USAF's dream of all-stealth fighter force--now even more dead

Another damning indictment has appeared showing the United States Air Force (USAF) dream wanting an all-stealth fighter force is even more dead. The November-December 2012 issue of Air & Space Power Journal has an article, (The F-22 Acquisition Program,Consequences for the US Air Force’s Fighter Fleet) by a former USAF test pilot and F-22 squadron commander, Lt. Col. Christopher J. Niemi (PDF below).

It is good reading, although in many areas, not ground-breaking and maybe a bit too historical. The power in it comes from a person with significant operational experience. The timing of it and our future budget disaster era, could pretty much put an end to any claim USAF has on wanting the F-35 because Col. Niemi has provided a very large hammer to be used for more legacy fighter buys to recap USAF "needs".

This is OK in the coming years,  if the threats in the Pacific Rim allow legacy aircraft to operate in an acceptable fashion. I don't believe they will.

Note as always, articles from serving military members end with this:

The views and opinions expressed or implied in the Journal are those of the authors and should not be construed as carrying the official sanction of the Department of Defense, Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, Air University, or other agencies or departments of the US government.

Where Niemi is strong:
-He has actual F-22 ops experience; as well as F-15E ops experience.
-He notes all the kinds of conflicts where high-cost (and high operating cost) stealth aircraft are not needed. This includes a mention that history being what it is, one could buy 3 Super Hornets for the cost of one F-22.
-He notes the budget reality including poor procurement thinking at all levels.

Niemi states: F-22 range is less than F-15 range and requires more tanking. This disagrees with another former F-22 squadron commander, (BG Molloy from the Molloy paper (PDF). Niemi also states that super-cruise with the F-22 has limitations but due to his position of not being able to present hard operational scenarios he is unable to explain further.

HOBS heaters and WVR. The F-22 currently does not have this capability; years after it was a known combat need for every other fighter design; years after initial operating capability. Note; the F-35, if it is fielded to real operational squadrons, will have AIM-9x for external carry, in the non-stealth mode (rah, rah).

Niemi brings up the high-end SAM threat but seems less convinced about the high-end air-to-air threats.

For Niemi, the F-22 is superior in air-to-air and survivability vs. high end threats but is inferior to legacy aircraft designs in all other mission sets. Niemi's review of USAF fighter procurement history since the end of The Cold War, like the efforts of Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman, show that, with current U.S. military-industrial-congressional-complex skill-sets, "stealth is not free".

I would wager that if the House and Senate Armed Service Committee types and others, use this Niemi paper as a hard source, then:

-Reopening F-22 production, as an idea is dead.
-The F-35 program is in even more serious jeopardy.

Niemi's most important statements point toward USAF senior-leadership ethics. Those seem to be even more faulty than any aircraft design. And, the future of America's air superiority is still a flying question mark.

More thoughts on the unveiling of the Chinese J-21 stealth fighter

Bill has some interesting thoughts about China's new J-21 stealth fighter over on Aviation Week's Ares blog.

Bill also points to this piece of history from another source:

In the past year (2009) alone, Lockheed Martin found “six to eight companies” among its subcontractors “had been totally compromised – emails, their networks, everything” according to Lockheed Martin chief information security officer Anne Mullins.

He sees the F-35 if the short-take-off-vertical-landing (STOVL)was not a requirement. STOVL design requirements have caused numerous problems with all 3 F-35 variants.

It will be interesting to see what mission sets China expects out of the J-21. I still think this design is complementary to the J-20 for achieving regional air supremacy.

It is obvious that the compromised U.S. data has born fruit. If it were me designing this thing, I would have built the center section around the F-22 main weapon's bay. It is a better bay for performance aircraft.

I suppose the coming months will see how far these assumptions go.

Alveoli vs the F-22

This Fort Worth Star Telegram article on F-22 life-support issues doesn't match USAF over-optimism on marking all this as problem-solved.

