The Lone Gunman or Kung-Fu Master? "Fifth-generation" fighter desktop study

Still preparing the battlefield for my efforts on carving up the silly "So what?" F-35 brief by DMO/NACC.

Today we will look at a briefing by a shadow aero-engineer that doesn't want to show himself. Either he is shy or still employed somewhere. Or could it be he is even a lower profile geek like the publishers of The Lone Gunman from the X-Files (episode; "Unusual Suspects") ?

In any event, he uses the language of aero-engineering. He uses a soft kung-fu that only shows the basic initial desk study of numbers. Even that is hard enough without the proper background. This is about all most people have a hope of understanding anyway.

In looking at the kinds of high end aircraft that will be important to Pacific Rim power, maybe words from Bruce Lee will help.

Question: What are your thoughts when facing an opponent?
Bruce: There is no opponent.
Question: Why is that?
Bruce: Because the word ''l'' does not exist.
A good fight should be like a small play...but played seriously. When the opponent expands, l contract. When he contracts, l expand. And when there is an opportunity... l do not hit...it hits all by itself (shows his fist).
Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.

The F-35 is the wrong aircraft for the RAAF. The growing threats in the Pacific Rim over its alleged lifetime will out class this pretend "5th generation fighter".

Badly.

(click image to make it larger)

Rating U.S. and China defense industry

So apparently the U.S. defense worker still has an edge. This is according to some that continue to cheerlead with great abandon about the quality of U.S. military wares.

These same kind of people think that China is 10 to 15 years away from having a credible threat air power. While communist China’s thievery of intellectual property knows no bounds, China has a few advantages going for them.

Consider this in the area of defense projects. Their work force doesn’t cost as much. Ours does. They are not in massive debt. We are. They have massive amounts of engineers. We do not. K thru 12 education in the U.S, where the potential engineer starts; is a shambles. They are continually growing engineers. We are not. They have a strong work ethic. Our workers have other activities during the day.

And U.S. industry must think so too. Why else do they try and employ anyone but a U.S. worker while they off-shore anything that isn't nailed down? U.S. aerospace industry representation in communist China is huge.

So when will China have the kind of high-end jet engines needed to power the J-20? Sooner than we think.

Add to this that our carrier air wing (today and the future) is obsolete vs. high end threats. We have sold out Taiwan so as not to make the communists mad. We have prevented F-22s from being sold to Japan; so as not to make the communists mad.

Continue to dream. Maybe it will all just go away.

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Our project management problems

Read through this PDF from DOT&E. It highlights the basic reasons various U.S. defense projects get messed up.

The following is a compilation of paraphrasing from off-the record statements by engineers and other subject matter experts that look at all of this in wonder.

We used to let engineers speak their mind so a successful project could get done. Today, we have a shortage of engineers and major engineering go/no-go decisions are being made by business types and marketing hacks.

We may long for the Rickover era, where faced with great uncertainty, the Polaris missile--even with development problems--came through in a reasonable amount of time, because of proper project thinking.

Think about that.