DOD rejects F-35 operational test plan

In a meeting last Friday, the U.S. Department of Defense rejected a comprehensive operational test plan for the F-35. Depending on your point of view, this is either a sign of sanity or more meddling by the U.S. government on an important defense program.

Operational testing normally assumes that the airframe has the basic flight envelop figured out, that the aircraft has some way of employing weapons via already complete tests and is safe enough to fly for go-to-war operations. The F-35 program has not met any of these requirements.

The flight envelop is still limited. The operational gear on the aircraft is not ready; guns, bomb-dropping, missile firing, sensors and there seems no indication that this will get done any time soon.

Almost 6 years after first flight.

A former LM official tried to make a case for his team. He even mentioned the U2 and SR-71. The problem with this is that in that era, the company had innovative engineers that ran the show and not marketing / management pukes that have no idea about the definition of a "quantum leap."

The former LM guy also mentioned the F-16. A few points. The F-16 was originally designed as a throw-away jet to be built in affordable numbers to meet a Soviet threat. The F-35 camp keeps throwing out terms like 30, 40, 65 years of program life. Whatever.

And, in the late 70's the newly operational F-16 won a NATO tactical bomb competition in Scotland against the likes of the A-7, Jaguar and F-111. The F-16 was not only a dead accurate day-dumb-bomber, it could defend itself reasonably well and egress...fast.

The news also reports that LM is having trouble meeting earned value management metrics (EVM). This has been a challenge for a few years.

What are we spending to develop and produce the F-35? Well, according to EVM, we might not know.

The Pentagon's Defense Contracts Management Agency also gave an update on its work monitoring Lockheed's Earned Value Management System after announcing in June that it would withhold 5 percent of the price of the fifth lot of production planes due to continued shortcomings with the system.

The United States Marketing Corps boss is quotable about the troubled F-35 helmet that is a critical piece of man-machine interface. If only that were the only fixable F-35 problem to get it toward operational viability.

Our politicians are a problem with the F-35 for sure. Mixed messages. For example, McCain states there are serious F-35 troubles and then when on his home turf, those things are glossed over and well, he is trying to get reelected.

So, without a credible operational testing plan, the F-35 program office will have to do more work. And there are all those wasted resources at Eglin which at this time, might produce some trained pilots that can perform an equal number of take-offs and landings with the aircraft but not much else.

Read the memo-F-35 Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) in jeopardy

Below is the memo in reference to an earlier post about the head of the U.S. Department of Defense Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) issuing a warning about the status of the operational test plan for the F-35. The text version of memo is below. Original source link here.
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AUG 21 2012

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
1700 DEFENSE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, DC 20301-1700

OPERATIONAL TEST AND EVALUATION

MEMORANDUM FOR UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER PROGRAM EXECUTIVE OFFICER COMMANDER, AIR FORCE OPERATIONAL TEST AND EVALUATION CENTER COMMANDER, OPERATIONAL TEST AND EVALUATION FORCE

SUBJECT: F-35 Test and Evaluation Master Plan

The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the concerns I have regarding the content of the latest version of Revision 4 of the F-35 Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) being prepared for coordination to support the 7 September review of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program by the Defense Acquisition Board.

-The test resources and plans needed to address the issues explained in detail in my February 3, 2012 memorandum regarding JSF electronic warfare capabilities (and those of other ongoing and future aircraft programs) have been provided to the JSF program office; however, program office staff have indicated specification of these resources may be excluded from the draft of the TEMP transmitted for review and approval by the Services. I will not approve a TEMP that lacks specification of these critical test resources.

-The cost of executing the operational test and evaluation (OT&E) sequence contained in the draft TEMP has been reduced significantly relative to estimates provided at a Joint Operational Test Team Executive Committee meeting last month, apparently to meet the budget constraint provided by the JSF program office. Until the details of the changes are provided to me and reviewed independently by my office to assure they are reasonable, I will not approve the TEMP. The plans for and content of testing must be determined by the data that need to be obtained to support a comprehensive and rigorous operational evaluation---not by budget targets set by the program office.

-Overlap of developmental testing with the start of operational test activity including spin-up for the Block 2B and 3F operational evaluations remains a concern. As stated in the approval memo I signed for Revision 3 of the TEMP, whatever overlap occurs must not preclude the achievement of the entrance criteria for OT&E contained in the TEMP prior to the operational test readiness review. Further, to assure infeasible overlap of developmental and operational testing does not occur, the TEMP must contain clear entry criteria for the start of each of the spin-up periods. Although it may be possible to conduct some certification activities during the spin-up periods, I will not approve a TEMP that imposes unrealistic and unachievable schedule risk on the conduct of OT&E.

-The purpose and justification for the Block 2 operational evaluation needs to be provided in the TEMP as something more than risk reduction for the Block 3 lOT&E. As I indicated in my August 10, 2012 memo to the Secretaries of the Air Force and the Navy, the Block 2 evaluation must be conducted to evaluate the combat mission areas which the Services expect to employ Block 2B configured aircraft.