Normal air contains about 21 percent oxygen. The moment F-22 pilots strap on their air masks, they're breathing 60 percent oxygen. Within the seconds it takes the plane to reach 11,000 feet after takeoff, the pilot is breathing air that's 93 percent oxygen.

But that's far more than the body needs except at the highest altitudes and in high-G-force maneuvers, some experts say.

As the aircraft accelerates and the rich oxygen is forced into the lungs and can't be absorbed, it creates a condition called "acceleration atelectasis," in which alveoli, which transmit oxygen to the blood and remove carbon dioxide, collapse.

That causes breathing to become more labored as pilots maneuver at high speeds, with high G-forces hampering the blood supply. Their blood can't get rid of the carbon dioxide and can't get oxygen to the body's organs.

That could explain the disorientation and dizziness reported by pilots. It's almost like being intoxicated.

"If you get enough of that, you could certainly pass out," said Paul McDonough, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Texas at Arlington.

In addition to alveoli collapse, the body needs CO2 to gauge breathing regulation. Obviously, the USAF still has work to do.

USAF knew for over a decade...

ABC News rightly alerts us to the fact that the USAF knew about the oxygen flaw in the F-22 for over a decade that ended up killing the Alaska mishap pilot. USAF justification at the time was to save a buck.

Then USAF blames the pilot for the mishap.

Lack of honor times ten.

The document, written by a member of the Combined Test Force at California's Edwards Air Force Base in March 2000 and updated in 2002, described a problem with the design of the plane's Environmental Control System (ECS), which is charged with regulating several systems in the plane including the conditions in the cockpit. During certain specific high-altitude maneuvers, the ECS system would shut down and it was built so that if it failed, it would spark a cascade effect that would also cut off the pilot's primary oxygen supply.

Under the heading "Impact If Not Fixed," the test group member wrote, "Real-world failure of [the oxygen system] due to ECS shutdown is unacceptable. ECS failure and the subsequent loss of supplemental breathing oxygen may result in pilot debilitation or fatality due to either altitude hypoxia [oxygen deprivation] or decompression sickness in the event of cabin depressurization."

"Investigate and take corrective action," the 2000 document says. "Suggest repairing the ECS system so it will provide continuous, adequate service throughout the flight envelope. Suggest providing a reliable source of bleed air for [the oxygen system] in the event of ECS failure... [C]onsider addition of pilot breathing air plenum to fill gaps when [the oxygen system] is not operating, as during ECS shutdown."

Yet, ABC commits yellow journalism against the F-22 capability stating that it hasn't been used in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Gee, I guess we need to get rid of nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

Senator McCain also jumps in.

Dumb attitudes like that mean that America will lose air power deterrence in the Pacific and elsewhere.

Contractors settle wrongful death act lawsuit with widow of F-22 mishap pilot

Settling over the lawsuit.

Would have been interesting to see it go to trial; the widow wins, and the jury decides punitive compensation.

Condolences to the family.

BTW, nice job of honor and all that for the USAF to blame the pilot.

Despicable.

What the F-22 vs. the Typhoon tells us

The anti-F-22 crowd over at Wired bring up some great points about the F-22 and Typhoon. Also, they may have overlooked or just didn't get around to mentioning some other things in the big picture of air power emerging threats.

For starters, while the F-22 may face some challenges in air-to-air combat, anything less than that is going to suffer a hard time in coming anti-access threat scenarios.

With the Typhoon, consider that (except for its F-18-class airframe profile), its speed and performance mimic some of the SU-35 capability. The SU-35 is the non-stealth reference threat for the Pacific in coming years. It was designed to exploit the Raptor. However many of the SU-35 are made, expect its technology to bleed elsewhere.

One big difference between the F-22 and the Typhoon is that one of them is going to have more difficulty in a high-end SAM environment.

What Wired, or us, do not know, are the rules of engagement for the exercise. By getting the F-22 into within-visual-range (WVR) practice with the Typhoon, we give the F-22 a look at what it will have to deal with when facing emerging reference threats in the SU-35 class of jet: or worse.

