existing inventory spares pipe has been
defunded so that it is broke off it's ass due to inadequate spares and
upgrades, IOC will be 'declared' as a contractual endorsement for the
jet's full rate manufacture so that the Manufacture can have binding
legal justification to force the s ervices to continue forwards if
later service use shows massive deficiencies."

You tested it, you bought it, if it's broke, it's your own fault.

>>
Producing and fielding prototypes, which by the way are not certified
for air-worthiness, is going to be a huge mistake. It will include
what they are calling Initial operational capability, which is no
capability as ep indicates above.
>>

They are dropping ordnance. Not well to be sure but they are doing it
and have been doing so for quite awhile-

F-35 Drops First Guided Bomb, October 30, 2013
http://mobile.reuters.com/arti...

Since dropping bombs and shooting missiles, under guidance, is the
first precondition to killing people declared the enemy, the jet has
capability.
The truth of this story is more complex.
1. We have no enemies worth an MTW.
And likely will not, until sometime between 2050 and 2070 when
resource depletion, global warming effects on refugee populations and
the global preeminency of China's economy renders the U.S. a fourth
rate has been regardless. I personally believe we will see massive
civil wars in _this_ country, long before then.
2. The real threats are not things which airborne platform can meet.
The more you push airpower, the more the terrorists will respond with
their own, 'untouchable', alternatives. And as our borders have not
been secured in over a decade, that worry will have to include nuclear
weapons.
The F-35 does nothing for this.
If the U.S. pushes Russia on the Ukraine, the Russians will flatten
the country with nuclear weapons rather than allow NATO overwatch on
her internal missile fields, industry and breadbasket. And the F-35
will be able to do _nothing_ to stop this.
Global Commerce Alli ance beh ind alternative trading partnerships,
uninterested in Fed control over the USD global currency base is
_legal_. And will become increasingly sought after as nations without
17 trillion dollar deficits ask what they are getting from currency
leveraged trading with the U.S. when there are alternative
mass-markets to sell their goods and services too, exclusively.
We have no heavy industrial base. We have sold it to the Chinese. We
cannot do without trade. There is _absolutely nothing_ that the F-35
can do to support this trade by increasing deficit and decreasing
dollar value under the Greenspanian tried and true 'I know, print more
money!' condition.
3. Threats to the F-35 itself are also not readily answerable.
Directed Energy Weapons _are here_. With the 2010 Gamma Firestrike
tests by Northrop Grumman, they have already passed the industry
standard for weaponization threshold on a 5-7km capability. It is only
a matter of time and need before the threat , using civilian telecomms
systems as an apriori proliferated technology base starts to imitate
and this will become a driving need for them because standoff weapons
will make point defense of targets by signature limited missile
systems rather pointless.
Hunting Weapons are even easier to do and will replace rocket based
S2A within a few years.
Finally, if you want to end a wasp problem, you don't spray or swat
individual wasps. You find the nest. And the F-35, with it's crippled
radius, does _nothing_ to offset the ability of BASM and ASCM and
OTH-B targeting to destroy it's carrier basing mode or limited land
basing options (Kadena and Andersen) in the Pacific Pivot theater we
have chose to focus ourselves around 'Near Peer' beating.
A Peer whose consumer goods we are dependent upon. A Peer whose
neighbors are the sole market alternative for some of those goods
which we must protect as a pricing differential because _we have no
internal economic engine_ able to meet our own demands.
CONCLUSION:
The JSF is stupid. It is flawed operationally as a doctrine as much as
an individual platform. It will drive us into a condition whereby we
end up forcing the very kinds of wars we need to avoid, sooner,
because of uncontrolled spending on capabilities which are irrelevant
today (a Reaper does a better job at CAS in AfG) and not even
self-protecting in the military scenarios of a 2030-2050 fight.
So don't pretend that 'testing' matters. Because the students wrote
the test themselves and the teachers will correct any mistakes they
make to make sure that 'no child is left behind'.
Until you break that union rules system of institutional cronyism and
corruption, there is no hope for military procurement in general and
aircraft procurement in particular.
Why bother administering a test when the class knows the answers and
will open book cheat the parameters right in front of your eyes?