Smoking Man

Kendall's team is drinking their own bathwater:

Kendall pointed to the military’s largest program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, as an example where managing by data and maintaining pressure from the heights of the Pentagon has led to results: “I think we’ve got the F-35 under control and it’s a little frustrating to hear the press reports on that because we’ve been bringing the production costs down for five years now. We’ve also beaten the CAPE predictions every year since 2011.”

Under control how? Jet engine? Avionics? ALIS? And the kicker..."bringing down production costs". That is a pure, Lockheed Martin talking point. Production costs are a worry for the builder. "Price" is a concern for Kendall; the DOD; the taxpayer. What does it cost to put a credible, finished weapon system out to the squadrons?

A price for something that works.

And is not a paper-tiger; a flying LCS.

The "exclusive" softball interview by the F-35 fan-mag is much more important for what it doesn't state.

For example, look through the press releases of various weapon's systems and you will see mention of DOD-procurement milestone-C being achieved before low-rate-initial-production is allowed.

Even if in some cases, it appears a bit pencil-whipped.

F-35? Gets a free-pass. Yes there are in fact a few lessons both here and here.

Kendall should be picking up his game. He is not there to cheer for programs. He is there to represent the government interests.

This is like The Invaders. Normal guy and then the next time you see him he has that blank look and you suspect he has become one of them.

In other news, it appears they are going to make some limited episodes of the X-Files.

"I've taken care of the Kendall problem."

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