Wired is right to bring up the single point of failure in the U.S. air power roadmap. That is the AIM-120 AMRAAM. While it may have some combat victories, they were against poor opponents and not someone using cross-eyed jamming in a new-gen Flanker. Once the AMRAAM probability of kill is lowered to that of a Vietnam-era AIM-7 Sparrow, we have problems.

According to Janes and others, we have even more of a problem with the AMRAAM. Rocket motor production for the AIM-120D AMRAAM (the new supposedly longer range variant) is in dire straits because of serious production defects. This problem has affected all AMRAAM deliveries within the last two years.

The fix here is that the U.S. needs to get competing sources for beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles in the AMRAAM class. Sooner rather than later.

That and a dual mode or family of BVR missiles that use not only radar but optical guidance for terminal homing.

Years ago, when the advanced tactical fighter (ATF) project started--which gave us the F-22--red-force evaluators knew that stealth, for stealth's sake, was not good enough against emerging threats. One had to have extreme altitude and super-cruise to lower the effectiveness of enemy firing solutions by degrading missile no escape zones (NEZ).

With its AN/ALR-94, it has an interesting way of detecting targets; passively. Also the F-22 has usable combat range. And, certainly more than the F-35 will ever see, if it ever shows up in combat trim.

The most important thing that the Typhoon vs. F-22 flights show us is that against almost any emerging threat for the foreseeable future, the F-35 is dead meat. It's BVR capability may count for something, but with the AMRAAM PK taken into effect and a serious lack of dancing ability, what will be delivered to the warfighter are tales of the Brewster Buffalo, Vindicator and Helldiver.

The Pacific isn't looking all that great for air power deterrence. In part, we can thank, Gates, Schwartz and Donley: three people that when you combine their total fund of air power knowledge, it could be written inside of a match-book; with a large-sized crayon.

This should also worry the Israelis when looking at all those Typhoons. For them, the F-35 will not provide a credible deterrence. There was a time we supported our allies. President Clinton did promise them the F-22. Too bad for them, the U.S. didn't follow through.

Today? All the U.S. really wants from its allies is to purchase faulty weapons systems. No matter what the consequence.

Air power

"I did review the HUD footage, a lot of gun shots from the F-22's to the Eurofighters and not a whole lot coming back."

Good update from Dave Majumdar.

We stopped production of the F-22, you know.

Advertisement FAIL

Saw this over on Air Force Times:

Schwartz and Donley violating federal whistle-blower laws?

Here is the full 60 Minutes piece about the two pilots that have decided not to fly the F-22 out of concern for their safety.

There are in fact some revelations. Bullying and punishment over core flying safety concerns. Incompetence in finding the root cause of aircrew breathing troubles on the jet.

If what they say is true, General Schwartz who is the boss of the Air Force and Mr. Donely who is the Secretary of the Air Force, need to be fired on behalf of the American people as a message that this kind of negligence and bullying will not be allowed.

This is serious to the extreme.

The wars we fight today and tomorrow

I like Mark Thompson's work on Battleland blog. I also agree with pilots that don't want to fly in jets they deem unsafe.

However this part of the post makes little sense:

"Designed to combat the next-generation of Soviet fighters – which never materialized – the planes have sat on the tarmac despite the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya raging in the skies above them. They have no role in today’s wars, and by the time there’s someone to battle, they’ll be obsolete."

Trident nuclear missiles were not used in Afghanistan (Operation: USELESS DIRT 1), Iraq (Operation: USELESS DIRT 2) or Libya (Operation: USELESS DIRT 3). I don't think Mark has a grasp on why no-peer-level air power exists.

Today's wars could suddenly mean N.Korea or an encounter near the South China Sea. The, "by there's someone to battle, they'll be obsolete" statement is valueless. Also, no other aircraft in the U.S. inventory besides the F-22 has a hope of standing up to SU-35, PAK-FA, J-2x, and the Chinese JSF knock-off that is coming.

The strategy that one wants to fight anti-access threats at a peer level or worse is bad. That is exactly where the moribund DOD "strategic" thinking is going.