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-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out

F-35 Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) in jeopardy

The head of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) office recently informed the DOD F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program decision-makers  that a comprehensive testing plan known as the Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) will not be approved over questions of the troubled fighter program's progress, reports AOL Defense.

The DOD OT&E boss, Michael Gilmore wrote a memo dated 21 August to various DOD officials stating that the F-35 program leadership must specify how they will test the aircraft's electronic warfare capabilities, match up the flight testing program to funding as part of a credible plan and address concerns  about "overlap of developmental testing with the start of operational test activity".

Until he is satisfied on those matters, the TEMP will not be approved. AOL Defense also reports that Gilmore wrote that he won't approve the TEMP if it "imposes unrealistic and unachievable schedule risk" on operational testing.

While AOL Defense reports that Gilmore "does not have the authority to make programmatic decisions", this is no small matter.

Besides OT&E doing their job of warning about faulty DOD weapons test plans, the office is also performing continuous CYA in case the F-35 goes even more off the rails than it already has.

This also makes one wonder what the United States Marketing Corps boss, General Amos, is thinking if the jet is no where near being capable of operational test which is needed to have a usable go-to-war configured jet.

Understanding F-35 flight test "progress"

Thanks to a reader for taking the time to post this comment from First drop of a test weapon shape from F-35.

It deserved its own thread:

Anonymous said...

Pro-JSF forces will claim progress, but fail to understand what is before their eyes. Anti-JSF forces will look at elapsed time since program win and bring the guns to bear on the slow pace of achievement.

BF-3 is a dedicated "flight sciences" jet just like BF-1/2/4, with no capability for "mission systems" testing - which only resides in BF-5, and they have yet to get that jet's systems working correctly since delivery from Ft Worth.

This test was conducted to merely check the actual vs predicted separation clearance of the GBU-32 from the bay at a conservative speed/altitude. This is a normal flight test stepping stone which will require a decent amount of postflight analysis (1 week nominally, but pressure is surely "on" to do better) prior to proceeding to the next test point.

As with every integration of JDAM on any platform, the first tests involve the "flight sciences" aspects and often occur in parallel: flutter, loads, environmental, and separation testing. These do not require any smart integration with the weapon. Much has gone on in the background to get to this point. Yet what has not gone on with the BF's has been any integration of the GBU-32 into the avionics system, other than declaring a quantity and weapon weight.

The drop seen here was not in any way an "integrated test". The weapon bay has multiple cameras, as does the aft end of the fake EOTS housing under the radome...and the AIM-9X shape possesses two cameras. All of these fixed apertures are cued during release, with the digital images stored in the test instrumentation system of the jet. These are used postflight to determine miss distances, by using the accurately placed black/white targets on the jet and weapon as references. These are digitally combined in a computer program and an accurate X/Y/Z accounting of the weapon is generated (in relation to the jet), thus the miss distance can be calculated. If it falls within a given percentage of the preflight prediction, engineers will give the test a pass and the release envelope is opened a little further.

The weapon seen here was not guided, nor did it communicate with the jet in any way. It was merely a "shape" that was measured/ballasted/weighed/targeted so that it mimicked a real GBU-32. The weapon bay doors were driven open via pilot command minutes before release, not via some automated all-up round command (commit to weapon release) that will be required of a mission systems jet (and operational jets, obviously). The weapon was literally released via a manual command from the pilot, with the pickle button actually hot-wired to the release mechanism in the bay. Very simple, and all that is required for a separation test.

Do not get the idea that a JDAM was powered up, GPS keys and almanac downloaded, passed a mass data transfer, aligned, and given target coordinates. Sadly, the program is not to that state even yet. Weapons have been removed from IOC for the variants so they can just get the GBU-32 or -31, GBU-12 PWII, and AIM-120. Even those will be very limited as the program will not be able to clear them to complete envelopes. Very sad as lots of competent people at LM and DoD have proven themselves on previous programs, yet get absolutely overrun when trying to change the immense inertia of a program run by very few with ANY aerospace background. This is not isolated to LM...Boeing and NG have their share of PowerPoint managers in positions of program power. DoD test leaders are lacking in experience but not in speedbump-like opinions. And test pilot careers are more important at this point than louldly waving the warning flag at impending OT failures. Progress to flight hours and test points (regardless of success) runs the show.

Of course the LM business development machine and the Navy's Army's Air Force (USMC) will spin this simple separation flight into a "we have dropped JDAM from the F-35 and support the warfighter" story that lawmakers and laymen will soak up.

When will F-35 pilot training start?

There are so many ways that the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) requirement for the F-35 program screwed up the design.

Today the fat-dumpy aircraft is still trying to get through certification so initial pilot training (that is for non-test pilots) can start at Eglin AFB. There are still safety concerns.

Non-test pilots can get into a bit more trouble. Take a look at the video below where a Canadian exchange test pilot in the USAF explains how something as simple as a hard turn with an F-16 can be an issue with an asymmetric load.

What are the flight certification challenges for the F-35? At almost 5 years after the first flight, they seem to be many.

Which makes you wonder how this 2007 flight test schedule could have been anything more than wishful thinking.