Look at the engine problems that are still unresolved:
F-35 Engine Fix Coming, Program Chief Says
-- it is purely by luck that the June 23 engine explosion did not happen in flight, as none of its causes had been detected although they happened “several weeks” earlier.
This raises the question of how effective the flight test instrumentation and procedures are in monitoring aircraft health and condition, which after all is the very point of flight testing.
-- specifically, the program did not detect that the engine that exploded had overheated to over twice its normal temperature (1900 degrees F instead of 1000 degrees F) “weeks earlier,” a very substantial deviation from the norm;
-- all of the program’s 19 test aircraft will not return to flight status until December, which will further disrupt a flight-test program that has been virtually halted since the F-35 fleet was grounded on July 3. (Only training aircraft have returned to limited flight since then).
Lockheed Wins $2 Billion of Secondary F-35 Contracts In 3 Months
Fully eight of these contracts, worth a total of $488.9 million, cover the sixth Low-Rate Initial Production lot (LRIP 6), a previous production batch, and add an average of $15.8 million to each of the 31 aircraft that make up Lot 6. However, as the contracts were awarded well after the main lot production contract, they were not counted when computing aircraft unit costs, which thereby are substantially understated.
It also is worth noting that, although JPO chief Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan famously announced some years ago that the F-35 program would move to fixed-price contracts, all of those listed here are, in fact, “cost-plus-incentive-fee” contracts, which in other words guarantees a profit to the vendor. In other words, Lockheed is guaranteed a profit to fix defective aircraft which should have been delivered without defects.
Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan Eyes F-35 Block Buy Deal with Allies
The U.S. military plans to procure 34 planes in LRIP 9, 55 planes in LRIP 10 and 68 planes in LRIP 11, Mehta reports.
U.S. DOD F-35 buys: The 2003 plan *6 LRIPs then to full-rate production*, reality (How many LRIPs?) and proposed.
(click image to make larger)
---
-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
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
No comments:
Post a Comment