The F-22 exists so-as to clean any opponents air assets off the table. The fact that the oxygen mess in the F-22 isn't fixed yet points just as much to USAFs thin engineering manning as it does Lockheed Martin incompetence.

If USAF had the proper number of free-thinking engineers, along with the requisite amount of strong moral leadership to back them up, the F-22 would not have reached IOC until a serious matter like oxygen and stealth-skin defects were solved.

With that, restarting F-22 production using resources from the failed F-35 program is the right thing to do.



The guy on the left; his moustache is out of reg, but he his Guard and we overlook that a bit. But hats off to both of them for making a very hard decision, and, maybe even one that saved their life. Having an oxygen bottle ring is of little use if you are incapacitated to such a level you are unable to remember where it is. Given an incompetent engineering, flight-safety and senior leadership environment, what choice did they have?

Real Defence White Paper Security

There is a lot of heat-up in the Spratlys lately. You would have to be asleep not to notice.

This Australian Defence exercise is routine.

However, if Australia had real air power leaders in Defence, that exercise; at this time; would be a show of real regional security with RAAF F-22s and F-111s.

The definition of contributing to regional security.

By example.

By using deterrence.

What is the value of the F-22 program?

The U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) has released a report that compares the F-22 upgrade path to that of legacy fighters.

It is alarming. It has some good points and it misses a few things.

The report brings into question the $9.7 billion dollars to be spent on the F-22 program for upgrades.

While the GAO doesn't bring up the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, it is critical to mention. More on that later.

GAO compares the F-22 against legacy aircraft that were fielded during the high-water mark of the Soviet threat. This saw development of the F-15, F-16 and F-18 at the end of the Nixon-era. These teen-fighters started fielding in active squadrons during the Carter and Reagan-era (of the three, the F-18 didn't show up in active units until the early 1980s). By the time the F-18 was fielded, the advanced tactical fighter (ATF) which is today's F-22, was only a 1981 requirement. And, the Soviet threat still existed.

In this time-frame, the Communist Soviet-run Warsaw Pact had a large amount of military hardware in Europe. North Korea and the Soviets were a threat in the Japan/S. Korea region. The Soviets had recently invaded Afghanistan giving them a better long-range reach to the Middle East. Taiwan was threatened, but not like today. For someone like myself that was around in that era (the formative years of my military service) the Soviet threat (big nukes or no) certainly was credible.

An ATF requirement was needed.

The recent GAO report states that it was an after-thought to add air-to-ground ability to the ATF. That idea needs some examination.

The purpose of the original ATF requirement which became the F-22 was to achieve air superiority. In order to do that, it had to survive not only enemy aircraft, but in the environment they would be found: near advanced surface-to-air missile designs showing up in the 1980's and beyond.

The performance of the ATF requirement gave the DOD options to add air-to-ground ability later. Today, the F-22A has tremendous growth room for add-ons.

The F-15 had real growth-room after an evolved strike eagle F-15E was made. The airframe designs between the F-15A/B, C/D, and E are quite different. The difference between the F-16A/B and F-16C/D are not upgrades so much as a new factory design. The F-16C/D is a response to A/B fatigue issues along with want of an evolved two-vendor power-plant and avionics. You can't just tack this stuff on to an A/B unless you want to... rebuild it which has also been done.

The Hornet family is also in a similar state. Here the A/B and C/D Hornets are a little closer but note the work that it took to rebuild F-18A to become an A+.

Also, the original F-16 and F-18 were born of a light-weight-fighter requirement. The idea was that a lot of affordable low-end fighters were needed to continue to face the Soviet threat. LWF was made to be flown X-amount of hours and thrown in the trash. No refurbishment.

In order to get to the E/F "Super Hornet", an entirely new design had to be performed. The Super Hornet is not an upgrade. It kinda looks like a Hornet with little commonality.

From what we know today, all of this is cheaper than an F-22. Make of that what you will based on your belief system. Yet, the F-22A still offers more growth potential than an F-15A/B, F-16A/B, F-18A/B.

