Motion for Dutch to get out of F-35 program tabled

A motion has been tabled for the Dutch to get out of the F-35 program.

This by itself is not an absolute that the Dutch will get out of the F-35 program. It only allows for more parliamentary discussion leading up to the election later this year.

See this post by JSF News (Google translate Dutch to English) on the details which are still in progress.

Dutch proponents of the F-35 are now waving the jobs flag. Yet, due to significant development delays in the program, there are hundreds of lost orders against the original overly optimistic plan from over 10 years ago. Business investors have many risk, value and return-on-investment issues left unanswered.

High F-35 operating and procurement costs means that the Dutch will not see the original 80-some F-35 jet fleet. It is now closer to well South of 40 if not worse.

Also of interest, some are still addressing this as an F-16 replacement decision and not an F-35 decision.

To date, with all the budget and down-sizing issues present in the Dutch military, only the Saab Gripen appears to be an affordable F-16 replacement.

Canada slow to wake up to the lie

Interesting how long information like this takes to reach the Canadian media (it isn't winter).

Telling us all something we already knew. That is, that the F-35 was never going to be cheaper to operate than legacy aircraft. Even though (for years) F-35 sales brief specifically stated that an F-35 would be cheaper to own and operate than a legacy F-18 and legacy F-16.

The U.S. Government figures the F-35 cost per flying hour as follows:

F-35A = $35,200
F-35B = $38,400
F-35C = $36,300

I hope this doesn't get in the way of any media outlets losing ad-sales dollars:

The concurrency fraud

For the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force the tac-air mess known as the "fighter-gap", was totally avoidable.

The fighter-gap is based on the idea that the military has not bought enough aircraft to support operations into the future years. Fighter aircraft are getting old and so on. Yet, the responsibility for this problem rests on the shoulders of the military. It is senior leadership's fault and no-one else.

The military believed the F-35 concurrency lie. That is that the F-35 could be built cheap in high numbers, early and any development problems along the way would be fixed up. The risks in relation to the complexity of the program were waved away with a can-do attitude or ignored.

If the F-35 program was built without that concurrency nightmare that deeply worries the current DOD F-35 program manager, there would be less risk. The people that have been consistently accurate (for years) about these risks--The Government Accounting Office (GAO)--even told us so.

Counting airframes, motors and military construction, in procurement dollars alone, the F-35 program from U.S. fiscal year budget 2007 to 2012, will have cost us $29.2B.

Instead, the Navy could have used their $14B to procure 186 extra Block II Super Hornets. Probably several more if they could commit to only buying single-seaters. Combined with their existing multi-year buy, most of the legacy Hornets on our big aircraft carriers could have been replaced.

Instead of buying LRIP F-35 mistake-jets, the USAF could have used their $15B to procure 214 F-16s.

The USMC? Their Harriers are good to go until around 2023-24. Oh, they didn't tell you that?

Once F-16 and F-18 numbers got up to reasonable health, low-rate production of both the F-16 and F-18 could continue. No fighter-gap.

And the F-35? It would still be in development. Until it was mature enough for production.

Disqualified

If operating costs to run your F-16's is getting you down, you are disqualified as a potential F-35 customer. There is just no way you can afford it.

A look at USAFs tac-air road map

Assuming we can keep F-22 pilots breathing, the program Block definition looks "OK" if in my opinion slow and delayed due to money being misdirected to other projects.

From this article, a snap-shot of the USAF fighter road map. Also a shame they could not even afford the hybrid center-line drop-tank IRST for USAF F-15Cs that the U.S. Navy is getting for their Hornets. All that money spent on the USAF; and when they can't even push out putting an originally planned item and then plan-B a SNIPER pod, well, that is penny pinching.

Also being considered are long-term upgrades for the newest fighter, the F-22. Near-term upgrades to be fielded in the next five years are already under way, but the service soon expects to define the content of the next package—Increment 3.2C. Potential elements include multi-spectral capabilities to expand the offensive and defensive frequency potential of the fighter, required upgrades such as Mode 5 integration friend or foe, or automatic ground collision and terrain avoidance. Officials are examining how best to share F-22 data, collected by an unprecedented onboard sensor suite, with legacy fighters. Eventually a data-sharing network with F-35s is planned, but delays in the latter’s development have made passing F-22 data to fourth-generation fighters a higher priority.

The first major F-22 enhancement—Increment 3.1—is now entering service, with an initial pair of upgraded stealth fighters recently delivered to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Fleet retrofits will continue through 2016 and include the hardware and software modifications needed to drop eight Small-Diameter Bombs, take synthetic aperture radar (SAR) pictures and provide precision location and electronic attack capabilities.

Full operational test and evaluation is still being completed, but Maj. Richard Foster, Air Combat Command requirements officer, says the results are positive. SAR accuracy is 55% better than specified and geolocation accuracy is 15% better. Also, electronic attacks have proven 100% successful in testing.

The F-22 also will get a rudimentary AIM-120D firing capability next year (through the so-called Update 4), although full integration is not planned until Increment 3.2B in 2017. An initial capability to fire the Raytheon AIM-9X dogfight missile also has been accelerated to 2015 (under Update 5), with full integration also to come with Increment 3.2B.

Next on the upgrade path is Increment 3.2A, a software enhancement that includes expanded Link 16 data-link functionality, combat identification and electronic protection. It should emerge around 2014.

Besides the full integration of the latest air-to-air missiles, Increment 3.2B also expands geolocation by 88% beyond what is now being introduced.

In addition, around 2016 USAF expects to have moved to two F-22 configurations, the Block 20 aircraft to be used for training and development and Block 30/35s for the operational fleet. Foster says 36 aircraft will be in the Block 20 standard with 149 to settle on the Block 30/35 configuration.

So probably at anyone time once the F-22 fleet gets stable, 149 F-22s. Given all of the mismanagement in the area of air power "leadership" since the end of the Cold War, I guess we are "lucky".

USAF to upgrade 350 F-16s--And is LRIP-4 "peak production"?

Just a few thoughts for the day.

If F-35 program woes continue, LRIP-4 could be the "peak-production" mentioned by Canada's DND boss MacKay. He thought it would be in 2016. LRIP-5 will of course have less aircraft than LRIP-4.

Fixed price contracts as a future? Well we have seen that DOD can only afford 30 aircraft for LRIP-5. What the vendor does to improve this situation is well, up to the vendor.

USAF is going to have to do more upgrades for its F-16 fleet to make up for the short fall. About 350 Block 4x and 5x aircraft will be where the money is spent.

Think about it. Neither the F-16 nor the F-35 will be able to stand up to emerging threats in the coming years, yet there is plenty of work to do for second-tier fighters.

For that, the F-16 and F-18 bring more capability to what the joint coalition commander needs. And with less expense. Maybe the USAF can prove they are frugal?

Each F-16 upgrade will be $9.4 million.

The F-35 won't see anything that the joint warfighter needs (blue-force tracker and Link-16) until a notional (fantasy) Block 4 thru 6.

The F-35 takes money away from other DOD communities that really provide value. Time to cancel the F-35.