In order to fix significant flaws in the F-35A,B and C, upgrading is not possible. The design is too flawed and heavy due in-part to the short-take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) requirement hobbling all variants. If the fan-base is so committed to this disaster, a new requirement for D,E and F will have to be found. Depending on how much courage industry and government have will determine if it is still labelled an F-35.

This is one of many cases where the F-35 team did not learn from the F-22.

For the F-22, if production had been allowed to continue, evolved and improved designs could develop. What kind of F-22A growth-room exists? There is space for right and left cheek AESA radars. These were kept off to keep costs down. There is the ability to put the F-35 EOTS on the F-22. Because, well, that is where that idea came from. F-22 specific EOTS/IRST was left off the F-22 to keep costs down.

A snapshot of F-22 development shows that, like almost all other military procurements things change. For instance the short take-off and landing (STOL) requirement for ATF was changed. In 1987, using a surrogate F-15 aircraft, it was found that take-off requirements for the ATF would have to be lengthened because of weight. For short landings, reverse thrusters were removed.

In comparing the F-22 to F-15, both had weight growth problems that were resolved by reducing internal fuel requirements. Will the F-35 see a similar fate with its serious weight problems?

Thoughts of giving the ATF/F-22 an air-to-ground requirement was the right thing to do. As it turned out, the F-117 was not survivable against emerging threats. When the ATF requirement was drawn up, a red-force team determined that stealth for stealth's sake was not good enough for emerging threats. Super-cruise and extreme altitude was also needed to make firing solutions of enemy threats less effective. Note by this time the sub-sonic "stealth-fighter" F-117 was already being fielded as a black-project combat capability.

Today, the F-22 has replaced the F-117 as a kick-down the door power to hit various enemy fixed targets that contribute to an anti-access integrated air defense systems (IADS) and other high-value targets in anti-access scenarios.

The F-22 is the only aircraft with this survivability. This is important to consider since the F-35 Joint Operational Requirement Document (JORD)--the reason for the F-35 to exist--assumed there would be hundreds of F-22s to take out extreme threats for the F-35. Without enough combat coded F-22s, the F-35 JORD becomes obsolete.

In comparing the timeline of the F-22 to other aircraft, funding streams for the project were interrupted over its procurement. The final source selection between the YF-22 and YF-23 appeared right at the beginning of the massive downsizing at the end of the Cold War. Lockheed's F-22 concept won in April of 1991, but the Soviet Union, for some, the F-22's reason for existing, was dying. Various DOD officials and politicians painted a future threat picture of few and poorly maintained pieces of Soviet-era technology. The Joint Strike Fighter JORD was at risk years before it was signed off on.

F-22 funding and numbers were cut. Costs climbed. The classic death spiral. The original ATF goal was for 750 aircraft. As the ATF program took shape, this narrowed down to 650. In the 1990s as the F-22 this lowered even more. Defense leaders in the Bush II administration let this slide to today's number. When Gates ended the F-22 at its "program of record", the United States Air Force had a valid plan to have 380-some F-22s to support 10 deployment contingencies known as "AEFs" (Air Expeditionary Force).

Gates stated that the F-35 could be had at $77 million each and that in the 2020's we would have plenty of "5th-generation" fighters. Even if that is an effectively meaningless term best saved for marketeers.

Fielding of the F-22 from source selection in April of 1991 to initial operating capability in 2005 took almost 15 years.

How many years will it take to field the F-35? It won source selection in 2001. Will it see initial operating capability in 2016? This is doubtful. And, until just recently, the F-35 program has enjoyed consistent healthy funding and political support.

The DOD has burned up around $100B and counting to get 120 combat-coded F-22s and an F-35 program run into the ground. The jet that ate the Pentagon. Indeed.

How many evolved F-15, F16 and F-18s would that money have bought? It is a hard question because the concept that gave us today's F-35 was thought of in the 1980s Soviet threat; pushed as an affordable solution after the Cold War; committed to in a time of a healthy federal budget and now, for those that could not see the project management incompetence, is facing extinction.

The fact that we now have a perilous federal budget is after-the-fact.

How to fix things?

Restarting an evolved F-22 may be the only answer to keep a major and important aircraft maker (Lockheed Martin) from closing the doors on combat-jet production.

Forever.

Any hope of saving America's air power deterrence capability cannot allow all that combat aircraft building skill to fold.

How do we deal with a failed F-35 program? By taking the nation's combat aircraft talent involved in this mess and re-jigging Fort Worth into an F-22 line.

This will also give us something much better than a 500 million dollar each long-range-bomber. F-22 production will give us a follow-on FB-22 (PDF) regional-bomber. Range; a high number of targets hit per day into anti-access threats; rinse and repeat. I have been an advocate for the FB-22 since the idea was first made public.

Air power deterrence.

Recently it has been in the news that F-22s have been deployed to the Middle East. Past deployments (including the ME) have shown that the later combat coded production examples of the F-22 can achieve 100 percent mission capability rates up to 30 days or more.

Why is that? Is it not a hanger queen?

Yes and no. A few examples:

Most of the systems in the jet are now OK. The engines stay on the aircraft for awhile before needed to be pulled. It was designed with a crew-chief in mind as far as maintenance process. Except that assumptions on the maintainability of this particular stealth skin design need help. The stealth-skin issues for early production lots and corrosion problems didn't work out so well.

First, corrosion. There are two kinds here with the F-22. The first is basic airframe corrosion. In stealth aircraft, you can't just cut a water drain hole anywhere you want on the jet like an F-15 and keep it stealthy. Work in progress.

The other corrosion is the poor design of the layers of low-observable (stealth) coating on the airframe. I have been briefed in-confidence by an engineer who has observed the program closely for years. The composition of these low-observable skin layers cause serious issues with moisture which leads to maintenance problems.

Lockheed Martin project managers were warned about these risks early-on. The rest is history.

Does this affect all F-22s? Early production lots are affected by the skin issue. A risk-mitigation project that involves different skin-coating methods is in progress. Like the corrosion problem, later production aircraft have seen the benefit of these changes.

The final verdict on all of this will be proof showing that enlisted people don't have to work 12-hour days in the low-observable skin refurbishment hanger located at F-22 bases. That crew-chief friendly design for the F-22 mentioned above assumed that only 5 percent of maintenance tasks require low-observable skin refurbishment. Open a panel for maintenance and depending on the task, the jet could go back to the low-refurb hanger.

This is where some of the high-cost per F-22 flying hour issues have come from. As of 2009, USAF claims a $19,000 per flying hour cost with the F-22. This is a blanket statement with no other details. A 2008 F-22 select acquisition report (SAR) shows that one F-22 cost $3,190,454 per year to operate and one F-15C was $607,072 to operate. Is this a typical example of how a next generation aircraft costs more to operate? Kind of. However, the F-22 takes on the mission of the F-15C and F-117.

The F-22 goes into the hanger at the unit level for scheduled second-level maintenance every 300 hours. This is about average for U.S. fighter aircraft.

The F-35 was designed with only 1 percent of maintenance tasks requiring low-observable maintenance refurbishment. The marketing people in F-35 happy-land doubled this to 2 percent after F-22 maintenance metrics were in the midst of post 2005 initial operating capability learning curve (that 12 hour-per-day F-22 L.O. refurb enlisted guy thing as one example). With today's F-35 design problems, I figure the high 90-percentile mission capability rates mentioned as a Key Performance Parameter (KPP) in the JORD are at this time, a distant dream. That, and the export-friendly nature of the F-35 marketing scam.

The most recent events with oxygen-life support system issues for F-22 pilots is most troubling. How resolutions to this problem play out over time will indicate the level of success.

So, are we to be alarmed that over the life of the F-22 program $9.7B in upgrades will be performed? This will make it an even more outstanding F-117 replacement; by even more orders of magnitude.

Today, we are spending $9B per year to procure F-35 mistake jets. They have no way to be upgraded to any worth. They are too weak to take on anti-access threats and too expensive to use for lower threats taken care of by current aircraft.

Over the last 20 years, our DOD leadership has much blame to take for the degradation of America's air power deterrence.

The F-22 as a concept, by itself, is not the major part of that problem.

Thana marketing continues with the F-35

Thana Marketing continues with the F-35 program. Here is a new  video of the F-35C. Since they did not include all of it, I have to assume the F-35C take-off roll sucked (lots of back-stick?).

Not to worry. This take-off roll of an F-22 is much better. And it doesn't need crap music as a backup. Have a great day.

American Enterprise Institute off on PacRim U.S. force-structure needs

The American Enterprise Institute (bless their little neocon heart--note neocons really are not "conservative" in any normal sense) have stated the U.S. needs more stealth aircraft in the Pacific.

They are right, but their solution is wrong.

Their primary fix for all this is to "invest heavily" in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

The problem is that the F-35 is not survivable for the threats mentioned. That and the F-35 is neither affordable or in possession of any worth-while range.

The F-35 program is also defective.

They also don't understand that we only have about 120 combat capable F-22s. This is what you get when you build complex "A" models of anything these days.

The AEI is in no way skilled up on this issue or the solution. Best for them to go back and do more extensive research.

UPDATE-Lawsuit goes after makers of F-22 over faulty pilot life support system

The long-term pilot environmental control problems with the F-22 have come to a critical point.

The USAF previously stated in a aircraft mishap report that the cause of the loss of an F-22 in 2010 was due to error by the pilot who died in the crash.

Recently, that decision was reversed. The mishap was not a result of pilot error.

Boom. Lawsuit.

This was to be expected. And with a documented trail of affected pilots due to contaminated breathing air while operating the F-22, what is left is a feast for lawyers.

This is the cost of a poorly managed program which just could never figure out how to stop the problem. Just a few weeks ago, F-22 flying was halted in Alaska as the result of pilot life support issues.

Follow this lawsuit. It is important. It should be able to uncover poor management and oversight of a costly weapons system.

The price of de-skilling--at least in this case--is that the lawyers will catch up.

I hope they have success in protecting pilots, where the USAF and industry failed.

H/T- Alert 5

**UPDATE**

In a statement, Lockheed expressed sympathy for Haney's family, but said it didn't agree with the allegations.

"The loss of the pilot and aircraft in November 2010 was a tragic event and we sympathize with the family for their loss," Lockheed says. "We are aware that a complaint that makes a variety of claims associated with the accident has been filed with the court in Cook County. We do not agree with those allegations and we will respond to them through the appropriate legal process."

Boeing officials say they cannot comment on pending litigation. Pratt and Whitney say that it has not yet received any notice of pending legal actions and that it is "inappropriate" to comment until it receives notification.

Honeywell, meanwhile, says its product is not responsible.

"The US Air Force conducted a thorough aircraft accident investigation regarding the F-22A crash near Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska in accordance with standard flight safety procedures," Honeywell says. "The report concluded that Honeywell's on-board oxygen generation system was not the cause of the November 2010 F-22 crash."

Last year, a USAF accident investigation board held Haney responsible for the crash because he failed to activate the emergency oxygen system when his F-22's oxygen system was automatically shutdown due a still-unexplained malfunction of the jets bleed air system.

Accident board president Brig Gen James Browne states in that report: "I find the cause of the mishap was the [mishap pilot's] failure to recognise and initiate a timely dive recovery due to channelised attention, breakdown of visual scan and unrecognised spatial disorientation."

Later on 6 March, USAF chief of staff General Norton Schwartz seemed to backtrack.

"We did not assign blame to the pilot," Schwartz told the US Congress on 6 March. He acknowledged that the aircraft's bleed air intakes - from which the jet's oxygen is derived - had shut down, depriving Haney of oxygen, and that this was a contributing factor.

Another F-22 grounding... guess why

From ABC.

In at least three incidents in the last two weeks, pilots of the $143 million-a-pop stealth F-22 Raptors at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson reported the "hypoxia-like" symptoms, leading the base to ground their F-22s for a day for "review," Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col. Regina Winchester told ABC News.

Another way

But there is another way to defeat the F-22 not mentioned in this article.










Let the U.S. government manage the program.

Over 10 years ago the Super Hornet was a "non-starter" for the RAAF

Times change. Not always for the better.

Years ago, Australia was being setup to buy the F-22. Back then, the Super Hornets that Nelson fell for in 2006 and that are now in service was considered a "non-starter".

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ASPI off the mark again on air power issues

The taxpayer hands over cash via Defence for "studies" from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

On the topic of Australia's air power roadmap, the results from ASPI have been weak, off-the-mark, and not very independent.

A recent article in the Canberra Times shows at least 3 statements from ASPI that show their research skills are off.

"Further deferrals [in the number of planes being ordered by the US military] are a plausible eventuality,'' he said. ''But the future of the US Air Force is the first order concern [for the Americans]. There is no fallback option. What will they [the US] do? Revive the even more expensive F-22?"

Let us look at these three statements:

“There is no fallback option.” This is untrue no matter how many bought and paid for Congressmen, or flag-ranks promoted beyond their ability say it. First; the U.S. can win wars without short take-off and vertical landing ability. Including the fact that U.S. Marine aviation existed before the Harrier. Next, the F-35 is a second-tier fighter aircraft. It needs the F-22 to take on high-end threats that are supposed to exist over the alleged lifetime of the F-35. I have shown more than once that after the U.S. is on-track to spending $60B developing the F-35, what is delivered will have less usefulness to a joint coalition commander than the lowest performing “fast” jet in U.S. full-rate production; the Super Hornet. Also, the F-35 program has not proven that the aircraft can perform to its original specifications. Two of those specifications are that it would be “affordable” and “a model acquisition program”.

Which leads to the another point stated by the ASPI; the fib that the F-22 is somehow more expensive than the F-35. The F-35 has a long way to go before the aircraft can show real capability or wear the badge of being “affordable”. While the F-22 production supply chain is shutting down, the F-22 line has not been torn down all the way, yet. When it was in full swing, the F-22 was putting out an aircraft that was around $141M each and reducing. Any warfighting comparison of the F-22 to the F-35 is weak simply because even if an F-35 is delivered in go-to-war trim, it will have half the capability of the F-22. Simply because the F-22 is survivable against high-end threats. This by itself, disqualifies the F-35 as a "first-day" stealth aircraft unless you are bombing Belgrade in 1999.

“What will the U.S. do?” First, would be to stop procuring and sustaining dud weapons systems like the F-35, the Littoral Combat Ship, the Zumwalt-class “destroyer” which should be broken up now and cut our losses while there is time.

Since the U.S. seems destined to not restart F-22 production, the only way to have any hope of capability against “anti-access” threats is to develop long-range air-to-surface super-sonic cruise missiles. You can drop just about anything from a B-52 and we can keep them in the air for a long, long time. And, since range is needed, there is no justification for retiring long range bombers.

The United States Air Force has options. New-build F-15 strike eagles with modern avionics will be able to back up F-22s. For any other work, they have more range and versatility than the F-35 could ever see. Also, as per the early JSF plan, even though it was stated it could replace the A-10, that is not so. There is no replacement for the A-10.

Unless FA-XX delivers something useful, the carrier air-wing as we know it will be obsolete against anti-access threats. The Brewster Buffalo II and the Super Hornet are not up to the job. However the Super Hornet is up to the job of second-tier threat strike work. So, unless someone has some bright ideas, our tens of billions invested into every carrier battle group will not be able to take on emerging threats without being put at risk. With or without the F-35.

So, the ASPI is way off the mark on their statements.

Again.

At best, their “analysis” of air power issues can be best described as “meme theory”.

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".